Twatter

I am getting ever so slightly irritated by the amount of people that deem it necessary to update their Facebook status every other hour. If I wanted to know what everyone is up to every minute of every day, I’d sign up for Twatter, which, thank you very much, I did NOT.

I can stomach daily or weekly upkeep-sing with the Jones’s. In fact, it’s on a social par with the delightfully digestible Weekly Guardian we get delivered to our door every Friday. But if Facebook is increasingly cross-contaminated by people with boundary issues, I’m going to either seriously cull my “friend”-list, or bow out gracefully and seek refuge in my RSS feeds only.

Not. A. Happy. Bunny.

I think I’ve found my new cause.

String it together

There’s a wall in our home that I’ve covered with photographs of things that matter (or once did) to me. It’s an inconvenience. Jo’s been asking me for a while to find a better place for it. And she’s right: our home IS a tad too small for it. But I need it up there.

My life is and has always a been a bit lop-sided. Or perhaps it is me that is. Unlike most people, it seems, I cycle through long spells of quiescence and forceful bursts of exuberance. I happily and almost instinctively disappear of the social radar for long stretches at a time. I think it’s because my batteries get spent quickly and take a long time to recharge. Jo, our home and some time to tinker and faff on my own little projects, are like the proverbial charger-cradle in which I park my batteries until they’re ready to launch off again.

I know my friends and family wonder about this. About this social awkwardness. About this absence. Almost as if such an absence in their own lives, would make it defunct. Unless people point this out to me, I am oblivious to the anomaly I seem to represent. And when they do, it makes me question whether I am missing out on time that one day I might regret.

And then I look up on my wall, and tally up the faces. Stringing together childhood friends that catapulted me into adult-hood, single-serving friends that nonetheless connected to some of my most uncensored thoughts and desires, and good friends that I’ve since parted ways with, some more painfully so than others.

And I tally up the places. Stringing together a criss-cross, chaotic path across the globe, in lessons of perspective.

And then I tally up the experiences. Stringing together the rises and falls of any human existence, magnified by their repetition, lessons in understanding en self-knowledge.

When I string it all together, I realise I am not missing out on anything. I’m achieving more. Or at worst, the same things, differently. When the photos string together 30 years, they prove to be full, rich, with every second correctly placed. Testimony that right now, I am where I need to be. Walking at the pace that is right for me. With the person that I need and long to walk it with.

The photos… string it together.

Hands

I took the camera out today, looking for some casual shots, but came home with none. It happens to me a lot lately. Setting out to observe people, I become immobilized, drawn into my surroundings. Often by the smallest of triggers.

Today, the most common gesture on earth was to blame: two hands holding.

Two hands holding. Everywhere.

I doubt there’s any single gesture that (a) spans a wider variety of meaning and (b) connects us more. We are instinctively in the know when we see people hold hands, without much subtext or even the need for context. Subtle nuances, through empathic specs, become blatantly obvious and recognizable.  

The gesture links us more to strangers than we would probably care to admit. Common threads in all of our lives. Babies instinctively grab adult fingers, toddlers… their mum’s safe hand in the presence of strangers. Teen girls in unspoken pacts of belonging. Pubescent romancers in acts of longing. Professionals in wheeling and dealing. Elderly couples, in re-affirmation of life’s choices…

They are common threads of love, friendship, comfort, protection.

When I watch the world around me hold hands, I cannot remain observer. I feel my mum’s hand protectively around mine when crossing  the street (aged 4). My dad’s, conveying he’s understood things about me that I still struggle with (aged 16).  My brother’s hand in search of a wiser older sister, when he’s thrown rocks at a by-passing car without thinking and is being shouted at by the driver (aged 8). My best friend’s hand wrapped tightly around mine when we’re spending an afternoon lying in the grass in summer, doing nothing (aged 18).

And I feel Jo’s warm loving hand sleepily search for mine, like mine does hers, ten times a night.

I took my camera out today looking for some casual shots. But came home with none.

Insomnia

Days are drifting into nights and into days again without much transition. Thoughts projected in quick succession, like short-films onto the inside of my skull. Too fast to follow. Only a glimpse of the cut-over flicker where the reels connect. Emotions lag behind on the visuals. Rationalisation tries to cut across the chaos, but quickly resigns to observing from its secluded dark corner. Experience tells to just ride out the storm.

Turning points.

A desire to kick open new doors. To close a few. Familiarly frequent, but now also, comfortingly different. Chaos no longer merely erratic, but purposeful and superimposed on a stable lifeline that cuts across the last 2.5 years.

There is a sense of clarity amidst the ephemeral. A sense of peace paralleling the restlessness.

I know where I am heading. When the chaos settles.

Super-Dry

Went to the gym before work this morning, and contrary to the usual slackness, worked up a pretty nice sweat. Only to discover in the changing room that I’d forgotten my towel. Not showering was not an option. So I glanced down, noticed the “Superdry” logo on my hoodie, and thought… “hmm”.

20 minutes later, I was sauna-ed, showered and superdried. Ahhhhh. Quality.

Disproving the God concept

If God were all-knowing, he would’ve forseen the side-effects of menstrual cycles and hormonal imbalances. 

BLEH. My day sucks.

Soapbox moment

*places her soapbox nicely central in your line of vision, steps on it and scrapes her throat*

A recent lunch-break discussion on childhood bullies really grated me the wrong way. Admittedly, I was the one who brought up the subject, after haphazardly bumping into my own schoolbully over the weekend. I was recounting how I’d narrowly managed to restrain myself from slapping her in the face. Twenty years are clearly not quite enough to properly process the pent up childhood anger.

Anyway, I recounted the story of her ostensibly handing out birthday-party invites to a select few people in our class. Only to tear up one of the invitations in front of the girl who’d inadvertently offended her. You know the type of manipulative displays, 9-year old girls are so marvelously skilled at.

One of my colleagues, a mother herself, told me that her kid’s school no longer allows the handing out of invites in the classroom. Parents have to extend invitations to other parents, to avoid scenes such as the ones described above.

Now. No matter how many kadzillion tears I cried as a forlorn 9-year old, the fact that a modern school would intervene in these kind of “survival-of-the-fittest” playground struggles, really really grates me. Surely this is overbearing? Sheltering your kids from the harsh realities of the world (which, relatively speaking, this isn’t really), MUST do them more harm than good? How and where are they meant to learn to guard themselves from this kind of behavior, cope or grow confident?

Moreover, we’re stripping them of case examples for empathic learning. I had it done to me once. Saw it done to another, made the link, and voila… empathic growth.

Seriously not impressed.

*bows and steps off soapbox*

Special Needs

Geel, our current town of residence, is a care-in-the community kind of place. On weekends, the streets flood with fluorescent jackets, when the special needs people and mental health patients are released on day-leave.

It takes a bit of getting used to. And after a while, you learn to live with it.

Like the time I went grocery shopping, and kneeled down to grab something of the bottom shelf. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed someone was trying to pass, so I politely took a step back (without looking up) to let the person pass. And then…

“SLAP”

Right on my head. Slightly startled, I looked up to find a pair of glittering eyes beaming down at me from a fluorescent jacket.

“Food’s really expensive here!”

Erm… yes. Like it’s my fault? Anyway, I did what everyone does here when the fluorescent jackets descend upon us. I smiled, nodded a courtesy yes and went about my business as if nothing happened. Although I did contemplate wearing a helmet on future shopping endeavours.

A different kind of point-and-shoot

http://www.not-a-crime.com/

Time

We have an atomic clock in our office. Apparently it normally aligns itself via a wireless link with some atomic reference clock in switzerland. Not that I ever noticed. Until today.

For some reason, it’s started spinning around wildly, like it’s trying to catch up with lost time. It had me quite mesmerized. Going full-circle about 3 times, it always faltered slightly around the 8 before racing off again.

And then, at 4pm (according to all our other watches), it suddenly -very decisively- halted on the 9 and resumed its normal pace of 60 beats per minute.

To ignore everyone else’s timeframe and simply live your own. Now there’s a thought.

Zen moment amidst the head-ache

I’ve been breaking my head over a project with a tight deadline next Tuesday. It’s one of those rare moments where I feel that nauseating knot in the stomach that I used to feel when studying for exams, knowing I had started too late and was most likely flunking out. It’s the kind of sensation where you want to either throw up and hope for a sick-note or run-away and ditch everything. At any rate. It’s not a very productive feeling.

But then I caught a glimpse of my girl doing research for HER job and spotted a very zen sight for sore eyes, which totally dragged me out of my head-ache for a happy few minutes.

Want it.

www.redyourdead.com

Too much of a good thing.

I am buzzing. Jittering. Nae, nervously twitching!

I’m thinking next time our office supplier decides to treat us with freebie chocolate-covered beans, I should steer well clear of them. Whomever concocted two devilishly delish stimulants in one treat should be held liable for any emotional/physical nuissance I have caused co-workers, clients or other humans within the me-sphere today.

Lapsus Linguae #1

Ik: “Welke werkwoorden heb je vandaag geleerd?”

Zij: “Werk-Woorden? Oh… erm… hang on, I learned … zaak, zakenman en kantoor”

Pigeons. And another not-so-brilliant sarah idea.

I stupidly decided that if I want to make the most out of my Photography degree, I am going to have to up the ante on the assignment challenges I set for myself.

At the start of the degree, we were told that in principle, we’d be able to complete most of our assignments within or around our house. This is comforting as we all have daytime jobs and often struggle for time to complete our assignments.

But there’s really only so many times one can photograph their design lamp/family/local monument… without wanting to bang one’s head against the wall out of sheer boredom.

So I decided to try a new approach and set myself “documentary” assignments for this year. I was feeling well smug about it. That is, until my first assignment finally materialised this morning with a confirmation call of my contact. And now I’m feeling a bit “Meep! what am I doing!?!”.

I arranged to spend a weekend following pigeon-racers. And blagged myself a seat in the truck that carries the pigeons off abroad and releases them the morning of the race. Which means (and I didn’t think this bit through too well) that I’ll be staying overnight with the truckers, at the release-spot.

And now I’m thinking: How am I going to pull this off? I have to take my pictures with an analogue camera, as that’s a requirement for the course next semester. I should probably plan my shots ahead of time, and take plenty of rolls. An practice interchanging the wide-angle and tele-lens quickly on the spot and pray that the lightmeter on my pentax k1000 doesn’t give out like it did last time.

More importantly, what the hell does one take for a night in a truck?!? Posters with scantily clad ladies? Sausage rolls? Pepperspray?

Tips welcome…

les goûts et les couleurs ne se discutent pas

I realise it’s all down to personal taste, but in my head, this particular trailer is so spot on. The music. The visuals. The font. The taglines. It’s like everything and everywhere I want to be. And come december. I will be.

Play-Fight

Now, I don’t mind having to do all the chores around the house while my wee cripple is recuperating. I don’t even really mind helping her into clean socks and out of smelly ones every day. Nor do I mind helping her grab the chocolate bars (or any other food for that matter) off the lower shelves of the fridge whenever she gets a craving.

What I DO mind is the fact that I’ve become like the proverbial bull in the china-shop. With the wee cripple being the china-shop in the metaphore.

I’m a rugby player put on the bench. No more pretend-fights when I have a bit too much energy, no playful thumps when I’m made fun of, no retaliation when I’m being tickled. And Jo’s totally taking advantage of it. Provoking me, safe in the knowledge that I cannae lift a finger at the risk of breaking more china.

It sucks. Big time.

But trust me. 2 months. And then my revenge will be sweet.

Bog-Poem

The bog-poem is a remnant from our long-distance days. Not quite sure who started it or when exactly, I just know that once started, it quickly became a fixture of ours.

The rules are pretty simple. The poem:

1. must be written whilst on the loo
2. must be compiled and sent to each other via sms
3. must rhyme in paired lines.
4. can be as long as the loo-visit requires
5. must be sent before leaving the loo
6. must start with the line “I’m sat on the loo”.

“I’m sat on the loo, doing a pooh”…   you get the gist.

Since Jo’s accident, I started doing mine in Flemish. To help her while away the hours of her sickleave with a translation assignment It’s a challenge to keep the words simple enough without forfeiting rule number 3.

Bog-Poem 2009-08-18

“Ik zit op het toilet,
en voel wel wat pret,
omdat ik op dit uur,
naar mijn meisje stuur,
een ondeugend bericht,
dat haar verplicht,
op het net te gaan zoeken,
vertaalwoordenboeken.”

*courtesy bow*

Ik: “Hoe gaat het met je pols?”
Jo: “My pulse is OK, but my wrist still hurts a bit.”

Toch nog wat sleutelen aan dat nederlands, me dunkt.

Miscommunication

I decided to go speak to our GP today and ask her to check Jo’s hospital scans. After assessing Jo’s progress or rather, lack thereof, I wasn’t too convinced by the hospital’s findings. So I requested the double check.

Our GP is efficient and professional. She immediately cross-referenced Jo’s scans with her old medical records, found the hospital report to be incomplete, and noticed some puzzling inconsistencies. A few phone calls later, we’d established that what was suposedly a new compound fracture due to the crash, was in fact, an old fracture that she’d incurred 8 years ago, during a sledging accident.

This was both comforting and shocking news. While in A&E, we had requested they verify Jo’s scans against her medical record, because we were very aware that the old injury would likely also show. They had told us that they would contact her GP to check, but apparently, they never did. So we were sent home, with an incorrect communication and in fact, incorrect advice regarding Jo’s medical care.

The physical pain she is experiencing is likely due to the severe nature of the impact of the crash on her body, and not, as we were incorrectly told, a spinal fracture. To resolve the pain of the impact, she needs rest, but also, to try and move her body as regularly as she can manage to get everything settled again. The prescribed corset and bed rest only exacerbated the pain.

So we’ve now shifted perspective from 8 weeks of recuperation, to hopefully a week to 10 days.

One simple phone-call from A&E to our GP would have been sufficient, and would have avoided considerable worry, logistic hassle and stress.

This aside, we are tremendously lucky with the care and flexibility extended to us by both Jo’s work as well as mine, and the support from our respective families and friends. Thank you all.

Regressing

I wheeled Jo out of the hospital yesterday evening. We’d just about reached the elevators, when Jo giggled, pointed at the unopened elevator and said “I want that one”. A classic Andy & Lou moment.

To be fair, we probably did look a bit like em. Or at least I did. Jo on the other hand, was more akin to a Transformer, what with the flashy body-brace.

At home, two hours later, we both hit a low. Jo was nauseated from having the corset fitted, having to be upright for the first time since the accident, sitting in a car for the drive home, and having to pee on a proper toilet instead of a bedpan. I, on the other hand, was overwhelmed by Jo’s immobility, despite the flashy brace, and was feeling a bit mislead by the doctor’s optimism at her release. In truth, I think the hospital needed the bedspace.

Logistically as well as emotionally, we simply weren’t prepared.

So we took a moment. Time-Out together. To let it all out, the emotions, the frustrations, the pent up fear, the relief, counting our blessings and trying to wrap our head around the reality of the next few days or weeks. When we woke up this morning, we started focusing on organising ourselves into a routine that is live-able for both of us. 

From lover to carer, from lover to patient. A strangely affirming transition. It’s a new level of closeness, of bonding. And of regression. For Jo at least. Because now that I am dressing her, feeding her, lifting her, washing her, brushing her teeth, helping her with number 1 as well as 2, … she seems to subconsciously regress to a state where this was previously done for her. This afternoon, when I’d placed her on the loo and gone to the kitchen for a glass of water, I heard her exclaim “Ik ben klaar”. 

I had an instant flashback of being 3, sitting on the oversized toilet, feet dangling off the ground, and shouting out for mum to come and wipe my bum: “Ready!”

So, this afternoon, I went out to buy her a pink sippy cup. I think she’s regressed far enough NOT to be able to use adult straws for a while. And a least now our sofa’s safe.

Life took on new meaning today…

When my phone signalled an incoming call from Jo this morning at 6.48, I assumed my girl was calling to say she’d forgotten something in her heady rush out the door, just 15 minutes earlier.

“Hello my darling” I said sleepily.
An ominous silence engulfed me from the other end.
Then a throat being scraped.
A male voice.
Not Jo.

“Ma’am… Jo’s OK”, the voice said.
“Jo’s OK, but she’s been in a head-on collision and her legs hurt. I am a police officer at the scene. We are taking her to hospital. The ambulance is on its way.”

I felt strangely calm as I got dressed, collected my car-keys and wallet, and drove over to A&E. Mind clinging on to the “Jo’s OK” lifeline thrown at me just minutes earlier.

Pushing open the doors to A&E, my line of sight pulls me into a room where an undressed body is strapped onto a stretcher, resuscitation bag over the face, heart monitor beeping frantically. My heart goes into free-fall. All sound is drowned out. I stand rooted to the spot. Unable to move. Until a warm hand, softly placed on my forearm, pulls me gently in the opposite direction. And a voice, floating towards me from a faraway realm, steadying me: “She’s over here”.

Another door opens, and there she is. Tiny amidst the neck brace, -stretcher straps and electrodes, but conscious and feebly smiling a sigh of relief at the sight of me. I quickly take all of her in. Crusted blood on her face, shirt and hands. Red teary eyes. But undeniably Jo. Undeniably present. Aware. Mentally OK, if not physically.

My body starts to unclinch. And gradually, from in between Jo’s recollection and the police’s account, the story starts to unravel.

As we were waiting for some CT, Xray and ultrasound scans, the driver of the other car was wheeled by on his stretcher. He would be sent up for scans first. And, for the first time ever… I understood. The anger. Against the guy who had risked not only his own life, but also MY loved one’s. To get to work 2 minutes faster. I wanted to shout at him. Felt frustrated at him being treated first. Who was the victim here? Until realisation hit that it could just as easily have been me. Overtaking a slower driver. Miscalculating. Over-confident at my own abilities. Mind on something else.

It’s a strange mix of emotions: Fear. Anger. Understanding. Relief.

Later, when Jo had been transfered up to her hospital room*, I left to pack some of her things for the overnight stay. As I walked through the door of our home, the collectedness and the calm I had mustered in the presence of Jo, just slid off me like ill-fitting skin. My whole body trembling.

That could’ve been it. Right there and then. One split second.

It’s not that I am not aware of this on an everyday basis. Because I am. But this was real. Too close to home.

You realise you are even more connected to her than you thought possible. In that overpowering instant, you can feel all her fragility resonate deep inside of you, tugging at the fabric of your very own being. 

And quite suddenly, life with her takes on an entirely new meaning.

 

*Jo is effectively OK. A compound fracture of the spine, heavy bruising and soreness from the impact, but thankfully nothing that won’t heal over time.

Nudges & Sticking (2)

It’s official. I’ve now signed 4 commitment contracts, to the failure value of 690$. I started with 2 short term goals (6 and 12 weeks) and 2 longer term goals (6 months). If this thing turns out to work for me, I may extend the duration.

I’ve opted for weekly evaluations and should I fail any given week, the proceeds of my failure will go to a mix of charities (Red Cross, Unicef, MS Society, …) and anti-charities, namely the Freedom To Marry organisation.

It’s a shame that currently only US/UK anti-charities are listed, especially since the UK options appear to be mostly football clubs? But it’ll do for now. Let’s see how this works out ey…

Nudges & Sticking

These last few days, I’ve been reading up on choice-architecture  / libertarian paternalism in general and ”Nudge” by Thaler and Sunstein in particular. It’s a subject I would love to discuss at length, preferably over a large cup of coffee, but Geel isn’t exactly a philosophical hotbed, nor is it teeming with chillaxing coffee-places, so I will stick to a brief note on an interesting related website.

Go check out: stickk.com. It’s a website designed by a couple of Yale Economists to help people reach their goals. Sounds tricky, but the concept is interesting. It seems to be based on a few simple facts about human behavior, e.g. that we’re loss averse and can be motivated by the right incentives.

Basically, you create and sign a commitment contract towards reaching your specific goal. You put money on the line, in case you fail and can choose where that money should go should you fail.

I’m about to sign on for a few specific personal goals. Will keep you posted on the progress and outcome

Unbeatable

someecards

Niet-She

I think I may have a slight “brain crush” on Mr.Nietzsche. This wouldn’t be so much of an issue if he weren’t a total misogynist pedant.

I’ve been browsing through “The Essential Nietzsche” these last few days. Yes, yes, it all sounds VERY clever, but really I’m just clutching at straws trying to get inside the head of a character I am attempting to write against my own better judgement. I was getting quite enamoured by Mr.Nietzsche until I came across this offensive passage:

“I mean to say that one must have the right out of one’s own experience to treat of such an important question of rank, so as not to speak of colour like the blind, or against science like women and artists…”

Oh it’s all so confusing. I think this is my EMINEM episode all over again. Not that that can be equated to a brain crush mind, but you know what I mean. Despite his blatant homophobia, I am quite fond of Mr.Shady if not his music.

What does it say about me if I persisently feel drawn to baddies and foulmouths? Maybe I’m just too naive. Somewhere deep inside of me there’s a wee Sarah that’s convinced that if only she could sit down for tea and biscuits with Mr.Shady and Mr.Nietzsche for a little heart-to-heart, those naughtie boys would surely change their ways. Because no one can be both great AND a total arse now can they?

*sigh*

If only humans were consistent, my celeb-crushes would be so much easier.

Traces of her

Like sand through the hourglass…

I have no patience. It’s bordering on the ridiculous.

I had to do some admin this morning: “bevolkingsdienst”, CM, post office, … nothing even minorly exciting. Thirty minutes later I returned home, with NOWT checked off the to-do list. ZILCH.

What happened was that there was a 7-person queue at the civil service office, a 4-person queue at the CM and a 3-person queue at the post office. And I couldn’t be arsed waiting in any of them.

I know it’s totally counter-productive, but I feel so anti-authoritarian in terms of what I do with my time, that the sheer fact that I would be forced to waste all but a few minutes of it over admin… makes walk right back out. It’s almost visceral, stomach twisted in a heavy knot at the thought of “having to”.

So I don’t.

Roll on the “late” fines.

Ill-equipped.

Mental Note to Self: Buy a Vase.

(Yes hon, that IS our blender. It will be emptied and washed out in time for yer next smoothie…)

Purdy.

To avoid moral bankruptcy (selling my soul to the mac hype), I’ve been browsing for tools to customise my trusted steed and totally fell in love with these:

doodle icons

Tempted

Damn. Scrivener is the first program that really made me wish I had a mac…

I am currently using the closest Windows equivalent Writer’s Cafe, and while it’s incredibly functional, its design and layout is nowhere near as zen:

I wonder how much my karma level will drop if I surrender to a cheaper mac model JUST to run scrivener… hm

Het weekend is nu hier…

I am officially on hols. For three blissful weeks, time will be entirely mine. The plan is deceptively simple: read, think, write, create, shoot pics and work every muscle in my body.

Or as Jo put it to me in a berating phone-call on Friday at around 6.15pm (I’d lost track of time): “Saaarah, het weekend is nu hier eh. Kom naar thuis.”

Weekend – Dutchy Style

For a while now, Jo, who’s slightly obsessed with bicycles, has been trying to get us to spend a weekend on the dandy horse’s finest offspring: the dutch bike.

Being Belgian, this seems like a pretty bland choice of entertainment. Bikes are simply a way of life here and I dare say most of us own at least one variety of two-wheeler. But Jo’s excitement is catching, so this weekend we  finally rented 2 proper dutch bikes to mess about with. We got up early and took the bikes for a wee spin into town for breakfast. 

I’ll admit that I was slightly exaggerating when I used the word ”spin”. For some reason, the bike’s upright-posture frame catapulted Jo into a peculiar lazy lull, described by the lady herself as the “taking-it-easy-groove”. At 7 km/hr, I’m inclined to say it’s more akin to the “let’s-stay-stationary-but-pretend-were-moving-groove”.  A few swallowed bugs and the dawdling pace  aside, the ride itself was very entertaining, albeit it somewhat overshadowed by what I can only describe as the worst follow-on breakfast ever.

We both love to indulge in lazy breakfast on the town. Pain Perdu is a particular favorite of ours for its spacious back garden and chilled atmosphere. 

Unfortunately, this morning we decided to try the Brooderie instead. It took 10 minutes before we were handed a menu to choose from and another 10 minutes before we could even place an order. 30 minutes later, we decided it’d be a good idea to probe for our breakfasts, seeing as we’d seen neither coffee, nor bread. Another tantallizing 5 minutes later, we received an answer that yes indeed they had forgotten our brekafast and could we just tell them again what we wanted. No apology  or “we’ll deduct some off your bill”.

When the meal eventually arrived, it was served in 3 goes. First the bread. Then 15 minutes later our two eggs, which incidentally, were completely cracked and – no kidding- still had an abundance of poop on the shells. 10 minutes post-poop, we received our croissants, at which time I was rudely interrupted mid-bite with the urgent request to settle the bill right there and then.

To top it all off, Jo took a last sip of her coffee only to realise there was a slug at the bottom of her mug. How and when that got in there, I don’t even want to know. For both of us the decision is pretty straightforward: we will be spending our next 23 euros elsewhere.

Anyone got any suggestions on good other breakie places to try out in Ghent?

Wrap Up

Big steel bird brough me back haeme fae Boston safely and I passed both my photography exams this afternoon despite the bitching jetlag!

*double hoot & wiggle*

Mental Note To Self: Next time you feel smug about buying 20 books at bargain prices abroad, think for a second about the offset of having to purchase an extra hold-all AND paying excess baggage surcharges… d’oh.

Picture courtesy of fstop22

When mental health service fails the public:

Overheard at the homeless shelter this morning…

“They took him on a spaceship man!”
“Who did?”
“The aliens did man. The aliens.”
“Did them make his shoes wet, I hate when my shoes is wet”
“Yeah”
<silence>
“Damn hard to stay warm when your shoes is wet”
“Yeah”
<silence>
“It’s worse if thems wet by aliens though”
“Yeah. Worse man”

(picture courtesy of unfurled)

Switch the hoover off

These last few days, I’ve uncovered quite a paradoxical trend in my life, which seems to be both fundamental and detrimental to my personal and perhaps, human, wiring.

I’m sure this sounds familiar:

- panicking in absence of wifi 
- refreshing facebook page every 5 minutes
- synching outlook every 10 mins
- spending life savings in bookstores
- downloading infinite video lectures
- storing millions of google-search results
- spending hours trawling through rss feeds

 

I am CONSTANTLY hungry for information and virtual contact. It’s a surprisingly strong and overpowering urge. The paradox, however, lies in the fact that indulging leaves me increasingly insatiated, restless and miles behind on a rapidly growing to-do list.

So, where does this hunger come from? I’m not sure I fully understand this part of the problem yet, but I rather suspect it’s because I am looking for an ethereal “something”. Perhaps some truth that will make me feel better than I do now, an idea that will give purpose to my own talents. Or maybe an insight that will make everything else fall into place. Or… quite simply, any lead that will create some order in the chaos in my head.

I honestly don’t know.

But the fact is that as humans, we are ALL looking for something. The higher up the Maslow hierarchy we crawl, the more likely it is that the search is information driven. Just logging on to TED.com, it’s hard to miss that the talks that find the most eager audience, are about inspiration. We have store-shelves full of “how to books”, whether that be finding happiness/ purpose/ the next big idea/ or simply standing out from the crowd…  people everywhere are searching.

And so am I. I feel the incredible physical and mental relief of a chocolate fix, when I have added another book to my shelves, or another promising website to my del.ici.ous list. But the feeling is short-lived and evaporates quickly into a heightened state of confusion, hunger and restlessness. In trying to streamline my own thinking, I seem to create a system overload that leaves me feeling increasingly incapable, isolated and lost.

But there’s a very simple solution. One which I would never have considered if it hadn’t been forced upon me this week. The best analogy I can make is akin to cleaning one’s house. I hate dust. It grates me so much that I always fall into the trap of brute-force measures to rid the house of it. Like switching the hoover on maximum speed. While in fact this merely spreads as much of the offending dust as it removes. In the dust-removal business, the trick is gentle. And it is no different with the mind.

Letting in this constant stream of information in the hopes of stumbling across the diamond-in-the-rough, simply stirs up everything that was already somewhat settled. It forms little dust-clouds of fragmented information, increasingly incoherent.

In truth, AHA-moments are rarely created without some quality inward reflection. So when I was forced to go offline for a while… once the cold-turkey passed and panic subsided, I fell back onto tools and information that were already there within me. Stare at a blank page for hours, twiddling your thumbs, and suddenly you’ll reach a threshold where life becomes constructively productive. The search-field narrows, solutions become clearer, and your mind de-clutters. And when you’re ready for the next bit of stirring or some fresh outward perspective, you switch back on. Gently.

Oh crap…

BA asks staff to work for free to survive crisis

Is it wrong to want my pilots and air-stewards to be motivated on Saturday?

Pride

It must have been 1996, the year I attended my first ever Gay Pride. I was confused at the time. Not quite sure who I really was or where I fitted in. I was hoping to find some explanations, people to look up to, a sense of belonging.

At the close of the 1996 Pride, I felt … provoked, alienated and lonely.

We’ve come a long way since then. Today was not about provocation. More than anything, today was about family and community: parents of LGBT kids showing their support; lesbian and gay couples with their infants & toddlers; schools and church groups reaching out; and… this is where I choked up and had to put the camera down… a group of brightly smiling teenagers with signs that read “here to support my moms” and “love makes family”.

This evening, I feel reinforced, enriched and more than ever, that I belong.

I could go on for hours recounting the parade, as it was endless, but I will let the images speak for themselves. Just go to my flickr set.

Variety’s the spice of life.

The unthinkable has happened.

I am finally SICK of sushi. Not in the literal sense of course. I’d be too busy puking my guts out if that were the case. No, I mean I am so overdosed on sushi, I can finally walk past raw fish without the urge to buy some. Roll on the next fad.

Meanwhile, week 1 has ended. I am well and truly saturated right now, but looking forward to next week’s modelling lectures. The group work was a bit of a struggle, however. Without assigned topics or clear guidelines, reaching consensus between 4 people of dinstinctly different backgrounds and perspectives, is not the easiest of tasks. One economist, one computer scientist, one theoretical physicist and me. Granted, I am technically a physicist too, but of the wooly kind, gone rogue by joining the legion of consultants. 

Picture 3 conceptual thinkers with their own agenda and 1 math-wonder who rides a uni-cycle on campus because it “is easier to navigate between the crowds whilst having your hands free to eat and drink“… and you’re just about where I was 3 days ago. I have a soft spot for physicists, especially the quirky, mal-adjusted kind, but progress is difficult to make when one starts quanitifiable all abstract ideas in mathematical terms…

Another thing that struck me this week, is that Europeans bitch a lot. A LOT. Like it’s all we do. All over town you can hear Europeans mutter critique under their breath.

-”Four choices of coffee? Let’s just get the lesser of 4 evils, it’s all american shit”
-”Croissants with feta and spinach?? And they think they’re cultivated”
-”No wonder they are so fat”
…

In class, no different:
When discussing healthcare: “WE don’t have to wait 4 hours in A&E”
When discussing education: “When we have 4 years of French, we actually learn how to speak it”
And when we discussed the reason for the “success” of the US intervention in Afghanistan compared to the Russian intervention, all hell broke loose.

I can sympathise, of course, being a proud European and all. But I do wonder at what point the world will get tired of our arrogant smugness…

This Morning

(Click to enlarge)

Revenge…

Hon, I realise they consume a huge portion of our monthly expenditures but did you have to be so drastic?: Flitspaal afgezaagd in Geel

Sowazitallaboutthen?

I know I’ve been dragging my heels a bit in explaining what on earth I am actually doing over here at MIT. In my defense… it’s complex. No seriously. Literally C-O-M-P-L-E-X. 

Before I endeavour an explanation that won’t have you running off screaming whilst gauging yer eyes out… let me post a disclaimer: MIT sells university T-Shirts that say “Talk nerdy to me”. That level of self-ridicule and insight, should give you a little clue about the geek-levels attained here. My course is waaaaaay up on that geek-ladder, and therefore fashionably cool

The subject of the course is “Complex Adaptive Systems (Concepts & Modelling)”.

This afternoon, someone interrupted our lecturer: “Sir, all this level of detail is excellent, but really, can we maybe bring it back up a level for a moment? Can you explain in 1 sentence what a complex adaptive system is? My clients, my colleagues, they are always asking me for it, and I simply cannot explain it to them in a simple manner.”

The room went silent. And much to my surprise, so did the professor.

After a while, he said: “I can’t. The best I can do is this: a CAS is a network of agents (individuals), that are connected to each other and interact with each other, not randomly, but also not rigidly controlled. And out of their interactions eventually arises some form of emergent behaviour, that is more than we could have predicted or forseen from the start.”

In all fairness, it’s not a bad definition. But it IS very literal. I have yet to read a description that is entirely satisfactory.

To me, personally, CAS is simply a paradigm shift. A shift in how we think about our environment and of how we organise things within it as well as ourselves. It’s a next step in our evolution, changing how we think about organisations, structures, roles and interactions. And of how we can step away from trying to control them. By simply providing the best framework for groups, organisations, systems we can let them naturally evolve towards an optimal, self-governing and self-organising state of being.

Take e-Bay. How do you solve the issue of seller-buyer trust? In the old thinking, you would probably hire a humongous workforce to monitor and control transactions. It would be time and resource consuming and it would substantially slow down the e-Bay system. 

A paradigm shift in thinking here is to let the system organise itself. All you have to do is provide a few basic rules: Let buyers and sellers rate each other after they’ve interacted. Out of a simple framework, arises a vast self-organised system that rewards integrity and punishes malafidity, of its own accord. That is CAS.

And there are many more examples out there of the power of true CAS thinking: Flickr and it’s user-implemented picture tagging. Online learning communities. Wikipedia…

And that is why I am here. To learn how to recognise a CAS, how to harness its principles and its concepts. And to take this knowledge home to my colleagues, so that as a team, we can use that knowledge to model what’s going on in the world, to think of ways to improve existing systems or processes, to develop tools for education, healthcare, government,… you name it. 

Pretty cool.

Geek Heaven

I realise I haven’t blogged about the content of the course yet, and I promise I will soon, but can I just say… being greeted by a fellow student this morning with the words: “I think I figured it out! I think we really need to focus on the scaling within the system and how to shift the models of cooperation to a different attractor, you know, changing the root of the system.” … is pretty orgasmotastic. I’m in geek heaven.

Shopping List

We should probably buy another set of tweezers…

Too tired to write, just a quick few shots…

Striking a Skill off of my CV

Somewhere on my CV it states that I am trained in Mountain Leadership Skills. I am. Or at least was, 3 years ago. But today’s faux-pas definitely demonstrates its a skill eligible for removal off the repetoire.

It all went desperately wrong after my last post, where I hinted at “heading off to the Science Museum”. I’ve been refusing to take the underground because it would mean I’d miss out on all the live sightseeing above ground, so I had scouted out a nice walk all the way to the Science Museum. Using my index finger as a measure, I figured the distance from where I was would be approximately 7kms. When on a flat, this would probably take me all but a good hour’s brisk walking.

On route, I ran into an Asian streetfestival, stopped to catch a bit of a baseball game as well as the finale of a boat race,  all in all adding about an hour to my initial schedule. But so far still so good.

Three hours onwards however, I was still nowhere near the Science Museum. Subtracting the hour of entertainment I should have been long stood in front of some display of animalia or human anatomy. But based on the street signs, I was still on the right track, just … not quite there yet. Two hours of brisk walking in a sweltering sun later… I finally arrived. Something wasn’t quite right.

So, sorting my priorities in the right order, I went for a pee and later, when desperately slurping a liter of iced coffee, I took out the map to figure out what went wrong. Turns out I made 2 gross errors, one of which leads me to question the validity of my PhD… I’ll leave you to figure out which.

1) Using the tip of my index finger as a measure was clearly too rough an estimate. Off by some 30%, to be precise. I should have been using my thumb instead.

2) I calculated in kilometers, instead of miles *hangs head in shame*

Retracing my entire route today, including detours, I ended up walking 22 kms. Needless to say, my feet are paralletic, my head resembles a tomato due to the sun* (will make for a nice introduction on my course tomorrow!) and my clothes are ready for a REALLY good wash.

On the upside, I am knackered. Which means I will fall asleep easily despite being totally stoked about tomorrow’s start of the course. Roll on the complex adaptive systems theory!

 

*Hon, I know what yer gonna say, but in my defense, it's not like
I always pack a bottle of sunscreen in my survival kit.
There's no room what with the LifeStraw and the Isolation Blanket

Sponging off the Wifi

I love Boston. All main squares have free wifi, paid by the city. You can just park yer rear on any bench or bit of grass available, fire up the laptop and connect to the world. I do feel a bit apprehensive about displaying laptop AND SLR so publically, but then, Boston feels very safe.

As I write this, I am sat at a cafe on Harvard Campus, with a Cappucino and Toasted Bagel with Creamcheese. Both of which, incidentally, took me 15 minutes to order, what with all the compulsory consumer choices designed to make me happy, but which really only make me feel incapable and confused. At breakfast, all I can think about is caffeine. Who cares if my bagel is plain, or has poppy seeds, cinnamon, raison, sesame seeds, is wheatfree, lactose tolerant, or what have you not. Just as long as it balances out my fix of caffeine, I am happy OK?

Anyway, a few pics from yesterday. More on the way later, cuz I’m off to the Science Museum for some geek fun away from the sun.

Fat Rejects*

*Offensive title, I realise. But I’m sure I got your attention.

As luck would have it, it’s Boston Pride Week. The big events don’t kick off till Friday, with Dyke March and Pride Parade, both of which yours truly plans to attend, celebrate and document in style.

I’m not easily shocked or unsettled. Once you’ve been bum-bumped by a sweaty bloke with chaps, you start to expect just about anything at Pride.  Today’s Pride events at Faneuil Hall however, left me feeling a tad unhinged, and it took me a while to figure out why.

*steps on her soapbox*

“Pride” used to be synonymous with “GAY Pride”. During the 70s and 80s, Pride focused mainly on SEXUALITY. I’m not a historian, so feel free to correct me, but from personal recollection of Pride events during the 90s, these were focused more broadly on IDENTITY (be it gender or sexuality). As a staunch Queer, I think I was in the right place at the right time The last ten years or so, TRANSGENDER Pride has rightfully been pushed forward on the agenda. And the next decade, it seems, will be all about “THE OTHER REJECTS”.

I’m not trying to be sarcastic here. But I think we need to call a spade a spade. While society’s tolerance lines are shifting in the right direction, many groups out there still feel rejected by society. And through the years, Pride managed to create a sort of platform that is likely to appeal to these groups. But it does make me wonder…

This year, Boston Pride is giving stage to, among other things, FAT PRIDE. A group called “fatmoves” went on stage to promote the beauty of fat women. To prove that big can be beautiful, 6 big girls performed a dance interpretation of Beyonce’s “Put a Ring On It”.

Let me be clear here: On a personal level, I was incredibly moved by their act. They were very brave to face a crowd that was basically laughing in their faces.  And I am sure every single one of those girls fights against public rejection on a daily basis.

But I am also rather unnerved by their ad-hoc inclusion in the PRIDE platform. At mimimum their inclusion should be put into some sort of context. The Gay, Queer and Transgender movement has fought for years to shift public opinion AWAY from the perception that ours is a Lifestyle Choice. Being gay, is NOT a lifestyle choice.

Advocates against gay rights often appeal to the concept of lifestyle choice as a reason for rejecting the rights we fight for. And rightfully so. I know I risk kicking a few shins here, but IF being gay was a matter of CHOICE, then a debate about its moral righteousness would be entirely warranted. The point we’ve been trying to get across for years, however, is that it is NOT about CHOICE. It’s about who we are down to our very inherent core. And for that, we are equally entitled to every right humans ever acquired.

FATNESS, with all do respect, bar a few medical exceptions, is largely a matter of choice. Albeit often indirect and perhaps not very consciously so.

I am aware that big people are discriminated against and they have every right not to be. So my issue is not with a “FAT MOVEMENT” as such. My issue is with its indiscriminate, unframed, inclusion within the PRIDE movement. I’m all for making the movement broader. It is an excellent platform for tolerance. But perhaps we should focus on “tolerance to difference” in a broad sense, rather than profiling every other group that is rejected by society. And if we do, we need to steer very clear of any possible confusion that what the gay movement represents is “lifestyle choices”, or we’ll be back at square one before we know it.

*steps off her soapbox*

Out of sync and out of seams…

The decision to fly out 2 days ahead of my course, turns out to be a clever one. Not merely for the sightseeing, but mostly because my body is entirely out of sync.

I woke up at 5 this morning and against my better judgment, decided to get up and explore the city. Eyed-up suspiciously by a security guard as I walked past, I was stopped at the door for interrogation before being let out. To be fair, he had plenty reason to. My hairdryer pretty much exploded on me this morning, the minute I plugged in the converter, so I was forced to stick with the rather in-efficient “drip-dry” method. And since it was pretty damn cold outside, I’d pulled my black hoodie up over my head. Not a particularly reassuring look these days.

I had the city all to myself for about 2 hours. Streets were abandoned apart from some shopkeepers preparing their stock & deliveries. The first thing that hit me was steam coming from the street-vents. Maybe it’s just me, but it strikes me as such an American thing. We never see this in Europe I don’t think. New Zealand perhaps, but then it’s sided with a strong odor of sulphur.

I decided to walk to the sea and then around the peninsula to try out the new Sigma lens that I bought myself just last Thursday. It’s my first move away from the kit-lens, and I have to say it feels a bit like changing lovers. No matter what your lens or camera’s faults are, you kind of make it work for yourself and eventually grow fond of its characteristic mark on your images. This lens is steadier. Less temperamental. But perhaps also less quirky. I will upload some shots later when I’m on my own laptop in wifi zone rather than on a crummy uni PC.

The only real break-through photography moment I had today was the ripping of my jeans as I bent low to better frame a shot. I swear I thought a tree branch had fallen off behind me, that’s how loud it ripped. So there I was, 5 miles from “home”, with a hole the size of an apple near my crotch. Thank Sod it was only 8 am and still deserted.

By 10.05 am (some 4 minutes after shops opened) I was in possession of a new (albeit less comfortably fitting) pair of jeans. And a new pair of sunglasses to ease the embarrassment

Rituals

Well, I’m in Boston. Finally. The last few weeks are like a string of blurred rushes, what with getting everything ready at work for my abscence, arranging an alternate date for my photography exams etc… but as of an hour ago, I am officially in Boston.

This morning, I went into total OCD ritual mode. For some reason I feel compulsive about wearing two odd socks whenever I fly. So this morning I asked Jo to hand me some for good luck, which she did. What neither of us considered, is that there is such a thing as blantantly-odd-socks and somewhat-oddish-socks. In my case, I’d been handed a white sock and a black sock, about as blantant as one could hope to get.

So picture me going through customs in Brussels and again in London, being kindly asked on both occasions to take off my shoes for inspection… and walking through the metal detector with this one bright white sock reflecting from underneath my dark trousers. In brussels, they merely giggled. In London, they asked me if I’d had a particularly early/rushed morning, after which they glanced down to my feet. I merely replied: “tis for good luck”  to which the guy nodded at me with a grave air of understanding, making me suspect that he must have his fair share of OCD/phobic/weirdo flyers. 

Thanks babe for my socks! Excellent choice, I made it OK

Extra-curricular

My job is demanding. Not physically. But intellectually. It’s debate-able whether I should really call it my job or my hobby, because it seems to serve cross-functional purposes in this arena. But the fact of the matter is, at the end of a working day, or week, I feel knackered.

So I started thinking: maybe it’s time to rebalance. To find another “hobby” which re-energizes the levels lost on the daytime “hobby”. And this is where it got tricky. 

Sports? Yes. Sure. For a week or two. My interests are likely to dwindle quickly here. I consider sport a humongous  effort until I’ve actually sat through the ordeal and have passed into the “feeling smug” phase. More often than not, any effort stalls at simply trying to gather my outfit for the activity at hand. I play the occassional squash with a colleague and am a ticket-holder to the local gym. That suffices to appease my conscience. 

Hate Exercise

Volunteerwork? Yes. Definitely. But I’m still looking for an organisation that can make use of my limited availability without sending me off into the street selling stickers or magazine subscriptions. When I engage, I’d like it to be on a more rewarding level. Call me selfish.

Classes? Totally. Intellectual challenges are my favorite pass-time. But to come home after a challenging day at work, having to sit down and study textbooks, would most likely deplete my energy levels even further.

And then I stumbled on the “creative” classes. Fashion, Multimedia, Painting…. Photography. 

Bingo. 

Photography. The key theoretical concepts ought to be easy enough to digest for a Physics Major, and fiddling with my camera is perhaps the most relaxing moment of my day (after playtime with the girlfriend, of course).

To cut a long story short, I started a 3-year photography class last September. It’s 8 hours a week, a lot of practical assignments and extra-curricular work on top of that, but absolutely a 100% relaxing.

The icing on the cake? I now have a valid excuse for

(a) walking around like a prat with my camera equipment on display everywhere and anywhere
(b) messing with chemicals (darkroom)
(c) dragging jo in front of the lens “for practice”
(d) squinting a lot.

*cartoon courtesy of her.

Cry-baby

I can’t believe myself sometimes. 

On my way home from work this evening, I happened upon the last 30 minutes of broadcast on Radio Donna. On any other given day, this very fact would have swiftly spurred my hand on to press the tuner for another quick scan, but today was different. These were no ordinary 30 minutes. As of 6pm this evening, Radio Donna has seized to exist and what I strayed upon was the station’s last breath of life.

They had invited trusted Michel Follet, which was rather appropriate considering he started the very first transmission of the station some 17 years ago. After a few carefully chosen words of goodbye, the ether resounded with increasingly erratic and steadily fading Radio Donna Jingles, until after a few faltering moments, the sound flatlined.

I don’t know why, but I suddenly found myself sobbing. Uncontrolleably.

It’s not that I will be starved for music for now on. I rarely listen to the station. What I was thinking of, was the first 5 years of its existence. Michel Follet’s “Jabbedabbedoe” Show was a fixed feature of the family’s morning routine. From the bathroom radio to those in the living room and eventually the car, until we reluctantly left the car in favor of the schoolgrounds. I will spare u the details as they are likely to strike too sappy and insignifcant a chord. But to me, they’re warm and fuzzy.

It’s the idea that yet another chapter has closed. The chapters seem to increase the older one gets. Closed doors, the elusiveness of things… parts of life that any decent person should surely have learned to cope with by the age of 29, but for some obscure reason… I haven’t.

Thank sod, I like a good sob

Just Plain Dumb

So, let’s see if I get this right…

After the busy christmas sales, stores are left with all the CRAP that no one could be bothered to buy for either themselves or any of their most distanst of relatives, during the entire preceding shopping season.

And then they put a sign up that says “50% off” and somehow, miraculously, people are pushing over themselves to get to those very items they are now convinced to have desperately wanted all along?

And after having lost an arm and potentially their spouse or partner in the gruesome battle to the tills, people resurface from the shop actually BELIEVING that they have just made a killer bargain, despite spending 50 euros on a piece of junk that neither them, nor anyone else, deemed worthy to purchase the day before?!?

How stupid ARE we?

Down to busyness

I never thought I’d say this, but I actually love being busy.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED loafing about in my academic “phase”. As an insomniac, there’s no better place to indulge your tendencies than a department where no one actually expects you to turn up before lunch. And as procrastinator, there’s no better boss than one who trusts you enough NOT to check up on you more than once a quarter.

But as much as I hate to admit it, I am simply not self-disciplined enough to achieve anything much under those conditions. I used to think that I lacked “drive”. Thankfully, after almost 2 years of fighting deadlines and climbing up steep learning curves, I have come to see that my drive is actually probably my strongest feature. It just needs the right frame around it to come to it’s full right. And that frame turns out to be “constant velocity”, spurred on by a few clients asking the impossible, preferably before yesterday. What ignites it all, is the fact that many of our clients and my boss alike, give me plenty of creative freedom, indepence and intellectual mentoring. 

I have a fair few friends who don’t seem to understand it. Or, at best, think I’m insane to want to “live and breathe” my job this way. I can’t blame them. I used to think so too. But to me, it’s the first time I feel I actually work for my achievements. Up until last year, I never quite felt I had properly earned anything in my life. Or that I was particularly good at anything. I felt like a fraud for getting the PhD. But now, things don’t come easy, so I feel I earn the successes and rewards, because it requires dedication, commitment and a lot of hard graft.

What puzzles me most is that at such a turnpoint in my life, I’m lucky enough to have someone sitting right next to me, who’s going through the exact same range of experiences and emotions. It’s 8pm on a Sunday, and we’ve both worked for the best part of the day. Neither of us feel sorry for ourselves. Because we love doing it. We have the opportunity to shape our careers and future the way we want it. We’ve been handed lifelines out of a swamp of slack and procrastination, in which both of us totally seem to drown.

Ultimately, that’s what it is all about. Life is the choices you make every day. And the one I chose to sit next to (and thankfully, vice versa) is at the moment, making those very same choices and commitments. We’re getting down to busy-ness. And despite being engrossed in work, we bond over each other’s company, the shared coffee-breaks, the odd question to one another for input or feedback, the kick of listing to your partner’s passion for what they do. The equality. The mutual awe. And the shared dreams.

I know it’s always too early to count your blessings. But today, I don’t see how I can not.

Footsteps

We came home to find our balcony-slash-terrace covered in a seductive, thick, white carpet of snow. Pristine… ‘cept for what appear to be a few random imprints… of footsteps.

We live on the first floor.
With no access to our balcony without the use of a housekey or ladder.

Needless to say we’re quite puzzled.

 

Sob-o-matic

There’s something quite enjoyable about having PMS. Other than the fact that everyone seems to forgive you for being a right moody cow all day, it’s also the perfect excuse for crying like a baby without losing too much face.

It’s been a bit of a *rough* week. Total lack of sleep. Rushing backwards and forwards from one meeting to another. Having to orchestrate all the logistics for the “official” move from Ghent to our little lovenest, without being ripped off left right and center. Having to cram for my two photography exams this week amidts raging work-deadlines. Frostbite every morning when scraping ice and snow off my windscreen, and no wiper-liquid to clean the smudge off. Creepy footsteps on our balcony. A dishwasher that persistently leaves trails of grit on the glasses, requiring me to wash up all over again. Putting out the grey bin out on a green-bin day by mistake…. you know the stuff.

And then my girl calls me at 4pm yesterday with the message that she’s being sent to China, Hong Kong en Taiwan for a week, as of… erm… today 6am. Amidst the frenzy of bags being packed and visas checked, I decided to draw myself a bath to wind down a bit and get over my huff that my gal’s being whisked away from her busy task of keeping me warm at night, only to step shivvering into the bathtub to find the water is still stone cold. 

Last.Drop.Bucket.

I swear I haven’t sobbed this much since I was 3. Felt ab-so-lute-ly sorry for myself. I think all in all I must have cried for an hour, deep sad sob after deep sad sob, cuddled up in the arms of a very confused and worried girlfriend. 

Two hours and a giggly toothbrush fight later, my period arrives, prompting Jo to utter a sigh of relief “well that makes sense” and the whole charade is forgotten…

Moving Day. Again.

While my wee birdie will be jetting back home on a plane from … oh I can’t for the life of me remember where in asia she is right now, but from somewhere over THERE *points a finger to a far away horizon to the right*… I will be… moving. Again. Yay.

It’s official now. We’ve survived the “intermediate step” in which a close friend rented my flat allowing me to ween off the idea of “my newly bought flat, my space, my life” and we’re now moving to the “biiiiiig step” in which total strangers will be occupying my flat and – hopefully- paying off my mortgage for the next few years to come.

This also means that tomorrow I will be packing boxes and on Saturday, a ladderlift and consecutively, moving van and ladderlift, will transfer my remaining belongs into Jo’s flat, which will now officially become OUR flat.

I think you should all wish Jo good luck. Altho… the cheeky bugger will probably be in bed recuperating from her reversed jet-lag whilst I’m lifting boxes. So, maybe you should wish me luck

Home Zweet Home

Ahhhh…..

*puts her feet up on the poofie and takes stock of the new nest*

Bliss.

My body feels like it’s been beaten to a pulp twice over, from all the lifting and straining. My legs and arms feel like jelly after manoeuvring a fully loaded kick-ass truck across the country. My respect for the eldery has plummeted as they seem to have nothing better to do all day than critique and complain on and about anything that DOES still have a pulse. My fear of heights has possibly worsened after watching the removal-lift guy balance a very wobbly platform WITH a sofa tilted on it’s long end 15 meters above ground. My awe of, and worry for, the female parental unit has reached an all new high, after seeing her defy just about every legal and social law in order to get us to our 5.30 pm deadline. She’s got balls, let me tell you that.

It’s been 3 long days. My stress-levels sky-rocketed and my nesting instincts growled and roared at innocent bystanders.

And somehow, miraculously, Jo’s still happy with me moving in. Tadaaaaa! It’s like magic

Progress through vagueness

People had great expectations for Obama’s inaugural speech.

It’s been criticized and commended in equal measures. Critics bemoan the platitudes. The lack of tangible solutions in its content. Many were expecting solid straws for the economy, financiers and investors to clutch at. I know little of the workings of economics, but I can’t shake the feeling that with Obama, the “virtual-ness” of the system will be challenged and chipped away at. An end to speculation in its many shapes and forms. Back to solid deliverables. Away from a rooted reliance on words, opinions and promises.

He seems to instinctively grasp that words are powerful as much as they are futile. That voiced opinions, partisan-ism, rarely leads to sustainable progress. He seems apt at meandering between two opposing stands. His words may appear intangible, as he makes no definitive statements. Nor does he explain the “how” or “when”. I think he understands that it is exactly such details that halt progress more often than not. Details are the rubble in the road on which politics stumbles.

 

Instead, he focussed on voicing principles. They are subtle, but revealing. I imagine them to be the coordinates he set on his compass. Even without knowing the details of his exact route, we know where he’s heading.

“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works [...] Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end.”

“[..] our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. [..] our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.”

“For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies.”  

In a world where politics has become synonymous with demagoguery, delivering a detailled map of how to get there, would undoubtedly have triggered redundant opportunist public debate. The principles he laid out, few can refute. He aimed for the common demoninator. Behind the scenes, he seems to bridge gaps, weld fissures and forge progress.

Within a week, the disbanding of Guantanamo Bay, the lifting of a ban on stem-cell research, the instatement of the Freedom of Choice Act and the reversal of Secrecy Acts, to name a few, are already on the table.

The key to progress, it seems, may just be the very thing that critics bemoan.

Adult

I am trying rather hard not to freak out this evening.

You know how, when you’re a teenie-bop rebel with a kick-ass grudge against the world, you feel like you’re actually the only person on the planet with half a brain, because no one else around you seems to grasp how “deep” life really is? At times it felt like there was this rush of clarity in my head, that I was sure no one else had ever experienced, because if they had, surely the world wouldn’t be the way it was. I was CONVINCED that I would never turn out like any of the adults I knew, because I HAD seen the light, and that would make all the difference between them and me.

The “THEM” behaviour, revolved around a tendency to get stuck in a rut. As if by making 3 choices in life (who to marry, what job to do and which house to buy) they’d done all the choosing they ever had to. As if their choices were not up for re-negotiation until life forced them to. As if somehow, once the path is set, it is allright to let life live you, rather than the other way around. I was convinced that the true sole purpose in anyone’s life is to pursue happiness, by continuously reconsidering or reaffirming one’s choices. Nothing more and nothing less than that.

I still firmly believe this. But adulthood marred that perfectly one-dimensional perspective in more ways than one. First off, time fucking flies. Any time I think to stick my head up and consider my choices, another decade seems to have passed (I exaggerate. I’m only 29) But really, it is so much easier to get caught in the flow than I ever imagined it could be. Which leads me directly onto the root cause of tonight’s freak-out: In about 4 weeks, I will have been at my current job for 2 (TWO!!) years. And I seriously don’t know where time went or whether this is even a concious choice.

Which brings me to my second point: I got totally blindsided by the fact that a trade-off between instant happiness and long-term happiness existed in the first place, let alone be so complex.

So far, I’ve tried to make things simple for myself: when you wake up in the morning and don’t like what you’re doing, stop doing it. Find something you do like doing. That’s worked tremendously well for me these last 29 years. Few regrets. Proactive pursuit of happiness and all that. 

But now, as I’m getting older, it’s like some age-gestapo is putting the screws on me from all angles and is force-feeding me “long-term considerations”. I honestly don’t really want to be thinking on two planes: the “Now” and the “Then”. And I guess if you don’t care about pro-actively sculpting your happiness, you don’t really have to. But I do care, and so I’m afraid I am going to have to seriously start to consider some long-term choices.

Right now, the only area in my life where my instant happiness seems to coincide with my long-term pursuit of happiness, is Jo. All the other areas are pretty much a toss-up. And this evening, admittedly, it’s freaking me out a bit. Adulthood. You can keep it.

Indulgence

It’s been so busy lately, what with Jo jetting off on many a business trip and me trying to juggle clients, photography assignments and winter-bug remnants, that we almost lost track of our 2-year anniversary. Almost. I managed to book us a decidedly zen weekend away, in the nick of time.

Peace of mind is different for everyone, I suppose, but for me it starts with the visual cortex. Clean lines, neutral tones and abstract contemporary designs are generally sufficient to help me shed the first half a dose of stress. The other half can be dispensed with a range of neural stimulations that I am not willing to discuss openly just the now

It took me a while to find the right combination, but the Carbon Hotel and it’s associated Carbon Sense Wellness Center just about hit the spot.

As always, Jo proved to be of great entertainment value. Being British, she’s inherently prudish where it concerns public nudity. Being of continental consistency myself, I struggle with it significantly less. So when the wellness hostess informed us that the center was preferably kept void of bathing suits and the like, I had to grab Jo by the scruff of the neck, before she could make a beeline for the exit. Reassured somewhat by the fact that there would be towels to cover her modesty, she finally accompanied me towards the dressing room.

Imagine the horror when the towels in question turned out to be handkerchief-sized. I can not begin to describe the length Jo went to to fashion a patchwork of mini-towels into a somewhat more passible larger one. With a smug grin on her face, she located the hamam in the farthest most isolated corner of the wellness center and retreated for some peace and quiet.

I don’t often willingly admit to almost-wetting-my-pants-with-laughter-in-public, but when about five minutes later, a decidedly naked man walked passed me straight towards Jo’s isolated corner, I nearly did. The minute he walked into the hamam, I mentally started counting down… 30, 29, 28, … when I reached 12, Jo walked out the hamam as casually as she could. I guess you had to be there, but it took me a while to regain my poise. I could not stop laughing. 

If you’re not British-wise inclined, I highly recommend Carbon, although I would forfeit a visit to Genk and trade up for a long hike through the “Nationaal Park Hoge Kempen”.

Macro Shot

An inadvertent wink

I woke up two days ago with a swollen eyelid. I assumed it was due to one of those basterd mozzies that have been increasingly populating our bedroom ever since the sun came out to play. But today I’m not so sure. I can barely open my eye this morning and it looks as if I am permanently winking. It seems to make the missus happy (winks are highly complimentory), altho she has kindly requested I wash my hands any time I  venture to rub the offending eye.

Maybe it’s time to pay a visit to the on-call pharmacy for some OTC remedies…