Bubbles!

For years I’ve had a strange and abnormal addiction. I’ve trudged through snow, rain and hail in order to feed it. I’ve spent my hard-earned cash to make sure I had enough of it. When I chased my strawberry milk dragon, world war three couldn’t keep me away from the drug store.

But now I have a new addiction: bubble baths.

My new flat sports a shiny, white bathtub. I remember the very first time we met. It was a lovely Monday afternoon. The landlady was showing me the apartment, walking behind me and letting me open doors and snooping around, just like they do on those reality shows where they sell houses. Because it gives the impression that the apartment is bigger than it really is. Although it didn’t seem any smaller on the way out, when I walked last. But what do I know? I’m not a realtor. And they did say so on TV, so it must be true.

But I digress.

There I was, opening the bathroom door and there It was, sitting pretty in a corner, looking all white and shiny. It was love at first sight, it was.

Once I’d moved in, I promised myself two things.
1 – my tub would always, always, always be clean and shiny.
2 – I would muster up some self-restraint. After all, it takes a lot of electricity to heat up all that water, and electricity is ridiculously expensive around here and I am, after all, a poor, starving student.

I’ve been able to live up to nr 1 just fine. Mostly because the tub is more often filled with soapy water than not… Those little specs of dust flying around doesn’t have time to land there before they’re washed away. And when the tub is empty, I find myself looking at it, picturing it with water and bubbles and me, happily splashing around.

So my self restraint has gone out the window, the way that my self restraint usually does. Why would it be different this time? I might starve to death during the winter, but at least I’ll smell nice.

pretty, pretty, shiny, shiny

I’ve had a cold. Did I mention that? I know I did, actually, I just wanted to see if you had been paying attention. Shame on you if you haven’t. What kind of fan are you, anyway? I expect much better from you in the future.

Anyway, my cold never quite got over its commitment phobia. After a while, it decided to settle in my right ear. Which I suppose is much better than having it throughout your whole head, so I’m not complaining. Then it went away. This caused for some sort of celebration, I figured. Movie, snacks, candles. And a bubble bath. Not necessarily all at the same time.

As soon as I’d decided to purty my flat up with candles, I reliced that all my make-the-room-look-real-purty-stuff was still crammed into cardboard boxes from the move. Images of myself throwing things into whichever box happened to be closest whilst cursing The Powers That Be for not having invented self-packing belongings, flashed into my head. I didn’t have the faintest idea which box held my tea-light candleholders and even less inclination to go searching for them. Clearly, I needed new stuff. Not only did I have cause for celebration, I also had an excuse to go shopping. This was turning into a pretty good day.

Now, a few hours later, I’ve watched a couple of movies, my flat is full of luvely light and I’m all pink and wrinkly from my bath. Course, the bubbles turned out to be of the cheap variety and I smell a little bit like a wunderbaum, but you can’t have everything. I suppose.

Gaaaaah!

My apartment consists of piles. It’s not that I’m fond of piles. They’re not a regular part of my décor. It’s also not due to me being messy or sloppy. Although I do confess that I’m a big supporter of the orderly chaos. It’s also not that I think “Hey, sugar. Want to come over to my place and check out my piles?” would be such a great pick-up line, should Prince Charming come along.

It’s because I’m moving.

In not too long – and certainly not a second too soon – I shall be free of the Upstairs People. No more noise, no more garbage everywhere and no more weird smells in the hallway. But as much as these things fill my heart with joy and make me want to giggle hysterically, I do hate the moving process.

Because it reduces my existence to a series of piles. Piles of cardboard boxes, piles of things that needs to be packed, piles of things that need to be thrown away, piles of things that I might want to throw away. Piles of things that I had no idea I owned.

And then it all accumulates in hours of heavy lifting.

Moving BITES. And blows and sucks.

Pooch in the mood for love

I am currently living in a hell of screaming and howling and the constant sound of IIIIIII and pitter-patter of claws scurrying from the door to the window. Back and forth, back and forth.

The Pooch is in heat…

Granted, the pooch has been in heat before and she’s always been a little whiny during that period, but this is the first time that she’s ever had a hunky man-thing sitting right outside her bedroom window. And if Pooch had been given more experience with hunky man-things over the years, she would have learned to separate them from the sickly boys with dickey tickers, like the one sitting right outside said window.

Last night she became ready for the making of the pups. On that very day, I decided to let her come with me to take out the trash. Pooch loves taking out the trash. She’s also a big fan of fetching the mail and raking leaves. Not that she helps any, she just likes to watch.

Anyway, our trip to the trash bins took us right past where Hunky Man-Thing sits on his lead. Pooch looked at him. Hunky Man-Thing looked at pooch. Then Pooch realized that I we were heading back to the house – the complete opposite direction of where her heart (and other bits, obviously, that I won’t bring up here) told her to go. In protest, she planted her bottom firmly on the wet lawn.

Great.

So I pulled.

Pooch resisted as best she could. If she’d had those big, bulgy buttocks that some creatures have, I’m sure she would have clenched onto every little piece of grass.

Eventually I dragged her onto her feet, and she walked all of two paces before dropping down on her side and immediately beginning to screech. It was like watching a two-years old throw a tantrum in a store.

I ended up having to drag her along like a carcass. The only thing which separated her from any piece of roadkill, were the high-pitched squeals emanating from her.

Two more weeks of this. I’m going to lose my tiny mind.

Emerging from the plastic wrap: I'm a frikkin butterfly.

Guess what, folks! The plastic wrap around in front of all my windows is almost gone. The landlord covered them with plastic a while back in order to spray paint the house. At first it was just foggy, then the painting started, and it got pretty damn dark. Combined with the fumes it could have easily put me into a paranoid state where I’d convince myself that I was being buried alive. That would have given us all something to laugh about later.

I have a final exam on Friday, so I’m hoping that my brain - also known as Bergerac – will return from its trip soon. It went away pretty much the moment the plastic came up. I need Bergerac in order to do my pre-exam hibernation routine. That’s when I lock myself up in my apartment and studystudystudy until those little grey cells start to seep out of my ears and nostrils just to get away from it all. I’d leave a light on in the window for it if I didn’t think that would set the blinds on fire.

Bergerac isn't home

There is plastic in front of all my windows. This must be what it feels like to live inside a soapbubble. The house is about to be spraypainted, so I’d imagine that it’ll smell anything but soapy. Where I used to live, back before I moved to Hellhole, farmers used to spray pee from unsuspecting cattle on their fields. That didn’t smell soapy either.

And I’m off to a wonderful start.

The thing is, I have absolutely nothing to say.

My brain, otherwise known as Bergerac, has gone away for a couple of days. It felt that it had earned a break after I put it through and intensive lab course all last week and an exam on Friday, not to mention loads of analysis I had to finish over the weekend. Analysis… Analysisis… See? Bergerac isn’t here.

Poor lucky number two

Last night the Pooch woke me up at two am by crawling into my bed and sitting there, staring at me in the darkness like some furry totem pole. I was very tired and didn’t particulary feel like crawling out of my soft, comfortable bed, but I could see from the way her enormous ears were pricking up that she’d already heard me blink and knew that I was awake. She does that, you see. She sticks her face right up in your face and listens intensely for the slightest little flutter of the eyelids.

As much as I disliked the idea of dragging my carcass out of bed in the middle of the night, experience has taught me that the Pooch usually only has two reasons for waking me up at ungodly hours:

1) She’s about to do her impersonation of a busted fire hydrant and projectile vomit everywhere.
2) She’d like to demonstrate her explosive diarrhoea.

Both of these things are better done outside.

So I slithered out of my sheets, into my pants, got the pooch’s collar and outside we went. It was windy. And cold. And windy. Did I mention that it was cold?

The first thing the pooch did was sniff a variety of bushes and trees in the yard. Then she sniffed them again, before she finally decided to pee on lucky number two. After that followed ten minutes of staring blankly into space, before turning around and heading back inside. No projectile anything and absolutely no explosions in sight.

It turns out that Pooch now has a third reason for waking me up in the middle of the night.

3) The Upstairspeople are being noisy and my bedroom is pretty soundproof.

Who missed me?

I’m sitting at my new kitchen table in my new apartment in an old house on an ex-farm in a far bigger hellhole than the one I lived in a few weeks ago. It’s nowhere near big enough to justify fear of terrorism or those little signs warning you to beware of pickpockets and thieves, but it is big enough to have more than one mall.

I can theoretically go shopping whenever I feel like it. That can’t be good for me, considering that when it comes to shopping, I have the self restraint of a psychotic monkey.

There are people living on my roof. Four of them. Well, they’re not actually on my roof, but on the floor above mine. I can hear every little noise they make. I know that one of them whinnies like an overexcited horse on regular intervals, and I wonder if he’s the same one who sounds like a cow with some horrible disease when he’s having sex. I suppose I shouldn’t ask.

Classes on scientific research methods have started, and it turns out that I’m a geek. I shudder at the thought of how my courses in microbiology and genetics might leave my social life in ruing once they begin, seeing how I’m utterly engrossed by models of dispersions and project design. Not to mention completely riveted, wrapped up, fascinated, captivated and engaged.

I have a thesaurus, I do.

And Pooch has a boyfriend. He lives across the yard, and she goes to play with him three times a day. Morning, afternoon and night. They’ve become quite close, but not yet to the point where she’ll let him sniff her bottom. But now he’s made the mistake of going camping with his family. Pooch looked for him every day for the first week and then she noticed that golden retriever next door…

So I guess Pooch has two boyfriends. But I have a thesaurus, I do.