Another day in Brussels

**** WARNING - Kids and sensitive souls please refrain to read this post. The author is too fucking angry to even pretend to try and control the swearing. ****

Let's start with a little game: what can you buy for 180 euros? A return ticket to London in the Eurostar, if you're silly enough to buy it only a week in advance. 10 meals, with wine and dessert at Casa Italiana, this lovely family-owned restaurant on Archimède (amazing zabaglione). A complete outfit at Zara or Top-Shop. A very good pair of shoes. 2 iPod Shuffles and while we're at it, about 18 CDs and/or DVDs on sale.

I get off the tram with - who was it - Jay-Z playing at full blast in my iPod. Street is quiet, cars are waiting at the red light, I cross the street. CROSS the bleeding street. I'm all chilled and bouncy, trying hard not to dance to the beat. When I hear two voices loud enough for me to turn around and wonder what's happening. I see two cops, one with a bad moustache, the other with a bad accent, each double my size, shouting at the top of their lungs: "HEY!!! YOU BLIND???" A guy who looks like a student is watching the scene. He says wearily, loud enough for them to hear: "Aaah come on... She had her iPod on..."

The two motherfuckers run to me, demanding to see an identification document. I ask them why they want to see an identification document, the guy with the bad accent starts speaking to me in Flemish, as if he didn't just hear me speak French. Moustache-Face gets all smartassy on me, says "Well you're obviously deaf, but you're not blind, you're wearing your glasses, aren't you?" I reiterate: "Can someone please explain to me what is going on here?"

"The little guy was red," says Moustache-Face. "Excuse me?" The little guy. The little guy that tells pedestrians when they should walk, or not. The little guy at the red light. Was. RED.

- ID, please."
At this point, I'm laughing. I think it's a joke. I pull out my passport.
- No, I need your Belgian ID card."
- I don't have one," I say.
- Why not?" He asks.

Fuck this, I'm lying:
- Because I don't live here." ("You retarded piece of shit," I add, in my head).
- Oh no?"
- No."
- Fine. We'll check in the computer."
I call his bluff. I haven't bothered to register:
- Sure," I say. "Check in your computer."
Who wants to fucking register in this town anyway.

He browses through my passport, looks confused:
- Where's your address?"
- There. It says Paris, right there."
Flemish Moron butts in:
- So you cross the streets like this in Paris?"
- Of course she does."
He's going to be like that, huh. Fine:
- Yup. In Paris. And in London. In Madrid and New York as well."
Because you see, there is actual crime to fight in these cities.

The asshole was waiting for that:
- 180 euros. I need another ID."

I pull out my driving license. Address in Madrid. The man gives up:
- We'll send the fine to Paris."
- You do that."
And good luck getting paid.

That's what happens in Euro-Hick Town: 180 euros can also buy you the right to fucking jaywalk. The jackasses from the police force have no peace to keep, they are so bored all day, their dicks are so sore with all the wanking off they do, they'll fine... Jaywalkers.

As it turns out, though, I shouldn't even complain: Arrested, cuffed and jailed, the don caught jaywalking.

HAHAHA

This is one of my favorite t-shirts. It was designed by a London friend, Damien Poulain. Damien comes from Angers, where I studied for 3 years after high school. He's been a hopeless East-Ender for almost 5 years now, if the count is right. I'm a jeans-&-t girl, so I'm in it often. Every time I wear it, invariably, someone in the street points, smiles and goes "hahaha!"

People

I have a beautiful sister who knows how to laugh and dress. She surrounds herself with people who are good-looking, uncomplicated, talented and funny, like her. Some of them play music, like Eric (most of the songs of the album he released are about her). She wears her hair very long with long, big, hippy earrings. She loves music. I owe her Rufus Wainwright, Devendra Banhart, Karen Dalton, Sly and the Family Stone. She loves Seinfeld and Sex and the City. And she misses New York's Lower East Side, where she spent a few long months. Sometimes, when she's sad, she'll go see our mother and stay with her one night, maybe two. Mother will look after her and spoil her a bit. The sis always finds something funny to tell me about her stays there, and we laugh on the phone or online and it always makes me feel good, if a bit envious. Angie was a quiet little girl, whom I always found incredibly cute. I annoyed her so much, I also disguised her and made her up in our games, I was often the nanna and she was always the princess. I can't even begin to tell you how much I love her.

I have a friend in London who plays the piano. When I still lived there, sometimes I'd stay the weekend at his place. I called it my second home. We ate pizza salad and chocolate, watched movies with a couple of doobies, slept, did a bit of yoga, he'd practice and practice and practice Chopin's first ballad and Bach's 18th fugue while I worked on the computer. I never minded listening to him work and play short passages over and over again. In fact, I loved it. We listened to Bella Davidovitch, Martha Argerich, Bill Evans and he'd search for videos in youtube (once he learnt how to explore it) on all of them, and Pogorelich. Now I have a bit of him in my iPod and whenever I'm feeling tense or I need to concentrate, I listen to Chopin or Rachmaninov. But he's not all piano. He loves to party. Reeeeaaaally party. Party hard. Though I think most of the partying he did when I didn't know him. He is soft-spoken and his kindness, it seems, doesn't really have limits. On a couple of occasions, when I really needed advice, he was there, asking all the right questions and making all the right statements.

I have a friend in New York who's known me since Brazil. We were 8. Or maybe 9. He's like a brother, speaks the same languages that sis and I speak, although for different reasons. When we were little, we used to spend endless hours on the phone. We were at the beginning of our teenage years and boy, did we have things to talk about. We'd founded a sexual education club. We gathered at recess and talked about growing boobs and pubic hair and menstruation and masturbation with other kids we liked and trusted. Another kid who wanted in ratted us out to the oldest, most conservative of our teachers (Mrs. Weinberg, math) who was determined to let our parents know. She was stopped in her tracks by our sweet biology teacher, Mrs. Andreamanalina, who took the matter into her own hands and gave the entire class a chat about how our bodies were changing. We still remember her fondly. Alex and I share a love for Michael Jackson, dancing and singing. Once, later, we were already in France, he called a radio station in the middle of the night, had them call me and he made me sing with him, on air, one of the Brazilian songs we loved. Alex still dances like a damn star. And he sings, too. He did years of drama, played in a few, very funny plays. Lately, in his spare time, he's been reading Kant. I still don't know why. The man's a brain on (very coordinated) legs. A brain that functions at lightning-speed. Don't try to keep up. Just enjoy the ride.

Ying I haven't known for long, but I got her under my skin. Like one more of the family. She's my sistah from down undah. She met all three people above and fit right in. Ying is younger than me and sometimes I wonder how that's possible. We talk and talk, we deconstruct the world and rebuild it together. She one of them incredibly generous people, brave and hilarious and mind-blowingly clever. Ying looks tough and has a deep, deep voice. Ying has a style that, if you're careful, will tell you pretty much everything there is to know about Ying. Practical and unique. Ying can be intimidating, but Ying can't be your friend if you're intimidated. Ying is questions and reason and love and sweetness. Ying got me in an instant, she saw exactly what was there and I don't know that I will ever be thankful enough for that. The first time I saw her, we had dinner at another friend's. She took us for an conversational rollercoaster ride about what it means to find your place in the world. I knew then and there I'd never be bored with her.

PS: 700 couples showed up at the mass, anti-racism wedding in St Niklaas.

Black and whiteys - part II

Quick follow-up on my previous post about Wouter Van Bellingen, 34, the deputy-mayor of St Niklaas (who now has his own wikipedia entry), who refused to let him marry them because he's, erm...

Black. Ooh.

March 21st is the international day against racism. The mass-wedding will be taking place next Wednesday. 3 couples times 100 have already registered. Expatica reports.


Young Wouter with his adoptive family.

None the wiser

27 years old. Piscis and a monkey. Time flies, unlike me.

Breathless. Otto e Mezzo. The Science of Sleep. A Little Trip To Heaven. Notes on a Scandal. Les Poupées Russes. Y Tu Mamá También. Yes, a new video club near my house. Well. New to me.

Zadie Smith's On Beauty. Innumerable articles, some about modern love, others about babies who get down. The memory of online contemporary art classes. Work up to my ears.

I want to extrapolate. Seriously, I do. Only it's terribly late.

In time. In time.

Uninspired entry

There's a tree outside my bedroom window that's totally out of it. Covered with tiny pink flowers, convinced it's spring. I don't blame it. Today for the first time, I had lunch on a bench at Square Ambiorix, listening to recently downloaded music in my spanking new iPod. Freezing cold and sunny. Lovely. That was after the guy at the sandwich place said "take away, as usual?" with a smile from ear to ear.

Couple of hours later, I received a surprise phone call from my stepdad. He was visiting Brussels and took me out for coffee. He's all excited, starting a new job in a couple of weeks, managing a development project in Ivory Coast. It's his thing, Africa, agriculture. Quite a character, my stepdad. Won't pay a dime to the government and doesn't believe in the "NGO mentality" that plagues EU delegations there. Was thinking it'd make a great story.

Still no inspiration.


Whoever said mobiles killed the phone booths couldn't have been more wrong. They're put to good use in London town.


"Valentine's day is for gay people, too." Brussels is, like, so open-minded.


Last, but not least, cookies that won't take anything for granted.


Love y'all later.