Never ending

These days my to do lists simply seem to be never ending. Most likely because of my biggest handicap - I have difficulties in letting pass by opportunities. Having long to do lists and traveling a lot is not a very productive combination, thus I decided to force myself to finish as much as possible these days. During October and November I'll be traveling a lot.

Yesterday, during the Tuesday table (formerly translated as 'dish', but I know realise this is a self-invented word), we discussed conspiracy theories. Damned interesting! According to a psychologist the existence of this phenomena is closely related to paranoia (which is somewhere at crossing lines between fear and a lack of personal capacity to judge relevance).

Following his explanations I realised that paranoide is something that exists in very diversified gradations. It often has something to do with the burning need to have explanations for anything that happens. "Why did she put the coffee machine off, she knows I always drink coffee in the afternoon!" Those kind of questions annoy me tremendously - the everlasting need for reasoning - thus I am happy to know that they are part of a tiny dissorder.

Me and celebrities

Breaking barriers

I always found it awkward how small things in life can become huge barriers. When I was young it could take me weeks before calling a friend whom I hadn't spoken to for a while. When I started to live alone I could stare at the pile of dishes for days, nothing happened. Today I have to revise a grant budget, I know it can not be much work, but it feels like such a big thing to start with it. So I spent an eminent amount of time behind my laptop today, not working on the budget and doing absolute irrelevant things (such as writing a blog about barriers).

Barriers are nothing more than psychologic blockades I think. Breaking through them gives such a released feeling. And still they remain. And now I'm going to make another attempt to start with my task.

Blue lines

This week road workers painted blue lines everywhere in my window view. The fluorescend lines indicate that you can not park your car longer than two hours, unless you have a parking permission of the city council. The good thing is that we will have less 'wild parking' in our streets of people working in the city centre. The bad thing is that I really don't like to see this blinking lines when I look out of my window.

Skopje

May 2004 was the first time I visited Skopje. I remember one dark gay bar 'Why not' in the cellar of an old flat, probably a left-over from the time that Tito was in power of Yugoslavia. After that I visited Macedonia a few times, the last time spring last year.

This weekend I was in Skopje again, and until my pleasant surprise several new gay bars had opened. Van Gogh café only is a gay/lesbian bar on Sunday evenings. It had big doors which were all open, and many people were talking and drinking on the street. I first couldn't believe that such a progress had been made, so I asked Ana whether it maybe was the case that nobody really knew that Sunday evening was the 'gay evening'. She answered, "Well if I tell my mum something in the morning before I go to work, my colleagues will probably know what I told her before I arrive at work. Everybody knows what evening it is here tonight."

EP says stop homophobic bullying at schools

Yesterday we launched our publication on social exclusion of lgbt young people in the European Parliament in Brussels. The Intergroup on lgbt rights together with other MEP's said it would take initiative for a written declaration against homophobic bullying in schools. Together we are going to look for possible interventions and actions in the coming months, and next year we will evaluate what has been done during a second session.

Many people attended the session and I can not describe how encouraging all the support we received is. In a year time we will know what the direct results of all our investments are. After all the ups and the many downs I experienced with IGLYO this is a great recognition for the importance of our existence.

Eclectic Impressions

During the last weeks a pallete of impressions passed me. The darker and the lighter colours on the pallete didn't seem to match very well. Maybe that's why I didn't write a lot lately.

Some important milestones are coming up now, and I am glad for that. Tomorrow I leave to Skopje to meet with most of the regional partners of the project I am working on. We will discuss the continuation of the program after it has been on hold for some months. Skopje is a nice city, and I heard it's at least ten degrees warmer than it is in Amsterdam, so I look forward to going.

Mysterious socks

After I just sorted out my clean laundry I discovered that I have six dissimilar, single socks. They don't make pairs. Normally I don't study my socks this closely, so apparently I've been walking around with a different sock on each foot many times. On the first sight all of them look identical, black or very dark blue cotton socks in the size 43. But after having a closer look I discovered them some of them have ribbons, some of them have specific seams, some of, them feel smoother than the others, and some of them are maybe one centimeter longer than the others.

I wonder what happened with all my other socks.

Mark Owen (the only person I ever interviewed) once told me that people start wearing more colourful socks once they grow older. All his pairs of socks were identical. Maybe it's better that I grow up too, it would make my laundry so much eassier .