Thoughts on a day when I ran out of time to post this (26/09/12):
Voluntary ban? Pah! We've got the real deal here.
Having just read this article on the Guardian site this morning, I was quite surprised that it was about shops being asked to voluntarily stop selling the stronger alcoholic drinks mentioned. I myself, have failed to mention that here in the Czech Republic, (that's right - right here, right now in the 21st Century) there is an actual ban on all alcoholic drinks of 20% alcohol or higher (referred to as "hard alcohol" in Czech). Some people died from the sale of alcohol that had metallic alcohol not the digestible type (I still don't know exactly what this means, not being a scientist myself and not having the advantage of being able to read this news story in English and I suspect the actual difference itself, when relayed in English, wouldn't mean a whole lot more to me anyway) so they've banned it from being sold in shops and supermarkets. Though the ban is already lifting now, for any drinks manufacturers who can produce a certificate to confirm the date and method of production. Or something.
So just as I finally have time to write about this (I'm sort of pleased to say that paid writing work has taken priority this week, though also disappointed to say that it really isn't paying more than half the minimum wage for how long it actually takes to write the articles I have to write and subtly include the links they want, ho-hum) it's a story that's almost over. Mind you, that doesn't stop the news here talking about it all the time. Still. After a grand total of about 21 people died. The fear is that more will follow from people who bought vodka or rum or that sort of drink months ago and might not open it to drink until a birthday or other celebration comes up, by which time they'll have forgotten the time they bought it and the ban that followed because it will then have slipped off the news agenda.
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After re-watching the film 'Stranger than Fiction' on Saturday night (while away with no internet access):
I think I would have loved an old style typewriter to write on, just like the novelist in 'Stranger Than Fiction'. The light of the room she writes in. The peace and quiet. I wish I could have that peace right now. It's beginning to get to me. To settle into my brain. The background noise of a constantly on TV spewing out Czech exclamations incessantly. Offering sometimes a welcome variety of vocabulary and a delicately accented Czech that I don't hear here in Prague. The gorgeously bristling sound of the 'ř', the carefully placed emphasis on the first syllable of a word or preposition that precedes it. But sometimes the TV merely replicates what I hear at what is for now my 'home'. A series of exclamations of disgust, despair and disappointment that become reduced to expetives and casual language that can sound even lazier and weighed down in apathy when given the right, Prague-style dull intonation.
I know I will need an exit strategy, no matter how grateful I am for the lessons I have learned here.
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I don't seem to be making much progress lately. After a wrangling with Barclays on the phone yesterday which ended when they put me on hold so long my £10 credit ran out, and a battle with a form I just cannot fill-in in Czech without help, losing meet-ees again and barely earning enough money to keep me fed and able to travel (and top-up my phone after talking to the people at Barclays) I'm in the heart of the recession I think. Just like everyone else. I really, really miss my flat now more than ever and the thought of going into the thick of autumn, possibly even winter without my own space to work and put up pictures and fairy lights and generally feel snuggly and at home, is just upsetting. I've got to find a way to be ok with the way things are though, because we all know - "what you resist, persists". I should know that one by now.
I must make, "it's ok, everything's fine, this is exactly what I want right now", my inner mantra and see if that shifts anything. It's worth a try. Everything else failed, so why not try a totally insane kind of 'self-help' practice and see if it works? Failing that , I'm simply going to get out the big Sesame Street book again and resort to singing the Cookie Monster version of 'Call Me Maybe' over and over: "Me just met you and this is crazy, but you got cookie, so share it maybe..."
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