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January 01, 2003 : the first
Gelukkig Nieuwjaar! Welcome to the year 2003 and to the nice numbered date: 01-02-03 (back in the US) which will be the same on February first here in Europe (they do that day, month, year instead of our month, day, year. Of course that makes more sense to do it their way, but nevermind that!) Eva's horoscope states that this year will be a difficult year, but one that will build depth in her love-relationship. Great. Depth. Just when we were going for stress-free. ;) First of all let me note that we slept until 2 in the afternoon. Not really because we were exhausted, though we were, but because we could. I suppose this is more of an answer that Eva would give. She enjoys sleeping in because if she sleeps in it means she doesn't have to go to work. I simply enjoyed sleeping in today because we had gone two days in a row of turning in to sleep when it was already the next day. (clearly so, as people were already busying themselves in the city) At the ripe old age of 26, I am no longer able to manage returning from a week in England, getting into bed at 8:30 am sleeping half a day and then getting up in order to prepare for New Years festivities more than once every couple of months or so. Certainly not two days in a row. I do believe it will take my body awhile to recover. It's not jet-lag, it's bus-lag. And only an hour time difference. I suppose we're simply drained. Having purchased nearly 30 small pots of flowers to deliver to old-folks homes today, since we are auto-less and rely only on the scooter as our delivery method, we are having to forgo the wannabe-new-years new tradition because of rain. One cannot leave the house and willingly go out on the scooter during rain unless it is to pick up a loved one at the station. The good-will can wait until the weekend. Not so festive, but still heart-felt. Next year we'll have a car and most likely will be driving through snow to deliver whatever plants Wal-Mart has on sale past Christmas. Wow. Forecasting the future has a strange feel to it. I much prefer chance. I'm still in my pajamas and Eva's wearing jeans with a t-shirt no longer really fit to wear in public. It's one of those odd-colored t-shirts that fits just a little smaller than you'd want to wear, but since you've had it forever you don't want to part with it...so it's saved for days like this; rainy, tired, indoor-stuff day. Today is actually a very exciting day as it is the day that we make monumental steps toward Wyoming. Having received the "Do you want to visit Wyoming" email at an internet cafe on the outskirts of London which allowed me to dream big dreams while bobbing around in the back of Eva's father's panel truck. Today I had to write the "of course I want to visit Wyoming" reply email. There are several things to take into consideration as well, several things to lay out there before making my way to Wyoming for a very short stint at visiting/meeting/greeting. Namely I had to introduce Eva into the picture. She's got to come as well, and while we're there she's got to get some steps closer to getting into graduate school. Furthermore, if we are going to go to Wyoming for a 2 and a half day stay in February, we might as well make a stop somewhere else while we're there. I was already hoping to surprise Eva with a weekend to New York, so maybe we can figure out a stop in NYC en-route to Wyoming or on our way back. I've already done some extensive looking online for flights and I'm not sure what would be the best plan or if a stopover is possible. I suppose we'll wait for the reply to the "I would like to bring my partner at my own expense" email. Then we'll start making plans. Along these same lines we gathered all of the material for the Masters programs and Eva wrote emails to all the appropriate people in the specific departments requesting a meeting with them while we're there in February. She's a little freaked out about having to take the GRE after the mathematics incident with Project Houston. The letdown of that job avenue was pretty daunting and/or troubling, and so I think she'll be brushing up on her algebra skills just because, and in light of the fact that she'll have to take the GRE, I think brother Joris will be tutoring Eva in the coming weeks. The other sections will be a breeze, but the maths? Eva's pissed about taking another round of generic, irrelevant to language-skills/reading comprehension/her gamut of higher learning mathematic questions. And not just 10. Several pages worth. Did I ever mention that Belgians (I imagine Europeans in general) use a different sign for division? I'm not talking about the 6 divided by 2 which is the line with dots on top and bottom...I'm talking more about long division. Oh my! How to describe mathematical symbols in text! Fine, I'm going to resort to drawings. I'm not talking about this: IN THE NEWS: Man...it's big news here, the unforgettable bizarre image of the sunken ship, filled with expensive cars, laying in the channel on it's side. How could a shipping captain not know if it's being there?
January 02, 2003 : weather...
Today is the day that we settle back into the post-holiday business of staying alive and getting back to work. Eva doesn't have it so bad, as she is currently at a holiday work-luncheon, which is one of those events that no one in particular wants to attend, but all will be pleased with the results. Her work tends to enjoy drinking festivities, and so I can only imagine that Eva will return to me spelling like a bit of spirits. (the famous belgian spirits of the drinking variety) Having not left the house at all yesterday (I didn't even put on underwear, as I wore my pajamas for the entire day) it was nice to have to get out of bed and do something today. The both of us bundled up and made our way downstairs to the scooter. If there was a soundtrack to this paragraph, it would be building up to the following sentence. I turned the knob on the front door...and opened up onto the balmy sunshiney, no glove-needing weather of glorious spring-like Antwerp. Wierd. Just two days ago we were freezing to death riding around pre-new years. Now...almost warm. I took Eva to her afternoon engagement where I dropped her off quite a distance from the actual restaurant. Eva suffers from the inferiority complex with our scooter. If our scooter actually realized she was so embarrased to be seen on it except by strangers, I think it would give up the ghost completely. As of now I think I am the only person to ride it with pride. One must have pride to ride a flaky green-painted scooter wearing a bright red helmet. After all, it's my savior of mobility. It's cheaper than a car and gets me from point A to point B rather quickly. If the weather continues to be as nice, however, I might fix up the rarely-ridden bike and use it for the more congested areas of my adventures. I swear to God I'm goign to create my own adventures here in Antwerp. That is something I always swear after being away on vacation...someone being away makes me appreciate and dare to be different on my return. I suppose that real "return" begins tomorrow when Eva heads off to Mechelen to start the last 6 months of her Belgian employment...that is if things go as we're hoping they'll go. Oh, brilliant. Whether or not we like it, the weather insists on making us go a little bonkers here in Belgium. So no sooner do I mention spring and the balminess of today's Antwerp than the sky opens up and pours down. Just 20 minutes ago I was riding around on the scooter thinking of flowers and budding naken tree limbs and now it's turned on me yet again. Last night Eva and I were joking about the weather in Wyoming compared to the weather here. I stumbled upon a website that gave the forecast for Laramie. Practically every day this week (save a day or two of sun and wind) read: Scatter snow showers, Chance of flurries, etc. Eva pointed out that she chuckles each and every time she reads the forecast for Belgium, namely the illustrated version which has a cloud and with rain coming out of it in one direction meaning "chance-o-rain". What is even more humerous is that they give the same icon a different meaning as if that's going to convince us that yesterday we were fortunate to get only showers, as today it's might rain even harder. But really, who are they trying to kid? More later. ---------------------------- And so Eva finally arrived 6 hours after I dropped her off. The expanse of time is a little overwhelming after spending a solid week together. We haven't done that since our trip to Italy. :) She actually came to the door, rang the bell (she was zonder sleutals) and I rand downstairs to let her in. When I opened the door, there she stood with a bouquet of flowers. "I took a long way home and got you these because I missed you." What am I to say to that? She's a wonderful girl. And I'm the lucky one. IN THE NEWS:
January 03, 2003 : return to ordinary
It was back to the grind for Eva. Why she'd have to go for one day before the weekend after a long holiday is lost on me, but off she went at 8:40 this morning, having had very little sleep. I tried to catch up on mine and managed to crawl out of bed around 10:30. For some reason 10:30 sounds so much better than 11. :) The day was pretty uneventful except for my catching up with freelance projects that had been shelved during the holidays. I remember saying before Christmas that I should put my computer away for a solid week and see if I could handle it. I suppose I could have lasted the entire holiday but I was just too curious about events unfolding around at holiday time. I succumbed to my desire 5 and a half days into it which I considered a decent span of time. I actually calculated during the break that the 5-day span was the longest I had gone without the internet in almost 8 years. Gross? Certainly. Surely there's been another absence...perhaps during my first year of college when I had to go to a computer lab to do any sort of mailing. One just doesn't know. When it came time to pick up Eva at the station I headed downstairs to the scooter not realizing that it was that cold. Since I had been pleased with the balminess of yesterday, I had only bundled up in my leather jacket with a t-shirt underneath...and no gloves. When I got downstairs I frowned having realized the temperature and the water-beads sitting on my seat. I'm used to both, but the combination was pretty disappointing. I began brushing the water off with the forearm of my coat when an older lady who was out walking her dog came up to me and rattled on about my wiping off the seat. I wasn't expecting what came next...she pulled a tissue out of her coat pocket and began wiping off the seat for me. "Het is ok mevrouw...nee dank u..." I tried to dissuade her, though inside I was bowled over at her generosity. She patted it dry and I thanked her whole-heartedly. "Danku mevrouw, bedankt. Gelukkig niewjaar!" Of course she had been going on and on the entire time in Vlaams, and I struggled to make out anything more than her concern that my pants would be wet and that there was no need for that. But seriously, I was bowled over. The world isn't so bad afterall...in case you were wondering. I picked Eva up at the station and we headed home to sort out what we needed to get done. First and foremost on my list was sorting out the flights to Laramie. We had already warned our friends in New York, Alma and Julie, that we intended on dropping by in early February, and so this was that task looming over me the entire night. As we were sitting there sipping our tea/coffee and procrastinating, Eva called Joris to schedule Project Plant-Dropoff for tomorrow. Mid-conversation I suggested that she invite him over for dinner...and half an hour later Eva and Joris were busy catching up on each other's lives since seeing him before Christmas and I was slaving away in the kitchen. Quite frankly, if that is slaving away, then I love slaving away. I created something marvelous. (backed up by those that also ate it) Vegetarian schnitzel cut up in strips as to make us think there was more of it to go around, mashed potatoes with green-curry cream sauce and steamed veggies. I was a little concerned about the reaction of the potatoes with the sauce, but not for long. Yum. After dinner Joris and I played two games of Abalone in which he trounced me and a game of chess. He's been playing since he was 11 and I've been playing for 6 days now. Needless to say, I'm no prodigy. During a lull of the evening, as I was convincing Joris to stay a bit longer as I love having people come over to our messy room and stay as long as they want, I decided to go to the night-shop. Eva jokes that I overcompensate when people are there that some might get the idea that Eva beats me when they leave...so I'm dead set on them staying. It's just that I like having a place where people can stop by or hang out, or not. I suppose I'm getting a bit old to hang-out at people's houses or having friends that simply hang-out at mine. But there's something comforting about having a house where you go about your normal activity and someone extra is there just being there for conversation. And when we have a washer/dryer some arbitrary date in the future yes you can come and do your laundry and watch TV. But we dont' have much to offer if you're not into downloading songs (most people have better computers for that anyway), burning cds (same goes for that one) or watching our small little black and white tv that gets two channels. No wonder we don't get so many visitors. I though it was the mess or that we just weren't friendly enough/good enough friends. And here I come to realize that it's because our house just doesn't have much to offer besides the two of us! We do have really great coffee and a nice supply of yogurt, and a huge selection of tea. During the lull, that's where I went off on a tangent, I decided on going to the night shop. Funny thing is, that's the first time I've gone by myself to the nacht-winkel since I've been here. Geez! Ridiculous! So off I went. ha ha. Back at the Room (that's a great new phrase to use!) Joris sat around and chatted some more and then headed home. Now the task was at hand. My credit card sat there staring back at me. I had a target price to beat and I beat it by 150 bucks. I went to a Belgian site to find the absolute lowest fare from Brussels to New York, and then searched around for 1 hours finding the cheapest flight from New York to Denver. And then, no joke, I spent 2 hours trying to find a cheap deal on a rental car. Interesting Side-Notes And now for the rental car nightmare. I couldn't find anything cheaper than 200 bucks for renting a car for 4 days. 4 days! I tried all of the aforementioned places and then started going company website to company website. To rent a geo metro (with taxes included) was 50 bucks a day! Yeek! (Dont forget I was trying to slim every penny off of the price) And so there we have it. Thrifty. It's thrifty. No I don't want to hear horror stories, as it may cause foreshadow my own. So mid-reservation I decide to see if my credit card has any special benefits I haven't noticed...45 minutes later (after much hunting) I find the benefits listed on the issuer website. Sure enough. I don't have to buy extra insurance because it's covered if I rent the car with the card. Ha ha ha. Say goodbye 200 and now it's down to 120. Of course they will tack on mystery charges once I get to the airport...but I'd rather tack onto 120 than 200. And finally, at 5:30 in the morning I penned an email to the head of the Art Department at the University of Wyoming. I'm sure it wasn't very well phrased, but it shed light on our schedule. And I forwarded the information to my parents as well, as they suggested I put off trying to find the rental car until tomorrow when I called them to let them know the airline tickets were booked. And yes, mother, I will look nice those three days in Laramie. Designy, yet sophisticated, excited/excitable, yet well-versed in my field. Cool. IN THE NEWS:
January 04, 2003 : giving away flowers
Finally our pre-christmas idea turned new-years which was postponed because of rain took place today. We had scheduled for Joris to stop by at noon today, and after getting to bed so late, I was glad that noon became 12:30 if not 1. I actually lay there dreaming two dreams that went in intervals...15 minutes (or seconds for all I know, don't dreams happen at warp speed and they only seem to take all night?) of one dream then it would take a break and show another 15 minutes of the other one and then switch back over and pick back up. Weird. That's never happened that I can remember (upon the moment of eyes open most dreams are lost). Eva and I lay in bed chatting and snoozing and kicking the alarm clock (who knows how it ended up at foot-level?!) for another 5 minutes of Saturday-morning bliss. Then we woke up, filled up the water pot and kicked it into boil. Then Joris. After several cups of tea/coffee, a couple of rounds of baby baguettes with assorted toppings (namely butter, smear-cheese, and vegetarian meat that I horded all to myself) we decided to plan a bit. Eva and Joris tried to figure out which rest-home. No, not that one, because it's Jewish. Do they celebrate the same years? Would they want our flowers? Would the flowers have to be inspected? Would they mind our Vlaams instead of Yiddish? (these are real thoughts/concerns.) First Eva checked the internet for a listing of homes. Our internet was flaky. We called and heard a message that said, "yes, we're having problems with our lines. yes we know of your internet troubles." Great! It wasn't a virus or our computer giving up the ghost after all. Back to rest-homes. We tried the Goudengids. (yes, that's yellow pages) Cool. Eva called and asked them if it was ok if we came over. Sure thing. The the unpacking and prettying up the flowers. We wrapped half of the 35 flowers in plastic wrap and tied a bow on top. I made little cards to stick to the flowerpots that read: een klein gschenkje voor een nieuwjaar! We packed up and headed to the rest-home. When we got there we couldn't find anyone to lead us in the right direction until finally one of the people that lived there offered to take us to another floor. We've decided that one could look at it in many ways. Were we doing this to make us feel better? To ease our conscience somehow? Or was it because we wanted to do something nice? Of course we wanted to do it because it was nice. Because it struck/overwhelmed Eva and I so much last year. To see their faces light up and our hearts burn with we-should-do-this-more-often. And so we started passing them out. Person after person exclaiming, "Voor mij?" And asking us what organization we were from. Did it cost money? Why were we there? Who sent us? What church were we coming from? Eva and Joris (I merely stood there smiling and taping cards to flowerpots) cheek-kissed little old ladies three times and wished them happy new years. We are just from the neighborhood, they explained, and wanted to give you a little pot of flowers. One lady didn't realize that new year had happened...was it new year in Belgium too? She was frail and watching an action-movie on her television that sat just a few feet from her wheelchair. Bombs going off and Eva assuring her that everything was ok and that we wanted to give her flowers. And more, "voor mij"s and a lady that insisted that she get up out of her chair and hobble over to me as well and cheek-kiss me as well. What can one say? The first lady told Eva that she loved flowers, but every time someone came to visit her they'd say, "I'm sorry, I forgot your flowers!" :) All 35 on one floor. Everyone began shuffling to dinner, as it was dinnertime, and I made a mental note not to show up at 5 in the afternoon next time, and to try to bring more. I'm sure I'm blowing it out of proportion a bit, but really, how simple! 45 minutes of our time! And one could spend hours babbling on and on with some of them as they clutched their flowerpots in crinkly plastic wrap. It seems strange to go on about the rest of our day, as this is more record-worthy than our trip to the Proust supermarkt to buy something to take to Tom and Ilse's tomorrow afternoon, on our way to Grill House where I finally allowed myself to a helping of stoofvlees and Eva ordered beefsteak. And now that our day is spent, we are both pounding away on the computers trying to make up for lost time. Eva's tending to her thesis (still on floppy disc of all things! And yes we've now copied it over to several hard drives) and I'm trying to catch up on my lost-holiday entries. So there you have it. It doesn't take much effort to buy 30 bucks worth of plants and take a trip to a rest-home. It takes more guts to go in that first door and say, "hey, I've brought you some flowers." :) But really, it's really nice--as I am at a lost for words to describe it more than warm and fuzzy. Go on, do it, and if you do, let me know about it! You might like it so much you'll go back, as Eva and I have vowed to go back with another flower for that first lady. And now that I've written it, we have to. IN THE NEWS: In the old-days, back when I lived at home with my parents, we'd hop in the car and go look at floodwater. Not to stand and stare, just pass by. We used to get out of church on rainy days and speed to a certain neighborhood and watch the gutters fill. We even managed to see a wall of water once. (small wall) When nature does drastic things it's always good to take notice--how it doesn't seem to mind anyone or anything. Funny though, until Eva and I saw it on the news, we hadn't actually seen any footage of it. I think tonight was the first time we have watched TV in almost 2 weeks.
January 05, 2003 : the showering girlfriend
The showering girlfriend (she is currently in the shower...and she's left the door open to the bathroom as we are a little leary of asphixiating ourselves since our hot-water heater is in there...so the water sound is oh-so-loud)...The showering girlfriend was on computer 1 tonight (the PC) as I was working on computer 2 (the little white mac ibook) and she read me an email from someone who happened upon my journal. She shall remain nameless. Here we sit in our little room drinking cup after cup of tea discussing all sorts of things from the afternoon spent at Tom and Isle's (always a great time) to friends in general, the prospect of moving away, opportunities in general, to-do lists, outfit possibilities for Laramie, and things of not-so-important nature and then very important ones, where we both stop pecking around on the computer and she swivels in my direction (she's on the swivel chair and I'm on the couch) and we get into a rather lengthy discussion (raising our voices in agreeance) about something neither one of us can be very objective on. Am I being vague? Yes. Why? Because the original point of this journal was to simply record. So I'm recording that on this evening we had a lenthy discussion about something. Ha ha ha. Now that's the beauty of being the writer and not the reader! After the fact, Eva ran over with a plain white envelope and dropped it into Leila and Susan's letterbox. A packet of Marlboro Menthols and a package of Lucky Strikes. Just something for them out of the blue, as out of the blue is better than for any specific occasion. At Tom and Ilse's Tom was sick and so we introduced Isle to the China Meal 20 Euro Best-deal-in-Belgium. I won't go into detail (as Eva scolded me the other day that I was becoming waaaaaaaaaayyyyyy to verbose/lengthy/tedious/blah-blah-blahish if not a bit over-the-top/boring in my entries. :) It's not hard to see what she means when I realize the scroll bar on the right hand side of the screen gets quite small on some pages. There probably shouldn't be a scroll bar at all. When I become a better writer maybe I will become a more concise/to-the-point one. I suppose that's in my next life along with so many other things that have already been situated there. I'm going to be one busy person the next time around. So there we were sitting in our room and Eva pauses and says, "Andrea, you've got to hear this email." Oh the absolute beauty of the internet. People dotted around the world connected by telephone wires and cable messes and letters and texts written in languages both parties can understand. Oh the former beauty of the Chail-letter, though I don't remember the specifics, but wouldn't it have been nice if we had become acquaintences with the 5 people whose 5 addresses we were supposed to send a dollar to. Or was it just a letter? I obviously always "broke the chain." Yes, that's correct, I broke the chain. Obviously some girl scout in Florida missed setting a new world record because of me. Eva's out of the shower and she stood there waiting for me to bring in the towel. It never changes. She waits there and I wait here just waiting for her to get impatient, and she waits for me to notice. It's one of those silly games people play. Back to the beauty of the internet. Actually, the internet was the envelope, and out came a beautifully penned letter to me. Eva and I were both moved somehow. And then we both paused, I can't read her mind just yet so I dont' know if we were thinking the exact same thing, but for short-ness journal sake, I'll pretend that we did. A woman and her parter, one with breast cancer. One tending to the other, and probably vice versa, though they both would do more for each other if they could. I am reminded of my father saying to me each and every time I was sick, "I'd take it away if I could. I'd have it instead of you." And somehow I think that would apply to any sort of ailment, as that is the sort of love my parents taught to me. On that note, that is the sort of love I want to hope for, search for, make happen, and is already happening with the little family of Eva and myself. Was it the christmas-gift-drink you were drinking that was the special ingrediant in the message somehow? Thank you, reader, for touching us regardless. It made the sunday-evening (wish it were saturday) blues less blue. IN THE NEWS:
January 07, 2003 : de witte frituur
We've been waiting since before christmas for the frituur to open. We had thought it was yesterday and then verified with Joris who lives directly across the street. So tonight was our big night. We'd waited to have fries there since coming back from England. And though it's not something we do on a very precise schedule (though it's is mostly Sunday nights) we had been troubled by the fact we could not have fries. Not because we needed them, but because the option wasn't available. But no more. We hopped on the scooter and buzzed our cold selves up to De Witte. We parked the scooter and went inside only to realize it was completely packed with people. Apparently everyone in the neighborhood had staved off getting fries anywhere else and had been waiting in great anticipation for the 7th of January to arrive. Now Eva started telling me that she really wasn't so keen on eating fries tonight, whereas I had thought her want was as great as mine (it had been yesterday). But, out of the goodness of her heart, she insisted that since we had already fought the cold we might as well stay. I insisted right back that it was perfectly ok if we ate spagetti back home. And then the look she gave me made me drop it. :) Well I can't tell you how long we waited in the line that had started curling itself around in the seating area. Everyone was eyeing up the newcomers coming in from the cold just so they were sure that no one cut in line. I swear we were there for at least a half hour, slowly taking step after step, edging our way closer to the counter. Half-way through the waiting most of the people in our area decided on reading the magazines they have there for just such situations. I was sure that one woman's reach for the magazine was a subtle attempt to get closer, and so as soon as she reached, I reached, as to cut off her attempt and soon Eva too had a copy of a silly magazine about the various scandelous royal families from around the world. Finally we made it to the front and ordered. 2 viandel, 1 bitterballen, 1 groente schijf, 1 kleinje met mayonaise appart. 15 minutes later we were at home unpacking the fries and relishing the fact that indeed the De Witte was open again. I had saved a Dr. Pepper from our trip to England and drank it in the spirit of it "cutting the grease." Back from the days of my mom, dad, and I going to Marshfield, Missouri once a week to share a pitcher of Dr. Pepper (before the days of free refills, because then my mother and dad actually showed themselves to prefer coke) and a thin crust pepperoni pizza. IN THE NEWS:
January 08, 2003 : worse part / best part
Why have I been absent for two days? Because I've been hard at work. Not much has happened over here except the poisen episode in the UK and flooding in Belgium. Now we're having a major winter freeze with London getting SNOW today and in Antwerp nothing but blistering cold and the oil tanker that hit that on-it's-side-boat-in-the-chunnel leaking a bit of oil near Belgium. But I've been really busy. I've added a new transmedia project entitled http://www.andreawilkinson.com/stickersheet/ and see what you think. I thought for online communities such as my own journal has turned out to be, it would be a fun way to interact with each other. I know at least a couple of people that I am sure will create a stickersheet of their own, and when you do, please let me know and I will add it to my friends page on my journal (to be added soon). All I know is that it's always great to put a face to a name, and in light of the fact that my journal entries are so verbose as it is, I thought it would be even better if the people I mention had a face. :) Well I suppose there is always more to say, but tonight I'm just waiting for one last email from a client as to whether or not we launch his website tonight or tomorrow. Tomorrow evening Eva and I are headed A) to order her a new passport B) go to a K's Choice concert that is performing in a church with a choir. That would be dead-interesting. We impulse-bought the ticket before Christmas but now, since we are soon to be pennyless because of our trip to the States, it seems great to have a concert to go to that is already paid for. Soon I will be off to sleep. Eva, bless her heart, told me before she crawled into bed that as soon as I got into bed I had to wake her up so we could list our "best part" and "worst part" of our days. I dont' know where she stumbled upon that, but it seems like a worthy nightly tradition to start up. At least it's a moment of evaluation...as the "best part" might be something as simple as the pair of 10 Euro corderoys that she bought yesterday. Oh, and one more thing. If you have realized that I dropped out of my Dutch class you'd be right. If you thought I had give up learning the language, you were wrong. Am I applying myself? Not really. It's a terrible shame, and one I will remind myself of over and over again. But, good news. At the beginning of my last course I had the most amazing teacher who suddenly left 3 weeks into it. She didn't leave but the school changed all of our schedules. It wasn't that the second teacher was so bad, it was that the first one was so good. Tonight Eva called the school and on Friday I have to go and enroll for the second-year Dutch class with the teacher I had so enjoyed for those 3 weeks. If anything, it will get me out of the house a bit, though the 2nd week of the class I will be going to the States. I was going to say that "one can never win." But I opted to catch my error. I've definately won. IN THE NEWS:
January 09, 2003 : k's choice
Well I must admit that it wasn't my choice. It might have been K's but not Eva's either. I picked up Eva at the train station (minor-ly late) and we headed to the District house to order Eva's new passport. No problems there except that Eva's head in her passport photo might be a bit to large for legal reasons. How can this be? It's a normal passport photo picture?!? Sure enough, they said, "It might be too large...we'll try it anyway, but we'll have to do a rush order since you're going to the states in February. If they need another photo, you'll still get it in time." While waiting in line a man came up to do his drivers license and immediately started berating the lady behind the desk. I didn't know what he was going on about until we got outside and Eva told me that he came up to the desk and said, "It's time that Belgium privatized this. This system doesn't work." He's right. I don't know about the privatization bit, as I don't know how a private company could deal with government stuff, but the "system doesn't work" comment was right on. The district house for Stad Antwerpen is a complete mess of waiting and misinformation. (as I have already noted.) Back at home I began making dinner and didn't realize that Eva was so key on being up close and personal with K's Choice. We were running late and sure enough got to the church and didn't have a place to sit. We found a place in which I could see Sara perfectly but Eva had to crane her neck to see her. Mid-way through we swapped seats and everything was fine again...except the fact that the church was freezing (no joke, we could probably have seen our breath if we tried) because the choral group was singing accapela so they couldn't run the heaters. So the show. It's the next to the last K's Choice show ever. We thought it was going to be K's Choice hits with choir accompaniment. It was actually K's Choice not-so-famous-hits (and very depressing songs) alternated with choral hits in choral fashion. (meaning that it was not only sung in languages we didn't know but also in a way that made the music un-understandable.) Don't get me wrong...I love choral music even more than the next guy, but this was like two completely different concerts. And the depressing qualities of the K's Choice songs about death, loss, depression, no-God, why-God, etc didn't help it any. Neither did the fact that it was in a church. (a freezing church) Though the fact that it was in a church was the most impressive part...and the singing itself. Quality. So, all in all a nice day buoyed by the fact that one of my freelance projects was launched on the web today. The actual email that prompted me to post it read: Live Go! And I replied, "Onward Ho!" and then hit upload in WS_FTP and in a flash it was there for the world to see. All of this freelancing leads me to another strange point. Eva and I haven't gone looking for a single project and yet they keep pouring in. I have never wanted to make Plainegg a reality as much as I do right now. Why should graphic design/web design (I'm not at all saying that my skills are amazing by any means) cost so much? Shouldn't it be affordable for everyone? Shouldn't it be available at a cost reasonable to the average person/small business? If I was going to have my own little non vzw (non-profit) meaning (for-profit) I think that would be my message. Furthermore, what I've learned from this last experience is that it's great to work with people who are excited about the project. I suppose it hasn't been the perfect way to run the show, as one party has been making additional graphics on the side and the other party has been shooting emails back and forth with me siting various text changes. (numerous mind you). But it's made it a wonderful feeling to know that we've all had a part. Ownership is key. I'm not saying that every client should be able to put in so much in put, but in this situation I think it was best for all of us. (hoping they feel the same) So tomorrow I'm off to Hoboken again to start up this Flemish-class business. I can only hope, pray, plead with myself to make it work this time. There's still time left for Andrea to be Andrea-in-Belgium instead of this mere shadow of my former American self. Stay tuned. IN THE NEWS:
January 10, 2003 : best day in a long time
Last night Eva and I crawled into bed early (around 11) and read Mister Tom. It's one of Eva's childhood favorites and we've been reading it for a year now...savoring it in bits and pieces...a chapter here...a chapter there. It was great to spend time with her instead of time beside her--me on one computer and her on another. Today I got up at 10 and headed to Hoboken to inschrif myself into my second round of Flemish classes and of course I was dead-nervous about it. I got to the school in plenty of time knowing full well that I would have to do some waiting. Sure enough I waited behind 8 Turkish men and was just in front of one guy from Yugoslavia followed by a lady wearing a headscarf. All I have to do is remember that I'm really a country bumpkin at heart and it makes me giggle inside. We didn't have women in head-scarves back on the farm in Missouri. We also didn't have any Turkish people though we did have the occasional former-easter-block and/or european exchange student. (a russian, a Czech, and a German.) And the waiting was horrendous. I didn't dare take off my stocking cap as I've come into a certain excess of static electricity and the combination of static head and stocking cap is not a pleasant thing to experience. Not only does my hair stand straight up and out (and it's long mind you...not short when it is perfectly normal for it to stick up and out) but it also glues itself to my head. The average of the two would be the term "body" in respect to "My hair has lots of body" meaning boucy and probably sexy...but stuck to head and up and out is not pleasant. The guy behind me started mumbling about waiting and I said, "Ja...ik versta/begreip. In Belgie het is altijd wachten." Who cares if it was pefect vlaams. His wasn't perfect either. And he immediately agreed with a laugh. "ja ja...altijd wachten." Having officially paid my dues (21 bucks) and received my new paper (teacher, day and time of class) I headed back to the tram and decided I was going to take one-bold-step for my humaness and go into the city. I road the tram all the way into town and meandered from the central station all the way back to Groenplaats. In passing I went into a store and tried some clothes on. No one but Eva knows that this is a huge deal not only that I tried some clothes on, but that I did it alone. I bought a bitchin' new sweater that is a perfect blend of casual/cool/professional for my interview in Wyoming, and am currently wearing it because I love it already. It's navy blue with a high neck and a zipper that comes down the front to the center of my chest. The neck-hole is made for people with necks the size of my index-finger, but I think it might come in handy during cold weather. I love it. I went in and out of stores looking at all of the sales and the size-tags of which few were my size. If I were a 44 instead of a 48 I wouldn't have a problem. But we won't get into that as I am excercizing brievity and restraint in my journal writing now. (slight joke) On down the Meir I treated myself to a worstenbroodje from Panos (of course they warme maken-ed it...how one could stand to eat one cold is beyond me) and then headed on up to the mallish place with basement-level GB and Fnac. I was hunting down a belated Christmas gift for Eva but didn't find it at either place I looked. On the way into Fnac I saw that a TV crew was stopping random people and asking them some dumbfounding question, as most people left them with a bewildered look on their face. "Please as me..." I was hoping to myself. Not only am I an aspiring KetNet (kids TV) wannabe, but inside I'm dying to speak a bit of Dutch. If I try really hard and speak really slowly I can do alright. Of course I would cop-out and say, "Ik spreek engles...maar what is jouw vraag?" Obviously they didn't ask me. I'm also keen on being on the TV show where they take a person and give them a new profession (that sort of thing) for one month and at the end they test them against other professionals and see if the peers think they pass the test. Come on, TV show, make me a Belgian in one month. I dare you! (Now wouldn't THAT be fun.) The rest of my walk was pretty uneventful except for my waiting for a tram and my discussion with a lady about the bitter koud. That was my new bit of verbage this week. Het is BITTER KOUD here. Also, I suppose it is also worth noting that we ran over a dog on the tram. Now don't get too alarmed as we thought we had certainly killed it (there is nothing but machinery beneath a tram...and all of it is doing something) but then it ran out the side. I'm sure our tram driver (a woman, though I'm sure men do the following as well) got week-kneed and picked up her feet a bit. At least that's what I do when I know I'm going to run over something. It's like my body automatically says, "oh no!!!! gross!!!! Poor animal....I'm sorry, I'm sorry...." and then I lose my apetite for a bit. She then gets off the tram and yells at the owner for not having him on a leash. (first dog I've ever seen without a leash unless it's in a park) At home I realize that my adventure has completely zapped me of all of my energy. I suppose I"m not used to it at all. My body is so used to the sitting position that it gave me a headache to walk around in the cold going from warm shop to warm shop and all of the fresh air. Must do that more often, eh Andrea? I would write more about the evening except that there is nothing that I should mention save the fact that I MUST start going to the station earlier to pick up Eva. I was late again today and it devestated her. I just need to recall that to mind the next time...and the next time...5 times a week to be exact. And what is in store for us tomorrow? Breakfast in town followed by our humble attempts at clothes shopping. I imagine it will be more looking than buying as we don't really need many new clothes and we don't have gobs of extra money with which to buy them. Though I suppose if we strike gold tomorrow on pants that fit me, I might end up with a whopping two. :) Why is shopping such a priority in Antwerp right now? Because the whole world is on sale. How profound eh? The whole world is on sale. That could be a project in and of itself. IN THE NEWS:
January 11, 2003 : wachten
As I told the man yesterday..."In Belgie het is altijd wachten." Today I aged myself in H & M. Aged. I'm not talking about a couple of 15 minute stretches, but lifetimes. All we wanted to do was try on 3 pairs of pants and 1 shirt. (the both of us combined) How long can it take a soul to try on clothes anyway? I admit that I sometimes try on clothes in a dressing-room and prance around in the allowed space admiring myself in the mirror. Doesn't everyone? You've got to see what you look like in the mirror as some of us prefer the mirror in the room instead of the 3-way mirror in the dressing-room hallway that allows you to see what you look like in every direction. But really, how long can it take a soul to try on clothes? I swear there were people in there for hours as the rest of us inched closer and closer, pressing against each other, sweating under our coats, sweaters, and hats while listening to poorly chosen music on the loudspeaker. In our state of desperation, Eva pointed the shop working to me, the one in charge of the passkamer. (dressing room) Every worker in H & M was busy doing something, and dare I say "busy" in reference to her? She was "doing something" but doing it in a speedy fashion she was not. She was simply folding scarves. It seemed like hundreds of them. She was removing 25 at a time from the shipment bag and adding the ink/alarm plastic thing. Mind you Eva and I had time on our own hands, and there was scarcely anything else to look at, so we watcher her peel a scarf off, flat it with her palms, un-fringe the fringes, flatten the wrinkles again, search for one layer in the corner, find the "pin-tip" of the ink/alarm plastic thing, place it through the layer, smooth the scarf out again, find just the perfect rest-of-the-ink/alarm plastic thing, place it on, smooth out the scarf, fold it one one time, flatten with palm, fix irregular corner, and then move to the pile of scarves that had already gone through the process. Can I tell you just how horrible it was to watch this? Eva and I both were near tears by the time we had watched her do 25 of them and then reach for another bag. In the mean time I had just about decided to run around the store spouting gibberish and taking off my clothes I was so close to crazy in my head. Instead I stood in the men's underwear area (it's next to the dressing-rooms) and modeled the still-on-the-hanger underwear for Eva. Would I be a boxer or brief man. I think I'd be the stripy briefs with slight legs (light shorts) slightly reminiscent of the age when superheros logos were on our underwear. When we got to the room, we speedily tried our stuff on and ran back out again. While running we happened upon a nice jumper and grabbed it only to realize it was someone else's. The mother/son team pointed us in the direction and I tried my own on. (didn't fit) though Eva insisted that it did (she was wrong) but then I found another sweater next to it that fit like a charm. I debated about it. I stood in front of the mirror next to the pile of sweaters and jumped around a bit. It wasn't on sale (though not expensive) but we bought it anyway. It's got that designer/cool/intelligent/comfy/european look I've been trying to find. (ha ha ha) When we get out of the store we realize that it's already turning dark and that we had, indeed, spent a large portion of our already very short lives waiting in line at H & M. In the checkout line (also very long and very slow) I had actually stared to put the denim skirts in size order...38...36...36...34...so on and so forth. On the way home we were going to take the underground tram but heard a horrific dog-noise coming from the platform. The older women in front of us were making strange faces and the yelping of the dog made it clear to me that neither of us really wanted to take that specific line. We took the number 8 instead. So what more was there to mention except that we brought ourselves home and Eva took to mending things with holes and I took to fixing dinner. We had gone to Sun Wah today and bought all sorts of Asian goodies. Mostly more Thai ingredients and new sauces to try. We also bout rice-wrappers to make egg-roll/loempia/type things, and so I made up a stir-fry, added one of our new sauces with the Knorr label in a different script language, and we stuffed ourselves senseless. Eva soon left for a cup of tea at Leila's and I wrote out two project ideas if/when I ever need a project/have a place to show a project. The night was a short one, as the day had been even shorter. We crawled into bed for another evening with Mister Tom and I read right up until a new chapter and Eva begged me to continue on. "No," I said, "We've been reading this book in pieces for over a year now...we've got to make it last another week or two." (It's a really good book) She agreed. The boys have just met an artist with only one ear and one leg and came back to find Mister Tom talking with police. Ohhhh the suspense. IN THE NEWS:
January 13, 2003 : everything right
When I was about 17, still in high school, this close with god (index and middle finger crossing), I would go about my day in the best manner possible only to come home and confess that I couldn't see how I had done anything wrong and how that was actually a huge wrong. Does that make sense? Well today I did similar. Not the confessing part, the age, or the god, but the going about my day in the best manner possible. :) I must admit that I got out of bed a little late. (10:30/11) I had actually been up since 10 and I was just laying there trying to figure out the best order of events. (what all I could get done) Eva is currently missing 16 pages of her thesis, so she gave me the errand of going to her university, finding a copy of her thesis, and making copies of the 3rd chapter. She had given me which bus to take and had described at which stop to get off the bus, so I was pretty confident I could manage. The bus windows her horribly dirty. It made me feel like I had the beginning stages of cataracts and wasn't wearing my glasses. This made it sort of impossible for me to recognize any of the landmarks she had mentioned, though the driver's window was spotless, so I kept my position in my head according to the view I managed to see out the front. Once at the school Eva hadn't counted on the fact that her guess as to where the thesis currently was would be wrong. After a librarian and I toiled over the computer system to try to come up with Eva's paper she moved on to ask another librarian which sent me on my way to the department itself. The department secretary took some convincing/re-explaining for her to understand what I was after and finally she typed in Eva's last name, walked over to a key rack, removed a key, and took me down the hall where she opened this massive door to reveal thesi. (I suppose that's the plural) She handed Eva's to me and I went back downstairs to make copies. I had to buy a copy card for 5 Euro to make only 20 some copies.When I was done with it all I went back to the friendly librarian, handed her the card, and said in my best dutch, "Dit is voor een studenten waneer hij heeft geen geld, maar hij heeft copies nodig." To which she smiled all over her face and said that I was very friendly. :) I returned the thesis to the secretary and checked this massive duty off my list. I boarded the bus back to Antwerp and got off the bus just before it started going in the wrong direction of my house. (pure fate/chance that I got off) I had decided to do the laundry. Over the weekend Eva had talked to me about how she feels like she never has time to do her own thing. I figured I would try to give her tonight as an offering of some sort, and so I set off to find change for the washing. I managed to find change and even convinced myself that I would go to the cheap place to do laundry. Eva's such a fan of it, and it's always good to save a bit of cash, and so I loaded up the scooter with 2 blue ikea in-house shopping bags and Eva's pink and green back pack onto the scooter and scooted there. 5 loads. 1 of which was in the mammoth washing machine. It's a hell of a deal when you think about it, I just despise the amount of crumbs/tissues/and lint in the place. Right as I was unpacking the clothes and packing it into the washer the rugrat from across the street (the 12-year old girl) came in and added some change. It's the same girl that caused us so many problems with our scooter at the place across the street. I was mortified. I kept expecting her to come back and terrorize me with my own scooter. Her mother (I'm making a guess here) came in and tended to the rest of their laundry and I was alone in the was salon until the remaining 20 minutes of my folding session, when an indian man came in to do his laundry and stared at the amount of clothing I was dealing with. I'm sure he was thinking, "Surely they can't all be hers." And no, they weren't. Eva's too. It took me just over 3 hours to do the laundry by which time I figured I had just enough time to run two other errands one of which was going to Tom and Ilse's to pick up some of the clothes they catalog ordered for us and to go to Del Haize. I wanted to get all of this done with enough time to still pick up Eva at the station. I dropped the clothes off, called Tom, sped over to his house on the scooter, picked up the goods, chatted for 5 minutes, headed to Del Haize (a different one that is by Tom's house) and meandered through the store buying things that we usually bought without being extravagant. Vegetarian sandwich meat, bake-your-own half-baguettes, yogurt, chocolate mousse (an expensive kind because it was a surprise for Eva), a tomato, fresh pasta, some hamburger/pork meat. Everything was fine at the checkout until the lady mumbled a new phrase to me. I was expecting her to ask me if I had my Del Haize card, as I have heard that a hundred times at the other Del Haize. But she asked me if I wanted it for the right amount to which I asked her to repeat it, and then, having given up hope of understanding, asked her to ask me in English. I'm sure I was bright red by this time, but then I asked how she said it in Dutch again, and I slowly repeated it back to her. The people in line though that was an admirable action, and so the red in my face went away. Whew! I got home with just enough time to drop the things off, eat one Wasa with fake meat before leaving to pick up Eva. There was nothing I had left out/forgotten/not done except buy Eva flowers. (which I had intended on doing but had forgotten to do at Del Haize as i had seen them at the beginning of my shopping but missed them at the end). Off to the station with a smile on my face. Boy was she going to be shocked. Not only was she shocked that I was at the station (I had done my best to be vague about my doings/whereabouts for most of the day) but she had no clue as to what lay ahead of her at home. Climbing the stairs of our apartment I swore that I would wait until she figured it all out herself. I'm notoriously bad about these things, about not being able to keep my mouth shut if I too am just as excited about it. 10 minutes later she was beside herself with awe at the clothes having been done, the house in a decent order, the package picked up, and the groceries having been purchased. I told her, "this is a night you have all to yourself." And I set off to making dinner. What you don't know is that we had planned on getting fritjes at De Witte and then doing our laundry and eating fries. As I passed de Witte on the way home tonight I realized that they are closed on Monday evenings, so had I not done the laundry there would have been a fry/laundry fiasco. I breathed a sigh of relief. And so did Eva when I told her. So after dinner we took our christmas tree (needle-less) down to the side of the street for pickup and after a good cleaning up of the needles from where it had sat all the way to the front door, we settled in on listening to BBC Radio 7, picking out a poem for a video project with Eva, and finally watching Inspector Morse. It was one of the best days I've ever had since being in Belgium. It only took a downward turn when Eva decided she didn't want to finish the poetry project and instead put it off until tomorrow night. For some reason this burst my bubble completely, and I tried to make up for it with working on a couple of transmedia projects, so I started getting ready for bed when Eva came down out of bed and said, "I'll have a tea with you while you work a bit." And we visited over my creation of label/stickers I would stick on public property if I had the balls to do so. I am also very nervous about meeting with Steven to talk about my progress in Transmedia tomorrow. There hasn't been as much progress as I would have liked, save the journal which gets longer and more verbose by the day. It's just that this is sometimes all I can manage, though ideas pour out of me...but I don't have any feeling they will ever get created. I suppose that's good regardless, right? I used to not have any ideas at all, never thinking of working on anything that wasn't turning a buck. Oh what a year of "becoming an artist" did for me. I got ready for bed only to find that in the bathroom Eva had made a little hanging basket and put my vitamins in it as she took hers. And a little heart that read, "For my angel." Of course it's cute and silly, but it was just enough to get me into bed and off to sleep knowing I had gone about my day in the best manner possible. My first attempt in a long time and she is so worth it. IN THE NEWS:
January 15, 2003 : a night of laughter
Today was an extremely good day. Perhaps my hopes/dreams/wishes are coming true (that the last portion of life in Belgium will be more real and less moody). Eva was off to work and I set myself behind the computer. (as I always do) I had decided to start working on a project that involved key-presses and sounds of which I had decided I should use the sound of a hum. (Humming being something I love to do when I'm in a good mood walking down the street. Either that or whistling.) So after humming for several hours into the microphone and editing the hums into bite-size pieces, I started working on the implementation. Since it's still a work-in-progress I will have to leave it at that. This said, Eva called me at around 5 to let me know she was out of her client meeting in Antwerp and that she was on her way home. Still wearing my pajamas, I said I couldn't pick her up, but that I'd be ready when she got home. As soon as I hung up the phone I decided that if she was off early, then she might as well be home even earlier, so I speedily put on my clothes, grabbed our helmets, ran down the stairs and off on the scooter to pick her up. As usual in such circumstances, we missed each other and I ended up driving down all of the streets between our house and Drie Koningstraat before pulling over and calling her. "Where are you?" she answered the phone and I replied back, "Where are you?" Apparently we passed each other. She wasn't wearing headphones, and I hadn't been speeding. She must have been behind a large van when I passed, or perhaps that construction area where they are repairing the room of the house that burned. Now with such a span of time at our disposal, we headed to Vergo to buy something that could last us for dinner. Rookworst were on sale, so we bought three. We actually bought several things and though Eva wanted a sac at the end I made us carry our purchases in our own hands to which the check-out ladies there always giggle about. At least our amount-of-bags is remaining consistent. Eva also spotted a cool Dr. Pepper poster from when Dr. Pepper was first introduced in Belgium. It's total kitch with the old-style of "Dr. Pepper" on the can and a skyline of New York in the background. (twin-towers included) It's a must have. Not because of the skyline, or because of the style, but because I love Dr. Pepper and it's in Dutch. :) I made dinner and Eva vegged in front of the television. She actually was multitasking with KetNet on for me as I cooked while she wrote emails. The only thing on our list for tonight was going to Tom and Ilse's to drop off the two bras we mail-ordered on their account that didn't fit and to pick up an additional set of mail-ordered items. We were fat and happy after a nice dinner (which included steamed broccoli in the mashed potatoes) and when we opened the front door we realized it was raining. Rain and scooter just don't mix. But there we were, out in the real rain (it wasn't misting, it was raining) and I was wearing my glasses. (glasses, raining, and being the driver doesn't mix well either.) I commented that I couldn't really see and Eva commented something along the lines of "it wasn't that bad." I literally could barely see through the water dots on my glasses and the rain (mixed every once in awhile with a minuscule ice bit) was stinging my face. To this Eva says, "It's not really that bad." I looked at her and started laughing at the fact that she was hunched behind me shielding her face behind my shoulders. "Of course it's not so bad for you!" I chuckled...and when she looked at my face she both started laughing so hard we would have though anything funny at that given moment. This kept us laughing nearly all the way to their house. After the exchange of goods, we went on Del Haize to pick up a few other things we hadn't purchased at the Vergo. We also found a freebie compass, carabeener and key-chain combo that was presumably free if we bought Dextro Energy gum. But it didn't say "free with purchase anywhere" so we simply added it to our card as well. Now I'll never bee lost in Antwerp again. Lost perhaps, but at least not thinking that the sun is, for some reason, setting in the East. It took us 10 minutes to find the coffee isle that is hidden behind the frozen goods, and just as we were finishing up with our shopping the store turned off half of the lights. "It's not a library" I told Eva, to which she started another round of laughter. And we ran to a short isle, paid our money, and headed out into the rain to the neighboring petrol station. After Eva gave attempted to give directions to three tourists driving around in a Ford Ka, we started on home. At a certain stoplight that faces the Schelde, I couldn't figure out what was ahead of me where the Schelde should be. After I had already turned right I turned the scooter around and told Eva, "It's a gigantic ship! Let's go!" To which she had no choice but to agree since she's the one on the back of the scooter. :) Sure enough it was HUGE. The same ship that Sara Bettens of K's Choice walked beside on my ill-fated attempt at recording the short TV special for Kathleen. Eva and I started laughing again. It looked so strange there tied by little-in-comparison ropes. It looked more like we were roped to it. It was huge! The letters on the side gigantic--the Heidelberg Express. We could not believe the size of it, nor the amount of campers camping out by the water. "That's where we should be," she said. And I agreed that it would be fun to live in a mobile residence for awhile, but not camped out beside the water with 25 other odd-forms of mobile residence (form camper-shells to converted buses to converted railway cars with wheels) or "shitting into a bucket" as it was obvious that the one camper had it's sewage running into a bucket behind the back. This, of course, made us laugh all over again. It was a great evening. On the way home we soaked ourselves in puddles and rain and our pants were drenched--underneath our skin was bright red. By the time we got home it was only 8:30. I said, "Eva...I have some very good news for you. It's only 8:30." What a hour or so can make. Ordinarily we would have just finished dinner, and already we had run all of our errands and were returning home with nothing having to be done. Eva took a shower to warm up and I started back with Project hum but not with the gusto I had when working on it previously. After Eva emerged all clean and warm I decided I'd take a shower as well and I was in such deep thoughts while taking a shower that when Eva brought me my towel I realized I hadn't washed my hair. (so back into the shower I went already half-way dry.) To this, of course, we laughed. I don't know the last time I have laughed so hard in my life. It was probably in respect to a Formula 1 Motel, New Year's Eve, a program on the radio, or something we'd seen on TV (we are always overcome by the sappy endings of Alex Mack aka Liquid Girl and the wisdom of Zorro). Tonight we laughed whole-heartedly the sort accompanied with knee-slaps and toothy mouth-open grins. IN THE NEWS:
January 16, 2003 : typing, feminism, and technology
Since Eva lost 16+ pages of her thesis and I copied them at her University so she'd have a complete thesis. Well to surprise her, and because I was period-pained for most of the day, typing and reading War and Peace was all I could manage, I made it through 9 single-spaced pages of text. Granted, it's not the most interesting text to read/type, but for a thesis, it's damn good! Of course I don't have any real reason to know that side of Eva yet, that university student spirit who could defend/renounce almost anything if she wanted. Well seeing that side of her (the dynamo-femist-literary-theory-highbrow-side) was so fun! It solidified the image I had had of her someday being a university professor wearing turtle-neck sweaters with the hair from our cat almost-totally-removed in a rush as she left our house, with that perfect leather briefcase, and an office with dying plants down some hall in some department, and with an Instant Messenger loaded on her computer so I in my office can schedule when she in her office can meet me to go home. Ok, so maybe that was a bit much, but lecturing behind a podium, leaning on her elbows, looking over her glasses from with the lenses seem to always pop out...writing on a dry-erase board in a form of handwriting hardly legible to an American. (she's working on it) Oh yeah, I can see it! So besides the typing, War and Peace is really getting good. I am still shocked to find it an excellent read, as I had expected it would be pages of useless politica/philisophical garbage. Instead I find that I am dying to know what's going on with Prince Andrew, Pierre, Natasha, Princess Mary, etc. It is, indeed, like a soapopera of which I am a regular audience member. I would most certainly buy the cash-register isle soap-opera (war and peace version) magazine if it were available. I suppose it helped that I saw the trailer for the movei Russian Ark and that only furthered the images of Russian aristocracy in my head. All those dresses and shoulder fringes, sideburns, and noses in the air. When Eva got home and we'd already had a nice dinner of fake chicken breast and pasta with pan fried garlic, steamed carrots and broccoli (YUM!) we settled in for the night. Eva to packing packages to send to people in the states, and me to my typing. During Eva's phone conversation with Leila, Leila suggested that I scan the pages in on the scanner and have it read the text. "Sure," I thought, "I tried that once before and it was terrible." But then I figured that was one minor attempt back when the technology was probably rather new. Or maybe it was the scanner. Since then I have been leary of such a thing, so I gave it a try. Wow. Eat your words, Andrea. It worked like a sharm. So what if it occasionally dropped a word or a T in italics became a 7. Everything was fixable and done in 30 seconds. So there you have it. I proceeded to give myself my reoccuring repetitive stress injury from typing all afternoon and now I see that it can be done in 30 seconds. Now that's improvement. IN THE NEWS: ALSO IN THE NEWS: A sampling of weekend protests planned in concert with a national anti-war rally in Washington on Saturday. Events are Saturday except where noted. Times, where available, are local. California: San Francisco rally, starting 11 a.m. at the foot of Market Street at Embarcadero. March to Civic Center Plaza for speeches, entertainment, cultural performances. Oregon: 1 p.m. rally and march in Portland, with about 50 groups participating. Arizona: In Tucson, 40 groups have a march and rally. Nevada: In Las Vegas, noon rally from the Bellagio fountains to the Tropicana and back. In Reno, rally at the University of Nevada. Iowa: 11 a.m. march in Des Moines from Grandview College to the Statehouse, followed by rally. Minnesota: 9 p.m. candlelight vigil at Lake Harriet in Minneapolis. Missouri: St. Louis rally, march and interfaith service Monday, starting 10 a.m. at the Old Court House. Vermont: March and rally in Montpelier. Massachusetts: Vigil and rally in Cambridge, 10 a.m. to noon. New York: In Albany, a candlelight march at 4:30 p.m. Friday from the Capitol. Schenectady march Saturday. Florida: Rallies 1 p.m.-3 p.m. in Tampa, St. Augustine and Venice. Tampa marchers plan to go to main gate of MacDill Air Force Base, headquarters of Central Command.
January 17, 2003 : the hum machine
As this year seems to already be quickly underway and with time running out for time to complete transmedia projects, today I spent most of the day updating my "possible project" list (which is, incidentally quite long) and working on a project called: Hum Machine. As I am not yet a Flash guru, still transitioning myself from plain-ol HTML girl to moving-images girl, I am very pleased with how some minor projects are taking shape. Projects are projects. And I give most everything a name "project" lately because it seems like everything takes a bit of effort. (Namely venturing out of our neighborhood/street.) In light of this, my projects are going really well. If I've learned anything since being in grad school about being an artist it's that artwork doesn't have to be massive in size or lengthy in time-based works. It simply has to have a nice foundation. If an artist can go on and on about a work that doesn't seem interesting at first glance, but then support it with all sorts of extraneous facts/concepts, then the artwork takes on new meaning or no longer seems insignificant. Thankfully this has always been my approach, though as of late (this year) I have neglected the explanation part. Over the next few weeks I am going to revisit a few projects and get them up to speed in the world of explanation. (this journal included) Not only does it add to the experience, but it sheds light on feelings/theories/reasonings behind a work. (this was more a reminder to me than a journal entry-worthy phrase.) Today I managed to complete the Hum Machine project of which will bring a smile to my face each and every time I visit it. I wanted to make something that would capture the feeling I have when I'm walking down the street on a not-so-picturesque Belgian day humming. It's something I do when I'm happy. I whistle. Sometimes I even whistle when I'm riding the scooter. (which is sometimes impossible due to wind hitting whistling lips except when we're at a stoplight) As I was slaving away at home finishing up the project, Eva was slaving away at work. We were both happy to have the day come to an end her on her way home. I sped from the house on the scooter and arrived across the street from her (hidden from sight by pedestrians) just as she was exiting the station. I saw exasperation flush her face as she quickly dialed our house on her mobile. I was waving frantically from my unexpected corner and then when the light changed and I zoomed around the pedestrians (very politely) she smiled and I laughed. We ran errands on Drie Koningstraat and headed home. Beef enchiladas and an episode of Zorro later we were staring at the rest of the night with nothing to do except play the Hum Machine project over and over again. (which we did) Eva tended to her list of emails she had to write, I finished up digitizing Eva's final few pages from her missing thesis chapter, and we closed the evening with a couple of hours worth of watching movie trailers. (movies we admit to maybe wanting to see, but movies we'll probably never see.) We did, however, stumble across some that's we've mental noted as wanting to find on DVD if/when we're in the states: Once in bed, we finished up the last chapter of Goodnight Mister Tom. Maybe all couples should have a book they read aloud to each other sometimes. Eva read half of it and I read half of it. I struggled over the strange English-English words sometimes, but it left Eva room to grow tear-faced at the story and me to my choking the words out. I'm making it out to be a sappy book, but it wasn't. If you're looking for a good book for an 8-12 year old that likes to read, it's a nice choice. Just be sure to read it yourself before passing it along. IN THE NEWS: Since I have lived in the concise copy-writing world when I worked at Tellme, my boss Dave struggling over what words could fit in a so-many-pixel-width area, I know that someone at Amazon headquarters struggled with what to do with underwear. I even clicked on the link (I told you it was easy to be sucked in) just to see if it was a special brand called Clean Underwear. No, it's just your basic Fruit-of-the-Loom undies and socks.
January 18, 2003 : home-based revolution
Big highlight of day: Aldi. This began a whole string of incidents which involved food and real life. What I realized on todays shopping adventure in Aldi (an adventure behind every trip) is that basic-foods (milk, bread, butter, rice, pasta, etc) is basically the same price everywhere. Now since we are well-off enough to not only exist on those aforementioned items but live quite extravagantly on vegetable-based fake-meat products for the most part, and other more costly items like name-brand yogurt, etc, we cannot solely shop at Aldi. But what is interesting is that we find ourselves not buying Derby brand items and other low-end brands at Del Haize (I do buy Derby half bake-yourself-baguettes) such as milk, butter, spaghetti, etc, because we think it's cheaper to buy at Aldi. If I was going to over-budget my life write down one list of all of my regular purchases, buy the same list at all of the stores I frequent (Carrefour, Del Haize, Vergo, Aldi, Peeters Grovers and Proust) Then I would compare prices. What's strange is that I'm pretty sure I'd find that the neighborhood market has more expensive Knorr Pompoen een Tomat soup but their meat (pork-chops and filet american ground beef) is cheaper than any of the other places. Furthermore though Carrefour has a bigger selection of such and such, their vegetarian section is very small. The afternoon was uneventful. I took an online IQ test and got the same IQ score I got when I was 16. This made me feel great because, though I thought that my dad was downright mean to me during my first IQ test for me to go to nerd camp back in high school (he administered the test because he was the guidance counselor), I always wondered if I had done better because he was my dad. Then of course he made me more nervous because he was so cut and dry about it, so professional without smiles (very un-dad-like) that I probably would have done a better job if I'd had a total stranger. Anyway, I did well. And got the exact same score which means not only did my dad do a good job of being a non-partial test-giver, I haven't gotten any dumber. (I was sort of worried since I turned to the arts instead of something more analytical) We went to the bank to transfer some funds (we're going to pay off my school in the next few days) and stopped in at the Proust supermarket. I don't remember why, really, but there we were shopping for nothing in particular. (it was actually raspberry beer that we wanted...I haven't had it in awhile) Eva ended up carting around 3 coca-cola glasses that were written in 3 different languages and I carried around falafel mix. Just as we were deciding on checking out Eva says, "I think I'm going to put mine back. I don't want to support the gigantic-corporation-economy." While she was putting back the glasses I put back my falafel. "I put back my falafel" I told her. For some reason she took this as me slightly making fun of her putting back the coke glasses, which wasn't true at all. Earlier in the morning we had talked about all sorts of things, about how once the suicide bombing mindset becomes the mindset of extremists in other countries, than there is no stopping it. How I used to think having a vice-president that was Jewish would just be cool just because he wasn't Christian. And now I don't know what I think about it. And that sounds really downright backward of me. Oh man. I'm sitting here with my elbows on my computer desk shaking my head. Even if I type it out it becomes hazy. Life was so much simpler when I shopped at Wal-Mart and made drawings about my obsession with Nichole and made logos for class-projects. Then when I came back from Sweden I was only worried about the state of the world in reference to me. I knew it was large/vast and held all sorts of opportunities and that was all. This is growing up, isn't it? I knew it would happen eventually. After the glasses/falafel incident, Eva and I parted ways, her to the electronic-walmartish superstore and me home. I scheduled us a stopover at Tom and Ilse's to drop off dominoes and pick up a new sweater. (No more new sweaters for at least 3 years!) Eva came home with a new pair of headphones, a packet of cds, and a new carrycase for her walkman. We decided on eating in town (our once eating-out meal of the week) and headed into town to drop off the dominoes. Apparently Ilse took to dominoes the night we took my parents over...I know it sounds silly, but that really pleases me. I'm sure my parents and extended family will get a kick out of the fact that we're bringing back a nice set to take to Ilse. The same type set my family has been using for years and years now. We ate at a nice restaurant (travel-cafe) and chatted over Turkish bread and butter. Eva's decided we maybe shouldn't only shop at Wal-Mart either if we living in Laramie, and I'm curious as to what options exist outside of that safe-haven of Wal-Mart. To be honest, as I always am, I don't know. I suppose in college I did manage to shop at May's Drugs on occasion, but only when I was picking up photos. But the price difference. Who wants to pay a $ more on a box of maxi-pads or 15 cents more per can on a six-pack of beer to take to your friend's birthday party? Our meal came and thought it was tasty, it was quite common. Eva had vegetable curry and I had chicken with peanut sauce and veggies. Eva looked at me and I knew what she was going to say, "Your's is better than this." And I must admit that I agree. "What did I used to eat?" I asked Eva...and she rattled on a list of things I liked and didn't like back then. "You know what," I told her leaning in over my dish, "I'm about 4 vegetables and 2 getting-over-meats shy of becoming a vegetarian." But just so you know, I'll never go vegan. I still love cheese. IN THE NEWS:
January 19, 2003 : the sound of your own voice
Eva and I headed to the library early this morning to drop off some overdue books and to pick up some CDs. I landed myself a cd full of sounds (as if one can get a cd of anything else) and Eva checked out a cd of music. Back at the house we readied ourselves for her mother's arrival. We had a few hours to kill and so we started in on another one of my projects called; Photobooth Poetry. We found one of my poems that was 4 stanzas and filmed Eva in front of a red curtain to make it like one of those 4 passport photos for 2 Euros. We actually managed to do it in under one hour. It's not polished, but it's exactly what I wanted to do. I've come to the conclusion that my work should deal mostly with text and dealing with it in different formats. At least that's my passion right now. Is it a passion really? Oh my gosh! Wow. I hadn't expected that. (insert grin here) I've been nearly passionless for 4 years now (save momentary passion-filled months when I was busy wooing Eva...) (insert another grin here.) Regardless, it's live now. One must wait a long time for it all to download, but there's plenty of things you could check your email or something while you were waiting. Joris came by in the evening, along with fries, so he could study in a new location. He's cramming for an international politics exam. And dare I call it cramming? His test is in two weeks, so I'd say he'll be well-prepared. As Eva wrote emails to Wyoming, I edited my movie and didn't mess much with trying to delete the clicking sound of the clocks in the background which Eva had suggested I remove before we started filming. But it's sooo grassroots to begin with that it wouldn't make much difference anyway. On Tuesday I have a meeting with the transmedia organizer to see if I am "on track" for this year. In light of the progress I've made in the past two weeks alone I think I am. I haven't gone to school save a few times to meetings that were required and artist's discussions. All of it is in stark contrast to the sort of student I was last year. I went nearly every day and sat in on long drawn-out discussions about technology, films, and art. I'm definately better for it, but it seems this year I just want to get into creating. If I continue at this pace I'll have a whole assortment of projects. I suppose I'll talk to him and see what he thinks about it. Just one month ago I was devestatingly depressed and now I fell like a whole world has opened up. I know it wasn't the prospects in Wyoming that did this to me, but perhaps it's gotten me in more of the mindset that our current situation isn't a forever situation. (meaning we won't live in a studio forever...though it seems that we're both really happy in in now that the laundry has been done and there are clean socks and underwear to wear and that living in Belgium could dissolve into living stateside again.) What in the hell am I going to be like when i get back there anyway? (serious question) How can it be that I am so comfortable here (minus the self-inflicted bouts of depression) and am so leary of my blessed country? (leary is the most fitting word) I will defintately have stronger feelings upon our return here. And that, of course, is the beauty of it. Once again, Life is truly interesting. As I was cutting up the video, I listened to Eva and I having the time of our lives just sitting in our kitchen making a small home movie. She's starting to curse a lot (surprise surprise) and I still sound the same as I've always sounded on recorded things. I have been using my voice in almost every bit of footage/sound project I've worked with in the last year, and it's great to hear someone else's. Poor Joris, he was sitting on the couch studying and could hear me laughing at the tape and Eva singing in the shower. (he too soon turned to earphones and music) I thought it all sounded alright, but when Eva saw my first draft of the page, she grimaced and told me she didn't want to watch or listen to it. Funny how we're not used to our own voices when it's the voice we hear more often than anyone else's. But Eva's right, even after listening to my own readings of my own poetry over and over again I think to myself, "is that what I sound like?" Which is much the same as when we see photos of ourselves in our favorite outfits and we realize that we dont' look as great as what we think we do. When Eva's mother was here in the afternoon Eva and her went online to find all the meet/greet/date websites for Belgium so Eva's mother could find a man. In the end we took a photo of her mother and couldn't quite get it right. We finally found one we all agreed on, and if you do some searching for available 50+ year old women in Belgium you're bound to land on her. I also managed to build a table for Eva's old computer today. It's not the most sturdy thing, and it didn't fit in the area where she really wanted it, but bless her heart, she loved it. Now, if she really wants to be in her own space and work on translating the new-age book all she has to do is pull the blue curtain and she's in her own study. (Yes, it seems, life can be just so simple...just on the otherside of Ikea's cheapest navy blue cotton cloth) So we called it a day just when the weekend was taking shape. Isn't that how it always is? Eva's dreading tomorrow and I'm dreading a week of us each missing each other during our times of being absent. Two weeks from now we'll be in New York, hanging out with Alma and Julie, doing nothing in particular, except traveling within our means. And we always mean well. IN THE NEWS:
January 21, 2003 : progress reports
Today I made the journey to Sint-Lukas to have a meeting with the director of Transmedia to discuss how I was doing this year. I had prepared (sort of) an explanation for my not-being-around in Brussels. I suppose it wasn't really an excuse, there were so many reasons, but as of late I've made the switch into a seemingly endless vat of ideas. (some of with will never make it past my own head...but at least they are ideas!) When I got to school I went to where I thought his office was, which it is no longer. I had run into another student, Pablo, who offered to take me to his new office space in the entrance area of the school. We headed on over and took the shortcut through the gallery space. There in the gallery someone was exhibiting the concept of waste and smell. Waste as in death/shit/piss (I think) and the smell going on along as well. There was even an out-house rigged in one section, complete with the port-a-potty in which you put a plastic supermarket bag underneath a toilet seat. The smell? It lingered. It had traveled all through that section of the school. He wasn't in his office and so we headed back through the exhibition and I was determined to see it all the way through. (Pablo was less adamant about it) There were even tissues one could hold to your nose. We started through the show and mid-way another teacher bumped in to us and started talking to Pablo. During this wee-little-time period Pablo and I both started getting a little green...as I headed out the door for fresh air I gagged a subtle gag that told me I couldn't see the rest of the exhibit. And I couldn't get it out of my head that perhaps I didn't understand art at all...at least not that one. There was an additional room that had a car covered in earth and parakeets living on it. That I sort of understood, or "got" or liked even...but the smelly version? Overpowering. And lost on those of us who couldn't stand in the smell and have a conversation. So finally I found Steven who had been waiting for me the entire time in the Transmedia lab. Thankfully he is so popular that his time waiting wasn't wasted. I dont' know why it hadn't even occurred to me to go and check if he was there. We scheduled to meet after both of the transmedia group meetings and 4 hours later we sat down to talk. I had already taken Pablo through my work earlier in the day. He had appreciated the simplicity and always eggs me on for more. Here he's an aspiring full-length feature film maker and I'm little ol' me making Hum Machines in Flash. There he is with his budget and staff and here I am with my aging PC and headphones and speakers that only work on one side, right or left. I had been nervous talking to Steven, but as soon as we sat down and started talking over my plans for the next few months, we both became animated and chatted it up. I told him of my project ideas that lived outside of the glowing computer screen. He struck back with the challenge that "now was the time" to make that leap and that it would either work or wouldn't work, but if it did, then any call to return to my own country should be put on hold. Why would you leave such a support system or suddenly leave if you found that you had an audience? So to be honest, I understand where he's coming from. Here I have the opportunity to test things out and people will come see it because that's what they do, they support "the arts." And trust me, I'm not talking about huge installations and budgets with staff, I'm talking about simple things that are practically no-cost. Oh the challenge. Will anything ever take shape? Will I ever live outside of the school outside of the computer? So we talked about all sorts of possibilities and he mentioned how he understood that it was a nice idea to graduate from a European graduate program and get a really nice European diploma and then head back to the states to a cushy job at a university, grown old and take long summer vacations. Yes. That's what he said. "Life doesn't start until you're 35" he went on. (he always chooses the age he currently is or just about to be as to feel ever-young.) And of course I see his point being 26 going on 27. But there are so many things pulling at me. Too many to name. I walked to the North station listening to the radio on my phone (still love that silly little novel addition on the cheapest phones available in Belgium last year) and stood there waiting for my train to come. I was starved and ready to be home. I spent my only Euro in an attempt to get a bag of chips out of the machine. There I was all calm and collected and then I freaked out on the area next to the coin slot where it was obvious everyone had done the same sort of freaking out. Down the slit I could see my damn Euro coin sitting there. No chips for me. The train was packed and it was the half-fast half-slow variety one so loathes if you are wanting to get home quickly. I suppose the slow part is basically like a traffic-jam on rails with it's speed up and slow down and stop and doing it all over again. The speedy part is also much like driving on a highway only to find yourself in a town with a stoplight every 3 minutes. Eva and Marc met me at the station where we finally managed to buy some chips that would sustain me until we made it to dinner. (a Chinese restaurant that Marc frequents) Having found the restaurant closed on Tuesdays, the three of us headed to Funky Soul Potato, Eva maneuvering on the sidewalk with one of Marc's huge portfolio cases in one hand. "I feel just like an artist" she said...and for some reason that struck us both as not only funny but somehow interesting. Three stuffed potatoes later we headed on to visit over a couple of drinks. I drank my favored (hard to find) Framboise Morte Subite, Eva her Hoegarden, and Marc and his warm Cecemil. (hot chocolate) It was a grand ol time during which we all recalled our most embarrassing moments cooking, swimming, etc and just plain silly things we did (or our siblings did) when we were younger. Going out on a Tuesday is a rare treat, and so as the night came to a close the both of us were shocked that we had lasted a night on the town (till nearly midnight) on a "school night" of all nights! Waiting for the tram I retold Eva the discussions with Steven and we muttered as usual about the prospects that lay before us and the choices we will invariably have to make. IN THE NEWS:
January 22, 2003 : night number 2
The day was primarily uneventful. I was doing research about what sort of newsfeeds I could incorporate into a project but came up pretty empty handed. Whenever I get to that stage of a project, it simply dies. So I suppose this one is dead for now. I was supposed to write my mother today letting her know how my meeting went yesterday. I've put it off already a whole day but should really sit down tomorrow and make myself write it. It's not as if it's difficult to write, I just don't know what to say. I have the priveledge of having several people tell me the same thing. Don't making up your mind just yet. Weigh all of the options. See what is available, etc. Eva had a meeting today in Antwerp as so she got home a little after 5 instead of 7. She called when she was 7 minutes away on the tram and I soon was at the corner on the scooter with her helmet in hand. Stressed, as usual, but pleased with the fact that it was still daylight and not night, Eva and I went to a new place to have coffees and hot chocolates and discuss the normal standard things we talk about. I remember writing something like this when Jessica was around. Something about there only being 5 things that Eva and I discussed. Now we talk about 1.) Wyoming 2.) What we would do instead of Wyoming 3.)Who we should email/write/contact 4.) That we should be better people and/or change I distinctly remember Eva's job being top on the list back then, or maybe the new-apartment-that-never-was. Regardless at least this in less list is less conflict-causing though more of a big fat question mark. When we came home (eva had a monsterous headache) I Tom called and we set up a time to go and pick up my mail-ordered shoes. He then called back and offered dinner. Not wanting to be late (we're trying to get better about that) Eva crawled into bed and said, "please wake me up in 20 minutes" and 20 minutes later I did. At Tom and Isle we did our regular bout of eating a wonderful meal (pasta) and sitting around drinking great wine (white and red) and talking. Ilse went on to meet some friends of her's and Tom tried in vain to convince the two of us to go out. I suppose Eva's was the in-vain part, because she said she'd take the tram home and insisted that I stay and go out and simply ride the scooter home later. That later was 5 hours later. I got home at nearly 4 in the morning after spending a couple of hours with Bart and Tom at Poppi Club and then an addidtional couple of hours with Bart in his livingroom. We covered a whole range of subjects, from the impending war, the response of Europe, moving to the US, doubling-tuition in california community colleges, when we think the EU is going to give the US the finger, SUVs, cars in general, Why is Eva more excited about moving to the states than I am (Tom's insight), Tony Blair, how much it would cost to make a computer right now, the existance/non-existance of God, and on and on. I daresay I thoroughly enjoy the friends Eva's made/kept and am damn-well sure that over the course of the next few months (if Wyoming is a Yes) we will attempt to do an even better job (as I mentioned, we are trying to get better) of keeping tabs on people. For instance, as we were leaving the club I saw one of Eva's friends Verle. She's one of those people we should see on a fairly regular basis, as she seems to be someone both interesting and fun. I went up to her and promised (not something I really do very often) that we would get in touch and do dinner. I'm over the option of us saying that we'll meet up somewhere for drinks on school-nights or asking people over for dinners, or meeting people at bars on Saturdays when Eva's too comfy to want to leave again. So tomorrow night we're emailing Verle. I'm not letting Eva write it either she's does it in such a pain-stakingly way that it's grueling for me to watch her struggle for an hour on an email I could write in 3 minutes. (slight exaggeration on both parts) But then we have the issue of dictating in English and the sending of an English email...maybe I can convince her to call. IN THE NEWS:
January 23, 2003 : what I forgot to mention
I don't know how to go into it except to mention it flatly. Last night was a night of firsts, or seconds, or attempts--splendid. When I left Bart's house, headed home at 3 something in the morning, it was like I was the only person awake in Antwerp (out on the road.) It felt much like driving around when I was 16 when midnight might as well have been 6 in the morning, or when I was a little older and driving home at 4 in the morning was common, or headed to the donut shop (now tattoo parlor) at 5. Empty streets and silence. One on hand it made me feel like I shouldn't be out, as if the rest of the sane world was sleeping. But on the other hand it made me feel empowered, no longer holed up in my apartment. The only thing that was missing was music. But I suppose I've also been a fan of silent cars on long drives...especially when I'm driving alone. (If I'm not too sleepy) There I was speeding across cobblestone just like any other late-night person going home. I know for sure that Eva's done it a million times, and I suppose I've done it only a few times (only since I've lived here.) Funny how I've never really sat down to realize that I've never lived in a city where foot-traffic and bicycle traffic was common. It's always been car traffic; foot-traffic was within the framework of a mall, bicycle traffic meant going for "a bike ride." No wonder it sometimes seems strange to me. Strange in the back of my head like my brain and the driving habits in England. Something's just not right...something just isn't right. So speeding over empty streets, over road construction areas I contemplated the freedom of that particular moment and the freedom of the next one. I didn't let myself worry about much anything, not the slickness of the tram tracks at slow speed, or what I'll be doing this time next year. Just me riding through Antwerp...headed home to a sleeping girl who sat up in bed when I got home, said that she was glad I was home, and went directly back to sleep. IN THE NEWS:
January 24, 2003 : news and girlfriends who dance in winkels
I worked today primarily on the following project: News. I know I've become dreadfully boring when it comes to the subject, but today I spent most of my afternoon trying to find alternative news sources in English. Of course I included some regular ol' standards, the BBC, CNN, my home-town paper, etc. But I did manage to find some new ones. One of which seems particularly interesting: World News Network. It draws its sources from all over the place. I've just landed on it so I daresay my opinion isn't well founded as of yet, but it looks great at first-glance. To see the English-news sites from around the world I've added to my site, simply go to my homepage and at the top in the gray area (my personal political blurb section) click on the little triangle at the bottom right-hand side...and shortly thereafter you should have a map of the world appear in the gray space. Each red dot (of course there are HUNDREDS more I could include, and might include someday) will take you to a new paper with a hopefully slightly different perspective. Also during my news-looking I happened upon some shocking statistics. It's not new information/concept, but it simply spells it out. If you are under the assumption that our media outlets still have their own voice, think again. This is what AOL/Time-Warner own/run/control: Books: Time Life Books; Book of the Month Club; Warner Books; Little, Brown and Company; Little, Brown and Company (U.K.); and 19 other book brands such as History Book Club Cable/DBS: HBO USA; HBO Home Video; HBO Pictures/Showcase; HBO Independent Productions HBO Downtown Productions; HBO NYC Productions; HBO Animation; HBO Sports; Cinemax; Time Warner Sports; HBO International; HBO Asia; HBO en Espanol; HBO Olé (with Sony); HBO Poland (with Sony); HBO Brasil (with Sony); HBO Hungary; Cinemax Selecciones. Other Operations: HBO Direct (DBS); Comedy Central (50 percent owned with Viacom); CNN Time Warner Cable (13 million customers in USA); Road Runner (high-speed cable modem to the Internet); and 16 others, including New York City Cable Group with over one million subscribers. Movies and TV: Warner Bros.; Warner Bros Studios; Warner Bros. (production); The WB Television Network; Hanna-Barbera Cartoons; Warner Home Video; and nine other national and international operations, including Warner Bros. International Theaters (owns/operates multiplex cinemas in 12 countries). Magazines: Time; Fortune; Life; Sports Illustrated; People; Entertainment Weekly; and 26 other magazines, including DC Comics and Mad Magazine. 120 million magazine readers Online Services: America Online (over 22.2 million subscribers); AOL International (4.4 million subscribers in 14 countries, services in seven languages); AOL.com portal; CompuServe Interactive Services; AOL Instant Messenger; AOL Europe; AOL MovieFone; Netscape Communications; Road Runner; and @Home. Music: Warner Music Group: Recording labels include Atlantic Group; Atlantic Jazz; Elektra; Warner Bros. Records; Reprise; Warner/Chappell Music (publishing company); and 47 other labels, including Warner Music International. Retail/Theme Parks/Merchandise: Warner Bros. Studio Stores (stores in over 30 countries); Warner Bros. Recreational Enterprises (owns and operates theme parks); Warner Bros. Consumer Products. TURNER ENTERTAINMENT (cable, sports franchises) Entertainment Stations: TBS Superstation; Cartoon Network; Turner Classic Movies; Cartoon Network in Europe; Cartoon Network in Latin America; TNT; and Cartoon network in Asia/Pacific. Film Production: New Line Cinema; Fine Line Features; Turner Original Productions. Sports: Atlanta Braves; Atlanta Hawks; Atlanta Thrashers; Turner Sports. Other operations: Turner Learning; CNN Newsroom (daily news program for classrooms). So yeah, pretty gross, eh? Wow! For more information, please visit: MediaChannel. Enough on all of that. Now about the dancing girlfriend. We went to Vergo tonight to pick up some much-needed emergency groceries and Eva (who is coming down with sore throat, cough, and nasal stuffiness) seemed to shed her normal cloak of repression and danced all over the store. "Ok," I said, "Just remember that this is the store I visit on an almost daily basis. So don't embarrass me." But who could be embarrassed with her shaking her body around with a smile on her face and smiles on the faces of the people who saw her. She wasn't knocking over anything, just celebrating the fact that it was a Friday. (or so it seemed.) I don't know what possessed her really, but I'm glad that there's that flicker of something in her that shows itself every once in awhile. Who was the stick in the mud this time? Me. I suppose I danced awhile in the canned veggies isle, though Eva would not allow me to buy emergency canned green beans since we have been eating fresh ones for a year and a half now. Back at the house I made dinner and we watched the remaining hours of Ket Net. They have removed our beloved Zorro and replaced it with Skippy, a show from the same era about a kangaroo in Australia. (think Flipper and Lassie but with a kangaroo instead.) No more Zorro! I have almost decided that I should write to complain...we don't even know if he ever told anyone else who he really was? Or what happens to the hacienda when (obviously) the Spanish are no longer ruling California? Ah well. That gives us something to buy in a DVD boxed set someday. IN THE NEWS:
January 25, 2003 : one down
Eva still felt sick today by the time that we ventured out of the apartment. We made it all the way to the tailors to have my brown London pants hemmed only to find it closed. The drizzle and chill not being healthy for Eva's state, we headed back home for an afternoon of warm, reading, and general checking things off our to-do list. Eva had decided early on that I should leave the house for awhile. Not wanting to leave Eva for awhile, I stayed in the house. This led to a Saturday small disagreement that ended in Eva's going over to meet Leila like she said she would, and me going to Del Haize for nothing more than bread fake meat. Why? To prove to myself that I am still making progress and can leave the house. In the evening we asked Leila to come to the Grill House 77 with us and the three of us walked there stopping only for money at Bancob and then on a goldmine of Susan's brand of cigarettes-that-they-no-longer-make at a nacht winkel, of which we all chipped in and bought the entire supply. On at the Grillhouse we settled in for a long night that included delicious witloaf soup, of which I was skeptical, and stoofvlees that I declared "van de hemal." We stayed longer than anyone else and I attempted to get Leila to come over to our house to continue in our visits. I pleaded in both Dutch and English trying to entice her with both beers "with her name on it", cake, and a fast internet connection (joke). Though we live directly across the street (and a bit to the right) of their house, though we can wave at each other from our bay windows, we rarely ever see each other. Tonight she seemed more like the Leila I met almost 5 years ago and I so wanted it to continue...but off she went to a book she'd been meaning to read and Eva and I went off to continuing what we had postponed only for dinner. Somehow during my stay on the computer I managed to convince myself that I should find my friend Heather Clark on the internet...no matter what it took. Since we're going to be in her area (Denver) for perhaps an evening (the night before we head back to Belgium) I figured I should try to get in touch with her. Of course it would be easier if Eva and I just hung out by ourselves and rested after such an exhausting trip, but I figured I should do it for some reason. Hunt her down. The perplexity in this situation is a little more obvious once you know the story, but Heather is a classic case of friend-from-a-long-time-ago and maybe now we-have-nothing-in-common-but-that-past. To heap on even more doubt/less-in-common she's from my God-fearing days. I wasn't thinking about any of this during the process of finding her. And as I am usually pretty successful in my queries, I did track her down with both her work email (she's a librarian at a seminary in Denver) and her home number. I had already called nearly every Clark in Loveland (her hometown) only to have her tell me later that her parents moved and she moved as well. (I had been assuming that was the case since I had gone through every mapped address of every Clark in Loveland and none of the dots on the map were in the location of where I knew her parents to live.) Regardless, I found her at almost 4 in the morning. I called her then and said, "You don't happen to be Heather Clark, do you? You didn't happen to go to university in Missouri, did you? You didn't happen to student teach..." And sure enough, there she was on the other end of the line. We made rough promises to get together for coffee or something when we rolled into Denver for our last night in the States. She was sort of rushed because she had guests over, and then I became sort of rushed because I started worrying to myself. After the phone-call I wrote a lengthy email that I thankfully didn't send. The most to-the-point part was this paragraph: So I didn't send it, and maybe I won't. It got me started thinking about all sorts of strange people who have popped in and out of my life. I also started a search to find another couple of which I saw mention of, one of his poems, but nothing direct and no phone number. But back to Heather. I really want to see her. I climbed into bed and Eva less than attentively listened to my mental ordeal. It's like this, Eva mumbled, "Two girls go into a dress shop and see a beautiful red dress. It fits each of them perfectly. It is a brilliant color and fit. They both agree that this is the most amazing dress. One buys the red dress and the other settles on a blue one. The first can't believe that the other ended up buying the red dress, and for the rest of their life will always say that, though she thinks she looks ok in the blue one, the red one was much better. And the one who bought the blue dress actually feels better in the blue than she would have ever felt in the red." No kidding! at four in the morning that is the scenario Eva came up with, and with that settling with thud of understanding in my head, I too rolled over and went to sleep, her having already forgotten what it was she told me. Eva's a keeper. She may go to sleep when I want to talk, but for those wee moments of alertness, she has the mental sharpness and insightfullness of not only a politician, but a lawyer, a southern baptist preacher, and a midwife spinning 16th century fairytales. (the baptist and midwife bit were for a twist of humor for two distinct parties) IN THE NEWS:
January 26, 2003 : repeat
Repeat of Saturday simply with new date on the calendar, new name for day of week, no shops for me to have-to-get-out to, and repeat small squabble that I can't remember. For the most part I worked on my own, Eva worked on her thesis, and then I walked around outside for a bit listening to the radio before coming home and getting fries at De Witte. So early, actually, that we were the second people in line and we had our fries in no time. Oh no, I remember now (see how silly our weekend squabbles can be?!?) the disagreement began over a photo/film not taken. We watched some people moving out of their apartment this morning only to watch the new tenant pull direction in the the spot the former tenants just left. It was sort of strange. Sure enough, directly across from us the man started painting (is still painting now) and I thought it would be dead-cool if we went over and took a picture of our house from over there. Furthermore I thought it would be cool for one of us to stay there and film the other in our own house. Well needless to say it didn't pan out. Eva told me at the lat moment that she wanted me to ask they guy and I couldn't believe the had the never to request such a thing. As I mentioned earlier, things soon went back to normal and I continued to email some of the people I have been meaning to email for weeks on end and eva went back to thesising. She's almost through with it's spelling and grammar fixes and it looks more like what she would have handed in if she hadn't done the last bit in such a rush back in 2000. It's actually quite splendid. I'm ever impressed with her. And then on top of that I lay in bed sometimes just thinking of the fact that she can describe one situation/event in more than one language. That, to me, is such an amazing concept...yes, still...still an amazing concept after having language gurus around me for over a year now. One funny thing to note, is that last week I gave Agnes, one of my fellow transmedians, one of the female pee-standing-up packets that we had. They are the most amazing things to use, and I had her promise to send us the results. Her results? Hysterical. She said she first tried it in the toilet and laughed the entire time and then convinced her boyfriend to come out to the woods with her to see who could pee the furthest. Now she's just waiting for it to snow, so she can write her name. :) IN THE NEWS:
January 27, 2003 : dutch take 2
Over the weekend I received a forward from Kathleen for Women agains War. She mailed it to several dozen of her friends/family, and today someone wrote back her comments about it. (She's pro-war.) Thinking this an exciting opportunity to hear what other people think back in the States (since the feeling among our friends here is pretty standard) I wrote back my comments, and then another person wrote her's, and so on and so forth. I would like to think that several more would write theirs, but one can imagine that forwards and replies to forwards most likely get removed. I headed to Hoboken at 6 this evening, first a tram, then a bus (because I missed my tram) only to get to school to find out that our class starts tomorrow. (no explanation given) There I was with my bag neatly packed with 101 Dutch Verbs, mijn Nederlands/Engels dictionary, and my trusty notebook coming home 3 hours earlier than planned. So on the same tram pass I had just bought a half hour previously I trudged back to our house to a very happy Eva (happy because we didn't have to start our weekly Monday and Tuesday night absenses tonight but tomorrow night). We should have watched Inspector Morse, as it'll become something hard to fit in once I start school, but instead we retreated to bed at a late hour, each to our own respective books. (yes of course I'm still reading War and Peace...one page at a time!) IN THE NEWS:
January 28, 2003 : dutch take two (take two) and snow
My day was uneventful, but my evening less-so. Since my classes started this evening, I was ready by 5 though I didn't have to leave until 6. At about 5:30, the sky was already pitch black (a storm was brewing) and what do you know, it's starts to snow. I'm using the term "snow" loosely, as it was hailing, sleeting, snow-pelleting. I called Eva, "It's a regular ol' blizzard in Antwerp right now!" and since it was doing nothing of the sort in Mechelen (it did similar precipitation as she was leaving work) I took pictures. Don't laugh, but I also took a video of it. It was my first "real snow" in Antwerp. I suppose it wasn't really real but it was enough to make me extremely happy for about a half hour. It certainly wasn't the peaceful white stuff that meanders down from the sky, but it qualified, as I imagine is possibly the only snow I'll see in Antwerp. My first year hear saw it only snowing here when we were back in the States for Christmas. And this year has been mildly disappointing since we've had bitter cold spells but no white-stuff. I had even decided that if it kept on, I wasn't going to go to school. Nothing like sitting at watching it out the window, watching it collect on car hoods and poor souls (and happy kids) trudging through it on the sidewalk. I daresay watching from my window here was almost as satisfying as sitting with my mother in our dark dining room watching it fall on our back deck. We used to sit like that for hours. We'd turn on the porch-light and try to make guesses about if there'd be school the next day or not. We'd certainly always say, "if it does this all night..." Just like I repeated this evening. Well it died out. I turned to drizzle slush and I headed on to school repeating the same path I did 24 hours earlier. When my first tram was heading in to meet my second tram I saw that my second tram was already approaching, and I risked my life (crossing traffic) to make it, running down the tram platform to the last door, pressing the button, only to watch as the button pulled away from my finger--those already in the tram watching me from the inside. "Shit!" I yelled, and I turned around to the bus-stop where several people were standing there watching me, shaking their head in empathy/sympathy. What regular ol' tram rider in Antwerp hasn't had the exact same experience? I joined them at the bus-stop and tallied up how late I was going to be. 15 minutes later I was at the school, 10 minutes late. My class is in a different building this year. I climbed the stairs and made my way down a hallway packed with people. "we're here for english classes" one of them said, "if you're here for Nederlands, your class is in there." Sure enough, I could see my teacher from last year inside with a small group of students, already hard at work. I opened the door and was glad I had made the effort to come to school. It was already the environment I remembered. I took a seat by the window and started in on our first in-class assignment, 10 sentences in Dutch about ourselves...no mention of name or nationality. If I am verbose in journal writing, i was just as verbose today when writing out my 10 sentences. I found it pretty easy to come up with 10 sentences. We then traded papers and read ours aloud. I ended up with a paper from someone who had previously written in a completely different letter structure--a right to left. It was hard to read, even with my teacher standing over me, she too muttered "ik weet het neit" at a few of the sentences. At the end, however, I had managed to figure out who had written mine. He had written that he didnt' wear glasses, had a small beard, and was wearing a black jacket. I pointed him out and he grinned a good-natured smile. I still don't know what this teacher does that is so different than any class I've ever had before. I feel like a 6 year old with a good teacher that makes going to school for 8 hours (instead of kindergarten half-days) exciting. She's like the adult version of KetNet. Non condecending, jovial, makes us work on our pronunciation, and is patient with the guy from Tiawaan who seemingly was always falling asleep tonight. And I was impressed with my fellow students. Two of them had only lived in Belgium for 6 months and were already in their second Dutch class. The rest of us were the basic; one asian, one american (me), one former eastern-block (I think Polish), 3 Turks, and 2 Moroccans. 5 men and 3 women. We worked in groups, we worked alone, we asked questions, we wrote things down in our notebooks...a genuine fun time. Oh please, please, Andrea...make this work this time around. And there is something like a teacher like her, and a roomfull of students as good-natured as these seem to be, that makes me want to go...that makes me regret that I'm missing next Monday and Tuesday to go to the states. Already I can tell it's going to be a fun half-year. We laughed about new words, the belgain 4-seasons-in-a-day weather, and Belgian beer. The Polish girl couldn't believe that one of the guys from Morrocco didn't drink alcohol. "No whiskey? No vodka? No alcohol at all?" Her eyes were wide and she shook her head. He's muslim. After school was out we all headed to the tram stop, and as there is usually one waiting, there wasn't this time. When the sun goes down in Antwerp the trams become few and far between. The light showed that it was a 12+ minute wait and so I opted to trek the entire length of this leg of my journey down to catch my other tram. On tram it's only a 5 minute ride. On foot it's seemingly closer to a 15-20 minute walk. I plugged in my headphones to my phone/radio and started walking. Before I left I noticed the Morroccan girl from my class coming up to the tram stop. In class she was this boisterous everyday looking girl, and though I imagine she was just as excitable outside of the classroom, she had put on a head-scarf. I couldn't believe it. I will try to remember to pay attention next time...to see if just maybe she thought her ears were cold tonight or something. I thought it bizzare. It reminded me of a story Jessica told us. That one time she was on a train and watched 3 head-scarved women get on the train and go directly to the bathroom where they all took off their scarves, fluffed up their hair, applied all the appropriate makeup, and readied themselves for a night on the town. I suppose it's no different than my hiding my smoky bar-clothes at my parents house or my former co-worker Megan always spraying Febreeze in her car after a cigarette. We do what we have to do. If I hadn't walked I would have missed my second tram. Which means I would have been stuck there for an additional 15 minutes. I think my schedule is going to be pretty jarring on Monday and Tuesday evenings. I suppose I could attempt to drive the scooter, but going that distance at night doesn't sound too promising. By the time I got home Eva was starving (she had decided to wait for me to eat) and it was really late. I whipped up pork, rice, and steamed veggies burritoes (they just might have been the best thing I've ever made) and as the clock struck 11 we were just settling down for dinner. "I don't think this is going to work." Eva said, "I'm going to have to start making dinner on Mondays and Tuesdays and then reheat it when you get home." It seems like this might be the only possible solution. Eva scrunched up her nose at the possibility, as she now insists that she can't really cook. I do know one thing, however, that it won't be bio-pumpkin soup every monday and tuesday or pasta with egg and bacon-fat-bits. I actually can't wait to see what she'll come up with. My guess is spagetti, hamburgers, soups, pastas, salads...I dont' think she'll have a problem. IN THE NEWS: ALSO IN THE NEWS:
January 29, 2003 : searching for Alice
Today was a great day. I should, yet again, choose a song for the occasion but one doesn't come to mind. Last night I got a heartfelt reply to the email I sent to my newly-refound friend Heather letting me know that I'm "stuck with having her as a friend". And for that I'm extremely pleased. I would venture to guess that I already had assumed that in my mind, but it was great to see it in black and white. (though her reply was in purple for some reason) Since I had had such great results looking for her, I decided to give it a shot in trying to find a few other people on my "People I am hunting for" list, namely Will Manning and Alice Matkowski. Will is my best friend from high school, a steadfast friend who I daresay will always be someone I can chat it up with whenever we meet. I've lost him now for two years, and I'm dying to know what he's up to. I could just call his mom, but I don't want to. I want to find him on my own accord. Besides, I like finding out about people and give them the option of trying to find me. (so simple since my name is my domain name!) I found his email address on the UMKC theater department website, and I shot him an email and called the head of the department (leaving a message) asking her to please tell Will Manning to not only check his email but to get in touch with his lost friend Andrea. I don't know if the message will get to him, but if the email address is still active, it should. Then I moved on to Alice. Alice is from my my Southwest Baptist days. A total gem of a person, and those that know her should feel priveledged to know her. She too lived in the our blessed Memorial Hall and we shared many a night of conversation and random dropping-by-dorm-room chats. She once said something very special to me that I'm sure she has no idea meant so much. "Andrea," she said, "I'm glad to have known you, because you're the only gay person I've really gotten to know...and now gay people aren't just nameless, horrible people anymore, they are just normal people like you." I'm paraphrasing, and I doubt she said "horrible" but the point is, the word was now associated with a friend, which always makes it better in the long run. I tracked her down by landing on her brother's website. I emailed him but got a bounce-back, so then I emailed someone else whose website I was taken to via her brother's site. This turned out to be another brother who emailed me back to let me know that he emailed the first brother and eventually I should be able to get in touch with Alice. The first brother emailed me back and said that he forwarded my email on to her and that I should be hearing from her soon. I shall wait and see. The afternoon saw me dawning the appropriate apparel and heading into town. I stopped for Euros and walked into town listening to my radio/phone. I'm always sort of embarassed that my phone has a radio. I don't want people to think that I've got my earplugs in as if I'm waiting for an important call or that I'm listening to my voicemail over and over again. I know it's silly, but I can't help it. I change the channels secretly and bury the phone in my pocket. But really, it's cool to have a phone/radio. Why dont' all phones come with one? It's so much easier than lugging a bulky CD player around... During my walk the sun peeked out from behind the clouds and blinded us all. Since we are so used to dismal grey, it seemed as if this light was brighter than anything we had ever known. I dont' know when I started doing this, but for as long as I can remember I always look straight into light like this and smile my biggest smile just to show my appreciation. It's like a "thank you sun" sort of gesture. I walked to the library and returned a book, paid my late fee, and then walked over to Airstop to pick up our tickets to NYC. After accomplishing the two things I wanted to accomplish, I headed to the Meir to do some window-shopping. At WE (a store) I found the perfect pair of semi-corderoy pants in size 44. I tried them on (I knew they wouldn't fit, but thought I'd give it a go anyway) and of course they were too small. No room for thigh and no room for belly/butt. After that I went directly to Panos for a worstenbroodje just because. Since I have decided to stop buying my favorite half-heat-yourself baguettes the only thing I had eaten today was a yogurt. And since I can't fit into Belgian pants anyway, I figured I'd treat myself to a sausage-filled pastry. (poetic justice) On down the Meir I went into H & M. They have a few sale areas still going full force and I found all sorts of perfect pants up to size 44. Above the rack it listed the various sizes according to small, medium, large, and extra-large. It showed that XL was equivalent to 44-46. I thought sure this meant that they did, in fact, have size 46. Having fingered half of the stock of pants, I decided that today, in my high-selfesteemed able-to-laugh-at-oneself self, I would ask. "Ik heb een vraag," I started, and then continued, "but now I'm going to switch to English..." The store-worker thought this was funny and listened to me relay my story about pants. She shook her head. We only go up to size 44. There is that section over there...and she pointed to the Big, Bold, and Beautiful section. "Oh no..."I said, "not over there!" "But surely you aren't size 64..." she said. She kept mixing up the 46 with 64 because in Dutch one says 6 and 40 to make 46. I knew she was having that problem, and I new she knew that I hadn't said and wasn't a size 64. "Oh yes I am...if not a 48!" "I would even buy ugly pants if I could find a pair that fit me here," I went on, "I would throw a party to celebrate the first pair of H&M pants that fit me! So what you're telling me is that I have to shop 'over there'...over in the Big and Bold and totally Beautiful..." "I'm afraid so..." she said. I didnt' want to linger around the size 44 area anymore, and I sure as hell wasn't going into the elastic waistband area, so once again I am on the cusp of big and small. I should either just go on out and get big or starve (not starve, ok?) myself to smaller. I then went to Fnac, looked at their highly overpriced MP3 players, went to Kruitvat for deodorant, contact lense solution, and mouthwash, and on down to the grocery store where I bought random items for tonights dinner with Joris (he's coming over to study for exams) and managed to try my Dutch on a wide range of individuals in the store. (one guy asked me if I thought the cucumbers were 'per stuk' to which I said that I thought they were...and then I asked a lady how much the snap peas were...to which she found out they were 1.98. Then I also asked a guy if he had left his 'paraplu' in the drink area to which he replied, 'no, but thanks.') Back at the ranch (studio apartment) I came home to find out I have another phone interview on Friday with the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Of course it doesn't mean that I have any certain guarantee that I'm going to be offered a job, but it sure as hell is good for the ol' confidence. I've at least made it past the initial round in 3 out of 8 or so mailings. Not too shabby for a girl without teaching experience who never returns any of the ever-present equal opportunity forms one is "requested to fill out and return". You know I would if they didn't always include a self-addressed "stamped" envelope which isn't "stamped" if you are sending it from here. It just seems like a big bother to have to mark [X] female, [X] White, [X] No, I'm not a veteran, [X] No, I'm not a spouse of a vetern, [X] No, I dont' have a mental or physical disability...etc. I suppose I dont' like the fact that this is a part of the pre-employment inquiry (as they call it). I'll fill it out if I am going to be pre-employed...but not before. Is this a poor reaction? So tonight I picked up Eva on the scooter and we went to get gas only to have our scooter not start after we had filled it up. (I think we flooded it from trying) When we finally got it to start we promised it that we would give it oil when we got home and promptly upon our return we fed it oil, in which it drank whole-heartedly. We then apologized to it and promised to be more sensitive to it's wants/needs and thanked it for it's adding a new dimention to our lives here in Antwerp and for it's surpassing all expectations that the mechanic had told us. I made dinner for the three of us and we listened to snippets from President Bush's State of the Union address. After we agreed that it was almost unbarable to listen to (Eva's cries of "that's bullshit!") we switched it over to BBC 7. Ah blessed humor in times of crisis. After a scrumtious dinner of beefy thai, red curry sauce, veggies and rice, we each went about our own business. Joris studied, Eva wrote letters/proofed her thesis, and I worked on the Missouri Southern art department website. By the end of the evening all of us were pleased with the progress we made, especially me, because I've managed to make a homepage I feel is one of the best I've ever made. Is that bragging? no! I'm simply really pleased with it, and I hope that Bob (the person on the school end) is as pleased with it as I am. The two of us have gone back and forth about what the page should look like and who the target audience is. I think this is a nice comprimise leaning more in the direction of my tastes, but that's the liberty I took. So, no news from Alice as of bedtime, but I think I can safely say that I can check her off the list of "people I am hunting for." Not too bad, eh? Two/Three in one week? Gotta love technology. IN THE NEWS:
January 30, 2003 : snow again.
Oh yeah, it snowed again today. I was busy writing Alice (because I did manage to get in touch with her) and had to pause to simply sit in front of the window and watch it snow. I watched for an hour or two, just drinking a couple of cups of coffee and watching the flakes pass in front of the window. The apartment directly across from me (not the apartment with the new renters who have consequently painted their entire livingroom dark red with bright green curtains) had a little boy standing with his mother doing much the same as me. Just staring. I waved to them and smiled, and the boy was too engrossed with the flakes to wave back, but the mother smiled back. I imagine a kid who is only two or so doesn't really know what to make of snow. Since it doesn't snow very often I imagine it was quite a treat. It didn't linger long as was gone by mid afternoon, with only car tops and hoods keeping the remaining snow and a few corners tucked in shade and out of the way of people on foot, bike, car, and bus. And of course, here's a picture. IN THE NEWS: Thank god. I'm a product of Title IX as I had the opportunity to play volleyball, basketball, track and softball in jr. high and high school and had the opportunity to play 2 years of collegiate soccer and one year as a basketball walk-on. Not only are sports great esteem-boosters for girls/women (a proven fact) it just does a world of good.
January 31, 2003 : preparations
I neglected to mention that yesterday I had a phone interview with Shippensburg University. They merely asked me 4 questions before heading off to their various classes. Though I never know what to expect as a result of an interview, I felt it went really well. I suppose it doesnt really matter what the outcome is, as long as I feel that I did my best. Today I spent most of the day hemming my London brown pants. We had meant to get them done by a professional, but since they are the sole "nice" pair of pants I currently own, I had to hem them myself. I even did the double tuck and hem, not merely the cut off and tuck under once. The brown of the thread is a little off, but they look great. I emailed Eva and said, "your'e going to be proud/shocked at what I did today...and no it's not laundry." I also told her that what I had done had crippled me and inhibited my typing skills. And that was an understatment completely, as my left hand isn't used to such motion of the wrist and my index and thum aren't used to having to push and pull needles and thread. Eva and I have many a time commented on where/what we'd be if we were living several hundred years back. Usually it is in reference to our poor sight, that we'd have to do something that didn't require accuracy at great lengths. (I suppose not much really does save army work) Well maybe I'd have been a seemstress. Actually I'd have probably been a housewife managing kids, house and garden, or a shopkeepers wife doing much of the same, or a whore. What else was there? A basketweaver perhaps? Or maybe a plain ol' weaver? :) I picked Eva up at the station and we came home, deposited her things and then headed to Merksem on the tram. We had a whole assortment of "gifts from Belgium" to send which basically meant beer for Allie and Julie, chocolates for Laramie folk, dark chocolate for Heather and a couple of notebooks for Heather as well...in an effort to get her writing again. We came home just in time for me to get settled in for another phone interview, this one with the University of Missouri-St. Louis. I made Eva lock herself in the bathroom with the radio on and take a shower so she couldnt' hear me. It too went well, not as well as the other two, but after I got over the fact that somewhere in St. Louis there was a group of people hovering around a speakerphone it went well. Once again, I don't know what to expect from such conversations, but I'm always happy to do them. They did, however, manage to stump me. Which did I think was more important, new media or print media. I started off saying new media, but after I thought about it (it's hard to give yourself time to think when you know people are staring at a speaker) I changed my mind to slant more towards print. Print is tangible, www is not. Print is for the masses, video installations aren't. I hope they understood my point of digression. We've already done the usual last-minute panic, and Eva's already in bed. We gathered all of our things together, sorted out how many Euros we can spend down to the Euro cent, and I've managed to burn my current transmedia/portfolio on CD, checked out what time we have to be at the trainstation, packed our check-luggage and carry-ons, and now am burning the wee bit of time I have to sleep by writing this last-minute entry. I suppose I should also record the fact that the two of us pranced around the bedroom trying on outfits that would be suitable for our various meetings in Laramie. I'm a bit on the casual side, myself, but I swear I'd rather look slightly underdressed than feel like a bafoon in dress attire. It's always good to feel comfortable in your clothes...it makes you more comfortable in your skin. So there we have it. We're headed to NYC via Amsterdam tomorrow, and leaving from Brussels. As I have nearly always been in the habit of writing a small handwritten will before I ever leave on such long air journeys, I shall now proceed to make another. They used to be more specific when I had items I felt were of much worth. Noteably my ring of two people holding, and a necklace I used to wear but no longer do. The ring, I suppose (which is on one of our bookshelves, tarnishing) should go to Kathleen. My websites/domain names to Bobbie and Erin. My money (which is next to none) should cover the cost for a few people to come over and sit around in the small studio to visit over Belgian raspberry beers. A copy of my journal should go to my parents. My geo metro which is stateside...may it always keep running over the backroads of Missouri. I suppose if there was anything Eva and I would like to do together, if there is any money that we do have (I do have a rotting 401k) I suppose it should be used to set up some sort of fundage to help some American kid that wants to be an exchange student but cant afford it. The three gnombes that are sitting in our livingroom go to Bobbie and Erin, Kelly and Kurt, and Kathleen and Rochelle. Jessica and Eric can have our bright orange curtains, our digital camera, my raggedy anne blanket, our gigantic bottle of champagne, and should get 20 Euros worth of knorr pumpkin and tomato soup. Susan (from Kansas) should get the candle by the plant. Joris should get our crank battery-less radio and free driving lessons out of the kindness of someone's heart. Lisa can have our overly large tent and sleeping bags, and Tom and Ilse can have all of our coffee mugs and our domino set. I think that about covers it. Please dont' think this is a morbid affair. It has nothing to do with the state of the world or our destination. It's just something I started (it used to be more secret of course) way backk when I first took flight. We humans aren't supposed to be hurling ourselves at 400 mph miles above the earth anyway. It's just not natural. :) IN THE NEWS: |
. But this
they use something else. When Eva begins her math tutoring I'll inquire more about it.