Twee zachte armen om me heen....*

It has been for the first time in a very long time that last night I have wanted a boy/girlfriend regardles of being in love (which I am by the way but more on this subject later).

Not because it is what family and society alike seem to expect of me.

Not because I think a partner-for-life is essential for my happiness.

Not because I'm utterly sex-crazed from the withdrawal of physical attention.

But because it would be so nice to be able to say "Hold me for a while" without the immediate need for an explanation.

ANd I really don't feel like explaining. I only makes me tremble with anger. An negative loop that I need to get out of.

*two soft arms around me, a reference to a well-know dutch claasic about the solitude of a pestered misunderstood boy whose father is a sea

RIP TT

It is not the greatest of tragedies when an old man dies, however great you think him. A full life is a tribute in itself and enough to be grateful for. But still. As always when a hero of my is no longer among the living I'm torn between grief and happy memories of what they have meant for me.

Fare thee well Tomas Tranströmer.

Allegro
 After a black day,I play Haydn,and feel a little warmth in my hands.The keys are ready.Kind hammers fall.The sound is spirited,green, and full of silence.The sound says that freedom existsand someone pays no tax to Caesar.I shove my hands in my haydnpocketsand act like a man who is calm about it all.I raise my haydnflag.
he signal is:“We do not surrender. But want peace.”The music is a house of glass standing on a sloperocks are flying, rocks are rolling.The rocks roll straight through the housebut every pane of glass is still whole.

Halfway Sugarfree

Halfway today.

A large milestone that would have been more impressive if I hadn't been cheating once or twice, but it can be said without exageration that my sugar intake has been seriously reduced and that I an happier and more energetic for it.

If only I could get myself to wake up earlier and go for a run every now and then... I might actually get in shape before the summer. but who am I really kidding. I may have left a grand desire for sweetness behind, I'm alrady hooked on an equally addictive substance: dragonslaying. 

No more sugar

It has been previously announced that 2015 would be a year of limitations for me.

After a severe quota on the amount of books I am allowed to read this year. And a self-inflicted  shop-stop when it comes to office or artist supplies. And the long announced alcohol-dry year with which I conclude every lustrum. There comes yet another addictive substance of which I believe I can do without.

In Belgium there has been the last few months a small craze  around the 30-days-without-sugar-challenge. Not just no sugar in your coffee, no unnatural or added sugar whatsoever.

For me it starts today. The small consolation is that this ordeal at least I won't have to submit to alone.

No more office supplies

Dear dear reader,

The yet-another-limitation of which I will speak now, has been set a few weeks ago, but since it is one I find very difficult to keep, I have been silent for now.

The thing is that I'm trying to save some money for the ultimate box of pencils (and/or the ultimate box of water soluble wax pastels) and the only expense left to economise on is purchase of office and art supplies. It makes great sense to not spend anything before I can spend it on the last thing I will ever need or want (or so I think).

Dream with me....

No more books

Dear reader,

I refer to the previous entry in this on-line journal. if it had not been made sufficiently clear in the near ten year existence of this blog : I love books.

Not 'like', not my hobby is 'reading', no 'I wish I had more time to read'. NO.

I love books. I devour them. And of all the challenges and limitations I've set myself for 2015*, accepting the challenge of not reading 100 books a year, this year was perhaps the one challenge I should have thought over. I cringed and gasped for air at the mere sugestion. Of course. But nonetheless I accepted.

Mr. T is hopefully near because I am indeed a fool and need to be pitied.

*more on challenges and limitations in future blogs

A far harder test

One house mate gives up internet for a week. Another drinking alcohol.

I have considered giving up on my greatest addiction i.e. reading but I might die during the process. So Monday hence I will not eat any cookies/ biscuits/ cakes/ etc. For a week.

But no more than a week.

I am Charlie - I follow Charlie

It is no secret that I live in a country geographically, politically and culturally near France. And as 99,99% of my country men, I dare say my fellow Europeans I was utterly shocked by Wednesday's news of an attack on the redaction of the French political magazine 'Charlie Hebdo'. Shocked twofold.

First of course because of the attack itself. Even though I regret to say such a thing is to be expected, every religious, political or cultural view (for lack of a better word I had nearly written 'genre') has it's fanatics and it is only luck that most extremists are simply too stupid to organise their thoughts into actions that saves us from an attack/ killing spree/ threat of violence every day. But I like independent journalism and I'm an artist (though be it in training), it is almost as if some far of relative or that guy you used to know but never kept in touch with just died. You fear for the end of everything you think important or take for granted.

Secondly the reactions to the attack. When a killing spree of this size is claimed by any organisation or made in the name of such and such beliefs a strong antipathy against that group is the usual and predictable response. And it has been so now,... marginally. Marginally from my point of view.  Even in the non-extremist camp of the intellectual spectrum the stupid are in a vast majority but no longer overwhelmingly so and what pleases me most. The media are seen to write sense.

#jesuischarlie = I am Charlie and for me means that I feel for every family member, every colleague, every friend lost to a lack of selflessness.

#jesuischarlie = I follow Charlie and that means for me be bold. Be bolder than ever, fight with words, with pictures, with laughter, with music with everything you have. Fight for ever against violence unprovoked by other violence.

Rant XII

My faithful readers know enough of my character to think that the description of me as a person lacking patience is, if not accurate, at least an understatement.
A lack which I believe has been less and less apparent in the years wherein the posts on this blog have been increasingly few in number, but not solely because the quick temper was less often expressed. I pride myself on being very near the most balanced person that I can be. Very near indeed. If you, my dear dear reader are aware of faults in your own character, of which you know that with continuing self-restraint AND self-discipline you may lessen their evil influence over your actions and more importantly reactions, would it not hurt you in no small part to notice that hard work being undone by a source outside of yourself?

For that is what for ten months now haunts me.

I might never wake up happy, but nonetheless I wake up often enough well-rested and contented, vigorous and with a myriad  creative ideas to occupy my time outside the dull four walls of office space, but every day by lunchtime all my vigour, patience and determination are sapped. Sapped clear and dry (not sure if this is a proper english-language expression) because it takes whatever energy I can muster to keep my temper under control while my good intentions and clear instructions are being mocked and met with disdain and puzzled looks.

The season upon us

For a very long time this month I have wonderd if this post would soon be in order. After a most wonderfully warm weekend, sunlight tempting all city people to enjoy a last concktail on the terrace of a pop-up summer bar, autumn is here. Last night I rode home, in dark warmth and I could have imangined it to be a  late Augustian night. this morning I woke up in drizzle that reminded me mostly of Novembers cloak.

This really doesn't need a title

a week off

I really should have planned ahead. I know. But faced with nothing to do, I'm a disaster. I had hoped to go on a short trip, or visit some friends who live out of town. I have announced going to the very North of Europe I can't even manage getting out of bed to take the train for a half-day trip to our own coastal region.

tssk tssk

It's been seven months and fifteen days...

... or thereabouts. Even my references to lyrics are getting worse. But with was is commonly called summer of even summer holidays two weeks under way- despite it being neither summer or (for me) a holiday- the busy busy busy excuse is no longer applicable. Surely if I can manage an hour daily of checking and checking again for new e-mails, it shouldn't be that hard to write the occasional blogpost, should it?

It's not that I no longer want to write. But what to write about? The subjects that I was so fond of as a student or even in the early days of employment no longer hold any interest for me. Or when they do, I find them too childish or unimportant to even admit that I take an interest.

Is this what it is like: to grow up?

Rant XII

or:  'real literary gifts'

This is not so much a rant as an observation that I've cherished, nurtured and allowed to bloom into a proper well-rounded thought. A little like parenting a small annoyance until it fruits as a full-blown grudge.

Knowing me, you know for certain -for if you do not, you don't know me - how fond I am of reading. And yet in all my live, I have received but one -ONE- literary gift. And even that one - though comical - half blown. But before I give you the details here, I must first explain what en-nerves me so much about what people call literary gifts.


Literary gifts DO NOT include book shop gift certificates.  Neither do paperback bestsellers all too neatly wrapped by expert employees at chain book markets. They are at best a safe way out of the misery finding a present for someone, one doesn't exactly know. A literary gift is not about giving a book, it's about giving a story.

And that is why I consider,  despite the many vouchers, discount tickets, fancy cooking book and 'complete works of ...'* , Jonathan Swift's 'The Benefit of Farting' securely packed in a cardboard shoebox accompanied by a can of beans and a note stating "please render your colleagues lives miserable", as the only gift coming anywhere close to the honorary adjective 'literary'.

*insert 19th Russian or British author

Martial vs marital matters

A long time ago, the fictional persona Werther pondered upon this 'Must it be that all that makes us  happy, be also the well of our unhappiness?' And since I first read it, it has been the question I regurlarly yet infrequently sigh over myself.

My year so far has been more like something of a dream. With a job that I am finally really enjoying, exams that went better than expected, new and inspiring friends and classes in art school, even -and I may regret ever confessing to this- some peace of mind that I thought I would never know. Except that the heart is not so calm. It still wants everything.

But  what the heart wants, and what the mind thinks is possible are very very far apart. I just wait for an artificial blood pump to become commercially available and then I'll trade mine for its weight in chocolate.

Count your blessings... or not

But I like the old-fashioned hats... *wimper wimper*

So this is Goodbye

My dear friends, readers, listeners,...

Hello audience and goodbye audience. This; in a shorter sentences than you are used of reading here is all that there is left.

For many many sad and wonderfull years this place has been my home on the internet and it has been my pleasure, frustration and education to be read and ignored alike. In a few day's time I will for the last time invite you alls to celebrate my Birthday  (along with a list of presents I might like -that's how I roll). But on August 1, it is goodbye.

Goodbye.

The first day of the rest of my life.

I've signed a contract today. With an employer that I dreamed of working for, from almost the moment that I started looking for a job.

I should be overjoyed, shouldn't I?

Then why does it feel like the biggest mistake of my life.

Getting used to the new look

My blogger-account, since long under the wings of the fine corporation Google has changed looks. This has been going on for months and I have just noticed this is what it is ment to look like, not a system error.

It's not that I don't like the lay-out. Clean and simple suits me fine. It's that I can't load the pages in Chrome, another fine piece of Google merchandise. Now how am I going to fix this? Or shall I simply hope that the feedback button in the downright corner will functions as advertised?

A single girl's worst enemy....

Being today, less calm then I have been an entire week, it is probably not the best time to vent about an issue rather unrelated to my current anger. However, I may not take the time to do so later and I really feel it need be said.

I have never had many gentleman friends. Boyfriends, boy-friends, acquaintances,... straight or otherwise. All the more I cherish them. I don't show it of course; pretentiously assuming that initiating a date or meet-up is enough compliment for the rational sex.

Whenever it presumed or insinuated that I have ulterior motives (true or not) I panick a little, fearing that I might miss out on company I am fond of. And even worse when the silent accusations come in name of an unknown spouse/sex partner/ girlfriend... Because it is a threat I can defend against.

Therefor dear gender comrades, when your 'man' meets up with a lady friend, assume she is a 'friend' and no more. It displeases me most seriously to lose friends over female jealousy.