walking away - see ya

That's it. I've had it. Enough. I give up. No, no, I don't give up, I REBEL!

Sick and cranky and can't get any work done. Taking the rest of the day off. Going for a winter walk.

Working from home can be so nice sometimes, and sometimes just hell. Home-made.

the snow so loud I cannot sleep

Insomnia again.

Early morning delirium, watching the dawn of another monochrome day. Three or four inches of snow on the ground, on bare tree branches, covering and cuddling cars parked in the yard. The noise from the snowploughing tractors haunted my uneasy dreams last night... As soon as there is about an inch of snow, an armada of them goes out, even in the middle of the night.

I'm high on lost sleep. I see the abstract so clearly and reality through a haze.

A pot of orange-flavoured coffee is brewing so all is well in the world.

daylight and day darkness

You know it's November when you have to switch the light on in the morning (if you get up before 9 am it's still pitch black) and keep in on all day. What they call "daylight" is greyish twilight.

My city had it's official Christmas season opening, which is a way of telling people they should get going with their mad Christmas shopping. I went to see the fireworks with a couple of friends and the streets were so crowded and icy that it was hard to walk. There was an old-fashioned market in the town square - "old-fashioned" meaning that some of the vendors had dressed up in big shawls and old woollen trousers/skirts and decorated their stalls with little lanterns. It didn't look very authentic though - was it perhaps the other stalls flashing ads for cotton candy in neon lights?

When I got home I decided to put some of my own (more discreet and beautiful) Christmas lights up in the window. Hey, I know it's early but I blame the darkness. Now I'm only waiting for the snow.

ancient memories of an ex-vagabond

I own seven butter knives in wood but only one dull kitchen knife.
Nine vases but hardly enough plates to invite a couple of friends in for dinner.
A supply of towels and table cloths that would be enough to wrap a small Baltic country in but no machine to wash them in afterwards.
Three complicated mixers and blenders that probably have higher IQ than I have, but no pot to boil water in.
A trendy pasta ladle but no pasta.

The consequences of living as a student, with half the household consisting of borrowed and shared stuff, for years and then a few more years bumming around Ireland and Britain with nothing more than a few clothes, cosmetic essentials and a supply of novels.

Setting up a household again is intriguing. It's been "only" five years since I last had some semblance of a normal life and it's amazing how things have changed since then. Back then I still had a phone that was stuck to the wall and couldn't go anywhere (horror! All the times I couldn't go out because I was waiting for some guy to call - and he never did!). A microwave was something owned only yuppies (the same ones who had mobile phones) or people who also had three kids, big house and estate car. I wrote my Master's thesis on a computer that had to be allowed to rest every now and then, couldn't handle pictures and had only two games - Tetris and Minesweeper (I haven't beaten my personal record since those times).

I still can't afford a washing machine, dishwasher, electric kettle, toaster, a good kitchen knife, curtains, a new couch or even decent tagliatelle pasta. But I have a new, shiny microwave that would look good on Star Trek (oh no! Another thing of the past!) and a laptop that can surf the net, play DVDs, write a novel in Greek, sing little happy tunes and probably cook too (if I could afford the ingredients).

And I am a happy woman of the 21st century.

colour scheme disturbances

Time for a new post just to reassure my faithful admirers out there that I haven't self-destructed from a broken heart!

I have, more or less, managed to make a home out of my "new" apartment. The building is a 6-storey house from the fifties and I can hear the neighbour's TV (they're watching "Desperate Housewives"). I turn up the volume on my sound system (my neighbours can now listen to my Sting CD).

I am contemplating my colour scheme. The bedspread on my lovely, lovely bed is blue. My sofa is currently mustard yellow, which doesn't look too good. Forget curtains, I don't want those - let there be light!

My kitchen table has been sitting in the shed the last fifteen years or so and looks the part.

But it's my home!

No time for interiour decorating now or the next couple of weeks. Drowning in work. It's enough to know I have my own piece of the earth at last.

learning the bureaucratic dance

Feel like there's a wall of paper about to collapse on my head... When I was a young, innocent little child I was told that the computer age would get rid of all the paper in the world. Well, I'm still waiting to see that happen.

Spent a whole week filling out forms and trying to get hold of people to sign papers for me. My bureaucratic week. I must have a nightmare kind of life from a bureaucrat's perspective: income somewhat less than steady and from various sources, can't seem to decide what country I want to live in, and having the cheek to ask the government for money.

Ooops - it's beginning to sound like I'm a prostitute... Well, I'm not. Not a drug-dealer either. For your information. I do translations. Work in hotel receptions. Write. Study the world and its wonders over the rim of my coffee mug. And, of course, fill out forms. Can never remember whether to "tick" the box or to mark it with an x.