Facebook bullocks.

Facebook account has been deleted by the censorship board. Going to Amsterdam now for Queen's day :D See y'all soon.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

Yesterday was weird. I ended up sitting on the roof landing on Mark's balcony with his neighbour in my underpants trying to get a tan. When I was going to go off, I couldn't find my keys and iPod. I'd left them on the table when I took off my pants before I got on the roof. I hunted for them everywhere but couldn't find them. Then Mark made me sit down for awhile and asked me to calm down and browse through his music while he looked for it. At some point I got this bizarre feeling he was playing some kind of weird joke on me, or keep my stuff to get me to come back or something. I can't assume I know what his motives were, or that it wasn't a genuine mistake, but when he found my stuff, it was in a corner of the flat I'd never gone near. I didn't get it at all. He says he was genuinely being muddle headed, but somehow I just don't believe him.

Anyway! It's Queen's night tomorrow, I'll be heading out with Ruiter for a big party. We were out last week when he got a call from someone saying they were from the "Organization of the desperate pigs". He thought it was a joke at first, but it turns out that they want him to do an infographic with their data on how the welfare of farmed pigs have improved over the last decades. Ruiter says he's too damn busy, but I told him I'd help him with it, if he'd do the consulting. I'm going to try and push for it. It'll be nice to 'get out there'.

I finally booked the trip to Balogna. I fucked it up the first time around, so I now have two bookings. What an idiot! Luckily tickets are 3 Euros from Brussels to Balogna. It's the coach from Amsterdam to Brussels that's expensive. Kind of. Somehow I always manage to fuck my travel bookings up. I don't know why. I always fuck any sort of administrative stuff up. I've never been any good at filing and keeping dates in my head and all of that, I just can't. It's a wonder. I'm so good at some things and so miserably useless at others. :(

Fear or Laziness.

First proper workout in ages. As opposed to running around the city at a leisurely pace. I don't feel all that out of shape, but weeks of drinking far too much has done its damage on my strength. It's quite amazing what a little bit of intense exercise can make you see. For example, the first thing I realized was that I am bullshitting myself if I continue to think things will work out if I slosh on at this pace.

To be brutally honest to myself, I feel I've been giving me far too many excuses to be lazy. I know what I want to do, and I really need to do it, one thing at a time. Usually, guys don't say jackshit when they come. Maybe they make a face, or say my name, or slap me int he face if I slap them first, but there was just this once where Mr. X whispered right after we made love, "you think the prison is without, but it's in you."

I wasn't offended, I just felt slightly afraid. If, and when, we fail, I know it to be all of our own making. All attractive women can't help but use their charms sometimes to make their life easier, I do it all the time, I can't help it. I mean, of course I don't waste my time on men that I feel don't contribute anything to the way I think and see the world etc. But somewhere inside I'm shit scared of falling into that trap. You know. The one where an intelligent, beautiful girl with loads of potential becomes an ordinary, ordinary woman. *Shudder* I cannot stand laziness, and I cannot stand falling short, and I cannot stand being deluded... and I cannot stand it when I see these thing glimmering in myself.

Fucking nerds.

One of the more peculiar meet-ups so far was with Devlyn, from this forum I used to frequent when I was 15 and obsessed with The Wheel of Time. In case you're wondering, I stopped at Winter's Heart. He found me on okCupid after I had left the forum 6 years ago.

I think since the turn of the century, nerds have become better and better looking. Most of the ones I know are cute, although something can still be said for their social skills, sometimes. But I don't have a problem with that, in fact I find it kind of cute. Most-times.

I thought Devlyn was pretty (nice curly hair, big eyes :-O) and fit. He's also working on a pHD on the simulation of the present universe, within a large margin of error. Maybe I find topics I understand nothing about fascinating because it's so far out there for me I can't really tell what's theory based on sanity and what's fiction made to look like fact. Does that make sense?

It was funny to meet him. It was a lot of laughs (I think I'm funnier with people I don't know that well because I actually make an effort to say more bullshit than usual) but it was also funny because that forum (called fantasy-freak of all things...) was where I spent most of my free time during that part of my life, so I reckon it had some effect on the growing up process. I was really involved in it, everyone in it was. It was one of those forums people met other people on and got into relationships with. Some even got married.

I actually quite liked talking about all these people I hadn't met (that Devlyn had) but felt like I knew. I remember quite a few of them. Like the guy that was perpetually stoned who was probably never laid (he must have gotten laid by now...) and other assorted weirdos.

Then there was the fantasy-freak journal. Oh my god. It was my idea. There were a few artsy/crafty people on the site right, and this was a decade ago when the world wasn't as 'small' as it is now (it definitely seemed a lot bigger to me especially since I was fucking 15 years old). So I had this idea to send 'round this journal to everyone on the forum, and everyone could put something in it. Just for fun, so we would feel somehow more connected. Whatever. I thought it was a sweet idea.

At some point, it got lost in Holland. Ugh. The Dutch. So organized, yet so not. It went all around from Singapore, to Down Under to god knows where, and it got stuck in Holland with the forum admins. I asked D about it and he said it was still with the couple that used to run the site. I guess I'll meet them someday soon.

Ah, small world :o) No more LOTR extended version for me. I think my head's spinning after 12 hours in 2 days, including bonus CDs and all. -_-"

A Chance in Spring

Today is the first real day of spring. I think it's absolutely wonderful, I'd forgotten how much I missed experiencing the changing seasons. I've been living with Dan for three-ish weeks already. It's funny how well we're getting along, and I wonder what will happen when his parents come visit and I start traveling. Somewhere deep in the recesses of my imagination, I'm harbouring thoughts of genuinely wanting to develop this relationship further. I don't know why, it just feels like it'll be worth it. The fact that he's poly-amourous and shared the same sentiment as I do about multiple partners probably has something to do with making me more open to the idea. To other people it might seem like an unwillingness to commit, perhaps it is that, but from my vantage point, I see it as being able to let go of a petty, negative feeling. But I won't go on about it.

We went for a walk on the beach, and hung out at one of the seasonal bars, attempting to get a semblance of a tan. He met one of his colleagues there that mentioned a job managing the photodesk of the organization he works for in New York. After that, while we were walking back, he asked me of I'd come to New York with him. I know it was only half serious, and anyway, even if he were to do it, it's still a year or two away, and many things can change in a few months. But I thought it was funny how quickly he was, and I was, starting to entertain such thoughts.

I always have a good measure of skepticism towards these things not because I'm afraid of having my heart broken or anything like that, I mean, your heart can get broken by someone there was not ever a chance of anything beyond sex after midnight and home before dawn; so that's not the point. I'm skeptical because you can't predict what's going to happen, and even though there are ways of guiding you life the way you want it to go, I'd say half of it was still due to chance and fate.

PITA.

Ugh the figuring out my legal situation is becoming a pain in the ass. The self-employment thing is a total catch-22. I need a work permit, in order to get a work permit, I need a residence permit. I can get one if I register as a self-employed person. In order to get registered, I need to prove my income, in order to prove my income I need to file VAT, in order to file VAT I need to be working, legally, in Holland. In order to be working legally here, I need a work permit. Right. I guess this means I need to find a real job, which is just about impossible in 2 months, in this economic climate.

My other plan is to try and find an artist residency in Europe. That might work. 

I'll Wear Your Clothes to Sleep, Baby.

A few nights ago I left my black silk cardigan at Mark's place after I stopped by for one more drink before I headed home. I went by last night to retrieve it, and also to say hi to Mark because he's a nice guy and for some reason seems to like me a lot for the same reason other guys tend to like me a lot (Apparently the combination of sexy and geeky is a good dating strategy).

His neighbour was there when I turned up. They're both arty, stoner types, so I felt quite at home. They immediately launched into a discussion of ancient Mayan temples, of which believe me, I have no clue. Only that they predict the world would end in 2012, if I remember my movie advertising correctly.

All the time I was there initially, I was looking for my cardigan. I could have just asked, but the guys were really into whatever they were talking about that I couldn't be bothered. Plus, I was also trying to see if I could find it myself in the mess. I finally saw it poking out from under the sheets on the chaise lounge. I thought to myself, "That's weird, if it's there, and it's got all this other random sheets and things piled on it where did he sleep then?" Then it occurred to me that maybe he'd slept on the cardigan. He did admit that he liked the smell of my fabric softener. Only I hadn't washed that cardigan for months. God knows.

His neighbour left and then he made the admission that he'd slept on the cardigan. I told him I guessed it. Then he told me he'd let two other people smell it. I was really surprised. It's kinda flattering, in a really weird, wtf way. But hey, I'm one to say. I've did steal this t-shirt from this guy once; we were at a small party and he was kinda cute and (I had a suspicion) gay, and really fucking funny, and it was a little chilly at the party so I borrowed his shirt and basically never returned it. And when I had the shirt, every time I worse it, I'd think about him. It smelled good too. I used to have this whole vast collection of shirts I'd taken from men I'd had something for. They're all at the parentals now. My sister wears them to sleep too. So what Mark did was a bit weird, but I get it. You know. :P

Psycho-child Strikes Again!

(The band is called the Must-Haves)

I had loads of fun shooting the video yesterday. (It was shot in this bar called the Supermarkt down at the Grote Markt) It was a little awful at the time, with the piles of make-up on my face, scratchy wigs and far too little clothing for how chilly it got at points; plus the fact that everything started at 10 a.m. and wrapped just before midnight. But it was so worth it. The band members + makeup girls were such lovely, high-energy people. They were always cheerful, and most importantly, they didn't dick around on set. I've been in a hell lot of shoots where there was plenty of dicking around... and before you know it, it's 3 in the morning and I'm really reconsidering the wisdom of my actions for somehow ending up on set with a bunch of irritating half-wits.

In case you're wondering, I didn't get to spit whiskey in the lead singer's mouth (too complicated, not enough time), but I did get the opportunity to try and attempt a kiss. All through-out the shoot, I harboured a suspicion that Dan had somehow been inspired by the whole MGM saga. My part in the video, which involved four outlandish costume changes, (One with a blonde wig and blue lips, another with a red wig and me in a large shirt turned into a dress that still looked like a sheet no matter how I wore it) involved multiple versions of me in the bar attempting to grab the lead singer's attention. From drinking his whiskey to pulling his hair and dumping his guitar on the ground. It was a story of un-reciprocated love and one very frustrated psycho child.

I was telling everyone how this would basically be the number nth film where someone requested I play the role of psycho child. Either people look at me and think "Perfect for psycho child role!" or they offer me a role and I interpret whatever it is into the psycho child role once again. That said, I actually love playing psycho child role. I don't have many years left on me where I can still attempt this role, so I best make the most of them I guess :P

Around 8pm a bunch of extras showed up and there was this girl who arrived with her chihuahua. She started flirting with Dan while he was working. He got annoyed, ignored her, and then said to her (when she still persisted in her attempts) "I'm too old for you". Great line. Some girls unfortunately find that sort of statement a challenge and a turn-on, so I don't know if it was the best thing to say to get rid of a chick.

I'll try and post some stills later. There's all this images I need to get up, but most of them need to be processed first. And unfortunately there is no way in hell you'll ever get to see pics of Rochelle, so a great deal of photos from that night won't be coming up I'm afraid :-/

We're all Professionals.

Rochelle made it down yesterday for her shoot. She was all ill when she arrived, but after putting on her gear (which included a killer corset and a pair of ankle breaking platform heels), her health seemed to take a turn for the better. Perhaps there's something to be said for making yourself look fabulous as a way to stop feeling sick and ready to roll.

Dan is making a book of a seemingly random collection of photos that includes naked hot girls with too much eye-makeup, shots of abandoned architecture (or something to that effect) and massive crowds of people in all states of ecstasy (rock concerts and such). A month ago he'd asked Rochelle if she'd like to model for him, and she said she'd do it, if he also made her pictures she could use for her fetish modeling portfolio.


I have no idea what my part was to be in all of this, but Dan asked me to go put on the one piece of lingerie I brought here (a luxury on economy baggage allowance, I really couldn't afford that extra few grams), a pile of makeup and my scarlet heels and join them. So I did. There were some nice fun shots I'll post later as long as R's face isn't in them because she's planning on being a world renowned -insert respectable occupation here- whereas I'm planning to stick to my path of insanity as a means to reach ever greater artistic heights... so photos that are good for my reputation aren't necessarily good for hers.

So we did the typical girl on girl thing. You know. The thing two horny chicks would do to each other, especially if there's a cute guy in the room taking photos of them. In a short amount of time (after enough photos were taken) the camera was abandoned and the hot making-out started.

I have to say it was probably the best threesome ever. Firstly because we were all really comfortable with each other. Similar levels of self-confidence and attractiveness definitely helps. Most of the time, threesomes can get a wee tedious because one other person is usually less secure about her/his self, and I usually feel it in my place to reassure them that they're great. Or something. Wtf, I just want to do what I want to do when I'm having sex, not worrying about someone's ego. Bah.

Rochelle is probably the best girl I've been with in ages. She was really into it, and she was 100% sober. Dan was great too, for starters, he wasn't pushing the situation in any direction, and he knew what to do. Most guys usually don't know what to do, or feel this overwhelming need to push girls around get them to do stuff. Sometimes that can be fun but not on the first night when three people get together. I mean, hell, sometimes it can get to the point where I want to yell "stop shoving my face into her cunt, maybe I don't like the way it tastes, dude."

I was so turned on watching them. I really enjoyed it. It's kind of peculiar watching someone you're into make out with another girl; One of the things I love about it is seeing how that person can truly enjoy kisses and sex and love with another person. People like to think that their partners can only kiss them or love them or fuck them with a passion exclusive to them, but it's not true. Somewhere out there there is someone else (or several) that he is equally as capable of feeling as passionate about. And I like the feeling of knowing that by seeing it happen. It's fascinating because you see a part of that person that you don't normally see, from a different view, probably with a bit of a twist.

A lot of threesomes I've been in happened because someone thought, what the hell, let's do it for the sake of it. I know I've been guilty of that. But last night just kinda happened because he was attracted to her. I mean, of course these things happen because people are attracted to each other, but a lot of the time, imho, they happen because of the need to have it for the sake of having it, or to force some poor girl into it, or to pleasantly surprise the guy at hand, or because I'm horny and want to have sex with my girlfriend's fuck buddy... and a host of other less noble motivations... well it wasn't like that. They were obviously hot for each other, not just physically, it was a genuine thing, and I liked that.

For some reason I just have this hilarious image in my head where he's eating her out and I'm jilling off beside them and just as I have this massive orgasm which has taken me so long to achieve, I yell "I think this is the beginning of a promising relationship!"

Anti-depressents not good, sense of mounting panic...

I am so fucked. Ugh. Mark gave me one of his anti-depressants and I popped it, against my better judgment, and I feel fucked now. Metaphorically of course, because right now, I can't fuck, due to a mild case of UTI, which was also the reason why Rochelle didn't come down on Tuesday, because she got it first. The cosmic will is opposing this fisting business apparently, and probably with good reason too.

I'm finally getting my ass in gear and working on my website. People keep telling me my work's good, and I'm smart, but really, I don't got no idea where I'm going to go with it. I always feel inadequate, which is not an optimum state of mind if you're to forge on and convince other people you're any good at all. Dear me.

Dan, in a state of temporary insanity asked me if I wanted to be his girlfriend, or something to that effect. It's a jolly good thing he made a disclaimer early on that he doesn't take anything said when drunk and/or in the heat of passion very seriously. Hell, no one's ever asked me to be their girlfriend. Okay, there was one boy, I was 14, and he was trying to get into my pants. Apparently that's how he thought he'd get laid at that age, by promising me commitment. Heh. Obviously he thought wrong. I told Dan we could be partners. Of a sort. In a way. Whatever.

It's been 2 weeks of bumming around now. Dan's great, loads of fun, possibly one of the all round best guys I've dated. He's really tall, sexy and looks like Jesus. Plus he's taught me how to cook and he does funky arty things.

But seriously! I will go bat shit crazy in this town if I don't get a job soon. I like The Hague, my friends are here... But I want to live in Amsterdam or you know. A big fucking European city that stinks of sewers choke full of beer piss and coke after the weekend with strip clubs and big museums and 24/7 clubbing and crazy people on the street. Etc.

However, summer will be here soon and then it's all fucked because every single European (including me) will be hanging out in some field off our tits on a campsite. Lord knows what will get done. :-/ The plan right now is Bologna in May and Berlin late June. So looking forward to seeing Frans, who is this sweet-hearted, hilarious Finn. I will have to do a visa run after that. Dan suggested 'an exotic adventure to Bosnia' (I imagine he was being a little bit sarcastic...) Sounds good to me. It's probably cheap ass from Berlin on some cheap ass 'Central European' airline.

First Pleasant Day.

When I got up this morning, I realized that the tree in the backyard had grown little flower buds. I love having four seasons, although sometimes the chill does get to you. One of my favourite things about Europe is that it has architecture I can sketch.

This one is from the first pleasant day in The Hague, on the Grote Markt.

Suspicious Tram Stop.

I'm the only person I know that can turn a party filled with nerds playing wii into a den of junk come sunrise. Of course most of everybody else wasn't interested so I'm not that good, but I can understand people that refuse a serotonin high. It makes you feel pretty bad several hours later. Most of the feeling of ill comes from exhaustion though. Not enough rest and everything goes wrong. Something a stewardess told me while I was having cold shivers and felt like dying on the plane here from Singers.

By the time I came home, it was 5 the next day. The creepy thing is... I walked a good way because I felt like a walk, before deciding to hop on a tram. After a certain amount of stations had passed, I realized I had in fact taken the tram in the wrong direction, and that I had walked all the way back to the tram stop I had meant to get off at. Just that, things kind of looked different when you get to the stop from a different end of the street. Totally disoriented.

Lounging About.

When the weather's pleasant, I feel glad that it's spring instead of an eternal summer. The synthetic haze of purgatory has lifted, and I'm starting to feel comfortable in my new environment. It's kind of funny to live with a lover again, haven't done that in ages; Dan's been on leave the last 10 days, so we've managed to accomplish nothing much except watch episode after episode of Black Books and Firefly. I guess I can blame it on the awful weather the last weeks; didn't really make you feel like you wanted to go out an do much of anything.

Plus it was also much easier to just hang out with a cute guy that sorted everything out and tell myself it was orientation week. :P It's been ages since I lived with someone I was sleeping with, and I must say it's not a bad idea if you've just decided to move to another continent to go and stay with some guy you met on the internet. I think the first week would have been a lot harder emotionally if I hadn't. That he's cute and well-adjusted and an all round sweetheart is of course a big part of it. I think I'm quite lucky when it comes to not getting stranded with assholes (I wouldn't let it happen anyway, see right through 'em)


I've got a couple more weeks at Dan's place before his parents come and stay for a month or so. I guess I'm going to plan May hanging around in Bologna with the Fixer, working on my novel, which I really want to finish. It's all schizophrenic at the moment, but I guess the main thing now is to get the story out and the style pinned down.

Things have been pretty calm, some might say boring. It's just me and Dan watching DVDs, drinking far too much and having very civilized breakfasts, interspersed with random bouts of sex when I basically use him for my personal gratification... But they'll pick up next week when I start going to the art collective (which I have a suspicion might be a squat that the boys have just taken over and turned into a workshop) and meeting more people. Need to find trade shows and fairs and workshops and shit. Need, need, need.

Kinkster in Amsterdam.

I finally got to see Amsterdam yesterday. I love it. It's cute, compact, and all the buildings are sinking at an angle into the sand below. The windows in the red light distract were pretty surreal. And in case you were wondering, no I don't smoke ganja.

Like all good trips to A'dam, there was a good amount of surreality involved. At some point, Dan called up this girl he'd met on okC, Rochelle, who was this Suriname-Dutch fetish model currently living with her boyfriend in the poshest hotel in the city. She turned up in the shortest skirt I'd seen all week, killer heels and bright red lipstick. We went to some bar off the tourist track, and had non-stop whiskeys and tequilas.

I like Rochelle. She was cool and unpretentious and smart and (new word I learned) a Kinkster. Just to clear the record, I'm not really a Kinkster. I guess I used to be, but these days, it's not something I'm actively looking for. Although I won't reject the possibility for kinky sex, if the mood hits me. I guess. Anyway, looks like this might be sooner rather than later, especially if Rochelle comes over for dinner next Tuesday (which she most certainly will now since she's put it in her diary... you know, the one that all Dutch women have. It doesn't matter how trashed they are, if you make an appointment with them and they take it seriously, the diary will come out. If they are doubly serious, they'll also record it in their phone).

At some point, I asked her when did she start getting into the fetish scene, and I think the answer basically was, when she started having sex. Then she went on to say that however, she was born kinky. She always knew she leaned a certain way. One early benchmark was how she used to torture her Barbie dolls. That got me. I used to torture my Barbie dolls, but I never bothered to tell anyone before. There just never was quite a time, place or person to confide such a thing, until yesterday.

Then she started talking about getting fisted. To be honest, that is one thing I have never, ever fantasized about. Gabriel had told me (jokingly of course!) it was a great way to get a girl to fall utterly in love with you. If you do the unexpected, like fist rape her, the shock would do something to her brain that would make her go crazy for you after. Um... right. Rochelle then told me she would cut her nails before next Tuesday so we could attempt this. :-O  Well! If the mood is right, I'd be willing to try most things once. However, we all agreed that the line had to be drawn at scat.


Surreal enough for a first trip to Amsterdam, if you ask me. If her boyfriend who joined us later had been more partial to it, I'd have gladly taken the whole show back to the hotel.

I'm going back there this weekend for a concert Dan (the sweetheart!) has planned way in advance (The Gotan Project is playing this weekend I think, or was it Florence? I can't remember), and then I'll be back there again next week to meet a fellow Fantasy- Freak. I tried to look up Hackerspaces, bar-camps and other similar things here, but I think Holland has so much weird shit going on locally that it's probably not necessary and a bit pointless for me to try and look these things up.

Dare I Dream of Sanity with You.

First lovely day int The Hague. The weather looks like it's improving, although in Holland, you never really know, and it's probably not improving, but one can hope for the best. Got massively trashed with Ruiter on Saturday where I ended up leaving my jacket at this awful karaoke bar called The Thai Princess and then had a freaky ride back to his flat on the back of his bicycle. It was really lovely to see him again after 3 years; he's still the same sweet, friendly, messy, curious, god-damned in your face blunt boy I met in Budapest.

I'm going to get my shit sorted out this week. Dan (kinda sexy-cute Yugoslavian guy who claims he's bi-sexual, about twice my height and into experimental everything) is going to shoot a music video this weekend and I've offered to do the animation for it (shot on DV and rotoscoped). His stuff is actually really good, and I'm looking forward to contributing to the next two videos. (The first one involves me doing some psychedelic animation in trippy colours and the other with me in American McGee Alice like outfits vomitting whiskey into this over tattooed, over pierced guy).

He's been a total sweetheart. And it's awesome he's so metro. I wouldn't use that term normally, in fact I've never used it with any guy I know prior, but he's the genuine article. He's got everything a girl needs, and more. The whole "I grew up during the war where guys have tried to kill me with a carving knife and we went to parties where everyone was enlisted and waved guns at each other while fucked off our heads"paired with the whole metro thing as well kinda works. Throw in his UN gig, and it's like, what the fuck, it was a bit of serious luck I got to meet him not-quite-so randomly, really.

I'm pleased with the situation and I feel as if the cosmic will is looking over me; I don't want to speak too soon, and I still have to work out my legal situation here, but I think I should be able to cobble something together before my visa expires. Right now I can afford it, I'm happy to do some more random art projects with people that know more of what they are doing then I do, and ride along those rails.

I still miss Singapore a great deal, and Andrew in particular. Last weekend still hangs over me like a crazy, off your tits kinda dream (which was what it was). I get these strange moments where I just blank out and stare at the ceiling re-imagining the madness that is Bangkok. The street stalls, the desperation, the dirt, all of that crazy, gritty, real shit. The Hague is soooo calm and way too posh for my liking. I need grit and dirt and a whole load of rough on the edges. But we'll see what happens.

Phantomwise, if it were so.

I passed out last night. So what's new. A combination of jet-lag and general madness. I dreamed of Andrew all last night. I was trying to contact him (in the dream), but my mobile had fucked up because I tried to wash a giant crayfish at some point, and my phone got wet in the process.

When I woke up, he was in my head. He filled it up completely, and I couldn't stop thinking about him. I just stared at the ceiling and thought about him.

It was late in the morning, and Dan came to my side and sat up beside me and we talked about... stuff. Actually he asked me if I was alright, to which I said I was fine, but of course I wasn't. I felt terribly homesick. We sat about in silence for awhile, and then he said, "I think Andrew misses you". I was like "O.O, how do you know?" He told me "Facebook." I went to check it, and Andrew had left me this post on my wall:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The... hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Izzymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

And I started crying. I don't know since when I got like that, before 2010, I almost never cried. But I also never cared. If you keep telling yourself everyone else is a selfish bastard, and no one cares, then you can avoid crying. But the last couple of years have proven to me that people do care, and that there was nothing wrong with feeling empty, and nostalgic, and like you were missing something, and that there are awesome people in your life that you miss...

I replied with an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Epilogue of Through the Looking Glass. Being me (I love ambiguous endings with a predisposition towards a positive interpretation) I twisted it from this sad thing to something a little more cheerful :o)

A boat, beneath the April sky
Lingering onward dreamily,
In the evening of goodbye.

Soon will dawn that sunny sky;
And echoes linger though memories die;
The summer rains will bring July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Past shadows moving under skies
Under lids of our slumbering eyes,

And in a Wonderland we lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as April passes by,

Ever drifting down the stream,
Lingering in the golden gleam,
Lives that stretch forth along parallel themes.  

In any case, I was talking to Andrew and trying to persuade him to come to Balogna in May, when the Fixer will be there hanging around his friend's place and I will go and visit just because I can and it will cost 29 Euros, and he said "Aren't we going to go to Malkom in July?"

De-compressing, Re-adjusting.

Everything is going along smoothly. I've finally had enough sleep and stayed away from any excessive behaviour long enough to feel much better, and a great deal less confused. It's only my third day here, and it does feel a little as if I were on the other side of the looking glass, unable to get back through to the life I've left behind. But it will pass, I won't look back, and things will turn out for the best eventually. 

Avedon picked me up from the airport after many delays and flight cancellations. It was nice to see him again, although when I met him, the time I had know him in Singapore felt like a whole universe away. That was then, and this is now, and the paths will never cross, I feel and know this much. I dropped my things off at the place I was kindly loaned and went to meet Dan. 

He's this artist/photographer guy I got to know sometime back; he's from the former Yugoslavia (who grew up during the war) working for the UN. He's been really kind, and I'm glad he's here to help me re-adjust. It's people like him that make me feel that there's something out there watching after me and making all my landings from my crazy impulses a lot less painful.

At some point this weekend I will go and meet Ruiter and check his art collective out. Then Dan and I are going to Amsterdam and Belgium next week and meet some of his artist friends etc. and eat sugary desserts and chocolates, meet his other romantic interest etc, and then I'll start hanging out at the art collective and work on my portfolio. Hopefully in 4-5 weeks, things will sort themselves out and I will start getting some freelance work.

Chatting to Andrew on facebook; I'm really hoping things will start looking brighter for him soon. It was lovely to hear that him say that I was very good for him and helped him more than I probably know. Sure it's nice to know you did some good for someone, even though you don't know exactly how, but also what he said kind of implied that things are going to change for the better ;-)

Going to some Irish concert thing tonight :P

Love on you. X