movie marathon

H was on a business trip from Thursday to Saturday, so I ransacked the best video rental place in town (that happens to be owned by a guy I know from the movie theater and to be located just around the corner), locked the door and turned on the DVD player. And watched:

Edward Scissorhands (have I mentioned that I love Tim Burton?)

North Country (a little too much courtroom but great women)

The Forest for the Trees (how can anyone be so stupid?)

Ronia, the Robber's Daughter (all-time childhood favorite)

Love me if you dare (meant to watch it when it was on in Taipei and missed out. Amelie meets Ma vie en rose meets Serendipity meets the meanest and most selfish characters you've liked in a movie - great!!!!)

A Love Song for Bobby Long (reminded me of two of my (many) favs: Where the Heart is and Garden State and have I mentioned that I love John Travolta's acting?)

Mystic River (left a bitter taste)

Männerpension (great German comedy)

Nick of time (well-done real-time thriller)

Punch drunk love (weird and cute)

Citizen X (starring Stephen 'I only know one single facial expression' Rea)

and, last but not least, since all my Region 3 Feel Good favs don't run on H's DVD player, a lighthearted relaxing comedy a friend sent me before he left Taiwan:

State and Main :-)



and managed to finish the socks for both Annika and her sister:

(so much for the stupid knitting housewife)

ultimatum

H has set me an ultimatum for moving out. 31 December, so he can enjoy New Year's Eve in peace. After all that's been going on in the past year since I came here, with me being depressed all the time due to the everlasting cold in Germany, feeling worthless after giving up my job and becoming a stupid knitting and baking and cleaning and washing housewife volunteering at a run-down movie theater with no perspective, desperately trying to find translation jobs (and feeling pretty stupid babysitting instead) and suddenly having no money anymore after 4 years of having more money than I could spend, feeling so fucking alien in Germany, missing about everything about Taipei, not succeeding in setting up social life and most of all not being able to give him the closeness he obviously expects and instead giving it to Tuesday, it's his perfect right to do this.

The thing is, I don't know where to go. Apart from the loss of face here in Germany for both of us, there's no place that I feel I'd want to live here. Of course, Taipei would seem like the place to go. But - I've got no job, no qualifications and no money (and I hate begging him for money, that he doesn't have either, anyway), I gave up my job, my apartment and my furniture and the rest of my life a year ago, I've badly neglected all my friends, the ones in Taipei as well as the few ones I used to have in Germany. And the thought of packing and organizing a move again (and having to deposit all my plants with my mum again), with all my stuff (that I haven't really unpacked completely yet because the back wing isn't finished but that I would have to unpack and repack to sort it through) and Tuesday and everything, makes me feel sick in every sense.

I've tried to look for a therapist. But the few ones I've found here that take patients (not that there isn't a therapist's practise on every corner here) have waiting lists of a year for regular appointments. I managed to get two introductory 20 minute-appointments in September. And obviously, H doesn't really want to wait to see whether a therapy would help though he made me promise to see a therapist (and I sort of tend to think that if I really managed to move back to Taipei, I wouldn't need therapy).

When I was in Taipei last november (where I actually decided to leave H and move back and even got a job opportunity on my last day there and spent ten days with Alex in Shanghai making it all seem soooooooo easy. And then came back here and told him, and he wouldn't let me go), a friend who sort of was in a similar position put his head on the counter of the pub we were in and went: "If only I could hibernate here and wake up when my life has resolved itself." And I was like: "I know exactly what you mean."

"Behind my impassive face, my soul curled up into a ball, waiting until the unpleasantness was over" (from: Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex)