Next Stop: Atlantic

…sometimes other people’s words are better than the words that come out of my mouth.

I was browsing for the lyrics to the song I posted the other day and when I found them earlier all I could think of is, wow.

At least two people should know what I’m talking about when I post this:

Where Do My Bluebird Fly
Oh, well I knew you shook the set-up baby, of all the leaves up in the ground
And I know our song is over and heavy as I see dry leaves fallin’ down, oh
With all this fever in my mind, I could drown in your kerosene eyes
Oh, you’re just a riddle in the sky
Oh, where do my bluebird fly?

Oh, well I know you stroke your feathers baby upon the ghosts along my trail
And I know your lie was sold and buried before I knew it was for sale, oh
With all this fever in my mind I could aim for your kerosene eyes
Oh, you’re just a target in the sky
I say where do my bluebird fly?
I say where do my bluebird fly?

So I’ve been having these super erotic dreams lately featuring various people who are somewhat present in my life right now. One featured the gorgeous 26 year old, that we’ll refer to as “Schnucki” from now on, the other two featured people who fall into the “friends” category, don’t want to be too specific now but… omg.

I’ve all kinds of vague crushes right now, I’m pretty desperate.

On the other hand I’m also pretty hopeful that something totally unexpected and wild might be happening soon. I am currently waiting to hear from a particular person. I thought I’d been getting some vibes there that he might be interested in me and even though this is someone that I’ve practically known forever I still feel intrigued by it.

And then there’s the other one, the one that’s completely out of reach but who I still have major feelings for.

Being able to talk to a friend about this helps - actually two friends, Maiphone and Stine.

Spent an awesome evening with Maiphone talking and watching a movie - something I haven’t done with a friend forever. I’m glad our friendship has grown over the past few months.

And as far as Stine is concerned I just miss hanging out with her at Sweet Melissa’s and spending my lunches with her.

Point of this entry? None, except that my feelings are all over the place, and believe me that’s a good thing

And here are two songs that I adore at the moment - for Stine, because I know she actually appreciates getting to know new music:

The second one has actually an awesome video too. Enjoy

…so glide away on soapy heels
and promise not to promise anymore.
And if you come around again
then I will take the chain from off the door…

(Ingrid Michaelson - The Chain)

The problem with moving on is that once you’ve succeeded in moving on there’s no turning back.

But, on the other hand, do I really want to hang on to a friendship which doesn’t seem to be good for me?

It’s a tough decision. I’ve been thinking about giving up for a while now - quietly, without a fight, silently withdrawing. Funny because that’s not who I am at all. But I’ve learned that you can’t fix a friendship unless both people want to (the same holds true for broken relationships by the way). And I’ve learned that you can’t make another person like you or care about you no matter how much you wish for it.

And eventually you get over it.

Like, I honestly never though I’d get over I. But, guess what, I did. And after having felt desperate, sad, angry, disappointed and any possible combination of those now I am completely indifferent. And I know I’m over I. because I know that if I saw her on the street one day I would just talk to her like to any other person I hadn’t seen for a few years. And I feel the same way about D. for that matter. Like, I don’t care.

And the only thing that worries me is that once again I’m about to just give up on ever finding the type of friend that I could eventually call my best friend and not giving new friends a chance. I’m just tired of the same shit over and over again.

I’m done with talking. Done with being disappointed. Giving up seems the easiest way right now. Only how do I know it’s the right way?

I wonder how many more times I have to find the strength to pick myself up again. Why does it always have to be so hard? I am not ready for this yet - or maybe it would be just enough if I didn’t know…

How can I stop from blaming myself? Why is it that it’s so hard to see all the negative, fucked up stuff?

God, I wish I could just turn my feelings off completely on certain days…

We had Blizzard-like conditions this morning. And while ever single school in the US would’ve given today off, my students rode their bikes and scooters to school just like on any other day. And my colleagues and I left home a little earlier to take our time on the snow-covered highway.

The A2 was a disaster this morning. Usually, by the time I leave the house, the highway is completely clean. I don’t know what happened today but driving conditions were horrible, so most cars stuck to the two lanes to the right and drove around 80km/h (50 mph). I was cool with that but then suddenly there was this car ahead of me which was going much slower - like around 60km/h (35mph) and it had some strange license plates, which were hard to see through the heavy snowfall. Could that be…? Was it possible…? Yes, yes, American license plates! As I passed the car I saw where it was from: Minnesota.

My face remained in a puzzled expression for the rest of the way to school. Minnesota? On the A2 between Baden and Bad Vöslau? It was not a vanity plate, nor was it some diplomat’s car. It was a regular car from Minnesota. And a Mercedes to top it off. Like, why would anyone be driving a Mercedes (European car!) with license plates from Minnesota in Austria? No matter how you put it it makes no sense. Like, did someone bring their car here from the US - oh but wait, they must’ve imported it from Europe first. I mean, it’s not like it was a Cadillac or something. This would be kind of like me riding a Harley Davidson with Austrian license plates in Ohio ( )

So yeah, that was weird. Minnesota car in a snowstorm at 35mph. I thought they were used to snow in Minnesota?

So there’s this guy who is, like, insanely hot but totally out of reach for various reasons but Oh. My. God. Seriously. And here I am at home trying to correct boring English tests. Meanwhile I even dreamt about said guy recently.

Not fair.

*Must get this guy out of my head*

It’s usually not a good sign if I start listening to Counting Crows, especially not their song “Round Here”, which may be something like the theme song for the most depressing moments since 1994.

Can’t change it.

Although the song “When I dream of Michelangelo” fits better.

I’m even out of words because I can’t write about what I’m thinking. All I know is that there are some major changes ahead and that I am scared whenever I’m not feeling so strong.

Weird how this weekend started totally right and is ending totally wrong…

The past few days have been really wonderful giving me time to reconnect with my friends. There’s so much to tell which will have to wait until I have more time.

Having Thomas visiting me was just great - we got to spend some much needed time together sitting together sipping coffee, cleaning up my place, going for walks in my hometown (which he visited now for the first time) and long talks over a glass of wine, all at the slowest possible pace but still enough time to talk about all the important stuff. I am so grateful to have him back in my life. We’ve been friends for over 10 years now and we’ve been through a lot and I don’t think there’s anyone I feel so comfortable around like I do with my friend Thomas. Seeing him now was extremely important and healing in a way and was definitely the best part of my break…

I also enjoyed spending time with some of my friends celebrating my birthday - much smaller and quieter than in the past but that’s what I needed this year. It was also wonderful having some of my NY friends meet my Austrian friends and seeing some of them getting along so well.

New Year’s Eve with Maiphone was great too… spontaneous and funny and drunk and just great.

And tonight I finally got to catch up with Stine, who’s been back in my life for a year now - a year in which we’ve pretty much spoken regularly and been inolved in each other’s lives. Talking to her about all that’s happened in the past few days was great and made me wish she wasn’t so far away. But I am glad we got Skype that lets us talk for free for 2 hours or more. Stine, I’m really happy we’re friends and that you’ve been back in my life this past year. Your friendship means a lot to me!

It’s that time of the year again. This time I did it fast but I think this pretty much sums up my last year. So here’s my Mayfly 2009:

Reconnected with Stine
Biked Vienna, Copenhagen, Long Island
Summer of madness, passion - love?
All over now.
Grandmother passed
Too much drama -
Is it worth it?

Not much to add

Nothing much to post about - I mean there is stuff going on but I don’t feel like posting about it.

Weird details on the side: I had two strange dreams about 2 people I haven’t spoken to in a really long time. One of them hadn’t even been on my mind at all, the other one has been on my mind a little. What would you do if you had a very realistic dream that someone you haven’t spoken to in more than a year was dying? I really don’t plan on contacting this person but the dream is freaking me out. It also raises this whole question again about whether it’s worth to stay mad at one person knowing that there’s always the possibility you may never see them again or tell them you’re sorry. This is not the case in this particular situation but I still can’t help thinking about it.

I received the most wonderful birthday present from Christine (she had orchids sent to me, which was my second time ever that I had flowers delivered to my home and the first time was by someone I’d rather not think about any more (as in: creep!)) along with the sweetest card. It’s pretty much been a year since she’s been back in my life and I will never regret taking that difficult step and reaching out.

Not really related to any of the above: I make mistakes, like, all the time. And some mistakes I make twice. But there are also lessons that I’ve learned that prevent me from making certain mistakes over. And that’s why I’ll go and listen to Lisa Loeb’s album “Tails” and especially the song “It’s over” now, to prevent me from doing something stupid like I did in 1995/96.

Maybe it’s my new positive outlook on things but my birthday was actually pretty cool: the right people called, texted or sent awesome e-cards - seriously, I’m not disappointed at all because all the ones who mattered did do one of those things.

The day itself was a little blah like always - I was extremely tired and the awful weather sure didn’t help. Then, around 6pm I decided to see who I could spontaneously get to join me for drinks at my new/old favorite Bar “Grande” - old because I’ve been going there forever and it’s the closest bar to where I live where you can get decent cocktails. New, because starting about one month ago they added this cool backroom which connects the cafe and the bar and looks out into the backyard. This new room looks awesome: exposed brick, fireplace, wooden roof and - best of all: it’s an entire non-smoking room.

In the end Maiphone, Rafa and Verena (!) stopped by and we had a blast (my favorite part was the Facebook-quiz where they would read birthday wishes off my facebook page from their phones and I had to guess who they were from) - good times.

I’m happy I have awesome friends in my life.

This may be the first time in 10+ years that I haven’t received a Christmas/birthday email from I. Not sure how I feel about that. Similar to the way I felt when it came to emailing her on her birthday: I almost didn’t.

In other news Christmas wasn’t so bad after all and it was nice sitting next to the same people during Christmas Mass I have been sitting next to for the past 10 Christmases or so. And now I just feel drowsy and sleepy…

Tomorrow will be interesting in many ways…

Not an easy day. Although deep down inside I’m starting to have faith that everything will in fact make sense one day. Even though it doesn’t right now.

I don’t understand why a particular person is acting the way they’re acting. And I am still dealing with all the other stuff, so i just can’t deal with this in addition to everything else.

M. is preventing me from overreacting. Meanwhile I am waiting for a sign in one particular matter. And as far as the other is concerned, I’m starting to believe that it’s beyond my power to change or influence anything.

All of a sudden I had the lines of a song in my head today. A song I probably haven’t listened to since, what? 1988?

Now it’s out of my hands and it’s up to your heart…

Friday afternoon at school last week. Tons of people are hanging around because there’s a parent-teacher meeting that night and we have agreed to kill some time by going to the Christmas market and drink some mulled wine (after all, the kids’ homeroom teacher is the only one who has to talk and remain sober, but she doesn’t drink anyway).

Colleague F. (a gym teacher) enters the conference room, a padded nude-colored bra hanging from his arm. “Whose is this?” he says grinning and explains that he found that bra in the girls’ changing room. Now that bra looks awfully big for belonging to a girl in our school (we have only grades 5-9 currently and none of the 9th graders are really that big).

So we start joking around until colleague F. takes the bra to our administrator and asks him what to do with it. Apparently the administrator, who has a very dry sense of humor, suggests placing the bra on someone’s desk in the conference room (not sure if that was really his idea). So F. hands it to colleague S. , tells her to put it somewhere and leaves.

So together (there was also another female colleague involved) we start thinking where we could place that bra. At this point I start cracking up at the thought of different levels of inappropriateness - see, we have a catholic priest teaching in our school and placing the bra on his desk would have been so inappropriate, lol.

She hangs it on colleague D’s (a young teacher) chair and then we leave to get some mulled wine. When we come back (slightly feeling the effect of the booze) we are all in the conference room as D enters. We totally burst out laughing even before he discovers the bra on his chair. Of course he thinks it’s hilarious and begins to think where we could hide the bra next. So we are all totally cracking up in the conference room and our principal actually witnesses part of this and OMG you should’ve been there.

We decide that Surfer Dude must be our next victim. He’s a total Casanova so it’s even more appropriate. D. takes the bra and hangs it in Surfer Dude’s open locker, leaving the door ajar. Meanwhile we’re almost peeing our pants from laughing.

On the following Monday we’re waiting to see Surfer Dude open his locker. Instead it’s Monday morning and everything is really hectic and someone is looking for a key or folder or something and looks everywhere, including Surfer Dude’s locker. And there it is: the bra is boldly hanging from the door and as the door is left open I see more and more teachers (who weren’t there Friday) with weird looks on their faces.

Suddenly a female colleague approaches me, “What’s up with that bra?”, she asks, so I tell her the story. Suddenly she gets serious, “I know who that bra belongs to”. So I ask, “A colleague?” and she nods. At this point I’m all like “Ooops” and tell her to get the bra and give it to that colleague it belongs to.

I still don’t know whose bra it was and how it got into the girls’ changing room. All  know is that some classes stayed at school overnight from Thursday to Friday and had some sort fo reading-night/slumber party where some teachers attended as well. So that’s my guess. Every other option would just be… really strange!

Anyway: hilarious times Friday afternoon once again!