WHAT MADE YOU GRIMACE & GRIT YOUR TEETH TODAY?

Customs must have had a special "We'll Make You G&GYT Day". One. And. A half. Hours. Stupid questions. Endless queueing. Searched all of my baggage. More stupid stupid questions. ("How long are you planning to stay?" - me answering - "Do all Europeans get so much time off?") Hngnnh.

And I really felt sorry for the old ladies who were heading for the wrong queue (were named A-C-B... yeah), were yelled at and head their luggage taken away and thrown (yes, thrown) in the direction of the "proper" queue.

Oh well. Off to the "smile today" thread, though.

Dayum, OE!

OK, "inspired" by littlek, I have my own little list - it starts out with something that makes me smile, but then come the PS's ...

I'm going to visit my German friend next week (not upcoming weekend but the one after), which I'm very looking forward to, havent seen her in half a year, we're going dancing one night too. But first Ive got to get a temporary travel document from the embassy because I lost my passport (only in the mornings from 10 to 12, of course). That means I also have to go to the police first (also during working hours), who wont speak any English.

Furthermore, Ive got to find and go to the dentist because a big filling fell out, I have to arrange my taxes as well as my social security (doesnt mean what it means in the US), which is lots of paperwork with two different consultancies that will end with an unexpectedly enormous bill that will put me deeper into debt than ever, and I have to go to the doctor to arrange a follow-up treatment because the previous check-up showed that I need an operation (polyps in my nose, not dangerous but theyve got to go). Nice, operation in Hungarian hospital.

I am also screamingly lonely, the American guy I was hanging out with last year somehow mysteriously stopped getting in touch, my good friend E., the one I'd ended kissing a coupla times with since New Years which was very nice, has gotten seriously together with her lover-now-boyfriend, and tonight I had a big row with my Hungarian friend "Susannah" (well, we dont have rows, we have quarrels).

She always tells me when something I did or said is bothering her, she's quite precise on being and being treated politely, both of which I think is great. But try to talk to her about something that upset you and she shuts down all communication in self-defence, instantaneously reverting to the "well perhaps I'm not the right friend for you then / it's all too much for me anyway / we'd better not see each other so much" thing. Grr. I wished I just hadnt said anything, cause last week we were still planning taking tango classes together and perhaps going on a trip to Italy this year - knowing her I can forget about that now for at least a coupla months - and I'd been really looking forward to at least the former (the trip would probably have been unaffordable anyway).

So basically my social life has hit rock bottom again and also, my nephew's birthday was last week and I miss him and I miss hanging out with my sister and him and hate being unable to look them up more than once every three, four months. He's growing, developing really fast.

OK, so thats my list, anyway.

But but but...nimh, what is the big picture here? You are much happier now than you were before you went to Budapest, you've come quite a long way, you have a good job, you do have friends even if they are temporarily unavailable or temporarily silly... Dwell on the good things, the bad will disappear. Poof.

I am gritting and grimacing my teeth and vice versa, because the paper I am writing for this conference in Slovenia is coming along as speedily as plucking hair out of a fuzzy blanket. Slow, that is. I mean, what the heck do I know about communist leaders of 1950s? Not very much, I can tell you that. And mine is the opening presentation, dammit. I am pulling something together, but I can't say I'll be overly confident presenting it. Oh well, they're paying for the trip and I'll get to spend a day and half at home in Bratislava. Still... why can't it just write itself?

I seriously dont know, Dag. I've got a great job, thats absolutely true. And I love this city, thats true as well. Lately, I keep on thinking about going back to Holland, or perhaps even moving to Germany, but its the job that keeps me here - where else would I find one like that? The job and the general vibes of Budapest, which would be equalled in Berlin but nowhere else in Germany or Holland.

But, like I said, I have actually been considering it. Ive been here a year now and I'm still desperately lonely. I have two friends and a colleague I get along well with, thats it - nothing else. Not even acquaintances. And the friends are frustrating because I keep thinking of fun things that'd be really cool to do, and discarding them again because they dont have time or will end up putting me back at arms length if we end up seeing each other more than once a week.

My family is far away, and tho I have a highly problematic relationship with my father and I dont have a mom, I do really miss my sister + nephew, and seeing him grow up - its one of the great-est things, innit, and I'm missing it. And yes, obviously I miss my friends. Perhaps this whole emigre thing just isnt for me.

Finally, one thing that plays along in the background to my current state of mind is the final communications I got from A., who upped and went back to the States a few weeks back and said her (temporary) goodbyes in a volley of hate-mails.

I'm not particularly good in communist leaders of 1950s either ... I do remember a useful and quick-enough-to-read book from university, Rothschild was the author and the name ... Return to Diversity? And a very slim yet informative bio on Tito by Pavlowitch - but I dont know whether you'd want to get into Tito, as an outsider, on a conference in Slovenia...

Oh boy. A. just won't let you have it, will she... don't let that upset you.

I feel the emigre blues. I'm lucky to live with littlek. Other than her I have one friend in town, who's frankly a bit too much for me every now and then. i have two friends in nyc. my little nephew is in san francisco and i get to see him maybe twice a year. i'm not sure i'd be better off going back home anymore, many of my friends have spread out across the world, and those that stayed never have time if i stay home for more than two weeks. visiting home is thus the most pleasant thing - cause everybody wants to meet up if you're just home for a little bit.
ggyt of the day - i have either alergies or still the flu - or it was allergies to begin with, dunno. yesterday i was fine, two days before in a row was pretty shitty, and today it's just horrible - sinuses, ears hurting, swallen eyes, topped with a marvellous headache. maybe i'm allergic to the communist leaders of the 50s. i better get back to them.

whew. allergy drug kicking in. i'm starting to feel human again.

Good to hear that ... and Dag, thanks for replying ... it's nice to get someone's take on it. <smiles>

Pardon me butting in here, nimh. I've read bits & pieces from various threads over time about your relationship with this person. Personally, I would be extremely unhappy ( depressed, even) if someone I once cared a huge amount for treated me in this way. This is just plain cruel & hurtful. So I'm not remotely suprprised that you're feeling down. It'd be so good if this person no longer had the opportunity to affect you in this way! This, on top of homesickness & feeling isolated would be enough to make anyone feel awful. You've gotta learn to protect yourself better! (Ha! That sounds funny coming from me! But if I can do it, so can you. )
I do hope you're feeling a bit better today! And don't forget, spring is just around the corner! You're not a winter person, admit it!

I most admittedly am not that, it's true!

BUT ... there's one thing to not grimace about! Its actually been nice weather for, well, at least two or three days now!

(hug)

What do you do, Nimh, if you don't mind me asking?

After nibbling on some Wasabi-covered broad beans, I used my Wasabi-covered hand to rub my right eye. Let's just say I don't recommend it.

Eh, my title is Website Manager / Researcher, but thats overstating it a bit..

Ooooh... that's got to hurt!

It did -- that's why I didn't recommend it. Surprisingly enough, to feel the pain diminish seems to be getting me into a very good mood right now. Maybe I should try it more often?

I had some gruesome dreams last night. I dont do pedestrian-type nightmares, apparently, with me it has to be some cross between a disaster movie and a holocaust movie.

So, last night, one dream I had, it starts just after some positively cataclysmic event has happened. Some gruesome disaster. In any case, there's these veritable towers of trash-wood - bobbing on the sea, or something, a vast mess of cargo crates and skeletons of former buildings, expanding endlessly into the distance and up above, and theres thousands, literally tens of thousands of people, hanging on, bitterly fighting to wrest some place on some kind of ridge or beam or rafter. I am somewhere in the middle, and I'm desperately trying to hurtle myself out, away, from one enormous, macabre construction to another, fighting through masses of wretched humans trying to survive, trying to hold on -- I know that somewhere in this panic and chaos I need to get further towards the outer regions, that its safer there.

Halfway out, I look behind me and everyone else does too as a roar erupts and I see this enormous skyscraper of driftwood, up twenty, thirty floors, with literally thousands of people on it alone, just collapse onto itself under the burden, shedding everyone who was holding on somewhere in or on it into the dark water, without a chance - and the wave that its collapse into the water thrusts outwards in its turn swallows up more of these ragtag hulks with mounds of people. I double my speed, jumping, pushing, fighting off. People are down to the basest of instincts as the anarchy of panic screams outward, they're pushing each other into the water, screeching, fighting. Some violent gangs are shoving everyone off from the one hulk, shooting, warlords of their own amidst the misery.

The worst is, this all takes place in something like six parts, shifts of story. Like one is where I'm perched on this one enormous hulk of concrete or wood and it floats and crashes into another, that's the domain of this gang with guns. So even as people are still toppling into the water from the force of the crash, others are trampled as a wave of fear pushes people back away from where we crashed into their "ship", fleeing the shooting. Anyway, five or six 'stages' like that, but it ends well somehow, eventually, apparently I've managed to reach safety of some sort, but after the end of the dream I'm left just staring, breathless still, wondering whoa what the f*ck happened, how did all that happen - and as if to patiently explain it to me, the whole f*cking dream starts all over again! But I managed to wake myself up somewhere a third through the repeat.

The other dream, and I dont know whether it came before or after (after would make more sense, but I think it was before) had none of the action but was somehow more horrid still. This was after the cataclysm. The crash has been, the disaster was and had raged out. Towers collapsed and a chemical firestorm or something devoured anything - and anyone - that was left at the end of the suffering. Now, only aftermath. And we are witnesses of some kind, for some reason we are taken on a tour of sorts through the post-disaster scene. Perhaps we're family members of victims, who insisted on seeing for ourselves. Perhaps we're reporters or observers of some kind, but I dont think so, it was too personal. The grounds are a scene of horror. We cross through the concrete skeletons of towers or warehouses. Men are everywhere working to clean - going this way and that in the dimness. But also high-pressure spraying off the blood, human tissue, from walls, floors. Whatever people were here at the end of whatever happened just melted into this cake of tissue and fluid and seeped through, filled up all the crevices. It stinks like hell, continually hard not to throw up. We're cautiously given a sight, then bundled off into some car, a next place, a different place of more of the same.

Nice, eh?

Wonder what brought that on. F*cking terrifying, it was.

This dream recycling and catching it by waking up a third or so the way through another cycle is very common in the dreams I remember..

Your dreams seem such a combination of cinema and literate description - I know a lot of the literacy is in your trying to describe them for us here, but do you remember this kind of description in the dream itself as well?

I have a stupid habit of rubbing my eye after deseeding dried red chile peppers. I wonder if the effect is better or worse than wasabi.... perhaps we should do some eye tests, and measure the euphoric relief aftereffect.

my DH

(damn husband)

I was glad, I dont usually have the power to do that ... but this was just so outrageous, I wasnt going to stand for it!


Visual, it's totally visual. Cinema, yes, absolutely. Extremely real, yet artistic (I mean that purely to say - almost like it's an animated rather than real-life film), horrendously vivid film images. When I woke up I could see exact reels from the dream, images that I could not shed.

The literacy on the other hand I think merely comes in because of me trying to convey the vividness of those images.

This week has sucked. Yesterday I left my lights on and my car died. I was on my to bring my neice to her last dance practice before this week's recital. One of her friends' mom swung by, jumped my car and brought her to dance class. Today, I closed the back door without checking the lock. My nephew locks the door while we're not looking. We all got locked out - me, my nephew and the dogs. I walked with my nephew and the puppy to get my neice at school. When we came back, I dragged a huge ladder out of their over crowded garage and crawled through a second floor window. Then my nephew fell down a half a flight of stairs......

Sigh.

Tomorrow's friday...... <breath>.