haonowshaokao

So Matt came to stay for the week and that was cool, then my Mum turned up for a weekend, so we looked around Prague and went to the State Opera and watched La Traviata, then ate vegetarian food and so on. It was all damn good.
That’s a quick summary, there have been many other things I’ve forgotten.

So.

Yesterday we went to see the football. Sparta beat Zizkov, shame. The Zizkov players aren’t shaving until they win again. They’ve got designer stubble right now, but they’d better win before they get goaties or they’ll be relegated.
On the tram back home there was a guy with a notepad writing down descriptions of what he saw around him at each tram stop. For beloved holy Husinecka he wrote that there were ‘dram communist buildings, no sign of life or culture.’ I was going to give him a slap but I thought nah.
Sometimes I try to fool myself that Prague is my place, but the Czechs can’t wait to get out of it. It’s easy for me because I can make money and move to whatever country and generally do what I want. I don’t want to be like the girl in Common People, thinking everything is cool when it’s not for the real inhabitants. Crumbling Victorian buildings are nice to look at but not great to live in. It’s not such a laugh at all. This is why I’m not living here forever.

Ah well.

We’ve got two new housemates come Christmas, the altogether very nice Norwegian girls Miriam & Amanda. We need someone to move in within the week, though. Trying not to panic unnecessarily but it’s not good at all.

Meanwhile, further stupid stuff:

I’m getting too damn lazy as far as keeping this up to date goes.
Anyway, the party was fucking cool, much stuff of various varieties went on.
Today I will watch the football and then go to the Roxy for Ed Rush.
This is all a little dull, read-wise, so I will stop now.

Party tonight… my place, 9 until whenever. I’m making evil punch again, the stuff that made people get naked last time.

As for how everything else is going, no better. I am fucked as far as work goes too, hurriedly applying for non-existent work. The house has a nice ‘simmering undercurrent of hatred’ vibe right now and the cherry on the cake will be when Jacques comes home tonight to find 30-40 people in the flat, taking drugs and spilling drinks on his bed.
Here is a bear on a trampoline.

The wandering minstrels of our cosy expat scene, Bea & Hamish, have returned to Prague after a two month holiday putting red peppers next to green peppers in a fridge and living in a shed in Cambridgeshire with a frog. We met each of them individually at the airport, holding up my handmade giant sheep sign (seeing as they’re Kiwis and all.) The Norwegian girls are back too, and Zazu. The great exodus returns to the promised land. So more beer. Hura.
B&H brought along two more Kiwis with them – they seem to be multiplying by the day. Always good to have passing travelers at Chez Rohacova 80. Been going on various day trips – today we went up to Vysehrad, very nice indeed – and a festival in the park with beer and food.
Yesterday, however, was another kind of day trip altogether. Bea, Hamish & I met up with Petra & Lenka to visit my ex, Misa / Chelsea in the hospital. Petra & Lenka were very well prepared, seeming almost to enjoy the visit. I was not at all. When the nurse fetched her I was expecting her to be troubled, sketchy, even a little sedated maybe, but not a shuffling ghost, unable to walk, talk or focus properly. My optimistic visiting spirits sagged. Misa was sedated as far beyond activity of the body and mind as a waking girl can be. Movements took minutes. Petra & Lenka (props to) took charge of moving her from one room to another, a request she constantly made, wanting to get away from some voices. How sad that last flippant sentence is. I’ve seen the look in her eye on somebody else before and it scares me.
After attempts at communication for half an hour, Petra got a pen and paper for Misa to write on. So what I had chosen not to listen to was spelled out in front of us all in biro ink. She could hear dead people, she was down on her knees, hit by a car and at a wedding…
I wonder how much of her I ever really knew. Those moments alone, looking into each-others eyes- it’s then you think in terms of direct connection. A line between you both composed of symbiotic understanding. But I knew shit. She had two weeks of telling me she was going mad and all I could do was dismiss it – “Oh Misa, come on,” I thought, “you say these things for effect, you want attention, you want to be noticed..” And I remember telling somebody I was a good judge of character a few months back. Funny how arrogance comes to bite you in the arse, eh?
We left quite quickly. Bea had a hard time but Hamish had a good try at communicating, but she was in another world entirely. I had to go to work.
So there you go. I feel embarrassed about my description of her a few entries ago. I could delete it, but it was true, she was grating on me then and why should I lie about it, try to re-write the past? The only thing could be concerned about was her reading or hearing about it, but that seems highly unlikely right now.
To move on to home based problems, Bea & Hamish have taken the opportunity of coming home to break up. Bea told me last night that she didn’t know what to do about it. I didn’t know either. Hamish heard the conversation. Enough said already.
I’ve been having fun today, but all this stuff keeps coming back to me. Especially Misa.

I got up early today to visit my new dentist. She spent approx. 50 mins drilling my mouth but it was all good and now I have a stumpy thing instead of an upper left molar and a numb left side of the face. Damn cheap though… dentists in the UK must make a fucking fortune. SO, painless, cheap, very nice generally. I almost enjoyed having my tooth pulled in and out for half an hour.
Erm, thats it.
Lovely sunny day, want to lie outside and read a book.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.
Last night I was eating some chunky bread and licking my chops post-meal in a satisfied labrador style when I discovered that a good chunk of enamel is missing from one of my upper left molars. Oh dear. I have no health cover and will probably have to have said tooth removed and replaced with a cap, that is if I don’t want my teeth to infect and rot away. This I expect to cost a good 100 quid that I don’t have. Jacques didn’t help at all, quelle surprise, telling me horrific tales of bad dentists and horrific medical costs.
So this afternoon, on finally finding the emergency dentist, I also found that no English was spoken therein. Problem. My Czech vocabulary does not stretch to ‘Please only do the minimum for survival and explain to me all the options for stopping my teeth rot out, please?’ So I tried to contact the now elusive Misa / Chelsea to get her to translate for me.
two ours later I am sitting in ‘The Globe’ English-language bookshop / restaurant / internet cafe and have just received a reply from her friend Petra. Apparently Misa / Chelsea is in hospital with “mental problems.”
Holy fucking shit.
Are there any well adjusted girls in the world at all?
I’m starting to wonder.
Obviously I’m having a serious guilt trip right now as it is probably partially at least my fault.
Hum.
I may have found an English speaking dentist, via Lara, on the plus side.

So, so, so, so.
I am still working a whole 2 hours a week since my boss has suddenly developed a conscience about paying me under the table when I haven’t got a visa and shouldn’t technically be in the country. I’ll be alright come October though.
Dreaded psycho housemate Jacques has finally re-appeared and seems to be remarkably sane so far. Doesn’t look like Benson & Hedges are coming back though, so we’re going to have to advertise for some new house-mates. Non psycho-compulsive-obsessive-post-it-note-sticking ones with any luck.
Last night was a full moon party at the old Blind Eye. Free beer always goes down well. Fuck all else to report though, Except that Míša (Chelsea), my absolute favorite person in the world and not in any way annoying recently, is being thrown out of her parents house and it looks like she’s going to have to move in with me for a while. So yip-de-skip. She’s started getting paranoid too. Last time she phoned me up for no reason at all me & Russ were laughing about something and she somehow got the impression that I was with some girl because I was having fun. Jesus fucking christ in a fucking sidecar. She just phoned me and brought it up again.
Anyone got any advice?
Tonight is a september the 11th party, with the mighty mighty Blaq Mummy playing again. I am on the guest list for some random reason, can’t understand why unless it’s a pretty fucking big guestlist. It should rock like a fucking monster though.

On the way here I stubbed my toe, nearly got run over by a bus and, vitally, finally got caught for riding the trams without a ticket.
On the plus side my toes is OK, I didn’t actually get run over and the fine was only 400 crowns when I’ve probably dodged 10000 crowns worth of tickets.
So, otherwise nothing much up except went to the Matrix Club and saw Blaq Mummy at the beer garden on the hill. Both were pretty cool. Met lots of people aswell. Nobody particularly notable. So. Here’s a song by Pulp I just remembered about.

We made our way slowly down the path that led to the stream, swaying slightly, drunk on the sun, I suppose. It was a real summer’s day. The air humming with heat whilst the trees beckoned us into their cool green shade. When we reached the stream I put a bottle of cider into the water to chill, both of us knowing that we’d drink it long before it had chance. This is where you want to be, there’s nothing else but you and her and how you use your time. Walking to parties whilst it’s still light outside. Peter was upset at first but now he’s in the garden talking to somebody Polish. Why don’t we set up a tent and spend the night out there? And we can pretend that we’re somewhere foreign but we’ll still be able to use the fridge if we get hungry or too hot. The room smells faintly of sun tan lotion in the evening sunlight and when you take off your clothes you’re still wearing a small pale skin bikini. The sound of children playing in the park comes from faraway and time slows down to the speed of the specks of dust floating in the light from the window. Summer leaves fall from Summer trees. Summer grazes fade on Summer knees. Summer nights are slowly getting long, Summer’s going so hurry soon it’ll be gone. So we went out to the park at midnight one last time. Past the abandoned glasshouse stuffed full of dying palms. Past the bandstand down to the boating lake. And we swam in the moonlight for what seemed like hours until we couldn’t swim anymore. And as we came out of the water we both sensed a certain movement in the air and we both shivered slightly and ran to collect our clothes. And as we walked home we could hear the leaves curling and turning brown on the trees and the birds deciding where to go for the Winter. And the whole sound of Summer packing its bags as it prepared to leave town.