On a Nation of Immigrants

Tonight, as President Obama takes the politically incendiary step of executive action to reform immigration, it seems like a good time to write about something that I've experienced first hand over the past year. America's immigration system is broken.

Let's start off by setting some stuff out. I'm utterly uninterested in how exactly reform happens. Whether by bipartisan dialogue, Senate and House bills, or Presidential decree, the method doesn't really matter. Whether articulated by Republican, Democrat or Independent voices, from politicians, activists or ordinary people, the person speaking doesn't matter. I'm not concerned at all with how reform is delivered. I'm pretty unconcerned about whether the President has the necessary authority to do this alone (because, he does). I don't write in defense of President Obama, with whom I agree with very little, or in defiance of the new Republican majority, with whom I agree on even less.

What matters is that we recognize that those we are talking about are not simply 'immigrants', 'illegals' or 'aliens', but families and individuals. Our shared humanity is more important than nationality, country of origin or label. Whether they look to escape day to day lives defined by conflict, flee economic systems that deny them fair wages and equal treatment, or simply desire a better future, a fresh start and a new home in the US, they seek those most American pursuits of life, liberty and happiness.

Not every immigrant has fled hardship. Not every immigrant has suffered. Not every immigrant is in need of our charity or concern. But every immigrant is a person, and every immigrant deserves the right to be recognized.

It's true that not every immigrant is here legally. Not every immigrant contributes to society, not every immigrant works, not every immigrant obeys the law.

But, those are not every immigrant. Those are individuals. And their misdemeanors are no more real, and no more weighty, than the lives of the average immigrants who quietly maintain themselves and their families, without reliance upon the Government. We have a system already in place to deal with immigrants who break the law, and it's the same system that is necessary for those Americans who do the same.

I am an immigrant. To get here, I spent nearly a year applying for a Fiancee VISA. I followed the process. I did things the right way. I entered the US legally. And I did it that way because I am incredibly fortunate to have the capacity and tenacity to overcome the unnecessarily obtuse barriers of immigration. Along with my now wife I completed the initial forms, and the follow up forms, and the forms that came after that. I attended interviews, submitted to medical exams, and paid thousands of dollars to get here and get through the process.

I am University educated. English is my first language. I had the assistance of others. I had enough time to devote to completing everything. I had enough money saved to pay the fees. I had every advantage available, in other words, and yet I found the process to be confusing, repetitive and stressful. I repeatedly had to clarify or resend forms that had been incorrectly completed. An initial K1 Visa is expected to take four to six months to complete, for us it took ten. Due to the sheer amount of time it takes to get a VISA, and, yes, some administrative delays, I arrived in America just five days before my wedding. 

Usually, when I explain the process and what I had to do to get to my wedding in America, people recognize that it's unreasonable. I've written before about how the expectation is that I should have been able to get in easily, that as an educated, British male, with savings and a decent job, I should be someone who finds it easy to get a VISA and enter the US. There's the thing. It was. My experience was slow, irritating and almost disastrous, but eventually my perseverance paid off and I got my VISA.

The flip side of my experience is not an easy entry into the country; it's exactly the same trials as I've faced, but worse.

Imagine what that process would be like if you were trying to do it with a lower level of education, in a second language, without any help. Imagine that you're trying to escape from desperate poverty or violence, that you have a limited amount of time, that you're worried about your family's safety. Imagine that you don't have the money to pay the fees. And then imagine that every time you submit a form it gets returned to you, or worse, ignored altogether, because you missed a question, or accidentally ticked the wrong box. Imagine waiting months for the system to work for you, without any idea of whether it will.

I have seen first hand what happens when immigration is politicized. It raises barriers and obstacles for all. With the aim of keeping out a few criminals it refuses access to any and all. My VISA application was made more difficult because of an over zealous attempt to keep people who would abuse the benefits of society out. Instead it simply prevents those in most need from accessing the vital opportunity to make a new start.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that people try and dodge this system, not because they are hardened criminals, or are intent on undermining the country, but because the process for legally entering the US is intended to make it as difficult as possible to do so. Every step is made intentionally difficult, and then we act confused when people try to avoid that perniciously constructed difficulty. We punish the people who have got here illegitimately, but attempt to deny them the chance to do so within the law.

The system, as it is, is broken.

President Obama's executive action today is a good start to fixing it, but it is just a start. There are 11 million undocumented people in America. There is no benefit in keeping those who are here already from being able to legally work. There is tremendous harm in maintaining the status quo as it currently is - Jim Wallis at Sojourners has some great stuff to say here. This is not a full amnesty, but a chance for some immigrants to gain some recognition. It's a half-measure couched in qualification.

Eventually it boils down to this; we in America sit on unparalleled wealth, privilege and comfort. Too much of our immigration policy is about denying access to this to others. How often do we hear the language of economic impact used to describe immigration? We worry about loss of jobs, about benefits going to the undeserving, and ignore the plight of those in need because we're concerned about the economic consequences.

One of my favorite political speeches is from Lincoln's First Inaugural Address. In it, he delivers an impassioned plea for the avoidance of secession by the South, and for calm and reconciliation between the two sides. It ends with one of the most famous pieces of Presidential oratory, and a lasting appeal for brotherhood and grace.

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.

Tonight, President Obama is echoing the sentiments of Lincoln's address, calling not for fellowship between opposing states, but an attempt at recognition, openness and acceptance from Americans towards those who seek entry in. Decriminalization allows already productive workers to become part of society, but it requires society to welcome them in. 

The immigration reform he proposes is imperfect, certainly. There is much for both sides to discuss, But its core principle is an attempt to alter the terms of the conversation we're currently having, to recognize that this is not just an academic debate but one about peoples lives and futures.

This is the most fundamental reality of immigration reform; all immigrants are just people, and they matter.

On October 31st

American Holidays, eh. What are they about? Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Columbus Day. Like all the other made up American holidays which clutter up the year they mostly seem to revolve around the heroic consumption of canned produce and the willful misremembrance of historical atrocities.

Of course October is the 30 day prequel to Halloween; the cheerful holiday about the dead. It's the only holiday which is specifically designed to encourage children to decorate their house, and dress up, as the things we fear the most. Or rather, the things that pop-culture thinks we fear the most, rather than the things that anyone actually fears.

Fear of the Student Loans Service trying to recover the money I blew on '"bettering myself" through "education"

I guess it's because it's hard to market the theme of 'psychologically-crippling existential angst', or 'the fragility of an insignificant life in the face of the uncaring universe's eternal, infinite vacuum', or 'our meaningless day-to-day existence guarantees that most of our dreams will remain forever unachieved'. Which is a shame, because I'd love to see a 6 year old dressed as 'the constant but uncomfirmable worry that my parents may not love me as much as they say'.

Still, I guess it's easier to sell a pointy hat, a mask and a broomstick, and brand a kid as a witch. Monetising our fears is something of an American pastime, which is why Halloween is indelibly linked with the American pop-culture psyche. Ever since FDR said we have nothing to fear but fear itself, America has been busy rewriting that list to 'fear itself (and also the supernatural)' and slapping a pricetag on its likeness.

I freaking love Halloween, you guys. I mean, I love pretty much all the holidays, but Halloween has a special place in my heart, just because of how under-exposed to it we are in England. It just is not a thing, which makes watching any TV show or movie featuring Halloween seem much more glamorous for being so alien. I've been really excited to get a taste of that, and it's been stoked by the massive amount of pre-Holiday lead up America goes in for.

Unlike the UK where Halloween is a strictly one day event, America has decorations appearing from the very start of the month. Pumpkins sprout from lawns, ghosts appear floating in trees, and I'm pretty sure that somebody was probably releasing live vampire bats into the neighborhood, just to add to that holiday atmosphere. When it's still two weeks from Halloween and there's a glow in the dark sarcophagi in peoples front yards, you know you're in for a treat.

In fact, the whole country went full out for the spirit of Halloween, by getting irrationally terrified about Ebola; a disease whose status as disaster du jour belies the fact that, so far it's had about as much of an impact on America as a whole as incidences of people accidentally lighting the black candle and raising their towns witches from the dead.

Threat of Sanderson Sisters returning > Threat of an Ebola epidemic in the US

On the night itself my friends, the neighbourhood Moms, invited us out with their families. The kids were banding together to go trick-or-treating so while the Zapf's went to the movies, JJ and I took Mina out with them. On a float. Meaning that as the kids went door to door the parents sat on a decorated trailer being pulled along behind a four wheeler, drinking Jello shots and beer. This is doing Halloween right. At the end of the evening, we passed a house that was giving out warm apple cider and mini sausages around a house fire. America. you guys. Give them your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, and they'll give out cocktail weiners at Halloween.

Unfortunately, even the offer of sausages and cider couldn't keep us outside much past an hour. Whilst winter hasn't properly come yet, even into November we've not had any of the long promised snow, the temperature has dropped incredibly. I'd reused my Superman outfit from my stag, but was disappointed to find that whatever flammable material it's made out of isn't suitable for withstanding sub-zero degrees. Which is probably legit, because I doubt Superman even notices temperature differentials; dude flies in space, and it gets chilly out there. He's not likely to have a costume that emphasises utility. I also didn't shave my beard, because, rationally, how would Superman do that?

Finding a comics appropriate, weather suitable, scientifically accurate Superman costume is hard.

What it would be pretty easy to do, and definitely something I will consider for next year, is to get a theme costume going with Mina. I wanted to dress him as Professor X, JJ as Jean Grey and find a Cyclops costume, but I've since come up with the much better idea of going as Bane, with Mina as post-Knightfall Bruce Wayne.

May need to work on getting some spherical chest implants first.

This year however, Mina refused to go as Batman, thwarting the 'World's Finest' team up I had looked forward to.

JJ refused to dress up at all, because she hates fun of all kinds.

On the Corner of Main Street and Kennedy Memorial Drive

We've just moved into our new apartment, a two bedroomed flat in St Bonifacius. St. Boni is Minnesota's version of Tatooine, as far from the bright centre of the universe as it's possible to get without being able to see Russia from your house, and it is gorgeously, ridiculously wonderful. Our house is a purple-brown pastel shade straight out of the '50s suburbia of Edward Scissorhands, with white wooden window frames, and a screen door. It is, in all honesty, an unlovely edifice, a squatting hump at the top of the hill, raised at the back over a slope but with the rooms spread only over a single floor. Yet there is a curious personal splendour to it; it's our first apartment, and thus it receives the kind of attention and love which it would never get from those less enamoured by the freshness of the experience.

Plus, it's on the corner of 'Main Street' and 'Kennedy Memorial Drive', an address as American as Sam Eagle, the Muppety embodiment of Americanism.

'Merica

Main Street and Kennedy Memorial Drive; it doesn't get more American than that. It's as American as remembering the Alamo, hearting New York, celebrating the 4th of July, or forgetting all about Canada. As American as root beer floats and warm apple pies at a diner, saluting the flag before a Superbowl game, and drone strikes on Pakistani children.

Even more American than that, maybe, because on the other corners of the cross roads stand a launderette, a whiteboard church and a cemetery. St Boni. has everything an American town needs; seven bars and liquor stores, two churches, a gunshop and a laundromat. Standing out front gives me a great view of the local water tower. It is so quintessentially, stereotypically American that I sometimes suspect that I'm in some weird, cross continental version of the Truman Show. Everything is too perfectly Americana, to the extent that it appears inauthentic.

Wednesday was our first day in the apartment, and also the day they tested the St Boni. tornado warning system, which is just a 5 minute siren. Presumably, in the event of an actual tornado, it would be just a five minute siren and then the sound of a cow being hurled through your house, because I've seen Twister, and this is what happens, you guys.

Seems legit.

Because I'm at home whilst Jalyss works long hours in two jobs, I've been responsible for setting everything up, by which I mean I arranged all my books on the shelf and then threw all of the clothes on the floors of the closets. Closets, plural. Walk in ones. Ridiculously American.

I've set up a work space, and a book case next to it. I've got it into my head that as I'm unemployed and currently unable to even look for work I may as well enjoy the life of dilettante writer; getting up for a coffee and a pastry at noon, drinking wine and eating cheese in the evening, and every now and then writing an incisive, witty and humorous article that earns me enough to continue buying myself coffee, pastries, cheese and wine.

Instead I get up around noon, eat a stale doughnut, look at Buzzfeed, wait for Jalyss to get home and write a weekly review of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D for GeekBinge that's rarely funny and never insightful, and for the kind of money that makes awful American cheese look pricey.

But, if you're going to be just married, without a job, and failing to succeed as a writer anywhere, St Boni. sure isn't the worst place in the world for it.

And guys, I'm fairly certain that could be the town motto; "St Boni. Not quite as bad as you would think to look at it."

On USCIS

It's 7:58am, and for one of the first times since I've arrived here there's a steady rain falling on me, and on the other few dozen people patiently stood waiting for the door to open. Even on an unusually grey day, this early in the morning, Minnesota hasn't yet got so cold that I bothered to pick up a jacket on my way out the door, so instead I balance a box of documents on my head until a Good Samaritanesque Rihanna invites me under their umbrella.

We are waiting for a USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services) processing centre, where I've been summoned to go for my biometrics. In preparation for me staying in the US the Government wants to harvest and catalogue all of the most intimate aspects of myself; my fingerprints, DNA, and probably my soul. Ostensibly it's so that they have this on file should there ever be a problem, for instance, if I abscond with all the benefit money I'm not receiving from them.

It's the kind of post-9/11 state overreach that should make natural conservatives screech about the boundaries and limitations of what Government has a right to take; about privacy, about safeguarding, about presumption of innocence. But it's only being taken from immigrants, so the total amount of a damn that they actually give is somewhat less than none.

In a display of Governmental irony the USCIS centre is based in a solitary wing of the ground floor of a Chinese restaraunt. If ever one building was the picture of American policy, this is it; zealously guarding the frontiers of a nation that Capitalism has already sold out and overrun. It's a truly ugly building, but very clean. Kellie is singularly impressed by this. I'm not; if anyone has access to the vast pools of cheap labour from abroad that they can exploit to keep it tidy, these guys do.

As the rain starts to slacken into the misty drizzle, and the horde forms itself into a natural, orderly line, I find myself feeling quietly content.

Honestly. Rain and queues. It feels like I'm home.

At exactly eight, the doors are opened and the crowd moves through - there's enough space in the reception for everyone to comfortably fit in, and so we move up to allow the end of the line to get out of the wet. It's an unhomogenous collection, a real American melting pot of ethnicities. The lady in front of me tells me she's from an East Asian country whose 'real', non-English, name is unintelligible, so I nod politely. She's with her sister-in-law, who's there to enforce the weight of American citizen approval. This, I've learnt, seem to be very important. Having an American with you lends an air of authenticity; you are not simply some over-the-fence, fresh from the dock illegal. You have contacts, American contacts, and so, by association, the presumption of legitimacy to be here.

Kellie is with me for today, and once the queue has made its way in out of the rain she joins me. I wave her over.

"Is that your wife" asks the American.

"Err, no. That's my Mother in Law". I reply. I am starting to wonder just quite what age a woman needs to be for people not to assume she's my wife. It's a really awkward question to ask unless you're pretty sure of an affirmative answer, but apparently Americans don't feel shame in the same way as normal people.

The biometrics itself is disturbingly simple. No tissue, blood or saliva samples, no invasive procedure. I didn't even need to pee in a cup, which is unfortunate because I had already bought one from home.

Instead, I simply had to give fingerprints, a short written record of my height, weight and eye colour, and have a photo taken. I had been worried about this at first, as I seem to have a hereditary disorder, passed down from my Mother, that makes fingerprinting me difficult.

Whilst on our honeymoon in Flordia we went to Universal Studios, which in part offers lockers and ticketing based on a scan of your finger. I eventually gave up using this service, and simply put Jalyss' hand to the screen each time, as whilst I could open the lockers to put everything in, they never seemed to recognise the same fingerprint by the time I returned minutes later.

Apparently though, the Government has better equipment and systems than a big business, because my fingerprints read correctly every time. Turns out that I do have them, after all. Who knew.

On the Police

"Hello" says the policeman "we've had a complaint about a child driving a truck at this address".

"Oh, hello" I reply. "Yes, that would be Mina".

I've been left in charge of Mina for the afternoon whilst Jalyss goes to work and Jim has a nice lie down. I am beginning to regret my benevolent stance on child care; I remain happy to do it up to the point where the police arrive at the door.

Looking after Mina is usually fairly easy. He wants to do two things when he gets home - drive his wheelchair or drive one of the cars. Half an hour before Jim had put him out in the truck, where he happily sits in the drivers seat and turns the steering wheel. With a block behind the front tyre and no way to reach the pedals he's arguably safer in the truck than he is in his wheelchair.

A few days before, on our last trip down the road with him in his new electric wheelchair, he ended up being carried back home after driving into traffic and biting me when I tried getting him out of the path of oncoming vehicles. I'm wary of allowing him out in his new wheelchair. I still have the puncture wounds in my arm from where he sank his teeth into it. Fortunately I had a tetanus shot before I moved to America. It's genuinely amazing that they foresaw the possibility of me being bitten by my brother in law. Thanks NHS!

Whereas we used to be able to at least keep up with him when he started playing chicken with an eighteen wheeler, Mina has just received two new wheelchairs to test out. Both are too big to stop, too heavy to hold and too fast to catch. So, he's basically in the wheelchair equivalent of Gypsy Danger, making preventing him from doing what he wants fairly difficult. This is especially hard when what he mainly seems to want to do is drive into things as fast and as often as possible.

So putting him in his wheelchair without containment procedures firmly in place is out. The neighbourhood kids playing across the road from us wouldn't stand a chance beneath the bone breaking wheels of the iron chariot. As I'm unemployed and sitting around the house all day, I've made friends with a few of the stay at home Moms. I don't want to jeopardize that by letting Mina crush their children into the lawn.

Instead then, we put Mina in the truck, and leave him to play at driving. Today, I had just bought him back in, and fixed him a drink.

A knock on the door, and through the screen, on the porch, a cop. His car is pulled up at the bottom of the drive. A passing neighbour has reported a child is in the truck, and the police have come to check it out.

As I'm currently here reliant purely on the patience of the Government, it's slightly worrying to deal with law enforcement at this point. I still haven't quite got over the idea that they may just rescind my stay, and send me home. Having the police appear on your doorstep is not what you ideally want under these circumstances.

"Are you in charge here?" he asks. Currently I am, but only by virtue of the fact that Jim is in bed, and I suspect would be even less pleased to see the police at his door than I am. I am, nominally in charge here, I suppose. For a house that's usually so full of people it suddenly seems the rest of the Zapfs have deserted me. Only Mina has dragged himself over to the door. He's heard the word truck and thinks the policeman is going to take him outside to continue driving, which is going to be a difficult moment for everyone.

I explain that I'm his brother in law and that whilst we do let him in the truck, he's unable to reach the pedal and drive. I'm asked who I am. His brother in law, I explain.

The policeman asks for my details. I AM ABOUT TO BE DEPORTED. I give them numbly, and then things take a downhill turn. "What's Mina's full name?" I have absolutely no idea. I know his first name, and his last name, but I am drawing a total blank. "What's your middle name" I ask Mina. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't answer me. He doesn't know his middle name either. The cop looks incredulous at our lack of knowledge.  

Still, as it turns out me not knowing my brother in laws middle name isn't actually a crime. And isn't even, in fact, the most concerning lack of knowledge. He asks me for my dates of birth, I give it, and totally confused him because it's in the wrong order. Despite me clarifying that when I say 22/12 I mean the 22nd of December, he writes 22 for the month. I am beginning to get less worried about whether or not I'll get arrested. A policeman who doesn't know that there are only twelve months in the year; he's probably not inclined to launch a wider investigation.

Transferring dates between English and American is an ongoing battle. For some reason whilst I can adequately translate that when the month and day is out of order, I just need to switch them for it to make sense to me, this is beyond many Americans. Every time I tell them my date of birth, and lead with 22, their eyebrows descend into a frown and start to smoke as their brain flails for the extra processing capacity needed to overcome the complexity of reversing a pair of two digit numbers. It is apparently a national failing; confronted with calendars that don't work America gives in. It's fortunate that the wars on drugs and terrorism haven't been joined by a War on Unexpected Dates, because it would be a short and unsuccessful one.

Confronted with a round birthdate for his square hole the policeman gives in and leaves with some unspecific warnings about letting children drive into the garage door, and an earnest reminder that if I do let Mina drive, I will end up being killed by him. I find it unlikely that I will, but as a middle class white guy, I trust that this policeman is there to do good, thank him and watch him leave.

As he pulls away, Mina tug on my trouser leg. He wants to go outside and drive. I close the door and decide that maybe we'll put him in his wheelchair instead.

On Running

I'm running home from Crown College, the local University that Jalyss, and virtually her entire family, graduated from, and which her Dad teaches at. The day is hot; as hot as it ever gets in England. It's the kind of heat that is best explained outside of the conventional binary of Celsius-Fahrenheit. It's more the kind of day which can best be measured in Katy Perry lyrics, a day hot enough to melt your popsicle.

We've been exploiting the post-wedding calm and nearly empty University facilities to work out. I've very swiftly realised that being able to run, and having a generally good level of fitness means nothing when exercising with the Zapfs.

Working out with Jalyss's family is like playing Cluedo with Batman. The humiliation is near total. Still, I'm faster than them, so I've been taking the opportunity to run home afterwards. But because I'm doing this after an hour in the weight room, by run I actually mean limp. It's a dragging, wheezing lope; unglamorous, and unhappily completed. The gym is not my friend, and it ruins me for my run.

Still, running the few miles home is a unique view of America. A continent spanning nation, virtually every trip out is by car, and consequently everything is at one space removed. I recently leafed through a friends copy of 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance', which puts it perfectly that:

"In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realise that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you."

There's a self imposed disconnect between people and nature that's in part to do with the fact that travelling cocoons us from the outside. We are swaddled in steel and plastic, perpetually air conditioned and temperate, wrapped in layers of habit and convenience that keeps us away from the reality of life outside our houses and offices, and the vehicles we use to travel between them.

But as I run, I do not simply pass by this world, but through it. I run, and the steady tramp of my shoes, the low impact vibration of sole on kerbside, disturbs the life that exists on the periphery of our own.

The side of the road is scrabble. A top layer of sandy dirt and gritty pebbles, broken up with the choke-weeds and wild grasses that thrive in the dust and sun. As I kick through it, the floor around me comes alive with crickets, their movement akin to running within the Gallimimus herd in Jurassic Park.

Every step disturbs another, and they leap heedlessly into my legs, beneath my feet and away. Bounding and rebounding from me and into the long grass. They're big, bigger than any grasshopper's I've seen before this, as long as my thumb. Their movement carries them in a quick arc over a few feet, and they routinely smack straight into anything in their path, their ascent interrupted by whatever unmoving feature they failed to take into account before launch.

It's glorious, and serene, and so quintessentially foreign, to be running through this swarm of leaping, kicking nature as its most unheeding and unheeded. Everything about America still has the freshness to it for me, that sense of wonder at the everyday. Birds and insects that are totally commonplace here are a source of real excitement. Every day is different, everything is new.

I'm enjoying it, I suppose you could say, That's new too - but the real enthusiasm here is contagious. I guess I'm becoming one of them already. This is what assimilation feels like.

On Zapfletts

When my kids grow up I've decided I'm going to talk to them about the decisions I made about getting married. I have what I feel are good pieces of advice for them, mainly around exactly what 'tulle' is, and the coma inducing pointlessness of spending loads of money on chairs for the service. But above all there are two decision that I'm going to want to be able to point to without any hesitation and say that these were good things.

The first is in my choice of wife. I hope that she's their mother, because otherwise it's an awkward conversation to be starting with them. I hope that she's around still, I hope that they see her not just as their mother, but as a person. I want them to know Jalyss not just as a role, like their teachers or their pet, but as the individual she is. I hope they'll know her as someone I love and respect, who makes me happy, pushes me, teaches me, steadies and comforts me, and who can cook up a mean homemade pizza.

The second thing though is that I want them to know that they are part of a family that wanted them, values and loves them for who they are, and that they will be respected and cherished whatever they do. Unless they're a vampire, because then they're on their own.

I'm being quite serious here. If they ever start living in a coffin, adopting a range of, admittedly rad, capes with high collars, and rise only at dusk to go and feed on the still warm blood of virginal 19th century women as part of a dubious allegory for sexual awakening, I am disinheriting the heck out of them.

I have very strong feelings about vampires, you guys.

But, so long as they steer clear of vampirism, I also want them to know that they are part of a family that spans two continents and three immediate family names. Because as well as being a Willetts and a Zapf, they will also be a Zapfletts.

I've always been pretty adamant that I didn't want Jalyss taking my name. Much like asking permission from her father to marry, I see it as an outdated way of codifying women as property. My wife isn't an object, she isn't defined by me or her father.

Giving her surname up to take mine is denying her the agency to exist as a being separate from myself or her father. To me it suggests that her identity is conditional upon whichever man has responsibility for her, and whilst that works fine in a society or culture which denies women their own identity and agency, I didn't really want the first act of our marriage to be the transfer of ownership from Jalyss' father to me.

Jalyss, whilst not wanting to take my name, would have been quite happy to hyphenate her surname or just keep Zapf.

But I want us to share a name, to be a team, so having us just keep our own names didn't seem a good option. I want us to be linked by that thread of commonality, the unequivocal connectedness of having a shared identity.

I'm going to be honest here; writing this. I find myself getting uncomfortably close to expressing myself in such a way as to make it seem like it was solely my decision that Jalyss change her name. Which would be a betrayal of much of the sentiment behind the name change, as it means her actions were still based on my desire to not have her becomes Mrs Willetts. And so whilst it may look like this is just a groovy, granola eating left wing version of the same white, cis, male privilege showing through, I'd like to really make it clear that this was not the case of me simply coercing Jalyss into taking a new name so I could get my way.

I love Jalyss' maiden name, mainly, it has to be admitted, because it sounds like the noise of a futuristic weapon discharging into the vacuum of space.  So we wanted to maintain it, but I was also really keen that we do so through a gesture; a resolving commitment to one another that as we got married we each became part of a new family.

From Zapf and Willetts came Zapfletts,

Because that, for me, is what marriage is; a commitment to a new family. It's what Jalyss and I are, or at least what I hope we are. And part of that is sharing not just our lives, experiences, joy, frustration, money, passions, hobbies, illnesses, annoyances and mundanities with one another, but setting ourselves apart and distinguishing ourselves by name.

When I married Jalyss I did so knowing that it meant leaving behind a lot of what I had grown up with. I left my culture, my country, my job, friends and family. And I did so to form a new life, and a new family. It won't be the same as the life I had before, and my family will be new too. I've gained brothers and sisters in Jalyss' siblings.

And I've gained a wife, too.

But there's a part of me that also sees myself as having lost something, as well. I won't get to see my nephew grow up. I won't be there for birthdays, holidays, or weekends. I won't get to hang out with my Dad and watch the football, or go out for a cup of tea with my Mom after work. I won't get to irritate my Sister, or hang out with my cousins.

So, part of marrying Jalyss is me getting the opportunity to extend what it means to have a family, and who my family are. I love the grand gesture, and the radical deed. And the most obvious commitment we could make to one another, and to our new family replacing our old, is for a name change that represents that. From the distant, separate lines of Zapfs and Willetts', a brand new one. A joining of two families that creates a third.

I love that. What better way of signalling this new union, this new family than a distinct new break. And what better way of defining ourselves than a new name; one which speaks of where we came from whilst also placing us together.

And so, Zapfletts. I'm looking forward to explaining that to my kids.

On the DMV

"Is this your wife?"

The lady is pointing at my 16 year old Sister-in-law, who looks exactly as young as she is, and thus makes the very obvious age gap between the two of us more than a little too wide for comfort. Jaidyn is going very red.

"This is my sister in law, she just drove me here" I explain. This isn't 'To Catch a Predator'.

"Oh, I just thought, when you said you were together" the lady continues, oblivious to the embarrassment she's causing Jaidyn. I'm forced to cut her off to clarify, "No, we just came here together. We came here together in a car."

We're at the DMV, to register me for an American licence and for me to sit my theory test. The DMV, I'm realising, is where bureaucracy goes to die. You go in to speak to the greeter, who assigns you a ticket to talk to someone else, who gives you a form to take to a third. I'm pleased that I can do my bit for the stuttering US economy by providing employment for the population of a small town, but maybe one of them could do a little more towards the process, rather than pass responsibility on to the next in line.

Applying for anything in the US as a British citizen is a chore; routinely carrying a packet of documents containing my passport, my birth certificate and my VISA entry form, which are pored over, analysed and remarked upon at every stage. Today I've also brought my counterpart driving licence with me. This will turn out to be a mistake.

The lady taking my documents has never seen a counterpart driving licence before. The lady she is working with hasn't either. Nobody in the building has seen it before. My counterpart licence is the Turin Shroud of the DMV; people like it, but to quote In Bloom, they 'know not what it means'.

I only want to get on a computer so that I can sit the theory part of the test, 40 multiple choice questions about driving laws in Minnesota. There are some excellent bits of knowledge on there. One of the actions it suggests could increase road rage in others is forcing their car off the road. Presumably that's not the only reason to not force people off the road; just the most important one.

I've been studying for the last few days and am pretty confident. Jaidyn uses the drive over to test me. We get lost, leaving us plenty of time of study. Her main advice is to remember that Minnesota state law means I have to leave six feet of space when I pass a cyclist. Six feet, I mentally file that one away.

After nearly twenty minutes of investigation, I'm told that I can't get a licence today and will have to take the permit test. That's what I'm here for. I'm relieved to find that the licence I voluntarily provided to them won't disqualify me from starting the whole process.

The test begins with a routine example question asking me to identify the capital of Minnesota. I get it wrong. An inauspicious start.

The remainder of the test is routine. I have to get 90% of the answers right. Most are obvious, a few require actual thought to answer. One is a straight up true or false. Some have the fourth answer as 'All of the above'. In any situation where all of the above is an option, answer all of the above. It's always the correct answer. This is one of the ironclad rules of testing, along with 'read the question carefully' and 'if you don't know just guess'.

I read the questions carefully, I don't know but guess (correctly as it turns out), and finally I reach a question about the distance to keep from a cyclist. I know this one. Jaidyn's advice is going to pay off. I confidently enter the answer. Six feet of space. Wrong. It's wrong.

I mind-swear profusely.

Disbelief. Crushing, wincing disbelief. Jaidyn has lied to me. I am overcome with doubt. Can I complete this? Are all the answers she gave false? How do I even know what's ... oh, wait, never mind, the test is over. I've passed.

I reenter the casual flow of senseless paper moving. The nice lady who was so confused about my UK licence sends me back to the initial greeter with some papers, which I fill out, hand over and have returned along with a new ticket, to go see a new staff member. She takes my papers, then takes my photo and administers an eye test. I pass that one too, and I'm free to go drive.

In three months I can come back and get tested for a full licence. Jaidyn reminds me that this will be just in time for the infamous Minnesotan Winter, a perpetually capitalised event distinct from regular winter in both the length and severity of the season and the sheer amount of time everyone spends discussing it.

It's like living with the Starks, and I wouldn't be entirely shocked to learn that somewhere around Duluth there may well be a giant ice wall manned by grim, black clad watchers, defending the US from all the wild men, mammoths and ice zombies Canada throws at them.

In the meantime we leave. I'll have a licence sent to me soon, and won't have to carry my customary ID bundle. We set off, and I start to tell Jaidyn about exactly how far from a cyclist you have to be.

Because it definitely isn't six feet.

On IT Reform

This post was written before my Wedding, which went ahead a week ago. Sorry to lower the tension.

Following the VISA interview, I had seven to ten days to wait for my VISA and Passport for be returned to me by courier. Unfortunately, two days before my interview, it turns out that the US State Department decided to upgrade all of their VISA systems, a task that I like to imagine involved them haphazardly nailing floppy discs to a sparking central server with one hand whilst focusing the majority of their attention on a breeze-blown leaf, or an especially interesting formation of cloud.

IT projects seem to be some form of generic governmental Achilles heel, and so it should come as no surprise that this particular endeavour took the embassy's computers from a system capable of processing 450,000 applications every ten days, and upgraded them to shiny black paperweights.

Of course, because this is a far reaching problem that directly impacts me, I found out about it by accident. I had stayed in all day every day since the VISA interview to avoid missing the courier, and just happened to go back onto a corollary of the London embassy main page, and found a tiny caveat that delays were possible on all VISAs to be issued between the 20th and 29th, but that nearly half had been processed.

That still leaves 200,000 that haven't been, in case that makes it sound like they've been in some way successfully engaged in their jobs. There are very few occasions where being able to do roughly half of what is expected of you is sufficient.

It has been, I think it's fair to say, a bit of a cock up. Unless their IT process is run by Dennis Nedry, and this is the first step in an attempt to smuggle DNA samples inside a can of shaving foam, in which case everything is going to plan except that he's about to be eaten by a really scientifically-inaccurate Dilophosaurus.

So that seven to ten days elongated into a full seventeen, which was rather inconvenient as I was meant to fly after fourteen, and thus lost my flight. The expectation of an imminent courier also left me confined to my house, and lead me to realise the limits of never venturing outside. There's something truly intangible about existing in one place for too long. It's easy to see how people can go mad in isolation; even with all of the resources and diversions of the internet at hand.

Getting the email that the courier had the VISA was a relief not just because it meant I could travel and wouldn't miss my own wedding, but also because it meant I could throw away the bloodstained volleyball that had served as my constant companion and return to civilisation, and people, and sunlight that wasn't filtered through a window.

The courier having received the VISA on Friday morning, I managed to convince a sympathetic member of their customer relations team that I could pick it up from their central processing hub rather than wait for it to be delivered to me on Monday. Confirmed to be there on Saturday, and with assurances that picking it up would be simple, we drove over.

At the courier, we met the person left in charge; a bubble-faced man apparently only just out of childhood who wore an air of confusion, as though he had only just woken from an especially interesting dream, and who happily admitted that he was just a driver and didn't know what he was doing. We gave him the details and he gumped away, only to return empty handed. This didn't bode well, and so it proved as he had spectacularly succeeded in not locating my VISA.

"Do you want to go away and I'll find it later?" he asked, hopefully. "I'll deliver it your house personally."

"Not really", I replied. He looked unsure of what to do next. "I really don't want to leave without it in my hands, to be honest."

By this point, emboldened by the courier's (seemingly misplaced) confidence I had rebooked my flights for 9am the next day. Not having a VISA or passport was probably going to be a bit of a problem.

The gump shuffled back off to search for the package, and we waited. As time passed and he returned again and again to update us on his continued lack of success we began to despair.

We began to try and help out. Had he checked to see if it had been put to one side? He had. Was it likely to be a different size to most other VISAs as it contained all my documentation? It wouldn't. Did he have a parent nearby who may be able to help? Apparently not.

The lack of boats and aircraft suggested we weren't in the Bermuda Triangle, but the couriers office seemed to have a similarly disorientating effect; "Would you like a cup of tea?" the gump asked, at one point, two hours in. We assented and he left. Our cups of tea never appeared. Like the package, the kitchen was seemingly lost.

Fortunately a rescue party had obviously been sent out after the gump, who presumably shouldn't have been allowed out of the company creche in the first place, and they proved more capable. Suggesting checking the safe, and the delivery stacks, they returned with a package ten minutes later. It looked exactly like the one the gump hadn't been looking for, being the wrong size and shape and in a different place entirely.

The smiles, the laughs, the 'not your faults' that greeted this discovery can be brushed over.

IT system be damned. Courier be damned. I have my Passport in hand, and my VISA in bag. I am as ready as I can be, and I am going to America.

K1 Visa Interview

This morning was my VISA interview at the embassy in London, an endeavour that I've been preparing for off-and-on for months. Preparation, for me at least, mainly involves rechecking the same three forms again and again, just in case their contents have noticeably shifted since I last looked, or they were suddenly, startlingly nonexistent, like a papery dinosaur-analogy. Short of interning my documents in amber, which is time consuming, or just letting it go - unwise outside of Arrendelle - it's hard to see what more I could do to keep them safe, and yet every night for the last few weeks I've convinced myself that I've probably forgotten to include my passport, or haven't actually got enough copies of each bit of paperwork, and rechecked them.

It's hard to overstate how paranoid I've become about this. I got to the point last night where at two in the morning I went through every bit of paper again and then slept on the containing folder. JUST IN CASE.

With an appointment scheduled for the embassy's opening time of 8, I naturally leave nothing to chance and get up three hours early to catch my bus, for the half hour journey to Marble Arch. By the time I arrived (well before 7) there was a queue of about 40 people. I curse myself for my own tardiness and join the end of the line. Clearly some of them had been here a while, despite the very clear instructions for people not to turn up too early. Idiots.

Probably in a fit of pique at the uncomprehending English, the security guards commits a grievous breach of social etiquette and moves the head, and direction, of the queue. Like Jesus with a badge, his officiousness causes the first to be last, and the last first. The early first fail to pay enough attention, and the crowd reforms around them. The curiously English feeling of unfairness begins to tell; one woman is very obviously realising that she has lost her rightful position, and tries, unsuccessfully, to negotiate:

"This woman was in front of you" she says to the people who have moved to the front, pointing at the woman behind her. Clearly this is preamble. What she really means is "I was in front of you" but that level of directness would be impolite. Better to masquerade her dissatisfaction as altruism. The people in front ignore her, unmoved in any way by the increasingly frantic protests. The security guard who caused all the fuss turns and goes back inside. 

Stretching across the front of the vast Embassy, watched over by a grotesque monument to Reagan, the queue resettles and grows as more people join it. Fronted by one of those frequent green spaces that London seems to be full of, the building is, by comparison to it's surroundings at least, squat and ugly. A giant gilded bird rests over the front awning. Presumably it's intended to be an eagle. It looks more like an especially ugly crane. A pigeon lands on its head, defecates and flies on.

This is probably not the way immigrants are supposed to remember the process of assimilation into the US. But too few of those entering America have described watching errant birds pooping on the symbols of freedom, independence and liberty. The shit spangled banner. 

The doors open, a staff member rolls out two enormous cupboards. The queue is divided, then divided again. I am in the initial group, about 12th in line. I show my first set of documents. My photocopies are in black and white. Nobody else's are. I start to sweat straight through my shirt. Documents are taken, checked, handed back.

I begin to worry that my iPad won't get through the security sweep. Laptops aren't allowed in, but no mention was made of tablets. I have convinced myself that I am about to be sent away for bringing contraband items, and start working out where I can drop off my bag to get back for my interview without it. My name is called. I remove my belt, watch, shoes. The guard asks to look in my bag, and pulls out my iPad case.

My iPad gets through. I talk too much to the man next to me in the queue. He tries to look interested in his own paperwork. I take the hint.

The VISA interview process is two steps; the first inspects all my paperwork, the second involves an interview about my relationship with Jalyss, I have been assiduously prepping for the second. I learnt her Birthday. I know her middle name. I have the story of how we met down to a fine art.

The first part comes quickly. I'm second to be called, it's 8:05. I give fingerprints and hand over my file.

"So, you're engaged" the clerk says. It's an in! I start my pre-planned speech about how we met. "Congratulations" he interrupts, "passport?"

He takes the papers I've been conserving for the last few weeks. My paranoia has paid off, and everything is mercifully, thankfully, wonderfully present. He accepts it and sends me away to wait again. This was the bit I was worrying about and it's already over.

The seating area, sparsely peopled when I left, is now full. The heat has risen considerably, and two industrial fans have been set up. I position myself on a near empty row. A man immediately comes and sits next to me. It's a breach of that other unspoken English rule about personal space, that nobody should ever sit beside you if there's another space available.

The day before I got profoundly uncomfortable when, on an otherwise empty train, a man came and sat across the aisle from me, which, in fairness to me, is a pretty odd thing to do, and shouldn't really be allowed, Today I don't begrudge anyone their seat, even if it isn't typical. "Look at me" I think. "Personal space doesn't bother me and I keep trying to start conversations with people. The process is working. I am becoming an American!"

The numbers that were previously being announced are now simply flashed on a screen. It makes it harder to read when you have to look up regularly to check you haven't been called for. The book I'm reading, a collection of Charlie Brooker's columns called 'I Can Make You Hate' seems an inopportune choice in the context, and I avoid showing the cover or spine to anyone who may be registering my choice of reading material and making judgement calls about my suitability to get a VISA, especially once I start silently laughing to myself. The conjoined seats shudder, and my new friend get up and goes to sit elsewhere.

I 902 flashes up, and I hastily stuff the book in my bag and struggle to get all the evidence of my relationship out whilst I scurry to the window. I had expected a private room, a guy in a slightly too large suit to offer me a coffee, and a smoke. My cop film expectations are not met. A woman asks me to repeat the process of scanning fingerprints, to prove my identity. In front of her she has 4 forms with my photo on. If I'm not me, I'm a pretty good match.

She leafs through the file in front of her, looks at me, and back to the file. She asks me to talk about Jalyss. This is the only question in the interview, I try to say as much as possible without coming across as desperately lonely. I keep an eye out for signs she's trying to get out of the conversation. She doesn't seem to be listening, so I stop,

"I'm going to approve your application" she says. I haven't yet got the evidence I prepared out. Photos, call record, receipts, letters and print outs I'd spent the last few days collating and obsessively filing. A curator's egg of my relationship with Jalyss sits in a folder my bag at my feet. "You can go now"

"Errr. Is that it?" I ask. I think she may have made a mistake. Where's my interview? "Jalyss' middle name is Jarynn. They're made up" I tell her. I sound like an irritatingly precocious 6 year old announcing she's completed her flute recital. I want to punch myself in the kidneys. I learnt this stuff, and I'm going to get it out there, "Jalyss is a conductor; but not a musical conductor - or an electrical one!" When I practiced that line in my head I paused for effect, and to allow time for them to laugh,

"Yep. You can go now" she says, "go celebrate."

My 'interview' has lasted just over a minute and spanned the length of one question. I am strangely disappointed at how anti-climatic it was, my preparation seems unnecessary. It's hard not to feel cheated. I'm not sure why. I close my half opened bag and leave the way I came in. Nobody stops me.

The queue outside is still growing, like a bureaucratic game of Snake. The pigeon has returned to rest on the eagle.

I have up to 10 days to wait for my VISA and passport to be returned to me. 12 days until I'm hoping to fly, and 24 until the wedding.

I'm not nervous about going yet, although I'm sure I will be soon. But for now I'm just grateful I don't have to worry about those bloody documents any more.