Grammar 101

Since I’ve decided to write this blog I’ve been noticing something rather interesting about the “blogosphere” in general. It seems to me that the quality of writing in a blog has absolutely nothing to do with its popularity … in fact it appears as though there might even be an inverse relationship between quality and popularity. This makes no sense to me. I mean why are so many people reading and responding to blogs that appear to be written by third graders? Is this the educational level that the majority of our population can relate to? I hope not … that’s not saying much about modern society…

Granted the small (almost non-existent) amount of comments I receive on my blog is what started my interest in this. It makes me wonder if anything that I am posting is even worth commenting on. Maybe I need to shorten my stories a bit and pander to the short attention span syndrome that modern society appears to be going through…? That, however, just doesn’t seem right to me. No … I’m going to continue writing complete and detailed stories – that’s just my style, I guess. I suppose I should just be happy that anybody’s even reading this stuff. This is mainly just a way that I can get the same story out to several interested people without having to re-hash the story again and again upon re-connecting with friends at different times. I kind of thought that some of these stories might be interesting enough for the general public to read but I guess reading about the silly adventures of a person that you don’t know isn’t very interesting…

The other thing that is now becoming very clear to me is that old saying about leading a horse to water – drinking is a decision that the horse needs to make on its own. I’ve informed pretty much all of my friends about this blog but usually discover that the blog has not been read by these friends when I actually am able to speak with them. This, of course, leads to the exact situation that I am trying to minimize with this blog and the stories need to be re-iterated verbally. I suppose this really isn’t that big of a deal. If all of my friends have read the blogs then that would merely limit the amount of new stores that I am able to tell – limiting my conversation options rather greatly. Ah, but this actually doesn’t worry me much as there is always a myriad of details left out of any story and these details can be discussed with people that read the blog. Not to mention that the number of stories that I haven’t yet written about is rather immense – things, in general, are always happening…

For instance, Anna (you remember Anna, right? – the one from Club Love in Athens…) is once again making a bit of a presence in my life. There was about a one month period where we basically stopped communicating and I just kind of figured that that was the end of that. I mean, after all, we knew each other for a grand total of maybe 10 hours over the period of two days. Is this enough time for two people to actually build a lasting relationship? The realist in me says “no” however there’s that hopeless romantic in me that screams “maybe”… just think of what a great “how we met” story that would be…

It was about a week ago when I received an SMS from Anna saying that she had been going through a really “fuck top” (you need to remember that she’s Russian and I think this is supposed to read “fucked up”) period in her life and that she was sorry for the long period of non-communication. I apparently made some kind of impact since she did get back in touch with me. We’ve been in contact since and she wants me to head down to Athens to visit her – she’s saying that Christmas is coming and that a visit from me would be the best present. Who knows? Maybe I will take a little trip… I could always fly down there for a night on the 16th of December, but I need to make sure that Anna can get the 16th and 17th off from work – I’m not about to head back down there and pay the outrageous prices required to be able to speak with her at her work… I’ll be calling her shortly to see what she thinks about this idea.

Now we get to experience one of the idiosyncrasies of written communication – time shifting… You see, quite a bit has happened since I wrote those paragraphs above – I headed back to the STD clinic to get my HIV test results (negative, thank god…), got myself a Döner Dürüm for lunch and called Anna. I actually had a rather interesting chat with Anna that changes things a little bit – she’s going to be letting me know tomorrow whether she might be able to leave Greece for a couple days around the holidays and head on up to Germany to spend some time with me. That would be cool! Unfortunately, for this to happen, the Greek government is going to have to give a guarantee that Anna can not only leave Greece for a couple of days but also be able to return afterwards. From my limited experience with Greek people, in general, I really don’t see this happening … all I can do is hope… Heck, I think that Anna actually taking the time and expense required to fly to Germany would put to rest most of the concerns that some of my friends have about Anna just playing me for monetary gain. I’m sure I’ll be letting you guys know what happens with this…

bis später,

Coriolis

A Bullet Dodged

It was back sometime between the years of 1997 and 1998 (I think…) when I once again headed over to the Pump House. The Pump House is this bar/brewery located in Longmont, Colorado where I used to spend quite a bit of time. Scott and I would basically hang out there pretty much every night playing NTN (National Trivia Network) and just wasting away the hours (neither of us had much of a social life…). It was at least something to do…

Tonight, however, was different. It was one of the bartender’s birthdays – one of the female bartender’s birthdays. Which one? I don’t remember … I never was very good with names… All I knew was that one of them was having a birthday and Scott and I were invited. Although Scott never actually showed up, I did – a decision I would later regret…

As I recall, the evening started off innocently enough – I was sitting at the bar, drinking my drink of choice at the time (Manhattans – on the rocks) and playing a bit of NTN. There was a bit more energy in the place due to the birthday, but nothing else seemed out of the ordinary. I figured this night was going to be pretty much another in a never ending line of boring nights being wasted away at the Pump House. The elevated energy level caused me to drink a bit more than usual and I think I had somewhere on the order of five drinks prior to being informed that the party was moving down to this other bar (I believe it was called the White Buffalo or something close to that. It’s been shut down since then and I think it may have even been converted into a bank now…). This should have been my opportunity to make a graceful exit and head home; but no … I headed down to the new bar along with the party.

The only thing I remember about the second place was sitting down with the large crowd from the party (oh yeah, and since Scott never showed up I think I only knew like a few of the people there … and I didn’t know any of them very well…) and ordering some more Manhattans. The next thing I remember was waking up. Waking up wasn’t very shocking; however where I found myself upon waking up brought a little shock to me – I was in a hospital bed!

Okay, so it’s not like the first time in my life that I unexpectedly awoke in a hospital bed; although I really must say that repetition doesn’t make the ordeal any easier to deal with. The worst part about this time was that I was still completely sane – I had a hell of a hangover and the catheter that I was unwittingly fitted with was a bit of a shock; however I was still sane. I needed to get some answers… Why am I lying in a hospital bed? What, exactly, happened last night? Where’s my car and how many pieces is it in? I needed to get answers to many questions such as these and when the nurses came in to release me I tried asking them. Unfortunately they were very little help – all they knew is that I arrived the night before in an ambulance passed out from the alcohol. What actually happened remained a mystery…

I was actually provided a ride home by a police officer. On the way home he was asking me how I got home the night before and I honestly couldn’t tell him. I don’t know if he was trying to get a confession on drunk driving out of me or something; all I knew was that I couldn’t provide him with any answers that I, myself, wasn’t aware of. He dropped me off near my apartment and left me. I then walked up the stairs to my apartment where I noticed a large puddle of what appeared to be puke on the stairway outside my apartment door. Hmm, this was interesting … why did I puke outside my apartment? Oh well, I needed to get some sleep. I actually had a chapter installation for my fraternity to get to in a few hours and if I didn’t get at least a little sleep, I figured that I wouldn’t be in near good enough shape. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my keys. Funny thing was that the only keys I had in my pocket where my car keys…

I have this valet keychain thing where I can clip my car keys on my keychain easily and remove them just as easily (for valet parking convenience – useless as it is…). The way that I used this feature was to be able to check my mailbox at the apartment without having to turn off my vehicle – I would just detach the other keys from the car keys, leave the car running whilst I checked my mail and return to the car and reattach the other keys to the car keys still in the ignition. It was a good system; however it apparently wasn’t fool-proof. I was now somehow stuck with only my car keys and no way to get into my apartment. I guess that somewhat explains the puke puddle located on the outside of my apartment…

Okay, so I don’t have my apartment keys. I do, however, have my car keys. Maybe the other keys where left at the hospital? I walked back down the stairs and headed back to my parking spot to see if my car was there. Sure enough, sitting in its usual spot in the carport was my Z-28. It looked to be fine although the headlights appeared to have been left on. Didn’t matter – I needed to get back to the hospital and find my other keys. The bad thing was that I was still rather drunk from the night before as well as extremely tired. This didn’t stop me as I climbed into the car, attempted (unsuccessfully) to start it three times and then immediately passed out. I came to a bit later and repeated trying to start my car with the same results – no ignition followed by my passing out again. I think I did this something like three times before I noticed that there was something on the floor. Whilst shuffling my feet to once again try and start the car the sound of keys jingling was clearly audible. There, sitting on the floor of my car where my other keys!

Okay, so apparently I did actually drive home the night before. Not only that, but I must have stopped to check my mail, detached my car keys from the others then got out to check the mailbox. The issue arose when I reentered the car and apparently dropped my keys on the floor whilst I was attempting to reattach them to the car keys! Cool, one mystery solved … time to get some sleep. I headed back to my apartment and got a few hours of sleep before heading to the chapter installation… A bit later I was able to get a jump for my car and made it to the chapter installation successfully.

The bottom line to this whole story is that this was one time in my life where I actually got extremely lucky. The fact that I actually did drive myself home that night (a fact that I later validated with another that was at the party) makes me very mad at myself. I mean that, my friends, is a realization of my hypocrisy! I mean, as far as I’m concerned, there really isn’t much stupider than drunk driving and here I am finding out that that was exactly what I had done! I’m lucky I didn’t kill anybody! I mean this stupid little story that I am now writing up could very easily have been much more tragic. Luckily, other than the $1500 I had to pay for the ambulance ride after my neighbor found me passed out on the staircase in front of my apartment, I was able to get through this ordeal unscathed. I will say this, however – I will never let myself get into a situation where that could happen again. I beat the odds once, why push it?

bis später,

Coriolis

Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s Thanksgiving. Does the fact that today is Thanksgiving mean anything to me? I suppose not … I’m currently at work like any other day. It appears to me that the Germans really don’t care that the pilgrims once ate a large feast with the Native Americans prior to beginning the mass genocide necessary to steal the land of their gracious hosts… As a matter of fact, I’m willing to bet that the only reason Americans care about this holiday is because it gets them a couple days off; and since I’m currently at work on this holiday, I guess I don’t care.

I suppose the true meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday is really for people to take a good look at their lives and try to come up with at least a few things to be thankful about. Number one on everyone’s list should be that they weren’t one of the Native Americans that got slaughtered by their European guests shortly after giving them food to survive; but that should go without saying… Apart from that I’ve decided to come up with ten things that I am thankful for this year. Following are my ten items and a small explanation of exactly why I am thankful (in no particular order):

1. I’m very thankful that I was able to get this contract work opportunity over here in Germany. I was having a very hard time finding work in Colorado and this contract work is giving me the opportunity to keep my house – sure, I can’t live there for a while; but at least I’ll have a house to move back to when this is over…

2. I’m thankful for the scientists that discovered the amazing drug Viagra! I’m pretty sure that this needs no explanation…

3. I’m thankful that the rash I currently have on my left gonad is nothing more than psoriasis! You can just imagine how worried I was about this – I was sure it was an STD. Luckily, however, I was able to get it checked and have been informed that it’s not a big deal. That’s a load off my mind…

4. I’m thankful that moving to Germany and deciding to get around with nothing other than walking and public transportation is starting to show positive results. I came here with four pairs of jeans – all 38” waists. For the last couple of weeks I have been having a hard time keeping my pants up – I could actually wiggle my way out of my pants even with my belt fastened in the tightest position. Yesterday I bought two new pairs of jeans (34” waists, thank you very much…), seven new pairs of briefs (I was wearing boxers, but with all the walking I am doing, my boys need a home…) and a new belt. It seems that I am actually becoming less of a man – and that’s a good thing…

5. My friends. Although the group is small, I appreciate all of my friends very much. After all, what more does anybody need besides friends to help them through the rough times and celebrate with them during the good times? Living in Germany by myself for the last four months has really pointed out the importance of friends to me. There really is nothing more important.

6. My family. I really am very thankful for the endless love that I receive from my family. This should go without saying; unfortunately I have been witness to many families throughout my existence that just don’t seem to get it – they’ve let stupid little personal quirks or material issues cause enough friction to actually tear the family unit apart. This, of course, is stupid. Luckily, for me, I was born into a family that understands the value of unconditional love. I’m thankful for this…

7. Finally discovering what I want in this life. It’s become painfully obvious to me rather recently that the one thing that I am looking to find is someone to love (well, besides my blood relatives that is…). I’m thankful that I have been able to figure this out although I now need to actively participate in the search – maybe next year I’ll be able to be thankful about finding that someone … only time will tell…

8. I’m thankful for technology – the Internet, especially. Thanks to the Internet, I am now able to actually move to Germany and still stay in touch with my friends and family rather easily (and far less expensively than it was in the past…). Although the experiences I have been having since moving over here are generally interesting (the understatement of the year), having the ability to share these experiences with loved ones makes them just that much more interesting. I’m thankful that sharing these experiences has become so easy…

9. I’m thankful for my sense of humor. Without it I would most definitely have cracked by now. Too many people are wound way too tight these days – they’re living under this delusion that their lives are so important that they best not do anything silly or people might not take them as seriously as they seem to think they need to be taken. Screw that! People need to loosen up a bit and realize that laughing (often times at one’s self) is a wonderful way to turn bad situations good. I think that I have become pretty good at this and I am thankful…

10. YOU! I’m thankful for the readers of my blog! Granted you are a rather small group (interestingly enough, the total number of visitors to my blog is currently at 666 – eerie, huh?) but that’s okay. Although the number of visitors is small, the loyalty of my visitors amazes me – I’ve had 114 one time visits and some 260 visits from individuals that have visited my blog more than 15 times! The only thing I can conclude from this is that a majority of my visitors find something interesting in my blog. I’ll keep writing the blogs as long as you keep reading them … thanks!

Hmm … I was actually able to come up with ten items – amazing… I think that creating a list such as this is actually a good practice. It lets you focus a bit on the more positive aspects of your life and lets you put the hassles off to the side for a while. What are ten things that you are thankful for?

bis später,

Coriolis

Luck

I’ve been sitting here contemplating that last blog post as well as the various comments and have finally realized a rather important point – luck is for suckers! In fact, at least in my opinion, luck doesn’t even exist. I’ve been wasting time hoping for a string of good luck – I mean how can I expect to have something I don’t even believe exists…? Perhaps I was just hoping that I was incorrect in my feelings on luck and that maybe it did exist? Whatever the case, I’m no longer going to just sit around and hope things magically get better. The only way to see that things improve is to actually consciously participate in the improvement.

For anyone that’s interested, here are my thoughts on luck…

As many of you are already aware, I usually play an awful lot of poker. Unfortunately it’s been quite a while since I’ve played poker (haven’t played even a single hand since moving to Germany some four months ago…) but I used to play pretty much every single day – both online and live. The live games were usually DPT (Denver Poker Tour) tournaments and I played a lot of those – made it to every qualifying tournament for the last couple of years, in fact…

Okay, so I’m actually down a bit over ten grand in all since I started playing poker (well, started playing money tournaments so frequently – I’ve actually been playing ‘dealer choice’ poker since I was something like 12 years old…) but I see that as merely the cost of training. I think I’ve become a better player over that time period (and I have very extensive statistics on my play that show this improvement) but the one thing that I have most definitely learned is that luck has very little to do with it…

In order to win at poker, you need to realize that luck is not something that happens – it’s something that needs to be made. In poker, sometimes you get the cards; however usually you don’t. The good players are those that can take the pots with or without the hands. It becomes more of a game where you need to play the other players rather than merely play your hands. The thing is that, if you play the game correctly, people will start to think of you as a very lucky guy. This impression, of course, is bullshit. You aren’t lucky – you’re just good at playing the game…

Luck, after all, is a man-made concept that is merely nothing more than a measure of one’s successfulness. If someone’s successful, they’re “lucky” … somebody who has problems (unsuccessful) is considered “unlucky”. This, of course, is crap… The reason that a person becomes unsuccessful is always because he ‘played the hand incorrectly’. One must always be very cognizant of any situation that one is placed in and make decisions to better one’s standing overall. When you’re holding the 4th nut and a strong player is trying to bait you into risking your entire stack, you really need to consider whether he might be holding one of the three hands that can beat you. Never risk it all on what could very well be a loser … always leave yourself outs… With the 4th nut, the odds are very good that you’re hand is the best; however there is still a small probability that it isn’t. The “lucky” people understand this and limit their risks … the “unlucky” people mistakenly ignore this probability and go bust. You often need to limit your return in order to stay alive…

Life, like poker, is (as I have stated before) really nothing more than an endless (well, until you die, of course…) string of decisions that need to be made. The “lucky” people have learned to limit their risks so that no one decision is capable of busting them. They’ve become masters at calculating risk versus reward and use these often subconscious calculations to make the correct choice more often than not. They’ve discovered that building a stack (sorry about all the poker references, but poker mirrors life so perfectly…) slowly is far better than risking everything on a possibility. If you’re going to risk everything on a possibility, you need to be able to understand that only the stone cold nuts are unbeatable. Holding anything less is always a risk – always!

Of course human nature, in general, complicates things a bit here – we want it all and we want it now! (Or maybe that’s just me…) I guess what I need to start doing is trying to build my stack slowly. I need to realize that anything worth having is going to take some time to build and that anything that appears to be a shortcut to a goal must be avoided at all costs. Unfortunately, unlike poker, the stone cold nuts are usually unknowns in life…

bis später,

Coriolis

A Butterfly Flaps its Wings

I remember when I was back in elementary school and things always seemed to work out for me. I can only assume that this was when I was stupid enough to believe that that’s just the way life was – easy… I’ve always been a very shy person (unbelievable after reading this blog, but true…); however it didn’t seem like that big of a deal to me when I was younger (we’re talking mid to late ‘70s here…) as I was always able to keep a couple good friends and, amazingly enough, had no problems with the women.

Okay, so I’m talking about pre-pubescence, but I could have been a “contender” later in life if I had just conquered that shyness problem. I remember in 2nd grade where I actually had a (secret, of course) crush on two girls – Amy and Tracy. Now I was 7 years old then and knew little about the “birds and the bees”. All I knew was that I liked these girls. What did I do about it? What was I going to do…? I was 7! I guess this was when I picked up my wonderful habit of hiding my feelings. The funny thing about girls in elementary school is that they often times don’t hide their feelings…

This point was made perfectly clear to me one day on the playground as I was sitting alone in one of the cement sewage tubes (yeah, back then pieces of cement sewage piping were considered excellent substitutes for actual playground equipment) just minding my own business. As I was sitting there I basically got molested (remember, we were kids – they just jumped on me and started kissing me) by a couple of girls – Amy and Tracy. Could I have even imagined a better scenario at the time? No – this should have been my “initiation” into becoming a man; but what did I do? I ran away! Granted I was only 7, but I ran away. Why?

You see, I’m starting to think that that one little incident had a much bigger impact on the rest of my life than I ever would have imagined. I mean that basically sums me up – I get the girls I wanted (both, by the way…) and my first reaction is to run.

Here’s where I begin the “what if” scenarios. What if I just stayed there and actually participated in the activity? Yeah, we were too young to understand exactly what we were doing and may have even got into a bit of trouble if the “playground lady” would have caught us; but what would my life have been like if I stayed? You see I believe that it is experiences such as these that make us who were are when we get older. For some stupid reason, I decided to run … I’ve been running since…

The thing is that that wasn’t the only time. Throughout my childhood there were many occasions where I was given the perfect opportunity to abandon those childish fears and become a man. On every one of those opportunities, I ran (either literally or figuratively). I suppose I’m destined to live the rest of my life running from what I really want. It’s sad, really… The saddest part about it is that I seem to have absolutely no way to change this. Every once in a while I get in these situations where I think my luck might finally be changing. Every time (without exception), I manage to find a way to fuck things up.

It’s interesting to me that it took moving to Germany to get me to think about this so much. I think back in America it was just easier for me to find things to waste my time with giving me the ability to push this need that I have to the back of my mind. I really couldn’t tell you when my last actual “date” was – probably over 15 years ago… The thing is I’m in Germany now – I’ve got a taste of what I want and I’m desperately wanting more (and no, I’m not just talking about sex…). Unfortunately, this is most definitely not the environment for me to find what I am seeking – I don’t speak the language! Although I doubt that matters much as I am discovering that speaking the same language isn’t necessarily a guarantee that people will get along. Heck, Julie’s an American and I think I’ve already managed to fuck up that friendship (run Glen, run…). Maybe I’m better off dealing with people that can’t understand me…

Anyway, that’s what’s been on my mind lately. It’d be great to be able to go back in time and get a “do over”. Life, however, doesn’t work that way. In this life, you are where you are – how you got there is pretty much insignificant as you can’t change the past. I am a frustrated old man basically trying to fill an emotional void with visits from women that are only there because I am paying them.

Why did I run…?

bis später,

Coriolis

Julie

Well, so far today’s been a rough day… The bus that I like to catch to work in the morning was actually on time today. I suppose that’s a good thing; however it has never been less than 5 minutes late every other time I took it and I actually arrived at the stop today just in time to watch the bus leave – without me on it, of course… What this meant was that I was then given the opportunity to walk to work. No big deal – lord knows I can use the exercise – it’s just that long walks are things I need to avoid when I’m in one of my “deep blue funks”. And “deep blue funks” seem to be commonplace with me lately…

Why am I in a “deep blue funk”? Several reasons… First, I got another credit card statement forwarded to me from back home that had a nice little surprise in it – a $4333.30 surprise! You see this is just one more addition I get to make to the amount of money I “spent” on that Friday night in Athens that I don’t ever remember. It’s now looking like I got taken that night for somewhere in the neighborhood of $8000! I remember very little of that night and what I do remember wasn’t very fun. Apparently though, I paid a shitload of money to not have fun that night. I’m contesting these charges, but we all know what that’s going to accomplish – nothing…

As I mentioned earlier, the trip to Zürich that I was planning on taking this weekend has been cancelled. That kind of sucks; however I suppose it’s all for the better. I won’t be dropping 1000 Swiss Francs this weekend, but I also won’t be spending the night with Surunna. I was actually looking forward to that part, although I really must be realistic here – I’m sure that something would have gone wrong (it’s just the way it is with me) and I am most likely just avoiding more hassles that I really don’t need to be dealing with. So I’m out the non-refundable airline tickets but was able to cancel the hotel reservation. Once again, money spent for nothing…

Of course the main reason that I’m a bit down as of late is nobody’s fault but my own. I, once again, have been stupid enough to think that I actually had a chance with a “real” woman. This time it was Julie. I really don’t know what I was thinking here – Julie is less than half my age. I was trying to convince myself that she might actually like me for who I am (I had no illusions, whatsoever, that she would be physically attracted to me) and that the age difference wouldn’t be an issue – silly, huh? I need to clarify something: I responded to an earlier comment stating that I thought Julie didn’t like me. Let me take that back. I do think that she likes me; however not in the way that I was hoping. I think that she sees me as an “interesting” guy – interesting as more of a psychological case study. You see, Julie is a very smart girl (valedictorian if I am not mistaken) and my openness about my life (as well as what I am being open about) intrigues her in a way.

What I need to do is shut down any romantic feelings that I have for Julie and just enjoy what little time I get to spend with her. Of course she’ll probably be reading this so I might just be destroying any chances of spending time with her at all. (Oh my god, I sound like I’m back in high school again … I guess some things never change…) I’m just hoping that Julie understands that I am, in no way, trying to seduce her (HA! Now there’s something that’s completely beyond my abilities…) or take advantage of her in any way – I would never do that. I really could just use a friend while I’m over here in Germany…

Well, I was planning on writing up another detailed description of one of my life adventures but I really need to get back to my work now. I’m apparently loosing a cell instance by the name of “U64ASTTSINST26897” somewhere between initial cell placement and global route (probably getting removed somewhere in CTS…) and my hierarchy preservation is therefore crapping out. Fun, fun, fun…

bis später,

Coriolis

Life as usual...

Okay, so it’s been a few days since I posted a blog entry. I guess I’ll write one up just for “shits and grins”… I’m not sure what I’m going to write about so I guess I’ll just write and see what comes out. I suppose I probably have a few things that I want to say.

The ED issue. Well, I finally received the generic Viagra that I ordered a few weeks ago. This is a good thing. I was a bit worried that it might have been a scam (reading information provided by Pfizer on their official Viagra site makes it sound like any and all generic Viagra being sold on the Internet is nothing but a scam) however conducted an experiment a couple days ago that ended up rather well. This stuff actually works! I called over an escort (German woman, her name was Julia) and had no troubles whatsoever in the ED area. I’m actually not exactly sure what I should think about this – should I be happy or sad that I now need to take a pill in order to be of any use to a woman? I’m going to go with “happy”. At least I now have some guarantee that I can get around my little problem and, since all of my sexual experiences of late are easily scheduled, the use of these pills is not much of an issue. I just need to take one about an hour before having sex.

I’m actually pretty sure that I wouldn’t need these pills if I were somehow able to do the impossible and find myself a girlfriend of my own. Last night – after our German class – I had Jon and Julie over to my apartment to watch some TV. Julie (who, by the way, is a wonderful person) even mentioned that what I need is a girlfriend. I couldn’t agree more with you, Julie. That, after all, is actually what I am looking for. In fact, it’s primarily why I am so easily taken advantage of by the type of people that I’ve been associating with lately. I think they smell the “want” on me and this basically gives them the green light to play with my desires and manipulate me into doing stupid things. I’ve been doing my best at keeping these meetings on a “nothing more than fun” basis and I think I’m getting better at that; however this deep desire I have to actually be loved is not an easy thing to ignore… I need to spend more time with Julie…

If any of you are wondering what happened to Anna (the girl from Club Love in Athens…) all I can say is we’ve lost contact with each other. I’m not surprised by this, but I’m actually not that distraught either. I mean yeah, Anna seemed like a very nice person; but the logistics involved in us becoming more than just acquaintances are a bit complicated. Not to mention that I only knew the girl for two days. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that what we had there was little more than lust. Anna was fun (and we never even had sex…) although I’m thinking that the fun there was no more than fantasy. She was, after all, a Russian living in Greece. I’m an American living in Germany. Why I ever even thought that there was a possibility there seems absurd. But that’s me, the “hopeless romantic”… What I need to do is focus more on what might be good for me in reality…

Of course this kind of brings up this next weekend where I’ll be flying down to Zürich to spend a Saturday night with Surunna. (You remember Surunna, the girl I met on that Sunday in Zürich, right?) She is a bit different in that I have absolutely no misunderstandings about what this trip is – it’s a night that I am purchasing with an escort (otherwise known as a prostitute) to have some fun. Surunna is a lot of fun but that’s all. I have no false desire to make her my girlfriend. We’re just going to get together and have some fun together – nothing wrong with that…

Oops … please disregard that last paragraph. I just received an SMS from Surunna – I guess I’m not going to Zürich this weekend… Oh well, that’s all for the better anyway … I really don’t need to be spending 1000 Swiss Francs for something that’s just going to make me feel emptier inside. I was hoping to start dealing more with my “real” life anyway and this basically gives me one more weekend for that…

So I now have a free weekend coming up. What should I do? What I would like to do is spend some time with Julie. I really do like Julie and an added bonus with her is that she is American! I really don’t think she’s the least bit attracted to me in any romantic way, but that’s cool. I completely understand that… Still, as far as people that I might be able to hang out with over here in Germany, Julie is easily at the top of my list. Heck, she could help me out with my German a bit as she seams to understand it much better than I ever will…

Ah, but that’s crazy talk. I really shouldn’t be getting my hopes up – nothing this good ever happens to me. I’m sure I’ll be wasting away the time this weekend by myself… Who knows? Maybe I’ll write up a couple blog submissions although I think I’m running out of stuff to talk about… The only trips I currently have planned are to Amsterdam on the 2nd of December and then a two week return back to the states on December 22nd. This whole “traveling by myself” thing is proving to be quite dangerous anyway… I suppose it’s probably about time to get back to my “life as usual” and revert back to my old boring self once again…

Oh well, I guess that’s all I have to say for now.

bis später,

Coriolis