Sometimes I regret not accepting the airforce’s offer to train to become a helicopter pilot.
Sixteen Years
Lieve mamma,
Ik schreef vorig jaar dat ik je miste en dan ik er steeds meer achter kom dat ik zonder jou mezelf niet goed ken. Ondanks dat ik geen kans meer heb om met je te praten, heb ik het idee nog niet losgelaten dat ik je hierbij nodig heb. Ik probeer het voor mezelf uit te zoeken, maar ik kom er niet heel ver mee. Alle wegen leiden naar vragen die ik aan jou zou stellen.
Ik weet niet waarom, maar angst, twijfel, en verdriet zijn een groot onderdeel van mijn fundament.
Ik denk vaak aan je. We hebben het ook nog heel veel over je. Maar ondertussen zijn we zestien jaar verder, en een hoop van de verhalen die we elkaar vertellen over jou beginnen bijna legendes te worden. Ik ben zo bang dat de waarheid nog verder verwatert, en dat ik nog verder verwijderd van je raak.
Skint
Sometimes, I feel like watching something that brings me back to the dysfunctions of my family. The fighting, the yelling, the accusations, the schemes and scams…
There is a long running television problem on UK TV called Skint, which follows several families or individuals, for a period of time, while they try to survive on minimal budgets, in neighbourhoods where work is scarce.
Inevitably I come back to documentaries like this. Partly to remind me, partly to warn me, and probably partly as poverty porn. As much as I like to distance myself from the people on display, I know each and every one of them. I know them well. It sometimes gets to be too much, as a result.
I heard you were telling lies. I heard say you weren’t born of our blood. I know we’re the crooked kind. But you’re crooked too, boy, and it shows.
Red Eye
Last week, I flew to San Francisco for a couple of days to hang out with Eva, Scott, and the girls. The flight over was eleven hours, but went by smoothly. The flight back, however, was another matter. I knew it would be a rough one (flying west to east always is, for me), but the girl sitting next to me deciding it was okay to use me as a back rest, and the guy in front of me thinking it was completely appropriate to throw his seat back, spill my drink, and then continue to lay his head in my lap for the next nine hours, was a bit much. It’s 2024; I thought we had all stopped putting our seat back without at least having a conversation with the person behind you first.
It was worth the fun time in San Francisco, though. Seeing Eva and Scott was really nice, playing video games with the girls was great, and taking a driverless taxi was cool too.
Mourning the Loss of a Number
When I moved to the UK I switched my Dutch mobile subscription to a prepaid number so that I could hold onto the number. I had that number since 2001, so I would want to keep it. One of the stipulations was that you’d have to use it at least once every six months or so. Unfortunately, I must have missed using it, and it got disconnected and assigned to a new subscription.
Goodbye, +31 653 212 414, you will be missed.
