My favourites are the ones with less gore, more suggestion.

Noah’s Ark Bunnies

Star Trek Bunny

(Copyright Andy Riley, Hodder & Stoughton)

Well, they do say it never rains but it pours.

It’s from a part of my life I left behind a long time ago, but I still like it.

From another time and space, a poem
From another compartmentalised face.

Valentine (John Fuller)

The things about you I appreciate
may seem indelicate:

I’d like to find you in the shower
And chase the soap for half an hour.
I’d like to have you in my power
and see your eyes dilate.
I’d like to have your back to scour
And other parts to lubricate.
Sometimes I feel it is my fate
To chase you screaming up a tower
or make you cower
By asking you to differentiate
Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.
I’d like to successfully guess your weight
and win you at a fete.
I’d like to offer you a flower.

I like the hair upon your shoulders,
Falling like water over boulders.
I like the shoulders, too: they are essential.
Your collar-bones have great potential
(I’d like all your particulars in folders
marked Confidential).

I like your cheeks, I like your nose,
I like the way your lips disclose
The neat arrangement of your teeth
(Half above and half beneath)
in rows.

I like your eyes, I like their fringes.
The way they focus on me gives me twinges.
Your upper arms drive me berserk.
I like the way your elbows work,
on hinges.

I like your wrists, I like your glands,
I like the fingers on your hands.
I’d like to teach them how to count,
And certain things we might exchange,
Something familiar for something strange.
I’d like to give you just the right amount
and get some change.

I like it when you tilt your cheek up.
I like the way you nod and hold a teacup.
I like your legs when you unwind them.
Even in trousers I don’t mind them.
I like each softly-moulded kneecap.
I like the little crease behind them.
I’d always know, without a recap,
where to find them.

I like the sculpture of your ears.
I like the way your profile disappears
Whenever you decide to turn and face me.
I’d like to cross two hemispheres
and have you chase me.
I’d like to smuggle you across frontiers
Or sail with you at night into Tangiers.
I’d like you to embrace me.

I’d like to see you ironing your skirt
and cancelling other dates.
I’d like to button up your shirt.
I like the way your chest inflates.
I’d like to soothe you when you’re hurt
Or frightened senseless by invertebrates.

I’d like you even if you were malign
And had a yen for sudden homicide.
I’d let you put insecticide
into my wine.
I’d even like you if you were the Bride of Frankenstein
Or something ghoulish out of Mamoulian’s Jekyll and Hyde.
I’d even like you as my Julian of Norwich or Cathleen ni Houlihan
How melodramatic
If you were something muttering in attics
Like Mrs Rochester or a student of boolean mathematics.

You are the end of self-abuse.
You are the eternal feminine.
I’d like to find a good excuse
To call on you and find you in.
I’d like to put my hand beneath your chin.
And see you grin.
I’d like to taste your Charlotte Russe,
I’d like to feel my lips upon your skin,
I’d like to make you reproduce.

I’d like you in my confidence.
I’d like to be your second look.
I’d like to let you try the French Defence
and mate you with my rook.
I’d like to be your preference
and hence
I’d like to be around when you unhook.
I’d like to be your only audience,
The final name in your appointment book,
your future tense.

I’m going to become an aunt in approximately three months and am very excited. I have bought baby thingies to bring back home in December so I can help to start off Baby as she means to go on.

My sister had originally decided to name her Elene.

(1)

Me (to mum): How is she pronouncing that again?
Mum: E-leen I think.
Me: Elene is Ell-enn.

(2)

Me: Elene is Ell-enn.
She: And why not E-leen? Sounds nice I tell you. If it’s going to be Ell-enn then it sounds like Ellen and I don’t like it anymore. Bah.

(3)

Mum: Your sister’s chosen a new name.
Me: Oh no, that’s my fault. I told her Elene was supposed to be pronounced Ell-enn. So what’s the new name?
Mum: Caitlin.
Me: Caitlin isn’t meant to be pronounced kate-lynn. It’s supposed to be pronounced something like cotch-leen. Or koyt-leen. Or kat-leen. Or something like that. Kate-lynn is the American version.
Mum: …

(4)

Mum: Told your sister about what you said regarding the pronunciation of Caitlin and she says she is going to wring your neck.

Him (reading my previous post in preview mode): Eh, what is this?
Me: That’s when you said Dong1 Fang1 Xi1 Bei3 on the bus, remember? North South East West.
Him: It’s Dong1 Nan2 Xi1 Bei3.
Me: …

So after nearly two years, Him and I decide it might be a good idea to have a honeymoon.

We walked a lot, ate a lot (Vancouver has a bagillion and one East Asian restaurants, from which we consumed more food than was probably good for the wellbeing of our waistlines), went hiking, biking, fell asleep in front of the sea, wandered around gardens, went to museums, watched far too many episodes of CSI and Law & Order (this is what living without a TV does to you) and talked and talked and talked.

We took some photos:

(We did take some more romantic ones but this one was funnier.)

I did myself proud by doing some incredibly stupid things.

(1)

On our first (seriously jet-lagged) evening Him tried to peel me off the bed to go get some dinner. Naturally I whinged.

Me: I’m tiiiiirrrred.
Him: Come on, we need to get some dinner.
Me: But I’m tiiiiirrrred.
…
Me: WAHHHHHHHH.

(2)

(Him and me, having bought a pair of two-way radios from Sears and playing with them in the apartment)

Him (in the bedroom): Testing. Testing.
Me (in the living room): Hello! Over! {Hyuk hyuk. I will jump into the bedroom from the balcony and give him a jolly good fright}

I then proceed to jump directly into the glass door, which of course I hadn’t seen.

Me: WAHHHHHHHH. (You can spot a pattern here.)

(3)

(After Him has tired of teasing me about the big-baby antics. I forget the context, and it was honestly funnier than it looks here. Actually you probably won’t find it funny unless you’re one of my sisters and can understand Mandarin, not that the two aren’t mutually exclusive.)

Me: It’s like that Monkey God programme. What was that called?
(Him and me in deep thought)
Me: Xi1 You2 Ji4! Journey to the West! … Eh, isn’t Xi1 East?
Him: East is DONG1.
Me: Dong1 sounds like north.
Him: Well, it isn’t. Xi1 is west.
Me: Xi1 sounds like it should be east.
Him: … (looking like he’s wondering how he ended up with peabrain)
Me: …
Him: Dong1 Nan2 Xi1 Bei3. In Chinese it isn’t North-South-East-West.
Me: Dong1 Nan2 Xi1 Bei3. So what’s that then? North –
Him: Dong1 is EAST!!
Me: {gales of laughter}

(4)

(Him and me on a bus)

Me: Oh look, they’ve got a JJ Bean here!
Him: What’s JJ Bean?
Me: I dunno.

(5)

Me: Ow. I kicked myself.

I think the best part of our honeymoon was the fact that Him still, inexplicably, loves me.