I let Wil speak for himself, but these are such good news:
"OH MY GOD!
I just got off the phone with Anne. Kris got the results of her biopsy just now . . . and IT CAME BACK CANCER-FREE!! The chemo and radiation have done their thing, and she's safe for at least two years!
I feel like I'm going to cry. I saw Kris this morning at Anne's salon, and I thought she looked healthier and better than I expected. We talked about the support WWdN readers have given her, and how much your love, prayers, mojo, tantric healing waves, and crazy voodoo monkey magic have helped her at this time.
You guys . . .
I just don't know how to express how joyous and grateful I feel right now.
Anne will write more details later on."
I am so utterly thrilled, and I can only guess the happiness and relief they feel. I don't even know Kris, but I mean, put yourself into this situation... and Anne's last entry was so ... heartwrenching. I am sooooooo HAPPY to hear this!!!
All the best and all the love and all the healing prayers and monkey mojo to Kris. And a truck load of blessings to Anne and Wil!!! You guys rock!
Friday, April 30, 2004
Thursday, April 29, 2004
A friend in need's a friend indeed, a friend who bleeds is better
When I was waiting for Mike to come out of his meeting on Monday, a friend of mine showed up in the uni cafe. I hadn't seen her in ages, so we had a good chat.
I had known her for quite some time, but I had no idea.
She is another member of the Depressed R Us club.
In the past months, so many many people I know have come out as depressives. Once I started talking about it, everyone did. It felt like everyone was desperate to talk about it and get the weight off their back, and just waiting for someone to make a start.
And this is the crazy thing. All those people did not seem at all like they were. Mon - hell, she's a fiery Spanish cat. I knew she once had an eating disorder... but somehow it seems to be a more "acceptable" disorder, at least it is easier to talk about it, it seems. But depression... and OCD... they are so hidden sometimes. Mental illness sounds like a terrible thing to have, in terms of stigma... but once one is out in the open, a dam seems to burst, and people you never expected it from suddenly show up in the same boat as you. Mental illness is as common as colds, kid you not, more than you think. And suddenly it is not a freaky thing to have anymore... nothing to be ashamed of. And it is such a relief to talk about it. And it bonds.
This is one thing that helped me understand suffering in the big picture. Suffering, in my view, is not part of what God wants. It exists. But God can help turn it into something good and positive. Not that it is positive in itself. But one can get something positive out of it, and that is when you begin to heal.
Suffering teaches you compassion. It softens you for bonding. And bonding based on suffering is deep, because it touches the core of a human being.
Knowing that so many of my friends have similar problems makes me feel like I am less a freak than I thought. Dammit.
As my friend said yesterday: "It's good to know I am not going crazy."
"Hell yeah," I said. "Sometimes it makes me wonder whether my reactions aren't just normal. It's a fucked up world. Guess my responses should be fucked up cause if they weren't, that would make me really fucked up." Does that make sense? Heh.
She talked about her counselling session, and we had a good laugh, because her assessment was so like mine it was obvious it must have been the same person doing it.
"She actually got me furious", my friend said. "She was condescending and made all those assumptions."
"Based on the effin textbooks," I said. "Yeah. Rings a bell. She picks and chooses. If something matches her textbook definitions, she pays attention to that. The rest she just seems to ignore, even if it really matters to me. The way I see things doesn't seem to count. Hell, I may get locked up for something that doesn't even mean anything to me."
"Exactly," my friend said. "She kept telling me, 'You probably still haven't come to terms with being gay' and all that shit cliche stuff. And I kept saying that being gay is not an issue for me. I am fine with that. But she kept bringing it up. I swear, if I had had one more session with her, I would have knocked her out."
"I know", I said. "When I walked out, I actually felt ill. I really regretted having told her all this stuff. She made all those assumptions about me, too. Like when I mentioned that when I was 16, I tried to commit suicide, and she later asks me in response to something else I said: "So that is why you took the overdose?" I wanted to punch her. I NEVER said anything about overdoses, she just assumed that! I really don't want to know what she wrote into her file that I never said. How rude is that?"
The reason why that worries me and one of the reasons why it took me so long to get help (and I may just be paranoid) is that I don't know what kind of consequences this could have for me. In some countries you've got to be careful to mention the word suicide, or they may consider you a danger to yourself and lock you up. You may lose your rights. And that would be based on the warped assessment of a counsellor like this word-twisting bitch who treated me like an utter psycho. Some of my friends have been in psychiatric wards... it's not pretty. The worst is what it does to your record. Try to find a job with a history like that. Based on the unqualified assessment of a counselling robot like that.
Apart from that, it is humiliating to spill your guts to someone who so obviously doesn't give a fuck and doesn't know what the hell she is talking about.
Take this, for instance. One of my fears is that my dad may die. I have mentioned this before, and it's one of those things that haunt me. Four years have passed, and it is still no different. That night when my grandma rang me out of bed to tell me dad had nearly been killed in a car crash, something in me sort of petrified. I had rung him on his mobile at exactly the time it happened, and he didn't pick up, and I got pissed off about it. I had no idea that the reason he didn't pick up was because he was lying upside down in a crashed car, with his girlfriend dead next to him, and her little daughter on the verge of death, and my brother and her son being mash and mince. Something like that just doesn't occur to you.
I just was so happy at that time, things went so well in my life (ignoring that mother aborted me about 22 years too late), ever since I am scared to be happy because the Great Cosmic Balance may send the next catastrophe as soon as I hit a certain level of joy. Just to keep me on the carpet. I know that is nonsense, but I just can't help it.
Anyways, this was one of the things I told the counsellor at my assessment session. Guess what she responded.
"Well, you will have to accept that one day your father will die!"
Can you believe this?! That is NOT the FUCKING point!! I know he will. I can accept it when people die of old age. The point is that I don't want to be woken by a phone call again bringing me a message that shatters my world from one minute to the next. That this haunts me and terrifies me every time dad goes on a trip, that it makes me worried sick... abnormally sick.
I mean, you don't have to be an effin counsellor to know you just don't say what she said. Where is the fuckin counselling bit in saying: "Your dad will die, so deal with it, kid."
I wonder whether she ever got punched by anyone. If not, it is effin high time. What the hell is she thinking?
But my friend really assured me. Maybe I will get back to counselling now. My friend got a different counsellor, who apparently cares and is cool and really helpful, and I want the same. That old cow can kiss my ass. Get another job, woman!
Knowing that your friends understand is half the therapy. Knowing that you are not crazy, that you are not losing it, sometimes makes all the difference. Knowing that perhaps what you feel is quite normal, and that you should be worried if you didn't feel that way. What makes it so difficult is that you can't really say, "maybe I am normal and it's the rest of society that is sick".
But then there is this book I read called "Deviant Behaviour" by Stuart Palmer and John A. Humphrey. Have an excerpt and a cookie. Food for thought.
"R.D. Laing, a British psychiatrist, takes the position that those portrayed by society as the most seriously mentally ill, that is, abnormal, persons are actually the most normal. For Laing, societies that kill milions in war and deprive millions through economic politics have turned reality on its head, made the sane seem insane and the deranged normal. Inner space versus outer space and a certain form of highly informal political conflict explain this paradox. Inner space has to do with thought, imagination, dreaming, and so on. The person designated as mentally ill is, for Laing, acting in relation to his or her inner space while others are oriented to outer space, reality as we usually construe it. Thus, the person is seen as behaving inappropriately.
Yet inner space is where true self-expression, true mental breakthrough occurs, according to Laing. Those oriented to inner space may themselves be terrified of it. This is because the culture provides so few guidelines to it and condemns those who publicly express their preoccupation with it. In the politics of everyday life, especially in the family, individuals are singled out by others, often their family members, as troublesome. They retreat to inner space, are further condemned for it, and labelled as mentally ill or mad.
They become the scapegoat for the "normals". The latter satisfy their needs to aggress by perpetuating the illusion of madness in the former. This process can indeed occur. Yet there are many who suffer severely from mental illness which is the result of quite different factors." (p210-11, 1990, New York: Plenum Press).
People can be driven insane by simply making them believe they are insane. I know my depression came to a big part from being rejected because I wasn't like everyone else, because I lived in my inner space.
And yes, that last point needs to be stressed. Mental illness is something one does suffer from. I mean, being depressed mixed with a dose of OC, and on bad days having thoughts intruding your mind that convince you that your dad will die, or you will go to hell, or having horrendous pictures intruding your mind that you can't stop, or being overcome by an anxiety that literally paralyses you... how can I put it... it SUCKS ASS ROYALLY.
But my point is, it makes it worse and absolutely embarrassing to know that these thoughts are stupid and irrational, and that people find it freaky and scary and bizarre, or just laughable. Half of what makes OCD so awful is because of the pressure of having to hide it so you don't embarrass yourself. It makes it worse, not just being anxious of what could happen if you don't do this or that, and knowing how retarded that is, but also being anxious about being treated as abnormal as soon as someone finds out.
Watch a film like "As good as it gets", and have tears in your eyes sensing the anguish the guy is going through, and then see everyone laugh at his compulsions. Know this is what people will do when they see you.
My point is that a lot of the illness is made worse, if not created, by the ways mentally ill are treated.
I wonder how bad mental illness would be for people if they weren't punished for it in one way or the other. In a way that makes me think twice about whether I should hit that submit button...
But you know what? If you think I am a lame whiny bitch because I spoke my mind here, fuck you. If you think this is funny you are an ignorant stupid arse, and let's see how you would cope, schmuck!
Submit.
I had known her for quite some time, but I had no idea.
She is another member of the Depressed R Us club.
In the past months, so many many people I know have come out as depressives. Once I started talking about it, everyone did. It felt like everyone was desperate to talk about it and get the weight off their back, and just waiting for someone to make a start.
And this is the crazy thing. All those people did not seem at all like they were. Mon - hell, she's a fiery Spanish cat. I knew she once had an eating disorder... but somehow it seems to be a more "acceptable" disorder, at least it is easier to talk about it, it seems. But depression... and OCD... they are so hidden sometimes. Mental illness sounds like a terrible thing to have, in terms of stigma... but once one is out in the open, a dam seems to burst, and people you never expected it from suddenly show up in the same boat as you. Mental illness is as common as colds, kid you not, more than you think. And suddenly it is not a freaky thing to have anymore... nothing to be ashamed of. And it is such a relief to talk about it. And it bonds.
This is one thing that helped me understand suffering in the big picture. Suffering, in my view, is not part of what God wants. It exists. But God can help turn it into something good and positive. Not that it is positive in itself. But one can get something positive out of it, and that is when you begin to heal.
Suffering teaches you compassion. It softens you for bonding. And bonding based on suffering is deep, because it touches the core of a human being.
Knowing that so many of my friends have similar problems makes me feel like I am less a freak than I thought. Dammit.
As my friend said yesterday: "It's good to know I am not going crazy."
"Hell yeah," I said. "Sometimes it makes me wonder whether my reactions aren't just normal. It's a fucked up world. Guess my responses should be fucked up cause if they weren't, that would make me really fucked up." Does that make sense? Heh.
She talked about her counselling session, and we had a good laugh, because her assessment was so like mine it was obvious it must have been the same person doing it.
"She actually got me furious", my friend said. "She was condescending and made all those assumptions."
"Based on the effin textbooks," I said. "Yeah. Rings a bell. She picks and chooses. If something matches her textbook definitions, she pays attention to that. The rest she just seems to ignore, even if it really matters to me. The way I see things doesn't seem to count. Hell, I may get locked up for something that doesn't even mean anything to me."
"Exactly," my friend said. "She kept telling me, 'You probably still haven't come to terms with being gay' and all that shit cliche stuff. And I kept saying that being gay is not an issue for me. I am fine with that. But she kept bringing it up. I swear, if I had had one more session with her, I would have knocked her out."
"I know", I said. "When I walked out, I actually felt ill. I really regretted having told her all this stuff. She made all those assumptions about me, too. Like when I mentioned that when I was 16, I tried to commit suicide, and she later asks me in response to something else I said: "So that is why you took the overdose?" I wanted to punch her. I NEVER said anything about overdoses, she just assumed that! I really don't want to know what she wrote into her file that I never said. How rude is that?"
The reason why that worries me and one of the reasons why it took me so long to get help (and I may just be paranoid) is that I don't know what kind of consequences this could have for me. In some countries you've got to be careful to mention the word suicide, or they may consider you a danger to yourself and lock you up. You may lose your rights. And that would be based on the warped assessment of a counsellor like this word-twisting bitch who treated me like an utter psycho. Some of my friends have been in psychiatric wards... it's not pretty. The worst is what it does to your record. Try to find a job with a history like that. Based on the unqualified assessment of a counselling robot like that.
Apart from that, it is humiliating to spill your guts to someone who so obviously doesn't give a fuck and doesn't know what the hell she is talking about.
Take this, for instance. One of my fears is that my dad may die. I have mentioned this before, and it's one of those things that haunt me. Four years have passed, and it is still no different. That night when my grandma rang me out of bed to tell me dad had nearly been killed in a car crash, something in me sort of petrified. I had rung him on his mobile at exactly the time it happened, and he didn't pick up, and I got pissed off about it. I had no idea that the reason he didn't pick up was because he was lying upside down in a crashed car, with his girlfriend dead next to him, and her little daughter on the verge of death, and my brother and her son being mash and mince. Something like that just doesn't occur to you.
I just was so happy at that time, things went so well in my life (ignoring that mother aborted me about 22 years too late), ever since I am scared to be happy because the Great Cosmic Balance may send the next catastrophe as soon as I hit a certain level of joy. Just to keep me on the carpet. I know that is nonsense, but I just can't help it.
Anyways, this was one of the things I told the counsellor at my assessment session. Guess what she responded.
"Well, you will have to accept that one day your father will die!"
Can you believe this?! That is NOT the FUCKING point!! I know he will. I can accept it when people die of old age. The point is that I don't want to be woken by a phone call again bringing me a message that shatters my world from one minute to the next. That this haunts me and terrifies me every time dad goes on a trip, that it makes me worried sick... abnormally sick.
I mean, you don't have to be an effin counsellor to know you just don't say what she said. Where is the fuckin counselling bit in saying: "Your dad will die, so deal with it, kid."
I wonder whether she ever got punched by anyone. If not, it is effin high time. What the hell is she thinking?
But my friend really assured me. Maybe I will get back to counselling now. My friend got a different counsellor, who apparently cares and is cool and really helpful, and I want the same. That old cow can kiss my ass. Get another job, woman!
Knowing that your friends understand is half the therapy. Knowing that you are not crazy, that you are not losing it, sometimes makes all the difference. Knowing that perhaps what you feel is quite normal, and that you should be worried if you didn't feel that way. What makes it so difficult is that you can't really say, "maybe I am normal and it's the rest of society that is sick".
But then there is this book I read called "Deviant Behaviour" by Stuart Palmer and John A. Humphrey. Have an excerpt and a cookie. Food for thought.
"R.D. Laing, a British psychiatrist, takes the position that those portrayed by society as the most seriously mentally ill, that is, abnormal, persons are actually the most normal. For Laing, societies that kill milions in war and deprive millions through economic politics have turned reality on its head, made the sane seem insane and the deranged normal. Inner space versus outer space and a certain form of highly informal political conflict explain this paradox. Inner space has to do with thought, imagination, dreaming, and so on. The person designated as mentally ill is, for Laing, acting in relation to his or her inner space while others are oriented to outer space, reality as we usually construe it. Thus, the person is seen as behaving inappropriately.
Yet inner space is where true self-expression, true mental breakthrough occurs, according to Laing. Those oriented to inner space may themselves be terrified of it. This is because the culture provides so few guidelines to it and condemns those who publicly express their preoccupation with it. In the politics of everyday life, especially in the family, individuals are singled out by others, often their family members, as troublesome. They retreat to inner space, are further condemned for it, and labelled as mentally ill or mad.
They become the scapegoat for the "normals". The latter satisfy their needs to aggress by perpetuating the illusion of madness in the former. This process can indeed occur. Yet there are many who suffer severely from mental illness which is the result of quite different factors." (p210-11, 1990, New York: Plenum Press).
People can be driven insane by simply making them believe they are insane. I know my depression came to a big part from being rejected because I wasn't like everyone else, because I lived in my inner space.
And yes, that last point needs to be stressed. Mental illness is something one does suffer from. I mean, being depressed mixed with a dose of OC, and on bad days having thoughts intruding your mind that convince you that your dad will die, or you will go to hell, or having horrendous pictures intruding your mind that you can't stop, or being overcome by an anxiety that literally paralyses you... how can I put it... it SUCKS ASS ROYALLY.
But my point is, it makes it worse and absolutely embarrassing to know that these thoughts are stupid and irrational, and that people find it freaky and scary and bizarre, or just laughable. Half of what makes OCD so awful is because of the pressure of having to hide it so you don't embarrass yourself. It makes it worse, not just being anxious of what could happen if you don't do this or that, and knowing how retarded that is, but also being anxious about being treated as abnormal as soon as someone finds out.
Watch a film like "As good as it gets", and have tears in your eyes sensing the anguish the guy is going through, and then see everyone laugh at his compulsions. Know this is what people will do when they see you.
My point is that a lot of the illness is made worse, if not created, by the ways mentally ill are treated.
I wonder how bad mental illness would be for people if they weren't punished for it in one way or the other. In a way that makes me think twice about whether I should hit that submit button...
But you know what? If you think I am a lame whiny bitch because I spoke my mind here, fuck you. If you think this is funny you are an ignorant stupid arse, and let's see how you would cope, schmuck!
Submit.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Paying it foward...
Wil, who has finally finished his second book - which I can't wait to get my hands on!!! - has finally set up the PayPal page which enables non-Americans to chip in a little to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's marathon he and his wife Anne will participate in in June.
For those of you who don't know the story, Anne's friend Kris who is a mother and wife and apparently a wicked awesome person, was diagnosed with Leukemia and undergoes treatment right now.
Wil has already raised about $18,000 to help fund cancer research, but his goal is $25,000.
Wil and Anne have done this before, when they participated in the Avon 3 Day Breast Cancer Walk, where they managed to raise around $17,000. I totally admire them for their kindness and effort and social conscience.
Wil's site has really helped me in the past years to get my head out of my arse, motivate and inspire me.
I have found many friends on that site, including Milla and Mike, and incredible support, and it has taught me a lot. In fact, if it weren't for the amazing people on this site, I wouldn't have started the antidepressants, which have literally given me my life back. I really want to give something back now. It's a way to be part of something bigger, and to break out of the powerlessness of being an individual...to actually make a difference...
I don't want to guilt-trip anyone into anything, but if you find it in your heart to even just contribute a pound or so, that would be wicked. Even little makes a huge difference. Dad and me will definitely throw in some money.
Thank you people! xxx
For those of you who don't know the story, Anne's friend Kris who is a mother and wife and apparently a wicked awesome person, was diagnosed with Leukemia and undergoes treatment right now.
Wil has already raised about $18,000 to help fund cancer research, but his goal is $25,000.
Wil and Anne have done this before, when they participated in the Avon 3 Day Breast Cancer Walk, where they managed to raise around $17,000. I totally admire them for their kindness and effort and social conscience.
Wil's site has really helped me in the past years to get my head out of my arse, motivate and inspire me.
I have found many friends on that site, including Milla and Mike, and incredible support, and it has taught me a lot. In fact, if it weren't for the amazing people on this site, I wouldn't have started the antidepressants, which have literally given me my life back. I really want to give something back now. It's a way to be part of something bigger, and to break out of the powerlessness of being an individual...to actually make a difference...
I don't want to guilt-trip anyone into anything, but if you find it in your heart to even just contribute a pound or so, that would be wicked. Even little makes a huge difference. Dad and me will definitely throw in some money.
Thank you people! xxx
Catch my breath
Ah, I am sorry I haven't posted in a while. Just been running around in small circles, doing the headless chicken. Well, not that way, sicko. ;)
This morning, I have finally finished off my research report. About bloody time, cos I gotta hand it in tomorrow. Well, today actually, cos as soon as I have bound it, I will hand in the fucker. :) It was amazingly interesting and valuable to me... but I hope I can convince Sue of its value, cos she is giving me the mark for it. I just found so much that I had wanted to put in, and I find word limits so bloody annoying cos they amputate all my work's limbs, kinda. I dunno why the hell I want to get into editing and publishing, cos I suck at it.
These next weeks will be incredibly busy. I have to finish off my writing file for wicked Bob, my lecturer... you know, when I like teachers, I really don't want to disappoint them, it's like screwing up is an insult to them. I know, I'm such a nerd. Heh.
Then exams are looming around the corner, and I haven't even started revision yet.
So many cool things have happened, there are a million drafts I can't work on until after exams, it is frustrating to have to put it aside.
So please don't abandon me... stuff will be coming :).
On Tuesday, I have met my first WWDN monkey, Mike from London. He came down for a meeting at the arts institute, which is next to my uni, and we had some coffee and booze together and chatted. Mike is really really cool and fun, and totally reminds me of Zac, I dunno why, and I will talk about it more when I got some time to write. By then I will probably have pictures, as well. :)
\m/ Mike \m/ :D
This morning, I have finally finished off my research report. About bloody time, cos I gotta hand it in tomorrow. Well, today actually, cos as soon as I have bound it, I will hand in the fucker. :) It was amazingly interesting and valuable to me... but I hope I can convince Sue of its value, cos she is giving me the mark for it. I just found so much that I had wanted to put in, and I find word limits so bloody annoying cos they amputate all my work's limbs, kinda. I dunno why the hell I want to get into editing and publishing, cos I suck at it.
These next weeks will be incredibly busy. I have to finish off my writing file for wicked Bob, my lecturer... you know, when I like teachers, I really don't want to disappoint them, it's like screwing up is an insult to them. I know, I'm such a nerd. Heh.
Then exams are looming around the corner, and I haven't even started revision yet.
So many cool things have happened, there are a million drafts I can't work on until after exams, it is frustrating to have to put it aside.
So please don't abandon me... stuff will be coming :).
On Tuesday, I have met my first WWDN monkey, Mike from London. He came down for a meeting at the arts institute, which is next to my uni, and we had some coffee and booze together and chatted. Mike is really really cool and fun, and totally reminds me of Zac, I dunno why, and I will talk about it more when I got some time to write. By then I will probably have pictures, as well. :)
\m/ Mike \m/ :D
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Bestest Birthday. Ever.
Big talk about birthdays today. Which reminded me that I still haven't posted about my birthday, which was simply amazing. I have emailed a few of you about it, but I wanted to write up this post especially nice cause it meant so much to me, and I wanted to include pictures and everything, and well, I didn't get half of those pictures until the other day.
My birthday was February 23rd. Just mention it for the timeline, not to send anyone on guilt trips ;). I usually don't make a big fuss about it. Just downhill from now on ;). Even my bloody clock stopped ticking.
I have to mention, Dom, my ex-boyfriend (we still share a house, but we are good friends, so that is ok), is a big sweetheart. I just never understood what he saw in me, he is just too sweet and kind for this world. I did not make a big fuss about my birthday... but hell, did he!!!
And he did this year in a way that made me - and everyone else - GAPE. I still can't believe all this happened :).
It started like this. In the evening of my birthday, we had arranged a little get-together including Damien, my friend Esther, my other housemates and me. I made a cake, and stuff, and we had wine, and it was all gonna be cosy and quiet. Esther gave me some lovely gifts.
And then Damien came in, with his hands behind his back. Then he brought one forward, holding a gift. You gotta know, since we're not going out anymore, I really hadn't expected him to make a big deal.
So I unwrap it... and it was a cow mug!! Me: YAAAAY!!! There is this strange 'semi-fetish' I have with cows, which is another story and will be told another time, and I am obsessed with coffee, so that was really cool.
But that wasn't all.
He brought the other hand forward. A card. A card that had all our little insider jokes and little cartoons written and drawn in it. It's one of those cards I will never chuck out cos it's so cool.
But... that wasn't all.
A CD. Placebo's "Sleeping with Ghosts". I hopped in neat little squares!!! I love Placebo so much - Brian Molko is so deliciously androgynous and dysfunctional... he is my madness' voice. His voice goes to my bones. "Black Market Music" is my all time favourite, and the new album comes with a CD with cover songs, which got GOOSEBUMP FACTOR. They sing The Pixies' "Where is my mind", Depeche Mode's "I feel you" and that 80s song "Running up that hill", which is stunningly intense and beautiful.
So Dom says: "Open it!", so I do.
I thought I was hallucinating.
2 tickets to Placebo in London's Brixton Academy, which was on 02 March. I FLIPPED!!!
I mean, a Placebo concert!!!!!
But that wasn't all... except that I had no idea.
Because the concert stopped so late, it would have been difficult to take a bus back to Bournemouth, so Dom told me, we were gonna stay with a mate of his in Clapham somewhere.
First I was a bit suspicious, cos one of my mates lives there as well, but I just brushed it off, cause Dom had just met him once and didn't have any of my mates' phone numbers.
Anyway, we took the coach to London - Esther came as well!!! - , and Dom wanted to go straight to his mate's house to drop off our bags. He had a hand-drawn map to find the place, but we walked around for a good 45 mins, battling our way through the tube system which I find utterly confusing, so I was lost after five minutes and just followed Dom like a sheep... until we found the place.
Clapham is beautiful. I can't say why exactly, it just has a nice atmosphere that I feel home in. Have you ever noticed how being in a certain place can influence your self-concept? I guess just depending on whether one feels like one fits in there... and Bournemouth, pretty as it is, I don't fit in, really. Too much about cliques and fashion... Esther, who has lived in Southern California before, called it Little Hollywood. It's all about looks and following the latest fashion, and trying to look like Posh and Beckham here... and getting laid in the most bizarre ways and places. This is just Bournemouth, really... the rest of Dorset is quite different. London is big enough to give you a niche, and to provide a bigger variety of people - you will just find your circle of friends, some kindred souls, there, no matter what you are like. And it gives you the anonymity to be what you like. I'm just a big city kid... this is what I am used to. So Clapham gave me that feeling of allowing me to be myself.
But I digress.
We wandered about for ages, and the concert's start was getting awfully close. But when we arrived at Dom's friend's house, no one was in.
So Dom hid the bag under a bush in the front yard, behind the wall that fenced it off. By that time it was dark, and it was pretty much invisible, and we headed back to the tube.
The concert had started already (at least the support bands), and we had to run. We went two stops, then Dom said it would probably be easier and quicker if we got the bus. By that time I was so worn out from the running, and being lost, I had no idea where we were and where we were going, so I just followed him. I just kept getting frustrated cos there were tons of bus stops, and he just would walk past them. Imagine me just pointing confusedly, then shrugging and wandering on.
Then he rang someone, to get directions, and made a u-turn, and walked back up the way we had come. By that time, I was really really frustrated.
Suddenly he points to a door of a restaurant. "After you!", he says.
I am now TOTALLY confused. Restaurant? Why?? The concert has started. What the hell?
So I walk in. It wasn't very busy in there, I saw a few people on a few table, one group slightly bigger than the others, and all of them looked in our direction as we came in. Thing is, my eyesight is mildly blurred sometimes, so I couldn't see well. So I stare at this group, and blink... and suddenly I recognise faces.
On that table sat old friends of mine, some of whom I had not seen in 4 years, none of them at least in one year, and even some I had gotten out of touch with, because all of us have moved so much.
There was Zac and Debbie, and John Barker, and Rachel, and Marianne!!!! They all grinned at me, and I broke out screaming.
See, I just didn't get it. It never occurred to me that Dom had organised this, cause I thought he had none of their numbers.
As it turned out, one evening when I was in the bathtub, Dom had sneaked in my room and nicked my address book ("you really need to update some numbers," he said to me, grinning). Together with my friend Zac he had organised the whole thing for the previous month.
Then Zac said: "Do you know whose house you were at earlier?"
Me: ??????
Zac: "That was mine. I just moved there last October." (no wonder I didn't recognise it!)
Right, there I was in a London restaurant, practically losing my mind. Things started clicking and falling into place.Esther, who knew about this, had nearly accidentally told on it, when she said that we would stay with one of my friends, and I was confused as I had never asked Zac, so I brushed it off as a misunderstanding. I was DELIRIOUS with happiness. I love my friends so much I wish I could see them more often, and I never get to because I am so busy.
But that wasn't all. Yeah, I know. :)
It turns out Dom had gotten tickets to the concert for all of my mates as well, and we would all go together!!!!!
But that wasn't all.
At one point Zac pointed to the door, and I saw Adam, another friend of mine walk in. I really hadn't expected that, cause he doesn't even live in London. I dunno how often I squealed that evening, freaking other customers out, cos the surprises just kept coming in.
But that wasn't all. After we had all eaten, and caught up, the lights flickered strangely, and then went out. I was like, huh?
And suddenly the staff appeared with a birthday cake, and the whole restaurant sang Happy Birthday. Seriously, I was on the verge of tears! I had never had anyone make such a fuss about my birthday. I couldn't believe it.
Not only that, but the cake was a Berlin Wall cake, that Dom had created from spongecake and Belgian waffles, and I got to bring the whole thing down again.
After that, we went to the concert, got there just in time when Placebo started playing, easily found Esther, my other friend who had gotten there earlier, and had a fantastic night!!!
The concert was amazing, and it was even better because all my friends were there.
But the fun hadn't ended after that. We went to John's house for tea, and then returned to Zac's house. Except that Zac's house was not the house we had been at... and where we had hidden our bag.
We: "Oh my god!! We're gonna spend the rest of the night searching Clapham's dark front gardens for a bag." Funny enough, we found the house one street further... were the same house numbers, just one street off, and the bag was still there.
I was totally wrecked ... but I can say easily it was the best birthday I have ever had. I still cannot believe that happened, seeing all my friends. And I am so grateful. I never thought that anyone cared that much...
So this is to you Dom, and everyone who helped make it happen: THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!
YOU ARE WONDERFUL!!!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!! *HUGS*
And thanks so much to Vicky from the Soapbox, who went to the same concert a day earlier and sent me pics she took, because my camera failed me in there...
Ah, and just to mention it: Dom and Damien are the same person. I just keep forgetting that no one really knows that except a few people.
My birthday was February 23rd. Just mention it for the timeline, not to send anyone on guilt trips ;). I usually don't make a big fuss about it. Just downhill from now on ;). Even my bloody clock stopped ticking.
I have to mention, Dom, my ex-boyfriend (we still share a house, but we are good friends, so that is ok), is a big sweetheart. I just never understood what he saw in me, he is just too sweet and kind for this world. I did not make a big fuss about my birthday... but hell, did he!!!
And he did this year in a way that made me - and everyone else - GAPE. I still can't believe all this happened :).
It started like this. In the evening of my birthday, we had arranged a little get-together including Damien, my friend Esther, my other housemates and me. I made a cake, and stuff, and we had wine, and it was all gonna be cosy and quiet. Esther gave me some lovely gifts.
And then Damien came in, with his hands behind his back. Then he brought one forward, holding a gift. You gotta know, since we're not going out anymore, I really hadn't expected him to make a big deal.
So I unwrap it... and it was a cow mug!! Me: YAAAAY!!! There is this strange 'semi-fetish' I have with cows, which is another story and will be told another time, and I am obsessed with coffee, so that was really cool.
But that wasn't all.
He brought the other hand forward. A card. A card that had all our little insider jokes and little cartoons written and drawn in it. It's one of those cards I will never chuck out cos it's so cool.
But... that wasn't all.
A CD. Placebo's "Sleeping with Ghosts". I hopped in neat little squares!!! I love Placebo so much - Brian Molko is so deliciously androgynous and dysfunctional... he is my madness' voice. His voice goes to my bones. "Black Market Music" is my all time favourite, and the new album comes with a CD with cover songs, which got GOOSEBUMP FACTOR. They sing The Pixies' "Where is my mind", Depeche Mode's "I feel you" and that 80s song "Running up that hill", which is stunningly intense and beautiful.
So Dom says: "Open it!", so I do.
I thought I was hallucinating.
2 tickets to Placebo in London's Brixton Academy, which was on 02 March. I FLIPPED!!!
I mean, a Placebo concert!!!!!
But that wasn't all... except that I had no idea.
Because the concert stopped so late, it would have been difficult to take a bus back to Bournemouth, so Dom told me, we were gonna stay with a mate of his in Clapham somewhere.
First I was a bit suspicious, cos one of my mates lives there as well, but I just brushed it off, cause Dom had just met him once and didn't have any of my mates' phone numbers.
Anyway, we took the coach to London - Esther came as well!!! - , and Dom wanted to go straight to his mate's house to drop off our bags. He had a hand-drawn map to find the place, but we walked around for a good 45 mins, battling our way through the tube system which I find utterly confusing, so I was lost after five minutes and just followed Dom like a sheep... until we found the place.
Clapham is beautiful. I can't say why exactly, it just has a nice atmosphere that I feel home in. Have you ever noticed how being in a certain place can influence your self-concept? I guess just depending on whether one feels like one fits in there... and Bournemouth, pretty as it is, I don't fit in, really. Too much about cliques and fashion... Esther, who has lived in Southern California before, called it Little Hollywood. It's all about looks and following the latest fashion, and trying to look like Posh and Beckham here... and getting laid in the most bizarre ways and places. This is just Bournemouth, really... the rest of Dorset is quite different. London is big enough to give you a niche, and to provide a bigger variety of people - you will just find your circle of friends, some kindred souls, there, no matter what you are like. And it gives you the anonymity to be what you like. I'm just a big city kid... this is what I am used to. So Clapham gave me that feeling of allowing me to be myself.
But I digress.
We wandered about for ages, and the concert's start was getting awfully close. But when we arrived at Dom's friend's house, no one was in.
So Dom hid the bag under a bush in the front yard, behind the wall that fenced it off. By that time it was dark, and it was pretty much invisible, and we headed back to the tube.
The concert had started already (at least the support bands), and we had to run. We went two stops, then Dom said it would probably be easier and quicker if we got the bus. By that time I was so worn out from the running, and being lost, I had no idea where we were and where we were going, so I just followed him. I just kept getting frustrated cos there were tons of bus stops, and he just would walk past them. Imagine me just pointing confusedly, then shrugging and wandering on.
Then he rang someone, to get directions, and made a u-turn, and walked back up the way we had come. By that time, I was really really frustrated.
Suddenly he points to a door of a restaurant. "After you!", he says.
I am now TOTALLY confused. Restaurant? Why?? The concert has started. What the hell?
So I walk in. It wasn't very busy in there, I saw a few people on a few table, one group slightly bigger than the others, and all of them looked in our direction as we came in. Thing is, my eyesight is mildly blurred sometimes, so I couldn't see well. So I stare at this group, and blink... and suddenly I recognise faces.
On that table sat old friends of mine, some of whom I had not seen in 4 years, none of them at least in one year, and even some I had gotten out of touch with, because all of us have moved so much.
There was Zac and Debbie, and John Barker, and Rachel, and Marianne!!!! They all grinned at me, and I broke out screaming.
See, I just didn't get it. It never occurred to me that Dom had organised this, cause I thought he had none of their numbers.
As it turned out, one evening when I was in the bathtub, Dom had sneaked in my room and nicked my address book ("you really need to update some numbers," he said to me, grinning). Together with my friend Zac he had organised the whole thing for the previous month.
Then Zac said: "Do you know whose house you were at earlier?"
Me: ??????
Zac: "That was mine. I just moved there last October." (no wonder I didn't recognise it!)
Right, there I was in a London restaurant, practically losing my mind. Things started clicking and falling into place.Esther, who knew about this, had nearly accidentally told on it, when she said that we would stay with one of my friends, and I was confused as I had never asked Zac, so I brushed it off as a misunderstanding. I was DELIRIOUS with happiness. I love my friends so much I wish I could see them more often, and I never get to because I am so busy.
But that wasn't all. Yeah, I know. :)
It turns out Dom had gotten tickets to the concert for all of my mates as well, and we would all go together!!!!!
But that wasn't all.
At one point Zac pointed to the door, and I saw Adam, another friend of mine walk in. I really hadn't expected that, cause he doesn't even live in London. I dunno how often I squealed that evening, freaking other customers out, cos the surprises just kept coming in.
But that wasn't all. After we had all eaten, and caught up, the lights flickered strangely, and then went out. I was like, huh?
And suddenly the staff appeared with a birthday cake, and the whole restaurant sang Happy Birthday. Seriously, I was on the verge of tears! I had never had anyone make such a fuss about my birthday. I couldn't believe it.
Not only that, but the cake was a Berlin Wall cake, that Dom had created from spongecake and Belgian waffles, and I got to bring the whole thing down again.
After that, we went to the concert, got there just in time when Placebo started playing, easily found Esther, my other friend who had gotten there earlier, and had a fantastic night!!!
The concert was amazing, and it was even better because all my friends were there.
But the fun hadn't ended after that. We went to John's house for tea, and then returned to Zac's house. Except that Zac's house was not the house we had been at... and where we had hidden our bag.
We: "Oh my god!! We're gonna spend the rest of the night searching Clapham's dark front gardens for a bag." Funny enough, we found the house one street further... were the same house numbers, just one street off, and the bag was still there.
I was totally wrecked ... but I can say easily it was the best birthday I have ever had. I still cannot believe that happened, seeing all my friends. And I am so grateful. I never thought that anyone cared that much...
So this is to you Dom, and everyone who helped make it happen: THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!
YOU ARE WONDERFUL!!!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!! *HUGS*
And thanks so much to Vicky from the Soapbox, who went to the same concert a day earlier and sent me pics she took, because my camera failed me in there...
Ah, and just to mention it: Dom and Damien are the same person. I just keep forgetting that no one really knows that except a few people.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Two of the most awesome people I know have their birthday today.
Happy Birthday Andi !!!!!!
World, meet Andi. Andi is an astonishing lad with a heart of gold and a smile that can brighten up your world - and most of all, he is an amazing musician. I have just spent a few hours of my life with him, but he has taught me more in those few hours about what matters in life and how to be a good person (without even saying anything) than many others have taught me in years. Andi's got a serene, beautiful soul that is old and young at the same time.
If you ever get to meet him (and I hope you do!), you will know what I mean.
Happy Birthday Demelza!!!!
World, meet Demelza (the one in pink). Demelza is one of my best girl friends. We met in Texas when we worked as au pairs in the same neighborhood. Demelza is beautiful inside and out, and we spent the greatest times together. I rarely see her because we are both so busy, but she really really means a lot to me.
Her family is just the most wholesome and sweetest bunch in the world, and she lives in a paradise, in the most picturesque English village.
Hugs to you guys. :)
Happy Birthday Andi !!!!!!
World, meet Andi. Andi is an astonishing lad with a heart of gold and a smile that can brighten up your world - and most of all, he is an amazing musician. I have just spent a few hours of my life with him, but he has taught me more in those few hours about what matters in life and how to be a good person (without even saying anything) than many others have taught me in years. Andi's got a serene, beautiful soul that is old and young at the same time.
If you ever get to meet him (and I hope you do!), you will know what I mean.
Happy Birthday Demelza!!!!
World, meet Demelza (the one in pink). Demelza is one of my best girl friends. We met in Texas when we worked as au pairs in the same neighborhood. Demelza is beautiful inside and out, and we spent the greatest times together. I rarely see her because we are both so busy, but she really really means a lot to me.
Her family is just the most wholesome and sweetest bunch in the world, and she lives in a paradise, in the most picturesque English village.
Hugs to you guys. :)
Monday, April 19, 2004
Feels like home
My room's got the nickname of "The Cupboard under the Stairs". It's not under the stairs, but it is a closet. At least it used to be, before it got extended enough to fit a bed and a wardrobe in here.
It's got shelves on one wall, one big and low enough to serve as a desk, and my bed is my chair at the same time. The tiny window faces a red brick wall, belonging to the neighbor's house (my dad's first comment was "hey, great view").
Several people asked me why I didn't move out when I had the chance. And why I am not moving out next year.
Well, there is a simple economical reason: the rent is low. And the advantage of having a small room is that one does not accumulate "stuff" - something I am particularly good at (or bad at?). I swear I will be one of those trash ladies one day... I just can't throw anything away, because everything tells a story. And one day when I will have to move, the stuff will just be a bitch to drag along.
But really, the thing is, it's my home now, kind of, and I need that. It's familiar and lived in the way a worn old shoe fits perfectly, and things are familiar and have a kind of consistency that makes me feel safe, that makes me feel like I have roots, somehow. I have moved so much in the past years, I miss having a place that is my "own".
When I look up, out of my window, I see the neighbor's roof and a chimney, and I swear, almost every morning I see the same starling, sitting up on the chimney, shouting, its little throat vibrating.
I love starlings. Their shouts remind me of being in my grandma's village when I was about 5, in the summer, when childhood made everything seem magical. The starlings were shouting especially after the rain, when the air smelled earthy, of wet dust.
My room is decorated with fairy lights, and a mirror, and a picture of John Everett Millais' Ophelia, which was inspired by my favourite passage in Shakespeare's Hamlet. The pre-Raphaelites with all their romantic cheesiness are my favourites. :)
A picture of my dad kneeling behind a Mexican cactus is in my window, and over my "desk" there are pictures of my uncle and aunt, my cousins, the triplets and a picture of my Dallas family that was taken in 1999 when we were at their family reunion at the Texan Gulf coast. It's one of my most treasured memories. I am surrounded by everything that I love.
The sun creeps over the neighbor's roof and falls onto my pootie, all warm and friendly, promising a summer which is not too far off... just behind the hurdle of another month and exams.
The other day I went and bought daffodils, and they stand in my window now like an explosion of tiny transparent glowing suns, having their heads caressed by their mother who is warming my right ear and my shoulder right now. I'm slurping my first coffee from my SouthPark Timmy mug, still in what I call my Victorian nightgown. Simon and Garfunkel sing "Scarborough Fair", and I feel incredibly at peace...
Sorry... this must have been a meaningless, pointless post to you guys. Hella boring. It's one of those things that carry a meaning that is so personal that it can't be communicated.
It's got shelves on one wall, one big and low enough to serve as a desk, and my bed is my chair at the same time. The tiny window faces a red brick wall, belonging to the neighbor's house (my dad's first comment was "hey, great view").
Several people asked me why I didn't move out when I had the chance. And why I am not moving out next year.
Well, there is a simple economical reason: the rent is low. And the advantage of having a small room is that one does not accumulate "stuff" - something I am particularly good at (or bad at?). I swear I will be one of those trash ladies one day... I just can't throw anything away, because everything tells a story. And one day when I will have to move, the stuff will just be a bitch to drag along.
But really, the thing is, it's my home now, kind of, and I need that. It's familiar and lived in the way a worn old shoe fits perfectly, and things are familiar and have a kind of consistency that makes me feel safe, that makes me feel like I have roots, somehow. I have moved so much in the past years, I miss having a place that is my "own".
When I look up, out of my window, I see the neighbor's roof and a chimney, and I swear, almost every morning I see the same starling, sitting up on the chimney, shouting, its little throat vibrating.
I love starlings. Their shouts remind me of being in my grandma's village when I was about 5, in the summer, when childhood made everything seem magical. The starlings were shouting especially after the rain, when the air smelled earthy, of wet dust.
My room is decorated with fairy lights, and a mirror, and a picture of John Everett Millais' Ophelia, which was inspired by my favourite passage in Shakespeare's Hamlet. The pre-Raphaelites with all their romantic cheesiness are my favourites. :)
A picture of my dad kneeling behind a Mexican cactus is in my window, and over my "desk" there are pictures of my uncle and aunt, my cousins, the triplets and a picture of my Dallas family that was taken in 1999 when we were at their family reunion at the Texan Gulf coast. It's one of my most treasured memories. I am surrounded by everything that I love.
The sun creeps over the neighbor's roof and falls onto my pootie, all warm and friendly, promising a summer which is not too far off... just behind the hurdle of another month and exams.
The other day I went and bought daffodils, and they stand in my window now like an explosion of tiny transparent glowing suns, having their heads caressed by their mother who is warming my right ear and my shoulder right now. I'm slurping my first coffee from my SouthPark Timmy mug, still in what I call my Victorian nightgown. Simon and Garfunkel sing "Scarborough Fair", and I feel incredibly at peace...
Sorry... this must have been a meaningless, pointless post to you guys. Hella boring. It's one of those things that carry a meaning that is so personal that it can't be communicated.
Saturday, April 17, 2004
Life accumulates
You know how it is, right? Whenever you are the busiest, have the biggest pressures, important commitments, the whole works, it is exactly when you become the most creative and just want to do other things than the things you really really should be doing.
I have two major deadlines coming up soon, and exams (and the attached massive revision), so I dunno how much I can post here in the next few weeks, but right now I have so many drafts saved it's not funny. I've got so many stories to tell, and Wilster just having finished his second book really really got me enthusiastic about writing... I gotta practically bar this site to keep me from distracting myself.
So make sure you check back once in a while (that is, if I haven't bored you to death yet), because as soon as I put it all behind me... oh boy.
...
Ah, who am I kidding. Knowing my discipline, you will probably find an extensive post tomorrow.
I have two major deadlines coming up soon, and exams (and the attached massive revision), so I dunno how much I can post here in the next few weeks, but right now I have so many drafts saved it's not funny. I've got so many stories to tell, and Wilster just having finished his second book really really got me enthusiastic about writing... I gotta practically bar this site to keep me from distracting myself.
So make sure you check back once in a while (that is, if I haven't bored you to death yet), because as soon as I put it all behind me... oh boy.
...
Ah, who am I kidding. Knowing my discipline, you will probably find an extensive post tomorrow.
Friday, April 16, 2004
Euro Embarrassment
I don't even know if I should post this, because this is just too...dodgy. But have any of you guys ever noticed the weirdness in the Euro design? I mean, what were the designers thinking????????
Either they were so innocent that they didn't notice, or they hated the Euro so much and that they had to participate in its creation that they implanted their disrespect.
Check out Scandinavia.
Milla and I spent an hour last night reading from the coin. Then I went to confession.
That is all.
Either they were so innocent that they didn't notice, or they hated the Euro so much and that they had to participate in its creation that they implanted their disrespect.
Check out Scandinavia.
Milla and I spent an hour last night reading from the coin. Then I went to confession.
That is all.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Update on The Passion
There is a good debate thread on WWDN's Soapbox about The Passion. Any Reception Studies expert would be ecstatic in there. I read what people had to say, and I thought I update my post on The Passion (I think it was 3/27). I changed the text a little and added thoughts here and there, so if you are interested, check it out. :)
Monday, April 12, 2004
The Grinch who stole Easter... and what returned it
Work this Easter weekend was manic.
Jim and I had a talk the other day about how working in the service industry tells you all you need to know about mankind, and most of it is not pretty. We had a mild debate about whether it disproves evolution or not. I said it does, but Jim had a point when he said on days like this it was pretty clear that we stem from monkeys. Again, I argued against that, because I have seen monkeys that were better behaved than some of the customers we get.
Yeah, I have posted about this before. I know, boring schmoring loring. Why haven't you changed the channel yet.
But that's the only way you can stay sane in that business. Laugh and rant. Respect to those only who deserve it. Develop techniques to deal with the frustration. Russ gets overfriendly... it's his way of taking the piss. Clive does his [cough]LOSER[/cough] thing. I think I just ignore rude people by now. Or I speak my mind without speaking directly to them. Just making sure that they know what a bunch of rude idiots they are. That may not be the best way, but it saves me from stomach ulcers. I mean, I don't get paid much and I don't mind the work I have to do for it, cos really, I love my job. But I am not getting paid enough to take shit from people, especially when it's not justified. I mean, we are all grown-ups, but cafe customers have a tendency to turn into a bloody kindergarten sometimes.
The service industry can be rewarding, no doubt. Some of our customers are really really sweet, and I love sometimes, when time allows, to sit down with some of them and chat or joke around, or make their stuff extra nice, or fool around with the kids, and on days like that I really really really enjoy my job. I mean, in the end, you, the customer, and me, the waitress, are both trying to walk out of this place, happy with each other, right?
We have our regulars that are just adorable. There is Sue. Sue is... how to put it politically correctly... mildly "mentally disabled". I guess her age at about the late 20s, early 30s, but she seems kind of in the mind of a 12-year-old. Which, honestly, can be a bloody good thing. She has the sense of wonder and appreciation of a kid that I envy her for, and the reason why I hesitated to use the word 'disabled' is because she just...isn't. She doesn't seem to suffer from it, and while she may not be able to do some things, she is bloody good at the stuff she can do. Sue is a cupcake. With icing and sugar hearts sprinkled on top. She knows everyone's name and always asks us how we are doing, and she always orders a large coke, "filled right up to the top". She is kind of part of the café. Sometimes she brings in her photo album. She has a digital camera and takes pictures of the boats in Poole Harbor and at the pier.
She is infatuated with them. And then she prints them out and shows them to us, and I tell ya, that girl has TALENT.
Then there is one of the guys who scans the beach for coins with a metal detector, who always comes and orders "a softie [ice cream], please!" with a big smile. And some tourists who I sometimes ask for their accents, and we get into a nice chat.
Or some old chaps who impart some wisdom on me. Can't top that.
And the beach staff - the lifeguards, the deck chair fellas, the delivery guys, the train drivers... it's our own little beach community out here, it's really cool.
But then there are other people. "It's weekend, so hey, let's turn off our brains and our manners and just torture some of the idiots that have to work today. And we can insult them and ridicule them and treat them like subhumans, because they can't say anything back without risking to lose their jobs!"
You have families who leave their table like a pig sty - what am I saying, like they had their own private nuclear war! - whinge at everything, let their kids go absolutely bananas (misbehaved is an understatement). Some people bring in their own food and leave the trash for us to clear up, how rude is that? I mean, I really don't mind people bringing their own stuff if we don't have it and they have particular needs. A Jewish guy once politely asked me if we minded that they ate their own food cos ours is not kosher, and just had drinks. I mean, I am not kicking them out for that, you know, that's cool with me.
You have people that were told there is a 20 min wait on any food because we have a gazillion orders and a tiny kitchen, and they agree and order food, but they come back after 5 minutes, complaining that they have to wait!Hmph! Why do you have to wait for your stuff? Well, look around you!! It's packed. About a million people were here first... why do you think you get any special treatment???
I am really tempted sometimes to just raise my voice, ask for a moment of silence and then ask all the customers who have been waiting longer than Mr Whinger whether they would mind if we served him first, because he is of the opinion we should.
And then just lean back with a satisfied smile, watching the mob rip him to shreds.
You have customers that walk off to the beach somewhere and expect us to find them there and serve them. WTF???
And then you have tourists who think they can diss you in their own language cos they are sure you can't understand. They don't realise how much of a shot in the foot that is when a lot of the staff is international. Mon is Spanish, Manue is French. Sanna is Finnish, but fools everyone with her Irish accent. I'm German, and most people think I'm American. So yesterday we had this bunch of Germans sitting outside. It was a really busy day, and we were literally running and doing our best, and it was fairly obvious that if the place is packed, they will have to wait for their food. You'd think, at least. I mean, they are told before they order. It's not that we're trying to piss people off on purpose. So there they sit while I'm clearing tables, and sneer in German that their buddy should just "take it and hit her in the face with it" or something, referring to some staff member. Usually I enjoy pretending that I don't understand just so I can listen to their uninhibited-because-they-think-no-one-understands-them chatter. But yesterday I turned around to the guy and told him in clear German that it must be bloody embarrassing to say such stuff and then finding out people can actually understand him. He stared at me like I had caught him with his trousers down and then muttered something, pretending not to care. It was a glorious moment.
Then you have people who feed the pigeons even though we have signs everywhere asking them not to do that because they are so bloody filthy. The pigeons, not the customers. Well - Ok, that can be confused. But no, "the kids love doing it! What's your problem?"
Well yes, ma'am. Your kids would also love to poo in the gutter, or throw rocks, does that mean you let them do it?
Our problem is less the pigeons than the same customers who feed them and then complain that the pigeons are jumping on their plates. Or get pissed off that them birds get tame and raid the empty neighbor table for food leftovers, then suddenly remembering how unhygienic they are - while they let their kids put pigeon feathers in their mouths. (I got a juicy salmonella infection from playing with that stuff when I was a kid, and it nearly wiped me out. And warnings back then about what you can catch from pigeons were not that common... but that's different today. The warning signs all over Bournemouth give you a jolly list of diseases... and you'd think some people read those things and learn. LISTEN AND LEARN. It's like bloody pre-school wasted on them.)
And not to forget the customers who get downright personally abusive. But let's not go there.
But the thing is, I still love my job. Cos our team is great, and fun, and I guess you get shit in any job, really.
But there are few jobs where, when going to work, you see the sun is rising over the sea, and the tide is out and the beach at peace and the sea is like a lightly rippled mirror... or wild and ridden by surfers who don't mind any weather. And every day it has a different colour. Gray, cold blue, green glassy marmor, and a beam of sun breaking through the clouds in the distance turns the horizon into a shining silver streak. Or the sky is an angry stormy purple-blue while the sinking sun makes the pier glow against it. Or green-purplish thunderstorms whip the sea, and lightning hits the water, and then drifts off to haunt the other end of the bay with shredded, misty clouds while our end lights up in beautiful wet post-t-storm sunlight. Or a summery haze envelops the pier, making the sea look like a timeless glowing mystery, like the end of the world.
What other job could possibly give me that satisfaction?
And no to forget, the coffee is free. Dude. Can't get better than that.
Update:
KungFuBarbie on the Soapbox just mentioned this quote from the movie "Clerks", and it will be my quote of the day:
"This job would be great if it weren't for the fucking customers" - Randall
:lol:
I guess I have a new item on my To Watch List.
Jim and I had a talk the other day about how working in the service industry tells you all you need to know about mankind, and most of it is not pretty. We had a mild debate about whether it disproves evolution or not. I said it does, but Jim had a point when he said on days like this it was pretty clear that we stem from monkeys. Again, I argued against that, because I have seen monkeys that were better behaved than some of the customers we get.
Yeah, I have posted about this before. I know, boring schmoring loring. Why haven't you changed the channel yet.
But that's the only way you can stay sane in that business. Laugh and rant. Respect to those only who deserve it. Develop techniques to deal with the frustration. Russ gets overfriendly... it's his way of taking the piss. Clive does his [cough]LOSER[/cough] thing. I think I just ignore rude people by now. Or I speak my mind without speaking directly to them. Just making sure that they know what a bunch of rude idiots they are. That may not be the best way, but it saves me from stomach ulcers. I mean, I don't get paid much and I don't mind the work I have to do for it, cos really, I love my job. But I am not getting paid enough to take shit from people, especially when it's not justified. I mean, we are all grown-ups, but cafe customers have a tendency to turn into a bloody kindergarten sometimes.
The service industry can be rewarding, no doubt. Some of our customers are really really sweet, and I love sometimes, when time allows, to sit down with some of them and chat or joke around, or make their stuff extra nice, or fool around with the kids, and on days like that I really really really enjoy my job. I mean, in the end, you, the customer, and me, the waitress, are both trying to walk out of this place, happy with each other, right?
We have our regulars that are just adorable. There is Sue. Sue is... how to put it politically correctly... mildly "mentally disabled". I guess her age at about the late 20s, early 30s, but she seems kind of in the mind of a 12-year-old. Which, honestly, can be a bloody good thing. She has the sense of wonder and appreciation of a kid that I envy her for, and the reason why I hesitated to use the word 'disabled' is because she just...isn't. She doesn't seem to suffer from it, and while she may not be able to do some things, she is bloody good at the stuff she can do. Sue is a cupcake. With icing and sugar hearts sprinkled on top. She knows everyone's name and always asks us how we are doing, and she always orders a large coke, "filled right up to the top". She is kind of part of the café. Sometimes she brings in her photo album. She has a digital camera and takes pictures of the boats in Poole Harbor and at the pier.
She is infatuated with them. And then she prints them out and shows them to us, and I tell ya, that girl has TALENT.
Then there is one of the guys who scans the beach for coins with a metal detector, who always comes and orders "a softie [ice cream], please!" with a big smile. And some tourists who I sometimes ask for their accents, and we get into a nice chat.
Or some old chaps who impart some wisdom on me. Can't top that.
And the beach staff - the lifeguards, the deck chair fellas, the delivery guys, the train drivers... it's our own little beach community out here, it's really cool.
But then there are other people. "It's weekend, so hey, let's turn off our brains and our manners and just torture some of the idiots that have to work today. And we can insult them and ridicule them and treat them like subhumans, because they can't say anything back without risking to lose their jobs!"
You have families who leave their table like a pig sty - what am I saying, like they had their own private nuclear war! - whinge at everything, let their kids go absolutely bananas (misbehaved is an understatement). Some people bring in their own food and leave the trash for us to clear up, how rude is that? I mean, I really don't mind people bringing their own stuff if we don't have it and they have particular needs. A Jewish guy once politely asked me if we minded that they ate their own food cos ours is not kosher, and just had drinks. I mean, I am not kicking them out for that, you know, that's cool with me.
You have people that were told there is a 20 min wait on any food because we have a gazillion orders and a tiny kitchen, and they agree and order food, but they come back after 5 minutes, complaining that they have to wait!Hmph! Why do you have to wait for your stuff? Well, look around you!! It's packed. About a million people were here first... why do you think you get any special treatment???
I am really tempted sometimes to just raise my voice, ask for a moment of silence and then ask all the customers who have been waiting longer than Mr Whinger whether they would mind if we served him first, because he is of the opinion we should.
And then just lean back with a satisfied smile, watching the mob rip him to shreds.
You have customers that walk off to the beach somewhere and expect us to find them there and serve them. WTF???
And then you have tourists who think they can diss you in their own language cos they are sure you can't understand. They don't realise how much of a shot in the foot that is when a lot of the staff is international. Mon is Spanish, Manue is French. Sanna is Finnish, but fools everyone with her Irish accent. I'm German, and most people think I'm American. So yesterday we had this bunch of Germans sitting outside. It was a really busy day, and we were literally running and doing our best, and it was fairly obvious that if the place is packed, they will have to wait for their food. You'd think, at least. I mean, they are told before they order. It's not that we're trying to piss people off on purpose. So there they sit while I'm clearing tables, and sneer in German that their buddy should just "take it and hit her in the face with it" or something, referring to some staff member. Usually I enjoy pretending that I don't understand just so I can listen to their uninhibited-because-they-think-no-one-understands-them chatter. But yesterday I turned around to the guy and told him in clear German that it must be bloody embarrassing to say such stuff and then finding out people can actually understand him. He stared at me like I had caught him with his trousers down and then muttered something, pretending not to care. It was a glorious moment.
Then you have people who feed the pigeons even though we have signs everywhere asking them not to do that because they are so bloody filthy. The pigeons, not the customers. Well - Ok, that can be confused. But no, "the kids love doing it! What's your problem?"
Well yes, ma'am. Your kids would also love to poo in the gutter, or throw rocks, does that mean you let them do it?
Our problem is less the pigeons than the same customers who feed them and then complain that the pigeons are jumping on their plates. Or get pissed off that them birds get tame and raid the empty neighbor table for food leftovers, then suddenly remembering how unhygienic they are - while they let their kids put pigeon feathers in their mouths. (I got a juicy salmonella infection from playing with that stuff when I was a kid, and it nearly wiped me out. And warnings back then about what you can catch from pigeons were not that common... but that's different today. The warning signs all over Bournemouth give you a jolly list of diseases... and you'd think some people read those things and learn. LISTEN AND LEARN. It's like bloody pre-school wasted on them.)
And not to forget the customers who get downright personally abusive. But let's not go there.
But the thing is, I still love my job. Cos our team is great, and fun, and I guess you get shit in any job, really.
But there are few jobs where, when going to work, you see the sun is rising over the sea, and the tide is out and the beach at peace and the sea is like a lightly rippled mirror... or wild and ridden by surfers who don't mind any weather. And every day it has a different colour. Gray, cold blue, green glassy marmor, and a beam of sun breaking through the clouds in the distance turns the horizon into a shining silver streak. Or the sky is an angry stormy purple-blue while the sinking sun makes the pier glow against it. Or green-purplish thunderstorms whip the sea, and lightning hits the water, and then drifts off to haunt the other end of the bay with shredded, misty clouds while our end lights up in beautiful wet post-t-storm sunlight. Or a summery haze envelops the pier, making the sea look like a timeless glowing mystery, like the end of the world.
What other job could possibly give me that satisfaction?
And no to forget, the coffee is free. Dude. Can't get better than that.
Update:
KungFuBarbie on the Soapbox just mentioned this quote from the movie "Clerks", and it will be my quote of the day:
"This job would be great if it weren't for the fucking customers" - Randall
:lol:
I guess I have a new item on my To Watch List.
Friday, April 09, 2004
An Arachnophobic's Nightmare... now updated
I have been terrified of spiders ever since I was little. I know, boring phobia, everyone's got it. Go near me with a spider, and I will explode into a deafening scream, but not scream as in silly-girlie-standing-on-a-kitchen-chair-pulling-her-skirt-seams-out-of-reach, but scream as in utter, bone-bleaching, blood-curdling, hair-whitening terror. Serious business. And be warned... I can lose it if someone teases me with a spider. Maze, karate, scratch your eyes out, give you a good thrashing. Take your pick, buddy.
It's. NOT. FUNNY.
www.notfunny.com
dial 0800-N-O-T-F-U-N-N-Y.
I have no idea why, but that's the way it is.
When I was four, I begged my great aunt, in tears, to remove all spiderwebs from the sheds and the house. She told me it was pointless as they would be there again the next day, I told her I don't care, then she'll have to clean them off the next day, too.
I flinch away from spiderwebs to this day. That sticky stuff is the most horrible feeling.
When I was 9, I emptied a box of legos onto my bed and a HUGE grey spider ran out and scuttled into my sheets!!! I could not find it, but I was in terror for the next few nights.
That same year my family went camping, and they hung up my robe into a branch or something after we went swimming. I wore it and when I took it off on my bed, this HUMONGOUS cross spider (they are the worst, and I actually had to squint when I got a link to that pic... made me physically sick) ran out of it - into my bed!!!
I ran full-face into a spiderweb when I was a kid.
I remember seeing Boy (in the old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies) getting caught up in a big web full of horrid tarantulas when I was 5-ish. Marked me for life.
Or film clips of some strange African tribe ritual involving people and tarantulas. ICK.
When I was about 15 or 16, I talked to a friend on the phone and played with my shoe. My fingers found something strawy and dry, and I absentmindedly fumbled around with it. Eventually my gaze dropped down on it to see what it was. I found something that looked like broken mini-twigs. At closer look, it turned out it was legs. The striped, crushed legs of a cross spider. I didn't have to inspect the lumpy strawy bit to see that it was the dead, dried out body of a pretty big specimen of a cross spider.
Terror, adrenaline rushed through me as recognition hit me, and I dropped the phone in mid-sentence and screamed. At the top of my lungs. I could hear my friend shouting on the other end of the line what the hell was going on. My dad stormed into my room where I sat curled up on the chair, sobbing and screaming hysterically. He was terrified, he thought I had cut my hand off or something. I swear, I could not calm down for another hour. It's like I switch into utter panic mode. And I have no frickin clue why.
I once found out I had slept in the same room, less than a meter away, from a huge wolf spider in the corner. It was as big as my hand. It couldn't have felt worse to find out that the sandwich you have just eaten was rotten and moldy.
Another time in the same year, I sat on my bed as I spotted a spider in a web in the corner of my room.
It moved about a bit. I think there is nothing worse in the world than the creepy look of a scuttling spider.
I saw it twiddle around in the web, and I froze. Literally. I sat on my bed, crying, and I could not move. I never knew what it was like to be petrified until that day.
Today I listened to The Cure's "Lullaby" for the first time since the 80s... and I flashbacked. I dunno who of you remembers the video, but I remember seeing it when I was a kid. Robert Smith was strategically wrapped in cobwebs and then devoured by a giant tarantula. It inhaled him!!!
And today I also "heard" the song properly for the first time.
Dude, it was a blessing I did not understand the lyrics back then.
Update:
I just have to mention this, though. When I lived in Texas as a live-in nanny, Cory, one of my littluns, played a prank on me. You gotta know, Texas got some icky spiders. Cross spiders are Germany's version of a poisonous spider, but there is truth to the saying that everything is bigger in Texas. Or more poisonous. They've got Black Widows, Brown Recluses, big wolf spiders and tarantulas. Icky icky.
Cory, Chris and Caitlin were about 4 back then, and were starting to develop a proper sense of humor, which is hella cute in a kid. And they started playing all those pranks on me.
They knew I was mortally afraid of spiders. So one day I walk into my room - and my heart stopped.
On my window pane sat a huge bulgy icky spider. I was so freaked out that I only realised at second glance it was one of those toy rubber spiders of the kids. And then I heard Cory giggle behind me.
Cory, you know you are forgiven. :) I really really treasure that memory. Along with your Barney prank (I still have Barney!) :D But that is another story and shall be told another time.
It's. NOT. FUNNY.
www.notfunny.com
dial 0800-N-O-T-F-U-N-N-Y.
I have no idea why, but that's the way it is.
When I was four, I begged my great aunt, in tears, to remove all spiderwebs from the sheds and the house. She told me it was pointless as they would be there again the next day, I told her I don't care, then she'll have to clean them off the next day, too.
I flinch away from spiderwebs to this day. That sticky stuff is the most horrible feeling.
When I was 9, I emptied a box of legos onto my bed and a HUGE grey spider ran out and scuttled into my sheets!!! I could not find it, but I was in terror for the next few nights.
That same year my family went camping, and they hung up my robe into a branch or something after we went swimming. I wore it and when I took it off on my bed, this HUMONGOUS cross spider (they are the worst, and I actually had to squint when I got a link to that pic... made me physically sick) ran out of it - into my bed!!!
I ran full-face into a spiderweb when I was a kid.
I remember seeing Boy (in the old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies) getting caught up in a big web full of horrid tarantulas when I was 5-ish. Marked me for life.
Or film clips of some strange African tribe ritual involving people and tarantulas. ICK.
When I was about 15 or 16, I talked to a friend on the phone and played with my shoe. My fingers found something strawy and dry, and I absentmindedly fumbled around with it. Eventually my gaze dropped down on it to see what it was. I found something that looked like broken mini-twigs. At closer look, it turned out it was legs. The striped, crushed legs of a cross spider. I didn't have to inspect the lumpy strawy bit to see that it was the dead, dried out body of a pretty big specimen of a cross spider.
Terror, adrenaline rushed through me as recognition hit me, and I dropped the phone in mid-sentence and screamed. At the top of my lungs. I could hear my friend shouting on the other end of the line what the hell was going on. My dad stormed into my room where I sat curled up on the chair, sobbing and screaming hysterically. He was terrified, he thought I had cut my hand off or something. I swear, I could not calm down for another hour. It's like I switch into utter panic mode. And I have no frickin clue why.
I once found out I had slept in the same room, less than a meter away, from a huge wolf spider in the corner. It was as big as my hand. It couldn't have felt worse to find out that the sandwich you have just eaten was rotten and moldy.
Another time in the same year, I sat on my bed as I spotted a spider in a web in the corner of my room.
It moved about a bit. I think there is nothing worse in the world than the creepy look of a scuttling spider.
I saw it twiddle around in the web, and I froze. Literally. I sat on my bed, crying, and I could not move. I never knew what it was like to be petrified until that day.
Today I listened to The Cure's "Lullaby" for the first time since the 80s... and I flashbacked. I dunno who of you remembers the video, but I remember seeing it when I was a kid. Robert Smith was strategically wrapped in cobwebs and then devoured by a giant tarantula. It inhaled him!!!
And today I also "heard" the song properly for the first time.
Dude, it was a blessing I did not understand the lyrics back then.
Update:
I just have to mention this, though. When I lived in Texas as a live-in nanny, Cory, one of my littluns, played a prank on me. You gotta know, Texas got some icky spiders. Cross spiders are Germany's version of a poisonous spider, but there is truth to the saying that everything is bigger in Texas. Or more poisonous. They've got Black Widows, Brown Recluses, big wolf spiders and tarantulas. Icky icky.
Cory, Chris and Caitlin were about 4 back then, and were starting to develop a proper sense of humor, which is hella cute in a kid. And they started playing all those pranks on me.
They knew I was mortally afraid of spiders. So one day I walk into my room - and my heart stopped.
On my window pane sat a huge bulgy icky spider. I was so freaked out that I only realised at second glance it was one of those toy rubber spiders of the kids. And then I heard Cory giggle behind me.
Cory, you know you are forgiven. :) I really really treasure that memory. Along with your Barney prank (I still have Barney!) :D But that is another story and shall be told another time.
Peace on Earth
Call me a pop culture Christian, but Bono is a "prophet" (please don't take literally!). Bono is my hero.
So this is my (lengthy) quote of the day... and my prayer:
Heaven on Earth
We need it now
I'm sick of all of this
Hanging around
Sick of sorrow
I'm sick of the pain
I'm sick of hearing
Again and again
That there's gonna be
Peace on Earth
Where I grew up
There weren't many trees
Where there was we'd tear them down
And use them on our enemies
They say that what you mock
Will surely overtake you
And you become a monster
So the monster will not break you
And it's already gone too far
You said that if you go in hard
You won't get hurt
Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
Tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth
No who's or why's
No one cries like a mother cries
For peace on Earth
She never got to say goodbye
To see the color in his eyes
Now he's in the dirt
Peace on Earth
They're reading names out
Over the radio
All the folks the rest of us
Won't get to know
Sean and Julia
Gareth, Anne, and Breeda
Their lives are bigger than
Any big idea
Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
To tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth
Jesus in the song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
Peace on Earth
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won't rhyme
So what's it worth
This peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
So this is my (lengthy) quote of the day... and my prayer:
Heaven on Earth
We need it now
I'm sick of all of this
Hanging around
Sick of sorrow
I'm sick of the pain
I'm sick of hearing
Again and again
That there's gonna be
Peace on Earth
Where I grew up
There weren't many trees
Where there was we'd tear them down
And use them on our enemies
They say that what you mock
Will surely overtake you
And you become a monster
So the monster will not break you
And it's already gone too far
You said that if you go in hard
You won't get hurt
Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
Tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth
No who's or why's
No one cries like a mother cries
For peace on Earth
She never got to say goodbye
To see the color in his eyes
Now he's in the dirt
Peace on Earth
They're reading names out
Over the radio
All the folks the rest of us
Won't get to know
Sean and Julia
Gareth, Anne, and Breeda
Their lives are bigger than
Any big idea
Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
To tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth
Jesus in the song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
Peace on Earth
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won't rhyme
So what's it worth
This peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Pure Morning
April 2nd, 2004
It's been a long time since I have seen a sky that blue and smelled the dewey fresh aroma of the cut grass and the Bourne stream that babbles a few steps away. The balloon in the park tumbles lazily in midair in the early noon sun. My favourite time of the day - of the year - is between 9 and 12 o'clock on a sunny, warm late spring day. The light has this new and somehow pure, young and dreamlike quality, not like the dusty, worn, dazed light of a hot late summer afternoon.
I love this light because it gives me a sense of hope and expectancy of the good in life that is still to come. It makes me look forward to life. God knows how beautiful this feeling is, and how dark life is without it. It's like being born again, having wiped out the past, getting a fresh start.
It's one of the first warm days of the year, and the most peaceful and happy in a long time. Everyone, everything seems so friendly. Maybe it's just the way I see it... emotion colors everything. I can't put in words how happy and light I feel, how amazing it is to sense the world around me again, fully aware, drinking it in, noticing all the little details that I always seemed to be blind to. Blooming trees and the fresh sweetly scented air, squirrels, even the ever horny pidgeons who never seem to stop their mating rituals down here. Looking at the ever-desperate student mating rituals, it must be something in the water down here (probably more in the cheap booze pitchers that are purchased by the dozens on weekends, welcome to Bournemouth)... but it just seems to go past me completely. I am a born single and quite happy with it, who would have ever thought? How can one trade freedom with the ever-annoying self-erasing compromises of a relationship? I like to sit and just absorb life quietly, the purity of it, the little that it has left, and nourish that part in me that isn't quite dead yet and that I refuse to let die.
Bournemouth is a beautiful place to live in - ignoring the evening pub brawls, and drunken rudeness, and the clickety-clack of a few thousand stillettos attached to skimpily clad, sexually overexpressive wenches offering themselves for a hump in return for a free beer. God I'm cynical, but it's true. Maybe it's that stale, bland desperation down here what has turned me into a nun. I guess that is why the pigeons make me laugh. They are the perfect analogy for Bournemouth's nightlife. Except that the pigeon girls have principles.
Anyways, back to happy things. I feel I have wasted time because I was for so long too depressed to appreciate what I have here before.
I'm sitting on the ground by the Bourne stream - the benches are still too wet with morning dew and the low stone walls to damp and mossy - who wants a green patch on their butt? I prefer to sit on the ground (with an awesome peach-banana shakeaway)... I find it liberating, for some reason, connecting me to what is around me. I sometimes wish I could do this more often, just in the middle of the street, to sit down and stop in time and just be.
I have this strange dream to sit on a highway in the Californian desert or the Texan hill country, in the spring or summer. The Texan hill country is then covered in the azure carpets of the blue bonnets and poppies, mixed with cacti, and hopefully a few longhorns grazing nearby. And this incredibly blue wide dome of sky, with gigantic white clouds lazily drifting by. Just lying on my back, feel the warm, grainy surface of the road beneath me and watch the clouds drift, and listen to the lonely screams of the cowbirds, and not be near any human beings and settlements, and sensing that this is the point in time that touches eternity. The middle of the road is a place where people never really go... they just run past it, across it, if ever. The middle of a road is somehow one of the last uninhabited spaces of the Western world.
I am sick of this common structured life, the deadening habits, as the modernists described it. Doing something out of order makes me feel alive. Do something different, unexpected, and life will feel new.
It's been a long time since I have seen a sky that blue and smelled the dewey fresh aroma of the cut grass and the Bourne stream that babbles a few steps away. The balloon in the park tumbles lazily in midair in the early noon sun. My favourite time of the day - of the year - is between 9 and 12 o'clock on a sunny, warm late spring day. The light has this new and somehow pure, young and dreamlike quality, not like the dusty, worn, dazed light of a hot late summer afternoon.
I love this light because it gives me a sense of hope and expectancy of the good in life that is still to come. It makes me look forward to life. God knows how beautiful this feeling is, and how dark life is without it. It's like being born again, having wiped out the past, getting a fresh start.
It's one of the first warm days of the year, and the most peaceful and happy in a long time. Everyone, everything seems so friendly. Maybe it's just the way I see it... emotion colors everything. I can't put in words how happy and light I feel, how amazing it is to sense the world around me again, fully aware, drinking it in, noticing all the little details that I always seemed to be blind to. Blooming trees and the fresh sweetly scented air, squirrels, even the ever horny pidgeons who never seem to stop their mating rituals down here. Looking at the ever-desperate student mating rituals, it must be something in the water down here (probably more in the cheap booze pitchers that are purchased by the dozens on weekends, welcome to Bournemouth)... but it just seems to go past me completely. I am a born single and quite happy with it, who would have ever thought? How can one trade freedom with the ever-annoying self-erasing compromises of a relationship? I like to sit and just absorb life quietly, the purity of it, the little that it has left, and nourish that part in me that isn't quite dead yet and that I refuse to let die.
Bournemouth is a beautiful place to live in - ignoring the evening pub brawls, and drunken rudeness, and the clickety-clack of a few thousand stillettos attached to skimpily clad, sexually overexpressive wenches offering themselves for a hump in return for a free beer. God I'm cynical, but it's true. Maybe it's that stale, bland desperation down here what has turned me into a nun. I guess that is why the pigeons make me laugh. They are the perfect analogy for Bournemouth's nightlife. Except that the pigeon girls have principles.
Anyways, back to happy things. I feel I have wasted time because I was for so long too depressed to appreciate what I have here before.
I'm sitting on the ground by the Bourne stream - the benches are still too wet with morning dew and the low stone walls to damp and mossy - who wants a green patch on their butt? I prefer to sit on the ground (with an awesome peach-banana shakeaway)... I find it liberating, for some reason, connecting me to what is around me. I sometimes wish I could do this more often, just in the middle of the street, to sit down and stop in time and just be.
I have this strange dream to sit on a highway in the Californian desert or the Texan hill country, in the spring or summer. The Texan hill country is then covered in the azure carpets of the blue bonnets and poppies, mixed with cacti, and hopefully a few longhorns grazing nearby. And this incredibly blue wide dome of sky, with gigantic white clouds lazily drifting by. Just lying on my back, feel the warm, grainy surface of the road beneath me and watch the clouds drift, and listen to the lonely screams of the cowbirds, and not be near any human beings and settlements, and sensing that this is the point in time that touches eternity. The middle of the road is a place where people never really go... they just run past it, across it, if ever. The middle of a road is somehow one of the last uninhabited spaces of the Western world.
I am sick of this common structured life, the deadening habits, as the modernists described it. Doing something out of order makes me feel alive. Do something different, unexpected, and life will feel new.
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Weird dreams Part IV
Ack, I am getting mildly worried now. I had another one of those dreams.
I'm sure it didn't help that I just finished "Hey Nostradamus", which is basically a novel about 4 characters directly and indirectly involved in a Columbine-like shooting. Like most stuff by Coupland, it is AMAZING, kind of based on the myth of Cassie Bernall or whatever her name was.
I can't remember much of this one, except that there was a gang of four kids, about 14 years old, dressed in black, with the most evil, vicious, demonic expressions you can imagine.
I was this weird person that changed roles a lot... at one point I was a teacher talking to a shy kid who was being bullied, and at some other point I was a student being hunted down.
All I remember is that those four kids were armed, and they wanted to hurt the shy kid, and I tried to protect him, but they shot him and his sister in front of my eyes.
And then they were after me, because I had tried to protect him. I tried to hide, get away by various means, but they always found me. Always. Like they could read my mind.
At one point I hid in the apartment of the old lady that used to live next to us when I was a kid. I thought they would never suspect me there, and she offered to hide me. I hid under the bed, when I heard them walk past the front door, searching through my old apartment.
And suddenly they appeared. Like it was the most logical thing for them that I would hide here, next.
They killed the old lady and then came for me.
They would shoot anyone I even got involved with.
In the end, I got so scared, I knew that the only way out, the only way to put an end to this, was to kill them.
We were on a rusty ship, suddenly, or a ferry... and they chased me through the bloody thing. Eventually the leader of the gang who looked a bit like the bad kid in "Stephen King's IT", caught up with me, and we struggled. I looked down at some point and saw the ship's propeller swirling in the water right underneath me. And somehow I managed to throw him overboard. I don't have to go into details what happened, right?
But I still couldn't trust that I was safe. I stared at his body parts drifting out there for ages. But for some reason, they stayed around the ship, randomly, but never moving away.
I saw his hand floating separately in the bronze water, his head and torso further off, the lower half of his body at a distance. He was really as dead as can be, and I was relieved, all the fear fell off me.
I turned away, and threw a last glance back... just to make sure.
And my heart stopped.
His hand had just been floating a second ago, but now it seemed to move towards the torso, and I watched in horror as it fused back together with his arm!!!
I panicked and ran towards the door, and then returned to see if my eyes had just tricked me.
What I saw was the Evil Kid hoisting his body back on board, pale with death still, and somehow more demonic than ever... he came crawling back, slowly, but fiercely determined.
I don't remember if he ever got me.
Bloody hell, maybe I should consider therapy. But they'll prolly lock me up. I mean, what on earth makes me dream this kind of stuff? I can't even hurt a fly (just occasional mosquitos, but hey, they are asking for it!)... why this?
I'm sure it didn't help that I just finished "Hey Nostradamus", which is basically a novel about 4 characters directly and indirectly involved in a Columbine-like shooting. Like most stuff by Coupland, it is AMAZING, kind of based on the myth of Cassie Bernall or whatever her name was.
I can't remember much of this one, except that there was a gang of four kids, about 14 years old, dressed in black, with the most evil, vicious, demonic expressions you can imagine.
I was this weird person that changed roles a lot... at one point I was a teacher talking to a shy kid who was being bullied, and at some other point I was a student being hunted down.
All I remember is that those four kids were armed, and they wanted to hurt the shy kid, and I tried to protect him, but they shot him and his sister in front of my eyes.
And then they were after me, because I had tried to protect him. I tried to hide, get away by various means, but they always found me. Always. Like they could read my mind.
At one point I hid in the apartment of the old lady that used to live next to us when I was a kid. I thought they would never suspect me there, and she offered to hide me. I hid under the bed, when I heard them walk past the front door, searching through my old apartment.
And suddenly they appeared. Like it was the most logical thing for them that I would hide here, next.
They killed the old lady and then came for me.
They would shoot anyone I even got involved with.
In the end, I got so scared, I knew that the only way out, the only way to put an end to this, was to kill them.
We were on a rusty ship, suddenly, or a ferry... and they chased me through the bloody thing. Eventually the leader of the gang who looked a bit like the bad kid in "Stephen King's IT", caught up with me, and we struggled. I looked down at some point and saw the ship's propeller swirling in the water right underneath me. And somehow I managed to throw him overboard. I don't have to go into details what happened, right?
But I still couldn't trust that I was safe. I stared at his body parts drifting out there for ages. But for some reason, they stayed around the ship, randomly, but never moving away.
I saw his hand floating separately in the bronze water, his head and torso further off, the lower half of his body at a distance. He was really as dead as can be, and I was relieved, all the fear fell off me.
I turned away, and threw a last glance back... just to make sure.
And my heart stopped.
His hand had just been floating a second ago, but now it seemed to move towards the torso, and I watched in horror as it fused back together with his arm!!!
I panicked and ran towards the door, and then returned to see if my eyes had just tricked me.
What I saw was the Evil Kid hoisting his body back on board, pale with death still, and somehow more demonic than ever... he came crawling back, slowly, but fiercely determined.
I don't remember if he ever got me.
Bloody hell, maybe I should consider therapy. But they'll prolly lock me up. I mean, what on earth makes me dream this kind of stuff? I can't even hurt a fly (just occasional mosquitos, but hey, they are asking for it!)... why this?
Sunday, April 04, 2004
Better never than late
This is an absolute laugh. The beginning of February I went to the Uni counsellor, because my doc had suggested it to me, along with prescibing my happy pills. Sort out the shit from the past and whatnot, so I don't have to rely on them pills forever.
Tell ya what. If those pills guarantee me happiness... or prevent me from slipping into mental hell again... I don't care if I have to take them for the rest of my life. But I digress.
I had my assessment session back then, which was freaky and mildly humiliating, making me question the value of any kind of such therapy. Textbook questions and only response if the answers matched their textbooks as well. No genuine compassion... but a put-on "Don't upset the nutcase"-voice. You feel like none of the stuff you are talking of makes any sense to them... and that they don't really tell you what they think. It was TOTALLY different from what I expected. It was degrading.
I hate the thought of having my mental works assessed and dissected like in a medical show and tell room.
Anyways, they just rang me back. I may ring now and make an appointment. *sarcasm*
It's been two effin months!
I hate the thought even more to be on someone's "to check off" list. Makes me feel objectified.
Maybe friends are the best therapists, cos they genuinely care. Milla and I just had a talk that made me understand a lot.
Or I am my best therapist because I know bloody well why I am the way I am. Why I react the way I do. I just don't know how to stop it.
I don't need analysis, I need a fuckin way out. Yessir, I know there is a dead tree blocking my drive. What I want is to know how to use the chainsaw to remove it.
Nobody could really give me an answer to that.
Tell ya what. If those pills guarantee me happiness... or prevent me from slipping into mental hell again... I don't care if I have to take them for the rest of my life. But I digress.
I had my assessment session back then, which was freaky and mildly humiliating, making me question the value of any kind of such therapy. Textbook questions and only response if the answers matched their textbooks as well. No genuine compassion... but a put-on "Don't upset the nutcase"-voice. You feel like none of the stuff you are talking of makes any sense to them... and that they don't really tell you what they think. It was TOTALLY different from what I expected. It was degrading.
I hate the thought of having my mental works assessed and dissected like in a medical show and tell room.
Anyways, they just rang me back. I may ring now and make an appointment. *sarcasm*
It's been two effin months!
I hate the thought even more to be on someone's "to check off" list. Makes me feel objectified.
Maybe friends are the best therapists, cos they genuinely care. Milla and I just had a talk that made me understand a lot.
Or I am my best therapist because I know bloody well why I am the way I am. Why I react the way I do. I just don't know how to stop it.
I don't need analysis, I need a fuckin way out. Yessir, I know there is a dead tree blocking my drive. What I want is to know how to use the chainsaw to remove it.
Nobody could really give me an answer to that.
Weird Dreams Part III
You thought she would stop, didn't you, and spare you the twisted details of her subconscious?!
A few weeks ago I had this dream that I found terrifying and vivid and really sick... and sometimes it makes me wonder what the fuck is wrong with me. What it means. If it means anything at all.
My dad, after losing his girlfriend in that car accident, didn't dream at all for a long time. It was like his mind shut down. I experienced a similar thing after a fairly traumatic period in my life... I did not dream anything for almost two years, it was like part of me had died.
About a year ago, my dreams have returned. And to some extent I am grateful, but they tend to be very strange. Or disturbing. I mean, do enlighten me, but there is raging murder in my dreams on a regular basis. Another common theme is that I am in a strange house, usually some friend's or one I have been put into, hostel-like, and that I am shown to a room where I have to sleep. I tend to get lost in that house, or end up getting lost in town by taking the wrong bus, or running as to not miss it. I mean, I dream that ALL THE TIME!
I forget most of it usually, but some night recently I had an awful dream. It started out nice... I was a teenager again, and I walked around a beautiful pond covered in blossoms and surrounded by willows... there were frogs, and dragonflies, and it was sunny, and I dipped my feet in and waded around. I didn't mind the bottom of the pond being very muddy and soft. It was peaceful and beautiful. This picture faded.
A lot of stuff happened in between. I was on a trip with people, like a dream family. We hiked around a lot. We were in Bryce Canyon, and saw all kinds of fantastic rock formations, and I felt the adventurous, free happiness I had on the trek years back... I remember the chimney caves, hollow columns of red rock glowing in the afternoon sun. We seemed to be hiking for ages, weeks and weeks.
There was a complaint about a missing baby. And a missing dog. And it just flew past our ears.
But then things got awfully dejavu. We were in a van on the way home, and went past this little lake. And I realised, that is the pond I had been in. Our car suddenly stood next to the pond, but something was wrong. The air was slimy liquid and putrid. The plants around the pond were dead and grey and rotten, and the smell coming from the pond was nearly unbearable. It was foul water, and I saw the shadow of my former self wading in it, clueless and oblivious, and I started to scream.
Because what I saw floating in the pond was a dead baby, of the sick greyish-green color of the dead, with clouded broken squinted eyes and blackened lips, half eaten by fish, half rotten, the flesh looking veiny and transparent, like foul, moldy jelly.
Next to it floated a dead man. And a dead dog. The reason the pond was dead was because their rotting corpses had poisoned the water. And in all this I saw myself, wading about, blind to everything around me, and I couldn't stop screaming at myself: IT'S NOT WHAT IT SEEMS. IT'S NOT WHAT IT SEEMS.
We couldn't leave the corpses in the water... someone had dumped them in there after killing them, but my dream-parent said: "Well, if that person ain't getting them out, one of us will have to do it." I was totally freaked out, grossed out, didn't want to touch them, couldn't bear the smell and the look of them. But we needed that pond, I dunno why, drinking water or something. And the dead ones deserved their rest.
Skip to scene in graveyard. There is an above-ground tomb made of glass we are gathered round. In that tomb were either statues, or the real, embalmed bodies of the dead ones, which looked normal again, like they were just asleep or frozen. The man and the baby and the dog were together, the man holding the baby, the dog curled up in his lap.
Sore peace. Scarred peace. But peace.
That's when I woke up. And those images have haunted me the whole day.
A few weeks ago I had this dream that I found terrifying and vivid and really sick... and sometimes it makes me wonder what the fuck is wrong with me. What it means. If it means anything at all.
My dad, after losing his girlfriend in that car accident, didn't dream at all for a long time. It was like his mind shut down. I experienced a similar thing after a fairly traumatic period in my life... I did not dream anything for almost two years, it was like part of me had died.
About a year ago, my dreams have returned. And to some extent I am grateful, but they tend to be very strange. Or disturbing. I mean, do enlighten me, but there is raging murder in my dreams on a regular basis. Another common theme is that I am in a strange house, usually some friend's or one I have been put into, hostel-like, and that I am shown to a room where I have to sleep. I tend to get lost in that house, or end up getting lost in town by taking the wrong bus, or running as to not miss it. I mean, I dream that ALL THE TIME!
I forget most of it usually, but some night recently I had an awful dream. It started out nice... I was a teenager again, and I walked around a beautiful pond covered in blossoms and surrounded by willows... there were frogs, and dragonflies, and it was sunny, and I dipped my feet in and waded around. I didn't mind the bottom of the pond being very muddy and soft. It was peaceful and beautiful. This picture faded.
A lot of stuff happened in between. I was on a trip with people, like a dream family. We hiked around a lot. We were in Bryce Canyon, and saw all kinds of fantastic rock formations, and I felt the adventurous, free happiness I had on the trek years back... I remember the chimney caves, hollow columns of red rock glowing in the afternoon sun. We seemed to be hiking for ages, weeks and weeks.
There was a complaint about a missing baby. And a missing dog. And it just flew past our ears.
But then things got awfully dejavu. We were in a van on the way home, and went past this little lake. And I realised, that is the pond I had been in. Our car suddenly stood next to the pond, but something was wrong. The air was slimy liquid and putrid. The plants around the pond were dead and grey and rotten, and the smell coming from the pond was nearly unbearable. It was foul water, and I saw the shadow of my former self wading in it, clueless and oblivious, and I started to scream.
Because what I saw floating in the pond was a dead baby, of the sick greyish-green color of the dead, with clouded broken squinted eyes and blackened lips, half eaten by fish, half rotten, the flesh looking veiny and transparent, like foul, moldy jelly.
Next to it floated a dead man. And a dead dog. The reason the pond was dead was because their rotting corpses had poisoned the water. And in all this I saw myself, wading about, blind to everything around me, and I couldn't stop screaming at myself: IT'S NOT WHAT IT SEEMS. IT'S NOT WHAT IT SEEMS.
We couldn't leave the corpses in the water... someone had dumped them in there after killing them, but my dream-parent said: "Well, if that person ain't getting them out, one of us will have to do it." I was totally freaked out, grossed out, didn't want to touch them, couldn't bear the smell and the look of them. But we needed that pond, I dunno why, drinking water or something. And the dead ones deserved their rest.
Skip to scene in graveyard. There is an above-ground tomb made of glass we are gathered round. In that tomb were either statues, or the real, embalmed bodies of the dead ones, which looked normal again, like they were just asleep or frozen. The man and the baby and the dog were together, the man holding the baby, the dog curled up in his lap.
Sore peace. Scarred peace. But peace.
That's when I woke up. And those images have haunted me the whole day.
Strangers are friends Part II
One of the things my landlords and I have agreed on - quite sensibly, I reckon - is for the whole group of future housemates to meet up and getting to know each other before signing a contract that puts us all into the same house for a year.
I didn't really have worries about it, but it was a nice occasion, and so all of us decided to meet at Dylan's, our uni bar, last nite... but when we got there (thru storm and rain, of course), it turned out it was hired for a private party. We were a bit dumbfounded by this, especially since any other decent pub is a bus trip away. But I had the splendid idea for us to go to my place and watch videos and have some of the party leftovers (mostly booze), which everyone was quite pleased about.
My new housemates are this really sweet couple, Alex and Laura, and Adam and Rob, who study at the Arts institute. And what can I say, I have a fantastic feeling about this. I cannot believe how great and sweet everyone is, and I love them to death already.
So we drank lots of wine, and martini (LIDL is great - cheap, good booze!), and advocaat, and beer, and watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The first time I saw that was at the guys' house in cowtown, and I was just curing the flu or something with antibiotics, but peer pressure drove me to having a beer with my mates. One piece of advice - don't mix the two, and that film, or you will be in for one helluva FREAKY experience.
Anyways, we just screamed with laughter all the time, and afterwards, Adam was digging thru the videos and found, with shrieks of excitement, my Family Guy DVD Dom gave me for my birthday.
And I knew I would have a fantastic year with them.
Because they are completely obsessed with Family Guy and the likes. And even better: they QUOTE!
I QUOTE!!!
They know Family Guy BY HEART!!!
I am still planning on learning the "Willy Wonka-Drinking" song from the Wasted Talent episode, and they know it!!!!!
This is the most bizarre thing to have in common with someone, but it rocks!!!
We are definitely on the same wavelength.... at least I feel that at the moment. You can just tell the difference when you have made new friends or just new aquaintances.
We had a blast, and when they left, Rob gave me a genuinely friendly hug. It does feel like they are not just gonna be housemates, but new friends.
They are, cheesy as it may sound, an answer to my prayers. And I mean that literally. You can't take good people for granted.
I didn't really have worries about it, but it was a nice occasion, and so all of us decided to meet at Dylan's, our uni bar, last nite... but when we got there (thru storm and rain, of course), it turned out it was hired for a private party. We were a bit dumbfounded by this, especially since any other decent pub is a bus trip away. But I had the splendid idea for us to go to my place and watch videos and have some of the party leftovers (mostly booze), which everyone was quite pleased about.
My new housemates are this really sweet couple, Alex and Laura, and Adam and Rob, who study at the Arts institute. And what can I say, I have a fantastic feeling about this. I cannot believe how great and sweet everyone is, and I love them to death already.
So we drank lots of wine, and martini (LIDL is great - cheap, good booze!), and advocaat, and beer, and watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The first time I saw that was at the guys' house in cowtown, and I was just curing the flu or something with antibiotics, but peer pressure drove me to having a beer with my mates. One piece of advice - don't mix the two, and that film, or you will be in for one helluva FREAKY experience.
Anyways, we just screamed with laughter all the time, and afterwards, Adam was digging thru the videos and found, with shrieks of excitement, my Family Guy DVD Dom gave me for my birthday.
And I knew I would have a fantastic year with them.
Because they are completely obsessed with Family Guy and the likes. And even better: they QUOTE!
I QUOTE!!!
They know Family Guy BY HEART!!!
I am still planning on learning the "Willy Wonka-Drinking" song from the Wasted Talent episode, and they know it!!!!!
This is the most bizarre thing to have in common with someone, but it rocks!!!
We are definitely on the same wavelength.... at least I feel that at the moment. You can just tell the difference when you have made new friends or just new aquaintances.
We had a blast, and when they left, Rob gave me a genuinely friendly hug. It does feel like they are not just gonna be housemates, but new friends.
They are, cheesy as it may sound, an answer to my prayers. And I mean that literally. You can't take good people for granted.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)