Dear Minnesota,

We need to talk.

We've been together for over two years now, and I just don't know where we're going with all this. I know this may be difficult for you to hear, but I think we need to take a break. I know what you're going to say; we're happy, we can make this work, and in the summer time I agree. But in the winter it's like you're a different person. I feel like I don't even know you any more.

I used to look forward to your endless snow drifts and sub-zero temperatures, but now it scares me. I go outside in January and I'm worried you'll hurt me. I can't live like this anymore. Not going outside for the legitimate fear of dying is no way to live. You've done this to me on more than one occasion now. There was the time I slipped on the ice last winter right outside my house. I was on my way to work and realized I had forgotten my phone and you totally took advantage of me, waiting until I tried to rush quickly back to the house before knocking me on my ass. Then just yesterday, you tricked me once again. I thought I was safe taking off my snow boots. I only had to be outside for a minute, but you couldn't let it go. I stepped on the ground and next thing, I saw the sky. Why do you treat me like this?!

Two years I've tried to make it work with you, and you won't even give me a permanent job! I gave up my family and friends to be with you, and you won't even give me PTO and health care....come on!

The truth is, I met some else. His name was Vegas. Nothing happened, but it made me realize I'm just not happy. Some days I want to wake up and see sunshine streaming through the window. Not sunshine that would freeze the snot in my nose, but sunshine that would make me a better person. You know, if I lived in a warmer climate, I'd eat less, I'd be more tanned, I'd even shave my legs occasionally. I'd be better all-round. It's not even about Vegas. It's about living with someone that I don't have to vehemently defend for 6 months of the year.

I'm tired of standing out. I went to buy a case of beer yesterday and had to explain to the clerk in the liquor store where I was from, why I was here, how long I'd been here, how I found the winters. Sometimes I just want to buy a case of PBR without getting the third degree. There are other places I could be where nobody would bat an eyelid that I had a different accent. Sometimes I want to wear a dress without the raised eyebrows and silent 'la-dee-da, who does she think she is' judgments that come with being with you. There is more to life than dressing for practicality. Sometimes a girl should be able to wear heels and a glam outfit without it having to be her wedding day. I'm sorry, Minnesota, but I just don't think you're the one. It's not you, it's me.


Hayley.

Milk-plus

Well it's been a while, friends. I currently type this with a gimp-finger thanks to my skills, or lack thereof, with a lino cutter. You see, I have of late had a renaissance of my creative side and have been painting, attending cooking classes and now carving lino for printing (I will be sending out elegant, hand-printed Christmas cards this year to a select few people, a step up from my usual Christmas email typed in red and green font). I am back to painting glassware and will notify you when my shop is up and running online so that you can all show how much you care by buying copious amounts of artwork from me. Don't worry, I will wipe the bloody fingerprints off first.

The summer was good to me - filled with visitors from England, although I have put a stop to that because childhood heroes of mine kept dying when I had guests over. First Michael Jackson, then Patrick Swayze. The only dance hero left is Molly Ringwald and that is a cross I am not willing to bear in 2009, so please, stay on your side of the pond until next year, peeps.

I have upgraded on the job front to an events role which will run until January, then I will be cast back into the sea of unemployment with nothing but Judge Judy and Cheez-its for company again.

This year saw my first American Halloween! I missed it last year because of the douche-nozzles at the US embassy in London playing silly beggars with my paperwork and so my costume sat in storage until this year when I could bust it out in Duluth, MN.

Wamby and I went as guys from A Clockwork Orange. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the film, a gang of lawless youth in futuristic Britain go on a rampage of rape and 'ultraviolence' dressed in bowler hats, false eyelashes and codpieces (pl. codpi?). This to me, would be an apt costume for Halloween, celebration of all things evil, horrific and grotesque, right? Well in America, apparently not. Halloween is an excuse to dress like a slag. Anyone who has seen Mean Girls has had that moment where they walk into a fancy-dress party complete with bad wig, rotten zombie teeth, or in my case a pair of Y-fronts worn over my trousers with a sock stuffed down them, and been confronted with everybody else wearing playboy bunny outfits or the equivalent.

I looked like the ring-master of a lesbian circus and it seemed that I had overlooked the memo informing me that since I am the proud owner of a (rather fabulous) pair of breasts, they had darn-well better be on show. Every other girl in Fitger's Brewery that night was a 'sexy witch', 'sexy pussy cat', French maid, or even - and this still puzzles me - a 'sexy leprechaun'. 'How can a leprechaun be sexy?!' I hear you cry. Let's think about this for a second, leprechauns are ginger, bearded midgets who wear green hats and shout something about lucky charms a lot. Well apparently, you just wear a green corset with shamrock nipple-covers and a pair of green hotpants, and you have your halloween costume ready to go! One other woman also missed the slutification memo and went dressed as a box of Franzia wine, which I thought was hilarious, if a little cumbersome on the dancefloor.

Don't get me wrong, our costumes went down a storm. One guy came up to us gushing that they were the best costumes he'd ever seen, EVER! I wanted to return the compliment but was unsure what he was supposed to be; he had a regular shirt and trousers and had a utility belt with a power-drill on it. I didn't want to be rude by guessing wrong so we just said thanks and exchanged some jokes and lines from the film about the joys of rape and whatnot.

There was another moment of the night that really rammed it home to me that I now live in the States. I was standing at the mirror in the ladies rearranging my sock stuffing (it was quite the ordeal to pee that night) and having a rather pleasant conversation with the Franzia lady who was waiting for the disabled cubicle when a voice piped up to my left:

"Uh, I don't mean to be rude, but what are you? I mean, if you're supposed to be Charlie Chaplin, he like, totally had a moustache."

"Thanks for the update toots. I am supposed to be Charlie Chaplin, but came without the cane, moustache, black suit or tie. At least I got the hat right though, eh? And what did you come as? Oh, that's right, a slutty cat."

With that I continued rearranging my package to make it bump-free so I didn't look like I had genital warts. Nothing like a moronic American girl to cheer me up with their gawping stupidity.

And so now, as November settles upon us here in Minneapolis, snow is imminent and another limb-numbingly cold five-month winter approaches. I have already subconsciously started my winter diet in order to build up my blubber and stay warm. Essentially this means replacing salad with gravy at each meal. Aah, Bisto, the cornerstone of any super-starch diet. This is all purely instinctual, obviously and it is quite the chore to replace my salads with anything roasted, mashed or stewed. It's tough but essential you see, for without it, I would die. Well I certainly would if some genius hadn't invented the Skyway system here - the series of linked heated walkways which connect all the downtown buildings. Without that, I would definitely die, or at least have very messy shoes from walking in snow a lot.