Plans for 2009

I’m going to keep this one short. First of all, a quick revisit of what my plans were for 2008 and how I’ve done:

* move back up to Edinburgh (by mid-2008 the latest)
* sell Italy-house (by autumn 2008 )
* get a cat
* start MA in Translation (Sept 08 )
* buy a 52″ or bigger high-end HD TV

I’ve done 1., 3., and sort of 5. (I got a new HD-ready TV, though not 52″ !!).

The reason I didn’t, or only half-heartedly, tried selling the Italy house is that I found out you have to pay capital gains tax if you sell it under 5 years of ownership. That means I can reasonably aim to sell it in autumn 09, as from some time in October I will have owned it for 5 years.

The reason I didn’t start the MA in Translation was that I simply didn’t see the point any more. I now work 9-5 Monday-Friday and have no ambition to become a freelancer/teleworker in the near future, which made the MA redundant. Plus I was way too busy!

Now the plans for 2009:

• Sell the Italy house, taking advantage of the weak pound and strong Euro as the world is in recession hehehe (October onwards i.e. past the 5-year-date)
• Cranking up the frugality (I’ll be posting about that in bits and bobs and share my ideas)
• Keeping on the straight and narrow (no cigarettes, not too much drink) –> I don’t have to *go* on the straight and narrow, but I have to stay on it for a bit and iterate it

Hm.. I don’t have many *concrete* plans it seems, other than the Italy house. The rest is more to keep my overall positive attitude and, I suppose, ’spread the love’!

The older I get, the more love I feel. Not for every Tom, Dick, and Harry. But for those few that count. I’ll continue to nurture that all the way in 2009

Gerhard Richter exhibition and a Homeless Girl

Image by cliff1066 via Flickr

I went to the Gerhard Richter exhibition that I’ve been wanting to go to for ages, and which ends on the 4th January. While there, I was aware of my somewhat outsidery-status due to the number of  ‘toffs’ around (the upper middle-class, or maybe the educated, cultured class. I’m neither here nor there and don’t feel I belong with either).

I thoroughly enjoyed it and made some notes on my phone (copying from descriptions etc.), such as:

All his paintings, no matter what their subject matter, are about the materiality of paint. The squeegee did not allow him complete control over how the paint was applied. He greatly prized the objective element that chance introduced into his work.

Without going into too much detail, I liked the fact that his work is about materiality, and that he wants to remove his ‘personality’ (or rather, subjectivity) as much as possible. To be able to work with materials and create something that is however not about you, or your suffering, or your subjective experience. Quite the opposite of, say, Tracey Emin’s work (who incidentally had a major retrospective at the same gallery in August).

So, there I am wanking my mind with thoughts about art and objectivity, and how this is what constitutes good work (i.e. Richter’s approach – materiality, getting rid of the subject), and on my way home a 17-year-old homeless girl from Glasgow asks me for directions to Leith Walk as she was looking for a night shelter there. She’d come from Glasgow where her 22-year-old boyfriend had thrown her out, via Livingston where she went to see her mother, a junkie, who didn’t offer any support but instead asked her daughter for money to feed her habit.

So I walked her to the top of Leith Walk, chatted about irreverent stuff (my being German, she had taken German at school etc.), while inside my heart was breaking. I thought about the wanky art stuff, and its irrelevance, and how the whole strife for objectivity doesn’t really communicate anything to the great majority of people. How removed it is from the actual real materiality of life. And how we tend to forget that it’s a fucking luxury to be able to think of such subject matters as the ‘materiality of paint’ and get turned on by removing subjectivity from our wanky self-expression.

How to get my Chrystal Xbox back

Image via CrunchBase

My limited edition Chrystal Xbox is still at my mate (geezer) J’s mom’s house. What happened was that ages ago, I took the Xbox down to London together with a few games (most of them belonged to my Ex. I only ever bought Fable and never completed it).

I then lent it to my mate J. who lived across the road, because he didn’t have a console and was skint, and I’d just gotten my PS3. He kept it for a few months and put it to good use, playing all the games etc.  and it was all good. He then saved some money and bought himself a 360 which means he no longer needed the Xbox. By that time, I’d already moved back to Edinburgh and eventually split up with  my ex BF.

The problem is that my Xbox is still down there, together with Fable, and I do not know when / how I will get it back. I had half-heartedly planned to go down to London in my Xmas break, see J. and his mum (whom I’ve always got on well with) and pick up the Xbox at the same time;  however this ain’t going to happen now as the train tickets were too expensive. I then asked his mum if she could post it up to me if I paid the postage but she hasn’t got back to me. I thought I’m not going to see it again.

However.

Today I had a GENIUS idea. I’m currently paying the ex back £2500 that he contributed towards the Italy house (all a bit of a contentious issue from both sides.. not going into it) in monthly rates of £500. What I think I could do is ask him to post it up or alternatively, I could suggest that he keeps the Chrystal Xbox and Fable and I take off £100 of the last installment (which is due in February I think).

Before anyone thinks that’s not fair as it’s kinda ‘blackmail’: I think it’s only a decent thing for him to post it up and I believe in fact that he should have offered it in the first place, rather than not really bothering and saying ‘it’s at V’s (J’s mum) for you to pick up’. It’s a limited edition and after all, him and J. borrowed it for ages. I don’t see why it should now be up to me to travel to London for ££££ only to pick it up! Of course, I’d offer to pay postage, the box, wrapping, etc. – all he’d need to do is go to the post office which is a 5-mins-walk.

So, what I’m going to do after the next installment has been paid is stop the standing order and ask him if he could kindly post the Xbox up, together with Fable, in the original box and with ALL the accessories etc. Once it’s arrived here and I have assessed that it’s in full working order and not damaged, I will pay him the rest of the money plus the postage

If he refuses to do it or can’t be bothered, he’ll just get £400 instead of £500 and he can sell the Xbox in a few years’ time when, being a limited edition, it’ll be worth at least the £100.

A True Day of Doing Sweet Fuck All

I still haven’t had a day where I truly didn’t do anything this Xmas holiday. The problem with working full-time is that you never get time to do housekeeping, tidying, planning, throwing stuff out, etc. etc. during the great majority of the year.

So when you ARE off, all these tasks have piled up. Thus, instead of being able to relax and, say, spend a day doing only things for yourself and your own pleasure (e.g. playing games, reading, staying in bed all day) you end up opening up letters that haven’t been opened in weeks, filing, re-potting plants, alongside general cleaning activities that you don’t usually have time for.

It’s a hard life! I wonder if I will be able to squeeze in a proper day of me-time before I’m back at work

A Date with the Ex

No, not really

Not having heard from my ex either for Xmas or my Bday (I had half expected at least an email or text, however brief), I googled his full name just to see what he’s been up to.

A good reason to never give your full name online / have it feature in any profiles if there ever was one! Amongst the highlights was the discovery of his having signed up to a site called GorgeousGamers (w00t) in April 2007, over a year before we actually split up.

There again, I shouldn’t be surprised, seeing that I discovered a message on an old phone of his by chance (wasn’t looking through it – I’m not the jealous/paranoid type..) roundabout March 07 which said:

Bloomsbury Thistle room 207 knock and wait as u enter u wil b blindfolded til u r in bathroom so u can change b4 knocking to b allowed out to c your MISTRESS. R u ok abov this

Note the ill-educated writing and spelling. Not a match for me. I never told him about this at the time. I suppose it didn’t affect me that much – or maybe I was just collecting ‘evidence’ for the time when I would need it. I never told him though, even when we did split up (I with him, for the record). But this kind of stuff definitely helped me disengage emotionally.

After all, I had loved my ex! But this type of thing only contributed to loving him less and less and less each day, until it had all but disappeared.

Xmas Prezzies and More

Image via Wikipedia

Christmas at my BF’s parents was really enjoyable. His family is very reasonable, quite happy, proud to f ly the Scottish flag (but not in an over the top way), and were very friendly towards me but not to the point of nosey. B. and I could pretty much do whatever we wanted to, i.e. there was no ‘forced’ or prescribed behaviour or expectations in any shape or form.

We got there at about 1PM and they were already over at their neighbours (apparently this is a tradition – they go over there for a couple of drinkies in the PM). B. and I stayed in his room for a bit but then we were ‘discovered’ – his brother called on his mobile and asked us to come across, which we did. We stayed for a few drinks (me being on the Vodka + Diet Coke) and then went back to theirs and sat down in the conservatory, where presents were given and unwrapped, before having dinner and drinking some more

I got various things including a dark slab of chocolate by HotelChocolat which is amazing mmhh! Also a couple of games – LittleBigPlanet for the PS3 (which I played tonight) and God of War – Chain of Olympus for the PSP (great game!).

I’m back home now though. Needed to get back to the cat and try out LittleBigPlanet. My BF has an Xbox 360 and not a PS3, and I got him Gears of War Special Edition so this afternoon  I was on the PSP and he on the Xbox 360. I don’t mind that – quite the opposite. It was interesting seeing the Xbox 360 in action, and particularly Live. I can see how the system is more ’sophisticated’ than PSN – on the other hand, PSN is free, and to be honest it’s just right for a casual gamer like myself. I wouldn’t know what to play on the 360!

PS: Today I also purchased the new Prince of Persia for the PS3 from play.com – it’s only £17.99 for some reason!

Xmas 2008 – Meet the Parents

This Xmas I’ll be meeting the ‘in-laws’, i.e. my new BF’s parents and family, for the first time. Pretty different then to the situation with my last BF whose parents (rather: his mother and her BF) I only met 5 years after we first started going out!

There again, the ex wasn’t really a family person so hardly ever saw them. Plus, they lived on the other side of the country (in the South of England – Devon, to be precise).

I suppose I could or should have met B’s parents before this Xmas do, just to make sure we get on fine and there is thus no opportunity to ‘ruin’ the most important ‘family’ day of the year . But I am confident and I’m a reasonable person. I know how to ‘hold my own’ and to make a good impression.

We’ve Come A Long Way Baby

It’s my 35th birthday today and I was going to write a post about how far ‘we’ have come. Instead I’ll embed a YouTube – video that has me in it.

I’m off out now to celebrate with a few drinkies with my sweet, sexy boyfriend, and we’ll go and see D&J and the baby afterwards

Facebook ‘Backchat’ via Twitter

A while ago, I integrated my Twitter updates into my Facebook profile, purely so that *something* was happening on FB (as I don’t log on that much these days – maybe every other week if that). What’s started to happen now is that I get comments on my tweets via Facebook, when all I want is to broadcast stuff without getting any communication back!

I might therefore remove Twitter updates from my FB – though in the first instance, I’ve unticked ‘Friends may post to my Wall’ in my Settings.

Hopefully that will do the trick. I really don’t want to feel ‘watched’ when I twitter, if that makes any sense. Even though people might read it!

lenina at the Space Age – exhibition

Here’s a pic of me at the Space Age – exhibition in Edinburgh that’s currently on loan from the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. I did in fact go to the Museum of Childhood with the ex this year January and even blogged about it here (Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green).

In a weird way I’ve seen the same thing with two different BFs. In my first article, I even talked about the Meteorite which of course I remembered and told B. about, and yes, it was there when we went on Saturday.

The helmet that I’m wearing is of a space costume that was provided for children to dress up and run around. I’m nearly 35 but I LOVE playing and indulging the child in me sometimes (hence I play video games and such). The good thing is that B. is like that too – probably more so.  Note that playfulness can sometimes be silly and maybe immature, but in our case at least, it’s never irresponsible – I take life in general rather seriously