...was what I thought yesterday: Kara's on her way back home to the US again. Kinda sad. Took her to the airport this morning, and all of a sudden, she was gone. We had such a great time though, and Michel seemed to have fallen in love with her... :-)
I will try to "abuse" this blog (or maybe another one) for posting my graphical work in a gallery-like style. Today, I start with some artwork I have done for Nico_Noyau aka Robert Dugenou who made some very funny and good music. The first two designs are for the album being "released" today, the last four are cover artwork designs for the singles:
Kara and I met again at Zurich Main Station last Thursday for the first time after 14 years and one month. Virtually no time has passed ever since I said goodbye to her in Durango, CO, in mid-August 1993. We were just amazed as you could imagine...
She's already staying with us for close to a week, and according to her, she's very much enjoying it. Things we've been doing included visiting the Rhine falls in Northern Switzerland (actually the largest waterfalls in Europe), been to Konstanz (Germany), travelled to the Pilatus mountain and had a great barbecue evening at Chris' place, a very good friend and co-worker at IBM. Today, she is on a Glacier Express train round trip from Winterthur via Chur, Brig, Berne and Zurich back to Winterthur... Wonder what she's telling us tonight ;-)
[To Be Continued...]
It was back in April, 1993 when I first met Kara in France. Kara, a young girl from Durango, CO (USA) and I, amongst others, were spending some months on a French farm. When I left from there, I promised to come visit her in the US where she lived. "Yeah, sure...."
In May, 1993, I headed for Ontario, Canada, to spend another time away from home, this time, it was gonna be for close to 5 months. Beginning of July, 1993, I took the Greyhound and was aiming at Durango, CO and finally arrived there on July 8th, my 23rd birthday, called her number and said: "Hi Kara, how far from 'Rosewater's' to where you live?" - "---!".
I spend about one month in beautiful Durango before I had to leave again back for Ontario, but we've spent a wonderful time there, seeing many interesting things and people.
Sure, I was quite sad when leaving for Switzerland again in October, 1993. Ever since, we haven't been seeing each other, but were keeping contact ever since (letters, phone calls, emails). And every now and then, Kara was talking about coming to Europe, but t never happened, due to different reasons.
Today, she landed on Frankfurt Airport and is coming to see us tonight to hopefully spend some impressive days here with us...
I am not quite sure how we managed to stay in touch for all these years, because 14 years aren't just peanuts. As you can imagine, I am very much looking forward to meet her again, show her my little family and talk to her about all what's been happening in the past...
[To Be Continued...]
Unfortunately, previous post's mentioning of that trip to Boulouris was a bit too quick: In the end, it didn't happen. Mainly because of it being too short notice: No accomodation available...
It bugs me a bit, but I can put up with it, no problem at all. So I will pay France another visit next year, we'll see.
On Monday, August 20th, Michel will enter the Kindergarten, something completely new not only for him, but also for us. In terms of development of his personality, this sure is a milestone: being together with lots of different children, plus: having to obey someone else than "just" his parents. Ciril, his younger brother, also needs to get used to it, because he and Michel aren't always together anymore.
But for us parents, this will be a major change. Having read so many news about child abduction lately (Maddie, and latest regional example: Ylenia), I am not that fond of leaving our son "alone" somewhere else. I know that it's only a hundred yards away from us. But I still have kind of a bad feeling about it in general. As I wrote in an earlier posting: Am I worrying too much?
Everytime I think of for example Michel (or Ciril) being held custody by a stranger and being treated in a disgusting way, I can nearly feel myself growing an undescribable amount of violence that's nearly bursting out of me. How can people treat children this way? Or other people of the same age?
I am speechless............
Last Saturday, I have received the results of a two-year old request I have placed: A CD-R with nearly 500 photographs and scans of Jarre items I don't have has arrived. Although I still have to do lots of image processing for each one of these scans / photographs, these pictures will complete my website in a very good way.
So I can now announce that after having processed and integrated all of Hardy's images and those I still have on my hard drive, I will stop extending my website on www.jarre.ch because I have the impression that with nearly 8000 images, 3300 items and close to 60 different chapters, all the work is done.
Sure there would be more items to be added (mainly bootlegs, samplers, cover versions etc), but the added value won't be much higher as it is now.
The goal is to reach this target by the end of this year, so www.jarre.ch is entering in it's sixth year of existence in a nearly complete state....
Been to the dentist Friday evening, had to remove a tooth, but it didn't hurt AT ALL! Neither while removal, nor afterwards..... How lucky can you get?
But what hurts is the fact that I miss France soooo fvcking much. BUT: if all works out, I'll be going there next Friday for some days... yes, I am crazy, but I think I need that.
I'll be "escorting" some friends who are spending a 2 weeks' vacation in Boulouris, and they've never been there by car before....
I just realised how much time has gone since my last post. So here's roughly what was happening since April 30th:
So, that's it for now. I promised Nico to write some in here today, so more's to come, promised.
the best time of the year is coming closer every day. We will be on holiday in Southern France from June 2nd till June 23rd..... yes, three fvcking weeks... Yäy!!
Will visit Nico there (hope he passes his exams in June!!) and so on
Dunno what else to write about ATM.... Life's quite well right now.
For a change, I am writing about what I've reached, and not about the things I failed to cope with. In my last post, there was the mentioning of that Jean Michel Jarre showcase I was lucky enough to attend. It was indeed a very special experience to talk to Jean Michel again after exactly 10 years. Just for the records, not only the last occasion was a decade ago, but also the distance I traveled was quite the same: about 1600 kms / 1000 miles. Anyway, most important about this is that everything went well.
I took about 420 pictures during the showcase (the best of which can be viewed here), had the possibility to get my Draeger white vinyl "Oxygène" LP signed by him and handed him a copy of my discography catalog, which now contains exactly 1056 pages... What a silly amount of pages in an even sillier amount of time spent on this: 5 years. Sometimes, I am not sure if it was worth it in terms of health (many hours work during night time) as well as in terms of reaching the right people with what I've done.
Well, whatever. There's nothing else I can do than to stick to what I am doing. People on the forum are thankful about what I do and even contribute very busily to it all.
I will have lunch with André next Monday which makes me very happy. André is my former boss and we have a very good private connection. Although rare enough, it's pure quality...
Improved overall life in the last couple of days again. Here's the main points:
It's simple to describe my life in one sentence: There's ups and downs. But it takes a whole dissertation to explain. When I'm feeling OK, many bad things seem to be washed away and I am able to do different things at a time, think of several tasks, plan alot and achieve most of it. I include all people around me into the positivity I am experiencing. When everything's upside down again, I fall back into that one track mindedness again where nothing else matters. nothing seems to be important, not even me, my family, my life, job etc.
I am very good at hiding such feelings from people that are around me, but are not that close to call them true friends. They often bust with excitement (negatively speaking) when it becomes obvious that behind that friendly and funny mask, there's a deeply depressed and sad person. Yes, I am good at that.
At this point I am again, I can see that nothing really worked to get me back on track again. Sleeping is still an issue and will be for a long time, I'm afraid. I am sorry for those who have to read the same story over and over again. But this also keeps me getting over those remaining hours between the time I got up again from no successful sleep and the point I have to go for work.
How will I look this new day? What am I able to achieve? When will it end? Does it end? I see this blog as a constant description of what I am not able to achieve...
In a 1992's Bruce Springsteen song, there was the line "I wish I was blind when I see you with your man"... How true
YAY! as of today, I am moderator of the
Blah Blah Café forum ... How proud I am!!!! Thanks GeeJee!
Things are going worse, much worse than ever. Thoughts that are rotating in my brain right now:
Some time passed since my last post. I have slept quite well lately. Means that I could go to bed at reasonable times and slept until about 5 to 8 AM.... A good start
On February 1st, 2006, my mother died. That's more than a year ago now. Still sad, still not quite real in a way, still miss her....
Normally, we don't get that much snow over here in winter. Normally, we also have to wait until something like February or even march (as in last year) to get loads of snow.
But today when I woke up, the whole landscape was covered in white dust: there's at least 15cm of snow here. Not that much, you'd say, but quite a lot for these surroundings. Let's see how long it takes to disappear again.
It still breaks my heart when I am thinking back to last night. After having assisted in brushing his teeth, I wanted to put the toothbrush back to where it was, But Michel, my elder son wanted to do it by himself. Feeling that apparently, he only wanted to delay the point of going to bed, I insisted to do it myself, not realising that Michel just wanted to show me how good he can do that for his age.
It ended up in an argument and with madly dropping his toothbrush on the floor, yelling at him and leaving him behind in the bathroom, slamming the door, starting to go mad outside because of what I felt to be him acting in a "No, I don't want to do this" kind of way. Michel started crying and when I went to see him again in the bathroom, he was just sitting there on the carpet, holding his toothbrush, crying and looking at me like he has lost all his confidence in his daddy, looking at me like asking "why are you being so unfair to me?"
I would just give up anything to erase this feeling within me I have at the moment towards Michel and towards that situation. This haunts me like a curse and really nearly breaks my heart... What has Michel done that got me acting this way? NOTHING! It's just a tiny little boy who wanted to show me how grown-up he can act, even if it's only putting aside his toothbrush....
"Téo & Téa" sound bits that are spread via the net seem to be fake today and the pure opposite one day later.... going on and on and on and on and on for the time being left until the new Jarre single release...
"Heebie-Jeebies" is a sweet expression GeeJee's using for the euphoria he's feeling just before Jarre's releasing new music. Funny, that :-)
