sunny outside...

Here I am, a busy little drone at my desk. Outside the window I can see its gorgeous weather, but there are only so many cigarette breaks you can have in one day before your boss gets on your ass about it. Besides, being outside for those 5 quick, smoky minutes just makes me less motivated to get back to work.
I hope the weekend will be nice, but right now the weather forecast says it will rain. Damn Dutch weather: The few good days of the year always seem to be during office hours, while the weekends are seriously crappy all through the summer... If there is a God, this is proof that (s)he's an evil & sarcastic bitch/bastard (cross out the option which least suits your level of feminism / traditionalism).

It reminds me of situation a while ago, when I was still a student. I was living in a student house with lots of people from all over the world. Amongst the varied assortment of people living there, there were two French girls; Anne and Stephanie.
Anne was the pretty one, in the way that only French girls can be. You know, French girls can have that "je ne sais qua", that always perfect look. The kitchen could look like a trafic accident, the garbage could be piled up to the ceiling (god, the smell haunts me to this very day...) the walls covered with lude comments, posters of half-naked babes and most of yesterdays dinner (the Russian guy had cooked, which turned out to be a good reason for a food fight :P ) but she would still look as if she'd just walked in from a highclass fashion shoot. I had a few seriously embarrassing moments here and there, when my male anatomy decided it was going to enthusiastically cheer her arrival by pitching a tent in front of all my housemates. (Sausage!!)
Stephanie was the opposite. She was the Hobo-type. She was the cool, different, dreadlocked, passionate and lots of laughs type. The kind of style girls generally adopt when they are a bit insecure & want to be attractive in a non-standard way (which by now has become the standard way of trying to cover up insecurity. Talk about irony, eh?!). She never gave me “tent-pitching-problems”, but I had alot of nice evenings with her, laughing & chatting. I really liked having them both around in their very own and different ways.

Anyway, the moment I was thinking about was one afternoon when I arrived home from a lecture (yes, I did attend a few, not too many though ;-) ), on one of those typical grey & dreary afternoons, of a typical grey and dreary week of a grey and dreary Dutch summer. It had started drizzling a few days before and so far it wasn’t showing any signs of stopping any time soon. Having lived in Holland all my life, I hardly noticed it anymore. Just shake your head whenever you enter a dry place (ignoring the shouts of everyone around you as stoically as you had earlier ignored the rain itself) and make sure you have your telephone in a dry place. Stick to these simple rules & you'll live. Anne and Stephanie weren’t so well versed in the subtle art of surviving a Dutch summer, and by now I think it was getting to them...
I entered the kitchen at my usual energetic pace, noticed the two French belles standing looking out of the window, called a cheerful "Hey, Hello!!" in their direction, whilst reminding myself not to shake myself dry too close to them. Wondering what was attracting their attention outside, and curious as I am, I quickly joined them at the window.
A few minutes passed without a word... (I’m really bad at that btw, I get this Urge to say something in silences, this nervous, jittery feeling that I simply must say something. Which usually ends up in me loudly pronouncing something totally inappropriate, and imediately wishing Id stuck my foot in my mouth the moment I opened it)
“Eehhmm… what are you looking at?” I asked carefully after a few minutes of the silence which had fallen after my slightly-too-enthusiastic greeting.

“For Gods sake, Does it ever stop raining in this damn country?” Anne and Stephanie asked in one voice.

They didnt even look at me. They kept staring into the rainy, grey outside, their gazes as cold as the misty rain covering all we could see.

And I just didn’t know what to answer to that...

reminder to self:

Jeesh... Im growing old...

This morning I was a little late for work, so I missed my train... Which led to me deciding that since being late and being a little later are just about the same, I'd do a few things in town that have been waiting for my first free weekday (which seems to be just after hell turns into a new Ben and Jerry's flavour)
So, running through town, looking for a biological pesticide for my tomatoes (which are being eaten alive by white flies at the moment), buying a few things to fix up my bike (Im also taking motorbike lessons right now, so I very idealistically decided to do all the handyman-ing I can in order to brush up on my skills and reduce the number of future costly motorbike bills), some exotic food items (which means we're having Thai food tonight!! Mjam!) and lots more things, which can only be purchased in shops which close at 4 pm. (and so are impossible for anyone wich a job to get to during opening hours. By the way, why on earth do small shopowners (owners of small shops, not tiny people who own shops, btw) not pick up on the fact that these days they are missing out on a small fortune which people would like to spend at their establishment, but are unable to fork over for the good od the economy, since they are too busy earning said fortune during shopping hours).
Anyway, so far so good, a happy morning, right? The crowning moment was when I arrived at work about one-and-a-half hour late and my boss didnt even notice, Good stuff!!

But... while I was doing those few (roughly 10 in total) minor chores, I noticed something somewhat disturbing. I noticed that my poor little brain just was not able to hold on to more than one task at the time! Having completed one task, prepared to efficiently and energetically move on to the next, I invariably needed to stop for a moment to think about what that next task was... After a few thoughtful moments (plants done, now eehmm.. ehhm.. bike, what about bike? eeehmm... lets see... kaffir lime leaves.. nope, got those already... ehhmm...)

"Oh yes, of course!!" I thought "The braking cable for my bike needs replacing!!" At this moment I noticed two things.
1) the cable of my front brake (already kind of dingy) finally snapped completely, and
2) a lamppost was approaching me at worryingly high speeds, causing me to yell "Whhaahh!!!" loudly in a slightly-too-high-pitched voice, swerve crazily (narrowly missing a passing innocent car and seriously pissing off its driver) fall off my bike and end up sitting on the sidewalk, looking stupid & wondering why my bike was on top of me.

The point is, that at the moment I remembered what i was doing, I could hardly believe that a few moments earlier that exact same thought had been so elusively out of reach.
Am I just growing old?
Is my lifestyle (technopartys and drunk barnights) catching up with me?
Am I just a little tired?
Whats going on with me???

Oh well.. I guess I just need a good nights sleep. For now Im going to turn up "the sky was pink" by Nathan Fake (The James Holden remix of course), free my head of unproductive worries and get some work done.
If Im really getting too forgetful, this might be my last post (hey, its not an easy password to remember you know :P) otherwise I hope my little train of thought amused you & I will see you back here for more unbalanced susurrations...

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2011 Edit: Its been discontinued for some reason... A shame, I liked it!

1st writeup!

Wow, I just decided to start a Blog...
Now... ehhmm.. Why?

I mean, like many others (including you I presume, since you're here now), ive spent many meaningless hours of boredom-denial surfing the web in my boss' time, but its quite rare to read something which would still be interesting if it werent during office hours. So... would I do better? unlikely... I dont live in a warzone, I dont have a really unusual life, I'm not the worlds next leading author, so I wont be that "cutting edge new stuff" which you have been waiting for. Well, maybe i will be... But if I do, I'll be as surprised as you likely are.

So, expect random thoughts, dirty comments, silly jokes, hobbies, interests, rants, memories & other stuff which means alot to me, but likely will be "just another hour wasted in which you should have finished that report" to you... Although I do hope I'll provide a few eyebrow-raisers, a few laughs (or at least smiles, my collegues always give me weird looks when I laugh at my computer screen) and some general entertainment.

Hope to see you soon.

Now Im getting back to work, that report needs finishing ;-)