On boosts, blasts, boogie & bogus (or as it's more commenly called: driving)

So, let's start this by a simple pros & cons list of today.

On the good side of the news: I was forced to drive on the highway this afternoon, and I didn't kill anybody or freak out (too much). Highway's actually easy.

On the bad side, I still can't drive. In fact, I so can't drive that I jammed the engine right after getting off the highway. Because I had to stop and couldn't start properly again. Also, I jammed the engine repeatedly on my way to the highway, the most memorable time right before getting on the Opvelp crossroad. I mean right before. I must have spent at least 10 minutes, if not a quarter of an hour turning on the engine, trying to start, jamming the engine, and starting again. About 5 minutes into this process, of course somebody came up behind me and stood there waiting, which of course had me überstressed. And he just stood there, waiting, while I was just jamming and re-jamming the engine under the Sunday afternoon sun. And he waited, and I got frustrated, and my dad watched incredulously, wondering how it was possible to jam an engine that many times. In the end daddy got out of the car and went to stand in the middle of the crossroad, looking at me with an 'air' of defiance, like 'drive-over-if-you-dare' style.

And then, of course, I started and got over the crossroad, to the top of the hill, without jamming. Tears of fucking frustration, people. Dad walks overs, hands in his pockets, cocky smirk plastered all over his face. I get out of the car. He shouts: "Oh no you don't!" and then "Tu vois quand tu veux!" La ferme, merde.

"Grmbl mumble stumble..."

"What?"

"I said 'I don't want to go on the highway'."

"Why?"

Well, for obvious reasons, whaddaya think?

"Highway's easy! Straight line! You do just the same, only thing is it goes quicker."

Oh, right, because that's really reassuring, Papa.

Damn guy thinks he's always right. Even shittier: most of the time, he is.

So this time again, yes. 

Also, we didn't go out driving just to drive. We had to pick up my brother who was waiting on a carpool parking. And he waited. With a friend. And he saw me jam the engine, what, 10 times, like 300 m away from the damn parking? Nicely humiliating, just what one needs on a Sunday afternoon.

Dad drove us home, making a point of explaining virtually everything that's going on inside the car every time you touch a lever, push a pedal, punch a button or turn the wheel. Once we were home he threw my brother out (well, kinda) and took me out into Bierbeek's fields, randomly shouting 'Stop! Gently.' to have me do emergency stops & starts without jamming the engine. Operation's success: about 50%.

Next step, parking.

Yeah, well let's talk about that later, okay? 

As dad says "You're not actually supposed to leave half of the car on the road when you do that. And watch out for my scooter."

Starving my brothers

I have just decided my brothers won't get to eat tonight. If they're hungry, they'll cook themselves. I am not, and I am not their housekeeper. If my brother is hungry, he'll stop being busy soon enough. I am busy too. I'm watching great TV on my laptop, contemplating maybe studying a bit of Latin or looking for some Dutch subtitles.

I am not hungry. I am not their babysitter and I'm most definitely not their mother. Lazy pigs.


Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I'm hungry. As if I'm ever not hungry. But since I am supposed to lose weight and I refuse to be a housekeeper, I might just as well make a statement out of this. I'm not eating, you're not eating. Or you'll be eating very bad, because I know for a fact none of you can cook. My TLB is the only person ever who managed to screw up scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs, people!

Imagine what he's going to do with the pasta. It'll probably end up looking like mashed potatoes and tasting like water. I seriously pity that spaghetti.

Looking for a morphing. Me ==> a real somebody

Jack Adams (a hockey player, but that doesn't really matter) said this about advice.

If it's free, it's advice; if you pay for it, it's counseling; if you can use either one, it's a miracle.

I'm still gonna need yours.

This is a question to people who have already seen me live.

What the fuck is wrong with the way I look? Seriously, what is it? The clothes, the haircut, the overweight? It'd be a lot easier to do something about it if I knew what it was. And if it's the combination of the three and even more, which it probably is, pray tell me where I should start the adjustments.

There must be something wrong. Question for you, Great Red Haired Dance Machine, did I imagine it or did your almost-but-not-quite best buddy cringe when he was paired up with me for salsa? That was a lame-ass excuse for getting out that he used, and you could see and smell the flight reflex of the boy. Everybody saw it, hell, even I got it and God knows I'm not good at reading people.

Seriously, I have a problem. I'm a 17 year old overweight girl whom people almost always identify as her brother on the phone (yes, even my parents), and who keeps getting called 'young man' by polite strangers. I don't even correct them any more. What's the use, it's not like I'm gonna be seeing them again.

Soon, my Alzheimer suffering neighbour will start confusing me with my dad or her dead husband or something.

Seriously, what should I do? I admire androgyny, but it's not something I want for myself -- certainly when it's not on purpose.

I guess the first thing my mother would say is go shopping. Then it would be lose weight. I think she's given up on the hair a long while ago.

I think her ideal plan for me 'd be have me lose weight, drag me of shopping and then teach me good posture. Apparently I walk around slumped all the time and one day I'll look like Quasimodo.


Fuck me, who knows, it might even be an improvement.

End Me.

That's it! Kill me now!

Seriously, go on and shoot me; I wouldn't mind, if I could I'd even thank you. The embarrassment that is my life has now sunken in such an abyss that it will never resurface again, and because I do not want to be miserable until the end of my days, I request that you kill me now. Without physically harming other people.

So do it, pull the trigger, throw me off a cliff, strangle me, drown me, poison me, run me over, set me on fire or cut me in little pieces and feed me to a pack of dogs. I do not care; I just want it to be final and with no turning back, so don't pull a coma on me.

The thing that calls for such drastic measures? Well, the whole story would be a pain to tell, so to make it short: my parents are teenagers. Help!

They've set up two of their friends and are giving advice over the phone. I feel like I landed in a 'When Harry Met Sally' parody, way, way less funny than the original. No, seriously? Adults giving other adults advice on dating each other, advice that might just as well come out of a teenage mouth might I add.

My mum's hysterical snarky laugh rings through the house and hurts my ears. There is a hormonal problem in my home. How could one otherwise explain the fact that my dear parents wound up with me and my brother's teenage hormones and we inherited their mid-life crises?

Guh. There she goes again, giggling like she's some kind of hen, while my father just sits by smirking. This is so ridiculous. And the whole enterprise is bound to fail, because I've never seen two more unmatchable characters than the two they're trying to set up. The fact they haven't seen it won't work out is because they're both terribly polite. I know two persons who are going to have to go through a very painful dinner date, because they have virtually nothing to tell each other, except maybe their opinion on the weather.



But of course this isn't the only reason for the plotting of my demise.

The other reason is that I have come to the conclusion I absolutely suck. At everything except eating and perhaps sleeping. I'm not even sure about that last one; that's saying something. I have a sucky taste in music, I'm a sucker for colour coordination and I suck at social contact. I suck at driving, drawing, studying, love, playing music, interestingness, jokes, friends, maths, Latin, sports, diets, fashion, hair, physique, cleaning, respecting deadlines, not losing things, enthusiasm.

I suck at Life, The Universe, and Everything. (The ones who get this reference, give me your address, I'll write you a postcard, even if you happen to live in Antarctica.)

In the light of these facts, I've made the perfectly logical conclusion that I'm here using precious resources such as air, water and space and producing copious amounts of waste, of organic and non-organic kind, and therefore am a danger to humanity. So go on, kill me now. Did you know that not having kids is actually the greenest gesture you can do for the planet? If it's too late, you got two or three other options.

1. Kill the dog (if you happen to have one)
2. Turn vegetarian.
3. Kill the kid. He/She'll turn out to be a stupid brat teenager anyway, most probably another danger to humanity. And if you're lucky, perhaps it'll be thankful. There's always a chance that the kid is me.