August 25, 2000 (thing)

This is going to be my last daylog for a long time. I'm just about done with preparations for my trip to the dolomites. All the bags are packed and I'm almost ready to go. I'm going on a hiking trip with my girlfriend. I've been outdoors like crazy in my life, but mostly it was in the army. I've never gone on a hiking trip, so I'm looking forward to it. It's amazing how little fits inside a 65-liter bag. You have to have a sleeping bag, sandals (trekking sandals which are also useful for showers, etc.), clothes, and various other tiny things. I've cut the original amount of clothes I was going to take to about half. I'm going on a 2 and a half week trip with just 4 pairs of socks, two trousers (one spare), and 4 T-shirts. It sucks that it's cold there at night, because warm clothes take up tons of space. I've also got to carry the tent, which gives me automatically about 3 extra kilograms. My girlfriend is carrying the toiletteries and first aid stuff.

Did you notice how the word 'toiletteries' makes it look like a poofy hotel trip, instead of a more rugged hiking trip? The first aid kit cancells that out slightly, though. (I won't mention that the first aid kit includes band-aids with pictures of animals.)

Silly unimportant things end up taking all the space, like shaving lotion. That just takes up too much space for it's very limited use. However, I am not about to itch for two weeks, so that kind of stuff has to come with us.

A funny thing happened last night. I'm meeting up with Rutger, an old friend of mine from Kenya in Padova on Saturday. He's from Holland, but he's there on a business trip, so it's really cool that we're both in Italy at the same time, and yet difficult to coordinate the meeting. Thank God for mobile phones. He called me at 2:00 am to discuss when we'd meet. My flatmate picked up the phone at the same time as me, both us having been woken up by the phone. There were a few furtive minutes of 'Hello?'s, until I realised what was happening, and told him it's for me. He was still half asleep, so he didn't really understand what I was talking about. I tried to explain some more, until I realised that Rutger was waiting to talk to me, and was calling me long distance. So I told Rutger to talk, and that my flatmate will realise at some point that the call is for me. It took him almost a minute until he understood that it was for me. I found that hilarious.

Another topic of hilarity in that conversation was my girlfriend's bladder. She went to pee when the phone rang, and when Rutger asked me where she was, I told him. Then she came back, and after about 5 minutes, she went again. At that moment he asked me if she had come back, which was very funny, and got us talking about Monty Python at 2:10 am. (We talked about how my girlfriend saw the Marathon for people with extremely weak bladders, and didn't understand why it was funny). There was more talk of girlfriends and bladders and so forth. It was the longest conversation we have had in about 2 years.

Yesterday I went to my step-brother's wedding. It wasn't too exciting, except that my mother made her whole family come, including my grandfather, who is 92. That pissed me off. Her husband's son is getting married. Who gives a rat's ass? So I sat with my granddad, and tried to make him a bit happier, while dance music was all around. He really didn't enjoy it.

A funny thing happened when I went to talk to my step-sister. I sat next to her, we talked, and the second dish was served. So we just ate it there, although those weren't our seats. I drank from the cups, etc., and then I thought "Wait, I am sitting in someone's seat". So I asked who's seat it was and was told it's my step-brother's mom's seat. Now I'm sure she would have loved to come to her seat and find her ex-husband's new wife's son sitting in her seat, especially with the love-hate realtionship without the love part, that she has with him.

And finally, on a note of annoyance (I hope my brother surfs E2 and reads this): my brother's going out with a girl who seems harmless enough. But she smokes, apparently. Well, my brother was all against smoking like a maniac until a couple of months ago. I thought we had taught him well. I was wrong. He smoked with her. I am sure he started because of her, and it's a pity for some girl to fuck up his life. I guess there's four ways out when your girlfriend smokes. It's almost impossible to remain apathetic, I think, but I'll leave that as an option. An easy one is to split up, but that's a last resort option. The two remaining options are:

1. Start smoking
2. Make her quit. It doesn't always work, but if you're not worth her stopping to quit over, she's not worth being with. That's my philosophy, anyway.