just give me another two weeks.

last night i dreamt making my way through vending machines and bodybags in paris metro to get my (messenger) bag upstairs. there were roadworks on the opposite corner of the odeon stop. a man with deformed hands. more bodies folded in a white car all taped up. serif font. fortunately i know where most of this comes from.

for about seven glorious minutes today i watched the tour pres.er live. as in, first there was clapping and then somebody in a suit was posing all alone with the route. yes, a suit.

i know i haven't commented on operacion we want the sweet meats yet, but

231 days since het volk.

(stuff goes here.)

somebody else said something like this.

"they know they're gonna get caught and yet they keep doing it."

they were talking about cycling.

about floyd.

riiiiiiiight.

mind the gap.

i don't know who's kidgloving who

(swoo)

sprinter

(sh)

if i was a three day old chocolate bar stuck to the back of a carseat i'd want some closure i thought

m

saw a dozen dead bees

a blue butterfly

capillary clouds

finally no work talk

knew it was possible

your fearless leader after all.

so, immersion*

let's take notes as we go, shall we?

(pre-)intermediate:

1. grammar excercise.

2. free grammar/rigid sentence composition: sentences to exemplify a rule.

v

(GIANT ABÎME** OF DOOM.)

v

3. let's talk about current issues!

"je, er... *interpretivedancemove* ...*falsefriend*..."

v

3. let's talk about current issues!

"*grammatically correct sentence a native speaker wouldn't make, only features simple tenses*"

v

foreseeing another abîme here before internalizing fancy tenses/moods.

to do: repeat step 2. lots of mindless conjugation.

instruction time devoted to the above: 0 minutes per week.

weaknesses that shouldn't be there, considering: conjugating verbs correctly verbally. conjugating verbs correctly in writing. homophone confusion esp. with verbs. forming natural-sounding questions. grammatical gender. having forgotten entire tenses/moods existed.

other stuff to whine about: instructor not v. sympathethic; a tendency to stay on task instead of going off into grammar&vocab-related tangents. difficulty finding stuff to say: the case for every glossy language textbook ever, aggravated by the fact that the characters are a. not funny. b. cartoon (=loooow production values). lack of time&determination to do mindless conjugation. a sinking feeling. personality not really suited to this kind of thing. a perpetual state of very-mild-but-there annoyance directed to fellow learners with offending accents (who otherwise have good language skills). questioning whether you've been oh-so-r-ironically but steadily bleeding self-confidence and similar public speaking skills for the last couple of years without realizing. the reasonable certainty that the method on its own won't solve the verb problem in a million years. lack of available mindless conjugation materials***.

affirmations: there's still time.

*oh, the memories.

**hugo injoke.

***always wanted to own a heavily used copy of EnglishGrammarInUse.

just saying.

today was the 10th anniversary of KidA.

how i celebrated it, 50 easy steps:

1. walked in a store.

2. quickly to the section titled pop-rock.

3. looked for the letter r.

4. saw two okcomputers, two paper-sleeved bestofs and one something else i forgot.

5. walked out.

6. tried to buy myself other things.

7. failed somewhat.

8. walked into another store.

9. drew two circles because i am not familiar with the layout of that particular store whose concept is sometthing like airport-style multimedia seller: books for everyone about deep & interesting stuff! not.

10. saw a snowcovered mountain range on the very left- next-to-bottom shelf.

11. picked it up.

12. strode towards the register.

13. which was deserted.

14. looked around for the tall ponytailed guy with the logoed lightblue shirt.

15. caught his eye.

16. waited for him to get behind the counter.

17. held the cd out.

18. got asked by the guy whether i was buying a birthday present.

19. wondered whether he thought that because people don’t buy cds anymore or because i didn’t take a secnd look at it or because i smiled somewhere along the way.

20. answered in negative.

21. informed the guy of the anniversary.

22. paid etcetera.

23. suffered an interminable five hours.

24. came home.

25. had dinner.

26. got the case out of the plastic bag.

27. turned it around.

28. looked at the back cover.

29. got rid of the clear plastic thing.

30. noted the case had a crack in the bottom right corner.

31. opened the thing.

32. got out my cd player under a pile of stuff shoved in a drawer.

33. connected my headphones.

34. noticed it wasn’t turning on.

35. went back to the drawer to look for the charger.

36. unplugged my bedside light.

37. plugged in the charger and connected to the cd player.

38. got thecd out.

39. put it in.

40. pulled the joysticklike thing uplike to play.

41. got the booklet out.

42. got the cdputtingplace out.

43. looked at the reminder of the hidden booklet that is no more.

44. undid 42.

45. looked at the booklet.

46. closed the booklet.

47. put it aside.

48. listened to it watching the ceiling until it went back to the start.

49. even waited the silence out.

50. pulled the joysticklike thing downlike to stop.

i still don't know what it feels like to hear KidA for the first time in its entirety.