Dear Diary

nimh, you have a flair for writing !!!

Dear Diary,

Second last day in office - and am just abt to start packing my crates to move to the new one on Monday. Cant help but feel a little emotional abt leaving.

Don't know what to say really, I am excited abt the new job, but cant help but feel apprehensive as well as I am going do something which I have never done before. MY boss has been sending me lots of background info to read, but most of it is not making much sense to me. I guess I will have to wait till I get there and sit with the people and understand what the department is all abt !!

Last night was working on my speech which I am planning to give in my first team meeting in a week from now. It is difficult writing a speech for a team which you dont know. How will they take it ? What will be their reaction ? Will they be excited or wil they be disguested with my policies ? Some of them are quite older to me, and have been there for years. How will they feel abt working for what they might percieve as a "cowboy" ? Will they co-operate ? Or will they make my life hell ? How will the hard decisions I am planning to take affect the people ? So many questions, but no answers as of now. Okay I have to admit that I was slightly drunk when I was drafting this, having just been to yet another christmas do, and was not my normal hard nosed bastard self which I am at work. But stil, I have to confront these questions, sooner or later.

Speaking of christmas parties, they are getting a bit tiring. Ever since the last week of November, I am booked EVERY SINGLE evening - and double booked on quite a few. Cant wait for 3rd January to arrive, so that these parties end, and I can look fwd to spending some quiet time at home. People say that I can always refuse, but it is pretty difficult not to go - for the fear of causing offense to the host - the world I live in is very artifical, and you have to be seen at the right places, with the right people if you want to have any hope of maintaining yr profile.

A friend of a friend of mine is coming to London from Italy. And since my friend is going to be away he has requested me to spend an evening with him/take him for a drink and dinner. I tried wrangling out of this, but my friend was insistent. His friend is 20 yrs old, a medic and gay - why do I get the feeling that he is trying to play matchmaker here. What would I talk to a 20 yr old ?? There is a huge generation gap here !!! Have spoken to him a couple of times, he was asking if he could spend the new years eve with me as he did not want to be alone !! Boy o boy, these yngsters these days move fast don't they ? Unfortunately, I am booked on the 31st and tickets to the party are sold out - so I cannot take him with me. Even if the tickets were available, I would not have done it I think, not sure why though.

Anyways, enough of my blabbering, the movers are coming today evening, so I better get back to my packing - but damn it is so boring. Maybe I will hang around on A2K a little while longer.

Sunday

The night was too short, because for some reason I'd decided to force myself not to let another opportunity pass by. So at 11 I was sitting in a half-filled cinema, watching the opening credits of a Kazakh movie quite like an anthropological documentary. A short one, about a herdsman family and a second, longer one, about a family circus, cruising down the Kazakh highway.

Life in Central Asia, let so much be clear - is hard. The steppe is bare and dry and cruelly flat, with not a distraction in sight. Food is barely enough, and most exasperating of all, life is unbearably boring. The young man angrily kicks at a tin and yells, "What life is this? I am off! I am going to the city!" His father warns him, a man does not say the same thing twice - i.e., if you're gone, you're to be gone, you know! But the boy is unrepentant: "I'm going to town! I'm gonna get wasted!" So much for countryside idyll.

Still, the movies are appropriately slow and moody, with the odd smile about, for example, a cow that gets its head stuck in a milk can, trying to lap up the water inside, at which one by one the kids come running up to it, then the father too, to push and pull cow and can to get 'em unstuck again. Once freed, he trounces off disconcertedly. The circus family, meanwhile, is a bossy mother fed up with her kids, an ever-patient father with strange hair, a stocky kid who can lift a heavy iron weighth up with his teeth and can survive with barely a shard in his back when they drop the same weight onto a board he's holding up, lying in a bed of glass; two or three further little 'uns can climb themselves up into a pyramid, and walk over glass with their little feet. And that's about all of their circus show. They own a rickety van and make a pittance from "performing" for the truckers and random villagers in the empty expanse. In this film, too, a pet distraction when the kids find a baby eagle and take it with them. There's a genius shot in there: there's the baby eagle, sitting alert, eyes darting left and right, sharp and keen, a birdface of restrained prowess - and at his feet - a tin of canned fish, screwed open. He looks so magnificently … clueless for a moment - and then even more so as first one dog, then another, ventures to the can of fish and starts lapping away at it, right underneath his fierce-looking beak, simply ignoring him - and he looks down on them in a somewhat intimidated, utter confusion.

Both films neatly combined the sluggish pace of Central Asian fiction movies (which tend to end up somewhere between endearing/moving and dreary) and the mix of depression and existential beauty you find in post-Soviet documentaries. Very typical - all moody resignation and beautiful, understated moments. The first film started with a little boy, slightly out of focus, eating, flailing, slurping and drinking his milky pap, all by himself, with half of it going over his worn-out green-brown jacket, as he looks intermittently satisfied and close-to-crying, can't-understand-what-is-happening malcontent … and in the end he just lets himself fall back on the floor and falls asleep. But at the end of the second movie, the mother - yes, her - is holding her youngest kid by her side and sings the most beautiful - and saddest - Central Asian lullaby. I don't know if there's still hope - but there's beauty left, somewhere in there, still, in any case.

Film festival also featured a retrospective of Wong Kar Wai movies. Waong Kar Wai is one of my all-time favourite directors, especially Chunking Express and Fallen Angels - so stylish, so cool and sharp, yet so .. gentle, kinda. And here was a movie I'd never even heard of - I'd always thought Days of Being Wild had been his first movie, but here was one called Ashes of Time. I got to see it even tho I had to run out twenty minutes before the end to meet up with M., grab a cab and head for the airport. It was a historic kung fu movie, to my ample surprise - never known he'd done that kind of thing. But I'm pretty sure this was not your average kung fu movie. Yes there were fighting scenes (and I'd never realised swords made a sound like bullets), but that was secondary. The storylines were incredibly complex and ambiguous, the photography was brilliant. There were sets of stories, and one that I will remember was of the man who asked the protagonist to kill the man who had refused his sister's hand - and the sister, who came next to ask him to kill her brother, because he was stopping her from running off with the one she loved. Two sides of a coin, yes, but in many more ways than one. Suffice to say that, one day, there was a famous fighter in the land, a man who looked like a woman, who was brilliant to the point of being obsessive, and loved nothing more than fighting his own reflection (cue astounding shots of man swording the water in the lake he's in, making fountains and volcanoes of water erupt in condensed violence).

The flight back was uneventful. A flight to and one from Budapest Ferihegy airport meant getting both German-language Hungarian weekly papers (Budapester Zeitung and the Pester Lloyd - one with a heritage, that) - plus finding that there's a new English-language weekly again, too. Budapest Week was cool but had gone broke, which had left only the Budapest Sun, an expat paper all too obviously targeting business guests and hotel visitors only. No critical movie reviews or occasional social reportage in that one, like there'd been in the Week. But now there is a new one, the Budapest Times. Looked promising, as expat papers go. Critical piece on Hungarians who died in Iraq and a possible US cover-up about it on the front page. I read it then fell asleep, woke up for lame plane food, fell asleep, woke up for the plane change, fell asleep, woke up for lame plane dinner, fell asleep, had to wake up again. I hate travelling by plane. Exhausted.

There was one bright point though - and as soon as I saw it, I remembered seeing it before, a previous time, somewhere over Germany. Sunset over the clouds. That's so ******* beautiful. Underneath there's the steady blue-grey of an endless deck of clouds of ever changing texture. Above that, as the sun dissappears behind a distant horizon (and you realise that down on earth, its already totally dark), there's a perfect replica of the colour spectre, a thick horizontal line of purple-red layering out into orange, yellow, greenish and above that the blue of the rest of the sky. With the blue of the clouds below and the sky above seemingly pressing in from both sides, what you see is an immaculate, narrow horizontal strip of an almost artifical looking perfect colour range. Amazing. That previous time over Germany, I remember, there was even an extra feature - at one point a plane passed by, crossing our path directly below. I'd never realised that I'd never seen another plane from a plane before until I saw what a spectacular view it offers, the path of steam-clouds it spurts behind itself as it struggles its high-speed way across the sky.

I returned home to meet A., who'd been there most of the day. It was cute to come home to someone, to someone happy to see you (back). It was cosy. We exchanged stories, sat on the couch, drank some tea. Made me feel homey. It didn’t work out though, in the end. I said something that somehow upset her, I sensed the bad vibes suddenly ripple through and that in turn upset me ('why is there always something - even if I manage to skillfully go around four, five potential stumbling blocks (rocks lurking just below the water surface that can rip open your boat in an instant), there's always a seventh one that fucks it up - it's bloody hopeless') - and when she sensed that I was upset, she was pissed off. Yeh, we're great together like that. So a pleasant comfy bit of evening ended up on a false note after all.

It got a little worse still. When she was gone I caught myself at feeling like giving up, altogether - like forcing myself to turn away. And I really don’t want to feel that, so, on instinct (like some dumb stubborn goat), I picked up the phone instead, to call her - really an instinctual reaction, borne of fear I guess, intended to re-establish the connection and make it "OK" again (even though it's not, obviously). Kinda to stop myself from thinking thoughts about the opposite way to go. She was nice but was just talking to her landlady, so she'd call back. Problem was, after I'd hung up I went to the kitchen, was listening to some music, I was still exhausted and by then feeling pretty sad and I started thinking about something that made me really upset. And it was right then, half an hour later or so, that A. called back. I knew I shouldn’t pick up the phone, but I did, anyway - and there the rub was that I was really lost and she was really still too angry (or upset) to be in any place to comfort or reassure me. She did her best but ended up reproaching me for having made myself feel that way just for the impact it would have on her. And I hadn't. I'm just a mess, I can get upset about all kinds of stuff. Its not something I do to her, in particular, at all. I feel powerless enough as it is.

All of this sequence of events stirred up unprocessed issues we have about each other from earlier. From my side, I'm sick of having to feel that anything I do or feel - whether its being upset or being late or having to do overwork or whatever - is interpreted as something I do to her - sick of being made to feel guilty about stuff that’s bad enough already of itself. To be reminded of that bit of dynamic of ours really made me resolve to - not show it anymore when I'm not OK, or much less in any case - to close up about it, to her too - to not make myself vulnerable anymore by trusting her and then running the risk that she blames me for it as something I do to her.

Then again, I really have to remind myself that all of my reaction here refers to past stuff, that all she did now was just that one little reaction, and even that only because I was behaving stupidly (by calling her) in the first place, and that she doesn’t actually do much of all that anymore at all. She's become a lot better. Whereas I have basically become a mess.

Monday

I don't remember much at all about Monday. I slept till really really late. I remember feeling kinda discombobulated, and not wanting to go out anywhere (Monday is my day off). I also remember sending A. a short mail just to thank her for having been here when I came home, that it actually was really cosy to have a cup of tea together like that - just so as not to have that stuff snowed over by the other stuff. I also spent a lot of time on A2K - never a good sign. But I also started doing this: the 'Dear Diary' thing. I tried it last night already after all that - mess - saw the thread on Abuzz and tried - but I couldn’t do it. (I noted so and Kara-teka left a very kind message after that - I left open the window so the next morning I saw that message again. Those little things help. People care.) But today it worked after all, and I wrote a whole bunch of stuff about Friday and Saturday on the A2K DD thread. I don’t know exactly why yet, but I have this feeling that something about doing this will really help me. So here goes.

He-ere come the update ...
I'm soo going to colonise this thread ;-)


Tuesday

Today was a busy, lively day, full of good cheer. Its true, to be very honest I'd kinda really hoped for a day of a bit of relaxing - I mean, we've had so many deadlines, meetings etc this past month or two, Greece having been only the last little tail of it, I thought, you know - this would be the perfect day to check some e-mail backlog, do some archiving, chat with colleagues to catch up … that kinda thing. But alas, turns out that after last week's application deadline, this week we have a "final report" deadline that involves detailed financial overviews of the past year, and so I find my two colleagues (E. and R.) in a state close to frantic stress. No matter. With all four of us in the room again, the mood lightens up a little, and we get to banter a bit after all. And besides, today we're celebrating Sinterklaas, after all! Everyone's drawn lots (there's some twentysomething of us in the building), and so here you can find three of us, sitting on the floor, spreading packing paper, scissors, tape, envelopes for the rhymes around and generally making a mess ... Heh. M. the Italian intern even learned some Sinterklaas songs at her Dutch class this morning an' all, so now we're singing Sinterklaas ditties to go with the whole thing and I'm sure next door at the reception they think we're mad. And if they didn’t yet, I'm sure they did a little while later when I show R. what song I learned yesterday - the Soviet anthem, the way Paul Robeson sang it. ("Long, live our Soviet motherland / built by the people's mighty hand'). I admit I do a bad Robeson imitation but on the other hand it turns out M. immediately recognizes the tune and knows the words. Heh. Bunch of fuckin' crypto-commies, all, here, I knew it. <grins>

Days like this I like my colleaugues. Especially R., our assistant, who apparently thinks it's cute that I'm kind of an eccentric, impulsive type (is what I guess she thinks) - hey, I don’t like getting bored and besides, E. and I have already worked long enough together to have little shame about pulling faces or yelling to our computers when it's too late in the afternoon or evening to still be able to work seriously all the time. We seem to be scaring M. a little, though.

The whole Sinterklaas thing was cool, actually. I don’t like work do's, at all - but this one was cute. Everyone opening their present and reciting the poem that went with it - and some people had really done their best. One guy's initial present was a videotape, which turned out to have a distinctly hung-over looking Sinterklaas (speaking in some heavy, un-Sinterklaas-sounding local accent) on it, reciting the poem for him and then telling him where to look for his real present (underneath the videorecorder).

(Should note that afterwards, we are the only room to just go back to work again to finish off the working day - the others all call it a day or stay to chat.)

In lunch break, when I'd gone out to get wrapping paper, I also saw some stuff that I just had to get for A. It's really intended for newly-born babies - that is, babies who're gonna be born in 2004: 2004 is the Year of the Monkey. Now A. loves monkeys - instinctively, intensely, with some little-kid fervour; and here was a velvet-covered red box, and also a book with empty pages wrapped in a velvet-like white cover, ever so cute - both with a text about 2004 being the Year of the Monkey. Most adorably, attached to the book was a little, cuddly doll - of a little kid in a monkey costume, his own face peeking out from underneath the monkey face which you could slide over his head or back off. And the text - four lines from the poem on the front, the whole text inside - reminded me of A., too. Someone on the search for the spirit, and in the world of a dreamer, time does not exist …

I had to get these for her - for Sinterklaas. I couldn’t have happened onto a more symbolic present. Next year will be something of a new start for her, after all, a time where she'll be reinventing herself in a way - "new round, new chances". In February she'll be going to Budapest to do an (apparently renowned) teacher training course, to get the TEFL certificate - it's her big shot. After that, hopefully, the days of working as a hotel cleaner will be over (after all, she'll have the certificate and her experience teaching English in Slovakia - it should work). Everything about it is exciting and new and scares the **** out of her and makes her feel hopeful anew - the association with rebirth shouldnt be so far out … I think she should have a book to write about her first new steps in (she always has a notebook to carry around) - and a box to store memories in as she gathers them … I hope it'll all work out. I'm banking on it.

Oh and I also bought a cute little hangy thingy with bells and a flying elephant for my nephew, for Sinterklaas - and the soundtrack CD of "The Man Without a Past" for myself, cause my order just happened to come in today!

Wednesday

I was utterly worthless today. I woke up, late - overslept - and in a state. Feeling confused and a little intimidated, kinda like that baby eagle from the movie. Or like a boy-kid who's lost his way. Had to get to work but it took trouble. At work colleagues still in stress over the final report deadline - and I felt like I was glancing at an open tin of fish, and didn’t know how to eat it. Not that there weren't some urgent e-mails to answer, which I did, one or two of 'em complicated ones. And I joined in the search for the Missing Flight Invoices. But none of it went smooth. I kept feeling how, when I walked, I walked in hunched, forced movements, as if continually wary of some imminent infraction. No cup of tea helped. Everybody was busy though, so noone noticed it - and like I said, I did do some (urgent) stuff.

It was only at the end of the day, by 8 or so, that E. noticed my mood, and came to me and asked what was up. I shrugged, nothing much. She saw, though, and cared. We exchanged three, four sentences - and a hug. I said I just have those days … but they're getting less often. It used to be worse, a while ago. She reminded me that she knew. She'd been in an institution, in fact ... "I felt like that every day. Now, perhaps, once a year." Wow. I guess we've all been there, by now - all of us around - or so it seems sometimes, anyway. It's kind of reassuring, to know that in this place, we've all seen the other side of the sky, even if some saw more of the dark than others - there won't easily be any rushed judgement about anything. But damn, if you think about it … Its sad, really. **** yeh it's sad.

New batch of monster-sized diary entries ... never realised there was so much to say about an every-day day! <frowns>

Thursday

Again I wake up too late, I had to run to make it reasonably in time. As long as I work I'm OK, as usual - I'm fine, really. Revising final report text so that the elements of my project are summarised and listed correctly - that kinda stuff. Everybody is a bit grumpy today. I'm not, really - not overtly - I'm pleasant to everyone, make jokes. But god I'm tired, and I really feel like hitting some (random) people over the head - like, a semi-whimsical untargeted actual physical urge. I decide I should take some days off, to begin with tomorrow, cause this is getting out of hand. For the first time in a month or two, there's nothing really happening in the week that's coming up - as far as I know - nothing I absolutely need to be there for. So why not.

I found this beautiful Moroccan lamp - height of one's lower arm's length, thick cloth or skin, dyed a beautiful ruby red, with characters or patterns painted on it, a bell-shaped round warm sphere of dim light - I like it - a lot. I'd seen it before, had liked it before, but at that price (some 60 euro), I cant afford it. But I really do need new lamps - two of the rickety student-time second-hand ones I had broke down on me in one month, and thus these last few busy weeks have been decidedly darkish at arrival home. I decided to buy me the lamp.

In fact I was really looking forward to going home, and just giving up - falling down into the big velvet-red couch and sitting quietly in its folds reading something with the new ruby red lamp somewhere in the corner of my eye. But something wasn’t ready about it yet, so I have to go get it tomorrow, instead. To compensate I bought (almost without thinking) no less than five kinds of cheese - the softest goats cheese, nice fresh mozzarella, and a soft yellow cheese called something like Tetillo, all from the Italian place, and Emmenthaler and a pebble-sized piece of Grana Padano at the supermarket. In the meantime I catch myself waving my arms by my sides as I walk and almost singing out loud some nonsensical made-up song as if I was some little boy who's lost his parents, ambling down the street - I really am tired. Better get home quick.

At home that part's no better, though. I want to say that I'm used to feeling like that now, but that's not really true, it freaks me out still. But at least at home there is no one who sees it, anyway. I mean basically it's just me feeling crazy, after all - even if I do find myself singing, "Ride a bicycle - fly the moon!", repeatedly, for some reason. I still blurt it out when calling back A., and therefore hang up rather quickly a little after that - better not be like this, better not let anyone hear. Because I've decided that I don't want that anymore. (Also, I get confused even when she tells me the simplest things, and then I don't understand them, can't concentrate enough to even follow the entire sentence - it's embarassing - and the confusion itself alarms me more still - that's an always imminent vicious cycle. All of this is so strange, considering all the stuff I can do as soon as I "log in" to work, going to the office - or even when I go to A2K, connecting up and joining some discussion. I can make total sense then - I concentrate - and everything works. Until I back off and I relax - and everything fragments into pieces again.)

After I hang up, while the bread is in the oven, I spend hours lighting all kinds of little candles ("tea lights"?), spreading them around the room in my favourite candle-holders. Well, seven of them, anyway. All kinds of little lights. I guess it's a good thing, that I'm doing that - that it's a good sign - to find yourself doing that instead of just plopping down behind the computer and getting lost or something.

When I check the phone again - (I'd plugged the cord back into the phone that I like better and that you can walk around with, but that doesn't ring anymore, so if you leave it plugged in you won't hear if someone calls you) - there's another message from A.. I'd told her I'd bought her a Sinterklaas-present and now she's gone out to buy me one, too. She even made a poem and she's elated and excited about giving it to me and how I'll react, and she wants to buy a disposable camera so as to make a picture of it when we open it - she's really excited and cant wait till tomorrow.

I think that's sweet. I think it's nice that's she's really excited about something she's done / doing for somebody else - I stopped to think about that last night (when she was already excited), about how she's - changed this last year or so. Especially the last few months <nods>. At the same time I'm rather intimidated by suddenly seeing such high expectations buble up out of nowhere, I mean - considering how I feel, an' all ... I hope I wont disappoint her tomorrow by not being happy enough ...

And now I have to call her back to say that, no, coming round at midnight tonight to give the present already is really not such a good idea ... and anyway, that's not how Sinterklaas works! <big smile>

Instead, I find myself making the most elaborate sandwiches, with different combinations of each of the cheeses I bought with avocado and sundried tomatoes. And I'm going to eat those now. <smiles>

Friday

It's my first day off, and a good thing too, cause I woke up late, groggy and a little sick. And I'm sure that's partly because I was up way too late last night, after I'd calmed down a bit, reading online papers and doing A2K instead of going to bed in time so as to enjoy the light of day today. Why do I do that? I've been thinking a lot about that. Mostly it's - like a zero-line - like stepping out of your life and enjoying the zero-line of a dimension that's wholly uncoupled from the realities of one's day-to-day life, from things to do and face up to - and from time itself, in a way. Nothing you read, write or see online (as long as you stay away from your e-mail account), refers in any way to the realities of your daily life. Perhaps that's why it feels like utter relaxation, even when it might involve, say, sweating over some elaborate, circumlocutory proposition about Russian neo-imperial ambitions in the near abroad, or whatever. But in the end it's not relaxation - it's not like taking time off to recuperate, rest, come to yourself - its simply making time stop. Its like pushing the "pause" button on life. And when you're forced to press "play" again, nothing's changed, and you're not really feeling any better or more relaxed. Perhaps that's why it's sometimes so hard to click on the little cross in the top-right corner, click disconnect and step back into real life - even when it is just to get some sleep - because you know it's all still there when you do so - and somewhere only half-aware, that thought fills me with dread. But this way I'm just creating a bit of a vicious cycle, of course - because lingering on in web-space for another hour, instead, just means I go to bed later, sleep less (or worse) and am more tired, still, the next day - and to put it mildly, that doesn’t exactly solve anything.

I comfort myself a little bit with the thought that at least, I'm learning stuff surfing the NYT or TNR, rather than spending time on god-knows-what nonsense other people habitually spend hours on, or watching lame TV shows or something. But its tricky, because unlike watching TV (the programme ends, another one begins), the web sometimes really does seem a dimension outside of real-life time (if you're alone) - you get in there, and suddenly you look down to your taskbar to see that two hours have passed by. And you didn't even make a cup of tea. That's the worst part of that whole story.

I got my lamp - its really pretty. It doesn't actually provide much extra light in the room - but it looks exactly like I hoped it would - it's really pretty. A mysterious, dreamy object, inserting an element beyond the room's pedestrian-appearing look. (Well, it only looks pedestrian because I'm bored with it). I also bought more cheeses at the Italian shop and bread at the specialty bakery. Carefully selecting my choice and asking a little extra info on this and that I felt like a gentleman of sorts, a connoiseur - and remember feeling like that (and being treated like this) a few years ago, all the time. (Of course, having a bit of money and knowing how to spend it helped .

I had been slightly stressed by A.'s hiiiighly-pitched expectations - when I really wasn't up to anything big in the first place, I'd just bought her a present. But things went marvellous. I had the place looking nice, clean and all lit up with candles when she came. She cooked fennel and I helped, rolling little meatballs that turned out very spicy indeed, while in between doing the dishes. After that we finally got to exchange the presents (what she had been waiting for) - she went first, then me. I already described my presents, so what'd she get me? A surprise. Half the present was the way it was wrapped - now here's someone who really picked up on the Dutch Sinterklaas traditions ;-). A big box wrapped in pretty silver-patterned paper turned out to be filled with hand-made confetti (she actually spent time cutting gold and silver paper in endless little strips!) - and another box, wrapped in shiny red paper with hearts. Inside that box, more confetti and carefully wrapped - boxes. These, though were part of the actual present - three little round boxes, covered in mosaic-size square bits of mirror. I've now got a candleholder in the middle of the three, and the effect of the three-fold reflected light is positively cute. OK, so the boxes each fitted inside another, and in the smallest was - the basement key. So outside and down to the basement we go - to find another box wrapped in silver paper ;-). Inside: a big ol' dark-red disco glitterball. Serious. That took me aback for a moment, but you know what - it's really kinda pretty. And I've always had that kind of stuff in my place, my room used to be a veritable camp, playground outrage. I've toned it down a bit, but this globe does have the colour of my couch - and if you aim a spotlight on it, you have the prettiest shards of colour flitting across your wall. So there ;-).

Afterwards, we went to see Love, actually, the movie. I was going to see it with a friend and a friend of his next week and then a colleague of mine would come along as well - but my friend called just today to say he wouldn't be able to make it, cause of the training he'd be having all week. So, in what A. would dub had to be, the movie became "free", so to say, and we could go there tonight, instead. It's really cute. Funny and endearing and uplifting and original and just unexpected enough not to be y'r average feel-good movie. It was sweet and when you've seen it, you can't help leaving the cinema all happy and hopeful and gentle-mooded. So we did, and that was perfect, and fitting - and we were beautiful.

(One random tangent. About Hugh Grant as Prime Minister. That was instructive, really. It made me realise something about the English and Tony Blair. Blair has come under a lot of fierce criticism, lately, and his ratings were down deep this past summer. Moreover, polls showed majorities of the electorate pointedly disagreeing with practically each respective policy he was charting out. Yet Labour is not to be sunk in the polls. No matter how emphatic discontent became, neither the LibDem nor the Tory leader edged up any closer to Blair's Labour in percentage points. Why is this? I think Hugh Grant's PM shows why. The thing with Hugh's character was that he was just like Tony Blair - but better. Young and charming and modern and slightly informal - always that grin - except that in the movie, the PM also dared to stand up to the Americans and, more generally, for stuff that evokes fuzzy feelings. The only thing the real Blair seems to be standing up to is his own Labour party. If this Christmas movie PM is to represent the British fantasy of a PM, the lesson is that, much like a discontented but still enamored lover, they don't want anyone else - they want Blair - they just want Blair to be more of whom they had imagined him to be!)

Saturday

Went to visit my sister, C., and nephew (and brother-in-law) today - and my father was there, too. Always kinda cosy, low-key, OK. J., my nephew. is adorable, everything about every step he's making is cute. He's almost nine months old now. He discovered how to walk on all fours (or whatever you call "kruipen" in English), and he's going everywhich way at alarming speed. They had to suddenly make amends, put a fence in the kitchen entrance, keep the sliding door to the hall closed, so that he doesn't "kruip" right outa sight! Anyway, it was cute to be there.

I always do pick up on this dysfunctional bit a little - I mean, it sucks that my mother isn't there to see any of this, and my father - well ... He always has interesting stories to tell from whatever trip he was last on (India, this time), but seems often blissfully unaware of the context - like, when to stop, or when somebody else wants to say something, or when the baby needs attention instead, or when someone doesn't understand what the **** he's going on about. Ah well - nothing serious, though, ya get used to it and work around it. He's just gotten to be something of a character, all beard, intelligence, enthusiasm about what he's doing and good-natured banter - nothing wrong with that, I guess. :doubtful:

Plus, he's finally picked up on the kid. The first few months he seemed kinda clueless about what the whole thing was supposed to be about - it didn’t seem to mean much to him. (Like - he never even bought a present after the birth - even when my sis was dropping heavyweight hints and telling him about what cute attentions others had shown. Like I said - blissfully unaware <grins>). But now that the kid's all "da-da-da'ing" and laughing and touching and playing with the toys he's got, he's sincerely endeared and involved. Its cute. I brought him his Sinterklaas present, too, as well as some speculaas for after dinner for everyone. That was cool - I was the only one who'd thought of bringing a Sinterklaas present - whereas I didn't exactly use to be the most attentive/considerate of the family ... <secretly kinda a little proud>.

Back in the train the first bit to Rotterdam there's these beautiful girls, all dreads, colourful skirts, black hair and piercings (I don't like piercings, but in this case ...). They're going to some party - at the station there are more, some guys with a girl with a short kirt and black-white striped thigh-high stockings, some gabba boys with their girlfriends (sneakers, hair in a ponytail, tough look, much jumping around and mock-fighting) … must be some kinda techno party or something going on. Then I realise that, duh, its Saturday night. Normally it's always Sunday night when I return, and everything's quiet.

I'm jealous. I would so like to go clubbing again - the dressing up, the excitement about what the place will be like, hearing the beat of the music from outside, all the beautiful people, the props of the party (dancers, lights, video-projections, mirrors, whatever). The dancing and the drugs and the smiling broadly at random strangers who are all just as happy as you are - damn. Back in Utrecht I happen upon two cutely shy Flemish guys (why are the Flemish always so much more modest/polite/quiet than the Dutch?) and show them the way to the "Pink Cloud" café, then return home. Here I am, picking up the confetti from yesterday's presents, listening to Finnish vintage rock'n'roll and making some tea - and outside they're getting ready to party. Its hopeless. People I know have all long stopped going. And the last two times I went alone left me with a bit of a hangover - it just hadnt felt right (like it had before). But where others bow out of going out on Saturday night with the self-evidence of a thirty-something's "dontneeditanymore", I've had to be taken out of it willy-nilly.

(I can't believe I'm ending this diary entry with the word "willy-nilly").

That was a sad, but also a cute diary entry - heh. If I ever come across Anthony Dudley, I'll damn well make sure to tell him to return you your book!

nimh...

Well, I'm sitting here crying, literally, and I don't quite know why. It started when I tried to wrestle down a vague thought that had something to do with, I would love to read this anywhere, I'm amazed that I can talk to the person who wrote it, like talk and get a response.

So, I won't wrestle it any further into submission. Just, thanks. And take care.

Dear Diary,
well i need help from mum with studying for my Anaiml Farm test today in hon. English, but she is at the coffee shop. Unfortunately, she is meeting with the Pritchards, when they sent the soup she got pretty upset. I thought it was a nice gesture of them... but I wasn't burned by them. It frustrates me because I think I probably would have done what Mrs. Pritchard did, if I saw asomeone not agreeing with the rules I probably would have tried to get them kicked out too. But I don't want to cause the havock Mrs. Pritchard has...
I mean, what is the right thing to do, turn a blind eye to something because it has nothing to do with you, or shed light on something you know can't turn out well?
Exams are on wednesday, two tests today, quiz next week. Every time I think I finished worrying about a test and I'm relieved.... another one comes.
I'm glad homeschooling has hardy any tests, or I would be exhausted.

snow in Albuquerque
We have about 2 inches of light powdery snow on the ground in high desert Albuquerque and it is still falling at 8 am. My dog, Maddy, was out romping around in it until he finally came inside cold and wet. Silly dog! Now he is sitting in the window watching the kids on the their way to school, all bundled up, and gathering little snow balls to toss around.

The man who delivers my newspaper didn't toss it on the driveway from his car as he usually does. He got out of his car and hung it on my screen door handle wrapped in plastic so I didn't have to walk on the icy driveway. My mail carrier, Melissa, called me by name when she placed my mail in our common mail box kiosk.

People are so nice in Albuquerque. So are the dogs.

BBB

Re: snow in Albuquerque


snow is coming down pretty good right now here.

ahh i want it to snow here (ohio), all we have is alot of rain.

innie
innie, welcome to Able2Know; glad to have you here.

It doesn't snow often in Albuquerque's high desert. When it does, it doesn't last long enough to be a transportation problem. Just fun, especially if you are from my previous home in the San Francisco Bay Area where you have to travel to see snow.

BBB

I'd like it to snow here too but fat chance!

Just found out that a very good friend wants to go to Camaroon to see daughter in the PeaceCorp. - Big problem! After 49 years friend find out that she's not a US Citizen but one of Mexico. We was telling about the situation - this is going to turn into a made for TV movie I bet! Gosh and she has so many circumstances that mess things up you cannot imagine.

Can she get a Mexican passport? Would she be considered an ilegal in the US? That would be a problem as she couldn't get back in the states. Wait 'till daughter comes home?

Dear diary,

I haven't been here for quite a while - I hardly touched the computer at home. Well, except to buy some stuff at ebay ;-)

I had some busy weeks at work. But now just four more days to go till Christmas vacation. And my boss will only be in the office for one day. He still has not told me that he is moving to France in January. But we planned lots of meetings and travels for next year already. So I guess that means my work situation will stay more or less the same. The relocation company that is figuring out where he should be taxes wrote that he will work in Germany 20 days per year, 30 days in Sweden, 60 days in France in 120 days elsewhere. Well, I should be moving to 'elsewhere' then.

We will have a big meeting in Spain February. That means we will go to Spain in January to check out the hotel and everything. I will be at the meeting in February as a contact person of anything goes wrong. So that could be some nice days in Malaga :-)

My boss and I are getting along pretty good these days. I am back to my old self - saying what I think and not being scared of him. Finally! My goodness, I am 41 years old! I should have known better months ago. Oh well - still learning.

I took tomorrow off so Stefan and I will go to Stuttgart to the Swedish consulate for his new passport. Which he will need for our vacation to Florida next year.

And the immigration office sent invoices to process our green card application. So it looks like things are finally happening in this regard. They want a check by an American bank. Like we have that at Balingen... But my brother will send the documents together with a check. So we keep our fingers crossed. As always in winter I feel like I HAVE to get away from this place. The company I work for has a production plant in Daytona. Don't they need somebody from Germany there????? I am sure they do!

Oh, and we had a our Christmas dinner with my boss. Before that, we had our European HR managers meeting here in Germany. And we had dinner at La Pergola so that my colleagues from all over Europe - and my boss - could meet my husband. It was very nice. As always I was very proud of him. :-)

And the Christmas dinner - we are only three people working together - my boss, the internal communications manager who is on maternity leave and works from home and myself. So my boss invited both our husbands also. Unfortunately, his girlfriend was in Tokyo - so it was the five of us. We had a very nice evening. He brought us flowers and thanked us for the good work. And apologized to me for everything he did to me during the year. That's a new one! Maybe he does have feelings after all...

And now it's Sunday night - I don't have to work tomorrow. So I'll go to La Pergola and have some pasta and a nice glass of wine. And then go out with Stefan. I am a lucky girl!

D.D.,

I had a wonderful weekend. My husband took a student of his (along with me) to the movies and to eat. It was her birthday and her family could not afford to get her anything for it. She didn't even have a cake. So, we went out and had a great and wonderful time. We window shopped (Judith and I) and enjoyed each other's company. She's is one of his above avg students. When we finally got home we had a discussion and he's of the mind that students like judith deserve the extra time spent with them for cultivation of their mind and stuff. His opinion is that she's worked hard in school and needs some appreciation. He has a student in this category every year. Conversely, he's got students that aren't above avg, that have some behavioral problems even. He spends time with these students, in school and says he sees great advancement in their behavior and other areas. I put to him the question of why doesn't he take these students out and reward them? Do they not also need the same attention they're not receiving at home? Do they not also need appreciation and recognition for the leaps and bounds they've made, be they on the higher level or not? It is still under discussion under my rooftop.

My 4 year old got in trouble again. The girl is really going through her 'trying time'. She colored in red crayon on the inside of the car and got in trouble in school the same day. I had to have to get down on her, but sometimes it's so necessary. I wish that I could sometimes revert back to when I was 4 or 5 and doing things like that so I could understand her behavior on her level. Lord help me is all I can say.

I stayed up until 5:00 in the morning Sunday morning playing Sorry at an online gaming site. Am I bats or what? Oh well, this ends my general rambling. Maybe I'll see ya later - but I doubt it.

S...

onyxelle
That's wonder for your husband - I ask the my Mrs about that same sort of thing on a regular basis, well not that I can afford to have her grabbing up another handful of kids - we have our own - but there has to be a few boundries.
Let me know how things turn out in that discussion - I'm listening with much interest.

...

Dear Diary,
I had a good day.. got some stuff from peir 1 imports so i could make a candle decoration... so thats fun!
my incense is burning too fast, though... too much smoke not enough smell!
its been a good day.. I kind of wish Austin would stop hating Jon though.. it's getting really dramatic and figthing over a girl that is going to college next year is ridiculous anyway.

but yes life is good, tomorrow "he" is spending the night and that should be good... ill tell him about my call to the hotline and phefully he wnt flip
god bless
cheers
--innie

Dear Diary
Dear Diary and friends,

Came down to Popayan for a couple of days. I've traveled around to places north of Cali like Pereira and Manizales but never gone south. The trip is easy. It takes about two hours and fifteen minutes leaving from the bus terminal in Cali (five minutes from Chipichapi shopping center) and costs $12.000 ($4.36 US). About an hour from the terminal the road starts to climb and the trip is spectacular from then on so get a seat with a good view. For those who've made the trip up to the Parque de Cafe the scenery to Popayan is at least twice as stunning.

If Arequipa is the "white city" of Peru Popayan has to be Colombia's. It's all classic colonial and the prettiest city I've seen in Colombia after Cartagena and with much better weather... a few degrees cooler than Cali but warmer than Manizales. Within about an eight block radius of the main plaza there are restaurants, bistros and hotels in abundance and at least two internet cafes and a nice gym. I stayed at Hotel Pakande three blocks from the plaza for $18.000 (about $6.50 US) which included a private bath with hot water in the sink as well as the shower. It seems like a family place and the people are really nice. When I come back with my wife I might splurge and stay at the elegant Hotel Camino Real just off the Plaza. On weekends a double with balcony is $80.000 ($29.00 US) weekdays it's more, $135.000, must cater to the business crowd).
This is an easy day trip from Cali and is an interesting outing or come and spend the night. Lots of police in the town center and walking around at night isn't a problem. Bring your camera.

I dunno...this place is so cool we might move here and forget about Ecuador. Next trip I'll look into visiting the Parque de Purace outside of town with it's snow covered volcano. There's a park office here in town where you can arrange it.