Fact & Fiction Mix. You make the truth out.

Je suis rentrée et je me suis flanquée dans mon lit avec de la bouffe. La recette des grands jours, vous me direz. Parce que tous ensemble entre nous, y en a pas un pour rattraper l'autre. Y a juste ma mère, qui rentre jamais avant 7 heures de toute façon. 

J'ai donc jeté de côté tout ce que j'avais à faire, adieu responsabilité et autres gâches-métier, je me suis mis là au chaud et j'ai allumé la chaîne stéréo. Le tout Elvis était encore dedans, et j'ai bien écouté, sans préjugés pour une fois. C'est désuet. Comme moi. Allongé sur mon lit en chaussettes. Si je fumais, et que je le faisait à l'intérieur, je me serait grillée une cigarette, tellement l'instant semblait approprié. Je me suis mis à réfléchir. Je sais, mauvaise idée.

J'avais été à une réunion de famille. Du côté où elles sont bien moins fun que de l'autre. Et où elles tirent en longueur. Mon parrain, qui est aussi mon cousin, était là. Présent, mais ailleurs. Il m'a offert un livre -- parce qu'on a fêté la Noël seulement maintenant, et oui -- de Harry Mulisch, un type que mon parrain admirait (si je vous dis qu'il est journaliste, vous comprendre peut-être) et dont je lui ai annoncé la mort moi-même. Il n'était pas encore au courant. Une brique de 900 pages, imprimé pas très grand. Je lui ai demandé comment allait sa femme, il se sont mariés début de l'année passée, et elle s'était salement cassé la jambe (triple ou quadruple fracture, opération à la clé, réhabilitation après) début octobre. "Bien," il m'a répondu. Je pensais qu'il faisait allusion à sa jambe. "Je sais pas si tu sais, mais elle a fait une fausse couche." Elle était enceinte? Première nouvelle. Je ne lui en veut pas de ne rien avoir dit. C'est leur couple, leur choix. Mais j'ai pitié de Gaëlle. D'abord elle se casse la jambe, crève de mal et est HS pendant des mois, et en plus elle fait une fausse couche. J'étais horriblement mal à l'aise. J'aime ces gens, mais c'est quoi la bonne réaction face à une annonce pareille? Je sais que Gerald veut des enfants, je sais qu'il devait être dévasté à l'intérieur. Bon dieu qu'il le cache bien. J'aimerais pouvoir cacher les choses comme il le fait. A la recherche de la bonne réaction, je l'ai regardé parler à ma cousine. Sa réaction à elle était "Oh, zut.". Légère expression d'effroi sur le visage. Je savais toujours pas. Et je me faisait du souci: est-ce que Gerald avait le droit de balancer ça comme ça.? Et Gaëlle? Qu'est-ce qu'elle en dirait? 

Je pensais à tout ça, allongée sur mon lit, m'imaginant dans des volutes grises presque opaques en train de faire des anneaux de fumée. Et ce moment là, le destin, ce petit con, s'est mis en tête que de jouer 'Don't Cry Daddy' était une bonne idée. L'ironie du moment était tellement forte que ça aurait pu être du cynisme. Une grimace me contorsionnait le visage et une bile amère me montait à la gorge. Et comme à chaque fois que s'est arrivé dernièrement, j'ai pensé à lui. 

Il n'a rien à voir avec tout ça. C'est juste que ça fait mal d'y penser, c'est tout. Ça fait toujours mal d'être en face de ses propres erreurs et de devoir réaliser à quel point on est lâche, nulle, ou pur et simplement de la merde.

Le problème est simple, et la situation sur-utilisée dans chaque livre, film ou pièce de théâtre où un amoureux ou une amoureuse est présent(e) parmi les personnages: le triangle amoureux. C'est la plus vieille histoire de toutes qui pour une certaine raison a toujours du succès. Je me demande bien pourquoi, d'ailleurs: il y a toujours un malheureux quelque part dans l'équation 'Je l'aime, il l'aime, elle l'aime ou ne l'aime pas'.

La réponse est simple, comme la plupart des bonnes réponses. Dans les films, les bouquins et les pièces, ils s'arrangent. Quelqu'un du triangle est suffisamment détestable pour qu'on s'en fiche qu'il ou elle termine seul(e). Mais dans la vrai vie, les choses ne marchent pas comme ça. Personne n'est totalement détestable. Chaque assassin est probablement le vieil ami de quelqu'un, dixit la Queen of Crime. 

Et non, y a personne d'autre. Un(e) de perdu(e), dix de retrouvé, mon œil, oui: un(e) de perdu(e), un(e) de tout seul! Merci Gad Elmaleh! Essaye donc de lui dire, toi, à un amoureux, qu'il y en a d'autres. Il s'en fout des autres! Et n'allez pas me contredire, je l'ai déjà fait, je parle d'expérience.

Raisonner avec un amoureux, ça n'a pas de sens, parce qu'il n'y a pas de logique dans l'amour.
Et quand il s'agit de le convaincre qu'il y en a d'autres ou qu'elle n'en vaut pas la peine, vous comprendrez que vous pouvez aller vous brosser.

Ah, l'adolescence douce-amère... Je l'aime, il l'aime, elle l'aime ou ne l'aime pas. 

Non, la situation est vraiment simple et se résume à ça: je l'aime, il ne m'aime pas, je bouffe du chocolat.

On junk and other lost causes.

I managed to lose one slipper. One obviously from a pair of two. Do you have any idea how frustrating this is? I turned my whole room upside down inside out to find the other one back and I didn't.

I don't exactly know what bugs me more: the fact I lost it or the fact I basically cleaned all of my room, which is a real 'capharnaüm' by the way, for nothing. It's a pig's nest, a shambles, a big, big mess.

And amidst of it all, in the middle of my bright red rug, stands one slipper. Desperately waiting for the other to resurface. It's some kind of reminder of how terribly empty-headed I am. I look at it and get angry at myself, which might get me to do something productive instead of taking naps for no reason (I once read sleeping too much is a sign of depression) or lounging on the sofa doing nothing but squandering the net hoping for some flicker of interesting business.
But there isn't. Of course; it's the internet.

I get up in the morning, I stumble on that slipper in the dark and a wave of fresh frustration wakes me up. I kick it through the room in the evening to lose some pent up energy before going to sleep. I even remember religion because of that stupid slipper. I pray Anthony of Padua, patron saint of lost articles and the seekers of lost articles, to help me find back the other one. Yes, I am crazy. So shoot me. Or pray Saint Rita 'des causes déspérées'.

A human being shapes its life around a goal. When it hasn't got any, it's looking for one. When it doesn't feel like looking (and I actually don't feel like anything) it still needs focus, something to build its actions around. Even if that thing happens to be one slipper. The thing has become such a thorn in my eye that I can't enter a room with a shoe lying about without picturing the lost one. It's gained so much importance in my pig nest I might just as well place it on a pedestal.

Amazing, innit, how stupid objects or people take such place in people's lives. Emotional value, let me laugh, as the Dutch would say. I'm a hoarder. I keep so much useless stuff in my room one day I swear it's gonna go through the ceiling of the living room below. Right on the pool table, now wouldn't that be a sight, a collection of old books I haven't opened in years, of markers that don't work any more, of newspaper articles outdated by years, of magazines I'll probably never read again, of broken earphones, of souvenir seashells, of plastic bags filled with presents I didn't like and would never use. Bath bubbles. Colourful but itchy woollen mittens. A pink and glittery Santa hat. Booklets from school trips destined to my brother. Scraps of paper I kept because in some way or other they praised me. I'm fucking vain.

And on top of all that junk that'll have landed on the pool table, among the coloured balls, there'll be that one slipper.  Because failure is always what one sees first.

On Control Freaks at Hunter's Dinner.

Okay, so I love these kinds of Saturdays (and loathe the Sundays that follow, but that's another story).

Today was Hunt  Day. The traditional hunt, involving family on my father's side. And a bunch of lovely people with or without kids that you really wouldn't picture holding a gun if you didn't know them under these circumstances. I used to accompany on these hunts. Call it reconnecting with my wild side, if I have one.

Sadly, I had work for school this morning, and couldn't accompany directly. It's no use trying to catch up later, because these are 'battues' -- the hunters and trackers move together. The victims are pheasants, this time of year, and only the males, season's finished for hens as well as other small things traditionally preyed upon at 'battues', like hares.

Hunt Day on the family domain brings a pretty pitiful tableau (that's what's been killed). Mostly, it exists of nothing, nada, zero, and the hunters are happy they spotted something. Which explains why mos of the hunters are long time family friends, or members of the family. You do not go to the Bosmans hunt for the game (the wild animals hunted for food), you go for the Hunter's dinner after, 'ambiance' and 'blanquette' from Den Dikke Beenhouwer guaranteed. You go for the wine, the friends, the stories, the memories, you go so your kids can play in what is unmistakeably kids' heaven.

I guess it's fairly easy to deduce how much I love my family when you read this blog. It's true. For example, I sat in front of Nicholas Simonart at dinner, who went to the same school as I go to now and whose former landlord was my former technology teacher. We also are some kind of distant in-law relatives. We shared school souvenirs and laughed about our mutual teachers. It's amazing how many of them he knew. I've got to say 'hi' for him. How embarrassing is that?


It's fun though. As is playing with the dogs, kids and other underdeveloped organisms.
And stuffing yourself full of food, of course. Blanquette with mashed potato? Talk about filling. You might just as well eat concrete, except concrete tastes nothing as good as that treat. I feel like my stomach turned solid.

Moving on. My mother once again made me ashamed of my genes. Seriously, did someone cast a spell on us so she would behave like the teenage girl and me like the rational woman? She played matchmaker today. Seriously, matchmaker. Trying to get one of her old friends to hook up with one of dad's friends. Help. I am so writing a book on childhood trauma because of parents' pathetic behaviour.

Finally, for the little freak out: apparently, I am a control freak. Aptitude test interpreted by a teacher, but still, I was about to open my mouth to protest when I realised it was true. Scary as hell, discovering something that important about you you had never even imagined before. I thought I cared. In fact, I was trying to control? That's very creepy. My aunt, whom I talk to about these kinds of things, says it's a family trait, that every Bosmans sibling has it, each expressing it in other ways. I've caught my dad's strain, which is to take a big amount of the workload on yourself because you want to control the process. Hullo, trust issues. She says it's a good sign I've realised it, because that means I can work on it. I wanted to ask her what her strain was, since it's such a recurring family trait. Guess I do have tact.

I miss somebody I could talk to about these kinds of things. The deeper turmoil. Perhaps I need a shrink. You know, that aunt, my favourite aunt, she's on anti-depressants. When I was little, my goal was to grow up to be just like Joëlle. Just like her. And even though she's a great person, she hasn't got a life I envy. She gets crazy by living so close to her parents, my grand-parents, who aren't getting easier to live with with old age. She was an arts teacher for mentally handicapped people, adults who had the mental set of a 6 year-old and still peed in their pants, and she often had terrible workplaces and bosses. Yet she kept going at it. Elle a la niaque. Until it really became too much and she quit. She loved it, but she's never going back. I believe she's a true artist. Are all true artist troubled on the psyche side? And how troubled do you need to be to be good?

I do not know anyone who's like me in enough manners to understand me completely when I talk like this. I suppose it's why what I really think about important stuff rarely comes out. Sure, I have friends. But not one I'd bother with this stuff. Not one that'd want to be bothered, too. I happen to be a weirdo. Tough, but that's the way it is, and I've got to learn to deal with it.

I wish I could talk to someone, though. Is there anyone volunteering to be my shrink?

On New Years and other Bogus.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Voilà, that's done. It's purely traditional and pro forma, but I don't want to affront people by not wishing them a happy new year.
People always jump to conclusions way too quickly. Me not wishing you a happy year doesn't necessarily mean I wish you a bad one. It probably just means I'm not thinking about it at that moment.
Social conventions are not the first thing I think about. The fact that I live in a family and village where it's customary to give new year's wishes until half February, isn't helping. You are not thinking about wishing a happy new year when you meet people mid February. Uh-uh. No go.

I had a New Year's party at home last night. Well, till 5 this morning actually.
One thing I learned: never again let some of these girls close to a wide range of different alcoholic beverages after they've eaten raclette. Two were thoroughly pissed, one was a lousy drunk who was in a terrible state (who manages to ignore their limits enough to wind up nearly unconscious before 11 pm on New Year's Eve!?) whom we first put to sleep on her sleeping bag in my brother's room. That was until she started to throw up. In the end I dumped her and her sleeping bag in the bathtub, next to a bucket in case she had more regurgitating urges. A bucket that she of course managed to miss. I let her clean up her own mess this morning. At least she didn't bathe in it; I don't think I would have been able to cope with that over the breakfast table. I hope the smell will leave before my brother reclaims his room.

The other was a talkative drunk, the kind who won't shut up even if everybody around her is ready to bash her head in. In the end I isolated her from the others, who were cranky, tired, and slightly drunk, the latter not helping the first two. They slept in the living room, and I stuck her in my brother's room -- the one that hadn't been vomited in yet.

When I got down, the rest was asleep. I turned off Flashdance and considered dropping myself on one of the couches, but since everybody was asleep and the room smelled of beer, cheap cava, leftover bits of various alcohols and most noticeably sweat, I thought my own room was the better choice.

It was five by then. Four hours later, a blond obnoxious person who hadn't been able to listen to the same song for more than 20 seconds and kept cranking the volume up till the sound quality was complete shit (seriously, why did they have to get all that music off YouTube while they had it on their iPods?). (Yes, I know that wasn't a sentence.) You know her, she frequently is the object of my intense frustration, and thus quite often mentioned in these pages. Her name is Marine.
Anyway she shook me awake asking where our talkative drunk was.

Seriously, I could have slapped her. Were the snores not speaking for themselves?

Anyway, I was thoroughly pissed off, so when she was back asking if she could take a shower, I groaned, even though it sounded like a bark and I wouldn't have been too opposed to have a pack of feral dogs attacking her right there and then.

I suck because I never do what I think. I spend a pathetic amount of time searching for the right words and actions after the event has occurred. Tough, a bit sooner would have been the better timing. Those social conventions I mentioned earlier on are indeed not something I think about, it's something I live with, thanks to the upbringing of my parents. It basically means that you don't slap your guests, even if they prove to be insufferable bitches who get drunk and vomit all over the bathroom rug, or come shake you up to ask some of the most stupid questions known to man.

On a sad, sad note, I did not get drunk last night. Too bad. The scientist in me wants to know what me hungover would be like.

On a happy, happy note, I improvised a particularly crazy dance to Footloose last year (Oh mommy, look! A dumb joke!) and it was the best moment of the evening (put in perspective, it's actually quite sad). I had a blast, broke a sweat and kicked off my shoes. That's what New Year's Eve is all about, innit?

Be this year better than your last, dear readers.