SO here I am, sitting in my apartment alone again, partaking in the fruitless efforts of cards on the computer. I lost about $5000 at Blackjack (all fake money, of course), won two games of gin rummy, lost a game of Euchre, played Text Twist for an hour without making it on the board (only because the lowest score there right now is 87,000) and managed to talk to my family for an hour. GOD I NEED A VACATION, or a life. Or both.
Today Brikena, Gerrit and I went to Bratislava to the “lake”. I put this in quotes because it just doesn’t compare to a lake by our familiar standards. It was more like a river that badly needed to go on a diet. However, it was water nonetheless, in an otherwise waterless world. (Have I mentioned I hate being landlocked???!!!) What is it about water that gives a bit of serenity to the world? Maybe that’s why there have been so many wars here – lack of water! That’s my theory and I’m stickin’ to it! Anyway, we got out of the truck into the mud and muck and thankfully didn’t get stuck. (that’s my not-so-subtle attempt at really shitty poetry. Did it at least make someone laugh? It made me chuckle a little – then groan because it was so bad.) We just wanted to walk around in the fresh air a bit. It felt great to breathe something other than the stinking air of Prishtina. I spent ten minutes slowly shifting my weight from one foot to the other in order to sneak up on some rather unusual looking ducks to take a picture. I moved so slowly that they never even saw me coming. I was a tree that just kept getting a little bigger. Just as I got close enough, I slowly squatted down to get the perfect angle – the light glinting off the lake behind these odd looking ducks, shimmering silver while the clouds reflected the pinkish hues of the sunset. As I gained my balance, I framed up the shot and slowly pressed the shutter button. BEEP BEEP – “LOW BATTERY” it screamed at me, and the ducks ran away at the mechanical whirring of the zoom lens retracting back into the body of the camera. “@#%&)(#*$)#*$&)#*$()Q@&$(@!!!!!!,” she said quite loudly, further propelling our feathered friends into the distance. GRRRRR. Battery eating power hogging razzafrazzin’ digital camera!!! Poop.
Anyway, I made a huge admission about myself today. Not only am I a bad passenger (I take full advantage of Oh Shit handles whenever possible), I am an utter control freak. I know this may come as a big shock to some people (ha ha ha), but seriously, it’s an issue. Just for example, going around curves today, I knew we were perfectly safe, but I just couldn’t trust someone else to handle the vehicle. Of course, I could have done a much better job, had I been driving. SHUT UP! It takes a lot of work to turn off the inner dialogue in my head shouting “LOOK OUT! SLOW DOWN! OH GOD WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!” There is not a damn thing wrong with Gerrit’s driving, I’m just a nutjob. So as they say, the first step is admitting you have a problem. Ok, now how do I fix it? It’s bound to be annoying as hell. I know these things permeate other factors in my life too. In some areas it’s a real strength, like organizing events and being well prepared for whatever, but in others it’s truly inhibiting potential success, I’m sure of it. There we go! That’s my New Year’s Resolution for 2005 – relinquish some of need for control. Roll with it, baby… roll with it.
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