Just in case anyone missed the point, I have a career. My job is portable in the sense that I can ‘work’ just about anywhere, but I am compensated for that work in traditional ways. If I freelance an article or sell a book in one country, but live in another, there are complications both in getting paid and in paying taxes for the work.

One simple example: to receive money you need a bank account. To get a bank account you need proof of residency – a visa, a permanent address. Banks and governments frown on efforts to move money across borders without sufficient documentation.

I dwelled in the United Kingdom for five excessively long years before I was able to get a bank account. I still have no pension or investments of any variety, and affordable home ownership is out of reach. Yet my savings account is clogged up with cash. Why? Because the passport and residency documents you possess actually matter. This is not a principle, this is pure pragmatism.

This is the subtext to a secret plan that has been afoot for about a year: Byron was offered a fancy job with a Prestigious Institute (PI for simplicity). When he first outlined the plan of accepting the job, one of my main objections was the portability or lack thereof for my career.

What is the provision in Germany for self-employed people, writers, artists, freelancers? How would I (or could I) enter whatever they call their social security system – pay taxes, accumulate pensions, acquire health insurance, etc.?

The answer: not easily, if at all.

That answer is not acceptable.

Rummaging for a solution, one of the representatives of PI suggested that the institute provide me with a cover story – a nominal fake job and salary as… something or other… so I could access the benefits system.

Excuse me?

I am not chattel.

I am also not young, naive, or stupid.

While I can be flexible about where I work or live, I am not willing to compromise about other issues.

I am an adult with a well-established career. It was already a massive compromise to even consider moving to a remote German town, then start the laborious process of rebuilding my professional contacts.

It is offensive to an intolerable degree to suggest I accept any further level of degradation, for any reason. To serve the career of another person?

In a word, no.

And everyone should feel relieved that my rage is limited to typing the above paragraphs.

I had to stop watching the news as I keep expecting Cameron and Clegg to gel up, fade to Top of the Pops, and burst into a duet of ‘Love of the Common People.’

That precious little premature infant I coddled and carried for years is now… five foot eleven! He has started to tousle my hair and call me Baby!

Oh, the horror – it won’t be long now before he is fully grown and launched, and then what will I do? I’ve been a mother as long as I have been an adult. I’m not equipped with other factory settings.

Speaking of, his sister came to visit, dragging her boyfriend along to enjoy the hospitality of this spacious (and rather surreal) cottage. There is plenty of space- six bedrooms – and the place gradually filled.

Alessandro is considering a move from NYC to the UK and is crashing in my London studio, but he popped over to say hello. Angela, Bjorn, and baby Tor (originally known via Sweden) arrived from Bath.

It was all rather jolly; I can see the benefits of possessing a house, if I could keep it full of friends and family.

In the midst of the festivities I convinced a coterie to come along on an adventure…. the Steam Rally at Didcot!

Recently I was reading a mystery novel (perhaps an Amanda Cross?) in which a character says that anyone who lives in Oxford, no matter how short the sojourn, feels compelled to write a book about it…. whereas nobody feels that way about Cambridge, no matter how long the retreat.

My visit thus far confirms this observation.

Oxford, for whatever reason, truly does have a kind of near mystical appeal. Dreaming spires and all that. How? Why? I do not know.

The only fact I can cite is that I have never dined in college during six years in Cambridge. But last night in Oxford I was seated next to the president at high table in the richest college in the entire world – and he found my scathing commentary amusing.

Later I was taken on a midnight tour of the fellows library, where I handled manuscripts older than my homeland.

The Ashmolean, Pitt Rivers, Maison Blanc cupcakes, the Angel & Greyhound meadow, meandering along the banks of the Cherwell. Picnics on Will & Lyra’s bench, with students wearing togas punting past, and a wild fox scampering at my feet.

My lodgings are in a seventeenth century house with St. John’s at the back and St. Giles to the front. How could a city be more seductive?

The only real problem is my persistent desire to be elsewhere.

My grandmother is still ailing, my aunt and cousin are dead. I can’t go home to help, or for the funerals, because my passport is needed in a faraway office while a bureaucrat considers the viability of my citizenship application. This is my choice, even if I am fated to forever wonder if the compromise is worth the pain.

I walk the streets, and wander through the colleges, in a state of melancholy amazement.

Grief makes even the most alluring adventure seem drab, and guess where I am? Oxford.

Think Cambridge, except the people dress a little bit better.

I am being quite stern and refraining from judgment of this town, since I am in mourning and all of my thoughts about life in general shift with each new death in the family.

However, a few observations: the only thing worse than a Leonard Cohen song? A Leonard Cohen song performed by a British busker. The only thing worse than posh academic Ladychat? Posh academic Ladychat about babies. Ick.

I am at least entertained by the hung parliament and formation of a coalition government. Parliamentary process is so fascinating.

The election, my confusion about where to live, and a separate yet undefined sense of unease conspired to wake me over and over again until I gave up just after dawn and checked my messages.

My mother had emailed to say Christopher is dead.

He was only eight years older than me. We grew up in the same place, raised by the same people. All the cousins were granted a nearly identical set of skills and talents, raw intelligence and curiosity. The only true difference between us? I had a mother who used her fierce love to protect me, body and soul. The others were not so lucky.

I went to college. Chris went to jail.

The last time I saw him was at Mary’s funeral. He told me that he was proud of me for getting out. I told him I was proud of him for holding on.

I’m sitting in a boutique hotel in a posh resort town in a country with a social welfare system. Chris died of treatable illnesses in a shack in a ravine, without even electricity to light his last hours.

Money might not buy happiness, but it can purchase food, shelter, and healthcare. I had to leave our home to find safety. He never had the chance.

I am filled with rage and horror and there is absolutely nothing to do.

I wish, oh how I wish, that things could have been different for all of us.

RIP Christopher. I wish there had been more time for you.

Continuing the marginally obsessive search for a new place to live, I ventured forth to look at Bath and Bristol again. The trip fell on the same day as the general election – fortuitously, because I would have otherwise missed the television coverage of the returns.

The whole event was baffling on many levels, though my kid objected to nonstop viewing of the motley and bizarre collection of “celebrities” chatting on a boat on the Thames. We switched erratically between news and entertainment, and discovered that Flight of Chonchords is excellent – who knew!

During commercial breaks I texted with Iain and read the hilarious twitter posts from my pal Michael Moran in the Times office.

Somewhere around three in the morning I gave up trying to understand which party had won, or indeed, what result would be more desirable.

I drifted into a fitful sleep, determined above all else that from this day forward I will be able to vote in the country where I live.

As the UK election looms, anti-immigration fervor is all over the news.

I am an immigrant. I bring my skills, my taxable income, my genius husband and dazzling children. I want to work and contribute to a society that is fair and equitable. I want to make a home.

I have done this at great personal cost. My relatives are dying, and because I am applying for citizenship in the UK, I can’t go home for the funerals.

Remember that when you cast your ballot. The immigrant of your imagination? It is me.

RIP Maryann – sister, wife, aunt, cousin, mother, grandmother, friend. We will miss you.

I have been inundated by ferocious waves of grief because I can’t be there for my grandmother, her mind gone now, all feuds and judgments erased.

She is no longer the person I knew, the authority I hated and adored in equal measure. I’m not trying to impress her, or rebel against the Lavender way; those concerns died with my grandfather. I still disagree with the choices they made, but I also understand the gift they gave me.

I grew up in opposition to them, and that made me.

But none of that matters any longer. All I can think of right now is how she held me and danced, in that house on the cliff over the bay, singing along to Shirley Temple songs on the record player.

I just heard that my grandmother has been airlifted to Harborview with a broken neck. Nobody knows how the injury happened; it seems that she was alone in her room at the nursing home, but she can’t recall.

My mother also reports that her aunt has started hospice care.

I am frantic with anxiety, and there is absolutely nothing useful to do. I am left with the poor substitute of a symbol: bouquets of roses ordered in haste from a great distance.

Transcontinental tears make no difference whatsoever.

Lacking a first class airline lounge to scrounge in, I was forced to BUY the new Tatler.

Oh, the horror… spending my own money on such accoutrements just feels obscene.

Arguably, reading the rag is in and of itself a dirty business, but hey! How else would I figure out which cosmetics are worth the price? It isn’t like I was born with the knowledge, or raised with the skills.

Fake it til you make it, kid.

My days are otherwise consumed with the question of where to live, and that is a conundrum no magazine can help with, no matter how glossy.

We’ll take a few points as given, namely: I will select a destination helpful to my career. The new city will be aesthetically pleasing, with adequate provision of coffee, movies, and esoteric cheese.

I could go back to Portland; I miss my friends, and I own the place currently known as the Harmelodic Haus. That life is a readymade – I can just walk right back in.

Seattle casts a spell, offering the landscape where I belong.

Or I could meander south, to San Francisco. Or east to Austin. New York is always a temptation.

The problem with the United States is the lack of a public infrastructure. Health care reform hasn’t halted the medical bankruptcies. The current administration has not significantly improved the lives of working class families, nor provided adequate care to the mentally ill people begging on street corners.

America: love it or leave it? I choose both.

Right now my inclination is to either remain in the UK (with a new address) or go to Germany. Therein lies the controversy, and for me, it is all about money. Remember: born in poverty, raised working class. I’m self-made and I pay my own way.

London is one of the most expensive cities in the world, no matter how you read the statistics. It is also hugely alluring, not least because I already have a life there – a literary agent, friends, daily routines, favorite shops, a language I am at least moderately acclimated to.

The only significant barrier to moving is the cost of housing. A comprehensive review of the market informs that all properties in Zones 1 to 3 are approximately the same cost, best stated as ‘breathtakingly expensive.’ Regardless of whether you rent or buy, reckon on a range that starts at 600 quid per bedroom (and that would be a bargain). The more you pay, the better the place, etc. Yet Zones 1 to 3 are by necessity the target destination, for reasons both practical and subtle.

Germany represents a significant savings on housing, for better quality overall. I could trundle over and buy a flat in Berlin tomorrow if I liked, and it would be a fantastic place in a central neighborhood. There are, however, two major problems with Germany:

1. Compulsory education. My son would be compelled by law to attend school. Entering the public German system at this age, with no knowledge of the language, is commonly considered a catastrophic mistake due to the way children are tracked in the system. The best alternative is private school (an option I find abhorrent on so many levels), and that would cost at least 15,000 euro – possibly as much as 25,000.
2. Health care. Proof of insurance is a legally mandated condition of residency. The cheapest I can get for myself is a minimum payment of 325 euro per month for the public plan, not including options I will need, like travel insurance. This is a threshold payment – actual premiums would be 17% of my total income. Oh, and since I don’t speak the language, it would be extremely difficult to access services, deal with bills, etc.

Whereas the UK offers free standardized health care, and school is free if you want to go (my kid doesn’t). So, stated in a completely conservative fashion, living in Germany would require earning an extra 30,000 euro each year, minimum, to cover basics like health care and education.

Oh – but that washes away the savings on housing, doesn’t it? How fascinating.

I would like to stop thinking about these things and just read the Tatler. Dreaming of a new life is far easier than leading one.