"I was just a shag, I knew that"

Littlemoose pointed me to a fantastic Queer as Folk fic (UK, of course, I wouldn't touch QAF US with er... well, with anything really!) and it prompted me to put on my QAF soundtrack. (I wanted to listen to the Smiths as well, but I judged it to be a tad too depressing for New Year's Eve in the end)

I enjoyed Little Britain Abroad immensely (repeated on BBC1 tonight), especially when "Mister Dudwey" and Ting Tong went on holiday to Camping Wachtebeke in Belgium. Looked positively idyllic, I must say (and scarily realistic), exactly the place I'd like to go to.

The cats broke into the medicin cabinet twice this week, though we're not sure if they're chasing after drugs or after the little toy balls we keep stored there. We're preparing ourselves for the worst and have contacted Narcotics Anonymous.

Strangely enough, grocery shopping on Dec 31st is far more relaxing than on Dec 30th, even though on both occasions I had to fight the urge to hit people with my baguettes or crash into them with my trolley. Of course that could have just been my antisocial personality, who's to say.

I think this might be the most unrelated post I've ever done in my "blogging career", so I'll end on a high note:
"Hold that sucker down!" Whoooohooooooooo!

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Wishing you a very nice one

- despite all my bitching in the previous post-



(thanks to Rachie for reminding me of this clip)

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Cop-Tease

I've been walking around with last-minute Christmas Cards for a couple of days now, always forgetting to post them. So when I spotted a letterbox on the way back home from Spike's after an evening of fascinating television NOT -I repeat, NOT- watching Liesbèt (-NightN_RSE- "I wonder what this word is... no one is calling me... I'm all alone... where are you? I'm waiting for you to ring NOW... no?.... NOW?.... 30 seconds left... and another 30 seconds left... Hello, who's there?... "Er yeah, It's Rudy, Is it "NIGHTWATCH"?"... "No, Rudy, I'm sorry! Try again later!...." -and by the way, Liesbèèèt, stop fussing with your hair, it's annoying-) and Music for Life (Christophe Lambrecht looked like he might fall over any second...)... erm, where was I? Yes. When I spotted a letterbox on the way back from just watching "Inside Man", (and not watching anything else) I ordered the Girlfriend to stop.
She parked the car on a little parking lot, too late to see the four policemen standing there, staring at us. Never mind. We were cool, we hadn't touched a drop of alcohol and it's not illegal to post some cards in the middle of the night, is it? I mean, this isn't the USA after all.
Policemen left us alone, even after The Girlfriend accidentally honked four times at them. It's her car, honestly, it happened to me once as well.

We're planning a nice, relaxed day and evening, to strengthen ourselves for the horror that is tomorrow's "Day of Family Doom".
I hate Christmas and New Year's Day: the hypocrisy of it all, the pain in your jaw from grinding your teeth and biting your tongue so as not to upset So-and-So. Family get-togethers here are like "The Office": you suffer with the same kind of shame, only this time you're a part of it...

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U2?

I'm thoroughly enjoying the plight of the three hungry Studio Brussel DJs in Leuven. Who'd have thought putting three straight men in a glass house could be entertaining? (the Girlfriend grumbles -rather aggressively- that they should put a ban on all the U2 songs. "You want U2? No, I'm afraid you'll have to pay a lot more money for something like that."

On the way home from work I heard the beautiful "The Power of Love" by Franky Goes to Hollywood. I used to detest that song. Whiney fag sentimental crap. But now I think it's amazing.
Sometimes it takes years for a song to grow on me (see: Britney's "Baby One More Time" or Beyonce's "Crazy in Love", sometimes I don't need any time at all ("Dragostea din te"!) but once I do like a song... oh ladies and gentlemen it never goes away.

When the chips are down I'll be around
With my undying, death-defying
Love for you
If that isn't a motto to live by, then I don't know what is.

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Now what

It's cold here. I'm sitting in the living room, in my pyjamas, warm socks and slippers. There's no point in turning the heating back on since I'm not meant to be here for long.
I'm trying this trick I always read about when I was a student: "people with trouble sleeping are better off getting out of bed and doing something uninteresting, than staying in bed and getting frustrated at the passing of the time."
So here I am, waiting to see if it will work.
Unfortunately you'll have to be the victims of my insomnia, having to read this -probably terribly uninteresting- post.

For some reason I can't get today's events out of my head. Not that today or yesterday was so eventful, it just keeps going through my mind: impressions, people I've seen, colleagues, work. Especially work.
Yup, I'm finally going crazy over it.
Or even more crazy I should say.

I'm listening to Dj Lambi Bambi and if I wasn't short of cash I'd pay a lot of money to hear Pet Shop Boys on Stu Bru. Who wouldn't, honestly.

Perhaps I should switch to blogger beta while I'm here. I hear it's the thing to do.

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Robert Long

Robert Long is altijd al een icoon geweest ten huize Piglina's Ouders. Zowel Papiglet als Mapiglet waren grote fans, maar bij Mapiglet had hij een streepje voor. Ik vermoed dat ze een beetje verliefd op hem was, iets wat mijn moeder wel met meer homo's had (zie ook Jos Brink), maar daar ga ik niet te diep over nadenken.
Tien voor Taal "was toch niet meer zo goed" toen Robert er mee ophield en de eerste CD's die mijn ouders kochten, waren er van hem.
Wat ik me vooral herinner is het oude, toen al kapot gespeelde, cassetje ("Achter de Horizon" uit 1986) dat mijn ouders hadden. Die cassette zat in de autoradio, en speelde altijd op weg naar Delhaize op woensdagmiddag.
Ik kende de teksten allemaal uit het hoofd, nu nog vermoed ik.

Ik kan het beeld dat ik nu van mijn ouders heb moeilijk verzoenen met dat van twee jonge mensen, fan van Robert Long -met een gigantische afro- die als mondige jeanet de kerk en de maatschappij op de korrel neemt. Mijn ouders waren cool.
Allez. In sommige middens dan toch.

Maar nu heb ik net gehoord dat Robert Long gestorven is. Mijn ma zal ontroostbaar zijn. En ik ben er stil van geworden.
Een prachtig stukje als afsluiter. Afkomstig van dat befaamde cassetje, en ik ben het nooit vergeten:

Het maakt me niet uit als ik dood ben gegaan
of er een kruis of een steen komt te staan
en of ze achter me aan naar het graf zullen sjouwen
Maar als je een steen nodig vindt
en als je een grafschrift verzint
zoek dan een tekst die men altijd graag leest
van dat de tijd alle wonden geneest
Of dat ik altijd op zoek ben geweest
maar een zin die moet je onthouden
zet alsjeblieft op mijn steen
iemand in elk geval één
heeft er van hem gehouden
(Robert Long/Grafschrift)

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Medical

I had my "yearly" medical at work today. Very interesting. I was weighed (finally my colleagues can stop obsessing about that), eye-tested, did the peeing in a cup thing (and I did it quite well I must say) and when I was casually asked "how do you like your work" by a nurse who wasn't listening to the answer, I downplayed it all nicely. As you do.

Everything went fine and normal until suddenly the nurse came barging at me with a needle, like we were in some kind of horror flick. She must have seen my look of confusion because she explained "it's the TBC test, I like to get it over with as soon as possible" while grabbing my arm and jabbing it in.
Yikes.
Well, I don't mind injections, but I like some time to prepare, ok?

Something similar happened with the hot doctor who gave me my anti-hepatitis shot. Afterwards, while I was nursing my sore muscles, she told me what possible side effects I could have.
If we were Americans I'd have sued the girl, sexy or not!
Well... if we were Americans she'd have had me sign five hundred forms in advance, and there's just no time for that in a 15-minute-medical.

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Disaster!

Woke up this morning -the first day of my week off work- to find out my internet connection had died: "could not connect to server" my Messenger proclaimed. A quick check of the internet proved the same: "cannot find page".
Help!
I *need*, no I *deserve* to waste my time on the internet when I don't have to work. Granted, there are much more useful things I could do *cough*buying and or posting Christmas presents*cough* but fuck that! I wanted to waste a few hours reading smut.

I contemplated the options. Disturbing Spike in the middle of a job interview to play Helpdesk (which he loves), was not one of them. He'd kill me. There was no other choice but to try and fix it myself. Punching the monitor seemed pretty pointless, so I looked at my modem. One of the little lights was orange instead of green. A-ha! A clue!
I carefully unplugged the wires. And plugged them back in.

And hey presto! Here I am!
I knew I should have gone for computer studies instead of psychology... I knew it.

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Sinterklaas

6 December is when St Nicolas (or Sinterklaas) comes to kids in Belgium and Holland. He brings his friends whose faces are black from going down chimneys (not because they're black, honestly) black slaves (who are all called "Zwarte Piet" or "Black Pete") with him and leaves sweets and toys for kids who've been good. Provided they set their shoe near the fireplace, with a carrot and a sugar for Saint Nicolas' horse of course.

Usually Saint Nicolas drops by earlier in the month for a little chat with the kid in question: He asks if they've been good and tells them what he knows about them. There's no point in lying because everything is written in The Big Magical Red Book That Contains The Truth About All Kids: have they been good or have they been bad.
I remember one time St Nicolas told me I needed to "listen to my parents more".
I was absolutely traumatised.

Now I know I have my mother to blame for that, but back then... if Sinterklaas said it, it was true: I was not a good girl.
There. I've just saved myself years of psychoanalysis just by this story.

But -despite this traumatic experience (and I can't have been that bad a girl, since I did get presents that year)- I do love St Nicolas.
The excitement, what will you be getting, will you even be getting anything, the mystery, how next to "Zwarte Piet" (Black Pete) sometimes "Zwarte Griet" would turn up (er... a female Black Pete), how does Sinterklaas' horse get on the roof and -now that we're thinking about it- how does it get off the roof. And why is Sinterklaas even on your rooftop in the night of 5 to 6 December when it's only Zwarte Piet going down the chimney. Hmz.
And why is it that the shops are mysteriously full of toys around December 6th. And why are the sweets Sinterklaas leaves the night he comes to get your wishlist, always the same sweets that you can find in the kitchen cabinets.

I remember once giving my dummies to Sinterklaas -because I was a big girl now and would sleep without-, then being inconsolable and not being able to get to sleep. My parents "mysteriously" caught up with Sinterklaas and gave me back my dummies. Apparently he'd told them I could keep them for another year.
Zwarte Piet once threw sweets through the chimney in the room when I was watching TV. Suddenly this cascade of sweets all over the living room! Fantastic!
We didn't have a chimney though.
And immediately after the rain of sweets my grandfather showed up.
But I didn't notice a thing.

I was devastated when I found out it was all A Big Fat Lie though.
"What do you mean, there's no Saint Nicolas who lives forever and walks on rooftops and knows every child everywhere?"
"Erm. Sorry... "
"But the Easter Bunny does exist, right?"
"Erm... no."
So much for my childish Christian conviction of the "everlasting life".

Agnes pointed me to this little gem: an American view on St Nicolas.

A little excerpt: " A Dutch parent has a decidedly hairier story (than that of Santa Claus) to relate, telling his children, "Listen, you might want to pack a few of your things together before you go to bed. The former bishop from Turkey will
be coming along with six to eight black men. They might put some
candy in your shoes, they might stuff you in a sack and take you
to Spain, or they might just pretend to kick you. We don't know
for sure, but we want you to be prepared."

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Dyke Points

Since we lost Dyke Points over the week-end (nearly using a hammer and a saw on our Ikea tv-table) (Dyke Score: -1) , I thought the best way to make up for that was to shrink my new sweater in the washing (Dyke Score: +1).
Brilliant.
Good for the Girlfriend ("wahey, that means it'll fit me!") but it means our yearly ominous ever-failing "winter sweater search" has to start all over again.
Anyone who can give me laundry tips is welcome. I washed it on minimal degrees and alone... .

Then again we completely fucked up our video settings upon moving the TV, video and DVD. And found out the remote hasn't been broken these past months, we've just been stupid. Ouch. (Dyke score: -1)

On the other hand, I did install the documents of my old pc onto my new second-hand PC yesterday (though SuperGeek is coming to check up on it in a minute). An early Christmas/New Year's/Birthday present from The Girlfriend. Wahey.
I did warn her to only give it to me on the days themselves (a monitor on Christmas, the keyboard on New Year's Eve,...), because knowing me, on Christmas/New Year/my birthday I'm sure to forget I already got something and I'll be expecting "A Present" from her.
I'll also be mightily disappointed there's nothing under the bonsai-Christmas Tree for me until she'll shout at me "to look at the desk, I got you a computer for crying out loud!". After which I'll be suitably embarrassed and chastised.

It's not easy being living with me.

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Battle of the Best

The Girlfriend just lost her fight with the new Ikea TV-table and is licking her wounds.

Wanted for this weekend: Big Butch Man with the ability to fix Ikea furniture.

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Junior Eurovision (again)

Some people (well, actually, just the one) seem to be worried about the lack of Junior Eurovision posts. No previews, no discussion of possible outfits or hairdos! Have I lost my Eurovision Fabulousness?

Well. No. Of course not. It's just that I don't really give much thought to Junior Eurovision. Because well... it's kiddies. Doing grown-up stuff. There's not enough camp, not enough drama and not enough silly outfits (unless you count the East-European-pre-fall-of-Communism tracksuits).
I need my Eurovision to be all of these things. And kiddies just don't throw tantrums like grown-ups do.

Having said that though... I must admit that The Eurovision Bug is now creeping up (I blame you). I find myself wanting to get out our collection of flags and score sheets. Perhaps even start a drinking game. I'll live on the wild side and even drink... coke!
If anyone's up for it, let me know.

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25



I lost mine somewhere. Anyone know where I can buy a new one?

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