Catching up, thoughts and "hard alcohol"

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..."

Cookies and Cookie Monster plasters

I cut my finger while cutting open a mango today.  (What a "cadillac problem".)  A mango?  Oh poor me!  Yes, I had mango and blueberries for breakfast.   But the cut was enough to need a plaster, so I delighted in being able to get out my "first aid kit" which was left over from going 'on the road' which consists in its entirety of a box of Sesame Street plasters. 

I know it's pathetic but they cheer me up.  And lo and behold, the first one I picked out turned out to be Cookie Monster!

I consoled myself further by having one of my favourite biscuits in all the world - Benton's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.  

I love them.  I'm so glad I still have two left.  I would set up an ordering system of those for myself if I were a millionaire because you can't even get them in the UK, let alone the Czech Republic.  But currently I have to put in orders for them to anyone who goes out to Illinois and can pick some up from Aldi.  Or at least, I think that was the particular supermarket that stocked them.

Anyway, it must have done me good to have both the mango and cookies because I had a rather productive day and even tackled a vicious circle-like bureaucratic problem that I had been putting off for ages because it's so hard to work out which aspect applies to my situation.  And it involves listing all my addresses for the last ten years, which is not only time-consuming because there are 7 addresses to list, but also painful because I remembered just how often I only just got settled somewhere only to have to move again and contrastingly got stuck in places I hated and felt trapped in for longer periods of time.

It made me think of the summer back in 2006 when it was really hot and all the grass in Kensington Gardens went a lifeless beige colour and I spent lots of time in the park, knowing I'd soon have to move house and wondering where on earth I'd end up and if I'd still be able to get to the park within half an hour or not.  The park became my home that summer.  Which sounds terrible.  But it sort of did.  The general routine was to walk along to the nearest coffee place and get some kind of terribly calorific frappuccino thing and then find myself a nice spot under a tree in my favourite part of the park and put out some kind of blanket and sit and listen to Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince's "Summertime" on my old and chunky iPod.

It's tragic what completing a bit of useless form-filling does to you.  I suppose I can blame the insomnia too, which is becoming a theme of my life at the moment.  Still, I can revel in the fact that 1) I have an evening to myself now, 2) one of my meetees bought me red roses this week 

and 3) I made lots of progress with working towards important goals of mine today.  So it's not all bad.  And I still have salt water taffy leftover from San Francisco so I can munch on that and reminisce a bit when it all gets too much.