Life: January 2008 Archives

''She had a pretty face but her head was up in space. She needs to come back down to earth. - Avril Lavigne, Skater Boy. (Loving this song and it just shows what a girl I can be sometimes and how sometimes I never actually really left high school)

A hopeless romantic one day and a prosaic mom of two the next day. Because of course, you can't be hopelessly romantic every day, can you?

I blame it all on Leonard and the endorphin rushes that I get from that treadmill. I ran for an hour yesterday and biked about the same. No wonder I was high and completely not myself.

Everything is quiet at home, the kids are in the daycare, I have another day off today and then back to work for my very last day. I've spent most of yesterday and today just hanging out with my friends.

So different to have time again, so much time.

I love it. I'm reading We Need to Talk about Kevin. I'm making soup, I've cleaned the fridge, I've tidied my desk, I'm doing my ironing, I'm watching tv.

I'm going to talk to my mom for an hour on the phone, then I'm going to lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling a bit.

Just because I can, you know?

Prosaic enough?

'I'm not in a film, I'm not in a play.' - The Guillemots, Blue would still be Blue

Thank you Last.fm.

I give you the Guillemots. They are fabulous and shiny new for me.

Made-Up Lovesong #43. Blue would still be Blue, and We're Here.

So sweet, these lyrics are from Blue would still be Blue:

It's not raining cats, it's not raining dogs
And pigs are not flying, or turning the cogs
The sun has no hat on, whenever it shines
And I've never seen a cat with nine lives
I'm not in a film, I'm not in a play
I saw no aliens today
I just saw you, and thought of me.

I had a few lousy days recently. Duvet-calling-me days.

But today?

Ohhhhh today.

Today I heard birds singing at 8 am. It was light at 5 pm.

The grey of January was streaked with feathery pink. I glimpsed Spring, beckoning.

The world is turning, still. It didn't stop last night, it didn't.

Turning.

One week left.

Either it's too whiny, too miserable, too full of sex, too emotional, too miserable, too full of why's what's where's and hows? The voices in my head keep me second-guessing (do they?)

I can't come to grips with what I want and feel. I've scrapped about fifteen posts already today and I'm still here and still editing (self-pity).

I've written poetry about tasting the clouds creep into my mouth (sad). I've listened to songs about wanting needing broken hearts misery love and hate and pain (wallowing). I've written a story about a girl who doesn't know how to deal with intimacy (poor thing). I've tried to conclude some other stories which had no endings but suddenly they all have sad ones, which really just won't do (give yourself a good talking to here Ash).

I've drunk tea, eaten nuts, I've had salad and a panini for lunch. I've wanted to eat chocolate (greedy). I've got my period (blah). I feel fat even though I'm wearing slinky black (self-loathing).

I've talked to colleagues about sex and whether getting it on with a girl really is the answer to life (is it?). I've talked to strangers in the shops about whether tomato juice really tastes nice (yes it does). I've looked at my bumper on my car and wondered if I should get it fixed (not, too expensive). I've thought about spending February with nothing to do (bliss and terror) and how I went to my dutch class last night intending to cancel but got sucked into anyway (should stand up for myself more).

I've written some things that I edited and decided were too personal to publish (stupid). I've written some things that some people might think were directed at them when really they're all about me, because obviously, this is my space, so this is all about me (vanity). I've re-written some other things when I re-read them and thought 'god, that sucks' (self-doubt).

I've collected my kids from the daycare and avoided the Nintendo discussion (relief). I've sent emails about the PTA and avoided being annoyed at a reply with a tone (politeness).

See, nothing I write today makes sense.

So, there.

'You don't care if it's wrong or if it's right.' - The Police, Roxanne (this version El Tango de Roxanne)

Last night, the husband and I went to his work's annual party. The theme was Club Variete and I'm just sorry I didn't dress it up more. I was dressy, but I could have been so bustier, garters, frills, hats and capes. Oh my.

It was held in the Thalia Theater in Ijmuiden. There were waiters circulating with endless glasses of wine, there were shows, there was a magician. The dude made foam rabbits appear in my hand, copulate and reproduce. Cute. Rabbitsex in my hand.

He also did stuff with various bits of rope, cards, the appearance and disappearance of diamonds (yes please!) The fire-eating lady who was super-sexy, people were dressed up as tigers and go-go girls (and that was just the colleagues, not the show!). There were tango dancers doing their sexy intense thing, there was a hot DJ, who played 'Last night a DJ saved my life'.

There was this dude on stilts doing the most amazing stuff, jugglers, a parrot, yummy food; the latter despite a salmon dish that appeared to have shrimp in it only after I already had it on my plate. Had I eaten it, this blog entry would not exist.

I danced all night with K, while Husband and C got progressively more cheery. We rocked. Girls are always more fun on the dance floor, although some of those couples were having a bit more bang for their buck, if you get my meaning.

This morning the husband is still in bed, hungover. I'm on the couch listening to and watching TMF with only a little bit of a headache from my moderate three glasses of wine. The kids are playing Nintendo. We are all in pyjamas. The daring baking is waiting.

The wind is blowing and I'm writing. I have an idea for a short story, the theme of fantasy versus reality. This is what I wrote to a friend today:

'Imagination only takes you so far. It can't substitute for weight, touch, the heaviness of another person leaning into you, smell, smooth skin, the sound of someone's breath, the talking into each other's mouths while you kiss, the sweat running down into the small of your back and pooling there, saltysweet.'

'I''ve been looking so long at these pictures of you that i almost believe that they're real' - The Cure, Pictures of You

How adolescent of me. Don't laugh.

So, it's Saturday. Way-hey.

This week has been kind of crappy, despite the horoscope predictions of a fabulous week. Monday was good.

I spent some time working out on Monday evening and the company was fab. That just happens sometimes, you know? 

Thursday was good too, it was Ms Blonde But Bright's birthday drinks. I drove with Citizen Stu to Leiden and we had a little mini-blogger meet in amongst all the real people. Thanks J!

I got lost on the A2 driving Stu back home because I was talking too much, but it was fun. Stu, let's get lost again together sometime.

In retrospect it hasn't been crappy at all. The only aspect that's been crappy is money.

The loss of it, the not having it.

Oh well.

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Saturday seems to be the day when I collect all my uncollected thoughts and put them in one place. Here's one - how odd it is that I can read enough German and French to order from various online shops? Linguistic shopping abilities - chalk up 110% for Ash. Real life German and French skills? Uh.

Here's another: Tamara-the-uber-trainer told me today that people find it difficult to step over the threshold and get themselves into a gym because once inside you are confronted with yourself.

Not only the physical shortcomings, but the mental ones too, determination and drive, fear of failure. I never thought of it that way but it's true. Every time you walk in you make a choice. I guess I'm not so bad at making choices after all.

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The online shopping I did was at amazon.de. I bought a whole heap of books. Carol Ann Duffy's Rapture, The New Rules of Lifting for Women, Tim Winton's Cloudstreet and Henry & June, Anais Nin.

Don't try and find any connection between any of the books on the list. Unless I'm bodybuilding to find rapture on Cloudstreet using Anais Nin as my guidebook?

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I trained so hard today that I thought my nose might bleed. Unrelated to that: coconut really is the best flavour of protein powder.

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The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl came! (Addressing Shauna directly) Woweeeeee babe! You are so hot! I had never gone through your whole blog before because I only started reading about a year ago but so much of what you say in the book is my story too. I could tell you all the similarities but that would be boring. Instead I'm just going to say thank you so much for sharing what you have to say! Big hugs!

(Addressing the rest of you lot again) Go and buy Shauna's book. Even if you're not trying to lose weight, not struggling with an eating disorder, even if you're a man and you think it's a girly book. She's side-splittingly funny, she has a perspective on life that is guaranteed to be different from your own, she comes from a time and place very much like mine. Oh, and I'm telling you to. So shoo! Go!

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Last Sunday evening I went with my girlfriend T to the possibly-ultra-hip&happening Panama. I say 'possibly' because these places are not usually hip once someone tells someone else that they're hip. Know what I mean?

We went to watch Xandra van Rossem, a friend of T's who I had met once before at a different concert, sing at Jazz it Up.

I was completely speechless. She is breathtaking. I can't remember what she sang now, but the atmosphere was amazing and her voice is piercingly clear, yet surprisingly warm.

The club felt so 1930s. The piano and a barstool for the singer in the centre of the room, beanbags and low stools arranged all around, tables and chairs at the outside. The fake fog swirled, the conversation flowed, the jazz types were there in their hats and suits. Couples kissing on the beanbags while Xandra sang.

It felt glamorous and grownup. I could see myself in a cocktail dress, stocking-clad legs crossed demurely at the ankle, lipsticked mouth neatly sipping from my glass while I sat across the table from my partner in crime who carefully leaned forward to light my cigarette.

To listen to Xandra you need to click this link, then choose Nederlands (the English version isn't done yet), choose music, scroll down and listen to my favourite, Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Ah.

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A photo of mine was used for Schmap!  Cool beans, huh? It looks like a cute application. In the summer I plan to photograph more. You can trawl  through Amsterdam's Schmap yourself to find the photo.

Other great photography that I came across this week is from Xelia. Go see. Take heed, flickr will ask you if you want to go back to the kittens. 'Tis all I'm saying. Beautiful photography. I love it.

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I rejoined the Daring Bakers. I will be daringly baking tomorrow. Anyone want some? Come over around 4. Phone first please, let me know you're coming. I wouldn't want to be surprised.

And that ends Saturday's long, languid post. Long and languid is the best kind, right?
 

'Throw me tomorrow, now that I've really got a chance' - David Bowie, Thursday's Child

Because sometimes we need reminders and because sometimes I have nothing to say and because sometimes I was up late going to parties and because sometimes I've been sick and nothing I write or do makes sense and because sometimes run on sentences with no punctuation are fun and because sometimes despite being hesitant and cautious I feel like I can do anything in the world and because even though I feel like that I still have obligations which make me do the necessary instead of the transcendent and because making choices is difficult.

And also just because. Because.

I tell you to watch David Bowie and I give you Anais Nin. 'And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.' ~ Anais Nin

'You say you dont want it again, and again but you don't dont really mean it' - Tori Amos, Spark

Shit shit shit.

On Tuesday night, after Dutch class, at 10 pm, I was so tired that I reversed into a pole.

It was a low pole, but nonetheless it was a pole. A metal pole.

Bump, crash, ouch.

The damage? One cracked bumper and 400 euros.

I have insurance, but I don't know if I should claim for this and affect my premiums. You know?

Claim for 400 euros and then pay thousands more over the next few years? It sucks.

Or maybe trade in the car for something newer and zippier? And cleaner. I haven't been to the carwash for six months. There is stuff in my car that walks around at night.

I'm one of those people who is paralysed with indecision. It presses on me and I find it hard to breathe.

Help!

'They can see no reasons, cos there are no reasons, what reasons do you need to be shown?' - Tori Amos, I Don't Like Mondays

Found this a minute ago. Loved the original too. It's not Monday, but hey... I don't like Tuesdays much either.

Listen to both and tell me which you like more.

'I'm learning to fly around the clouds. But what goes up must come down' - Tom Petty, Learning to Fly

I'm meant to keep at least a bit of myself for myself right?

Someone asked me recently 'How do you deal with sharing so much of yourself on the internet? Don't you feel uncomfortable that so many people know so much about you?'

I didn't have a really good answer. I don't know how I deal, except to say that most of the time what you see is really what you get.

Let's put it in perspective. I've been on the internet now for 12 years, and I've never really used a pseudonym in all that time. I had a nickname back in chatrooms in the 1990s. Otherwise I've always just been me.

When I started my first blog I used my real name and I had absolutely no doubts about privacy, whether I should keep myself to myself, whether what I wrote was acceptable or not.

Whether what I wrote might affect my family later. Whether my kids should be exposed on the internet, full names, pictures, pictures of them in the bath.

Then a picture of my boys was favourited on flickr and got around 3000 hits in a few days. Suddenly it was like, 'wow, that's really out there'.

I didn't have any real issues with the idea of 3000 old men wanking over pictures of my boys, because after all they're just inanimate pictures right?

Then I put myself in my boys' shoes and recognised that maybe later on they might not be happy about the idea that mom put pictures of them in the shower on the internet and 3000 old men spent a lot of time looking at them. Know what I mean? I restricted viewing of that picture to family and friends.

Then when I started working and my colleagues were googling me I suddenly became very uncomfortable. I didn't want to be categorised as a mother who cooked and sewed and wrote about her carefully structured life. I shut the old blog down and removed it for a while from the internet while I thought about what I wanted.

Consciously I chose to put it back online, and to start this one, which is more of how I am now. I still cook and sew. I'm still a mom who writes about her life, but I'm also someone who thinks and feels and writes about the thinking and feeling.

A lot of what I wrote on my old blog was subconsciously edited. I cut almost everything that revealed how I saw the world, what I felt. It was pretty and light and nice and nothing there, bar once or twice by accident, really let you know anything about me.

Most of the time I was on a Prozac-induced cloud nine where life was even and numb and nothing ever got to me so most of the time I really was writing what I knew.

This time it's different. I've been Prozac-free for six months now and I have very little to no SSRI-discontinuation syndrome thanks to acupuncture, diet and exercise. The eating disorder that the Prozac was originally prescribed for is back, but that's just got to be dealt with some other way now. I have to be kinder to myself. No more drugs, ever.

I tried to stop taking Prozac several times in the last 15 years and had serious discontinuation syndrome.
Shaking, tics, lying on the bathroom floor withdrawing, crying, feeling completely out of control, tinnitus, feeling disconnected, suicide attempts.

It's strange that the drug that is meant to stop you feeling like that makes you feel like that as soon as you stop taking it. I was first prescribed Prozac in 1993. In between I had my dosage changed to an incredibly high 60 mg a day to try and control the bulimia and depression, changed to Cipramil to see if it would help and eventually a MAOI inhibitor, which was a particularly bad patch for me. 

The first time I tried to stop I thought it just meant I wasn't 'cured' yet. I didn't realise that it had nothing to do with being better or not and everything to do with neurochemicals. Cue withdrawal-attempt-#2 and I started realising that it wasn't going to be that easy. A few more times and I had resigned myself to being on Prozac forever. Green & white pills everywhere.

When I started to see my acupuncturist and we talked about the eating disorder, the weight gain, the bloody Prozac, the dead feeling and wanting to get off the Prozac, wanting to be myself again, he said, 'let's just start slow'.

That was two and a half years ago.

Finally in August 2007 I felt comfortable enough to leave my little green & white pills behind and this time it's been smooth.

Smooth in that I've had no real withdrawal, not so smooth in that learning to feel again after 15 years is pretty hard work. Imagine you're some kind of vehicle on rails, and you spend so much time just chugging along on a flat road, then suddenly you have hills and valleys, and your speed hasn't changed. The bottom drops out of your world and your stomach hits the floor. That's a bit how life without Prozac feels.

My emotions haven't regulated themselves properly yet even six months later. I'm learning that yes, it's going to crap some days, but then other days I'm going to be deliriously happy for no real reason.

I'm going to lie in my bed and howl some days because things are not as I want them, but they'll be balanced by days that I sit smiling at the world, wondering how it can be so good.

Watching my boy finally hit a serve over the net, mouth open in concentration and the huge gap-toothed smile when he realises he did it. Reading a book and feeling the characters live. Listening to a song on my ipod while I run and be glad my face is so sweaty that no-one sees the tears. Laughing so much that I can't actually speak anymore. This is how it feels to feel.

Sometimes it's not pretty. Nothing is pretty all the time. Everyone wakes up snotty sometimes.

So why am I writing this? Why am I putting this little bit of myself online? Revealing the kookiness to everyone?

Because I tried to search for some information on the internet about how it feels after you come off Prozac. There's hardly any information on how you feel when you stop. There's lots of brief and incomplete information about the physical effects. Apparently everyone worries about sexual dysfunction. Priorities, people!

There is virtually nothing out there about the emotions, except advice to say 'if you can't deal with the emotions then go back on the drugs'. I wanted a guide book on how to ride the rollercoaster, not advice saying 'just get off'!

So I thought, hey look, I'll write about how it felt for me and that way I can share more of me than anyone every wanted me to. This is where you insert a wry faced smile to imagine how I look right now. To be fair to myself I did hesitate a few times before hitting that publish button, thinking hmm, maybe this is just a bit too much.

Seriously though, maybe this will help someone else who's learning to feel again.

'You made me forget myself. I thought I was someone else, someone good.' - Lou Reed, Perfect Day

I have the cd single here of this song. It came out at Christmas 1997.

That's ten years ago. 10 years! It seems unbelievable.

Where did it go? What have I been doing?

My oldest boy is turning 8. Another 10 years and he'll be 18 and I'll be 44, which is ten years younger than my mom is now.

My daughter is 15, which is three years younger than I was when I had her.

My ex already passed 40 and is heading toward middle-age.

There's a card on postsecret today that says 'I will be twenty in March and I really feel like I running out of time.'

Dude, I have news for you.

You are.

'I was feeling insecure. You might not love me anymore. I was shivering inside.' - John Lennon, Jealous Guy.

So yesterday was a great day. Cake, presents, cards, lots and lots of email and facebook happy birthdays. How come those facebook happy birthdays are so cool?

It was fab fab fab. We had a little party at work and I was surprised at the generosity of my colleagues - I got Brain Age for the DS.

So I get to see how old I really am! Shall I tell you when I'm done? Maybe it will be TOO shocking for words. I might be 94 instead of 34. The family surprised me with some really pretty earrings. Tomorrow more fun is planned. Tell you later.


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I have an evening dress with a halter neck and a low back for a party next week. But alas, no boobs to fill it and no suitable bra.

So this afternoon I'm going to be stuffing myself into various kinds of contraption-like bras to try and find one that can be adjusted so that the straps don't show and has a little bit of padding to help the, uh, A cup, look like a B.

Does anyone else get completely confused with those 'I'll be a halter, no I'll be a cross-back, no I'll just be strapless' bras? What about the see-through straps? I was always taught no straps ever, but it seems like those are ok? Opinions?

Being athletic has disadvantages. See the reference to the A cup above. I'm going to try one of those gel-filled bras. There's no-one to take my clothes off and be disappointed so it's not like I can't do it, right?

Sorry to the guys who read this. It's just one of those things. Sometime in your life the hot date that you spend all night chatting up is going to take her bra off and be flat-chested.

The trick is not to look too disappointed and not to say 'Oh, but I like small breasts' or 'wow, you have real boobs' or 'sorry, but I'm a boob man' and then get up and leave. It's better just not to say a word. So there, etiquette lesson over and back to the shopping.

I need some shoes. Jesus, do I need some shoes. I have heels, but this is a floor length black chiffon dress and it really seems to need a shoe with a bit more class than my Hush Puppies boot-pumps which look a little like these. I'm still jonesing for some 6 inch stilettos, but maybe it's time to be sensible.


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The gym has been so hard this week. I burnt myself on Tuesday so I cancelled my personal trainer session. Wednesday I ran a lot of intervals, 45 second sprints at 12.5 km/h alternated with 1 min walk at 7 km/h.  It was fine and I enjoyed it.

Thursday night's training session was probably the most difficult session I've had in a while. My girlfriend just started training with me with the same trainer and so the capacity was there to have a really great training session but I really had no motivation. This is the first time I've lacked motivation in about 8 months. Scary.

Today wasn't much better. I went in. I did my training, but I didn't get that endorphin rush which is the push that makes me really want to go and do it harder, better, faster. Now I'm tired and I didn't get my kick and all that effort seems a bit worthless.


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Talking of getting your kicks from sport. Did you know there's a reason girls hang around so much on certain types of equipment in the gym? I did not!

Go read, and then I'll see you in the queue for the roman chair. According to my trainer you can also have a good time with the power plate, the abductor machine and the hamstring curl. Maybe I'm just not doing it right. Think I need to go practice some more...


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I was talking to a friend of mine who is getting divorced and where the situation is getting really freaky and painful. It made me wonder how people do this to each other? It's like getting married and then deciding you don't like each other and want to split up turns you into fierce bitey animals that want to watch the blood run. Another friend I talked to yesterday already has the divorce finalised and the blood is still running. It's so sad.


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Last night at the work New Year Party, which I probably shouldn't have gone to, I got talking to some other Zimbabweans.

Did you know that I had not seen another Zimbabwean in Holland until this year when I started working in my current job? There is one other one there, and subsequently, the other Zimbabwean everyone tells me about all the time, as in 'Have you met so-and-so, she is also from Zimbabwe?' actually had an interview with me. How is that for coincidence?

So we stood in a little Zimbabwean clique and talked about politics, the 'situation' and the way things are. It was probably a bad idea to do that, but talking about the 'situation' is for Zimbabweans a bit like talking about the weather is for Europeans.

Which reminds me, why is it automatic that when you come from some small third world country that people immediately think that you will get on with everyone else from that country? I have had countless offers of invitations to 'meet so-and-so from South Africa - you'll get along great!' just to find out that you have absolutely nothing in common and no connect at all.

Please people, we don't say 'oh wow, I know another American, you guys will get along great!'  Assumptions!


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This week I've been reading and reading. This was some of the good stuff:

Neil wrote about big bottomed girls. Neil, I loved you before. Now I love you more and more.

Chloe wrote about Kurt Vonnegut's rules for writing. I like her images too.

Christine is telling us 100 ways to be delighted. This is a good one. Overload on delight while you can.

Maria told us about a guy with a bag. Not just any old bag though.

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And now, the sun's shining, the sky is a funny colour. Oh look, it's blue! The birds are singing and I'm 34.

I feel the urge to shop. See you!

'You got a way of walking, you got a way of talking...' - Shane McGowan & Sinead O'Connor, Haunted

I was browsing youtube yesterday and I came across that video up there. It's a film someone made for filmschool - pretty damned good don't you think? It also is sung by the Pogues, who you know I like from before.

Yesterday I was the one haunted by the ghost. Not the ghost of your precious love like in the song.

The ghost of lost youth and forgotten holidays. Even though the youth was just a year ago and the holidays were just a week ago.

At work it was as though someone took a hefty dose of discontent and circulated it in the airconditioning. The director was pissy and it filtered down from there. By 2 pm everyone had had a bollocksing. The irritation was palpable in every office. I think it had finally settled in that the vacation was over and this was real life.

Later on I was in the gym and it was all midlife crisis in action. Testosterone spill.  You could almost smell it in the air.

Poor darlings, their new year resolutions all parked outside with their inappropriately expensive shiny cars. It's always like this in January but it seems more desperate this year.

Maybe because today I'm 34! I get to join with in the midlife crisis crowd and this time I can play too!

Other birthday stuff later.

'Put me high on a wall, and let's not fall' - Cranes, Jewel

Today I phoned my mom and while I spoke to my brother on the phone about the girl he isn't seeing and who we can't mention to my mom I knocked my scalding tea over onto my leg.

It soaked through my corduroy skirt and my thick brown tights and ran down my leg into my boots. It poured down the cream coloured kitchen cupboards and then it lay in a pool on the floor.

I clasped my hand reflexively to my leg and tried to talk to my brother through the pain. Then I realised that it was serious and I'd have to get my clothes off.

I said 'oh shit, I'll call you back', as I stripped to my underwear and watched in horror as blisters blossomed under where my tights used to be.

Two hours, three wet towels, a running cool shower, one trying-not-to-sob call to my mom, one call to the doctor to find out if it needed treatment.

One cancelled personal trainer appointment, one missed run.

One handprint burn with blisters in the fingertips.

And a very pissed off weepy from the shock almost 34 year old.

'So why don't you just tell me what you really think again' - David Ford, I don't care what you call me.

So I'm still on this muscle-building-fat-losing-getting-my-head-in-the-right-place thing.

I won't bore you with the details of the what-already-happened, but I have to tell you about the what's-going-to-happen. Sorry, skip ahead if you're here for the sex stories! Heh.

I've been on a plateau for 4 weeks. Not a single ounce lost or gained in a month. I dropped a fat % point which brings me to 28% but I need to be around 23, which equates to around 8 kilos.

A whole month of nothing!

So what's a girl to do?

More and more. And less.

More food. I will eat 3 days of high protein followed by one 'normal' day. So three days of 40% protein, 30% carb and 30% fat followed by one day of 15% protein, 30% fat and 55% carbohydrate.

The three high protein days are also low calorie days - 1400 calories. Not like my current 800 calories a day. The normal day is at maintenance. Maintenance for me is 1900 calories. Five meals a day. Small ones.

More effort. Taking my three days a week of weight training really seriously. If I don't feel completely exhausted I'm not doing it right.

More cardio, but also less. I'm going to change my cardio routine to three times a week (separate days to my weight training). I've been doing 20 minutes a day at about 70% max HR. Now per week I'll be doing 1 x high intensity interval training: 45 second sprints with 1 minute rests in between. 1 x 35 minute cardio workout at 75% maximum HR. 1 x 70 minute slow workout at 50- 55% maximum HR.

More sleep. Six hours a day is not enough. Eight and then get up and eat.

Less worrying. Worrying makes you fat(ter).

* Don't ask me about the cow picture up there. Maybe I just feel like I'm being herded across a field sometimes.

I don't care if it hurts. I wanna have control. I want a perfect body. I want a perfect soul. - Radiohead, Creep (cover by the Pretenders)

Are we feeling down yet? Maybe.

Hey, rollercoasters have nothing on me.

In a vain attempt to try and ignore the downs I'm planning for my garden for 2008.

If you're a new reader (hi, please leave a comment!), you might be surprised to know that I live in an apartment.

It's 75 m2. Americans, because you don't think in m2, just think 'very small' and there you have it, on the nose.

Because I live in an apartment and I love to garden I have an allotment.

I grow stuff and then we eat it. Novel concept huh? Growing your own food?

Last year was a pretty successful. There were some fantastic failures, like the blight-stricken potatoes, like the cauliflowers that the slugs ate, like the digging out the blight-stricken potatoes for hours standing knee deep in stinking mud.

In retrospect even that sounds pretty exciting, no? Come on, it's exciting, really.

Unconvinced? Hmm, can't imagine why.

The gardener's almanac tells me that there is:

• One month until I can plant my shallots and onions.
• One month until the windowsills are full of little plants.
• One month until I have to dig and dig and dig.
• Two months until I can plant tomatoes, peas and beans in pots indoors, lettuce and carrots in the ground.
• Three months until I can plant squash and corn seeds indoors.
• Four months until May.
• Five months until June and then the garden explodes into life. Sun-soaked days, suntans and shorts.

Then it's all downhill from there. Ah fuck, that was an unsuccessful attempt to stop the winter blues, wasn' t it?

So, those plans. Let's see:

More squash. More tomatoes. Same amount of shallots and onions. Lots of peas. Lots of spinach. No beans. No fucking potatoes. Lots more lettuce. Many many more courgettes. Leeks. More strawberries.

Sweet peas. More flowers in general.

More beauty please. I need that.

'He's got his hands in my hair and his lips everywhere.' - The Pretenders, Night in my Veins

And still with the Chrissie Hynde crushing..

And completely unrelated to that:

Why does no-one tell you that when Sinterklaas brings 2 Nintendo DS Lites for the kids that their mom will spend the next x years of her life looking for the goddamned styluses?

'Don't get me wrong. If I come and go like fashion.' - The Pretenders, Don't Get Me Wrong.

Yes, I'm crushing on Chrissie Hynde again.

Crushing crushing crushing. Love the videos and the lyrics. Love this video most of all. Don't we want someone to do that for us?

Yesterday morning at 10 am I ran 7 km on the treadmill today listening to her sing.

When I was done I listened to 10,000 Maniacs sing Verdi Cries, and shed a little tear for the man in room 119.

Afterwards, in solitude, I sat in the steamroom and listened to the water drip off the end of my nose while I watched the ends of my toes. 

I sunk into the herbal bath. I was alone so I could float on my back, pretend to be a fish and gulp air with only my nose and mouth above water while the lights changed colour beneath me.

I showered, and I washed my hair. I talked to a Englishwoman who has lived in the Netherlands for 38 years and no longer speaks English. I made some phone calls, did my face, dried my hair.




For lunch I had coffee, a baguette with ham and cheese and a glass of water and conversation, because I shared a table.

Then I went to the Cobra Museum to see their current exhibit - the China Now exhibition.

I like art. I visit a lot of exhibitions with my museum card.

I see lots of stuff every day that passes me by on the Internet. I visit design and style blogs.

But wow.

Nothing prepared me for the overwhelming intensity of this exhibition.

It's colour, passion, anger and lust all in one. Mostly anger.

The artists whose work is exhibited feel.

Really feel.

And you can't help but feel with them.

My favourites:

• A video installation of a wok, with ingredients being added, the burners being turned up high and when the lid is lifted a different cityscape in the lid. Portrayed on nine different screens, nine different dvds produce nine different images and as you watch you see the cityscapes appear briefly. The way the room is laid out your eye darts from one to another and then just as you change focus you miss the view on the lid.
  
• A video animation of 'night-time' with overtones of death and pain so strong that I almost started to cry.
• A ceramic installation of everyday objects cascading from the ceiling into a pile. White and pure and ordinary. And not at all ordinary. Hats, phones, hammers, pistols, teddy bears, shoes.
  
• An all-white painting of pagodas that seemed to gleam as though there was a light inside it.
• A painting of a mother and child whose eyes shine incredibly bright with tears while the rest of them fades to an almost impressionist-background of blur. The sadness.

The most disarming facet of the exhibition was the use of colour, bright technicolour.

It reminded me of when I was little.

Living in a socialist country, we had lots of toys made in China. But as usual, people always want what they can't have. We wanted western toys because the colours were less vibrant than the Chinese toys, more natural, more lifelike.

I always thought it was a dye or a chemicals thing, that maybe the cheapest dyes were the bright ones. Now I'm not sure.

Maybe we see colour more brightly than the artists do? Maybe it's just more or less rods and cones?

Whatever, it's charming and original and breath-taking.

I had a whole year's emotion in one day.

Now I don't need to feel anything at all until 2009.

'here I am again beginning at another end there's no turning back this time.' - Beth Hart, Easy

Ack. What was I thinking? Tell me I didn't do that?

Oh too bad. I did.

So it's the first day of the next 365 days of my life.

Do I feel any different than yesterday? Not really.

Sometimes I wonder why we separate our lives into these compartments.

Today being a new day, the first day of forever, the day that we will change, do something different, be someone different.

Someone told me once that if you want to get rid of a bad habit imagine an animal doing it.

So for smoking you'd imagine a cat smoking. Or an elephant drinking.

But then I told him about how in Africa elephants get drunk by eating the fermented fruits of the Marula tree and then they too behave terribly badly. So the argument kind of fell a little flat.

Of course, it's all apparently a hoax and was staged in Animals are Beautiful People so that didn't really work, but at the time it was funny.

People also drink a liqueur with the fruits of the Marula tree and get drunk, but they are not as funny as elephants when they're tipsy.

Amarula tastes really nice though, go try it.

Okay, let's leave the liqueur on the shelf and get back to the animals making lists and separating their life into days, months and years and having goals.

Ridiculous isn't it?

Here are two excerpts from pieces I wrote in 2007, that help me remember to lie back, watch the sun rise and set, and not make lists.

About a holiday in France:

"Vittel is beautiful, a slightly dilapidated stately old spa town. There are baroque building and then Art Deco in the newer buildings. I didn't know that Nancy, just up the road, was the starting point for much of the Art Deco movement. It's all quite beautiful in a bit of a neglected way. In Holland everything is manicured and structured. As you cross the border into Belgium the difference is immediately apparent. I'm not sure which I prefer, but the ever-so-gently down-at-heel surroundings in Vittel are charming.

I was reminded of my childhood in Africa when we had cocktails before dinner last night, sitting out on the lawn, with a velvety blue sky above us and acres of green in front of us, fringed with enormous trees. Ahh."

About living in the Netherlands:

"It seems more earnest when people ask me, shock-struck faces agape, why anyone would exchange Africa's immense beauty for Holland.

I react almost angrily in my defense of the beauty of the Netherlands. I say 'but Holland is beautiful too, in a different way!' They negate my reaction and I get angrier.

I remind them of its polders, canals, tall poplars across the polders, marching rows of windmills turning in white brilliance, coloured stripes of tulips across the landscape. They tell me about Table Bay, the plains, lions, giraffes. I counter and so we go on."