Here to stay

Finally. After years of struggling to make our relationship work and months of nervousness that I wouldn't have my documents back in time to travel, not to mention the obscene amount of money thrown at the Tories (assholes), they can't deny it anymore: I'm here to stay. I don't want to be, but that's a different issue.

Yesterday I found a missed package delivery slip. There was absolutely nothing on it besides a tracking number, but when I went to the website to schedule redelivery they mentioned--many times--passports, so I assumed that all my crap (about a kilo's worth of paperwork and our passports) was being returned.

It wasn't. When I signed for it today it was just a tiny envelope, which meant it was my biometric residence card permit thingy (Indefinite Leave to Remain, or ILR), which they're no longer sticking in passports but printing out on plastic. Basically it's a driver's license type thing with a chip in it (because those chips are *soooo* secure). It's horribly ugly, but since it allows me to do nearly everything over here (except vote and drive, and I can drive on my US license for a year if I were crazy, which I'm not), I don't really care. I have to travel with it, which should be interesting; even though they've had these doohickeys for a while, I'm sure someone in Border Control will fuck it up and stamp me in wrong.* That'll be a fun fight to have...

Happily, a couple of hours after receiving my ILR card, there was another pounding on the door (delivery people in this country believe in making a LOT of noise). This time it was a mail carrier who wanted my signature (for Weldman, because he couldn't get it through his head that the "i" wasn't an "l") for a very large packet that appeared to have about a kilo's worth of paperwork in it. It did. They seem to have sent back everything of importance (and at least some of not), and in particular, our passports. So happy days, I'm free to leave the country again. And just in time, too, since I have to leave the country in just over a month for a friend's wedding.

So though I don't always want to be here, I say to everyone who has been a douche to me because I sound different

Suck it. Suck it long, and suck it hard.

I know the residence permit isn't very clear. I prefer it that way for a variety of reasons.

But it's there, and it's mine.

*This happened with my student visa when I first entered on it in 2005. I presented my passport, opened to my visa page, which she ignored and flipped to my ID page, then flipped back to my visa page. She examined it, then proceeded to turn the page and stamp me in as a tourist. I found out when I came back after the holidays in January that effectively I'd been attending classes illegally. Fun times.