Too much caffeine will make you do something like this

Blogging. WTF?

I, in all honesty, truly thought, (if thought is what you can call what I actually gave it) that blogging was for B-list celebrities and soccer mums. Sure, I read the occasional blog written by a guardian journalist about some environmental disaster or crisis of conscience, when I cheat and read the guardian online instead of buying the Saturday edition like every other self respecting urbanite come intellect. Truth?! I'm lazy and cheap and only splurge on a real newspaper when I can afford to buy my groceries at Waitrose every week. But for people like me, your average Jo-lene, your overworked, overtired, undersexed, overwrought, under impressed self, a blog is for the self righteous and missionised hip and tech savvy 20 somethings. Just one of the 40 million delusions I allow to exist in my life, to justify why I can't do something.

I don't actually think real people read these things.

Please. It is the place where feeble minded wanna be intellects write for the sake of spilling their proverbial guts about something he/she/we all pretend we want to care about or hope the readers, all 6 of them if your lucky, feel some degree of empathy toward, what usually amounts to long winded rantings about nothing and everything. Fuck it, gotta be cheaper than therapy.


Blog. I met up with my American friend, at Coffee Republic on Friday for a quick cuppa. Coffee Republic , the pretenders anti-Starbucks "cafe", a la Plymouth. Which oddly is right next door to...yes, Starbucks. Our second in town. Moving up? Doubt it!

We are both aliens in England and hence the need for me to write a blog about what it's like to be a North American in England, wanting to escape the stigma of immigrantism. Her American self and me, my Canadian self, both want to expose the ridiculous hoops we will have to jump through to achieve that elusive right of passage into Britishness...citizenship. Hence the name of this blog "British Citizenship". Oh, yes, I'm sure this blog will morph into something unlike it's original intention, and probably will do so within weeks, but first I want to see how much money I can raise so that I can in fact become a citizen before my Canadian passport runs out and I , along with my friend who is in the same boat, have to figure out how they, the British/American/Canadian governments, collectively or individually move our "Leave to Remain" sticker from one passport to another. I say this only because that bloody sticker cost well over a £1000 and the citizenship application process looks like it will cost about the same.

I'm postponing applying for my citizenship for two reasons. One, it means that I have to go through the process and pulling my metaphorical trousers down for the British government so they can scrutinise my very existence for the last four years, a repeat I might add of what I went through then and once more since, just to prove I am neither a dreaded, dare I say the word, terrorist, communist, post modernist or any other kind of ist that could threaten their precious and worth preserving way of life. Back the f*** up a minute. There are no delusions here.

Now, I am as grateful as the next immigrant to be here. I chose to be here, and bloody well pay a gawdamned fortune for that privilege. I'm over educated by British standards, I am employable unlike many of the overeducated British and contribute a great deal to the society in which I live and work. I consciously choose to work in environments where what I do, for whom I do it, does no harm to any individual, group or the environment. I support all that is fairtrade, organic, local, traceable and sustainable and not once have I ever even thought of slagging off this Fair Isle. But for once I'd like the Home Office to take it's hand out of my, ...er..., pocket and change the financially punitive nature of citizenship and the request for such.

Most days now I can't be assed. It's a cliché, a pointless exercise in futility to actually care about what the government of this country or any other for that matter wants from its already bedraggled citizens and immigrants alike. It's all so bourgeois.

The second reason is, I just don't have £1000 to spare. Between my 1/4 million pound mortgage, groceries from Waitrose, Riverford and the Farmers Market, between supporting the local Wildlife Trust, the local Credit Union and Amnesty, the 2 cars, 2 old vet bill riddled dogs, and 2 underpaid jobs, I don't have 2 pence to rub together come the end of the month. So I ask myself, how in the name of all that is sacred am I supposed to conscionably fork over £1000 to the British government for the luxury of not having to figure out how to get my bloody "Leave to Remain" sticker...remember that...to what would be my very own British passport.

So. Blogging. Will it achieve the unachievable, the unconscionable, the ist and ism of my very existence. All I'm hoping is someone will read it and well throw me a few bob to pay for the sheer entertainment value my blog provides. Of course it all goes to the "Make Dawn a British Citizen" fund.

G'nite...y'all.