I love Simon’s (Flak) approach to Daylight Savings; we don’t have an extra hour to sleep, we have an extra hour to live! Though, guess who’s still snoring on my sofa?
Today is going to be good; UFC 104 with Simon and Jim (although, if you read this and want to come by to watch it with us, let me know!) and then tonight Pablo Francisco. Not a bad score this lazy Sunday. :)
An uncle that I barely knew and hardly got along with was found dead in his apartment on the 21st. By all estimates he had been dead for a week before he was found, which is tragic. After the death of my father and this uncle, there are only a few of us Steinmeijers left, an aunt who currently resides in Indonesia, working for the government who I’ve met only once, and an uncle I’ve never met. When my father passed away, my uncles (both the one I’ve never met and the one that just passed away) decided not to come to the ceremony. I knew from conversations with my father that when their mother passed away when they were all in their teens it was a rather traumatic experience for all of them, which made many of them decide never to attend a funeral again. This belief was reinforced when the remaining uncle decided he didn’t want to have anything to do with it, claiming that he was “done with funerals.” When my father passed away I also managed to get in contact with my aunt, who turned out to be working in Bangladesh at the time. This time around she was as unable to either attend to the funeral or attend the funeral. So the task falls squarely on my shoulders. It’s not as hard this time around, since I hardly knew the man and my involvement can be kept to a minimum.
I got a nice, reinforcing and uplifting e-mail from someone, which brightened my day and mood a little bit.
| Quote: |
| I just saw that your uncle passed away… I’m so sorry to hear that, and also that it falls on your shoulders to take care of things. I guess that’s the price you pay for being the Prince of your family, no? |
That’s a very nice way of saying that I’m the one who shovels the shit, but it made me smile. :)
So yesterday morning, I got to be a bit of a hero while in public transport. The train was very crowded, and I was standing all the way in the back, reading a book and listening to some music when all of a sudden, the ticket collector is pushing his way past all the people until he reaches the end of the train. He’s about fifty years old and not an imposing sight at all, and he’s got a woman following him. She was young, probably twenty years old, about as tall as I, and probably about fifteen kilos heavier than I, and she’s yelling at him. I don’t realise what’s going on at first until she’s got him cornered and pressed up against the back of the train. I take my earphones out and I observe, like the ten or fifteen others in attendance. Apparently, the girl didn’t have a ticket and the ticket collector had taken her identification so that she wouldn’t run when the police would come to adjudicate at the next stop. (Normally, they just write you a ticket unless they have reason to believe you’re not going to pay, can’t identify yourself or if you’re being a pain in the ass.) This girl went wild, demanding her identification back. She had backed the guy up in a corner and was very aggressive in the way she spoke and postured. I let it go on for a moment before the girl got physical, then I jumped in between the two of them. She had lunged for the identification and was roughly pushing him into the corner. I wormed myself in between them and shoved the girl back while trying to sound like I had some sort of authority, telling her to “stand back.” She was obviously panicking and I had to push her up against the wall, cross-facing her with my forearm. Behind me the ticket collector collapsed, his legs giving out, probably due to the adrenaline dump. When I finally managed to catch the girl’s attention, I told her that in order for her not to get arrested she needed to calm down, which, surprisingly, she did. The ticket collector regained his composure and gave her the identification back (!?) and they returned to her seat. I’m not sure what happened after that, but later the ticket collector came back to thank me for helping.
What was sad is that I got all these “well done” looks from people around me afterwards. While it was happening they were just trying to become one with the surroundings, not wanting anything to do with it.
I was looking through my brother’s daily mugshot, and I found the photo below, which I thought was awesome and I thought I’d share.
| My brother. |
Recently, I found out that I fall asleep easier when I put my head to one side. To be more specific, I fall asleep quicker when one of my ears is closed off — easily done by rolling my head to one side. I feel better when I create this artificial corner in my mind where my consciousness retreats to, quite literally, by closing off one ear. My thoughts shift to take place closer to my closed off ear. The only entrance, it seems, to my head is the ear that’s free, since it’s the only part of my senses that really feeds me any input. It’s interesting how that works, and how aware of it I am — even though I don’t seem to be very apt at putting it into words.