New Rules

It's been a long break of not having time to write anything for myself, but, for today at least, I'm back! I've been caught up not only with some demanding paid writing work (it's terrible pay but I'm building up my portfolio of business, finance, politics and health/fitness articles, so hurrah to that!) but also with the trials and tribulations of living with a Czech boyfriend. Emphasis on the word 'boy'. Oh, how I long to be with a person who can be an adult at home as well as at work. My survival here depends, I have realised, on being able to negotiate enough time away from him or to myself to be able to cope with whatever is thrown at me and an unwritten rule to never, I repeat, never, expect or hope for kindness, understanding, love and affection given without prompting, or washing up completed by anyone except me.

These are the new rules in my current living situation:

1) Do not expect anyone to do any of the following: make tea in the morning, make meals at any time, do food shopping, washing up or any general cleaning unless it is you.

2) Get to bed before the other person so that you don't have to get into late-night difficult conversations that destroy all hope of sleep.

3) If you leave nice, loving post-it notes, thank you notes to accompany a red rose you bought, or buy special little things while food shopping just for the other person, do not under any circumstances hope for reciprocation of any kind.

4) Buy your own red wine and drink it while the other person is out.

5) Have a 'coffee fund' to escape the flat more often when suburbia and the quiet isolation of being in a flat you didn't want to live in in the first place begin to grate.

6) Make "acceptance, acceptance, acceptance" your new 'political party of one' manifesto.

7) Wear nice clothes while you can because you never known when the next Czech bank holiday might creep up on you and force you to accept a prolonged trip to the mountains to wear a hiker's uniform that makes you feel frumpy. (That would be the coming weekend.)

8) Be supremely grateful for rent-free living because this is the huge advantage that makes up for it all while income is slow to materialise.

So, in the meantime, I've developed a terrible YouTube habit of watching Kermit the frog interviews about all sorts of Muppet films, DVDs and TV shows past and present, as well as a cafe bill that is close to the sum total of my meet-ee income, bar one meet-ee who pays me directly into my Czech account, which serves to slowly be allowing me to save up. A bit.

And I've taken to re-training myself in the area of shopping. Seeing as I now live right next to a shopping centre, which I have to walk past to get to the metro station, it is no longer viable to cry, weep, pout or otherwise feel sorry for myself in the face of hundreds of things I would love to have but cannot afford. So I have purposely been attempting over the last couple of weeks to constantly think of things I love, such as, red roses, books, magazines, iPads, posh knee-length boots, YSL red lipstick, Wine-coloured dark lipgloss, dresses found at random on Net-a-porter (my addiction of the future I predict), Côtes du Rhône red wine (or the Rosemount Shiraz/Cabernet wine when French wines are not available even in the local big supermarket because this is the Czech Republic), tight-fitting warm Victoria Beckham-range type dresses that go over black leggings and feather earrings/hairbands of all kinds of crazy colours, and flights and hotel stays in London, Paris, San Francisco or NYC and imagining myself having them. Some of which is possible, some of which is a stretch to even imagine being able to afford. (The flights to NYC in particular, though I know I could stay in a friend's flat if only, if only, if only I had the money to sublet her flat or give her almost the cost of the rent at either Christmas or in Spring and I've NEVER been to NYC at Christmas...)

Anyway, the upshot of all this fantasising is, I am learning to not wince in lack-of-funds thinking whenever I see a lovely soft jumper or gorgeous dress or sparkly big handbag, and instead imagine that one day I could indeed afford this stuff or even walk into the L'Occitane shop without feeling like I'll be singled out as working class scum, and thus unworthy, at first glance. And I am writing lists in my head of what I already have, which I am enormously grateful for: Macbook (hallelujah!) iPod (hurrah!) red, Kurt Geiger shoes (Kermit the frog-like "yay!") and Nokia slide phone that is reliable and still works, bless it (Gott sei dank) and all of this is helping. Bit by bit.

Here are the pictures I printed out of dresses I loved on Net-a-porter (and I purposely didn't look at the price) and stuck in my scrapbook:

Happy perusing. The cowboy has just come back armed with a bag of freshly picked (giant) mushrooms, so we're having salmon and mushrooms and spinach tonight which is not only a culinary experiment, it is an experiment in sharing the cooking duties. Hmm. Strange new worlds...

A Year On - That New Year Concert (minus the Bolero)

Flashbacks of old, familiar things are juxtaposed against the absurdity of sitting and writing at my Macbook in a Star***ks cafe, looking like everyone else who comes in here.  Except this time the woman opposite with the next generation-up Macbook is infact Czech.  This is very unusual.  I'm obviously hobnobbing with the glitterati of Czech society now.  Infact, now that I recall it, I will be this evening.  It's got round to that time again when the new year concert, sponsored by an electricity company, pass on tickets to certain employees and the architect and I have tickets to go to hear some Dvořák (of course) and a few other composer's pieces at the Rudolfinum.  This will require my dressing up and attempting to look posh when, just like last year, I have earned so little lately, that I still don't actually have a clothes budget.  

So this means choosing from three possible dresses, which are all I have for such formal occasions and opting for the nicest, most comfortable, least edgy one, which I've had for about 17 years.  Yes, seventeen.  What can I say?  It's hard to find dresses that suit me and when I do, it's best to cling on to it, as I never know when the incredible coincidence of having enough money to dare to step into a clothes shop and finding a dress that fits and suits me will come together in some miraculous stroke of synchronicity.

The concert itself turned out to be fine - nothing too exciting and thankfully, nothing to get upset about.  It was freezing cold there though, so looking elegant when I needed a cardigan and scarf to remotely keep warm was nigh-on impossible, but nevermind.  The food laid-on afterwards was rather lovely and so were the two glasses of red wine I had.  Followed by a much needed coffee and a mini-crème brulée.

All this does not, however, mean I have escaped thoughts of ex-partner lately.  On the contrary, my brain happily tortures me in my sleep with all sorts of stories conjured up with him as part of the plot.  My sense of homesickness does not seem to entirely be abating either, which seems very unlike me somehow, but there it is.