I forgot to write that yesterday, Kosta (who is the guy I dated for a couple of weeks last year, even though he told me on our first date that I should lose 30 pounds, even though he was morbidly obese, and who was generally a real douchebag) had a status update on Facebook that made me want to claw my eyes out:

Kosta .. sees a new path layed infront. A long jorney will begin,obsitcles awaiting, ups and downs will go in circle..and after all, is it not the jorney of life that matters and not the destianation?..it is time to dust off the good old walking booths and follow the moonlight shining upon..

I shouldn't be making fun of anyone else's enlightenment, and he is a smart guy, but this makes him sound like such a dumbass.

Someone responded, "woww now you have become a philosopher like aristotle."

I really hope that was sarcasm but I doubt it.

I realized last week that my mom and I have switched roles in the way that we communicate with each other. When I lived in the US and even in my first several months abroad, she would write to me constantly to ask how I was. Usually, she’d just send something to say, “Let yo mama know how you are!!!!!” but with a few more typos. Now? I don’t get those messages. Instead, I write to her every few days or even once a week to say, “Gee, haven’t heard from you. How is everything?”

I wonder what led to this shift but I pointed this out to her, and she agreed to have a Skype call with me yesterday. She told me that my aunt, who has been a teacher in a small school district in Indiana for 32 years, has lost her job due to budget cuts. Well, she has been offered a different position, but her 32 years in P.E. will come to an end. I don’t know how that works; will they cut P.E. from this school? It’s possible. My mom’s school cut their P.E. program a few years ago (along with music and art) and brought it back after a year or two, and my mom, who teaches the 6th grade, had to teach gym to her class. I think this resulted in a lot of relay races, and I advocated the use of the cage ball, my absolute favorite gym activity at that age and the only thing I didn’t completely suck at.

Anyway, when I was on Skype a few days ago, I got a message from an old friend I haven’t talked to in months. He and I were sort of close about a year ago, but we grew apart. I think that part of that had to do with my dating the Scotsman—I think he wanted to date me but never made that clear. We were just friends who maybe occasionally flirted but that was all.

So, we stopped talking over the summer. I made an effort to get in touch with him at some point many months ago but he ignored it and I left it at that. Then, a few days ago, a hi on Skype, which led to a call on Skype, which led to him asking if I wanted to turn on my camera so he could see me and vice versa. I said fine. And when his image loaded, he was sitting on his sofa, completely naked.

And, really, what do you do with that? If you are me, you laugh. “What?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing,” I said. “That’s just—wow. Ha.”

It made me feel good in a very peculiar way. It’s sort of the idea that, while all the good men may be taken, I can take solace in the fact that I’ll never be alone, as long as I keep my standards low.

That suggests that I am single or contemplating singledom. Neither is true. Well, with some of the complications I have with Chris, I guess I am always contemplating singledom but I want things to work with us. I simply think about what would happen if they do not. And if they do not, there’s a plethora of naked men, sitting on their sofas, waiting to share their lives or, at least, their goods with me. My, am I a lucky woman!

I've written about The Scotsman before, but I always enjoy my daily visit to that paper's website.

Today, my favorite content is a letter from the organizer of the Beard Liberation Front, which, according to Wikipedia is "a British interest group which campaigns in support of beards and opposes discrimination against those who wear them."

They, unfortunately, do not seem to have a functioning website at the moment.

But, even though I can never grow a beard, I do think that this is an extremely important issue and I'm glad to know that the cause is being fought for. Thank you, Scotsman, for the information.

David booty called text messaged me last night around 9:30. I didn't see the message until I was going to bed after midnight, so at least it saved me the pain of thinking of a response. Not that I would've gone; I was very happy playing World of Warcraft and talking on Skype with Chris. But, seriously, can't he fall into a giant vat of wine and drown?

I also had my first interaction with Kosta in more than four months. He left a comment on my Facebook status, so I responded, and he wrote back. It was light and meaningless, but you'd never guess that I really hate his guts and wish that he, too, might fall into some large pool of liquid and be unable to find his way out.

Sorry, I sound very hateful but I'm actually in a great mood. I'm about to go to Caroline's for cookies and hot apple cider, and I only have one more day of work before I head to Austria for the holidays. Unfortunately, I haven't bought Chris or anyone in his family a gift yet, so I might be braving a mall this weekend. Otherwise, though, life is grand.

This past weekend, Chris and I had our first webcam call on Skype. Prior to that, we had only text chatted, and his takeaway from that event was basically, "Holy shit! Why haven't we done this before!?"

Last night, we talked until 3 AM. He got a bit goofy and started singing somewhere around 2. A bit later, he grabbed one of his guitars and serenaded me with Frank Sinatra's "Something Stupid."

I can see it in your eyes, that you despise the same old lies
You heard the night before
And though it's just a line to you, for me it's true
It never seemed so right before
I practice every day to find some clever lines to say
To make the meaning come through
But then I think I'll wait until the evening gets late
And I'm alone with you
The time is right your perfume fills my head, the stars get red
And oh the night's so blue
And then I go and spoil it all, by saying something stupid
Like: "I love you"

Oh, my. Swoon!

That marked the first time I've ever had the urge to throw my panties at my computer monitor.

...Which, if Leon were any witness, would've been remarkably easy. I webcam called him before Chris to test my new camera, and Leon burst out laughing because he didn't think I was wearing any pants. The easier to toss my skivvies, Leon!

Anyway, Chris said that he missed me and asked if I was okay with seeing each other every two weeks. That sounds good to me: once a month I go to Vienna and once a month he comes to Prague. He suggested that this would work for a while, and then we could start playing with our vacation time. He said something like, "I'm not going to fly anywhere," which I first interpreted as a statement that he doesn't want to travel.

"But what about Greece?" I said.

"Ah, yes, of course, I want to go to Greece with you!" And he kept explaining until it was apparent that he simply means he doesn't intend to travel somewhere without me. His vacation time can be for us.

Hooray!

...I am really fucking happy. He will be here in just two days; I will have a three-day weekend in two weeks and will go to Vienna. And back and forth like this. I'm so excited about everything that perhaps I'll toss my panties into the air just for the hell of it.

I started writing about an aspect of Chris’ personality that I find incredibly endearing but I’ve deleted my three paragraphs because I realize it is far too complicated to fully explain. Suffice to say that, at times, he comes across as very excited(!) about us(!) and about me(!), even though I know that there’s a part of him that wishes to hide that in an effort to seem cool. Because, to most people, he is very cool and nonchalant. Hell, I think he’s very cool too, but that’s why I get to be extra flattered that he likes me (and could turn out to be the guy who thinks I hung the moon).

So, these two parts of him waging war on each other remind me of a dog that is trying extremely hard to obey its master and remain at attention, even though it is really! fucking! excited! about that treat you’re about to give him. And while the majority of his body remains still and his expression says, “What? Is that a snausage in your hand? Oh, I hadn’t even noticed,” his tail wags rapidly and betrays him.

So, to sum that analogy up: Chris is a dog, and I’m a snausage. A very happy snausage.

I have twice taken the train to Vienna to visit him. The first time, as soon as our eyes met on the platform, he ran towards me and seemed absolutely thrilled to see me. The second time, I was on a train that was practically empty and only had three or four cars, so he walked briskly alongside the train as it pulled into the station, searching for me. He easily spotted me sitting alone in my compartment and hopped on board as soon as the train stopped. Again, he beamed.

I contrast this with the last person to greet me in a similar setting: Dirk at the airport. To be fair, Dirk wasn’t my boyfriend, but, still, he wasn’t exactly waiting for me when I arrived. I mean, he was there. But he was outside smoking. If Chris were to meet me at an airport, I think he’d find a way to greet me on the tarmac. Or pilot a single-engine plane out to greet me mid-air.

He will be here on Friday and through the weekend. I am immensely excited. He makes me feel pretty damn special, and I really hope that I do the same for him.

My friend Amy is moving back to America on November 15th, but the Czech Republic wanted desperately for her to take a piece of it back with her...

As I think I mentioned before, she had a C-Section. The surgical scar from that hadn't healed last week (which may or may not be normal) but she started getting very sick. So she went to the doctor, who discovered that the scar was infected. Infected, because some surgical instrument had been left inside her.

So the doctor just reached inside the scar, searched around a bit, and then dug the foreign object out with his fingers. He then held it up for her to see ("Ta dah!") but she isn't sure what it was because they told her the name of it in Czech and, also, it was covered in blood. As was everything in the vicinity. Blood, blood, blood.

Not that this was some kind of horribly invasive surgery in which they didn't sedate or numb her, but, still, that sounds really fucking gross and painful. She has been through hell, and I know that for her, November 15th can't come fast enough.

A few other things:

I had my first German lesson with a native speaker named Robert last night. I thought he was a good fit for me, so I'll see him next Wednesday. I'm also having dinner with Caroline tonight and she is giving me a lesson. I know I can't set a schedule with her because she's too busy and I think it would stress her out so I'll let her teach me every week or two when she's available and keep Robert on for the full-time gig.

I contacted my sister about the wedding, but I haven't heard back. I just want to say that I'm not upset about it even though I do sound pissy in that entry, as a couple of you noted. I'm not going to make any decisions about travel until I talk to her, and I think that's only fair.

Yesterday during my lunch break, I walked under one of the bazillion construction sites in Prague and got some kind of debris dumped on me. The guy working there kind of shrugged about it, and I wasn't sure if I should be annoyed that they hadn't blockaded the sidewalk when making that kind of mess or embarrassed that I hadn't kept my distance. Anyway, the splatter seems to have washed out of my jacket.

I have a few remarks that I want to make about Chris but I think I will save that for another entry.

As you may know, part of my job entails visiting the websites of international newspapers, so I get to read a lot of interesting news (when it's in English, of course).

Today I found this "Burning Issue" in The Scotsman. So, in this time of economic crisis, just what pressing issue is facing Scotland today?

Do Bagpipes Need to Be Modernized?

Ha! I love it.

Last Tuesday, Kosta got drunk and emailed me that he had imagined us getting married and having a family. Since then, he has confirmed that he's in love with me.

We had dinner tonight, and I found him annoying at first and eventually somewhat enjoyable. But I did go into the ladies room at one point and ponder if I was failing by not liking him.

To be honest, my dislike of him is unusual. Don't get me wrong--I dislike plenty of people. But usually that stems from some sort of perceived dislike on their part, i.e., I think they don't like me so I don't like them back. Yeah, take that, haters!

But Kosta loves me and I am having difficulty mustering up positive feelings about him. I mean, what is that?

In other news, I wore a new pair of shoes for the first time last week. I walked the 6-7 blocks from my apartment to the metro, sat down on the train, and noticed that there was blood pooling around my big toe. Fantastic! Mind you, these shoes were purchased for comfort. Now one of them has a very nifty russet blood stain. It'll be a new trend, I'm sure.

I went on a 12+ hour car trip to Munich with one of my coworkers on Monday, because our visas were ready to be picked up. Unfortunately, we couldn't pick them up because there was a complication with our health insurance. So I get to do that over again in a couple of weeks. Yes, life is splendid.

I just don't understand why so many people think clowns are scary.

(Taken from this article, which, surprisingly, is not about scary clowns.)

I have an appointment in Munich Thursday morning for something visa-related, and one of my coworkers will be joining me. But we learned this morning that traveling from Prague to Munich by train takes a ridiculous amount of time (13 hours each way), and flying seems impractical and expensive.

...Road trip, anyone?

So my coworker got the bright idea to drive there, but neither he nor I have a valid driver's license, which means we need someone else to chauffeur us there.

And as we were discussing this, my coworker tilted his head thoughtfully, obviously running through a list of his friends, and then he snapped his fingers and said, "Timmy! Timmy can drive us."

For those of you who don't know, Timmy is this guy--the one with whom I left a concert in October and with whom I foolishly went home. It was a horribly unpleasant evening that stretched on for hours, because I couldn't just tell him to bugger off and I kept making things worse.

Anyway, my coworker called him, and Timmy's up for the trip! And it sounds like Timmy is bringing his new girlfriend.

So it looks like I'll be spending ten hours in a car with Timmy, Timmy's girlfriend, and my coworker. This will be a blast.

I wonder what detail in my Facebook profile is code for "Yes, please send me explicit details of your sexual fantasies involving Labrador retrievers."

If I manage to figure it out, I will swiftly remove it and save both me and SUNYA alumni a lot of embarrassment.

A chain of retail stores in Britain has withdrawn the sale of beds named Lolita and designed for six-year-old girls after furious parents pointed out that the name was synonymous with sexually active pre-teens.


Woolworths said staff who administer the web site selling the beds were not aware of the connection.

In "Lolita," a 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov, the narrator becomes sexually involved with his 12-year-old stepdaughter -- but Woolworths staff had not heard of the classic novel or two subsequent films based on it.

Leon said yesterday that I need to post more. I know this isn't what he had in mind, but I was thoroughly amused.

I went to see a meditative art therapist yesterday. I liked the therapy and the idea of the meditation, but I could’ve done without the art.

The therapist--a 50ish American woman-- talked with me for about 45 minutes about my circus of a life, and she was warm and receptive. Then we moved on to the meditation, and she turned on some music and had me close my eyes. She read to me off of a piece of paper about a ball of energy at the base of my spine. This wasn’t what I was expecting from the meditation—I thought I’d be imagining myself lying on a beach or something relaxing, not some cuckoo new age baloney.

Anyway, I tried to go along with it, but it was hard for me, especially because she sounded like she was reading and going much too fast for me to visualize my energy balls moving around and all that shit.

Then she whipped out some crayons and a piece of paper and told me to draw my energy experience, so I drew a peach-colored stick person with spirals of purple, blue, and green all over my body, except for my hands and the top of my head, which had sparklers of purple shooting out of them. I showed my drawing to her, and she seemed satisfied. She told me that purple is the color of transition, which is certainly fitting.

I made another appointment to see her next week, and I may ask her if we can bypass the coloring. My homework is to make a list of things that “excite” me. My first thought was to make a list of different foods, because, really, just saying “food” doesn’t allow me to explain the different emotions I feel in regards to lasagna, brownies, and Frosted Mini Wheats. Plus, if she thinks this could be made into something productive, like a cooking class, it’s important to note just how happy fast food makes me and that is not something I can replicate in my kitchen.

I intend to see my thieving ex-landlord tonight. Considering that his SMS to me was written in Czech (and all of our previous communications have been in English), I’m expecting him to be even more difficult than previously thought. I may arrive with a pack of scary Arab men who can rough him up if it doesn’t go well. (Kidding! But I do want Fouad with me if only because the anxiety of this is already too much to bear. And, no, Fouad and I are not back together.)

My new job is news-oriented, so in the past week and a half, I've brushed up quite nicely on my current events (and been able to read a few fluff pieces too). This particular article isn't nearly as serious as the content that my company syndicates, but I thought I'd share:



"SEOUL - SIM JAE DUCK was born in a restroom and now he plans to live and die in one - a US$1.6 million toilet-shaped house designed to promote his tireless campaign for cleaner loos worldwide.

"Mr Sim will open what is billed as the world's one and only toilet house on November 11 to mark the launch of his World Toilet Association."

The image has changed since this morning, though. It was an aerial view, showing that the house is really shaped like a toilet seat. I think it's excellent.

Speaking of toilets, I think the borsch (Russian beet soup) I had for lunch might have been a bit ambitious considering my recent digestive woes. Rut roh!

(Oh, and I know I haven't written at all about my new job so I will do that at some point, but my lunch hour is just now coming to a close.)

Yesterday I joined Caroline, Jirka, and one of Jirka's 15 friends named Petr for a wine festival. Earlier this summer, a guy from California asked me if my living so close to Napa Valley for three years had turned me into a wine snob. Not even close, I told him.

The truth is that I've consumed enough wine in my days to know what I like and what I don't but this has absolutely no relationship to said wine's quality. And it obviously doesn't speak to my knowledge (or lack thereof) of wine making.

So yesterday's festival wasn't really about wine--it was about burcek or unfermented wine. A quick search on "unfermented wine" tells me that this is simply grape juice, but what was being served in massive quantities yesterday was certainly not grape juice, so perhaps it was slightly fermented, since it did taste quite a bit like cider. I don't know, though.

What I do know is what Caroline told me of this burcek, and she said that it would ferment in our stomachs and make us all incredibly gassy. Lovely. I'm not sure if it made me gassy, but perhaps I was too busy shitting out my guts last night to be a good judge.

Sorry! Just slipped that TMI in there!

Anyway, Petr.



When I met Petr back in early June (pre-Fouad), he was perhaps the first guy in the Czech Republic who I had even the slightest interest in dating. I was at a huge disadvantage, though, because I looked like a hideous mess that day. I had failed to put on very much makeup and that which I was wearing had surely melted off by the time that we arrived at Happy Fest, a Hare Krishna celebration.

I flirted with him anyway, and, if you know me in person, you know that this is a very rare occurrence (and one that is quite painful to watch). I thought that he liked me too, at least enough that he and I spoke together privately for a large portion of the evening and he even broke out his Czech/English dictionary to keep the conversation going.

At some point, the majority of us decided to leave Happy Fest in search of a pub (not too hard to find in Prague). Our group consisted of me, Caroline, and three Czech men, and Caroline started getting very irritable and wanted to go home with Jirka. Jirka didn't want to, so she pouted.

I really, really wanted Caroline to cheer up and ride out the evening for me, her friend, but she had no intention of being so charitable. In truth, I think she thought her presence was unnecessary, because I was interested in Petr and Jirka was interested in his friends, but I knew that as soon as she left, it would be odd for me not to leave with her.

So, as we all drank our beers, the Czech men conversed, Caroline pouted, and I tried not to look as awkward as I felt. Eventually the pub closed and the men wanted to go to another one, but Caroline put her foot down and, with that, the evening ended.

Petr got on a tram with me and got off at my stop, despite the fact that he lived four or five stops after mine. In retrospect, he was probably expecting me to ask him if he wanted to come home with me, but I wasn't comfortable with that. Instead, I asked him if he wanted to get another drink, which he declined, saying that he should probably catch the next tram.

He then asked if I would be going out with Jirka et al the following weekend, and I said yes. He said that he'd call Jirka and then maybe he'd meet us. Maybe.

When the weekend rolled around, Caroline made sure that Jirka invited Petr out with us. Petr told Jirka that he had plans but that he'd try to stop by beforehand. He never showed, and I sulked the majority of the evening.

Yesterday was the first time I had seen him since Happy Fest, and I felt as though he expected the flirtation to continue. He was playing with my camera and taking pictures of me, but I wasn't interested because I already have a boyfriend. Too late, buddy!

Besides, after drinking all of that burcek, I had to make a date with my toilet. And unlike Petr three months ago, I actually showed.

Barry used to joke about my clown car of a purse. Although it was never particularly small, I used to pull the most random shit out of it, much to his bemusement.

He would've really appreciated its contents last night. When I came home around 8:30, I withdrew from my handbag a half liter of Coke Light, a cheeseburger from McDonald's, and a slice of four cheese pizza...with hardly any lint on it too!

I am an odd girl.

jameth's call for fake Burning Man stories made me LOL. They are here, and they're funny until the real Burning Man people show up.

God! Those Burners are such a buzz kill!

Today I accompanied Fouad to the Algerian embassy, because he needed some official paper for one reason or another. He tried to explain it to me in what, I think, he believed to be English, but all of the big, important words were in French.

Fouad: "I need to get a certificate of [French word] for [French word]. You understand?"

Kate: "No."

Fouad: "The embassy of Algeria can give me my [French word] [French word] [French word] for [French word] [French word] so that I can [French word]."

Kate: "Ahh, well, when you put it that way..."

I was surprised that they actually let me inside the embassy, since I'm not Algerian, but they never asked me for my nationality or to see any papers. They just buzzed me on through the gate with Fouad, no questions asked!

This was quite different than my experience with the American embassy a month or so ago.

For starters, the American embassy isn't with all of the other embassies. It's off on its own, doing its own thing. Typical American, really.

And while all of the embassies are gated and their windows barred, the American embassy had a few security guards outside and a blockade on the street, which stopped and questioned every car that simply wanted to pass.

Then, I couldn't even go inside. Fouad obviously couldn't either, but even I, an American, couldn't enter. If I had an emergency, I would have been allowed inside. Likewise, if I had set up a meeting or stopped by during the ultra-convenient hours of 8:30 to 11:30, I would be admitted. But Americans in Prague can't just drop by at 2 in the afternoon to schmooze with the ambassador or have a Coke with their fellow countrymen, and I think that's a pity.

Anyway, I've got to tidy up my flat a bit before bed, because the landlord is stopping by tomorrow.

I got shit on by a bird today. It was a direct hit on my right boob and the second time in recent memory that I've taken one to the chest.

The last time was a year ago when Leon and I were looking at tide pools around Monterey Bay. That one must've been huge, because when that bird turd struck me, I was convinced that either:

A. A dragonfly had kamikazed into my quaint Angel's Bakery t-shirt

B. I was the target of an assassin's bullet.

What a relief to find that I was merely covered in pasty white goo!

Today when I noticed the bird shit, Fouad told me that in his (Arab) culture, having a bird take a dump on you is actually good luck and symbolizes that you are about to come into shitloads (sorry, I had to) of money. And when I tried to wipe off my shirt, he frowned and shook his head.

I imagine that right now, he is telling his friends, "Ha ha! I convinced a stupid American woman to walk around all afternoon with bird crap on her shirt!"

...Okay, not really. After I explained to him that I didn't feel very "lucky" walking around with a white stain on my shirt, he took me to a water fountain where I doused myself until the relatively small white spot was replaced with a gigantic wet spot. Mission accomplished!

Also, yes. I am back in Prague. More on that later.