where the contest at?

we have reached the 6,000 visitor mark, dear reader. but, who are you? let’s not have a contest this time around. tell me more about yourself. bring it on.

 ***

 GOD, i’m incredibly drunk. i must have the thirstiest liver west of poland.

promesse faite… promesse tenue.

pictures of dour! yay. most of it was wonderful, and some of it very amusing. and seeing hot chip… swoony swoon. i’m under influence so shouldn’t ramble. my chest hurts. soon, dear reader, i shall write about the village and countryside i come from, with a new batch of pictures. double yay.

the play tent, kristen bunny, steven bunny and muddy shoes:

the queen and her most loyal servant (and two love-bunnies):

i miss my boyfriend. and taipei. and my life. but playing with the little girl next door or gazing over the causse could almost make it okay, make it go away.

or d) i just wasn’t your thing, no ring.

kirsten arrived! so me, hannah, sofie and the feted american herself threw a funky pig pig party chez moi. we played drinking games, exotic musical instruments and a grand piano, and got obnoxiously drunk in the process.

 

sofie defacing something as expensive as a japanese car:

decidedly less alive and kicking the next morning:

then kristen and i left for cologne, our favourite city by far. it was a totally random trip: we got there by bus, a purple mercedes, a cab and a train we nearly missed. then we walked around aimlessly, letting friendly germans guide us and enjoying the splendid weather and the kolsch beer. we realised it was gay pride weekend when we were weaving thru crowds of gay men in their thirties, with skin-tight shirts, badly bleached blond hair and fake tans. CROWDS, huge crowds. i was SCARED. we went to the gay parade though… god, what was that. a selection:

that last picture prominently features kirsten’s dkny frames and my new american apparel cardigan. bi-atch! anyway… it’s three days in, and we’ve already danced and partied our ass off and had the most amazing two-day city trip ever. it was fabulous. (and no, we didn’t dance our ass off to the euro-techno the gay and lesbian verein were playing, it was architecture in helsinki and the blow in my living room, thank you). a suivre….

talking in code.

ding dong ding, kristen’s coming! massive debauchery like, everywhere. meanwhile, let’s devote ourselves to pleasures of the mind. reading geert mak’s megalomaniac novel in europe is quite a good way to do just that. when simon was just a little simon, he had a disillusioned and embittered history teacher, ms. divorcee. ms. divorcee was too lazy to teach from a coursebook, so she made us read those 1960s popular history semi-novels you’ve got. i don’t know much about boring economical details, but i’ll never forget hannibal crossing the alps! or the fall of carthage! or catherine the great’s estonian chambermaid!

in europe pulls the same thing off for the twentieth century. it’s a novel, yet it’s not. it sucks you in.

so. i went to antwerp for some discount shopping and bloody mary’s in the hilton hotel… with who else than seba? sofie, the one person on earth who puts the ‘i’ in ‘apricot-coloured hair’, was also there for her first-ever meal with chopsticks. they all had wild adventures, but i bought wooden shoes that made grandaunt marianne’s heart beat faster. (oh Jesus! they’re CROCO! i LOVE croco! i wish i was a twenty y.o. boy right now!) meanwhile, i trust the boyfriend, hmmyes i do, till the next episode of ‘The Fear’ comes crashing in.

pretty picture of the wooden shoes:

trams to moscow.

so, today i saw vicky after four months of unwilling separation. it was really strange to see her in belgium, having met her on the chinese island we both called home for a while, but the shock quickly faded as she showed me around ghent, her place of residence and one of the more grimy and ancient-looking cities ever. i must admit that she’s done quite a good job at rebuilding her life – she doesn’t have any money, but so what, neither do i.

we bummed around for a day, rode on a tram, played with her little kitty tommy, had a haircut, and chainsmoked our way thru the city. perfection chez sc.

shaolongbao blues.

i’m typing this in the airport, waiting for the boarding to begin. that means we’re entering a new phase of frighteningly fruitful proceedings, to say it in a very taiwanese way. special thanks go to the people who made my year on this wretched, much-loved island such a special experience:
- my boyfriend, of course. i miss him already. but this is not the place for virtual tears, is it now? i’ll wait like a medieval virgin to the grave.
- a certain trisha/haire/debora/curlywurly, who made my year in taiwan what it was. there’s nothing she and i won’t do (so i’ll stop the world and melt with you).
- my brazen fiancee, anneke roos uit norvege. our love was such a blaze that we’ve never consumed it. but never say never. all good things to come will come!
- french claire, the flesh-and-bones version of marianne, who left us too soon for the land of the rising sun.
-amy and elsa from the diner, east european dolls, canadians, taiwanese boiz, shopkeepers, grannies with kegs of lychee wine, miss nikomart, professor chen, the dumpling cooks, mejuffrouw zwandels, and various other lovely people. you know who you are…
- my friends at home who never stopped to think of me. DANK U BLOGLAND, as miss brooke would scornfully say.

new beginnings. what shall i be and where shall i be? i don’t know, BUT thanks to the Web 2.0 wonder that this blog is, you’ll know when i do! a song by sam, the north carolina cowboy, who had the biggest bottle of outrageously expensive (and democratically liberated) bottle of cognac i’ve ever seen with him on friday eve, and stood byhis ma… er, friends, while we tripped out of our confused heads on saturday eve:

i got the throwin’ up at 7-eleven
eating shaolongbao at 5 am blues

crazy bitch runnin’ her big mouth
her fat-bottomed friend came from the south

 

i got the throwin’ up at 7 eleven
eating shaolongbao at 5 am blues

 

went to the night market at 9 pm
found some restaurants but didn’t go in

 

i got the…

 

got us some teppanyaki
but mister alfred wasn’t there
purple blond and blue highlights
blazin’ all over trisha’s hair

 

i got the…

i’m listening to the klaxons’ ‘it’s not over yet’ and laughing and crying at the same time. a maelstrom of emotions is forcing me to stop writing.. and i think that flight attendant is coming for me! aah. speaking of which, something really funny happened. my baggage was 5 kgs overweight, but the lady couldn’t really say anything because i was crying so hard and saying ‘i’m leaving my trisha and my boyfriend! i can’t believe it! let me out of this airport, man, i wanna run run run!’ over and over again.

yay to emotional outbursts at the right moments. asobi seksu’s ‘thursday’ is playing and tears are magically… emanating… in my eyes. well, sea changes don’t come for nuffin, dear reader. mister alfred will rise again! when he’s over his jet-lag that is.

answer.

time for some clarifications!

claire: hm, you kind of know the answer to that, my love. i am a confused boy without any moral boundaries. WHA WHA WHA WHA, wha wha.
tommy: thank you love!
hannah: it’s just hard. it’s just kind of hard to explain. it all comes down to aunt amaryllis who was right with her analysis of right wing-strategies to scare the shit out of everybody. octave didn’t really disappear and anneliesje didn’t either. with her military junta money, she now lives in the algerian flatlands. however, liesbethje and deborah weren’t very easy to persuade that liesbeth wasn’t exactly the omniscient queen of the universe.
xiao p.: well, someday, probably soon because i threw pride out of the window in favour of pure pleasure.

shameless self-promotion.

PHIL COLLINS
DIRE STRAITS
SIR ROD STEWART

are you tired of hearing that same old music all over again too?
meet me in the dollar bin at:

http://artsnobsolutions.blogspot.com/

i dig the music, hmm hmm. and, i’m kind of sort of collaborating with these nice people. more soon!