Coffee

I have my veganism to thank for making me enjoy coffee. Soy milk makes any latte or cappucino at least 10 times better. I am not lactose intollerant.. but coffee and milk together always seemed to make me ill.

We have a coffee house here called the Coffee Company. It’s the place me and my friend Erik meet up to discuss our week, month, the latest ‘gossip’, there are huge comfortable chairs, lounge music, the bookstore is right around the corner. I could spend a day there.. or actually, I have. With a good book (Women who run with the Wolves .. my own personal Bible <3), my mini laptop, a camera.. sigh.

Also, a lot of television shows have the coffee break/run as a recurring theme. The Gilmore Girls, Sex and the City, Smallville, Scrubs.
And to top it all off, those take away cups have that lid.. that lid that transports me back to childhood. Like those safety cups your parents used to give you so you didn’t spill your Roosvice
and I just love to say the word Latte.. especially if it has a lot of specifications in front of it. It makes me feel like a coffee expert.

So coffee.. I love you!

(and if you haven’t clicked the ‘sofa link’ yet, this is a really funny and inspiring page. It always makes me want to go out )

Squeeee

Today I talked myself out of a stream of negative thoughts. I am a bit of a pessimist sometimes. But right now, I have two of the best weapons against pessimism ever. 

1: dirt cheap trip to Chicago and Vancouver in October and

B. My very sweet, fantastic and pretty boyfriend.

If that was not enough to make me a perfectly happy camper I also got a ticket for the Fleet Foxes concert tomorrow, a ticket for War of the Worlds with my dad in two days, memories&polaroids of a very nice day in the park last weekend and only 25 more days to count until my birthday. Nothing will harsh my squee today.

 

I have developed an addiction to maté tea. It tastes like honey and grass and tobacco and makes me happy and keeps me awake. I read somewhere that there is a component(?) in Maté tea that is the same as something that is found in anti-depressants…  

 

I realized yesterday that I really have trouble living in the present. Most of the time I feel melancholic about the past and idealizing it far too much… or dreaming about the future.. which is not such a bad thing I think. 

But when I listen to music, it feels like I’m grounded at the present time, the present place. I need that soundtrack. Therefor I made a couple of pictures with lyrics from two songs I thought were appropriate for the time I took them.  

Click on the pictures to see them in the larger size

50 things to do

1. Howl with wolves
2. See the Northern lights
3. Travel on the TransCanadian
4. Travel through Mongolia
5. Make a graphic novel David Mack style
6. Be part of a true life long partnership
7. Volunteer at an animal sanctuary
8. Start my own animal sanctuary
9. Raise a horse
10. Have a pack of dogs
11. Ride a dog sled
12. Sit on a porch on a summer night
13. Celebrate Midsummer Night in Norway
14. Be fit
15. Learn African dance
16. Let my hair grow really long
17. Have a parrot companion.. or a rat.. or a ferret
18. Raise a dog
19. Camp out and see thousands of stars
20. Bake a vegan cake
21. Love humans
22. Take my boyfriend to the Green Mill poetry slam
23. See Phil Elverum live
24. Meet Michelle
25. Experience total silence
26. Live in Canada
27. Learn to love spiders
28. Scream really really loud
29. See the colors of snow
30. Live like a nomad (for a little while)
31. Sleep in a yurt at Big Sur
32. Make a road trip with friends
33. Couchsurf much much more
34. Write a song
35. Learn to surf
36. Work for a really great non-profit
37. Hug a pretty Mountie
38. Be hugged by a really strong muscular man
39. Hug someone with a Free Hugs sign or wear one myself
40. Hug a tree (I didn’t even know I was so into hugging )
41. Learn to play the violin/banjo/guitar
42. Play with a baby Orang Utan
43. Give an inspiring speech about a good cause for an auditorium full of people
44. Travel by boat
45. Love myself completely
46. Walk around in a huge North American city really early in the morning (when it’s silent)
47. Pet a pig
48. Make a home
49. Sit on top of a driving car
50. Die peacefully and fullfilled

Do you copy?

I copied my face at work several times. It feels weird and the result is always unflattering. Sometimes I am scared the printer saves it and everyone will be able to see it on their computer in the temporary files or something.. it’s also a scanner.
When I was younger my friends and I would copy our hands at the library for 10 cents.

Also one month and 6 days until my birthday and 13 days until Fleet Foxes <3 And 14 days till War of the Worlds with my dad !

Week of DOOM

AAAAH. This week was a drama. My Yin and Yang were not very balanced at all. Nope. At times like these I should just go out.. hug some trees, scream at the top of my lungs at some silent desolate place scaring all the animals, howl with baby wolves or get some exercise. But no, I wallow in the drama and milk it for all it’s worth.

At the end of it all I got some support (and a beer) from sweet collegues, hugged it out with my boyfriend, drank too much coffee with a friend and dreamt about the rats and hamsters in the basement again.
All is well that ends well. And at the end my boyfriend asked me what Benton would do. And I googled it and got the best relationship advice from Bob Fraser (You probably have no idea what I am talking about. And if that is so, I feel sorry for you, because that means you have never watched Due South and you are seriously missing out).

One of the things I am looking forward to is the Weekend!
Staying up late and watching Scrubs and Smallville and I borrowed Six Feet Under from the sweet collegue so I can watch that too. And reading my two Justice comics with drawings from Alex Ross.
I am a DC girl.

I love all the DC Justice League heroes so much.. especially when they are drawn by Mr Ross. 
I am also going to work out this weekend, honestly. I want arm muscles because I think that would be a funny contrast with my cute :) and chubby face. Afterwards I’ll go people watching at the Coffee Company.

I’m just so glad this week is almost over.

Already a season ago

I found this when looking through old files:

I have to write this down, before I forget. Before I wake up from this wonderful dream that is called My Great Escape to Chicago.

I went to get to know myself better, to love myself more, respect myself more. Everything I had hoped for and more I have learned from this week. This week taught me more about myself than many many theraphy sessions could’ve ever done. I recommend packing your bags and flying away to every girl who feels trapped.. uncertain about her abilities.

At the airport. Almost forgot my laptop and camera. And on my way to O’Hare I felt like crying. It is a new start, but I can help feeling so sorry about having to go. I made more friends here in a week than I have in the past thee years in Rotterdam.

Chicago booming with creativity. Gotham city architecture. Feeling like the Bat sign could appear in the sky at any moment.. now.

Young people rhyming their hearts out. People inviting me on their couch and into their lives.. like I have known them forever. Friendly people behind counters asking me ‘how are you?’ without even expecting an answer. Feeling the need to scream ‘I LOVE THIS CITY!!!!’ all the time. Many vegan options and Trader Joe’s. Impatiently typing my email address to read my boyfriend’s e-mails. Many many great cocktails and Martini’s. Being drunk and giddy and taking head shots through the evening with my host and new friend. The Vegan peanut butter and chocolate milkshake at Earwax.

<3

I am going back this October with my sweet boyfriend. I can’t wait to make this our adventure.

The times, they are a-changing

My freshly ordered zines are slowly all coming in the mail. I love The Trans-Canadian Nightmare. Damian has a very funny way of writing.  I would love to train-hop across Canada. But I would be far too scared to get arrested and not being able to emigrate out of Holland.

I read part one of the Kingdom Come series and loved it! The artwork is amazing and the script is really good! I can’t wait to read the other ones. But, alas, I am so poor at the moment. I have something to look forward to.

I have to become more active in the Animal Rights scene again. I had time to rest. Now it’s time to do something useful. After reading Straw Dogs by John Gray I felt like activism was of no use. That humans were not able to change their ways. But looking back in history I am not sure that this is true. Humans are violent and selfish creatures. But they are also able to do great things. Make changes and fight for the ones weaker than they are.
I don’t want to be a human being who sits back and surrounds herself with mind numbing media. I want to be active. To make sure that I have at least worked for a better world. Even if it means just making little changes around me.

This morning when i got outside the air smelled like honey and freshly mown grass. Like summer.
I think it’s time for a new start.

Invader go home!

Oh boy oh boy oh boy!!!
I just bought INVADER GO HOME a 1971 Action Comic Superman comic. Woohoo!

I must admit Watchmen made me do it.. get all excited about comics. I knew I liked superheroes. Especially when they are completely broken down, destroyed and the story is full of angst.
But I didn’t know how much I liked that. I should have guessed after getting chills and being all weird and squee-y when a fellow Due South fan dubbed the two first seasons ‘The Destruction of Benton Fraser’. Oh wow, the drama!

The thing that really attracts me in this is that it is some kind of reassurance that we can all be superheroes. Even when we have gotten so low and everyone we have saved and looked after lets us down.. we will get up and do it all over again. Fight for what we really believe in. And that in moments we can’t fight, they will be there for us.

Good things all around

As read here, may is a month for reflection. I will try to find something nice, something good or beautiful in every day and write it down here, or take a picture of it.

There were so many pretty things today already. Like Wilco’s lyrics in Far, Far Away.  The steampunk-y construction contrasting with the abundant green in the back garden at work. How my waist feels after a few days of eating small bites all through the day instead of big meals.

The thing I love most about travelling is getting ‘tourist senses’. Your eyes take in everything a hundred times better. Colors are brighter, people and branches and waves move in slow-motion. You nose smells unfamiliar scents in the air. Ones that will take you back to that same place years and years later. Your ears try to make a coherent story of sounds and songs all around. And you feel alive.

Introduction

It’s always a bit awkward to make a first post. I’ll just try to write a ‘snapshot’ of my life at this moment. Right now I am home alone, have just taken a break from a Scrubs marathon I planned for myself on this Sunday and listening to the Weakerthans.
I am waiting for my boyfriend to call. We live together, but he’s away for a few days, helping his parents and having a good time with friends.
I enjoy being alone. I slowly change into someone I know I was a few years ago. I like her. But I adapt to people around me like a chameleon. It takes some time alone to get back to my own core.

I was born at the wrong side of the world. I live in the Netherlands. This country makes me crazy and I often feel ‘homesick’. I know I am not supposed to live here. I will root some place else. I have been wanting to move to North America for a long while now. The time to move is almost there. First I have to finish school and visit possible places to live.
This year I’ve been on a overseas trip for the very first time. On my own! I fled to Chicago for a week when life got too much to take. I lived in some kind of dream that week. Met fantastic people, made new friends, cried happy tears and saw the most amazing things. From that moment on I KNEW I belonged somewhere else.

I have a massive soft spot for good people. I don’t like bad guys and would rather be Justine than Juliette. I love super heroes and idealists.

<3