Doing the 'ol 9 til 5

Things are very normal in our little home on Lonely Island.

Edwin likes to garden while I do some simple prospecting on the side.

We have lazy mornings spent relaxing or having a late breakfast.

And my diet is more varied now that our little garden is flourishing.  I might possibly be getting a little sick of pumpkin.

We don't grow flowers so we have to go looking for those.  We love surprising each other like any normal couple.

 

We both have odd hours at work but we try to work around each other's schedule as much as possible.  Edwin hops down the tube for an evening shift up at the mine...

And I arrive back home the next morning from a stint in the past.  

My work attire tends to change a lot.

 

Sometimes it is a bit tricky to get away from work

But work/life balance is important and it's a good thing for couples to share a meal together and talk about their day.

We each have our own interests.  I never managed to get that guitar to produce any sound other than one like I was murdering it; Edwin has had a bit more success.  I think he might be using a different grip?

He also loves tinkering around with non living things.  I like to improve things but Edwin has a meaningful relationship with them.  

I occasionally feel a bit jealous of his feelings towards the time machine.

Still it's good that we each have a little hobby.  Edwin has his music and his spanner and I've have my travels through space and time and the occasional jaunt down mysterious glowing holes that I dig up during my drilling.  

All very normal and healthy.

Edwin doesn't seem much of a fashion critic which is nice when I sometimes wonder about  whether what I wear is appropriate work attire.  I'm not sure if my butt looks a bit big in this or what.

But he never says anything so he probably doesn't even notice.

 Now I'm not saying that everything is perfect all of the time.  We do have our little problems sometimes.

Anytime Edwin gets caught out in the rain he has a breakdown and needs a quick reboot but honestly, which relationship doesn't have the odd glitch?

And any little problems that we have don't really matter at the end of the day.  We always make time for each despite our busy lives and that's what's most important.

We may be a human woman and a rusty robot stranded on a mysterious island with very little chance of rescue but our lives are really just like everyone else's. 

Honestly.

Here I Go Again

Look at my face.  It's a bit embarrassing to be honest, I've turned into this walking cliche.

At least I haven't started neglecting my exploration of time and space.  I still head out on trips most days.

But now I have 'this' to come back to.

Edwin really is super sweet.

The trouble is my trips aren't exactly picnic's on the beach.  I downplay the danger when I'm speaking about them to Edwin but the truth is rather than ambling gently into the time traveling box with a parasol over my head protecting me from the sun, I really should be approaching every trip something like this:

Because most trips end up something like this:

Or possibly this:

Like I say, no picnic.

With all that danger you probably think I'm a bit of a masochist to continue doing them.  But they aren't all bad.  I do get to see and experience some truly incredible things and I often bring back items from my travels which greatly add to our quality of life.

Like this guitar for example.

As soon as I figure out exactly what the heck I am doing I'm sure that Edwin is going to love listening to me.

For now he seems to prefer reading in his room out of earshot while I'm busy practising.
The books though are also items that I've brought back with me so that proves my point.

Occasionally I do bring back some rather, er, odd, things.

I'm not even sure how I managed to lug this home or what I was thinking at the time.

In the end it got broken up and used for scrap.  Frankly, it just wasn't me.

Other finds were a little smaller but much nicer. A bottle of bubble bath instigated the making of something I'd been doing without for far too long.

A proper bathtub!

It wasn't too hard really, a bit of the local wood, some resin to waterproof, a bit of tinkering around on the bench to make the plumbing and water heating system and, voilà!  Much easier than the time machine.

Of course we did have to add a small annexe onto the shack because I wanted somewhere sheltered from the rain and the snow. I knew that broken up statue would come in handy!

I'm pretty excited at the thought of my first bubble bath in years!

BLISS!

So you see, even with all of the dangers, the rewards outweigh them.  Besides, I haven't found what I'm looking for yet.  I don't know precisely what that is, but I'm hoping I'll work it out at some point.

For now though, here I go again.

Romance

I've finally begun to notice how much pleasure Edwin takes in doing things for me.

Like making me dinner.

Now that the garden is producing fresh greens I occasionally get a change from my fish diet.

And very tasty it is too considering it's a far cry from anything Edwin can eat.

Somehow I don't think I'll be experimenting with robot cuisine any time soon.

It's sweet of him to make me dinner when he's not going to be able to share it but that really is a good example of the difference between us. Although I sometimes forget it, Edwin isn't human and that will lead to problems. For starters how are we going to.  Er, what I mean is. Umm.  Well look, I think I'll want kids someday and I'll just leave it at that.

I had a small thought that maybe the time machine might be able to help us but so far all the future technology I have been able to find hasn't been able to provide a solution to a human/robot romance.

We do occasionally try though. :-)

Edwin also tinkers around with the machine to try to get some more accuracy in my travels.  So far it hasn't worked and it is still very much in the hands of fate as to where I end up.

I won't say that I'm not worried about the future but I've had a lot of practice in just enjoying the moment since I came to this island. So for now I'm just enjoying having someone hold my hand.

And give me moonlight kisses.

Time and Tides Wait for no Man (or Robot)

Life (or my close approximation) must continue regardless of any romantic fancies.  Whitney remained totally focused on her mysterious project and I did my poor best to help her.  I was forbidden to try my skills on the workbench so I spent my time rummaging through the junk piles looking for usable scrap.  The blueprints sure did call for some very strange things.  Fortunately Whitney was skilled enough to craft nearly anything.

And finally - Success!  The only trouble being that neither of us really has a clue what exactly it's meant to do.  The instruction manual being a bit short on actual instructions.

In the end my beloved just decided to jump in and see if she could get something to happen by randomly hitting buttons.

The results were... unexpected.

For many attempts nothing happened but gradually she worked out what she believed was a pattern and one winter's day...

Oh My!

Whitney was ecstatic.

I rather less so. 

She makes light of the dangers of time travel but I'm sure it's not as safe as all that.  Just about every trip she comes back from needs time spent in the 'workshop' making repairs to the box.  Whitney says it is a case of improvements but I've seen all kinds of dents and scorch marks on that devilish box to make me feel very concerned.

I would prefer to go in her place but she admits that she has very little control over where the time machine takes her and there are definitely places in history where a rusty robot walking around would attract a great deal of attention.

So, I just get to sit in camp and worry about her.

My other fear is one I am almost too ashamed to admit even to myself.

What happens if she meets somebody?  She constantly brings back memento's from her travels, what if one day she brings back a lover?

I am her best friend and I should be happy for her, after all what can possibly happen between us even if I had the courage to tell her how I feel? 

Somehow though even with the best intentions I can't accept just waiting for this to happen.

When we aren't up at the junk yard making repairs or I'm waiting for Whitney to return from a trip we often spend our time together.  A lot of the time we have to stay indoors as rain and snow storms aren't that good for my circuits.

Whitney rearranged the room to make it more comfortable and a little more homey I suppose.

Deep breath Edwin.  You can do this!

Start by telling her how worried you are when she leaves on these dangerous trips.  How much she means to you and how lonely you'd be if anything happened to her and she never came back.

Oh, I don't know if she'd ever thought about that before; her mouth falls open a bit in shock as she loses a little colour, every cute freckle standing out across her nose and her eyes start to shimmer as though she wants to cry.

Don't cry darling.  Please don't cry.

I move over to hug her and she looks like she's cheering up.  At least that looks like a bit of a smile and, are her cheeks a bit flushed?  She seems to be refusing to look at me so it's hard to tell.

Maybe...?

Do you think...?

Oh.

My.

Edwins Blog or My Lonely Metal Heart is Aching

She is the most incredible person in my world.  She is in fact the only person in my world but I'm sure it would make no difference if there were another 10 or 10 million.  There could not possibly be another like her; she must be unique.

And I am a rusty robot with nothing to give her but my love.

I know how much she loves the water but I am mortally afraid of it.  She will be splashing outside in puddles while I'm cowering in my little room.

I can pretend at times that I'm normal or very nearly anyway -

But I'm not.  When she swims all I can do is watch from the beach and wish I didn't have this metal body.  Wishing I was more like her.

Sometimes she looks at me when she's swimming and I wonder 'Is that what you are thinking?  Are you unhappy that I'm just a robot?  Do you wish I was someone else?  Someone you could be with someday if he was enough of a real man?'



She has brought me into existence and shared with me her love of this land and all things which grow in it.  But there is a difference between myself and even the lowly plants - they are truly alive and I am not.

I would give her anything I could.  But I wish there was one more thing she could give me.