It's out in the open and unexpectedly so. I'm writing this: Sofie Sap, so you can google and tumble upon this blog.

Here it is, unmaintained for a while. I hope it will provide you with some hours of entertainment and distraction. If you're lucky, you might even find excerpts of your own life look much like mine. In that case, we have a bond.

Another year end and I will cut it short.

This blog is indeed one of the least maintained ones around and 2008 won't bring any changes. I'm writing allright, but I'm trying to create some sort of a longer, fictional text (my new year's resolution - and I've started it before 1/1!). It's being posted on another blog. Good luck finding it! Have a great 2008, with good friends, family and music.

And here's another one. Dozens of these great comics can be found on http://xkcd.com/289/. ENJOY!

Would you know this one?

The girl awakes. She stares at the sky, and finds herself in an open field. Where am I? I recognize this place, it's been in my head for years. My feet ache, I must have been walking for some time. To the left I see a train track, to the right a field of ready to harvest corn. The black layer at the lower end of the cob, the glazed kernels and dry leaves and husks give it away.

As she lies back and wonders, the setting starts to make sense. She's a few meters away from the house in which she was conceived and grew up until the age of nine.
I haven't seen corn from this close since I was that age.

We're about half way through October, and 25 years later.

Husks. I have met more husks in the last year than I ever have on any field of corn. Human husks make me feel tired and disappointed. The faith I had in the power of words and communication left, without a whisper. I had expected throes of death upon this exit, but found myself resigning instead. Watching movies, listening to songs and scribbling notes on odd papers (which I tend to lose time and again) solace.

Heroes. Some made it into the 21st Century. My friend x bravely faces his anchorite life because of love for his woman. He may only start to suspect the full extent of what is happening: the choice of a journey full of ordeal, a descent into hell and back, which will make him return with boons for many lovers and friends. He will learn all about himself, acquire skills and tools that will serve anyone who bothers to see the heroism close to home.

But I've seen more husks and cowards. Guys and girls, not man or lady enough to face a challenging journey. Politician talking days away. Or alcoholists, drinking brains away. Anorexic, bulemic girls. Gym addicts. People with a broken heart seeking comfort in the arms of über-humans which will always find a vein that you can drain.

I am a coward and stand in the middle of the circus, bewildered. I spot myself amongst the others, we're in paintings. Bosch, Ensor, Matsijs. We're ugly and happy with the person we've become. We are the same as the rest or better. The ones that stay behind are there because they chose their position, just as we chose ours. We are the world. We drink and laugh and satisfy the needs of our serrated circle of friends. For every tear there is a hanky, for every bleak mind a coating, gratification for every expression of lust.

Here in this field I am what I am. No more no less, about to die of starvation or hypothermia if I don't move soon. It's hard to say how long I've been sitting here, but my clothes are more loose, my black hair sticks to my flavescent skin. I want to go back, though I know I will be unrecognizable unchanged.

The effect of alcohol on body and mind.
Women who don't and didn't give a hang.

Continuous drinking and lack of sleep will colour judgements, speech and actions. You become what you always were, but this summer it's a fashion more extreme. There is no real summer, it's raining - and still this is the time in which you are just two sighs away from becoming an alcoholic. Pennies and alcohol from heaven.

You are not not ready to go down that path alone. Someone knows. Someone promises to get you cleaned up. No drinks, home-made Thaifood and talks for a month. You must accept the hand that's holding other cards than the ones you were dealt.

You dive in, head first.

Detox Day. Pineapple for breakfast, afternoon tea.

A slice of profane life: yesterday I discovered an excellent restaurant downtown. Viva Bomma had two outstanding scores on a Belgian restoguide website and I thought I'd give it a go. Since my company owns a restaurant themselves, I was a bit nervous because of the risk I'd taken to invite them to a place I hadn't checked out before.
We soon learnt I could have done so, when the chef told us his place opened a year ago. He had turned his deli into a restaurant for his son, but some three months later the same son confessed to being more into forklift driving and left. So this guy and his wife decided to manage the place by themselves. No staff, no fuss neither, 18 sets of cutlery. As soon as we got to our table I felt we were in for a perfect evening.

The menu at Viva Bomma is brief, with a choice of 6 starters and 6 main dishes, which vary from season to season. The desserts vary on a weekly basis. There is a short selection of wine, which is all sold at the same price. We opted for the menu with accompanying wines, and the apéritif on the house. A chardonnay brut, picon or freshly squeezed orange juice. I had a flashback to the night before of about 5 seconds, but then decided I'd go for the chardonnay anyway. Good choice (bad girl). As an appetizer we got serano ham, olives, feta and some salty cookies. Nothing fancy, but again on the house, honest and it made us feel perfectly at home.

I had been thinking of bouillabaise all day - my favourite meal after my stomach's been washed away by wine - so I was definitely going for the Ostend fish soup. It was not a proper bouillabaise, but close enough. My brother-in-law took another seaside classic, fish cake on local lettuce with fried parsley. My sister the carnivore had carpaccio with baked foi gras and grated granny apple. It's a dish she would order all the time and she couldn't stop saying how well this foi gras was fried, and how all ingredients were cleverly combined. I took her word for it, since I don't eat foi gras myself. And the wine? I forgot to look at the bottle. That's how confident I was. Well, that and the fact that I never remember any wine names while eating out, will account for the lack of information on this particular subject.

Out of general sympathy with kitchen staff (one middle-aged, intellectual looking blonde woman as it turned out), we all took the same main dish: a trio of baked fish. The lucky bastards of the day were cod, sea perch and sole. We had them with mashed potatoes, fresh julienne vegetables and herb relish.

Just as we finished our plate, Betty arrived. She's my friend from Brussels, who drove down to Ostend at the risk of being caught in traffic jams and other horroresque situations. Nothing of that, she had made her way to the seaside easily, at 90km an hour - and was in an ideal state for joining us: hungry.

(I am getting a bit tired of descibing food and drinks - I'll skip the part of the beef and baked late spring potatoes, the desserts I didn't have because I had actually already eaten something at home before we set out - never take the risk of not getting any food while going out - and will conclude: it was a dazzling evening, like the one before that and the one before).

...

In my living room, I have a fuchia and pink flower bouquet to stare at.
Outside there's the sea and the setting sun. I'm out of here!