“Once I have you, I will never let you, never let you”

I feel quite sorry for Ariana Grande. ‘Sweetener’ is an absolutely brilliant album, and the jokes about my ‘TDE’ (Tiny Di… yeah, you got that joke, didn’t you?) would write themselves. It sees Grande finally locate an identity for herself, and honestly contains some of the best and most subtly experimental mainstream pop music released this year. I’m just going to use this review to talk about Hejjy again though. First ISIS, now this: poor girl just can’t catch a break.

Buckle up!

Longtime readers of this blog (hi Mum!*) will know about Hejjy. She’s the wonderful woman whose eyesight was poor enough to date me for years, even mournfully trying to keep the relationship alive via Skype when I was a fat miserable wreck, limping around my Mum’s house at 29 (I think that might actually be my real age that time) and wishing that the failed suicide attempt that had crippled me had done the job proper. I hated myself intensely, and started hating her for being so stupid as to lie to herself about still loving me. I pushed her away, so much so that she ended up marrying someone of her own Hui ethnicity that her strict Muslim mother would have approved of. On her wedding day, I… Why am I telling you all this again? I wrote about it beautifully in ‘last’ year’s SZA entry, just go and read that you lazy pricks. Yes. That’s it. Click click click. Don’t forget to hit subscribe.

(*my Mum has far too much self-respect to…  Hang on… I did this joke before, didn’t I? Not like me to repeat unfunny jokes. Barely halfway through and I’m already running out of material. I apologise in advance for the next 38 posts. This one is good though, honest)

The SZA ‘review’ was a pathetic scream into the void ruing past mistakes. I felt like I was a much better person then than I was when I was a fat waste of (way too much) space stewing in my own self-loathing and wanting the infest every other human with similar antipathy. I was/am freaking happy. I was/am a motherfucking qualified Immigration Advisor. I was/am not quite as fat as I used to be (see below). I was/am a fucking catch!! Because I felt so good, I spent much of NE2017 exorcising ghosts from the recent past that I was now comfortable enough to face up to. It was the first time I admitted to my friends that I had attempted to commit suicide. The SZA ‘review’, though, was more for me than anyone else. I just wanted to remind myself how much in love I believed I was. I hadn’t heard anything from Hejjy for maybe 2 years when I wrote that post. I understood why she cut off relations with me so coldly, she had to break off all ties to me if she was going to have any chance of a happy life. Our love story ended tragically, and she needed to move on. She’d experienced the opening scene of Up, now she had to focus on getting through the perfectly adequate and occasionally fun remainder of the movie. I had made my piece with that though: honestly, the only thing that was important to me was Hejjy getting the happiness she deserved. She loved kids, and I imagined she would have had at least one as soon as she felt she was living any sort of normal life. She wanted to name her first daughter ‘Khaleesi’, which, well, erm, we would have had to talk about that, but maybe her husband thought it was a pretty rad name and allowed it. She would finally be living a normal life. I was happy with myself, and so I was happy for her.

Somehow, amazingly, the post found its way to Hejjy. She read it. That comment on the article from someone with the username ‘Hejjy’ is actually Hejjy. “I have to admit that the email to you metioned by your writing was from my husband, I just read it from here. if only I had found that before, I would have made another decision. Now I really think I AM so fucking fool and coward.” That cold email was actually written by her fiance at the time, and she had no knowledge of its existence until she read the post. Hejjy just wanted to completely ignore me in an effort to get over me, but her fiance decided that I needed a little extra motivation to leave her alone. I thought the robotic and emotionless style of the message was just Hejjy trying to prove to me that she had moved on and changed. Nope. Her fiance had broken into her email and sent me that message behind her back. Now, Hejjy was saying she would never have married him if she’d known about it because fucking hell! Duh! That’s insanely creepy!!

To be honest, I should have known because Hejjy’s English is never that good.

We started talking again through emails. We used to WhatsApp and Skype each other constantly, but now email is the only way that isn’t blocked in China. She noticed that my email is sabeila@hotmail.co.uk. Sabeila is Hejjy’s Arabic name. She saw that I still obviously thought about her.

She told me how miserable she was, how her husband was controlling and obsessive, how he would often shout at her because he believed she was thinking about that diabolical white boy she used to date. She told me how she hadn’t been happy since we were together. She told me how she had finally found the ‘normal’ life, and how much she hated it. The 9-5, cleaning and cooking for husband, the same day repeated potentially for the rest of her life. She had been sucked into the mire of modern life, and now wanted nothing more than to escape.

Reading the numerous times I pathetically reference her on my blog had convinced her that being with me was her only chance of happiness. And now, I was an actual registered Immigration Advisor and knew exactly what she would have to do. I explained to her how what she was dreaming of would require a bigger change in her life than she had even considered before. Hejjy was once too wary of upsetting her family to even move away from Xinjiang with me, and now what she desired would mean moving to an entirely different continent to be with a non-Muslim! I spent many weeks trying to ensure that Hejjy understood the full weight of what she was considering. Then one day, I received an email with just four deafening words.

 

From that moment, I knew what we had to do. Firstly, she had to get divorced, which is no easy thing in China, unlike the adulterous and dishonest west where most high level corporate jobs require you to have at least two divorces to show that you’re a true player. That would be the difficult part, with Hejjy having to endure disdain from a Muslim community not yet 100% down with the whole ‘not marrying for life’ thang, and absolute being ostracised by a mother whom she had a lot of problems with but still loved very much (genetics, man, they crazy). She had once told me that the main barrier to her leaving China was that she wouldn’t be able to see her nieces, nephews and second cousins grow up. Life had obviously gotten so miserable since then that she had to take that chance. Plus, those kids were probably toddlers by now, and seriously, fuck toddlers, right?

To enter the UK as my fiancee, Hejjy would have to satisfy a few regulations. She would have to pass an English test, which, eeesh, she is an English teacher and everything, but… It’s fine, she’ll almost definitely probably pass, maybe, let’s move on. She’d have to show she is free from TB, which, again, fingers crossed. Hejjy and I would have to be in a permitted relationship* that is ‘genuine and subsisting’. The ‘genuineness’ of a relationship is, of course, hard to subjectively prove. Was your parent’s relationship ‘genuine’? Probably not, as after your father left the Portaloo during The Wedding Present’s set at Reading 1996 your mother never saw him again. We could definitely prove that our relationship was genuine though- Hejjy has long been an obsessive photographer, and we have pictures of us together all over China. And, sure, the whole ‘marrying somebody else’ thing might complicate matters, but that would probably only mean we’d need to show the roughly 82’000 emails we’d exchanged over the past 5 years to tell the Greatest Love Story of Our Age™ in full. Hell, this freaking blog might be used as evidence! This blog! In court! That might finally see live courtroom trials brought to the UK. We would have to show we were planning to marry, which would lead to some of the most enjoyable court mandated nuptial planning ever. On my part, I’d have to prove I could provide adequate accommodation. I currently live in a one roomed studio flat (can you get two roomed studio flats?? Serious question), which is officially adequate for one couple. Hejjy would want to move out of Ashton as soon as she freaking arrived, of course, but for the application it was sufficient.

(*I can confidently state that Hej and are not brother and sister, and that she is not my daughter. That’s it though. Did you know that? You can totally bone your cousin if you want to. I know, right!? And to think everyone makes fun of you to this day because you snogged Oliver at that party when you were teenagers! Well, you were a teenager, he was 42 years old, but you were doing nothing wrong! Well, you were doing something wrong, the whole cousin thing was fine, but considering you were 11 years old at the time, Oliver was definitely doing something wrong. I want to make it clear that I am not suggesting he be released from prison. The cousin thing though?? Absolutely fine!! You could have taken it further!!! Though, of course, you absolutely shouldn’t, as ‘taking it further’ was what Oliver did with your friend Abigail. Our thoughts go out to Abigail’s family)

By the way, my next book’s working title is ‘Sufficient’. This isn’t a joke, just the official announcement. It’ll probably be the greatest book ever written about [SPOILER WARNING, CLICK TO COMPLETELY RUIN IT] but won’t be out for a good five years yet. Because I’m too busy doing shit like writing this fucking blog!!

It was all extremely achievable. All I needed to do was make the income requirement (£18’600 a year). Then prove that has been my income for 6 months, with the correlating bank statements showing the money going into my account. No problem. I’m already on about £9’000 a year, how hard can getting another ten grand be? I tell Hejjy just to wait a little longer. Then, erm, wait another six months. Then however long the application lasts.

Hejjy emailed me about a week later to tell me she’d asked her husband for a divorce. She wasn’t jumping the gun, she’s not stupid enough to put all of her 蛋 in one 袋 like that and knew that even if I was earning the required amount I still wasn’t promising anything (she’d already experienced the severity of the UK Visa system once before*). She just knew that talking to me again had reminded her how it felt to be happy, and that the fact that she realised that even a minimum of six months staying with him was unbearable to think about meant he definitely wasn’t right for her

(*guys, why am i having to repeat everything here?? Jeez, I trusted you all enough not to run an end-of-year Blog Comprehension Exam like I initially planned, but you’re forgetting elemental things about my persona here! It’s all in the freaking SZA ‘review’!! Or, erm, did I mention it in the St Vincent one? Or even the Waxahatchee one…? I mention Hejjy a lot, don’t I? It’s best to be safe and read all 391 of my posts. that’s it, click click click. Don’t forget to subscribe)

Unfortunately… that’s kind of the end of the story up to this point. I’ve been to many job interviews at solicitors that are looking for OISC qualified advisers, but have been unsuccessful every time. Remember that funding application to the Carnegie Foundation? That would have taken me well over the threshold. We didn’t get it. A woman has recently quit MRSN, if I’m given her job then I just might be able to make the cut-off point, but as things stand I am still sadly underpaid. £10’000 short of the required  annual wage. You can actually make up any deficiencies in your wages if you have £16’000 in your bank account, plus 2.5 times the shortage amount. This would require me to have £41’000, which I currently

don’t have. Feel free to donate it to me if you have it spare. £41’000 isn’t that much money, is it? For the price of two people’s eternal happiness, you can’t spare £41’000?? You tight bastard!

It’s been incredibly frustrating. I’ve not even heard from Hejjy since the 22nd November, and I’m currently at once annoyed, disappointed and terrified at her lack of communication. Is this love? That I’m feeling? Is this the love? That I’ve been searching for? Or am I just pathetically grasping at the happiness I once remember having, like those people who actually believe that Star wars is one of the greatest movies ever because they really enjoyed it as a dumb six year old? I don’t know. I just know that moving away from China has become Hejjy’s last chance of real happiness, so regardless of what my feelings are, the level of happiness in the world will increase dramatically if she were able to be reunited with me. Watch this space. Like, religiously watch this space. there’s no way of knowing when I’ll continue the story, so be sure to subscribe.

47 minutes

Again, really sorry Ariana.

thank u, next

Incredible song, incredible video, hilarious levels of self-awareness- she’s had an amazing year, hasn’t she? So much to potentially talk about. Can you release an EP or some shit next year, please, so I can take another run at you? Thank you (next).