(Not as bad as) A Cow's Life

So winter has come early here in the Czech Republic and I feel weighed down just like this little bluebell-ish flower.  

(Is it one of those Spanish ones that have overtaken the English ones? I'm not very good at botany. As you may have guessed.)

The clever rescue plan of moving in with the Cowboy got me out of my flat and avoiding life on the streets or randomly on someone's sofa (actually I don't know anyone grown up enough here to have an actual sofa...)just in time to avoid financially overstretching myself into bankruptcy, but it has left me in a flat so inaccessible and so undesirable that no meet-ees really want to come here. Thus my income has remained so low I can barely save anything and now I feel utterly doomed to having to spend Christmas here. And I really didn't want that at all. But I'm rather used to being backed into corners forcing me to choose what I don't want. It's horribly familiar now.

Enough. I mustn't feel sorry for myself. This weekend I got to see beautiful countryside covered in snow. 

And by this morning there had been this much (see the level on the balcony ledge)!

And I must be grateful that I am not stuck sleeping out in the cold.  Unlike this cow.  

Chudák!

Problem or solution?

I don't want my focus to be all over the place, but negotiating a relationship (of sorts) as well as a career (of even more dubious, tenuous sorts) is fraught with difficulty especially when I find myself in strange and far-flung places.  It's not as though there is anywhere in particular where I feel 'at home'.  It's probably high-time I gave up on the notion that a sense of being 'at home' somewhere will ever find me or I will ever find it.  I don't have a strong tie anywhere and in each place I seek to make a home for myself, there's always something missing.  In London it was the possibility of speaking a foreign language regularly without having to pay for the privilege.  Finding British friends who can do that was nigh-on impossible and the ones who I befriended who weren't British, either spoke a language I didn't (i.e. Russian) or were about to move away anyway.  Or both.

And here, in the Czech Republic, I seem to finally have found myself drawn to another culture, not my own, not Czech culture, but American culture of all things.  Mainly because it is the polar opposite of the culture which surrounds me.  Is this a result of some innate need to always be the rebellious one?  Do I simply have to continually buck the trend and follow the path less travelled to a destination that only appeals to recluses?  What the hell is wrong with me, if that's the case?  I know, deep down, I actually DO need people.  I would like to be involved in a community of writers or musicians, meeting at cafes or dinner parties and sipping a fine Côte du Rhone and discussing the latest tricks of the trade, but somehow whichever camp I should find myself in, I'm sure I would feel like the fraud, for the mere fact that this one area (music or literature) is not my sole occupation.  Is this part of the problem or the solution?  I simply don't know.

Just for your reference, here's a picture of the "town" I've been residing in over the last few days, just so we can all see another place that doesn't feel like home to me. 

 It's sweet though, isn't it?

Jakžtakž

I have had my arm twisted into doing something I know I'll hate every minute of, but this seems to be the way of things at the moment.  It's just a case of "shut up and do as you're told".  This attitude will get you into trouble if you inflict it on people.  The lesson said inflicter must learn is: 'never get me to do this EVER again'.  [And no, Russian Countess, I do not mean you and your request this week.  I have no problem with that.  In fact, I'm quite looking forward to it.]  

And for god's sake don't tell me 'what good experience' this'll be.  It's sheer drudgery and, I might add, deceit.  You know it; I know it.  And if you're hoping it won't show, you're an idiot.  Seriously, she said, "don't let on that you're doing this for the first time."  I'm sorry, but I think that'll become self-evident.

As for yesterday's disappointment, I'm still feeling rather ambivalent about it.  How much is my fault for wanting to be open and honest about painful things is hard to tell, seeing as my gauge is always 'how much would I be prepared to handle?'  And somehow, it's always more than most people.  It's the difference between going the extra mile, and going the extra 50, I suppose.

So I have to try to survive the evening, feeling rather worn-out, indeed, wrung-out and even my newly altered jeans, the first in my life that actually don't drag on the ground, are failing to cheer me up.  So, if someone were to ask me today, how things are going in the Czech Republic, I'd have to reply, 'jakžtakž'.  Except, I fear it's already a little bit worse than just 'so-so'.  I'd even go as far as to say (and I hate to admit this) that I could quite happily leave for a night and go and get fish 'n' chips in England instead, just to cheer me up.  It's been a tough week.  (Can you tell?)