The Red Dragon believes in a Europe of regions

Ah, the joys of living with the awesome. Came home from a backbreaking deadline day to find the F-word's commentary on a photograph showing the Flemish Saint Nick hanging out the the French Pére Noël, because nothing is wrong, the country isn't breaking up, shut up shut up shut up . . .

must say I'm curious to see what would happen if the country did break up. I believe in small regional representative government co-operating within the framework of continental organizations like the European Union, so the idea doesn't pose huge difficulties for me. Except in that I live in Brussels and no one is quite sure what's going to happen to an 85% French city floating in a sea of Flem. There are lots of French towns around Brussels too, little islands of romance language.

I don't see how the Flemish can seperate peacefully without maintaining official bilinguality. Even with all the nonsense, impractical talk about Brussels becoming a city-state and Wallonia joining up with France - a bad, bad idea for all concerned, trying to incorporate a seriously economically depressed province that's been defining itself in opposition to France for more than a hundred years into one of the most ridiculously centralized national administrations in the 'free' world - though apparently the French French love the idea, despite making the Belgians the butt of their stupid jokes since the birth of Belgium - why don't they concentrate on fixing it so that the Corsicans, Bretagnes and Basques stop wanting to seperate before taking on more territory that will want to seperate - where was I?

Right: honestly, I'm concerned about violence if the Flemish don't maintain bilinguality for the sake of all the French living in Flemland, in Brussels and out of it. Do you know how many French people speak Flemish, even the ones marooned in their townships up in Flemland away from Wallonia? Almost none. Stupid, but true. And if you take away their linguistic status, basically force them to fuck off back to Wallonia, which could be France at that point and who wants to fuck off to the bits of France that aren't on the Mediterranean, I bet at least a few nut jobs would start blowing shit up. After all, this is Europe, and the tradition of making a bad situation worse by blowing shit up has an ancient pedigree here.

The Red Dragon lacks an infinite mental capacity

Rocky and the Melbine have both made their little Sagittarians now. And my grade partner at work is leaving the office to make hers this week. Don't know what a grade partner is? That's probably for the best. Unfortunately the capacity of the human mind is not infinite and knowing what a grade partner is would take up valuable mental space you could devote to remembering how to deal with a snakebite or bake clafouti, neither of which I know how to do anymore. Anyways, she's leaving to make her baby and while she's gone my new grade partner is the CEO of our corporation.

This makes me a little nervous. 'Powerful' men always make me nervous. I can't help but feel they wouldn't have bothered getting that powerful unless they liked screwing people over when the errant mood strikes them. But he seems nice and didn't once mention his car during our meeting, although he did mention his ranch. Or maybe he just told me he lives in a state with a lot of ranches in it. Unfortunately the capacity of the human mind is not infinite and remembering if my CEO lives on a ranch or just lives in a state with a lot of ranches in it would take up valuable mental space I'm devoting to calculating if we have enough reefer to last us until the beginning of our Christmas holiday (probably yes, if I hide it from the F-word during the day).

All of this is secondary to the fact that everybody is having babies and I - don't - do - maybe want to as well. Now would be the first period in my life that getting and keeping pregnant wouldn't be a massive personal disaster, particularly as I'm with the only man I've ever been with who I would consent to make babies with. Does that count as wanting to? Sometimes, maybe. Right now I'm fresh from reading Rocky's account of how his lady, who I only know as a lovely, composed figure singing Adalgisa in a production of Norma awhile back, went through a long long long delivery without drugs. Whereas I presently have mild cramps from clinging on to the back of the Red Dragon, and it's taking all of my forbearance to not get really high before I go to work to get some relief.

Am I tough enough? Not just to pop one out but to protect it once it's out, and then to raise it, and then to let it go? I don't know. Unfortunately the capacity of the human mind is not infinite . . .

How do the angels get to sleep, when the devil leaves the porchlight on

Sometimes - okay, all the fucking time, or at least when I'm not thinking about sex or food or all that other, funner shit in Maslow's hierarchy - I think about why people bother being pricks. Usually getting onto that stream of thought means remembering some episode of my own involving being a prick, and not being sure why I bothered as there's so much fun to be had that doesn't involve fucking over other people or having to invent a thousand beautifully plausible rationalizations for being a prick that might be fantastically useful if life or my conscience was a common-law criminal court, which they fucking aren't.

It all gets shady at a certain point in between trying to understand that we're social creatures who get a kick out of being more important than each other, and wondering if naughty people and nice people eventually just get into the habit of approaching life as two radically different games with radically different rewards. I don't think I'll ever understand. But it bugs the hell out of me. The rewards for being naughty seem sort of crappy.

Maybe if I had to worry about money now I wouldn't feel this way - but 'making it' in the worldly sense seems to involve so little pleasure and happiness, and so much demonstration of your power or wealth, so much display, like a peacock weighed down by a ridiculously ostentatious tail. Like the men one meets from time to time who are incapable of talking about anything except their Audis/Beamers/yachts/other possessions that depreciate by 70% as soon as they leave the dealership even when an infant could see their interlocutors eyes were glazing over, or women who are incapable of leaving their apartments without spending an hour or more of their valuable time decorating themselves when they could be occupying themselves by not being so fucking boring.

Gah. Here's some Tom Waits as all his fire and brimstone is probably what got me into the mood for all this judgementalism.

Under the mangrove tree

No office for the poor sick Mistress today, though a good deal of work. Right now, my 'work' involves finding the most comfy position for writing a market report in - a position that will incorporate semi-lying down, being close to the fireplace and being able to reach food and drinks. I think I've found the place - I had the bright if evil idea of pushing the cat off her favourite spot on the loveseat, half unfolding it, and sticking my feet up on the headrest. Poor cat. Now she's sitting next to me and purring like an outboard motor - I think she's pleased to have another source of heat in the apartment that's not usually there during the week, though she's pissed off when I sneeze.

You see the level I'm functioning at today - territorial disputes with a housecat. Sigh. This weekend had its positive and negative moments. The worst had me in the park close to our flat, staring at the colony of monk parakeets and thinking 'what are the stupid fucks doing in Brussels when they can fly south?' Suddenly the city seemed like a big mangrove island in the middle of the sea, where alien beasts like me and the monk parakeets can eke out a comfortable-enough living, but absolutely isolated, floating in the middle of an ocean of shitty northern European winter, subsidized employment, and fuckin' Belgians. Far away from the sun. Marooned, far away from the sun, because it's easier than getting ourselves to a sunny place.

Anyways, I watched a few episodes of a World War I documentary and got over it. And recalled what I do here will prepare me for doing other things elsewhere, verily in the sun. It's naughty because I haven't even been here a year yet but I still look at other jobs just to give me ideas. No intention of leaving anytime soon as the money is quite good relative to the cost of living, and I'm not bored at work. Also when I do leave I fondly imagine it'll be for a life of leisure or artistic fulfillment. But it's amazing what I'm qualified for after a youth spent getting high and doing whatever I fucking felt like.

By the way:



And:



A HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!

I only noticed this today. There's something about 'unintentional plagiarism' when someone invokes Krishna right before launching into it. I mean, what do you think if you're the Chiffons, and one day you turn on the radio and the ugly-but-talented Beatle is using your biggest hit to sing the sort of let's-go-to-India-to-find-ourselves-luckily-they-already-speak-English-because-we-colonized-them hippie shit that helped sink the commercial viability of your doo-wappy girl band stuff? You think 'lawsuit'. But I bet the girls themselves didn't see a red cent. Naughty world.