Once again the wise advice for bloggish subject matter has come from my beautiful fiancée! She thought it might be nice to inform everyone of the arduous and blood curdling process we have been through over the last 9 months to get to the point where I am legally allowed to remain in the United States of 'Murca. I have decided, for maximum impact, to tell the story via the perspective of an I-129F form, otherwise known as a Petition for Alien Immigration.
Extracts from the diaries of an I-129F Form
June 6th 2012:
"...I know little of my birth, nor where I came from. As is cultural in my domain, I was adorned with tattoos not long after I entered this world and these give indicative allusions as to my origins. I wound up here around 5 days ago, by imprinted reckoning, but I remember little of these early youthful days. I'm told by others that I was sent from the place of humans, but I still have yet to determine my purpose in this place, or indeed in this world. How long will I last? When will I serve my purpose? Who knows. Perhaps time will tell..."
June 14th 2012:
"...I have been here little over a week and the events in this place have been utterly mundane. There's a mixture of knowledge and experience here. I am surrounded by my kin, but all are shovelled through this confounding process; some knowing more about our life-cycle, and some being thrust into this life with no knowledge of how it is we came to be, why we are here, or where it is we are to be going. More come, some leave, but we do not know where and we do not know why..."
June 23rd 2012:
"...There are rumours spreading through the stacks that there is a place beyond here where we will move on to when our time comes. Some of the older of my kind say they have been waiting for a long time and they have seen many of us being taken to a better place. They say this place is full of purpose and happiness and that the intention we all have (of which we cannot figure out) will be realised and fulfilled. I hope for this future!"
July 16th 2012:
"...It has been a long time since I have considered myself in any form of self-reflexive manner. We have revelled in our despondency. They have given me a name. Gary. I don't like it. I have been in this one box for days, glumly staring through a small hole where the rays of the afternoon light glimpse through and remind me of the days when I had hope; when I believed that some day I would be reunited with my destiny and my purpose would be realised. But the light is just for a moment and then it dissolves into the acidic solution of regular mundanity. The hope that I had, flickers in me like the old, ignored television in a psychiatric ward. But it never dies completely..."
September 18th 2012:
"...The stacks of my kin have stirred. They have refused to accept the idea of anything beyond this place, I sometimes try and talk to them, but the hope within me is barely strong enough to maintain. The presence of this place and the nature of my surroundings have insisted I become content with transience. I have taken a fondness for liquid paper; I don't do too much of it, I just enjoy a good splash of it now and then. Sometimes me and the lads get together and have a few tabs of liquid paper together, play a few games, have some mad banter and then recoil into our boxes for recovery. It's a good laugh, and it takes the mind off this place..."
November 21st 2012:
"...There is no fulfilment here. I have betrayed my purpose, I have betrayed myself. I am caught in an endless cycle of emptiness. I cannot break free. My weakness keeps me here, but my hope will not let me go. My existence would be so much easier if I could simply relent to this nothingness and say 'good riddance' to the barmy notion that there is anything behind all this. That there is any purpose whatsoever. That I have any value, to anyone!"
December 9th 2013:
"...A hand reached down and pulled me out. This had happened to me once before when I was young, but this time it was different. It pulled me out of the place where I had been, it set me down gently and then it began writing on my heart. It stamped me with a mark that I instantly felt as hope and then when I had been good and dealt with, I was moved. I did not return to the place I had lingered longingly for days and months. I was placed somewhere new..."
December 31st 2013:
"...I have been waiting in this new place for a few weeks, but instead of the old, dying hope dwindling and flickering in the winds of this world, it's grown stronger every day. I do not always know why I'm here or where I am, or where I am going next, but I know that I am going somewhere soon and I will be completely fulfilled when I get there. Happiness and joy abound, and my solidarity grows with each passing second. I am surrounded by people just like me, who have hope, who know with assurance that there is a purpose and that there is someone out there who cares a great deal for them. Even though I have never met this person in the flesh, I know that I mean so much to them, they are written on my heart..."
January 5th 2013:
"...This morning I was moved again! I was placed in an aeroplane and flown across a last expanse of water to a new land. This place was filled with all types of my kind from all over the world. So many cultures and creeds and types of us all waiting in hope and anticipation. Each day I am collected together with more forms which give me greater insight into the person that sent me here. This afternoon I was examined by a human and they found me blameless and spotless. Through inspection and study, I have determined I will remain here with these other forms until I am united with the one who sent me here..."
February 20th 2013:
"...Today some more information came in about the one who sent me here. Apparently he is fit and well. I am unsure as to the significance of this...or why it cost him $600..."
March 25th 2013:
"It is finished! I am now with him who sent me! Along with my new friends passport and visa. I did nothing, he did it all and now I am with him and my purpose has been realised."
THE END
Tuesday 26 March 2013
Monday 4 March 2013
Welcome to the wedding blog of Larissa and Jonathan!
My fiancée, Larissa, being far more perspicacious into the developmental process of all things wedding, has suggested that we set up this little blog to keep all informed and updated on how things have been going, or gone once the deed is done. I can't imagine it being too loquacious a blog, just a place to put up pictures of the big day and show the world how happy we are.
With little else to say, being devoid of both an firm introductory foundation and an air of definitive quintessence, I've taken to just plucking unnecessarily convoluted verbiage out of the back of my brain...who knew. Here, instead, is the story of how Larissa and I met and got engaged...told in the style of the American hero Ernest Hemingway:
"The young man whose name was Jonathan had stumbled upon the house one day as part of an invitation to the American thanksgiving holiday. The invite was fair and true and the young man had been hungry. Hungry but not worried, for though his hunger worried him, the invitation did not.
He had trusted on arrival that all manner of food would be presented by the host Shane. Jonathan had been able to eat well, and travel wonderfully through the mountainous piles of food provided by the host; and since the host cooked twice as well as the young man could eat, Jonathan knew that Shane could cook him half to death.
But in all the trust in preparation that Jonathan had dedicated for the banquet to befall, he had failed to prepare for the young woman whom he then met. She had walked into the room unexpectedly wearing nothing worth note, nor detailed in any make-up of particular mention, but the young man had taken this visage to be the finest curiosity of his life and so he inquired as to her name. So she had responded curtly knowing the young man to be a reckless yob to whom she entrusted all but judgement though she had not had an opportunity to test this judgement.
But test she did, and prove herself right she did; but the persistence of the young man in his pursuit and his path seeming fair and true led to the wearing decay of acceptance, until one day when the young man had traveled the well-worn paths of the Atlantic crossing and begged her father for the chance to remain in her employ until he died or be dismissed fairly and truly. On his benevolent acceptance the young man proposed to the young woman knowing that nothing nor no one nor no place in his life had struck such vivid beauty and unconditional love in his heart being of fairness and truth.
"I have asked your father for permission," the young man began, scratching his large, unkempt beard,
"To ask him is just the beginning" the young woman uttered through tears of gleeful anticipatory hope "and besides I heard,"
"I have not yet acquired a ring, but I know that I love you more than anything to have crossed my path. I do not know myself to the depths of all, but I would like for you to be the one to show me," the young man continued not knowing where he was going,
"I love you also, and I will gladly accept" replied the young woman solidifying the agreement so that in it's love it was true.
And so as the evening went on the pair drank beer and watched the frivolous comedy Super Troopers, which the young man maintains is a fine example of modern cinema where the young woman had failed to see it's appeal; and if old man time could weigh in on the argument he would undoubtedly interject to him 'she is slightly more debonair than you.'
THE END"
Jonathan
My fiancée, Larissa, being far more perspicacious into the developmental process of all things wedding, has suggested that we set up this little blog to keep all informed and updated on how things have been going, or gone once the deed is done. I can't imagine it being too loquacious a blog, just a place to put up pictures of the big day and show the world how happy we are.
With little else to say, being devoid of both an firm introductory foundation and an air of definitive quintessence, I've taken to just plucking unnecessarily convoluted verbiage out of the back of my brain...who knew. Here, instead, is the story of how Larissa and I met and got engaged...told in the style of the American hero Ernest Hemingway:
"The young man whose name was Jonathan had stumbled upon the house one day as part of an invitation to the American thanksgiving holiday. The invite was fair and true and the young man had been hungry. Hungry but not worried, for though his hunger worried him, the invitation did not.
He had trusted on arrival that all manner of food would be presented by the host Shane. Jonathan had been able to eat well, and travel wonderfully through the mountainous piles of food provided by the host; and since the host cooked twice as well as the young man could eat, Jonathan knew that Shane could cook him half to death.
But in all the trust in preparation that Jonathan had dedicated for the banquet to befall, he had failed to prepare for the young woman whom he then met. She had walked into the room unexpectedly wearing nothing worth note, nor detailed in any make-up of particular mention, but the young man had taken this visage to be the finest curiosity of his life and so he inquired as to her name. So she had responded curtly knowing the young man to be a reckless yob to whom she entrusted all but judgement though she had not had an opportunity to test this judgement.
But test she did, and prove herself right she did; but the persistence of the young man in his pursuit and his path seeming fair and true led to the wearing decay of acceptance, until one day when the young man had traveled the well-worn paths of the Atlantic crossing and begged her father for the chance to remain in her employ until he died or be dismissed fairly and truly. On his benevolent acceptance the young man proposed to the young woman knowing that nothing nor no one nor no place in his life had struck such vivid beauty and unconditional love in his heart being of fairness and truth.
"I have asked your father for permission," the young man began, scratching his large, unkempt beard,
"To ask him is just the beginning" the young woman uttered through tears of gleeful anticipatory hope "and besides I heard,"
"I have not yet acquired a ring, but I know that I love you more than anything to have crossed my path. I do not know myself to the depths of all, but I would like for you to be the one to show me," the young man continued not knowing where he was going,
"I love you also, and I will gladly accept" replied the young woman solidifying the agreement so that in it's love it was true.
And so as the evening went on the pair drank beer and watched the frivolous comedy Super Troopers, which the young man maintains is a fine example of modern cinema where the young woman had failed to see it's appeal; and if old man time could weigh in on the argument he would undoubtedly interject to him 'she is slightly more debonair than you.'
THE END"
Jonathan
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