oh, to be a wanderer...

ever hear yourself talking in a group and wish you could make yourself shut up but you can't so you just keep going while silently wishing to yourself that no one else notices how annoying you are? all those things that i can't stand in other people seem to just flow out of me with no control. i realized that i start to do this when i become comfortable in a group. this is, of course, a sign of a good thing. i have found a little niche where i fit, or feel that i fit, where i can be at home enough to let loose and relax. but there is a saftey in being unknown; it's dangerous to get too comfortable. i can just watch all those annoying, loud, obnoxious, "look-at-me-look-at-me" parts that i normally keep tightly packed away in a group of strangers and lesser-knowns bubbling to the surface and coming out when i let my guard down or have a glass of white wine. i find myself half wishing to move again before it's too late.
of course, i probably am more aware of those parts of myself than anyone else (i hope). and i seem more annoying and obnoxious to myself than anyone else (i hope). at least, no one has complained yet to me.
on a side note, this is the amazing thing about marriage... someone who has known me long and well enough to see these parts of me that i most hate has chosen to spend his life with me. though, i think secretly he's more amused than annoyed when i find myself loosening the belt and letting my hidden less-than-attractive underbelly blubber out into the open.
so anyway...
i don't really have a point. well, maybe i do. i want to know if you have this too. i'd feel so much better about myself if i knew that everyone else dislikes themselves sometimes.
hah!, ain't that just sweet?

for the sake of writing

i should really only post when i have something to say...but i get sick of seeing the same old last blog at the top of the page and decided it's time for a new one.

last night i painted. originally the painting was going to be a gift for someone but i liked it so much, i might keep it. now i just have to make a new one for that gift... or wait till i know if i can hang this one up. well, actually is a series of three. so i need alot of wall space. which we will have in our new house, cause it's bigger! yay!

speaking of new house, it is taking forever to get to november 2. why is time so slow? and luuk's three weeks away is crawling by as well. only three and a half more days!, but it feels like he's been gone for ages... i suppose it's good thing. but ugh, man, it's only september! we still have october to crawl through! and i have so little to do...just finishing that workshop, which i hope to wash my hands of on sept 30, and testing participants for that endless experiment. i should get extra credit for all the hours i am putting into someone else's pet project. oh, did i mention that that workshop will have to be presented in Dutch? i have never given a presentation in Dutch. this kinda freaks the shit out of me... but i'll live. i always do.

anyway... lunch today with a medical student friend from texas doing research here for a year and possibly a visit to the anatomy museum, her suggestion of course. go figure. i suggested doing something touristy. she suggested looking at body parts. alright!

i'm so 'ronery!

man, i was not made to be alone. luuk's been gone since sunday on another of his training things for three weeks (the last one!), and i am home with only lucy to keep me company, and well, she's not exactly the most companionable... entertaining, at least, climbing up empty wine bottles and knocking them over to drink whatever spills out, climbing up my pant leg when i'm cooking cause she knows there's something yummy going on above the edge of the counter and then getting stuck at about the knees and then just sitting there clinging for dear life til i help her down, ripping the corners of our carpet (which normally would piss me off but we are moving so now i don't care), trying to jump up to the third shelf where she has never been and is absolutely convinced it must be interesting cause she does this all the time but then only manages to slam into the edge with her face and fall to the ground (she really does this)...
anyway...

so, back to me. i'm bored out of my mind. especially at night when luuk is usually around and we watch 'family guy' or play 'settlers' against each other. or do other things...

not so fun on your own.

the two worst things to do on your own: laughing and farting.

watching a funny movie or tv show is just no good on your own. something hilarious happens and i start pointing and waiting for a reaction, then realize no one's there so i just laugh on my own but my laugh sounds so weird unaccompanied so then i just smile and well, that's just not as satisfying as a good wholehearted laugh. and later when i make an offhanded joke or reference to something funny that happened in that tv show, no one knows what i'm talking about so i end up explaining it and then just feel like a total loser for spending so much time watching tv on my own.
and farting...ugh. especially loud ones. when luuk is there we just laugh about it or run away together, but when alone i can't laugh cause it sounds weird unaccompanied, and running away seems silly, so i just sit there in my smell, looking around for the candid camera, hoping the neighbors can't hear through the walls, then kinda hoping they could and wishing they'd offer a loud bellow in response.

so this is why God made two of us. its not good for a man or woman to be alone. after a while, you start going a little nuts.

it hasn't even been a week. lets talk again in two, see how i'm doing...

old storks and stuff.

the stork is kinda a national symbol in this country, though you rarely see them in the wild. but i pass a field every day on my way to work where i see two storks standing in the grass probably waiting for some frogs to leap by. there used to be three but i like to think that in true 'vicky, cristina, barcelona' style the one flew away to find herself leaving the other two to fight and hate each other and throw frogs at each other in the middle of the field.

on another note, every morning this wonderfully strange and interesting lady gets on the bus at delft central and gets off at the same stop in the middle of a tiny town with 20some buildings probably dating back to the 1800's. her hair is red, uncontrolably frizzy, and greying. her face is laced with wrinkles and the skin on her hands is spotting with age and starting to develop that odd transparency that for some reason old people get. she isn't old quite yet, but slowly growing into it. her face is in a permanent half smile, as if she knows a secret about the world and simply cannot help but be amused. and when she gets off the bus she always leaves with a loud cheerful "goedemorgen" to the driver. i think she would be an interesting person to meet.

i am reading hemmingway, "a farewell to arms". i like how his sentences run on for half a page without punctuation.

some friends of ours (well, luuk's really, but i like them too) might take over our apartment when we move out. they want to keep all the kitchen appliances that we don't want, including the shelves and bar table that we put in with Dad, and flooring. if they get the apartment, it means we don't have to fill in the hundreds of holes hiding behind the wood boards we screwed to the wall or pay for dumping our old carpets. nice. bring on the two month rent deposit return! :)