| 100 in 1000 |
- Spend a week up a mountain learning to ski
- Visit Karoline's place in Moravia
Hold a conversation in Czech (only)- Drink 500ml of each of the following beers:
PilsnerStaroprammen- Budvar
- Velke Popovice
- U Fleku
GambrinusKrusovice
Respond to at least one GOARN request (WHO and MSF are
also acceptable)Travel across the AtlanticReturn to South America- Read a book to, or with, an impressionably aged child
- Participate in one NanoWriMo Challenge and come within at least 10,000 words of the goal length
Have my nose pierced- Have my next tattoo drawn
Purchase the perfect jeans (x 2 pairs)- Attend a spin class 3 times a week for 8 consecutive weeks
- Bake Viv's cheesecake
Make David's casserole Make David's Chicken Cashew-nut StirfryInvite 4 people who don't know one another too well to dinner- Ride from Vienna to Venice on a motorbike (pillion acceptable, those less desirable)
- Attend a book group for at least two books
- Go on a choir weekend (learn and perform difficult piece in two/three days)
- Visit Madame Tussaud's (in London)
- Take an architecture appreciation course
Join an all-girl group and sing a soloPublish in a scientific journal (top two authors)Cook a duck or other 'waterfowl'. Locate the Al-Timimi's from Doha Veterinary PractiseHave a pedicureMaintain a Brazilian (ouch) for three months.Find a trustworthy Czech hairdresser- Treat my inner-6-year-old twice a week (at least)
- Do the liver-cleansing diet properly (12 weeks)
- Don't eat out for one month
Find a flat and flatmate- Purchase one Joseph sweater
- 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)
- Send 5 books to the booksphere and track them.
- Go hanggliding
- Read 10 'classic' books (from 1001 Books to Read before you Die)
Moll FlandersEverything is illuminatedMadam BovaryZen & the Art of Motorcycle MaintainanceCatch-22OdysseusOn the Road
- Run (non-stop!) for 5kms outside (preferably in a street race thingy)
- Send Christmas Cards on time
Make a collage/mural out of street lights on my wallBuy a bed, build it, and sleep soundly in itGo to AfricaHost an 'event' (classified as and when)Organise a 30th Birthday PartyWear a costume- Sing on stage
- Buy a painting that evokes memories of Prague (cannot involve queues!)
Learn a god-damned card game that stays in my memory (other than fish/snap)See sunrise. Be sober. Have woken for it. Excludes months Nov-Mar- Take a walk and flip coins at each intersection
Win something- Draft a will
- Take a roadtrip
Go to Italy already- Sea Kayak around Abel Tasman Park (NZ)
Get plantsTake a train to another Eastern European Destination (accession countries are acceptable) alone preferably.- Get UK to give me a provisional motorcyclists license and simultaneously get a 'card' license.
- Go SCUBA diving again - at least two dives lasting 30mins each.
Go to a dentist. *sigh*- Do a Czech Wine Trail. And live to tell the tale
- Make an 'outbreak emergency kit'.
- Go to bed prior to 11pm every night (inc weekends) for four consecutive weeks.
- Marvel over lack of tiredness
- Dine at a Gordon Ramsey restaurant (or Nobu)- preferably for free.
Bet on the nags- Do something for charity (applying and getting a 'red card' will count)
- Walk along the Champs Elysee
- Do 100 sit ups in a row
- Do 50 pressups (arms in tight)
- Make branston pickle (or nearest substitute)
- Cook something 'new' and 'adventurous' at least once a month
Find a mentorBe a mentorLearn what mentoring is all aboutMeet an online person in real lifeResist the flirt. Once. Just one night. It's okay if people don't immediately succumb to my natural charm. Really it is.Spend time at a spa (spa towns in the CR don't count)- Send a care package to someone
Get a Tata Bojs CD- 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!
- Order new contact lenses.
Make a list of things I take with me when I pack for different occasions- Eat lobster. Prepared by someone else.
Back up the blogPut everything onto an external hard drive- Find a DDR mat and console and 'dance, I say dance!'�
- Go to the beach and lie on the warm sand. For an hour. (with sunscreen on, natch)
- Take and complete a course in either: Tango, Salsa or Flamenco
- Join the Municipal Library of Prague
- Move to another country
Go to a live concert of a band I actually like- Pay off debts (student loan excl.)
Send thank you cards for every gift I receive (other than the gift of happiness, blah blah blah).- Get an agent (literary or theatre)
- Go to a sports bar without cringing, by personal choice
- Ride a rollercoaster
- Hold a snake
Spend a day wandering around a museum (not art gallery!) |
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| Letters to keep in your bedside drawer - 2 |
| Monday 18 June 2007 |
 It’s been almost 5 years since we were last in touch. You told me you'd sold my engagement ring to buy a new one for the wife you married 7 months after I broke up with you. Class.
That ring; it was beautiful and I loved it. Now, I think on it and something in my lower belly recoils in horror. I imagine it on my hand, and can still feel that trapped sensation again. Especially the suffocating one which consumed me when you replaced the ring on my finger while I was in a coma, following one doped up statement made following surgery. Remember? After I’d already thrown it at you and called the whole thing off.
I doubted myself so much after that. Had I actually wanted it back? Did I want YOU back? Were we going to be okay?
You made me forget how to listen to my intuition.
Goldenboy. Everyone loved you. Including me (at the start, at least). You were comfortable in amongst my family. Silent, but no one expects anything else – it's MY family, after all. People would ask you if you wanted tea, leave the room, then return to ask me if I also wanted some. My grandmother would phone me across the world to see how you were in the jungle. "Good I think, and my PhD's going well too, thanks!".
So I kept your dirty little secret for you. On your behalf. I didn’t want to see them doubt themselves as much as I did. I didn’t want to have those who I believe in implicitly held up to the light before me and be found to be ‘only’ human after all. I kept it quiet.
I took years to bring myself to divulge that while I’d been sticking swabs up chickens bums in Hamilton (the glory of PhDship), you’d been partaking similarly of transvestite hookers. I didn’t even know there WERE any in the city in which we lived. I kept it quiet.
When you told me where they worked, I couldn’t drive down that street for a year. The new house I moved into, after I moved out of our one (with the vegetable garden I'd made (well, Leigh and Nigel contributed significantly too!), the jasmine (Mamma had purchased, I had wound around the pillars), the fucking swan plants bearing monarch caterpillars (that had to be 'culled' halfway through the season to keep the plants alive - I DID that caterpillar cull!)) was around the corner. The circuitous routes I had to take to avoid “that building”. I kept it quiet.
I never complained when Mamma decided she’d keep in touch with you. Never mentioned your proclivities when she was so disappointed that she you hadn't informed her of your impending nupitals. Hell, I let her entertain you in the house I was living in with my then boyfriend. (He took me to a movie (I think). Possibly not. Possibly we went and did all the glass recycling. It’s good therapy to hear that glass break.) I kept it all quiet.
I learnt things from you though, I'm not saying I didn't, and maybe there were lessons that the universe needed for me to learn. I learnt about rugby: the offside rule, "Pass it, don’t kick it. Kick it, don’t pass it" etc. I learnt about ex-girlfriends (whose car I was driving, whose boyfriend I was living with, whose stereo I played my music with and danced in the lounge to). I learnt about ex-wives (when you were – thankfully – sent packing by the beautiful one you ended up marrying). I learnt more about mother-in-laws than I ever needed to. I learnt about fidelity (my own, and others). I learnt how to carry a secret, even one that eats me up inside.
Things are improving inside my head. I think (either that, or I’m slowly killing off sufficient memory cells that my level of caring has dropped). I can once again consider going out on stage wearing a dress, sparkly high heels shoes (into which a bloke's foot would probably fit), false eyelashes and a feather boa – DESPITE the fact I know that my ‘ladyboy’ good looks are likely what attracted you in the first place (I wish I’d just gone as a Witch, instead, and saved myself the three years of heartache).
Unfortunately, the self-doubt still lingers, it still pervades every relationship that I’ve had since, to the point of self-sabotage – to make sure that all current and future beaus will go the same way.
Possibly not the whore house round the corner from where I live, but y’know, A-way.
Awesome.Labels: Navel Gazing |
posted by Nomes @ Monday, June 18, 2007   |
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