(mostly as written between Saturday and Sunday, with some attempted restorations on Monday)

I’ve got batteries in need of a recharge. Seriously. I’m in one of those inexplicable moods, and I just can’t shake it. Anyway, due to my fear of this post turning into a complete downer, I’m going to first point out some amusing/funny/slightly embarrassing things that have happened to me in the past week.

1.     I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but in case I’ve not, let me just preface things right now by stating that this is not the first time that this has happened! What has happened, you might ask. Well right now, as I type this, I am sitting in my usual coffee shop, bad music and annoying people and all, and there is a boy at one of the computers they have there, watching porn. Yes. Watching. Porn. So they have public computers here. And these public computers are situated along one wall, so that the screens face the rest of the café. Anyone, anywhere in the room, can easily see what you are doing. You know, basically this is a public space. Where people apparently watch porn. I mean granted, this is my old quartier. Geneva’s very own red light district. But the sex shops/brothels are next door. Sigh. Oh well, I think it’s sort of hilarious. And quite daring, really. I also find it funny that nobody else seems to notice these things. Amazing. Just another day in Geneva.

2.     I may also have mentioned this before, but as I went to this section in the supermarket earlier, I’m going to mention it again…. So the Swiss love their ‘tubes.’ Especially when it involves condiments in tubes. I mean, this is the country in which everything comes in toothpaste-shaped containers! It’s like being an astronaut, and I love it. For instance, we needed mustard. So I found the tube section of the store and had to walk down an aisle of tubes, in which I had to closely examine each one to find out where the mustard was. It’s pretty fabulous. I have bought everything from mustard, to condensed milk, to tuna (uh for a friend, not even I could manage something that terrifying), ketchup, wasabi, and pâté (also a friend) in tubes. In fact, sometimes I search out new types of food-filled tubes just for the fun of it. I just needed to share. That is all.

3.     This story is somewhat embarrassing, but when I look at it objectively, it is mostly hilarious, and it makes me sound like a fat cow, so I feel it is probably worth telling. So, the other day at work I was in the kitchen with one of my officemates. Someone may have dropped some chocolate on the floor (not me, I swear!). As I have cat-like reflexes, I immediately moved to save the delicious treat from floor cootie contamination. Somehow, however, because of what I was doing, I didn’t just bend/reach for it as a normal person might. Instead, I found myself doing a sort of half-split facing slightly the wrong direction, so I had to twist my torso around in order to face the wayward snack, before bending down towards the floor to retrieve it. Obviously, all this awkwardness led to some mortifying conclusions. Yep, you guessed it; I split my jeans up the back. As in, I was glad I was wearing cute underpants that day. Sigh. Strangely, my officemate did not notice. I, however, after a moment’s frozen consideration, decided not to mention it, and edged stealthily out of the kitchen and over to my desk so that I could quickly wrap a previously discarded jumper around my waist. Sigh. It made me sad. They weren’t even tight jeans, and were in fact quite baggy, fairly new, and sort of one of my favs. Sigh. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to work out a fun patch job.

So yeah, moving on to less enlightening subject matters.

Stress currently= my life. And as those who know me surely realise, it is just one tiny step for me from stress to downward spiral of uselessness and craziness. Basically, my productivity level here has been by and large nil, despite my best efforts and my constant self-indulgent pep talks. I keep saying that today it’s going to be different. It never is. And it’s catching up with me. So on top of now being overwhelmed with the work that has not been taking place, I’m stressed about cats, cars, storage units, coursework, university entrance exams, university applications, writing, my inability to control my ADHD, my play (which goes up next Thursday. Yay!), moving the rest of my stuff out of my apartment, money, and probably about a bazillion other things. To top it off, this appears to be the time when friends close to me and/or their friends/family have all become super ill or passed away. Within a week I have tried to be there for two people through deaths of people they cared a lot about, plus found out about a serious illness in a friend, and the serious illness of a friend’s father. It’s hard when things like this happen, because all I want to do is concentrate on my crap so that I can stop being a happy-go-lucky ball of stress about it. But then, of course, hearing about the things that others are going through, that are, of course, much bigger deals than all my petty problems, then makes me take a step back, feel guilty, and then try to be there for them, in whatever ways I can (ooh, nice run-on sentence. J Insert breath here).

Things do need to change though. I’m just curling in around myself again, and I hate it when I’m that person. I need a recharge. I need to get all these things done so I can just enjoy myself, live in the present, and stop being such a boring person to be around. It’s just hard though, because despite having friends here who are decidedly awesome, I’m still quite lonely in a weird way. It’s like the feeling alone in a crowded room syndrome. I went from being pretty happily stable. Not ecstatic about life, but content, I suppose, to all over the place. The sun is shining, there are cool people around me, so someone please shake me out of living in my head! There’s an amazing world out there for me to explore, I should be jumping all over that chance. It’s hard though too, because despite how awesome my housemates are, they are just living in a different world here. I wish I were living in theirs. They have jobs that they leave at the end of the day, and then don’t have to worry about work until they go back. They also are in fairly stable situations. They’re not worried about where they’re going to be in 6 months, or how they’re going to get there. I envy them their happiness. Not only am worried about this. I’m worried about the fact that I’m about to move my cats across a giant ocean, and I’m probably going to have to pay for them and me to get somewhere new. I’m hoping that I’m not putting my poor little fuzzies through loads of stress just to move them somewhere else far away. I hate being a grownup.

Sigh.

Sigh.

Sigh.

God, I’m so boring.

Now, on a lighter note:

1. I got an unexpected visit from a friend this weekend, which despite the unhappy circumstances bringing him to my neck of the woods, was a wonderful surprise. I was having a bad day (re: above), and was literally in a self-induced feverish state from said stress. Despite not accomplishing anything that would actually lessen my stress load, it was really nice to have some caipirinhas, good cachaca, and some fun conversations. (PS- I originally wrote a lot more here, which involved some oh so witty commentary, but then my computer froze and my re-creation of events happened too long afterwards to be of any use…)
2. Somehow I managed to sleep through an amazing bagunca of a party on Saturday night. I mean, I got home late. As in I went to bed not long before it gets light out. No one else was home. Probably, what we calculated as 15 minutes after my head hit the pillow, the housemates plus a party came home. There was (I was told) loud laughter, crazy shenanigans, yelling in multiple languages, and generally amazing rockstar-ness going on throughout the flat. They didn’t even know I was home until after they’d been there awhile and one of my housemates checked. I didn’t hear a thing. At. All. While I’m sad I missed out on the impromptu after hours party (and I should point out that I went to bed slightly before 5am), I am quite amazed at my new-found ability to sleep through the barulho. Apparently the only way to make me a sound sleeper is to add alcohol. And stir. Sort of awesome.
3. Next weekend I am going to Lucern. Why there, might you ask? Well, let me tell you. Next weekend is Brazilian carnaval. In the amazing Swiss-German city of Lucern. Why Lucern? No idea. Why so late in the year? I’m equally stumped on that one. Do I care about the answers to any of these quesitons? Nope. I’m just super excited. It’s going to be insane. I’ve seen photos. I’m already dusting off the dancing shoes, and preparing to make an absolute fool of myself, as one generally does at such events. I’m also thinking we should have a cast party the night before, to celebrate the show, but I may be getting ahead of myself there.
4. I might be organising some type of cabaret thing for a friend’s fundraiser. I need to meet some performers stat!
5. I might (no one get too excited yet, nothing’s been decided for sure), be able to manage both a trip to NOLA and PDX next month.
6. My kittens will be seeing me soon!!!!
7. I’m currently writing from a coffee shop, and everyone is staring at my tattoos and at my computer because of its really cool sticker. I find people who blatantly stare for long periods of time, despite the fact that I’ve looked back at them, clearly noted the fact that they were staring in a very obvious fashion, extremely hilarious. If I’m with friends when said staring occurs, I usually talk about them until the stare-ers notice.
8. It’s my little brother’s birthday today. Happy birthday little bro. I’d call you old, but that would make me absolutely decrepit, so I’ll skip it. Hope you’re doing something fun, call you later.

PS- Some updates on life since writing this are:

1. I’m totally going to NOLA, and working out the PDX possibility!

2. I’ve still gotten nothing done that I needed to!

3. I’m in love with my 6 new baby fox friends.

4. Aside from the increased rise of stress levels, the world looks slightly rosier when you ignore your responsibilities.

5. Watching Treme when you are already missing NOLA= a bad idea (however I watched it before I decided that I was going back, so not such a bad idea after all), but watching really bad American/British teeny bopper films dubbed into French= amazing (and sort of like studying!).