The sequel to the "Insecure Feelings"-post follows sooner as expected. These feelings haven't gone yet. In fact, I start to "see ghosts everywhere", as one might say. Provided the fact my wife is really cheating on me, there might be some persons I suspect being the "traitors", but the longer I am thinking about it, the more men could qualify...
(**NOT** to be continued)
For the first time in my relationship with my wife, I was insecure about the feelings she has towards me. It all started out to be a nice evening in another city where we were going to watch the Blue Man Group. The next day, we were invited at my Dad’s place to celebrate his 78th birthday. Both events were taking place in the same city. But instead of going home together after the Blue Man Group’s performance, my wife suggested that she could stay in Basel overnight to not having to go back home for just the night and coming back the next day.
No problem for me so far. But this would have meant that I would have had to go back home alone. Sara doesn’t know anyone there where she could have stayed overnight. At least that’s what I thought. Asking her once more for the reasons about her idea, she replied “short vacation at the hotel”. I didn’t feel very comfortable with this reply and pressed her for a reason, but she couldn’t explain it to me to the full extent (at least in no way which would have got me confident again).
It is very unusual for her to stay away from me overnight, plus: in a city where she has no relationship to. Then, talking about “*I* could stay there overnight” instead of “Why don’t *we* stay there?”. Asking her numerous times about her reason (still have no other answer rather than “I know it was a stupid, yet spontaneous idea for us two”), I more and more get the impression that se planned to cheat on me. I mean, what else should I think about this whole situation? At this point, my feelings towards her have cooled down quite a bit. Not only because of the possible fact about the cheating on me, but mainly because she seemed to want to get rid of me for the night, not thinking about me having to go back home on my own while she was about to do whatever heaven forbid… Dunno
(to be continued)
From now on, I have decided to take whatever comes to my mind first as the title of every new post in this blog. Today, it's "Light Beside You" as in "Right [...]" because of Sophie B. Hawkins' mid-nineties song I quite like alot. I have learned that first ideas are not always the best, but in a way, they reflect what you are thinking about at this very moment. Of course you can train yourself to be hyper-spontaneous and instantly creative at the same time, but still...
Have I already said something yet? I have been talking, but nothing interesting is said so far today. Time to round up this blog (which is in existence for nearly 2 years now) a little bit and try to find out if there is "intelligent life out there somewhere". Or, no, let's make it this way: try to remember 3 things from the last 2 years, which is:
I don't think I would have to link to one of these points, as frequent readers of my blg (oh yeah, there are :) ) will exactly know wat I am talking about. Standing out of all this, the first point is still the heaviest and will be for the rest of my life.
Children are so special in everything they do. Not only are they adorable from here to there, but they're also quite difficult to handle sometimes. And it's ll about boundaries and testing them. A normal thing. For them, to do it. For us parents? Should be normal as well...
Michel is now 6 and his brother Ciril will be 5 end of next February. Birth of them is still so near and not forgotten (hell, how would I be able to?) and now, they're nearly grown-ups.
On August 18, I got a phone call from Sara around noon, that her grandpa has died (he was 86). Sara's whole family lives in Italy, near and around Ortona, which can be found when you spot Rome and then move to the other side of the country. Se then said that her parents would go to the funeral, which was set to be one (!) day later, in the morning. Going there by train is an adventure and you'd eventually end up being stuck on some train station in the middle of nowhere. So I offered to drive them there and back (around 2000km / 1260 miles), because Sara's father has already missed his mother's funeral because of the fact that it was scheduled on a too short hand's notice.
To cut a long wurst short: been there, came back tired, but unharmed and somewhat happy we were there. I will be writing about Italy later, because now, it would just go beyond anything...
It has been announced by the end of last year: IBM is going to move from Winterthur to Zurich due to cost issues. Nothing too serios, as this was denied some weeks later. I was like "phew!", as I live in Winterthur and was quite happy not having to take a long way to work. In April, all came up again, so we're here in Zurich now. Goodbye Winterthur. Funny enough, my last day there was also my last day before holidays. So coming back meant to go to the new place for the first time...
Speaking of holidays: wonderful as always. We had Nico "chez nous" over a weekend and were taking an enourmous amount of photos everywhere we went, had lots of utterly funny moments. Just too bad this all went by too fast.
Speaking of football: no comment....
Speaking of everything else (health, love, happiness, friends,...): will follow soon
Jarre did it (again)! After eleven years of absence from Swiss concert venues, Jean Michel hit the Zurich "Hallenstadion" on May 3rd to perform his last show of the "Oxygène" Tour 2008. Unlike other venues, he didn't start the set with him sitting in that "Men In Black" style eggchair, but ran from across the audience to the stage where he performed, together with Claude Samard ("he is the youngest and member"), Dominique Perrier and Francis Rimbert, an enthusiastic set of virtually faultless live music.
"Zurich will be special" Claude told me in a pre-concert mail, "because Jean Michel wants the concert to be perfect, as it is the closing of the 'Oxygène 2008' tour. Plus there will be some potential sponsors in the audience, too". Not only was it the last concert, but also the one with the biggest audience during the tour: an estimated 3000 people were enjoying Jarre's sound. Compared to an average 1500 for all other venues, quite a leap...
The concert itself was, for my taste, sometimes a bit too loud, but rarely really hurting my ears. Sometimes, those very low frequency sounds could be felt, as if there was some body shakers mounted unterneath our seats. All in all, it was more than impressive and pleased me very much as a Jarre fan for more than 25 years. The Concert closed with him playing an encore of 'Oxygène IV', the "track we went big with" and the promise to "come back very, very soon, but this time outside".
Let's just not hope he will wait another 11 years, for he will be 70 years old then. But as I assume, even in that age, Jean Michel is going to hit the crowds, release records and stay the main topic in our forum at www.zoolook.nl
Talking about "Marigny" in my last post, there's some words to lose about. Chris and I started this adventure on Friday, December 24 and headed for Paris for the first time by car (!) which I promised myself to never do. Mind you, I have been to Paris for 21 times already and "successfully" avoided to go there by car. But this time, train / plane was too short-handed to still get cheap tickets, so the only option was by car.
It all worked pretty fine and it proved to be the best thing to go there with a navigation system (otherwise you'd be so freakin' lost in Paris) and met up with Nico_Noyau at Gare De Lyon to go to the apartment right after. Slept like a stone there, but not without being up and awake until about 3AM with talking, acting like kids and meeting Dark Shrimp...
Saturday was fun, too, and Paris saw some heavily Jarre-influenced dudes wandering around and visiting quite some venues which virtually had "Jarre" all over them: 26, Avenue Kléber, "The Queen's", "Man Ray" and finally the venue of this evening's concert: "Théâtre Marigny". In the evening, GeeJee and his giarlfriand, as well as Beatle arrived and we had a wonderful and fönni time at the concert.
Chris and I took about 1000 pictures (some of which you can see here) and got some very nice autographs after the event (2x on the sleeve of the new "Oxygène" CD, 1x on the factory sleeve of "Deserted Palace" LP).
The next morning, we took Nico to the train station again (thank god he made it, as we were quite short on time, guess why....) and headed home for Winterthur again.
When I look back on this, it's quite like 1997 when I happened to see JMJ twice as well: in Vienna and in Zurich: 2007 saw me attending Jarre-events in Lint (BE) and Paris. So also from this point of view, it was quite a successful year.
Now I truly hope that Jarre's 2008 tour will bring "Oxygène" into Swiss venues again (as "promised" by EMI Switzerland's Product Manager Sam Luethy)...
2 years since my Mom died. Still no tears...
A bit more than 1 year after my "Being An Asshole" post from January 23rd, 2007. Still tears in my eyes when reading that...
Hell yes, 2008 has struck me like thunder (well, 2007 ended like that as well. All I say is "Marigny"). Life's not so bad at the moment. In fact, it's pretty good right now.
Will write more later on.
December 15th will bring lots of nice things: first, we're gonna attend one of JM Jarre's concerts at the Parisian Théatre Marigny, with some friends from the BlahBlahCafé forum.
Nico_Noyau aka Robert Dugenou aka Nicolas Kern will have some surprises for us, including a live performance of his new album that will have been composed by him and Guillaume aka DarkShrimp. Wonder what that will be all about.
Yesterday morning, the Police was called by my wife so that they can interrogate me regarding an "attack" I had performed towards her. They left 15 minutes later, without me...
...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:
