Meet the protagonists of Mind the Gap:
This is me. I’m Ana,
an American writer, living in an unnamed town on the Wirral peninsula in England,
so close to Wales you could spit at it and score a direct hit. I moved up
here after six wonderful years living in Camden Town, London, which I miss
and will always regard as my real home, even though I like it here in the
Wirral just fine. Among my many interests and hobbies are thinking obsessively
about my hair, having long conversations with my cats, and gardening. I like
to cook, listen to strange music, read voraciously, and alternate between
dedicated sloth and insanely detailed housecleaning. I am often very slow
to answer e-mail, although, eventually I almost always do answer. Unless,
of course, you’re one of the people who is writing to tell me I’m
going to hell because I am one of those dope-smoking heathen hippie whores
who makes the Baby Jesus cry. I probably won’t answer those letters,
unless I’m in a bad mood, and feel like spreading the pain around. The
question I am most frequently asked by total strangers is: how on earth did
I manage to get a visa to live in the UK? Well, the answer to that is very
simple:
Meet P, my husband,
the light of my life, who looks like a mad scientist in this photo, but is really
more of a mad mathematician. Well, his day job sees him performing miracles
for his evil multinational employer, GlobalGiant, but he’s a mad mathematician
at heart, believe me. He is the smartest person I know, and I fully expect him
to conquer the world one day, and install me as his despotic and temperamental
consort. When this happens, I plan to wear a lot of tiaras, have more cats,
and a laboratory full of science slaves working around the clock to develop
non-carcinogenic cigarettes and non-caloric chocolate, so I can smoke and, between
cigarettes, stuff my face all day long, with no consequences. I will also carry
a big stick to hit people who annoy me, and to poke my science slaves with,
in order to make them work faster. I am probably not going to make a very nice
consort, but fortunately for you, P will make an eminently reasonable tyrant.
P is the reason I am living in the United Kingdom. By virtue of being married
to him, they let me stay here, bless them. I am, technically, still an American
citizen, possessed of a permanent residency visa for the United Kingdom, although
that may change in time, if I decide to take the plunge and become a subject
of Her Madge. I like being married to P, and I like living in England, so it
all worked out for the best.
This is us on our wedding day, 27 September, 1997. We don’t have any children yet, but we do have two head of cat:
This is Pixel. She used to be a bad cat, but we eventually learned what a bad cat really is, and Pixel is now a very good cat. Pix and her late, lamented sister, Sadie, came to live with us a few months after we were married, when we adopted them from the North London branch of the RSPCA. We are insanely devoted to her, in spite of the fact that she shamelessly abuses our love. Her interests include sleeping, eating, getting stoned on catnip, looking out the conservatory window into the garden, killing any bugs that enter her domain, and alternating between snuggling with, and beating the shit out of this guy:
This is Flash. He is the reason we discovered Pixel is actually
a very good cat, because he is terrible. You would not believe how bad he is,
but trust me, he is very, very bad. He is enormous, and since he's still very
young, we fear he may grow some more. When he's not being bad, or suffering
from separation anxiety that causes him to wee on P's side of the bed, he is
the sweetest goddamn thing you ever met. Not terribly bright, he relies on his
sunny temperament, incredibly soft fur, and astonishing cuteness to keep the
rest of us from killing his punk ass. He is into moths, Iams' Ocean Fish kibble,
and older women (see Pixel, above). His job is to scold the birds who live in
our garden, and he takes it very seriously.
And that’s all you get in one page. If you want to know more, read on...