Malaidoskop (The Mental Intestines Of Mala)

A new beginning

gothmala — 2007-04-12T13:52:00Z

Well, Job Search is quite an interesting experience. Headhunters are just like hyenas sometimes, others are really nice. Only a few are not biased by age, gender or race. It really is an interesting experience.

Most find me interesting, but their clients don't think I am interesting enough, or too young, too old, too coloured, too female, too crazy, too tame... Still I have some hot things going on, but I am just so tired of waiting.

Still I don't look back regretting anything. I made a decision I should have made years ago and this gives me the chance to begin a new and better life, one that is deeply rooted in my beliefs and respects my personality.

Weird Dream

gothmala — 2007-03-23T09:00:00Z

I had a really weird dream last night. I dreamt I was in Russia, travelling from Moskow to some other place (Kiev in the Ukraine? I don't know). I was a backpacker type tourist and in the hostel where I was (it was not a bloody hostel, as in the Tarantino movie) there were other young people just hanging about talking about shaving legs, the pro's and con's.

Then I dreamt I was at a hospital, looking at an old dying woman. She was a Hollywood superstar from the 1940s. I was there with another woman, who was an actor too. I somehow switched between being the other woman and myself. The sick old woman did some racist remark when she saw me (Who's that coffee colored bitch?) I learnt that the other woman was a singer, not unlike Christina Aguilera and that I was a black actress, who had been nominated for the academy awards twice, but had only this year won one.

Quite a strange dream, isn't it?

Our Ship

gothmala — 2007-03-06T09:09:00Z

Isn't it the brightest day
we're on a steamer on our way
the river, yet calm and pristine, under us

The captain, to blind to see
steers his ship by memory
the waterfall, he forgot and won't hear

People waving at the shores
their calls unheard now and before
because of, the noise from the abyss

And then we are falling

Génération précaire

gothmala — 2007-02-28T17:53:00Z

I - like most of my friends - belong to the Génération précaire: Young, well educated people with little chances on the job market. Whilst I am lucky to have quite an impressive resumé and significant job experience (thanks to my dropout into the New Economy) the situation is quite dire for those graduates who are below 30 today with only little professional experience in jobs other than free traineeships and stacking shelves.

The press, government and many social critical voices appease the situation by claiming that this chanceless generation of today will have its time when the babyboomers drop out of the workforce and the labour market is dry. I have a slightly more pessimistic view which is fueled by my observations of the current labour market. Instead of investing in local people companies tend to hire people from abroad. If then in 10 years a company will have the choice between a 35 - 45 year old Local without significant experience and an Overseas specialist with 20 years experience in the boom era in China, the US or India, who do you think will get the job?

The tragic thing here is the inability of today's politicians to open their eyes to the socioeconomic realities of the future: Globalization is making the world more equal and the result of Neo Capitalism and todays technology driven economy is also equality in poverty. In the earlier years the first world was prospering while the third world was starving. In the future we will have less starving people around the world, but masses of people who are too poor to live a decent lifestyle, and a small percentage of superrich people who will basically make the economy go round. Labour forces will be the new slaves of their superrich masters.

Our generation will have to accept that many basic needs of a human being: home, shelter, family, self-realization may in the future be denied to us. Already now the percentage of young poor is significantly higher than the number of poor elderly people. More money is invested in the care of old people than in scholarships or job training programs for the young. The premise that one has deserved pension as a result of a life of work may change. And why not provide money for the young so that they are at all ENABLED to work? It is unfair if elderly people don't get money after a hard life of work, but isn't it even unfairer if young people are denied the chance to at all get started in the working process?

In the earlier Indian society with high joblessness among graduates the joint family would take care of its less fortunate siblings and children. As such those who were able to work, to self realize themselves would support the others, who in exchange would take care of their children, do paintjobs at home, get the groceries and the pet to the vet. In order to prepare our society for this challenge we must revise the way we interact with eachother.

I don't think that in western societies the joint family is a system that could work. People are too individualistic and too much used to privacy already. But what about Wohngemeinschaften (House-sharing) where those who work bring in the money and those who don't take care of domestic affairs until they find something new? That would solve many problems, destress many people's lives and give emotional support to many people who are lonely in their misery.

Dreams and Goals

gothmala — 2007-02-27T23:42:00Z

Every person has dreams and goals, at least I hope for the most that they have some. Lately, I had lost all my dreams and goals out of scope and it took me a while to refocus again, to take a step back and realize why I am, where I am, why I am doing, what I am doing and most importantly where I want to go, with an emphasis on I.

I always dreamt of having a place of my own, so I'd really love to plan to buy some property in the next few years. If I can afford it a house here, if I can't someplace else. I just want to have the security of having a place to go to, a place where I belong, if everything falls apart. It should be a house, not an apartment, with a garden where I can plant my veggies. It can also be a holiday house. I'd love that, a place to retire to when I am old. Property is still the most secure investment and with all that is coming (Global warming, economic instabilities, labour market insecurities) property is key for a prosperous future.

I would love to have a garden and maybe also a dog, although at the moment I am quite content with my four feline friends.

Identity and Dreams

gothmala — 2007-02-27T22:25:00Z

Who am I? Am I the result of my experiences combined with some genetic predispositions? What is my self image? I have so many different personality facets that it is difficult to answer the simple question "who am I". There is the Business Mala, the Cat Lover Mala, the Political Mala, the Lover Mala, the Artsy Mala, the Ibiza Mala, the Gothic Mala, the Party Mala, the Wise Grandma Mala, the Kid Mala and so much more. I see myself not as one person, but as a group of persons. I am my own state, with my own people! :) Not in the sense of a split personality with different subjects trying to gain control, but more like a discussion panel with very diverse panelists in a civilized discussion, who have different experiences and different opinions.

A key element to identity are also values. So what are my values? I try to live eco-friendly, I have my principles which I follow, I am not particularly a family values person. I value primarily scientific values, like inquisiteness and curiosity, (social)courage and the guts to stand tall against a Goliath, I value humour, I value honesty, candour, civic behaviour, loyalty and benevolence. Although I seem to be a happy-go-lucky person to many, honestly I am a very serious person I guess, because all the worlds troubles bug me. If politics were not that much about talking and more about doing, I would join politics (I had a brief political career with the young social democrats a long time ago on a national level, but most of them were pompous smartasses and I decided that helping out in a homeless shelter is more grassroots than "Salon-Socialism"). As such I'd rather join special interest groups fighting for specific causes.

Let's look into my Futuroscope and see what the future may bring in the next years:

we have reached the tipping point and are now on top of the mudslide. It can't always go up, and whatever goes up will come down again. Global economies will drift towards recession when the US hits recession end of this year and the aftershock reaching Europe early 2008. The US mortgage market will continue to see difficulties which will increase dramatically in the next two years, due to decreased family incomes in general and a rise in mortgage rates.
Big China crash and as a result massive job cuts in Europe and the US, layoffs in China will cause protests and violent retaliation by the Red Army.
Germany will declare that in a few years they'll be bankrupt, necessary reforms will not be done, resulting in almost civil war like protests in all major German cities. Massive protests in Germany as the number of the poor will rise, clashes between neonazis and the police will increase. State pensions will not be paid out, havoc on the streets, while neofascists and leftwing chaots fight eachother in an almost civil war like state. After a few months of total chaos, Germany will once again crave for order and a strong leader. Edmund Stoiber - head of Bavaria - will become Kanzler! :)
After a very warm spring, a very hot summer will lead to water shortages in major European and American cities. Many older people will die from the heat.
Poverty will rise in the whole of Europe, as the Babyboomers enter their pension age and the young are few and increasingly jobless and poor. Pensions will be cut and old people forced to work longer or take on side jobs to sustain themselves. Dementia, Diabetes and Obesity will challenge the health ministries of all the developed world. Euthanasia will become legal in most European countries and misused by hospitals and old people's homes.
The Spanish Flu in 1918 mostly struck young people below 30. Today many young people and children live in dire conditions and are poor, which will dramatically increase in the next few years. The Bird Flu will strike in the next few years with the same strength as the Spanish Flu in 1918 and once again wipe out a whole generation globally.
Israel will strike a pre-emptive attack against Iran in 2007, Iran will strike back with missiles, US will intervene. This chaos will ultimately lead to a democratic win and a republican landslide in 2008
Hillary will be nominated Democratic candidate for the presidential elections, Obama will run as independent and become President 2008
Britney and Williams will finish their careers and possibly their lives too this year
A major earthquake will shakedown our town

The Lime Squeeze

gothmala — 2007-02-27T14:15:00Z

Jesus, life is just unfair! For most jobs I am either too overqualified, or not qualified enough. I know that if I apply for a challenging job, I'll be squeezed again like a lime, working like a slave, without any personal freedom of expression or thought. It is a pity that I am not a pothead anymore, life was nicer then. I am just so freaking tired!

I applied for quite some jobs which seem ok, I got some "no"s, a few interviews and some haven't even bothered to answer. I am increasingly frustrated.

I recently was at an instituition which takes care of unemployed high professionals. Although they cannot really help me, as I am not unemployed yet, I took some counseling hours there to plan my next steps. It was kind of eerie, but very helpful. The most helpful thing was that I saw people like me (wearing expensive clothes, having their LV purses, tears in their eyes and CVs in their hands) in similar situations. I don't feel like an outcast anymore.

My two girlfriends - both highly qualified academics - have been jobless several times in the last few years and maybe THIS is what is wrong with me. My team colleague quit the job and spent some months on her boat in Scotland before returning as a freelance consultant, my other colleage vanished to South East Asia for a month and got "fixed" aesthetically (new eyes, botox, liposuction etc.) and returned as a new herself. Only I dumb soldier kept working for years on.

Maybe the 3-6 months on and off joblessness keeps them sane. You work like an animal, get pressed out, quit the job or get fired, recuperate being unemployed and then gain the energy again to take the next leap to be pressed out. Is this the normal labour life today, and I am the abnormal exception, because I was able to hold on to it for 7 or more years in a row without a proper vacation? Should I also change to work like generation précaire, being squeezed, drop out, blow up again, get squeezed again, drop out?

Honestly, I am scared as shit to get a new job. They will expect stuff from me, high motivation, high energy levels and I doubt that I am able to deliver it. Maybe the most reasonable thing right now to do would be unemployment. Though that seems not correct to do, it would probably be the wisest thing to do.

At the Crossroads

gothmala — 2007-02-04T21:35:00Z

Sometimes in life you are in a situation where decisions need to be made. Decisions about which direction to go in the future. I have learnt a lot about myself in the last four years. It was a steep learning curve. I understood very much that being whipped to do absolutely senseless things is something that literally drives me crazy. After four years of working in a pharmaceutical firm I am a crazy person and I fear that after only a few months more in that institution, I will be ready for a mental institution instead. I am already desperately looking for a therapist, because I know that if nothing happens fast, I will be in a deep depression soon again. Maybe I can get my doctor to prescribe me some Prozac as an interim solution to get by. Anyway, all people I know either seem to be whacked or on drugs, so what does it matter anyway.

Work is like prison to me, like slavery, like daily rape. And now that we've been "reorganized", that is sold to another creepy department it can only get worse.

I now have to find out what I really want to do, because what I am doing now - despite the fat paycheck and the prestige - does mean squat to me. I need to be free, I need to break these chains and step out to do what I really need to be doing.

Currently I am just so burnt out that even thinking about a new life seems to be too much for me. I just keep applying to different jobs which sound interesting, hoping on god's grace and good luck.

Class Reunion

gothmala — 2006-09-23T18:48:00Z

I survived it! Dreaded but highly anticipated I survived my High School Class Reunion, the first after 10 years since graduation.

It was great to see my old friends again and to catch up on the last years. The first ones are married already and we even have a few babies, although 6 babies in a class of 20 Girls of 32 years of age is really meager.

Most of the girls have some degree of sorts, one girl - who was not present as she is doing her Post-Doc - has pursued an academic career as a Researcher in Glaciology. The majority of the class has graduated in Law, me being the only one who has graduated in Business and IT. Most of us have well paid jobs. Only two have bought houses, one who has married rich and the other one where both earn very much and have saved up money meticulously. One of the mothers is the rich married one, another is a teacher as her husband and both work part-time, another one who was not present got pregnant after high school and her whereabouts are unknown, the third one is religious and had a family with two kids soon after High school and settled as a housewife. One of us has joined Bhagwan in Costa Rica and is there in an Ashram doing Yoga.

In 10 years we will see the first divorces, the first lesbians who have come out of the closet, the ones who left their jobs to become Yoga-Teachers or Aura-Soma Therapists... :-)

I really wonder where I will be in 10 years. Probably nothing much will change. Maybe other cats, maybe even a dog, rather unprobable a child.

TV

gothmala — 2006-07-10T19:52:00Z

When Jahu was small
he didn't have electricity
nor enough for his basic necessities
He often starved when his father died
Lay awake at night when his mother cried
but one day, the village got power and a TV
a whole new shiny world, not enough to see...
Jahu found hope, new energy
to find the world shown on TV
He took off in a dusty summer night
jumped on a freight train with a dozen other guys

You promised me, you promised me,
I saw it all happening on TV
how can you now abandon me...
Everything looked so easy on TV
The city lights are cold at night
when you're alone and your fist is tight
the only thing that unifies us is the blue light of the TV...

Mandy was born very east
she never was on a communist party list
She'd watched western programmes secretly
learning english lyrics off the songs on MTV
when the wall fell she felt entitled to have it all
the luxuries behind the long great wall
She dreams of being rich like in Denver Clan
Instead of living in a community housing plan
Shopping five figures on Fifth Avenue
while her debts are high and her rent is due
While she lives on social welfare, paralyzed
with the TV blue reflected in her pale blue eyes...

You promised me, she says, everything would be alright...
But I am still where I were, every day and every night...

You promised me, you promised me,
I saw it all happening on TV
how can you now abandon me...
Everything looked so easy on TV
The city lights are cold at night
when you're alone and your fist is tight
the only thing that unifies us is the blue light of the TV...

Catherine has all she needs to live
still her general predisposition is sort of negative
She watches soaps, dramas, thrillers on TV
she says, my life is boring, compared to what I see
a wedding in a chapel with a thousand roses
rockstars being famous in spite of overdoses
I could be running a successful fashion empire
or be a famous TV anchor on the news wire
I could be anyone, or anything but myself
while her life is just passing like a sandclock
forgotten on a dusty bookshelf....

You promised me, you promised me,
I saw it all happening on TV
how can you now abandon me...
Everything looked so easy on TV
The city lights are cold at night
when you're alone and your fist is tight
the only thing that unifies us is the blue light of the TV...

Holiday Season

gothmala — 2006-07-09T15:12:00Z

It's holiday season... Europe entirely wanders south, all the freeways are blocked and streets are empty. Only the poor children are left, all others are down south with either the parents or better with the retired grandparents who can take 6 weeks off...

As I don't have kids, I stay here. No holidays for me. I have to take over holiday responsibilities for my teammates with kids who're in the sun now...

I really miss the ocean, sand between my toes, the sound of waves, the smell of sea in the air, .... I really need a real vacation badly, but I don't have the dough and no slot in the holiday plan I could bargain for. My next slot is my week end August / early September.

I was in London for two weeks on Thursday and Friday and that's it. I spent my time by going to Camden Lock and shopping shoes at Harrods. I bought two pairs of Stuart Weitzman shoes. I love his shoes. He is a genius. His shoes are the only elegant business shoes I can wear with my joint and foot pain.

We also went to the British Museum to see an exhibition on Islamic Calligraphy / Typography. It was very interesting and I wish I knew more about Islamic scripture, persian poetry and knew the broad spectre of islamic faith today. I guess if more people were interested in Islam and more opinions were exchanged prominently (and not the loudest heard voices of muslim fundamentalists and extremists), everybody would benefit.

Beautiful life

gothmala — 2006-06-28T07:52:00Z

Everything is temporary in our lives, there is no long term commitment. Even in relationships the willingness to commit oneself to "forever" is nothing but a lame promise, only few people are willing to give.
Be it having a home, having a relationship, friendships, a job, everything is temporary, so there is nothing to hold on to. We are all free floating amoebeas.

The Swiss are asking themselves why only 34% of the well educated women get children in Switzerland. These are also the women who can only work fulltime (better qualified part time jobs are rare) or be jobless, the ones who will be expected to move with a job to another town and who are specialized and need to keep their state of the art knowledge in order to find any job. And if they want to have children and be stay at home mothers? The number of men who are willing to support a woman is minimal and the risk of failure too high.

What we need is a radical change of society. If we had - like in Finland or in France - a government given guarantee for childcare which is affordable (the Finns pay 200 EUR a month for fulltime 7-20h daycare incl. holidays, while the Swiss pay 2500 CHF per month for part-time daycare), having children would not be perceived as a life-threatening risk anymore, but as pleasure (as it is the fact in both the above stated countries). We are currently wasting our money on yesterdays people. Old people with savings get the stately pension. Most money in our country lays with the elderly, saved money they are not willing to spend and in the worst case donate to some obscure "charity", where again the money lays dormant for the next 100 years without being properly used.

I also see quite a bit of guilt of the lack of children with the masses of elderly people who rather than babysit their grandchildren, go on hiking trips every week... The young are expected to show solidarity with the elderly, but where are the elderly showing solidarity with the young?

Things to look forward to...

gothmala — 2006-06-26T13:02:00Z

my cats birthday
london
getting a cake on my birthday
ibiza (though we'll be going with other people and there you never know whether its going to be good or bad)
christmas

Time stands still...

gothmala — 2006-06-26T11:37:00Z

Whoa! WorldCup frenzy everywhere... honestly I am not really interested in soccer. Still in our departmental soccer bet listing I am the headliner now way ahad with the right bets. Why so? Probably because I do not have any emotional ties on who I want to see win and in my subconscious - by reading the news headlines every day - I know more about soccer than I want to admit...

Otherwise life is quite the same. Job, home, pain, cats. My life is stagnating and although I am quite happy - despite the pain - I feel as if my life really lacks perspectives or a purpose. I lack hope. I lack anything to look forward to. When I look into my future I see a nauseating black abyss without any clue what is waiting for me. In order to be happy I spend money. In order to have anything to look forward to I travel to places I might like, to fill my empty life with some sort of positive events. I do charity to fill this empty life with some sort of purpose. I cook and write to leave traces of myself and be creative. I desperately try to give my life some sort of meaning, but I am failing miserably. I know that my cats will die before I do, that's the only certainty I have. Otherwise everything is open. It is as if nothing would cross my path through time-matter continuity, nothing to look forward to. I don't have any plans, any ambitions, I am a bleak white sheet of paper with no story written on it. I am floating through life like an Amoeba absorbing stuff but without a clear idea of what I am doing.

I gave a speech on Cross Cultural Communication for the Business and Professional Womens Club lately, which really gave me a boost, but otherwise I am not at all confident. It was good to be cheered and admired, something that I had rarely in the last years. But it also made me realize how unhappy I am in my professional life and how everything has been going downhill in my professional career in the last two years.

Yesterday my uncle from Ohio was at our place. He showed me and LordYo pictures of my cousins, the ones im my age well settled, stay-at-home Moms... :-) I really envied them for their family lives. I wonder how LordYo and I will live in 10 years...

In September I'll have a High School reunion. And High School reunions are somehow dreadful because no matter how you want to avoid it, it still ends up in comparisons. Will I envy those classmates who now have children and live a family life, including a house, garden and a dog? Or will I feel happy that I can go on London trips on a whim without bothering about a sitter or spending half my income on daycare.

So what do I have to show for myself. I have a happy relationship (which is more due to my partners good heartedness than myself) and 3 cats (who don't really have a choice) and a job (I don't really love, but don't loathe enough to leave), debts and low self-esteem, and damaged kidneys, first grey hair. My good career days as a Trainer are over, what is left is the hangover of the new economy. I am with some organizations which give me opportunity to meet people outside of work because I am not able to maintain friendships to other women, as they perceive me as threatening or weird or mentally male, because I don't share the common women good/men bad speak. :-)

Allthough I know that a traditional family environment would probably give me the creeps, I envy them for the stability of their lives and their faith in themselves. Their willingness to commit to eachother, their strong values. More than half of the marriages get divorced in the first 10 years, but who cares? Half of them last for at least 10 years! We should start to think positive again.

I'd be hell of a strange mother for sure, like my own probably, who always was better in explaining science than doing motherly stuff, meaning no offence. Maybe I only have a false idea of motherhood and should revise it. The stay at home mothers of most of my friends - even the ones from academic households - were very often straight dumb, nearly illiterate, of no use at all except cooking and wiping and without any wits. Pathetic creatures, not anything I wanted to become. My mother never sought contact with them, retrospectively she was really right to do so. Our family way of raising kids does clearly not fit with Swiss society.

Would I be a bad mother if I'd teach my baby girl to build a stink bomb, instead of taking her to Ballet classes... Could I guarantee her a safe life until she is 18? No, probably not. Maybe my relationship would end, maybe I would have financial problems, she'd have to live with my parents, so that I could get the money in (being not married I'd not have any financial backup for the kid), she'd hate me for failing as a Mom for sure... this is not the way I would want a child to be raised, honestly. If I ever get pregnant, I'd do anything to move away from this country. India, Scandinavia, even France or Canada are welcome alternatives. Did you know that in Finland fulltime daycare from 7 AM to 8 PM only costs 200 Euro at a max per Month??? In Switzerland you pay 2500 per month for 8 to 17 without lunchtime and without school holidays. With that money I'll get myself a cuddly nanny from Estonia instead which would save me additional sitter money.

I guess many of my former classmates won't have kids, so not having kids is not really going to bother me that much. The only thing that will bother me though is that with my 32 years of age I am not married yet. I am fat and wrinkly now, my skin as dry as paper and I have grey streaks in my hair, what a pretty bride I'll be, literally a corpse bride. My chocolate days are over and I really really regret that I did not marry some idiot when I was 19 only for the photographs. Well I was with Pat then and he didn't want to get married ever and he isn't an idiot either. :-) I also regret not having coerced some Chinese guy to pose in a Shanghai Wedding Photo Parlor as groom with me, but anyway. I will not have grandchildren to whom I could lie about "the 3 day romantic marriage of mine with Cheng Lu in Shanghai(incl. annulation)", so it does not really matter.

I know at the reunion I will feel totally dreadful looking at other people's wedding pictures and children photographs and feel empty and worthless inside, as if I lost track in life and somehow was left on a lonely train station out in the Boondocks. I am neither careerist, nor family person, nor guru-seeking hippie. So what am I? A mad cat lady, who will one day sit in her own mess with only cats who comfort her? I am afraid that it will end this bad if I don't change anything about it. I know that the Supermoms will make me poor Dink feel like crap. Still according to demographics probably more than 35% of our class shouldn't have children by now.

I don't know. I am really looking forward to seeing my old friends again, but I also fear and dread the moment. Seeing them will be seeing me and finally facing where I am and where I want to be / should be.

Giving and getting

gothmala — 2006-03-17T23:05:39Z

Women usually always tend to give more than they get. Mothers give everything to their families without hardly getting anything back in most of the cases, therefore a family is a bad investment. Most women get frustrated about this and project this against their family. Others simply avoid getting into such a unfortunate situation by not relying on anyone, like some of my single friends.

Sisyphus ought to have been a woman, but if it had been a woman, nobody would have found it unfair but only natural. Maybe it's in the female genes to give care, god knows. I had a day of giving only, doing things for others and I am literally drained with no energy left for myself. Retrospectively I ask myself WHY THE FUCK DID I DO ALL THIS?

I today also learnt that I am not the type of person to work in a social area. I am not a giver. I think in financial terms, expect a ROI. It's not that I don't care about people, though I am quite indifferent to most human beings and clearly prefer animals to humans, but I am not a giver from the bottom of my heart. I don't give out of altruism, but out of sense of responsibility with the clear idea of planting a seed of good, that might bring a good harvest one day.

With the sad truth that I have not harvested anything good in my life so far of what I did for others, I can't think of anything. Maybe its also a cultural thing, that people here just take, take, take, take, take, take, take, take, without ever feeling the responsibility to give anything back or feeling lousy about it.

Of course it is nice to do stuff for other people, but if you never ever get anything good back, you start feeling like an idiot. It's also like a sort of addiction and a thoroughly bad thing to do. I realized that some of my friends suck more energy from me than they provide. They're like black holes, which suck in every bit of energy and light.

I guess a woman is only really free of responsibilities and chores after death. Of course all the stuff I did today were of my own choice and I retrospectively regret some of the decisions I made today:

- I did stuff for my company, orthough I needn't have to. --- should have stayed offline.
- I wrote a recommendation letter for my mentee to find a job as a nurse aid --- there was no need
- I took my cat to the vet --- that needed to be done
- I played with the other cat, although I was drop dead tired --- I should have ignored her
- I went to visit a sick friend of the family --- glad I did it
- I let the neighbor wash two hours longer --- I don't care
- I cooked a big meal --- I did not want to throw the good meat away
- I cleaned cat shit --- shouldn't have done it
- I looked for my partners favourite bread in 3 supermarkets without success --- wasted energy
- I ran to open a tram door for a black woman with a pram - nobody else would help a black woman, so it was more a political statement
- I did a flower arrangement for my partner --- repetition spoils the effect
- I bought the flowers from an old florist friend of mine out of sympathy --- who cares
- Consulted my dad on buying a new printer --- I should have stayed offline