The Adventure Continues...

Rants, raves and random observations from an itinerant epidemiologist.

  
100 in 1000
  1. Spend a week up a mountain learning to ski
  2. Visit Karoline's place in Moravia
  3. Hold a conversation in Czech (only)
  4. Drink 500ml of each of the following beers:
    1. Pilsner
    2. Staroprammen
    3. Budvar
    4. Velke Popovice
    5. U Fleku
    6. Gambrinus
    7. Krusovice
  5. Respond to at least one GOARN request (WHO and MSF are also acceptable)
  6. Travel across the Atlantic
  7. Return to South America
  8. Read a book to, or with, an impressionably aged child
  9. Participate in one NanoWriMo Challenge and come within at least 10,000 words of the goal length
  10. Have my nose pierced
  11. Have my next tattoo drawn
  12. Purchase the perfect jeans (x 2 pairs)
  13. Attend a spin class 3 times a week for 8 consecutive weeks
  14. Bake Viv's cheesecake
  15. Make David's casserole
  16. Make David's Chicken Cashew-nut Stirfry
  17. Invite 4 people who don't know one another too well to dinner
  18. Ride from Vienna to Venice on a motorbike (pillion acceptable, those less desirable)
  19. Attend a book group for at least two books
  20. Go on a choir weekend (learn and perform difficult piece in two/three days)
  21. Visit Madame Tussaud's (in London)
  22. Take an architecture appreciation course
  23. Join an all-girl group and sing a solo
  24. Publish in a scientific journal (top two authors)
  25. Cook a duck or other 'waterfowl'.
  26. Locate the Al-Timimi's from Doha Veterinary Practise
  27. Have a pedicure
  28. Maintain a Brazilian (ouch) for three months.
  29. Find a trustworthy Czech hairdresser
  30. Treat my inner-6-year-old twice a week (at least)
  31. Do the liver-cleansing diet properly (12 weeks)
  32. Don't eat out for one month
  33. Find a flat and flatmate
  34. Purchase one Joseph sweater
  35. Purchase one of the following pairs of designer shoes (they MUST also be COMFORTABLE, and be able to be worn with 4 different outfits and 2 types of occasion): Jimmy Choos, Manolo Blahniks, Christian Louboutin (Ebay or 2nd hand are acceptable)
  36. Send 5 books to the booksphere and track them.
  37. Go hanggliding
  38. Read 10 'classic' books (from 1001 Books to Read before you Die)
    1. Moll Flanders
    2. Everything is illuminated
    3. Madam Bovary
    4. Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance
    5. Catch-22
    6. Odysseus
    7. On the Road
  1. Run (non-stop!) for 5kms outside (preferably in a street race thingy)
  2. Send Christmas Cards on time
  3. Make a collage/mural out of street lights on my wall
  4. Buy a bed, build it, and sleep soundly in it
  5. Go to Africa
  6. Host an 'event' (classified as and when)
  7. Organise a 30th Birthday Party
  8. Wear a costume
  9. Sing on stage
  10. Buy a painting that evokes memories of Prague (cannot involve queues!)
  11. Learn a god-damned card game that stays in my memory (other than fish/snap)
  12. See sunrise. Be sober. Have woken for it. Excludes months Nov-Mar
  13. Take a walk and flip coins at each intersection
  14. Win something
  15. Draft a will
  16. Take a roadtrip
  17. Go to Italy already
  18. Sea Kayak around Abel Tasman Park (NZ)
  19. Get plants
  20. Take a train to another Eastern European Destination (accession countries are acceptable) alone preferably.
  21. Get UK to give me a provisional motorcyclists license and simultaneously get a 'card' license.
  22. Go SCUBA diving again - at least two dives lasting 30mins each.
  23. Go to a dentist. *sigh*
  24. Do a Czech Wine Trail. And live to tell the tale
  25. Make an 'outbreak emergency kit'.
  26. Go to bed prior to 11pm every night (inc weekends) for four consecutive weeks.
  27. Marvel over lack of tiredness
  28. Dine at a Gordon Ramsey restaurant (or Nobu)- preferably for free.
  29. Bet on the nags
  30. Do something for charity (applying and getting a 'red card' will count)
  31. Walk along the Champs Elysee
  32. Do 100 sit ups in a row
  33. Do 50 pressups (arms in tight)
  34. Make branston pickle (or nearest substitute)
  35. Cook something 'new' and 'adventurous' at least once a month
  36. Find a mentor
  37. Be a mentor
  38. Learn what mentoring is all about
  39. Meet an online person in real life
  40. Resist the flirt. Once. Just one night. It's okay if people don't immediately succumb to my natural charm. Really it is.
  41. Spend time at a spa (spa towns in the CR don't count)
  42. Send a care package to someone
  43. Get a Tata Bojs CD
  44. Take a French/German/Dutch course and SPEAK THE DAMNED LANGUAGE WHEN I HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY EVEN THOUGH IT MAKES ME SOUND LIKE AN IDIOT!
  45. Order new contact lenses.
  46. Make a list of things I take with me when I pack for different occasions
  47. Eat lobster. Prepared by someone else.
  48. Back up the blog
  49. Put everything onto an external hard drive
  50. Find a DDR mat and console and 'dance, I say dance!'�
  51. Go to the beach and lie on the warm sand. For an hour. (with sunscreen on, natch)
  52. Take and complete a course in either: Tango, Salsa or Flamenco
  53. Join the Municipal Library of Prague
  54. Move to another country
  55. Go to a live concert of a band I actually like
  56. Pay off debts (student loan excl.)
  57. Send thank you cards for every gift I receive (other than the gift of happiness, blah blah blah).
  58. Get an agent (literary or theatre)
  59. Go to a sports bar without cringing, by personal choice
  60. Ride a rollercoaster
  61. Hold a snake
  62. Spend a day wandering around a museum (not art gallery!)
Letters to keep in your bedside drawer - 1
Sunday 6 May 2007
Did you realize we’ve known each other for over 10 years? It’s been 10 years since Liorah and I were dancing at Diablo’s. I was wearing a velvet leopard print double cuffed shirt with a short black skirt.

After a while, one takes a certain pride in one’s fashion ‘experiments’.

According to Liorah, who’s recollections are more likely to be accurate than those my ‘embellishes on-the-fly' memory makes dredges up, I was quick to do the terrier thing: a baring of the teeth, more snarl than smile, let her know you'd been 'earmarked'.

We spoke. “Do you want some water?” one of us said, “Cheers” the other probably replied.

Ten years we’ve kept in touch. Whatever for?

Of all the people to have kept with me for this amount of time, I never for one moment considered that it would be the fox-faced guy who I couldn’t walk beside without bumping shoulders - who introduced me to tubs of Moritz ice cream and watched the dawn rise over the grapefruit tree with me. I STILL haven’t been able to finish Withnail and I - even ten years later – it’s still as dull as the dishwater one of them is forced to riffle about in.

Do you recall my cousin’s dream-shopping-list for blueberry muffins? Every time I smell Strawberry Haagen-Daaz, or hear David Attenborough narrating the story of the dead baby whale (disturbingly frequently, despite reasonable expectations otherwise) I feel the hot flush of embarrassment at having been stood up for 2 hours. Geologically speaking, granted, it’s not a long time. But when you are due to leave the country again in 10 more hours, it seems an eternity to wait. What DID you do with the ‘trophy boots’? Moreover, who did you give them to?

See, you always had this rather laissez-faire attitude with me, which I couldn’t figure out since I thought we got along like a house on fire*.

Because, unbidden, I still see you when someone dances 'pointily'. Or when someone refers to Mr Big (damn Sex and the City for lexicon intrusions). Or whenever Liorah rolls her eyes disparagingly at me (frequently - I can tell even at this distance). Or when I think of the Parade.

So, Mr. Question: why was I drawn so powerfully towards your stupid “Car For Sale” sign back then? Did Matt ever realize the outcome of the postman role he played? Can you make a decent daisy chain yet?

So many questions, and they’re not even the real ones I want to ask. How are your parents? What about your beautiful sister? Did Alex ruin you, or were you already half way there yourself? Is it better where you are now? Why are we not together - why do we not work like that? Will you ever repay your debt?

I’m 99% certain you'll never read this. Answers are never going to satisfy me anyway - I know that, and so, probably, do you.

But I'll stay in touch for another decade, and probably another one after that. Because, damnit all to hell, I want to know what you look like when you're old, and whether you can still make me laugh as hard as you did.

Always - it seems.
N

*I suppose a house on fire leaves nothing but ashes and cinders in it’s wake. Ego-sparingly, I'm gonna go with that.

Labels:

posted by Nomes @ Sunday, May 06, 2007  
2 Comments:

  • At 12:39 pm, May 09, 2007, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    You're getting sentimental in your old age :) Have a wonderful 30th, Nomes (did you get my present?). I hope you have a brilliant day, are all sorts of spoilt, and feel at least a few of these dozens of hugs I'm sending you down the wire. Take care, gorgeous. mx

     

  • At 9:22 am, November 11, 2008, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    You write very well.

     
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