Thursday, December 16, 2004

in other news.

even leaving the old lad out of the equation, these days have been odd.

i'm still exhausted, still stressed, still with too much on my plate, even though i've put a lot of effort into slowing down yesterday and today.
i'm still a little sad. i'm tired. i'm exhausted.

but it all hasn't been too dark, no.

i worked out lots, the one surefire way to lift my mood.
late friday night, i went to boxing class, right after an hour of reebok step.
it was just me, but christian ran the class nonetheless. personal training. for free.

at the end of it, i had bruised all my knuckles, but boy, was i happy.

i very much don't understand how it fits in with the non-violence i usually value so much, but something in me needs boxing for stress relief and instant happiness. somehow, my strange old body is well made for boxing.
it was fun, and apparently, i don't totally suck at it. okay, that sentence is me talking crap: christian kept praising my performance and cheered especially good hits and moves and told me he could do with coaching more women like me because it was enjoyable for him, too.
the only nasty thing was a neck exercise that instantly made me dizzy and turned on my tinnitus, really loud. no more of those. but more boxing = more happiness. yes.

i spend sunday in basel, on a "take-your-mind-off-waiting-for-the-law-exam-results"-mission with till.
we went to the kunstmuseum, a gallery i had always neglected when in basel because of the fondation beyeler, my fave gallery of all. the kunstmusem collection itself is amazing, yet the way it is organised does not make it very enjoyable. the rooms are tiny, the lighting bad. you find yourself just strutting past monets, because they can't shine, the way the are presented. very odd.
they had one rothko, too, which gave me the chills, as they all do.

afterwards, we sat in the sun (the first sun in a week) eating gugelhupf, went shopping at globus and beautiful ogling things at bookbinders design. later we met alex and his girlfriend, had some glühwein and strolled across the christmas market before heading back to germany and eating a cheapo but nice dinner at the last strausse that's still open.

till was more relaxed than i've seen him in months, i think.
mission accomplished.
unfortunately, he wasn't too content with his law exam results though. they arrived tuesday morning, and yes, the feeling that i need to get out of here and get it done and over with was enhanced by that bi-annual ritual.

tuesday was a low, yes. for oh-so-many-reasons that i don't feel like detailing.

yesterday was better though.
successfully went christmas shopping despite an extremely grinchy dirk. successfully cleaned my flat while chatting with andrea and drinking red. successfully did crafty christmassy things.
somehow some sort of christmas mood has been creeping up beneath all the stress and sadness and worry, ever since andrea used a mix of christmas rock classics as background music during saturdays bodystyling class.
truly bizarre, me.
not that i hadn't known that before, no.

it's sad though that now that i've slowly gotten used to being back here, i'll be going back up north to my parents place on monday and will stay there for two weeks. i truly don't want to.
because even though that christmas mood has been creeping up, i'm very much not looking forward to christmas. it will just be too odd, somewhere in a hotel room in the middle of nowhere.
my going home early has the sole purpose to attempt to make that christmas as christmassy as possible. baking cookies. organising a tiny tree that can travel in a car with my mom and me. buying presents for my über-busy mother. assisiting her with the shop.
right now, i can't imagine a christmas without home-cooking, a christmas tree and my dad's choir singing "silent nigth". i did without all this in australia, and while that christmas was fun because of sun, 35°C and roos, it surely didn't feel like christmas, at all, and sucked muchly in so many emotional ways.
i don't want christmas to suck this year, yet i don't want to expect too much by stressing about it too much or working too hard to make it *good*. whatever *good* is, anyway.

yesterday, i also bought a new moleskine diary. a pocket weekly one. i'm old fashioned like that.
it made me suddenly realise that this year is over already, and that there's still so much i haven't dealt with this year. so much i need to deal with.
it's always the same, ever year, and it gets worse the older i get.

plans/thougths/wishes/ideas/communication get lost in the daily grind.
i've seen it this past week. i've seen it this past year.

i want to change it. i want to live this life more fully.

sounds like a good plan, doesn't it?