Try something new! How about an armed robbery?

It was B and I’s 7 month anniversary. Of course, I only realised this in retrospect. We had in fact both forgotten it, which all in all is not a big problem. It’s only annoying if one person forgets and the other goes on a guilt trip about how forgetting this ever-so-important date must signify a lack of love.

But I digress.

We went to a snooker place in Ghent with one of B’s friends. They’re both regulars there, but we ended up chatting, not playing snooker. The waitress, Betty, was an old acquaintance of the boys. In fact the term “waitress” doesn’t do her justice – while she doesn’t own the place, she basically runs it.

It was already quite late – or quite early, depending on your view – about a quarter to 1 in the morning. I heard a noise behind me, and noticed two men rushing in from the front door towards the bar. We were sitting at a table further away, not at the bar itself. I paid no attention to it at first. About two minutes later I heard some shuffling again, and I saw the two men at the door. Well, I only really saw one of them, as the other one was standing mostly behind the first, from where I was sitting. I only saw him for a second or so, but something rang a bell in my head, saying not all was right there. While he was partially facing me, I couldn’t see any of his face, as there was something covering his head. I don’t even know why, but I focused on his left hand. He was clutching a handgun, the kind one sees in American action movies. I had never actually seen one in real life.

Of course the men were gone before I could react, and the next thing I recall was Betty running into sight and stating something along the lines of: “That was a robbery”.

Thing is, I wasn’t shocked. Or scared. There was just a feeling of complete surrealism, like I had just seen a pink elephant sit down next to me and had seen it ordering a beer to boot. You see, Ghent is supposed to be a rather safe city. I studied in Brussels, which isn’t very safe. I live in a part of Antwerp that doesn’t really have a good name. I’ve been harassed up to a certain point – but I’ve never, ever, seen a gun. Guns, like space aliens, are only supposed to exist in Hollywood movies. Now you may find this a very naïve view on life, and of course I’m not stupid enough to think there are no guns in Belgium – but it’s just not part of the world that I live in.

Of course, the real circus only started afterwards. Soon the place was crawling with police and all of us had to give a statement. It was a rather long night, and I had a throat ache that was getting worse. Still, it’s an interesting experience. And it shed some light on how hard it is to actually give a truthful statement. It’s very hard to remember everything you’ve seen in a blink of an eye.
Afterwards the cops even made pictures to register how exactly we were sitting and a forensic expert was let loose to search for fingerprints.

We stayed on a bit longer, to keep Betty company. Some time before dawn I started feeling too ill to stay, and we left for B’s place.

A few days later we got a call from Victim’s Support, which we both gracefully declined. No trauma there. Just a slight shift in my worldview, which might not be for the better.

From what I know, they haven’t caught them yet. That’s slightly disconcerting – the fact that they’re still running loose.
As for me, I gained an experience. And I did tell B that we should do things that aren’t routine. Well, I guess this qualifies as “not routine”.

So….I wonder what’s up for next month. Apocalypse, anyone?

Two for the road

I am a notoriously bad reader.

This, actually, is a rather curious thing. I was the first in my class to read and write, in fact it stood out so much that my mom was told I could skip the last year of kindergarten and go straight to first grade. Fortunately, she did ask me my opinion, and I preferred to stay with my friends rather than to read and write more.

While I had acquired the skill early, one could say it never grew on me. One thing remained through elementary school, high school and higher learning : I only ever read stuff if I absolutely had to. One exception on this rule were the one or two books I read during summer break, usually while on a plane, in a car, or near a pool. I usually regretted reading in cars, because it makes me nauseous. The other exception were comic books, or as one should say more respectfully : graphic novels.

I'm not really sure what my problem with reading is. I'm not dyslexic, or so the experts say, even though I do keep switching letters and misreading stuff. Sometimes this leads to humor only I can understand. While other people read an article about sinking stocks, mine is really about stinking socks - which is far more amusing for someone who is as easily amused as myself.
However, this weird switching apparently is not dyslexia, but should be linked to some "mild concentration problem" that they have not really diagnosed yet.
Thing is, large chunks of black text almost frighten me. I notice the parts that are not printed upon just as much, and I'm distracted as they run over the pages like little white rivers. Not to mention that every sound I hear makes me have to go back and reread the last two sentences. And there are a lot of sounds in the world.

This is a problem, because I do rather like fiction. Quite a lot. So my little reading problem has driven me to film, but also to the medium of comic books. The first time I actually really got into them was because of Star Wars. As a young girl, I was completely enamoured with the original trilogy and I jumped on the possibility of reading new stories with my favourite characters.
And thus I stumbled upon a writing form that was a revelation to me. You could read it like a book, it even had that pleasant paper smell - but the illustrations were beautiful, they spoke to me - and they were nowhere near as scary as monumental blocks of black text. So at 13 - an age that most girls give up on comic books - I started reading avidly.

I did so for years, until my mom moaned it was a far too expensive hobby, and I stopped reading. I only really started again once I had a job - and my own money.

When we left for Cyprus this year - we being my parents, my boyfriend and me - I fell back to an old tradition: I brought along some novels. Graphic novels.

Lately I've been experimenting. On of the things I've been reading was American Virgin by Vertigo.. American Virgin was a rather atypical buy for me. I'm usually much more into sci-fi and superheroes. But American Virgin caught my eye, first of all because of the covers (yes, I'm guilty, I like male eye-candy). I asked my comic book salesman about it and he recommended it (thank you, Peter).

The book tells the the story of a young preacher, Adam, who preaches sexual abstinence to young kids. However, his life gets turned upside down when his fiancée is murdered while in Africa.
The search for what really happened to her brings him - literally and figuratively - to places he's never been before. What follows is an exploration of culture, morality, sexuality and the human heart. And while the book may lead you into African bachelor huts, gay bars, and sex parties - it never leads you into vulgarity. That being said, this is not really you want your dad to read (which is why I I quickly muttered something about me not being finished when he asked if he could borrow it).

So far I've read four out of five bundles: Head, Going Down, Wet, and Around the World. I'm yet to get my hands on Sixty-Nine. Yep, I think someone was going for suggestive titles there.







The other title I was reading was Anita Blake : Guilty Pleasures, a Marvel adaptation of one of the novels by Laurell K. Hamilton. I'd noticed the name of Anita Blake before, mostly in the days that I still read and wrote fan fiction.
While the book does have some male eye-candy again (I swear, I do actually read other stuff too!), some of it is mildly disappointing. The plot is not truly thrilling. The atmosphere is good and the darker drawing style is suited to the story. It does draw you in after a while. What bothered me were Anita's "thoughts" that are unfortunately very much splattered all over the pages in little- and not so little- blocks. While I can see the appeal of a film noir-esque narrating style, this is just too much. I like it when a story is told by action, not thought. Sometimes it's just annoying, long-threaded girlie prose. And sentences like "Luther is overweigh,t over fifty, chain smokes and yet he's never sick" would work much better if they where left out altogether, and the book would just show an old, fat, smoking guy. Which it does. Only there's text to boot. And frankly, the whole vampire-slayer-who-digs-a-vampire is so very last century (Buffy, anyone?). I might give it another go though, let's see if anything interesting happens.

Now, in the meantime, I think I'll temporarily steal the boyfriend's copy of Watchmen.

6

Nederlandse versie


De regering is aan het vallen, maar laten we het hebben over meer interessante zaken: Het is vandaag precies een half jaar geleden dat B. het in zijn kop had gekregen om mij te kussen. Wel, dat was het om 4 uur ’s ochtends welbepaald, toen hij nog te weinig remmingen had om het te laten en ik te moe was om teveel na te denken over gevolgen.

Nu ja, misschien in er context nodig. Ik kende B. al een aantal maanden, sinds oktober 2007, toen we elkaar leerden kennen op een “gastronomisch” weekend in in de Ardennen, georganiseerd door mensen die ik hier niet bij naam ga noemen...

Hij heeft me blijkbaar voor het eerst gezien bij een introductieles lachyoga, een redelijk genant experiment dat ik in de toekomst niet snel zal herhalen. Ik herinner me niet meer dat hij daar was, hij herinnert zich dat ik er niet echt lacherig uitzag.

Op een of andere manier is hij erin geslaagd om de volgende dag met mij aan tafel te zitten. Er volgde veel onnozele humor over eikels. Het is beter om hier niet over uit te wijden. Nu, toen was er wel een klein obstakel. Ik was toen nog samen met mijn ex. Uiteraard is dit voor sommige mensen geen obstakel, maar laten we ervan uitgaan dat we nog een zekere graad van moraliteit hadden.

We zijn daarna nog in contact gebleven. Ik ben voor hem zelfs terug op MSN gekomen, waar ik normaal een hekel aan had (ik ben een IRC-mens).

Fast forward een paar maanden. Nieuwjaar 2008: het memorabele nieuwjaarsfeest waar ik met zowel mijn ex als B. naartoe ben gegaan. (Kayelleke + 2 – ach, ik ben nooit echt conventioneel geweest). En ergens op die avond een kussengevecht dat toch erg seksueel geladen was.

Ongeveer een week later maakte mijn ex het met me uit, na bijna 4 jaar, via het internet dan nog wel. Eigenlijk nog passend ook, omdat we op het internet begonnen waren. Kwade tongen zullen zeggen dat hij het heeft uitgemaakt omdat hij jaloers was, maar laat ze maar praten, wij weten zelf wel beter.

Ik ben in die week nadat mijn ex het had uitgemaakt veel bij B. blijven slapen. Héééél cliché eigenlijk, gaan uithuilen bij een vriend. Nu ja, niet letterlijk huilen. Dat doe ik toch alleen als geen kat het ziet. Maar ik had er nood aan om niet alleen te zijn.
We hebben ons best wel geamuseerd in die week. We hebben uren zitten praten – over de wereld, over evolutie, over mensen en over heel veel onnozele dingen. En onnozele dingen heb ik zeker gedaan, zoals toen ik heb per ongeluk redelijk pornografisch materiaal liet zien uit de Nacht van de Wansmaak. En toch liep hij niet weg....

En een week nadat het uit was met mijn ex, ergens rond 4 uur ’s nachts, kreeg mijnheer het dus in zijn kop om mij te kussen. Met enorme verwarring tot gevolg, aan beide kanten. Die nacht hadden we uiteindelijk besloten om te wachten. We waren in de dagen die erop volgden nog naar Leuven gegaan voor een voordracht over de verschillen tussen mannen er vrouwen – hilarisch eigenlijk, omdat we beiden niet echt het rolvoorbeeld van stereotiepe gedragingen zijn. We hebben ’s nachts nog zitten praten – in een frietkot, of all places – waar hij me de redenen uitlegde waarom hij wel een goed vriendje zou zijn en ik hem waarschuwde voor alle redenen waarom hij het niet lang met me zou uithouden.
Toen we twee dagen later samen naar de film gingen, zijn we gestopt met “wachten”. Ons fameuze wachten heeft welgeteld 4 dagen geduurd. En zie hier...we houden het al een half jaar samen uit. Twee mensen die allebei zeer slecht zijn in relaties. De wonderen zijn de wereld nog niet uit.....

English version

The government is falling, but let’s talk about more interesting stuff. Today it’s been exactly six months since B. got it in his head to kiss me. Wel, that was at 4 in the morning to be more exact, when he was left with little inhibitions and I was too tired to really contemplate the consequences.

Well, perhaps some context is needed here. I had known B. for a few months, since October 2007, when we met on a “gastronomical” weekend in the Ardennes, organized by people who will remain unnamed here.

Apparently he first spotted me at an introduction class for laughing yoga, a fairly embarrassing experiment that I shall not repeat in the foreseeable future. I don’t remember him being there, he remembers me not being very jolly.

One way or another, he managed to sit next to me at the dinner table the following day. Much silly humor about acorns ensued. Trust me, it’s better not to go into detail. However, there was this small obstacle. I was still together with my ex then. Obviously this is not an obstacle for some people, but let’s assume we still had a certain degree of morality left.

Afterwards we remained in contact with each other. I even came back to MSN because of him, which I normally hate (I’m an IRC-person).

Fast forward to a couple of months later. New Year’s Eve 2008: the memorable New’s Year’s bash to which I went both with my ex as with B. (Kayelle + 2, oh well, I’ve never been all that conventional). And somewhere that night there was a pillow fight that was rather sexually charged.

About a week later my ex broke up with me, after about 4 years, through the internet to boot. Actually it was kind of fitting, since we had started out on the internet. Malicious gossips will probably say he broke up with me because he was jealous, but let them talk – we know better.

In the week that followed the breaking up thing, I stayed over at B’s place a lot. Veeeeeery cliché actually, your friend being a shoulder to cry on. Well, it wasn’t literally crying. I do that when no-one’s looking. But I needed the company. We had a lot of fun that week. We talked for hours – about the world, about evolution, about people and a lot of silly stuff. And silly things I sure did, like when I accidentally showed him some fairly pornographic material from Nacht van de Wansmaak (Night of Bad Taste). And still he didn’t run away…

So a week after my ex had broken up with me, at about 4 A.M., B. got it in his head to kiss me. Terrible confusion ensued for both parties involved. That night we decided to wait.
In the days that followed, we went to Leuven to see a lecture about the differences between men and women – hilarious, actually, since neither of us are a role model for stereotypical behaviour. We talked a lot again that night – in a snack food place, of all places – where he explained to me the reasons why he’d make a good boyfriend and I explained the reasons why he wouldn’t put up with me for very long.
When we went to see a movie together two days later, we stopped “waiting”. Our waiting had lasted for exactly 4 days. And look…we’ve been putting up with each other for half a year. Two people who’re rather bad at relationship. There are still some miracles left in the world…

Bye Bye, Baskerville

This is old news. However, it is news that rather affected me. On june 30th, my dear doggy Baskerville passed away. Now, the name Baskerville was a bit of a joke. He was a small crossbreed, nowhere near dangerous. It was hard to see his eyes most of the time - he was a huge ball of curls and the front side rather resembled the back side.

Anyway, on the morning of June 30th we called the vet because the dog was swollen and refused to walk. The vet told us his heart was giving out and that his body was filling up with fluids because circulation was failing. So we decided to put him to sleep, because letting him die like that would just be cruel.

Incidentally, June 30th was also my boyfriend's 3oth birthday. (I shall henceforth refer to the boyfriend as B., since it's rather silly to keep up coming up for alternatives for the word "boyfriend").
This is a fairly typical example of the mess that is my life - death and celebration of life in one bloody day. I couldn't write this shit if I wanted to.

To add to the general feeling of coincidental cosmic nuttyness, I managed to kick B's computer and it apparently stopped working. This was when I was at his flat alone and was trying pleasingly arrange his B-day gifts. One of the gifts in fact was a bowl with two fish, which I now believe was definately some sort of compensation for the previous pet-loss. One of the fish later died, and now there is only one poor fishie left. We named it Hercule Poisson. Another gift was a HUGE stuffed frog. He likes frogs. I like mice. Variation is key. And we're both just big kids.

Anyway, the computer later turned out to fine, as I had only dislodged a cable somewhere, but I was still a bowl of nerves by then. I pretty much celebrated the evening by getting more drunk than I've ever been. Which in fact is not at all drunk, as I nearly never drink. I was just a bit more...exhuberant. I suppose alcohol doesn't really work for me. Still : violet flavoured gin is pretty nice. I'll leave it at that.

Yikes, I have a job

My absence can be explained by one simple thing: I have been busy. One of the reasons for my lack of free time is that I now have a job, albeit a part-time one. I can now in all honesty say I’m no longer a jobless bum. It’s funny how it came to be, really. I had kind of set my limit for job hunting for 3 months. Reasons being that a) lack of cash is bad for my spending habits and b) doing nothing is bad for my morale. Since I haven’t found what I have been looking for, I just took something that came along (read: something that apparently no-one else wanted to do and yours truly agreed to).

I now work as an administrative monkey for a company that shall remain unnamed, who in their turn work for Bayer – that would be the people who brought you Aspirin.

The job is in the Harbour of Antwerp; I can actually see ships coming in from where I work. I can also see a nuclear plant, so if that blows, well, I’m rather screwed. (Just a side thought: is it just me or does it seem to be a BAD idea to have a nuclear plant right next to your most important river? If there is waste, or an accident, the river can carry it all the way to the sea.)

Anyway, I basically work in a container on a construction site. Occasionally it smells quite badly there. Bonus: I get extra cash for working in a “hazardous environment”. I think I should have gotten a helmet. Not that I really need one, it would just have looked cool. I did get to see their fabulous *cough* security video and now have a super-duper security badge. Yes, I’m all responsible now. Apparently you need to keep your car away from the huge tubes all over the site, because they can leak hazardous materials – like acid. A car is rather required, since there is no public transport available for several kilometers around there. And I don’t want an acid hole in my cute baby car.

Oh, another thing. As far as I know I’m the only female in the company, except for the cleaning lady. Yes, apparently it’s so bad that while signing one of my contracts I saw it said “Mr.”, not “Miss”. Furthermore there is no women’s loo. So every day is an adventure really: will I startle the shit out of peeing men, or won’t I? I have of course found the obligatory collection of naked titties posters. It wasn’t really hard to find – they’re displayed in the canteen. (So apparently food and sex do go together.)

While telling this to friends, I’ve had several people tell me I should sue them for this. Apparently, women have sued companied for less. However I’m not inclined to do so because a) I actually like my co-workers b) they pay me well for the dumb monkey-job I do and c) I find it F***ING HILARIOUS. So I’ll just not sue, and keep you posted. Thank the Gods I’m not American…

Games that really don’t go well together (but I’m going to play anyway)

Since I’m taking advantage of the fact that I’m currently unemployed, I have been finding ways to spend my time. Now of course, shopping is always nice, but not such a bright idea if you have no income.

Long story short: I’ve returned to an old love of mine. Games, that is. Meaning I started using the boyfriend’s X-Box. I started with Carcasonne, which I actually really like as a board game, too.

The heavier stuff came when he bought a copy of Devil May Cry 4.

I decided to give it a go. Now keep in mind, the last time I played with a games console things were still in 2D. Yes, that long ago. I did have some 3D stuff on the Game Boy, but that’s hardly the same. The 3D thing does take a while to get used to, but to my great surprise I didn’t get absolutely slaughtered. I played the game in human mode, which is supposed to be for beginners. There is actually a rather great run through the controls in-game.

I’m still getting used to the game. I’m unsure if it will be in my favourites eventually, but I’m loving the graphics. Besides anatomically bouncy babes, Nero and Dante are actually rather nice as far as male eye-candy goes, so that keeps me happy. Eye-candy aside, the setting is beautiful and the swords are just übercool. The game itself is sometimes a bit of a weird combo between killing things and puzzle-ish things, which imho kind of disturbs the pace of the whole thing. But we’ll see. It looks like I’ve reached addiction level anyway.

Another thing I’ve been playing is a Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team game for the Game Boy. Yes, I know the target group are kiddies. But I always liked the Pokémon games – it appeals to the collector in me. This on is slightly different, because you play as a Pokémon (I’m Torchic). It is a bit more childish than the other versions I played and there is slightly too much talk in it too my liking. Yet I find it strangely charming in some way. So I’ll be playing that, too. And now the door is open for a whole range of new addictions!

Dead Rat Bulging

My ex sent me some interesting pictures recently. Don’t get me wrong, this is not some sort of nasty break-up retaliation. We’re actually chatting on pretty much a friendly basis. He just let me know about the carnage that went on in his house.

Recently he had been terrorized by rats. He actually tried to build a non-lethal trap, but the things didn’t want to be caught in it and ate through the linoleum. Now, I like rats a lot. I actually had one as a pet. But when they start eating your house, action needs to be taken. So he did. Slaughter ensued.

Now the thing that struck me – you know how sometimes in comic books corpses have bulging eyes? – well, this is a dead rat with bulging eyes! Go figure! It’s actually based on fact. Well, I’ll keep this entry short. Enjoy the corpses!

Tata,

K.

PS: If you really haven't had enough dead rat, here's its dead mommy