Perfect Organism. Its Structural Perfection Is Matched Only By Its Hostility.

Who would have thought Ash’s description of the alien in “Alien” was also an exact description of the latest craze my body’s been up to? In the middle of last week, I lost approximately 1 1/2 litres of blood within 48 hours and then some more over the course of the next five days. More, anyway, than my body could replenish itself with adequately, leading to complete and total exhaustion which lasted well into this week too. And all that with a topping of donkey-kicks-stomach-cramps and a side of lower belly muscles who were suddenly overly sensitive to Earth’s gravitational pull (how else to get rid of the blood, eh?).

How have you been?

Other than that, I guess I’m fine. I keep complaining that I badly need a holiday – and I do – but that will all stop come next Tuesday, when I finally, for the first time since, I’m afraid to say, I can remember, get to have three weeks off work. Off uni. Off everything. I won’t have any money come mid-September (what, rent doesn’t pay itself?), but hopefully I will not mind because by then I will be blissful, wonderfully rested and fresh as morning dew. At least that’s the plan. We shall see if it actually happens, but I’ll keep you informed.
What I intend to do to make the bliss happen? Some intense doing-nothing-but-sit-by-the-lake, but before that: ROAD TRIP!! Woohoo! My parents are off to Berlin for a week right after my Mum’s birthday (next Tuesday) and I volunteered to dog-sit. For entirely selfish reasons of course. You didn’t think I was doing it out of the pure goodness of my heart and because I enjoy smelling dog food twice a day, now did you? Silly rabbits. You see, my parents and my not-so-little-anymore-little-brother will be taking the train to get to the German capital. Which leaves me with the car. Muaahhahahaaaaa. I will pack that little border terrier, my toothbrush and some tunes into the car and take off to the nether regions of the Bavarian Forrest.
Odd choice of destination for a girl whose favourite city in the whole wide world is London? Not so. As some of you may recall, two years ago, this same girl was coming fresh out of soul rehab. And where did that happen? In a one-street village some 20 minutes away from the Czech border. The backwoods of the woods if you will. They even talk different there. But two years ago, I made some friends I still truly love and am in contact with. I’ve been planning on going back there to see them all since about a month after I left, but I never made it so far. There’s the nurse whom I want to thank again for what she did to support me in my struggles. “Travel slowly, so the soul can keep up” she told me. There’s the doctor who let me talk about how horrible my childhood had been and at the same time seized the opportunity to freshen up his French with me. He was the one who put that paintbrush I’m still clutching in my hand and let me go wild on a sheet on paper and in doing that saved more of my soul than he could ever know. Above all, there’s Marion, Danie, Piera, even my ex-boyfriend Elmar (well, maybe) who accepted and welcomed me as I was: broken. They loved me without needing me to jump through flaming hoops and they were just plain a lot of fun to be around. I want to see Piera’s baby girl Amélie, the only baby (until my brother has some at least) whose picture I have displayed in my flat. I want to see Cynthia and talk to her and hold her even if she doesn’t recognize me or respond, because she is now in a psychiatric ward being treated for schizophrenia. She’s the one of us who made it the least and she’s the youngest and her pain pains me. We all could have been her. I could have been her.

But I was lucky. Lucky to find a loving boyfriend at the end of my clinic stay and have the ultimate proof that I could be loved. Lucky to find Entity and its amazing people whom I also grew to love. Lucky to be given the opportunity by my grandparents to start a new life in Zurich. Hell, if it wasn’t for them I would not be sitting in my first flat, able to enjoy some amazing take-away apple strudel. Of course I’m worried, deep down, that the money will not last until the end of my studies here. But so far I’ve seemingly always managed to find a way to fall back on my feet. Actually, this is something I’ve not ever thought about myself until, well, actually until right now where I am writing this, but it’s not untrue. And this brings me from luck to hope. I hope I will be strong enough to brave the biggest challenge in my life: my weight. There, I said it. Two words, eight letters and lemme tell ya, they’re not easy to type. I’ve been carting around so much excess over the last ten years, it’s time to learn a new song. Ten years… man, that sounds scary. But it really has been ten years and I don’t want to waste any more time than I already have. I wanna be brave and strong and healthy (and, admittedly, eat that apple strudel at the same time, but, well, yeah, that might be a bit of a conundrum). I want to like my body and not fight it. I don’t want to hate it and curse it when I’m walking up one of the thousands of hills that is Zurich. I want to walk up that hill thinking “god, my butt will look even greater once I get to Bucheggplatz”. Well, you get my drift.

Actually, all this has got me feeling like Ripley, alone in front of the Alien: “You… are… my lucky… star. You… are… my lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky”.
No, I don’t watch too many movies. In my world, there is no such thing, mmmkay?

Another little thing: lately, I’ve been toying with the impossible idea of a good news newspaper, because people often just seem so darn gloomy to me (hell, sometimes I’m one of ‘em). Can you imagine? “4-year-old rides bike for first time: not a single fall!” – frontpage. “The sun is still shining on Earth!” – full on feature. Etc. This, in turn, has got me thinking about something my rocking Roxey has advised me to do. On a quick tangent: being the incredibly caring friend she is, she has given me a few hours of her life coaching and I’m ever so grateful for it. If you read this, I thank you from the bottom of my heart (if it has one). Anyhoo, Roxey suggested making a list of gratitude. She also said in the same sentence I did not have to blog it or anything, but I will, because I think we do often forget to be grateful for the things in our life. Roxey said a phrase a few days ago that sums it up pretty well: “the only prayer you’ll ever need in your life is ‘Thank You’ “.

Here’s the list of things I’m most grateful for – and can think of right now. I’m sure once I’ve pressed the “publish post” button a zillion more will pop up in my mind. Oh well. This is in no particular order by the way.

- my belief in myself
- my belief in the good that lies in people
- my awareness that not all people are good
- my angel spirit Mara who from somewhere in doggie heaven, with jewels in her fur, certainly looks down upon me and is proud I didn’t dismiss the sacrifice she made for me
- my legs
- my eyes
- my friends, old and new, gone and to come
- my family (this excludes a certain aunt and uncle)
- my room plant, even though it seems to be dying and I can’t figure out why
- my DVDs
- sushi
- cinema
- my brain
- my languages and the existence of languages in general
- books
- Shakespeare
- Internet
- my curiosity
- my lips
- bugspray
- men
- women
- my ability and willingness to help others
- my voice and my Voice
- the fact that my friends love me
- the fact that I’ve finally found friends who support me and call when I’m ill
- paracetamol
- my ex-boyfriends and every man I’ve ever been with, there was a rhyme and reason to all those experiences, they were all good and needed and right at the time they happened, surprisingly enough
- Egypt
- the desert, seriously, any desert
- Tony Sloman
- music
- Gilmore Girls
- Benefit Cosmetics
- my hairdresser Rita who simply has to survive me because I cannot let anybody else ever touch my hair again. Ever.
- my courage
- my ability to think for myself and not run with the lemmings
- my MUN/MEC experiences at school
- my father
- my furniture
- rain
- the sound rain makes when falling on the leaves outside my window
- love, whatever that means
- Woody Allen
- kisses I’ve received, kisses I’ve been lucky enough to give, kisses in general and forever
- being able to do interviews and research, my favourite things about journalism
- Gutenberg
- my ability to be passionate
- my ability to stay passionate (let me sniff 3000-year-old mudbricks and be happy, ok?)
- the things I’ve learned
- the things I will learn
- the things I’m learning
- blogs
- sex
- orgasms (hey, if you knew the people I knew, you’d know what I’m grateful for)
- blue-eyed men with blue jeans and white shirts
- poetry
- the English language and the fact I speak it
- Calvin and Hobbes
- Computers
- my ability to love

Ok, I’m done for now, this list could be endless, I’m glad to announce. I will post more in a day or two, I’ve got lots of interesting/juicy new love interest stuff to report but it’s 1:20 in the morning as I finish up this post.

Thanks for reading me,

Anna