From: fjvwing@cs.vu.nl (FJ!!)
Subject: some thoughts of mine. It might not be very interesting to you.
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, VU, Amsterdam
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 17:07:43 GMT


				Why do I write here?

I have so much going on my mind right now, and somehow I see myself
posting it all to motss. I don't still really know why. Why do I burden
you with it, what the the hell have you got to do with it?

				I post here to ponder.

Life didn't feel right a couple of days ago. The canals have frozen
over, and the seagulls are looking bewildered as they stand on the
water, the ducks look positively miserable. I'm projecting, I must be.

The light is odd, the sky is something between grey and powder-blue, and
when the sun goes down around three, the east gets this
pale-salmon-peach glow, and everything looks so harsh and soft at the
same time, the world seems so still, that standing at a tram-stop seems
to get a deeper meaning after five minutes. I listen to the words that
bubble up: "life doesn't smell right" one of the voices inside tells
me. I keep rearranging the furniture in the house attached to my
beautiful kitchenette, and it still doesn't look right.  The end of the
year is one day away, and I start to look forwards and back.

				I post here to inform.

Somebody asked me about the hi and lo's of this year. I couldn't think
of one high right away there were too many. But I did find something
related to that, a point in time that wasn't exactly the best or most
dreadfull point of the year, just the most difficult: saying goodbye to
Ed. Now that ten months have passed, I must say that it is a relief,
and that leaving was good for me.

I've seen him again on a couple of occasions, and I have heard that he
has found somebody new, and that they are planning to start living
together. Lianne thinks it is too soon. I don't know. I just hope his
new love is a match for the beauty Ed holds inside.

				I post here to love.

I kept wondering about what I could call a high-point in the last
year. If anything, it must have been that evening when I held that man
that showed me that I wasn't a cold bitch for having left Ed by
demanding my warmth and friendship and love just by crawling into my
arms. It was all still there. It really was. I thank you for showing
me, Tim.

				I post here to cherish.

What doesn't help to calm me down as I'm standing there, freezing while
that tram refuses to come because the meaning of life is about to be
revealed to me by the pattern of the cracks in the ice of the
Nassaukade, is having Tori Amos on a tape on my walkman. Her music
brings back too many memories.

The first time I played her was on the portable CD player Tim lent me
for my trip to Switzerland after that wonderful but extremely
exhausting set of days around Queensday. For the coming six days, I
kept on playing it again and again. Now, sometimes it brings a
yearning.

It reminds me of sitting in a doorway of a house in a small beautiful
village in Switzerland, sun playing with my face, a cup of tea beside
me I think, studying for an exam on the realtionship between society
and technology, the world being still except for some distant sounds,
the food I made waiting in the fridge for the owner, my friend, of the
house to appear from around the corner so we could spend another
evening essentially doing very little and having fun doing it. Tori's
disc was spinning beside me on the player, I was worried that the sun
would make the small black appliance overheat.

Dean, the days in your house made me happy. You do. I'm really glad to
have met you and Martin.

				I post here to flaunt.

I won't be buying a player of my own very soon. Money is tight,
especially since I've quit my job at the C-ring. Not that it brought me
much, but it helped. It sure was interesting for a while, I mean, how
many people do you know that get payed for hanging 'round backrooms?

And doesn't it get boring after a while?

				I post here to greet.

So many people from here I've met last year! And they were all so much
fun! Geez, I must be lucky that only the nice people seem to come over
here. It seems easy to become friends with someone when they already
know something about you from what they read on the net, and the nice
part is that they still seem to be around through that same net, even
after they've left. Do come back again, though. Or maybe I'll come
over.

				I post here to touch.

My mother's voice is in my head, telling me to sit up straight and use
the right fork when I don't. I also carry the stares of one of my
siters with me, those harsh disapproving ones she would give me when
she felt I was embarrasing her and myself in public, evenethough I
thought everything was ok. I get them sent by myself whenever I meet a
new group of people, and they bring me down and make me silent and make
me try to hide. There are some other voices I internalized in there
too, but not many.

There is a new one.

It is a whisper that sounds like it is carved in stone: "you worry too
much." and I hear it whenever question-marks fly around like a flock of
seagulls. It is usually right. Ok, it is always right.

I can't really describe what the owner of the whisper and his lover
mean to me, it is so big. They basically just gave me a feeling that
whatever I did, it couldn't be that bad, so stop worrying right now.
It's ok. We all think you're ok. We are _really_ glad to see you. You
have a lot more friends than you think. Tell us what you think, it
_does_ matter. Don't worry about being indulgent when you ask what you
want (a backrub! a backrub!). And let us take you one step further.

Now his voice is in my head, and it kind of scares me because I can't
remember ever explictely letting him in.

The flowers of red and yellow have touched upon me.

				I post here to share.

Over the next year, I'll have to become a 'real' person with a 'proper'
job. In other words: it is time to finish my studies and get a degree.
I feel uncertain about it, what I'm learning here doesn't seem to
prepare me to do what it is I want to do, to really do it I'll have to
leave Amsterdam, I can't even really describe what it is that I want to
do, I hardly know anyone in the field, I can't think of a thesis to
write about, everything looks very...uncertain. I guess this is where
the real fun starts.

I came into my house yesterday, and all the furniture looked exactly in
its place.

				I post here because I want to try to
				give back what you have all given to
				me.

From my heart, I wish you all the best. Someday, I will really tell you what 
you've done for me.

				FJ!!