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June 02, 2002 : eva's birth
Apparently my dearest was born a blue baby. Slightly premature and alive but suffocating. All knotted up and blue-faced and whisked away with air-tubes stuck up her nose. Though we go through life without missing people that could have existed, I would be sure to miss her if she had not pulled through; my little blue toned girlfriend only minutes old. (though I would only start calling her girlfriend much, much later and the word love would start out as friendly and end up that and much more.) We started the birthday by stopping what we were doing this morning at 12:01 and having her open her newspaper-wrapped gifts. We started the birthday morning after a night of sleep and headed to the house on Isabelalei with Joris to watch Paraguay play in the World Cup. Yes, we got up at 9 a.m. to watch a football game and enjoyed it...it's all due to that time-zone difference since they are playing in Japan and Korea. After we had had enough football we headed to Susan and Leila's for a regular ol' birthday bash. They cooked omlets and had a cake. We sat in the sun on their back terrace and talked about birthdays. Why they are such a strange abnormal day. Fireworks and recognition are supposed to happen. It's supposed to be a good day. Last year found Eva and I exploring parts of San Francisco and this year found us drinking loads of grapefruit juice watching soccer. We had hopes that the day might be even better than last year, with Antwerp competing with the great San Francisco...but by the time we got home post lunch, ready for a nap, Eva was sick. Yes, it's true. The birthday girl came down with the flue...stuck in bed with a slight fever and a rumbling tummy. We ate ramen noodle soup and she reclined on the couch. Though I would never wish a cold on her, it was quite nice to get to take care of her--especially on her birthday. :)
June 03, 2002 : stateside
Unbelievable. That's all I can say. It's a present to my mother and father, my father for father's day and my mother just because she's my mother. Though I am leaving Eva for just a short time, we find ourselves weepy with the thought of being apart. It was a last-second deal I found online thanks to travelocity. The cheapest ticket possible and one of the busiest times of my year. Not only will I have to reschedule my Flemish test, but I will return with a week left of Transmedia to figure out. Thankfully I am well prepared. (I am patting myself on the shoulder.) So yes. I am going to America. It is indeed, just like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic, a last-minute hand of cards that played itself just right. I will be picked up at the airport in Springfield by my dear friend Nichole and then taken home to a very suprised set of parents. I'll get to go to a college roomate's bachelorette party as well as her wedding. I'll get to go to San Francisco and see some dear friends, both former job related, as well as personal ones. I'll get to drive a car. I'll get to experience summer. I'll get to eat at Mexican Villa and eat at Arby's. I'll get to go to Wal-Mart at very odd hours of the day. I'll miss Eva. I'll miss Eva terribly. I've already "noted" our house for my departure...little fragments of words on post-it notes saying things like "the city by the by has nothing by the city by the Schelde" on a map of Antwerp and one on the mirror that says "You see the face in the mirror? That is the girl I love." We will talk on the phone like we used to when she was here and I was there. She's burned me music to listen to on my journey as well as when I'm in my mother's little red car. Life is about journeys, and I'm embarking on yet another one. Dearest Eva. You know it was a decision we both made. We even hit "make reservation" with both of our fingers on the mouse clicker. I will write things now from a new perspective...and remember you on every street where we have been and at every restaurant where we have previously eaten. She is my rock, and I take a stone with me for rememberance. Here's to being stateside. The glorious red-white-and blue country I was born in. I will send more entries from there with love. IN THE NEWS:
June 04, 2002 : leaving flanders field
My notebook seems to even be in shock...used to the levels of humidity in my backpack, or the brown leather 2nd-hand purse. We must admit that it's a purse, but we insist on calling it just another bag. I have said it before and I'll say it again. There is a point in time when people become family. It seems even a strange thing to write down. When you're a kid, you can imagine no other parents but your own. That's how I saw it. I t was as if they'd been together forever, not simply my age and add two. At what point do we cross over? Today I left my family to return to one. A word defined by blood, siblings, union. She stood waving at me with the better view. I had the side with the glare. I am still in shock mode. Swallowing air to keep from crying alone on the other side of security. Passing through airport stores that sell scarves, liquor, cigarettes, and Belgian chocolate....moving on the moving sidewalk...the sudden slowdown of my feet on the regular tiling. One could say that I am still there. Filled with already missing in the portions of me that are waking up to the fact that I am on a plane, that my dinner came in plastic square containers, that my legs are cramped beneath the reclining guy in front of me. We decided it was a dream, and that I'll wake up about the time it is over. I have already snoozed and startled myself awake...fingering /lightly touching the fleshy hump where my thumb connects with my hand...jabbing it with the index finger of my other hand.
June 05, 2002 : blur day
Have I lost a day? Absolutely. This one is not a day I will somehow get back. The plane from Brussels arrived on time...the flight from Washington was delayed two hours. I switched flights hoping to get to chicago, but we were delayed two hours and then an hour more on the runway--in a line with 15 airplanes in front of us. Thank you thunderstorm. Once I arrived in Chicago, my flight was already gone and I received a ticket for a flight this morning at 10:25 and now it is11:25. If I arrive home at 1 pm, I will have been in the process of getting to Springfield for almost 36 hours. Last night I befriended three other stranded passengers. All in all we kept each other company for 10 hours. Sharon shared pictures of her children and her cats and scavenged for blankets and pillows. She was successful at this, and I was not. Clayton served as a fine dose of conversation and his wife held down the fort while we all did our quests for pillows and blankets and went to get breakfast at McDonalds. All in all I think we slept a total of 4 hours on and off. We collectively became more comfortable along the way...eating McMuffins and biscuits when our gate began getting full. Earlier I had called Eva in the midst of an empty terminal food court where I had been told there would be people and food. Neither. I was exhausted, airline-dirty, and stuck in Chicago--miles and miles way from her and my destination. I made myself puffy-eyed and sick to my stomach. I wrote another poem. I even had to call my mother and let her in on the secret and in such a state I couldn't come up with a good plan to surprise my dad. (I came up with something once I had my 4 hours of sleep...but she had already invited him to the airport) Once I made it home, we ate Mexican Villa and then my mother took me to the mall. I didn't last 30 minutes. By this point in time I was drug-like high induced by lack of sleep so we grabbed a grape Pinapple Whip and headed home. I hit the sheets and was out till morning.
June 06, 2002 : finally and thrusday cont.
Yes of course I will update this as soon as I have time. When I finally got to Springfield, I had been "in transit" all of 38 hours and having slept about 4 and a half of those hours. And once I got home and went to bed, I had been up for 43 hours. Pretty amazing. Since I still don't have my contacts in, and it's 6 am, I'm not going to awe you with pictures of my travels thus far. As to what has happened in the last week, well, I have it all in hand-written journal form and will type it up and reappropriate the dates as soon as I have a free minute. (this is going to be a rare commodity) This morning it's around 55 degrees and foggy. I woke up and couldn't tell if it was mornging or night. My dad was already up making coffee and so he suggested I either go back to bed or stay up and have my mother make waffles. Since I feel pretty rested, I went for the waffle idea. Nothing beats a waffle from my mom...something the three of us always ate before school--my parentes eating them with bananas and peanut butter and me with just plain syrup. My dad just said, "there's the sun!" As for today, we've got a full day planned. Mowing the lawn, mulching the garden, and buying a "wedding outfit" for my friend heather's wedding. (she has no idea that I'm stateside...so finally a suprise!) Well, I'm off to give me back my sight (contacts) and off to chatter away with my mom and maybe to visit with the cats. IN THE NEWS:
June 07, 2002 : ozark mornings
Still no contacts and yet another sunrise. My parents are headed to the north of the country with my dad's family...a regular 2 car road trip. They just left and so I have the entire farm to myself. For some reason I'm remarkably awake. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that my body thinks it's actually 1 in the afternoon?! The only plans I have are to go through some things and get rid of some of it. This, of course, is Eva's worst nightmare. Watching me go through things and pile them into keep, don't-keep piles. But here is the situation: This house is set up like a monument to a girl who never turned 19. If you didn't know better you would imagine that I had met an untimely death in the weeks just before I went to school. Sure there are a couple of pictures of longer-haired college-age Andrea. But you wouldn't be able to tell the difference in age if you didn't know. Today my goal is to get rid of old t-shirts, old necklaces (crosses) just old things that aren't relavent...and certainly don't help our cause. I know many people think it is rediculous that I live such a reserved egg-shelled life when I am at home, but there is a happy medium in which we exist that works. Sometimes it gets dangerously close to one side or another, but for the most part all parties involved are ok with it. Sometimes though, it's like my mother just doesn't want to "get it." Yesterday she asked me if I was able to afford my share of the rent back in Antwerp. "I don't pay rent." I said. To which she replied, "I wouldn't want you to take advantage of Eva." And I replied, "I cook, I clean..." (the cleaning part was a lie, but it sounded good.) What a silly dialog! Of course she doesn't know that Eva was the "me" this time last year and that she damn well took advantage of living off of me in San Francisco! (once again, a joke...but it was still a one-income household.) Oh well. And my hair? They were bowled over by it's length. "It's so pretty." And my mother tells me to cut my waffle piece into two different pieces like I am 8 years old. How on earth do I survive without such guidance?!?! Of course they don't want me to grow old. They see me as a mixed bag...a daughter they are proud of and yet disappointed in. I understand that. And until I have a house of my own and children they will consider me the ever-18 year old daughter. (My dad is a little less glued to that age.) I love them as much as a daughter can love her parents. I love the childhood they gave me...one without any tragic memories or traumatic events. Of all of the events that I have given them...they hold on to the most tragic one of all. The fact that I'm gay. As I used to say back when I was just a pup: I guess Eva and I better get started on that house and children. :) (thanks for your patience Eva.) IN THE NEWS: (I didn't like how this was worded, it sounded like the man was the only missionary so I added the word in capitals...typical.) Maybe I'll post pictures of this soon...the pictures of the couple before capture and after capture are really amazing and troubling.
June 08, 2002 : weddings
Her wedding was a good wedding. Simple. 35 invitations and 60 people showing up. Two best men and three bridesmaids. A summer day in a First Baptist Church. The preacher was stuffy and stumbled over words, but the bride was the star of the show, wearing a dress seemingly made for her. I’m not a huge fan of weddings, to be honest. They leave me a bit empty, like flaunting something I will never have. I used to dream that I would wear my mother’s 1974 wedding dress and my husband-to-be would wear a dated costume as well…a soft yellow or powder blue tux with a ruffled front. Shiny white shoes. But that’s a dream left dreaming. For what it was worth, I managed to have a part in the wedding by being the pre-wedding picture taker. I snapped photos of the bride getting dressed, the bridesmaids applying lipstick, even the placing of the veil. Seeing as how I arrived sans present, this made up for it, and it was the least I could do for a girl (now definitely woman) I shared a house with my senior year of college. Pre-wedding we couldn’t compliment her on her beauty for fear that it would make her mascara run, but post wedding we could. She looked the best I’ve ever seen her. I even checked the size of her capri pants and sleeveless top…impressed that my friend was wearing a size 10. She looked a 10 dead on. I’ve got pictures to prove it. In the spirit of the wedding I will never have, I had my sights set on the bouquet for single ladies out there. Is it single? Or just un-married. I was going for the unmarried variety, for I consider myself overwhelmingly taken. :) when the time came for us to form a small crowd, I assured everyone around that I was going to catch it. And though Heather didn’t aim in my direction (at all) I lunged for it and used the good ol’ "block out" proceedure for rebounding in basketball. The flowers were mine. A great picture, though blurry, shows my excitement. It’s now drying upside down hanging from a coat-hook in the car. Though I didn’t have much advise in the way of marriage and staying together, my one suggestion considered love and friendship—surely sometimes that is enough. The preacher talked about vows and promises, the importance of church and family. Just as I mentioned a few days ago about the labeling of ‘family’, it was cool to see/be-apart-of the official stamp of family recognition. "With this ring, I thee wed…" Heather said she didn’t feel married, she didn’t feel different than the day before…but now she’s got a husband. "Till death do us part…" And now she’s got a family. One plus one equals one in wedding-speak. "You may kiss the bride…" No bells and whistles, but it now official. She’ll get to start receiving mail for Mrs. Kyle Foltz. What’s up with being called the Mrs. of the husband? So much for feminism…but I guess that IS feminism in the traditional sense. Thank god her name sounds great either way. J IN THE NEWS:
June 09, 2002 : being freakish
We got to bed this morning at 4ish. We gambled the night away with Heather. I broke even on the slot machines...I spent 20 and won 30 then lost 10. A perfect gambling time...it's perfect as long as you don't lose. You just can't always win. We would have started earlier but weddings always run late, I am told. We would have been there a half hour earlier if Jessica and I hadn't been solving the problems of the world (in great detail) as we were driving up 71 to 435. This meant that we missed the turn-off and were well on our way to Iowa before I realized it. Originally the plan was to go to Arkansas, but when we heard rumors that the groom was going to bugger off and watch the Tyson boxing match and leave Heather with a bucket of quarters. No way. Jessica and I decided to intervine. Not only did we vow that the couple would have some quality alone-time, we decided we'd have a good time with our old friend for a little bit longer. What made the night even better was that Jessica and I decided that instead of making the drive from Kansas City back to Joplin in the middle of the night, we'd wait until Heather and Kyle finished using the room. Then we'd take it once they left for the airport--headed to catch an early morning flight to Jamaica. I don't have to go into details as to why this setup seems a little strange, as it sounds bad enough as it is. Yes, that's right, Jessica and I slept like stones on the bed of a wedding-night couple. We grabbed an extra blanket and used one blanket to cover the mattress and one to cover us. I think we managed to chuckle about the bed for a couple of minutes before we drifted off into oblivion--then it didn't really matter. It was a 200 dollar room used for all of 4 hours by the couple who it was intended for. It was perfect. This morning we woke up, showered and headed into the city for Philly cheesesteaks and coffee. Over coffee in the heart of Westport, it rained and it poured. Though this isn't the best entry ever, I just wanted to record a bit of it. We made it down to Joplin through patches of downpour and then sunlight, and Jessica and I parted with her headed home in her mother's stinky flood-vehicle van and me in my mother's Chevy. Though I am used to having time on my hands, i have been stuck with moments in the last couple of days where I am just one cruise-control. My head completely open. The drive from Joplin to Elkland was such a trip...flipping off the christian billboards that line the interstate professing that women should cover their heads and that we should repent. At the same time I was listening to a Christian radio station thinking about the secular equivilent to seed-sowers and good-doers. Look, if you don't live here, you wouldn't understand. I came home with barely enough daylight left to calm my fears. it's not that I am scared of being out in the country, it's being out in the country alone. It scares me. I dug through drawers and found sheets and covered specific windows that I have to pass to get from one room to the next. Of course it's absurd, but it makes me feel eternally better since Friday, my blessed cat, has already abandoned me for the evening and Kola, his blessed adopted-brother cat, is snoozing. So much for my protection. A meat hammer is sitting on the coffee table. But boy it is good to be home tonight. I wanted to watch MTV and relax. If I thought I would manage tomorrow, I'd stay up late enough to watch the USA play in the World Cup, but I'm not going to make it. I'm multi-tasking, catching up on the lastest new videos, eating frozen pizza and working on the internet thanks to the fact that I hooked up my mac to my mother's internet. So I'm online from the comfort of a towel-covered armchair. A reminant of when I used to have an apartment...a chair I bought for 10 bucks from my first college. Tomorrow I'm going to clean up a bit, take down all of the sheets and refold them, and just hang out on the farm--all the more time to open my head. To sit with myself and figure out the pseudo-love-hate relationship with the ground under my feet and to visit the grave of my grandmother--something I would have done earlier if it hadn't been for the cemetary-mower taking a break in his truck as I pasted on Friday night. Instead i did the farmer-friendly hand wave from the top of my steering wheel. One of the "love" things instead of a "hate." We're friendly. IN THE NEWS:
June 10, 2002 : Missouri and Old Videos.
It's windy, Missouri is in the news, and I'm decently rested. I really wanted to get up this morning and get cracking on a list of things I want to accomplish today. It's another long drive today from Elkland to Neosho and I plan to take the most scenic route possible...through small towns and flag-lined country roads. It may sound like a silly project, but even Jessica called me last night and said, "Thanks a lot Andrea, now everywhere I go all I see is the red, white, and blue." Even the way we name our colors sounds propriatary. THE red, white and blue. :) I still have so many days left to comment on. It sounds like I have yet to form the thoughts and sentences, but thats not true...a couple of days from last week are still in the green notebook and one day in particular is currently in my noggin. One thing I've realized about this public writing business, is that I'm finding myself stumble over what should be viewable and what should not. It's not that I have anything great to say, it's just that on occasion it's pretty personal...so personal that others might even say "ouch." But I guess that's pretty amazing in and of itself. After all, I did choose to bring this upon myself. And then of course I am going to San Francisco tomorrow...which means I'll have even more to say. One really cool thing that I've done so far today, is eat raspberries from our garden. Not a whole lot or anything, but a couple of handfulls of the pretty-rare golden variety as well as some black ones. Just two days ago they were barely turning, and now they are nearly dropping off of the briars. I think I might be going to SF at a bad time! As for the countryside...they've cut the hay field across the road so it smells like a Missouri summer. And since it looks like it could shower every thirty minutes or so, he's going ahead and baling it--circling around the field and pausing every so often to let the baler poop out a huge round bale. Ah...life on the farm. This would put a notch on the "love" side of the love/hate relationship tally. Oh, by the way Eva, I had a tick stuck to my left inner thigh...
June 11, 2002 : Turbulence
After I left Neosho and headed toward Joplin this afternoon…I took more pictures of flags. I stopped by Missouri Southern to check on the final class for my English degree. (yes, I am one class shy) While I was there, I met an old professor, an eclectic sharp-witted flighty English teacher who could, I remember, read the ingredients on the side of cereal boxes or vitamins and make it sound like poetry. We caught up on life—3 years smooshed (see entry from times past about this very subject) into 15 minutes and she seemed pleased with the result. Oh, and as a footnote, the final class I took from her happens to be the class I need. She’s a teacher that somehow managed to make me believe in Middle America…a missionary of sorts of open-mindedness to the Midwest found at various sized institutions of higher education that dot towns across America. She used to bring her kid to class on occasion, and let him interupt her lecture for discussions of Crayola colors or his freshly drawn dinosaur. We’d see them in the grocery store and ham in a dress0up outfit. She’d say something like, "Let him be a kid." That’s great. I made my way to Kansas City via old roads I used to travel when I was with Susan. (my first girlfriend) I stopped in little towns to drive their streets and assured an elderly man that I was "just taking pictures of his flag" on his front porch. He didn’t seem to mind. Carterville (on Saturday,) Neosho, Joplin, Carl Junction, Pittsburg, Alva, Fort Scott… I had been racing the clock since I left Neosho. I was trying to take my time without losing any. I called Eva past Fort Scott and next to a gigantic power station…that was the last stop where I decided it was time to stop picture-taking and just get there. I passed moments where I would have wanted to stop, but couldn’t. By the time I got to the airport turnoff I had decided I had time to grab a bite to eat. One exit later I noticed cops closing the entrance-ramps to the opposite late of traffic. The lane I was going to need as soon as I grabbed a dinner to go. Exits later they are still doing the same. I’m thinking car chase. There were cops hanging out on the overpasses. I’m thinking gun-em-down cops and robbers. Not the president. Sure enough. Two days chock-full of Missouri news. The helicopter flying just overhead signalled the car. I grabbed McDonalds (not by choice) and headed back—sure that the presicent was going to spoil my getting to the airport…the hightway opened up and I was back on my way to the airport. It’s not really that big of a deal, but it’s not every day that you share the road with the president. As I neared long-term partking I could see the plane. United States of America on the side above the windows and a big ol’ flag on the tail-fin and. How appropriate—but did I mention that it had now started raining and that we were under a tornado watch? I pulled into a space and walked right up to the fence. Air-Froce One less than a 100 meters from me…taxing down to the end of the runway and me standing in the rain with my nose poking out of the chain-link fence. No security. A prime moment for an attack. I’m certainly not the rocket-launcher-in-my-trunk type…all I had was a middle finger. I gave the plane the bird. Anyone could have rolled up and blown it into pieces and rolled back out in 10 minutes for less than 4 dollars a day. (the price to park in long-term) If I could, couldn’t other people? A machine game me a ticket…no people involved. So much for homeland defense. So the president was at my airport. Tornado watches. I sat outside with a doctor who looked like a mix between Luke Skywalker, Michael J. Fox, and my high school basketball coach. We talked politics, world news, the slightly personal, and travel stories. His wife is from India and he’s from my hometown…graduated from Kickapoo High School in Brad Pitts’s class. He’s sick of the Midwest and churches on every street corner. He loves the countryside but is sick of the hypocrisy. He wants their little girl to live in a city with variety and new demographics. I understand. I get it. I remember going back to Springfield for Christmas and being shocked that the grocery store was filled with white people. It was shocking enough to actually come to my attention. Being a minority for awhile is good for the soul. They’re in the process of moving to San Francisco. We ended up talking for 2 hours because our plane was delayed and late. I recommended cheap restaurants in the city. He gave me his card. So now I’m on the plane in an electrical storm. We’ve been in the air an hour with the fastened seat belt sign lit up. The attendants are even buckled in. I hooded myself in the window and stared out the window. The wing bounced like a diving board, and when it lightning and momentarily stained my eyeballs I let out a fireworks-ish oooh and ahhh. The man across the aisle said he was about ready to shit bricks. I was loving it…though did I mention I was having gas pains which I wasn’t entirely sure wasn’t nervous pangs of diarrhea. Somehow I had decided it was peaceful. The pulling of gravity affecting my innards this way and that way. The green light on the trip of the wing stuck out there in the clouds making the wing look like an empty, smoke machined dance floor. For some reason I felt safe and death-defying. I wrote a poem in my head describing everything under my feet as the earth. The floor of the plane, my ground. The rung on a ladder, blades of grass. The floor of an elevator simply equivalent to a rock sticking out of mud. If this trip has done anything, it has been good for Eva and I. Yes of course it is dreamlike, being here. Weird because I know where she is, how she’s sleeping, where she’s sitting, and to a certain extent she does as well. But life is too short to not know for sure…to not make more memories together in SF or MO. Now that we don’t live there we have a new appreciation…and an appreciation I don’t really want to revisit without her. Jessica calls it codependence, and I call it a partnership. Eva is a part of me. I’ve taken her with me here. Dropped her name and title in conversations with both friends and strangers. The professor could tell I am happy. It radiates. I am missing Eva as much as I did when I was in the process of wooing her, only more so. Missing her as much as I missed her with a feeling more like longing even when I was single—the belief that she was out there, nameless, but out there. Eva dearest, these are our cities, our trips, our adventures…our every days. I’m taking you with me. I’m currently over Denver.
June 12, 2002 : San Francisco
What can I say, it's a great city. It feels strange to be here, especially without Eva. Bobbie asked me if I was excited to be here, and I don't know if I've done a very good job of convincing her. I am. It's just a city filled with memories made with a girl who is thousands of miles away. I started the day a bit later than Bobbie and Erin. I was exhausted from the plane ride and the driving of the day before. I swear my arms aren't used to the motion of turning steering wheels anymore and the having to be alert tires me. Once I made my way into town (via the Bay Area Rapid Transit aka BART) and had lunch with Bobbie at a noodle bar because the restaurant that we wanted to eat in wasn't open for business for another 2 hours. One of our (Eva and I) favorite restaurants (the Capri) in all of the world has transformed itself into a Bistro. It used to be kitsch and perfect with cracking vinyl booths...and now everything matches and it's freshly painted and table-for-two-ish with bordered wallpapered ceilings. How disappointing. We knew they were remodeling the bathrooms and had changed the vinyl seating before we left...but a romantic atmosphere? It's sad. It was romantic enough. I can only hope the gnoochi hasn't changed. While eating our noodles I noticed a bug-like something in Bobbie's dish. We kept eating and then found another piece. I swear it looked like stir-fried dragonfly and so we asked the waiter. He took it to the cook who looked at it and sort of shrugged. Then he smiled and the waiter returned with pieces of raw shredded ginger...that was the insect in it's native form. Whew! Across the street we had coffee where Eva and I exchanged rings for the first time. The place where we say we married each other. It's nothing but a glorified coffee shop that also has food...but it's a special place. I sat there recollecting those moments while Bobbie ordered our coffee. Two huge mugs of coffee...and no belgian-style cookies to go along with it. After our desert of coffee Bobbie headed back to work and I accompanied her and headed to the library. I had never been to the public library and was quite pleased with how busy it was and how packed with people--let alone the atmosphere. It was a great place. Modern and full of people doing research, reading new magazines, and sitting there studying. I looked up and saw a scene from a movie...and walked to the receptionist and inquired about the movie. Sure enough, it was straight out of City of Angels. The scene where "angels" appear in the atrium of the library...one from behind every support. Cool. I made my way to a payphone and called my better half. I promised her a wake-up call and only just realized a half hour ago that she's already at work. I'm not used to the additional 2 hours time change. Now we're not only seperated by miles and miles, but more hours. 9 to be exact. But she was not far from my thoughts tonight. In fact, when we made the journey south on 101, passing familiar exits and shops, we ended up at a certain electronic stores...the one with the Cowboy theme. Fry's. Yes Eva, I got you something. A couple of somethings. And no you are not going to get me to tell you what they are. They are suprises. :) On the way home the three of us decided on pizza. One of Bobbie's and I's (is that correct? Bobbie and mine's? Bobbie and I's?) favorite dinners since we've been friends has been making pizza. Pepperoni and green olives. So we came back to the house and made it and ate it over an X-box game. Some sort where Erin and I shot the shit out of little aliens. She even killed me by accident by knocking me out with the butt of her gun. Oh the joys of violent gaming. IN THE NEWS:
June 13, 2002 : currently recovering
I had a huge Hamburger...and I'm just now getting to the point where my belly feels ok inside of my size 16 jeans. Lisa Baro, an old Tellme friend, and I met for lunch which was supposed to be breakfast and coffee...but we made it in time for a reunion...and now I'm sitting here waiting for her to fill out a domain name registration change so we can "get on with our day." It's sort of funny that we didn't meet at such a wonderful time. You see, back when my California drivers license was still really valid (I still use it) Eva and I would call up Lisa and designate a time...and then arrive late. Guaranteed. Always late. It was only appropriate for me to wake up a little late, call her, and find her still in bed. Thank God. It's like poetic justice...just like old times. You have to love a friend who immediately says, "it's great to see you...my you've lost weight." Who wouldn't. But once we sat down to her Belly Buster Burger and my smaller version with a huge chunk of blue cheese...it's no wonder that I was nearly up to a size 18. Duh. Oh well...at least Antwerp is slimming me down...but now that we're days away from a scooter...we'll see what happens to that waistline. so the rest of the day will see us checking out the listings for the annual San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and purchasing some tickets. I'm hoping for an evening for short films...one just can't go wrong with films that are 5 minutes long. If one is bad you soon get over it. There's another one on the way. One other thing that's good about it is that seeing these short low-budget films always makes you think that you too can be a filmaker. And I like that. It's inspirational.
June 15, 2002 : films
I tried to make this trip pretty stress free. Not only for myself, but for Bobbie and Erin. It's never fun to have to run a friend all over the country when she's home on vacation, and besides, I wanted to just hang out with them for awhile, catch up, and just "be in SF" for awhile. Today we ate at Pak-Wan, the cheapest and most delicious Indian food in the Mission. Erin had had a noticably gross first impression by ordering some meat bits the time before, so I was aprehensive about making her eat there with me. We ended up loving it. The man who takes the orders, the same man who used to stare at Eva's breasts, now semi-flirted with me. (If you can call it that...) On to a thrift store where you buy your clothes by the pound, and off to the Castro Theater to catch some lesbian short films. I bought our tickets and waited for them to find a parking place...in the meantime I lost one ticket, got a free one from some guy headed in to see the show, found my lost ticket, and then gave it to the lady I was talking to who couldn't find her ticket. (it equalled out) Great shows. Almost too good. No chance for anythign I'd ever come up with to come after or before. Polished and hysterical. Perfect. Fun In Girls' Shorts Spend your afternoon enjoying this annual celebration of the best in lesbian short films. The program starts off on a high note with SING ALONG SAN FRANCISCO, as we follow the bouncing ball and watch archival footage of our hometown. In SIZE ’EM UP, teen jock Samantha finds herself in the unlikely hands of the “bra ladies,” who help her discover new things about breasts, brassieres and how to improve her soccer game. A young immigrant is fascinated by the woman playing cello across the yard from her home in MY BEAUTIFUL NEIGHBOR, and a Surinamese girl working in her mom’s hair parlor struggles to come to terms with the fact that she’s gay in YOU 2. A lesbian’s father reveals his feelings about fishing, fatherhood and gayness in DADDY-O, while LEZ BE FRIENDS shows the travails of a straight filmmaker consistently mistaken for being a dyke after she makes a movie about her best friend’s coming out. And what happens when your friends are not just your friends…they’re also your dating pool? Find out in the hilarious instructional video THE 10 RULES (A LESBIAN SURVIVAL GUIDE). Sing Along San Francisco dir Georgina Corzine 2002 USA 4 min 35mm It was the perfect beginning of the day, even though it preceeded a sense of last-day dread. There was even one in Dutch that had me laughing at the fact that I understood what they were saying every once in awhile. Post film I couldn't figure out what was left to see and do. Having pared my sights down to a handful of things, I didn't have much left on my list. No golden gate bridge or crooked street. Especially not without Eva...life just tastes better with Eva. :) So back to the East Bay and we considered options. The last night in SF and what to do. Go for another set of short films in the city? Stay at home, order pizza, and just hang out and watch tv? Go out to eat in Berkley and then type away on the computer in a coffee shop? See the movie we didn't see the night before: Amelie from Montmartre. Yes, it's got a longer name in French, but for these purposes we'll call it Amelie. Twenty minutes before the film was scheduled to start, over a way-to-sugrary crepe at crepes-a-go-go in Berkley, I call 1-800-555-TELL where I used to work when I lived in SF and spur of the moment decided we were going to go. No doubt about it. Eat your crepe, we're going. 20 minutes later we're in the theater. Eva has already seen the movie this day too, back in Belgium. We would have seen it much earlier had the movie not been French with subtitles in Dutch. Man. See it. What can I say? I left a new person. In a world of shitty prequels and bad acting in languages that I consider my own or in a world of special effects...this made the wait well worth it. See it. I'm serious. It's jumped to the head of my list of favorites in a matter of days. The Sound of Music is great because it's a classic...Fried Green Tomatos because it's the first movie that showed me what I was looking for...If Lucy Fell because it's a movie for sappy romantics...and Amelie because it's a great story, just great. It's done in a beautiful slant of orange tones and the characters are timeless. The audience laughed out loud. We checked the people sitting next to us and smiled...great. So I returned home a new person. I still am. Not because of the movie, but because it made me think. It was one of those think-movies. It made the world feel small and next-doorsy and everything seem possible. (and of course I want to go to Paris again...who doesn't?)
June 16, 2002 : returns
It's the right direction. I'm headed back to Belgium. The only thing that separates me is a layover in Missouri. A 4 day stretch that will prove to fly before my very eyes...just like the 3 and a half hour flight from SF to MO was a snap of the fingers. I played up the yuppie SF image and worked on Flag Pictures on the laptop mid-flight. As we came in for a landing we could see another plane replicating our moves in the distance. Of all of my years of being on planes, I dont' remember looking out the window and landing at the same time as another plane. It was cool. It resembled the tiny mister-rogers-type gound, except that it's shadow covered houses and hay bales. I gathered my things, made my way to stop 18 on the Blue Bus, paid my 20 bucks for long-term parking. The ride home went quick as well. Highway 13 is no longer a death-defying dance with oncoming cars. It's mostly 4 lane and some passing lands on the hills outside of Bolivar. I stopped in Clinton to buy a Dairy Queen ice-cream sandwhich and two bisquits from Kentucky Fried Chicken. There are some times when small-towns feel small...and Clinton sucked me in for a moment. People heading to the DQ for an after-church snack. Just before night-fall I saw a deer hanging out by the side of the road and thought what I always think when I see a deer: Flashback to hitting one while coming over a hill on AA. The sound they make before you hit them...sort of like a squeal. Then I think of the deer with a broken leg standing amidst dumbstruck drivers in flood lights on Old 65 when I was on the way to Angie Doings house for a basketball party. Then I consider being a minute before or a minute later. Then I'm glad I missed it. From 13 to a cross-countryside road through Brighton. They're not much left in Brighton except the church where my mother's parents are buried, where they will be buried, and where I have space too. Over the hills and pass the sharp corner with the HUGE barn that sits off of the road quite a ways. Down into a valley, over a bridge and through the slightly-rolled-down window I smell earth. Freshly mowed hay and water. It's the smell of fog. Sort of like the smell of mushrooms. This is the place where I once wondered if cows sometimes die by being trapped in fields during a flood. This area floods. It's father's day. I hope I have shown that I'm already thankful. I didn't come with gift in hand, except a book that Eva wanted to give my father. I'm hoping that my surprise arrival is enough, and since I have heard, "it's good to have you home" several times, I think it must be enough. Nothing special except being viewable in the rear-view mirror on our way into Springfield or sitting across from my parents at the all-you-can-eat pizza in Buffalo. I hope he knows that the opposite is true for me as well. I like just having him around too...glancing at me from the drivers seat, passing back his palm for a high-five, his ever joke of "Helly 'hungry', I'm Andy. Nice to meet you." And the list goes on and one. Happy father's day Daddy. IN THE NEWS:
June 17, 2002 : last missouri monday
Not the begining of lasts, but no less important. We got up early and headed to Springfield to drop off pictures and slide-hopefulls off at a little shop that is in the parking lot of Battlefield Bowl. Over a hundred pictures of the flag and 11 slide wannabes. Eva managed to translate my "breast text" into dutch...so we'll see if the place can do a quick turnaround and have the slides in my hand by Thursday. If not, I'm out of luck. Besides lunch at my dad's favorite place to eat, Cheddars, where we ran into my high school friend-turned-cop as well as my Aunt Karen and Uncle Eddie, we did a stint at Wal-Mart. I picked out great little snack surprises for Eva. Peanut Butter cooking mix, Bisquick in a pouch, crunchy granola bars, Reeses Pieces, and some other things I can't mention because they are surprises--though the cookie mix was going to be until I typed it in. Today we spent most of the day out in the yard trimming low-hanging tree limbs. I went crazy with the electric corded weed eater, and then I got hooked on lopping off low limbs on the plum trees I planted way back when. And ticks? Plenty. Eva will literally shudder when she reads this, but when I was getting myself naked for a shower I found 8. 7 small pin-tip ones and one of the spotted-back big ones. They love to find positions of security...under socks and undewear elastic lines. Eva calls insects 'animals.' This, of course, doesn't help the tick's cause. I wouldn't want an animal sucking my blood either. Now snakes, on the otherhand, they freak me out. The first 15 minutes of the weed eating I hesitated with every stroke for fear I'd uncover a slithering slang. (isn't that the word in Dutch?) After the shower I emerged from the bathroom to the shock of my Aunt Ruthie and Uncle Keith who had been duped by my mother into thinking that they were just invited for cheesecake. After a very ordinary greeting, they shook their heads and inquired about my visit. We played dominoes and drank decafinated coffee. So now it's off to bed and getting up in just a few hours to drop a new cd off at the photo printing store and a drive to Joplin to check up on my class-requirements to finish my English degree...and hopefully a drop-in to see my old art teachers to catch up on college gossip. Most of them have retired already...the department is full of new faces. As for now, I'm headed to bed. IN THE NEWS:
June 18, 2002 : last missouri tuesday
Since I started planning my next year of school with various ideas and projects to keep me busy...I've stumbled on a couple of loose ends or wannabe projects that I figured I might toss into the lot of projects. One that is completely unrelated to art, but was more for personal satisfaction, was my English degree. Since the fall of 1998, the autumn of soccer and Mormon Meg, I've been one class short. One class. A creative writing class I dropped that fall. ONE class. I tried to take a class correspondance, but you can guess how that turned out. It didn't. So for next year I thought I should finish it. An BA in English to go along with my BA in Art. Nice. The TRUE double major (because I have been counting it anyway for all of these years.) Well I emailed a couple of teachers and decided to drop in to Southern while I was in town. They told me to come back next week--they'd get my information and see what they could do. My parents and I drove down there today and by the time it was all over...I had signed a petition requesting that another creative writing course (along with the fact that I had 181 undergrad hours) could count as my upper level one. By the time I got home there was a message on the answering machine saying, "Congrats Andrea, you now have an English degree. Your petition was accepted." So there. I've got an English degree in my back pocket. Authentic and not stretching the truth. Cool, eh? Not honorary or associate level. Real. What a load off of my shoulders. Let's see...what have I accomplished in two and a half weeks: 1. Surprised parents Not too shabby. IN THE NEWS:
June 19, 2002 : last missouri wednesday
I had a long night last night—up for several hours printing sheets with 4 flag-related pictures per page. My views have definitely changed a bit since I first got here in respect to flags. I’ll write something to accompany the images when I show them at school. At first I was approaching it pretty roughly. It screamed excessive. Contrast that with olympic red-white-and-blue fans or veterans or fields of little white tombstones and I don’t know what to say anymore. It’s open for discussion. You decide. I would suggest that we not mix Jesus of Nazereth with Washington and politics. Every patriotic stance is in a huge black kettle over an open fire. God, location, religion, color, education, and more. Give me a huge layover in Chicago or just a few more hours and I’ll figure it out. As for the day, I got ujp late and prepared for the last full day in Missouri. Yesterday I pulled the long-un-mowed grass from my grandmother’s grave and I told her I would return with flowers before I went back to Belgium. It’s not so silly to talk to headstones--they do it in movies all of the time. An inanimate object with the ears of the dead. Today I hopped on the 4-wheeler and made my way in a big sweeping square to collect wild flowers. 9 different types of flowers in total; big orange lily-looking ones with easy to snap off stems, small bright pink-purple 5-petaled long stemmed ones with 2 to 3 flowers per stem, big white daisies and their cousins that are smaller and grow in bunches on one stem, pale yellow crocus-looking flowers, lacy-chigger-weed, something that resembles baby’s breath, and black-eyed-Susans…the yellow-petaled brown-centered daisy. It was an impressive assortment. Nothing with prickly stems. Some I ended up pulling with the root attached, and I struggled to trim them to a decent length. I placed them where I imaged her chest would be, where she would fold her arms like we do when we are kids and we play dead or mummy. I didn’t want to put them with the group of fake outdoor flowers by the tombstone. I fingered the freshly-engraved date April 10 with my index finger…and thought of my birthday. The day I started this journal. Pre-dinner I stopped at Barnes and Noble for a large map of Europe and a chance to get lost in a bookstore. When I thought I had no more time to spare, I headed on down to Branson and was shocked at the little time it took me to travel the now 4-laned highway. It used to take almost an hour down a two-laned with passing lanes highway over deathdefying hills and curves.Now it’s a piece of cake. I got there with a half hour to spare and called Eva from a drive up payphone in the corner of a gas station parking lot. I met my sister Kelly and my nephew Sam for dinner. I’m sure I will think my own children sweeter and more adorable, but for now, Sam certainly steals the show. It was great to visit with them. No rush, with Starbucks after. Behind the restaurant there was a steep grassy hill and the lightening bugs came out thick in the humidity. I took one of the best pictures I’ve taken on this trip of Sam either reaching for or releasing a firefly. As for the return trip, it was all song and driving. Enough of both to last me until Christmas. Though it seems many months away, it will be here before I know it and gone again. I packed when I got home…layering goodies like bisquick and jello-boxes like bricks, with rolled up shirts like the mortar in the nooks and crannies. By the end of the pack and repack, the surprise rollerblades were back in a drawer along with several other ramen soup packets. I grabbed Friday when I was finished and with a very dodgy tummy, gurgling from strange-chicken or exhaustion or nerves, I slept with Friday asleep on my arm. Mid—sleep my mother checked in on me and prepared a bagged-bin in case I got sick…but my morning it had passed.
June 20, 2002 : half missouri thursday
Leaving is never pretty. Especially with heavy bags and the nerves of a father who would rather us be 3 hours early than with only 45 minutes to spare. Today he did a great job of keeping that worrying to a minimum…slightly hurrying but relaxed. Me in my last-minute abruptness…worried that my check-in counter lingering parents would hang around if my bags were checked. The man in front of me was headed to Australia…red flag! Sent to the check-station. I’m nearly sick to my stomach…not only are all of the items strategically placed and destined to never fit again…I have sensitive cargo—a certain gift from Nichole and Jennifer and a purply, nearly silent, curvy see-through Good Vibrations vibrator. Not really something I want waved around in Springfield, Missouri. I switched into hyper-friendly at the counter. A ha ha ha (I laughed casually). Chatting with the check-in lady. "Why no, I didn’t know I had to touchdown in London…" and "Yes, my destination is Brussels" and "Should I inquire about customs in London? Will I have to recheck my luggage?" (Sort of acting moron-ish) The whole time I’m thinking, "Oh god…please don’t send me behind the Australian…" And no. They didn’t send me there. I simply placed my bags on the check-in counter and walked away smiling. Then my mother and I were back to normal…we told my dad what the thrift-store t-shirt writing on the front…something I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember in the car a half-hour before. I had made a quick check in the rolling bag to see if the shirt was anywhere close to the top. Sure enough, just between a camping lantern and a box of paints, "Summer in Nashville, some ain’t." Ha ha ha…it still makes me laugh. Happy homecoming Eva. So like I said, leaving is always hard. I used to always think of my dad telling me to always end on good notes…to fend off regret in case of accident or death. I suppose it’s second nature now, ending with excessive, though never un-genuine, I-love-yous and watching until I’m out of sight or they are. In Paris we thought they were un-seeable only to see them emerge one floor above us. We inched along below them as they inched their way to the security checkpoint…wound our way around half of the round building. And then finally the sign-language of pointing to the heart, crossing the arms in an X for ‘love’ and the point to…you. If you want to say "ik ook" (me too) back really quickly, you make "ditto" motions three times with a boy scout two-fingers or peace-signs or victory-Nixon fingers bending at the knuckles. Then I’m on my way. Just after takeoff I can watch the roads on the ground stretch out in every direction. This one is headed to Tulsa and that one is headed to Arkansas, and I can follow the roads past my high school and on down a bit where it turns and turns again, and couple of more times where it ends up being gravel and there is our place. I can’t see the house, but I can see the barn. A speck through my small airplane window and visible until we speed over it and we’re on over Conway and before long the Mississippi, and then Chicago stretches out in every direction in the daylight. I don’t know that I’ve seen the Chicago skyline during the day…impressive at night and expansive in daylight. I call Eva from Chicago while sitting on the floor beneath the phone. It’s good to hear her voice. Just as I originally said, I’llb e back before I realize that I’m gone. I love her and I love them. Always a desire to make-my-own mark and console or please. And this time next year? I suppose there will a time when I take comfort in "already knowing" what lies lays ahead. But for now? Keep it open. Live the life and love the woman. In a perfect world that is what even my parents would want…taking comfort in what they see and what they know already…that I am happy. What a great feeling.
June 21, 2002 : in the flesh
She had tried to convince me that she wouldn't be there at the airport. Inside, my guts told me "yes, of course she would be there." And yet she persisted to say, "no, I can't, I have to work." We had even gone as far to make plans to pick her up from work and have lunch. And like I said, my guts told me, "no, of course she'll be at the airport." My guts were right. You know how it's sort of embarrasing to see people in a state of looking? Like watching someone in that vulnerable position of trying to find something? well that was me. There I was pushing a big airport cart full of luggage darting out of the exit and searching for a recognizable face. Once I headed in the opposite direction I heard them, sure enough, Susan with car-keys in hand and Eva right alongside her. It seems silly to say that after only 2 weeks of being apart, it took a bit to get used to her again. It was reminiscent of our first date in Paris, though we only embrased then. This time around we put our palms on each other's faces to do a make-sure-you-are-real check and a lengthy stop-the-world hold for good measure. I was grossly out of sleep and high on caffiene and the experience in the London airport. I don't even want to get into it, as i will say it in a suffeciantly short manner: Point being, I was high by the time I got back to Antwerp. I spewed forth all sorts of random things along the way back. Poor Eva and Susan had to put up with me. Once we made it back home, I climbed into bed and slept log-like for several hours. When i got up, Eva and I headed into town for Thai food and the carnival. Seeing as how ferris wheels used to be wonderfully enjoyable, we made our way through the varrying money-guzzling side shows and up to the big-wheel. Once at the top, we were literally mortified. We held on to the center pole and tried to sneak a peek at the view of Antwerp from that perspective. The next time around it was easier, and even better the last couple of rounds. But those first few moments at the tope had us convinced of our age and our former fearlessness at younger ages. Next stop was a round and round coaster which looked like a sure-thing pleaser. From the looks of the people going around and around, it looked great. They were all smiling! We did not consider the cries of the little asian lady still stuck to the handlbars and her boyfriend nervously trying to pry her out of the seat. Once in the ride we realized that the smiles were due to the speed we were going around. It literally was stretching our faces. Our thai food being sloshed around in our bellys from one angle to the next, depending on how fast we went. Memo to self: Don't eat thai before carnie rides. Not to sound like an old-geezer, our favorite was the mirrored maze. Cheaper than all of the rest we had to make our way from the entrance to the exit, and it took us a quarter of an hour and the help of some other lost souls. Just when we though we had it figured out, we would smack up against a piece of glass. Eva's first remark was, "This is goign to be easy because the glass isn't really clean." I agreed, but then we changed our minds when we realized that the mirrors weren't really clean either, so everything looked the same. Cool. Cheap. Memo to self: Mazes and Mirrors are a good combination. Oh yes, one more thing. I dont' know if they caught a ride in my bag or what, but Eva found 2 stuck ticks on me and an additioinal one of them just changing positions and not yet sucking blood. IN THE NEWS:
June 22, 2002 : pinky toes and allah
Three things to say. You'd think it was just two, but I have added another. Pinky toes: Try to move your toes individually. It's hard. Eva and I were laying in bed visiting and for some reason stumbled upon this. It's like you've got to train your toes. They move together. The big-toe has abilities the others yearn for...and with a little guidance, they too can be their "own toe." I literally had to will my toes to move. I think it's along the same lines as amputees moving their ghost limbs. First eva would grab the trainee-toe so I knew what toe was associated with what feeling. And then...willing my body to use that particular toe...it would move. Eva was much better at this, but I don't know if she had such an interesting story associated with it. :) Wanting: This may not make any since to anyone else, but I think this brief paragraph will make Eva smile. Apparently I'll have to start using a new phrase instead of want. My dearest Eva associates 'want' with 'must have' and is tired of being 'not able' to provide. So instead of me walking down the street and pointing to a store-front apartment with a Te Huur (For Rent) sign in the window, "Wow, I want to live there." I'm going to say, "Wow, I sure like that place." And instead of seeing a really cool bike and saying, "Man, that's the bike I want, I'm going to say, "Eva, look at that bike, I sure like it." Last, but not least, Allah: This will suffice as an IN THE NEWS tidbit. Turkey beat Senegal in overtime in the World Cup today and since Belgium has a huge population of Turkish immigrants, the city went mad for a bit. It lasted for several hours. Since we live on the border of little-Turkey and little-Israel (if we were in a city like New York, these are the cute little names they'd be called) we were right on the border of the festivities. It started with cars honking. Jam-packed full of people waving flags and chanting "Turkey, Turkey" (only I believe it was the dutch version of the word) this lasted for several hours. Eva overheard the boy across the street shout from his window to his friend on the street, "It'll be hell if they win the World Cup." But wait, it gets better. Eva and I leave the house after one of my many-houred power naps and we head in the direction of beer. Not several, one. Something to do on a Saturday. One block away we meet a 4 car parade with people sticking out of the cars from every possible location: sunroof, side windows, trunk...and just after they pass us, they, in our very Jewish neighborhood stop yelling, "Turkey" and yell "Arrafat, Arrafat" and "Allah, Allah." It's so cool to be in the middle of culture; world-cup mayhem, material excesses and pinky-toe abilities. All in a day's work.
June 23, 2002 : jetlag
Eeek. I've never really had a bad case of it before. I'm usually such a plane-sleeper and should have been this time...but I stuffed my stuff in the overhead bin...stuff=earplugs. I know that sounds silly, but for the last couple of years I've always made sure I had earplugs when I'm on planes. If you are trying to sleep or are sitting next to a one-year-old nightmare...earplugs are the solution. So today found us sleeping in. I've had such a bizarre sleeping schedule for the past 3 days that it was good to get a "normal" night's sleep. (though I think we went to bed at 2) At any rate, we woke up, ate leftover enchiladas, I showered my first back-in-Belgium shower, and we awaited the arrival of Eva's mother to take us to a camping store in Holland. Well what-do-you-know, Eva's dad is walking down our street at the same time Eva's mother is ringing our bell. If you haven't heard or don't know, this is a bomb waiting to happen. They don't speak, except through lawyers. They still seemingly own a lot of stuff together (namely a couple of houses and a checking account) but are still sans divorce. I think we've even lit a couple of candles in catholic churches to expediate the process...but as far as a I know...still no signed papers. If that had been a bit of foreshadowing, the day would have been a disastor. Back to bed for the both of us to rethink this whole getting-up business. But nothing was said and the day went on without a hitch. The fire-hazardly store in Eindhoven was an awesome store. Everything you'd need for an outdoor adventure. Lanterns, tents, packaged dinners, boots, pots and pans, heating elements, lawn chairs, sleeping bags, backpacks...you name it. It was swealtering in the store...a way to get you aclimated I guess. It would have been a much better store if we had had some money while we were in there...Eva and I left with two three-piece silverware camping sets (2.70 Euro) and a teflon cooking set that comes in it's ready-to-go-camping baggie. (30 Euro) We figured no-stick over aluminum anyday...the way we don't like to clean...the no-stick will allow us to avoid and/or wipe out with toilet paper. :) Once we got back in the car, the jet lack rolled my eyes back into my head. In and out of dreams I could hear Eva and her mother rattling on and on in Flemish. By the time we got back to our house, I was literally comatose. Eva went to get strawberries from the Jewish shop and readied herself for a Sunday early-evening driving lesson from her Dad. I vaguely remember her asking me to come along and my answer of "next time, sweetie...next time." Two hours later they came back and I made my nightly appearance. Whew. Such an effort...not even vitamins do the trick. Now it's two hours later and Eva's just hopping out of the shower and we're headed to bed...stuffed full of Jiffy-mix cornbread and little itty bitty chopped steaks I made from leftover ground beef and too many strawberries to count. So, tomorrow I'll update what I have left out between the states and getting here. Noticably a really horrid experience in London and the seemingly short-fuse and/or lack of appreciation I had with flying during this trip back. :) I guess I just wanted to be back?!?! More in retrospect tomorrow! IN THE NEWS:
June 24, 2002 : an early start
So my sleeping pattern is completely messed up. I'm hoping I can stay up for most of the day today without succumbing to an afternoon nap. Today I woke up bright and early at a little before 6 and decided to make the most of my morning alertness. Not only am I writing this before noon, I have already gotten most of what I wanted to accomplish today finished. Nice. I started off the morning by making Eva breakfast. I headed to the bakery up the street and picked up several croissants and a chocolate donut as a special treat for Eva. Then I came back, whipped up some coffee and eggs, and tried to pull Eva from bed. This wasn't exactly an easy project, as Eva likes her morning sleep as much as I do. She had already requested earplugs when I turned on the computer, but I hadn't heard her as much as stir since she plugged up her ears with the pink foam. Finally she got up and we had a wonderful early-morning breakfast. We even had enough time to spare to allow her another 15 minutes of pre-dress holding time up in 'heaven.' So off to work she went and I know she had a vision of me in curlers and her in a business suit decked out as a couple straight from the 1950s. "Goodbye dear, I'll have supper waiting when you get home from work." As soon as she was down the stairs, i was headed to the window...and every 10 steps or so she'd turn around and wave one more time and I'd giggle. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this happened at least 10 times before she disappeared around the corner, walking on the side of the street with sunlight instead of early morning shade. If I have anything to say, it's that it's a good feeling to be in love. more later... So I'm at the Vergo and the authentic New York Jewish lady in front of me hands the cashier a 500 Euro bill. Come on. How many times have you been in line at a supermarket...watching a lady buy pampers, chips, and frozen dinners and had them fork oer a 500 dollar bill?!?! It's roughly the same. Anyway, I couldn't believe it. A New Yorker with a big bill. Whatever. Meanwhile I'm discussing the possiblity of finding the large version of the Stad Antwerpen trash bags with a man who walks in and cuts in front of me. Through his perfectly decent broken english and my use of small dutch words, we figure out that the store only has the small version. Once he leaves I discuss the possibility of nacht winkels having the larger version with the cashier who is only now recieving change for a 500 from some hidden source at the front of the store via the meat, cheese and bread lady. You gotta love neighborhood life. So the jetlag bomb hit me after dinner. Kapow and I was dead asleep. This would have probably lasted all night if it hadn't been for a certain apartment up the street. Now bear with me for a second. Here I was today messaging with a guy from a non-profit gay magazine that I'm going to try to help out. He says, "Know anyone looking for an apartment?" "I'm always looking," I joke back. Then he goes on to tell me all about it...it's in our price range, has an old-style lift, one bedroom, tiny balcony, on and on. Whatever. Then I tell Eva about it in a joking manner and I casually mention the fact that it has a bath. End of story. She wakes me up around 9 and drags me up the road to Marc's apartment where we are instantly sold on it. Grossly sold. It's huge. It's awesome. There's tons of light. On and on. Now we are trying not to get too excited, and I am actually being the normal one about this...and Eva, bless her heart, is the one freaking out. ;) Anyway, I'm not going to get my hopes up. I'm actually to the point where I love our current place. It's small, but we've done a lot to make it our home. (especially with the new curtains Eva made while I was gone.) I guess we'll just have to wait and see. IN THE NEWS:
June 25, 2002 : no cash mister cash
So I had planned on going to Brussels today to get some stuff done on setting up for our exposition this weekend. But Eva called me in the morning to let me know that my slides where finished...and that I could pick them up whenever I wanted. I wanted them today so I could go to school tomorrow at a decent time. So I take my time, start a new book, eat a little lunch (ham sandwhich) and hop the number 8. I get on and ride it tit it turns around on the other side of the city. Little did I know that I would get to know the distance between there and home very well throughout the day. I can safely say that it's not "too far" even though I would never let Eva know that. It's definately walkable, and completely "near" if you take the street I REALLY got to know today. Back to the story. I go to the photographers and expect to leave with my slides. I was going to pay with my credit card and then pay off the credit card online with my american checking account. (make sense? It would be the same as using a check card basically) Anyway, they don't take credit cards. Fine. I'll get money out of my american account. "Where is the closest ATM?" I ask. "200 meters that way." He tells me and points off down the road. First of all the photo place is situated at the corner of a star street. I don't know what else to call it. A bicycle wheel intersection where about 5 streets intersect. I smile and head off in the direction which looks most promising. 15 minutes later I find a Mister Cash. It goes through a great process of whirring and buzzing and then says, "Connection Terminated." Ten minutes later, when I am actually on the street that the number 8 crosses over, I try another bank. "Connection Terminated." and a "We're truly sorry, but we seem to be having techincal difficulties." 15 minutes later, at which point in time I have literally wound myself in a circle and walked alongside the number 8 tracks up to another bank, this time, MY Belgian bank...Bancob. Outside the ATM says, "Connection Terminated" and inside it says, "Connection Terminated." By which time I am thinking that the photo people think I'm a complete fool. So I take the Number 8 back home. I'm in a panic. I call Eva and her phone rings near my head up in the loft. Great. I call Susan across the street to see if I can borrow money until Eva gets home, it's busy. (she incedentally had gone to sleep and turned it on when she rolled over.) Finally she gets back to me and sure enough, she has the cash. I pedal like a madwoman to get to the place before it closes and make it there in better time than I would have walking it, riding a tram, or even fast than I would have in a car. Now THAT is pretty cool. Too bad my bike is stuck in the stand-up-to-peddle gear and that the tires are so flat you feel the rims on every bump. I made it. My short trip to the ATM took me 3 and a half hours. But I've got my slides! So I'm exhausted. Worn out. The stress of the day has whack-tired me out. All of this is in addition to cutting out with an exacto knife all 97 of those flag pictures. Currently my thumb is bent in a strange shape and the index finger on my left hand is missing a nice sliver of skin. But I've got my pictures! It's actually sort of fun. It's just like back in the day of Missouri Southern and all-nighters with photoshop or screen printing or what have you. It's actually sort of fun being an "artist." IN THE NEWS: If we look at the history of rail-transit in the US as well as the implications of the oil industry getting into politics, this could not only have been avoided, we might actually still be able to hop a train from major city to major city. (Though this gets into the specific faults of innercity transit. We don't have the infrastructure.)
June 26, 2002 : last minute days
So I went to school today at an early enough time that I could get finished early enough to go to an Ani Difranco concert with Eva. Ani's not something to miss. If I had only been a slightly more intelligent girl in college, Kathleen and I would have criss-crossed the continant going to her shows too. It's not that I didn't like her back then, it was that I didn't like her voice. I guess the first time I heard her (first impressions being valid) it was an ultra-breathy song. And so this image of a breathy-throated good-lyric-ed singer was stuck in my head. It was, in fact, stuck in my head until a couple of years ago. This is besides the point. The point is, I went to school early so I could get out early, and what I ended up doing was coming home to an empty house quite late. The following is what amounted to the most of my day: 1. Going to and coming from, Brussels. So today was a day that computers didn't really like me. At least the printers didn't. Can I include CD-Rs in that? it's sort of like printing. Once I got to Antwerp, I decided that I wanted a viandel from the frituur, but I didn't decide on going to the frituur until i was in front of my door and only a few meters away from one. One I went with my backpack full of cameras, 50 pages worth of dossier copies, a laptop, notebooks, etc and I got my viandel. And a vegetable and cheese deep-fried thing too as well as an orange Fanta. On to the house where I struggled with the tv antennae trying to get one of the two stations decently before finally giving up. I ate my meal in peace. I took out my contacts, peeled off my Brussels-in-a-room-with-little-venelation-and-9-computers sweaty clothes and crawled into bed. Eva woke me up 2 hours later to tell me she was home. She wanted day-details, and I could offer her none. Back to sleep I went. IN THE NEWS:
June 27, 2002 : last days of school
When I was younger, the last day of school started off with a good breakfast and also meant my parents and I hanging out at school a little bit longer to avoid the water-balloons thrown by seniors from the back of pick-up trucks. It meant avoiding the route home that went by Icenhower's gas station where they would convene and taking the Homework Hill route. Even before we started calling it Homework Hill, before Tonya Fain's homework flew out of the back of the truck early one morning as my dad drove us to 8th grade basketball practice. Today is the last day of school. I started the morning off on a strange foot by waking up at 6:30 and preparing breakfast. It wasn't a short walk down to the bakerij this time. I made biscuits, fixed cubed potatoes with ham and cheese in the skillet, and some of the best coffee I have ever made. Though she enjoyed the food as well as the though, Eva was peckish at most, and I was starved. On to school to be the first presenter to present. Of course I was nervous and excited, but I was also pleased with my body of work. I hadn't realized it was such a big body of work until i had to talk about it all. I read excerpts from the dossier, trying not to read to quickly, and went over each of the things in my Transmedia portfolio. We walked through the presented slides, and went over the flag pictures in the halway. What I felt then, more than anything, was relief. So now we have a couple of hours until they give us the thumbs up--the go-aheads for next year. It's called something in particular, a Proclamation. I can think of no reason of why I wouldn't get the go-ahead. But everyone else is nervouse, so I am too. I swear that turning 26 did something to me. Today i proved the point to Pablo over his tortilla (Morrocan version) and salad. I took a bite out of every bit of his order. it just took one bite to please him. "Now I can invite you to my house for dinner," he said. And of course I just smiled, remembering that just a few months ago were were sitting at the same table in the same chairs in the same restaurant (Best Sandwhiches) and he talked to me for an hour about the importance of eating vegetables and how I was obviously an only child. Whatever. And icecream. I'm usually such a plain-jane girl when it comes to icecream. I like vanilla. At 32 flavors Baskin Robbins I might choose chocolate chip and maybe a cookies and cream if it's soft cookies instead of crunchy, but today I chose raspberry! As if I've ever even expanded my options to that degree. Two scoops even! 1 bol of vanilla and 1 bol of raspberry.The perfect summer combination. And so the three of us (we added maarten along the way) shared our icecream freely. Ice cream is never something to share with or without a spoon. the spoonless version always leaves you with a nippled-lipsindentation of the sucker on your icecream. But so we shared and pseudo-kissed. So then post-icecream, post presentaion, post sampling Pablo's lunch, and I sat in the botanique. it's a gorgeous garden strategically placed next to one of Brussel's busiest streets. It's lush. Gravel pathways, pottedpalms, manecured grass plots and treets, 20 pound goldfish and baby duckling posh. I rolled up my pant-legs (my lucky SF brown corderoys) to the knee, rolled up my shirtsleeves and soaked up the sun. the guys next to me were on their lunchbreak, finished up their Belgian broodjes and moved on to an after-dinner, light-it-10-times-cigarette. (light it 10 times, elbow to ribs, if you get what I mean.) to be continued post proclamation. So it dragged on even longer. The high school next to us recreated a square in the Dominican Republic complete with blaring music in spanish and so the waiting students (myself included) made our way to the "square" and drank a tall Jupiler beer each. (1.35 Euro) Only in Europe. Finally they called us back up to the room and wanted to talk to us individually for 5 minutes. This was more like 10 or 15, but it was the opportunity to get feedback, and I must say that mine was pretty positive. It was a good feeling to hear a panel tell me that I was going the right direction. Anyway, I passed. And everyone else passed as well. So much for all of the stress we were giving to each other. Like I said before, I really hadn't been overly worried about it, but by the end of the day I was concerned a bit. Eva showed up around 7. Bless her heart, the day was supposed to end around 6 but at 9 Eva and I dragged ourselves back to the station. I had wanted to celebrate in the city center somewhere, but by this time I didn't really care anymore. I hadn't eaten since breakfast, and hunger had subsided altogether. We boarded a fast train to Amsterdam and ended up in Antwerpen-Berchem where we decided on Indian food. When the train to Antwerpen-Centraal was running 15 minutes behind, I decided against it. I wanted the bed. I was exhausted. 10 was seemingly way past my bedtime. By the time we tried my ATM cards again, hoping to get money for pizza, I was even more exhausted. Mister cash has no cash, Connection Terminated. And Eva's card was back at the house. And so we made our way to our apartment and just like yesterday, I pulled off my up-to-long should-be-starving clothes and crawled into bed. Eva returned with pizza later, and a too-sweet (her words and my agreeance) Dr. Pepper, but it's the thought that counts. I barely even remember her asking me if I wanted some. I'm going to have it for lunch tomorrow. IN THE NEWS: If only we still wrote letters. It's a someday-lost art form.
June 28, 2002 : three day shows
It's one thing to be finished with school (I kept myself from saying 'done' as the first grade teacher always said 'done' was for things taht are cooked ad 'finished' is for things completed.) So yes, school is finished, save three more 4 hour days worth of showing. I hadn't planned on this including multiple discussions with men in suits or teachers visiting the transmedia department. You'd think I'd get pretty good at describing my art in 5 minutes or less. I have the long-winded, discussion dropping version if you have the time, the abbreviated version that hits the high-spot links and even one that is straight to the point. It was actually great talking to people. Best when I could get detailed and specific--sit back in the moderately comfortable computer-lab chairs and chit-chat. "No, I had never thought of doing that before." "Yes, I'm pretty pleased with how this year has gone." "Yes, I'm learning flemish..." and then I'd try out a bit. I actually really enjoy showing stuff. I had forggotten how good it felt to have people walk around your private stuff. Unbeknownst to me, Eva had planned on our Friday night being a celebration of sorts...and then Jess, Eric, and Eric's friend from college showed up. I always want to be the sort of friend and have the sort of house where people can feel comfortable saying, "Hey I'm coming to your house." and they just show up. I'm not saying that is how it went on Friday, but it was an instance where neither Eva nor I had really shared with the other our plans. Eva had wanted to celebrate (dinner in Brussels) and I had wanted to do that the night before. At any rate, we spent quite a bit of time on Friday figuring out what we should have said and why we hadn't said it. It all worked out in the end over 3 beers in a deaht-theme-bar in Brussels. Coffins for tables, Tracy Chapman blaring over the stereo, and us sipping and gulping and figuring things out. We did, and the minute we stepped outside a youngish Turk or Northern African said, "You are disgusting, go find yourself a good guy, you make me sick..." to our holding hands. In Antwerp people rarely batt an eye, but in Brussels it is as if a large population have never seen two girls together before. Besides the fact that holding hands is highly more acceptable between friends here than it is back in the states. The settling of one thing and then straight on into another. What I mostly hate about being a mono-languaged freak. (yes, I consider it pretty freakish to be mono-languaged in Europe, seeing as how most people are up to at least a working knowledge of at least three, and are at least proficient in two) Is that I have to be the person judging speakers by their tone of voice. I knew the guy wasn't uber-friendly. Ususally when guys speak to us they are either commenting on how sexy it is for two chics to be together or about Eva in general. (enter smile here...because I cannot blame them!) But this one was strange...eva offering him only a blank stare, and so I copied her. And then something he said in French sounded similar to 'disgusting' or 'unnatural.' :) So that's that. three days of shows ahead of me, and now it's reduced to two. Two more days and I'm free at last. Thank god almighty, I'm free at last. Until November. IN THE NEWS: Palestinian children often dress up as militants brandishing toy guns or suicide bombers. The image is being taken at face value in Israel, although there is no explanation as to why parts of the print appear to have been blacked out. A British broadcaster has reported an unnamed member of the child's family as saying that dressing the infant baby as a bomber was "just a joke".
June 30, 2002 : world cup sundays
Brazil 2 - Germany 0. You'd think that the football-loving world would grind to a halt for the final game. but seeing as how the game started at 1 on a Sunday afternoon, a partially-sunny Sunday it seemed very back-burnered. Of course in the appropriate countries they were all in a frenzy, but in the less-fortunate ones, it was just another day pre-workweek. We started the morning off last night by crawling into heaven. We put on clean sheets and new pillowcases. Eva had planned on reading, and I had planned on keeping her from reading, and we ended up drifting off into a nice sleep. Though we woke up to our houseguests reading my diary and commenting on it outloud, "Oh look, ok, so that's the picture of the farm, and look, see she commented on me saying that they were co-dependant..." and a bit of muffled laughter on occasion. (this was more Jess and less Eric who i believe was half-asleep himself) And Richard, Ricky, Dick, Pricky, Rich Jr. (I don't actually remember his real name) was ambling around trying to drum up some spirit to hit the town. It wasn't going to happen. and it didn't. Basically we woke up just to go back to sleep. We crawled out of bed to take out our eyes (contacts) and crawled back into bed. Not such a bad way to start the morning...pre-morning. So today is the last day of art-show (if you could call it that). The last day of projecting stuff on walls and then the room returns to normal. I remember my last show, the one at Missouri Southern for my end-of-year/end-of-university. (for those of you who are wondering why I put university instead of college, as in Missouri Southern State College, then consider for a moment that the word 'college' here means something more like 'high school.') Anyway, I remember my last show. I had the most brilliant of times. We were supposed to pick something around 12 of our best pieces and place them in our quarter of the room. I couldn't choose just 12, and so I just chose my favorite pieces and showed them all. I didn't really see a problem with it, I mean it was the only chance for some of these pieces to ever be seen (I don't even know where most of them are now) and so I thought they deserved the public's eye. Screen prints, mono prints, graphic design projects, drawings, posters, a website, and paintings were all evenly packed onto the wall or onto the table in my corner. Evenly spaced with nametags, my quarter of the room looked rather jam-packed, I must admit, but at least I thought it looked interesting. I felt like I had to be fair to my artworks--they deserved it after having invested so much time into them. And a week later I got my one-page, seven-teacher feedback page. I don't remember the specifics, but I remember them being pretty harsh. Too many primary colors, too many pieces from same illustrative "style" and how in several years the works would look dated. Precisely my point. The pieces were relative to this moment in my history only. I'll see if I can dig some of them up and put them here. I am entirely past those feelings I was working through. An unrequited crush on a girl, the concept of moving from student-land to real-world, and the turmoil most kids deal with when they are teenagers, and that I (being the late-bloomer) only dealt with while in university. I guess you get the point. And I had loved it. I felt as naked as a person could be. I felt clothes-less walking through the works and seeing people read and squint for details. This was my last 5 years up on the wall for everyone to see. I watched people move within it with carefullness and with thoughtlessness, a few were hurried, but most moved from piece to piece at a pace to absorb--my parents overwhelmed at the responses and the things themselves. "Who is this?" I am sure they were wondering...I had not kept them abreast of what I had been doing with the paints they knew I had or the paper they had seen stacked behind my door. And so it comes to an end. An art-show. An exhibition. Blank white wall is returned to blank white wall, save for a couple of nail-holes. The projects I did this round were the most impressive once removed. In the darkness of the transmedia room they spanned entire lengths of wall and then unplugged, the room remained unchanged. Nothing remained. It was if I'd never even been there. That's a humbling experience. So we unsticky-tacked 97 pictures and packed up the slides and headed home. Fresh with the realization that projections are the most non-threatening, non-damaging art-works I could possibly do, we'll see if they turn into something more. Stickers on lamposts, paintings on buildings, or even-still the non-damaging variety of projections in storefronts...something. It's good to have something worth sharing again, something dying to get seen and or heard and then seen and heard. I'll keep you posted. IN THE NEWS: and like I said, Brazil won the World Cup, and Eva was all full of 'missing' South America. I asked her if she thought I would even LIKE Brazil. You know, you never know. I haven't really 'not liked' many places, though New Orleans would be a place I wouldn't really want to live in...but that was because I was 20 and my car was broken into. :) She said, "Yes, I think you'll love it." And I'm hoping that she's right...seeing as how she seemingly left part of her soul on that particular continent. |