Oh hello!

I'm now three weeks into my American adventure and, as expected, it still doesn't feel like I live here, and working from home is weird.

I think both are connected in weirdness, because I reckon that as soon as I get a job here I'll actually feel like I'm in a different place. See, I'm living in a house with the same family I was living in a house with for the previous seven years (minus the one year that I was on my own) and without the ability to drive around, I'm pretty much in the house all day, every day. Then in the mornings I take the short walk (across the hallway) to work, and speak to the same people I've been speaking to for the last year, and in some cases deal with the same shit. Dealing with shit is easier when your thousands of miles away, but I'm still too much of a wuss to deliver a transatlantic "fuck you".

The driving is coming along nicely, I've had a few lessons, and driving an automatic is like driving a dodgem car, especially driving in Tipton County, it really is like driving at the fairground. I've taken to driving on the wrong (right) side of the road, with only one blemish so far, when I defaulted to the left coming out of the Dollar General car park, but that was early on in my journey and since then I've done pretty well, scaring the shit our of my wife aside. It doesn't build confidence when your driving instructor ducks when you're passing another vehicle, but we're getting there. I plan to try and get a test in before xmas, and I'll just keep bloody taking them until I pass.

I also got 100% on my driving knowledge test. I like getting good marks in tests, I am excellent at (written) tests and always have been, but that is due to me memorising stuff for a day and forgetting it forever. Anyway,  is was kind of humiliating when the driving department lady raved about my marks and how clever I am...for passing a test at 31 that most people take when they're 16. So I have my learners permit, which is also OK for ID, so I can buy beer now, if someone can drive me to the beer shop.

This place is a shady place though with the usual small town politics. Some person who got done for stealing public money gets a job managing public money, old folk get jobs because they know other old folk, someone needs to teach me the special handshake :-)  People also say "I want you to" rather than "can you" which isn't shady, but I don't like it, it's impolite. There is an underlying cuntiness about some folk that I have yet to get used to. It's probably unfair to call people I don't know cunts, especially when they don't understand that this can be an endearing term in my home country, because they can't help it.

There has been a tinge of music based homesickness, as I've been listening to Teenage Fanclub and the Delgados a lot recently. Two bands that I've always appreciated, but barely listened to before about two weeks ago. You'd love them too. I also listened to the Scottish music CD my colleagues gave me as a leaving present. Scottish people only listen to this music when they are away from home. The only people who listen to this in Scotland are tourists and people who are attending weddings. Here's some for you to enjoy: