Oooh, it’s like a chain post. How cool is that. I hope some people will join. Charlotte Gainsbourg’s Q&A is here and it’s lovely, and here is mine. (Yes, I am bored. How did you know?)

When were you happiest?
When I was 22, and I broke up with someone, and it was summer, and a gorgeous sunny day, and I felt beautiful, young and free. Just as Meryl Streep in The Hours, I thought this was just the beginning of happiness and there would always be more; I didn’t realize that was happiness, just there and then. I never felt like that again.

What is your greatest fear?
Long, debilitating, painful illness killing me before I’m quite ready to go.

What is your earliest memory?
Drinking mulled beer with my grandfather when electricity and heating were off, and thinking it tastes absolutely gross. I was five or six, I think.

Which living person do you most admire?
Arnold Schwarzenegger.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Trying too hard.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Pretentiousness.

What was your most embarrassing moment?
Forgetting lyrics of a very well known song while performing on the stage at a charity benefit. That song was meant to be the centerpiece of my performance, and in a way it was.

What is your most treasured possession?
I don’t really have any material things that I would feel like that about. Data on my hard disk is the most important thing I have. I started making backups a while ago, and I can recommend that to everyone.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?
My hairline.

If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose?
My youth. (Hello, Charlotte. Didn’t know you were as vain as me.)

What is your favourite smell?
Burning wood. It makes me feel 13. I would be perfectly happy to spend all evenings sitting in front of a fire on my own and doing nothing else, just staring into the fire and smelling it.

Cat or dog?
Cat.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?
Beer. I am an evangelist for healthy living and strict nutritional values, but I never met a Belgian beer I didn’t like.

What do you owe your parents?
Everything and nothing. I could write a book as a reply to this one and it still wouldn’t be enough.

To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?
To my grandmother, who died years ago, and I never told her I was gay, because I was scared she’d either have a stroke or just reject me. So as a result I never gave her a chance, and that lowered her chances considerably.

Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
is tempted to say Kele Okereke Arnold Schwarzenegger, Madonna and Mike Oldfield. People, who had a dream, and then made it come true, without letting their lizard brains stop them.

What is the worst job you’ve done?
Writing a book. I swear there wasn’t a point of my life since I turned 15 that I wasn’t working on a book, yet I never managed to finish one.

If you could edit your past, what would you change?
I would have moved to Amsterdam waaaaaaaaaay earlier.

When did you last cry, and why?
Two weeks ago, while watching “Rachel Getting Married”, I cried because her husband loved her for exactly who she was, rather for who she could become once he’s finished improving her.

What is the closest you’ve come to death?
I was in the hospital with hepatitis and apparently my liver marker values were twice as high as those of people who actually died because of it.

What keeps you awake at night?
Having too many thoughts in my head at once. Oh shit, I just finished having a coffee! Well, now I know what will keep me awake at night tonight.

What song would you like played at your funeral?
I used to have a whole playlist, morbidly enough, and now I can’t remember any of it. Let’s say “Together Again” by Janet Jackson for the time being. I like the idea of having a joyful song about death.

How would you like to be remembered?
As a very happy person.

Your turn, my lovelies, and please don’t disappoint me — I love you all dearly and can’t wait to read your answers!

• Miss Bartender
• Hannah
• Good Pup
• Shoebox Dweller (you expected this one dear, didn’tcha)
• A1 (you didn’t expect this one dear, didya)

It has come to my attention (i.e. I clicked it out of sheer boredom) that I haven’t updated my About page since the blog started. Erm. *slightly ashamed look* Well there it is now. Enjoy!

It wasn’t until I’ve been stopped on the street today by a boy 10 years younger than me who enthusiastically exclaimed “I LOVE your headphones!” that I realised how uncool I became.

I bought those headphones — by a certain not very well known brand I won’t mention — largely due to their cool value; I wanted to buy something that’s damn cool, vislble from a large distance, expensive… but mostly has warranty that covers the damn thing being driven over by a bus. I had replaced four pairs of headphones in the last six months because their injuries were not covered by warranty and to be honest that’s a bit enough. Plus, the bright green colour ensures that fellow cyclists will notice that I am listening to music and, hopefully, ring their bells louder or summat. So I had bought uber-cool expensive headphones because of safety and good warranty.

Those headphones fit absolutely nothing I was wearing, which consisted of black coat (cheap and warm and nice, C&A), blue jeans (big torn ones from H&M, and anyway with my legs you can’t wear fashionable stuff, because fashionable stuff assumes you’re anorexic) and black leather boots (warm, comfy and, erm, that’s about all that can be said about them). Underneath I was rocking a purple scarf, which was covered by the coat and thus invisible, black cardigan and black muscle t-shirt, which is kind of cool, but still doesn’t match those headphones.

A whole other thing is what I have been listening to. It wasn’t what I am listening to right now (i.e. Susan Boyle, whose album I will review here soon), but it wasn’t much better. It was Madonna’s “Open Your Heart”. Which I followed by Annie Lennox’ “Diva” in its entirety.

My coolness reached its peak when “We are technology” was played on the Polish radio repeatedly, Martina and me were doing interviews for MTV and I had a regular DJ slot at a club so cool waiters would ignore you for an hour before lowering themselves to notice your presence, even if you were the only person present apart from staff. I wore the perfectly right clothes, listened to perfectly right music (and played it during my DJ sets), and whatever I would choose to put on would be good, because I was cool. When I had long black hair it was cool, and when I shaved my head leaving a blonde mohawk it was also cool. Mind you, I was also 24.

Thing is, it wasn’t me adapting to become cool; it was simply a great timing that ensured that what I liked was fashionable. I kept on listening to — and playing electronic music from the 80s, it’s just that Felix da Housecat happened to hit a golden mine when he sampled “Passion” by The Flirts for his breakthrough hit “Silver Screen Shower Scene” and followed it by sampling Human League, who themselves attempted a comeback with criminally underrated “All I Ever Wanted”. And then that time has passed, and electro sound has gone back to the underground, and got replaced by indie guitar rock. I stopped DJing, Technologic’s second single didn’t get much love from the radio, and that was about it.

Ever since then I have been doing what everybody does — that includes you, dear reader, as much as that shocks you — aging. At the age of 32 certain routes are closed for me. I will never become a professional tennis player; I will never be Madonna’s dancer; I will never be a teenager again, basically, and I will never be a part of the Twenty-Something Bloggers club. I might still become a professional boxer, but I should hurry up.

Being cool is also about keeping up with the times; with the Current New Sounds, trends in clothes, movies, actors, books, social networking. There’s something called Twilight out there, which features emo twink Robert Pattinson who has been more often than not described as lacking personal hygiene; there’s Lady Gaga, who has an amazing image not supported by music I would like to listen to more than once — she sounds like a third rate Britney Spears, and if I want to listen to Britney, I have the original at hand; the jeans available in the stores are almost exclusively skinny, which is bad news if you happen to work out a lot and you’re not one of those funny people who only exercise their chest and biceps. Generally, I know what’s cool, but I don’t give a shit.

I am not cool anymore. I don’t have time for that. I don’t want to listen to Lady Gaga, Marina And The Diamonds, Florence And The Machine, Ellie Goulding or Owl City simply because they are a New Fresh Thing. I know what Chris Lowe has to say about “even if it’s bad, it’s good because it’s new” and I disagree; I prefer to listen to music that I already KNOW is good, rather than spend my valuable time on listening to stuff that I could possibly like… or not. When faced with a choice between Janet Jackson’s “Number Ones” or Lady Gaga’s “Fame Monster” I will choose Janet. I played Gaga once. She didn’t set my world on fire. I played the CD again, and it got on my nerves. There will be no third chance. I’m BUSY.

Why buy a new pair of jeans that won’t fit me if I can wear my old leather pants that do? Why subscribe to Facebook, Twitter, formspring.me and 40 other uber-fashionable social networking sites if I don’t have time to meet my friends — actual living breathing humans — for drinks? Why would I bother listening to Florence And The Machine’s album if singles bored me to tears? Why would I watch mega-stupid people on “Jersey Shore” if I still haven’t found time to watch “City of Angels”?

Yes I know — admitting that makes me uncool. But so what? I’m 32. I will never be cool again, unless I become a celebrity writer (you can be a cool celebrity writer at the age of 60) simply because I am ancient. Seeing what MTV has become (my gym often has MTV on) makes me mutter sentences containing the words “youth of today” and “when I was younger, MTV played music”. I have no interest in being cool ever again unless I get paid for it, and it would better be GOOD money.

As ripped off Dark Cloud Nine.

1. What did you do in 2009 that you?d never done before?

Yoga! I have started and I have no intention of quitting anytime soon.

2. Did you keep your New Years? resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I checked my blog and there are no New Years’ resolutions for last year so obviously I haven’t made any. *phew*

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Yeah, cousins’ wife. Cute baby.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Yes.

5. What countries did you visit?

Oh the usual, England and Poland. In general I travelled a lot but only to places I’ve already been to. Don’t ask me why. *slightly ashamed*
(more…)

At any given time in my life, except when I stop navelgazing for 30 seconds, two parts of me are in a struggle: my male part and my female part, and that makes it very difficult to dress.

Thing is, my male part, whom we shall call Hugh, is rather macho. Hugh likes to dress in black tops with aggressive prints, baggy khaki pants, big ass Martens boots, leather with metal bits here and there and be all tattooed and muscled and grunt while working out. Hugh normally pops up when it’s colder outside, when I am unhappy about something or when I want to numb myself emotionally a bit about something. Hugh also tends to listen to calming music along the lines of Slayer or Sepultura, drink too much and do stupid things. He likes to shave his head, either leaving a mohawk or not.

My female part we shall call Kylie, which I suppose kind of explains things immediately: soft fabrics, nice colours, big hooded sweaters, big hats, long hair, cotton, fleece or even linen rather than leather, etc. Kylie likes to dance, and she doesn’t grunt while that is happening, she normally goes “la, la, la”. (Unexpected, I know.) She likes to read Glamour and salivate a bit over the fashion choices (that for some reason tend to be hard to find in my size), do a facial and, oh, oh, she loved Marian Keyes’ latest book SO MUCH. And, which is a bit of a bummer, she isn’t really that much into tattoos, but she would quite like to be blonde again.

As you can probably imagine having a fashion personality split is not making one’s life easier AT ALL. Nowadays Kylie wins hands down, largely due to the fact I have been immaculately happy for the last 4 months or so; my hair is growing as there are no emotional turmoils to make me shave it off, and Muscle & Fitness gets much less love than Glamour. Thing is, my last few winters were rather on the Hugh side of life, and I have bodybuilder thighs (not like the real Kylie, I believe) and you wouldn’t believe how hard that makes dressing up in the morning. Hardly any pants other than baggy cargo khaki stuff fit me; boot-wise, the situation is even worse, as my autumn/winter footwear is firmly on the Doc Martens size of things. My autumn jacket is a rock jacket, and while I saw a LOVELY soft coat at C&A last weekend, I haven’t got 80 euro to spend right now due to kitchen cupboards.

Hair situation isn’t that easy either. It’s quite hard to find a middle ground between long blonde luscious locks and a one-inch red mohawk. I thought of Madonna’s 80s cut — the Like A Virgin era — but first, I am not COMPLETELY sure it would fit me, and second, I really want to grow out my hair again.

Plus, there is this tiny little factor of me being a man. It is relatively easy to find cargo pants and Martens boots my size. It is somewhat harder to take the latest fashion shoot from Glamour and translate it into something that 1) fits a 6ft2 man with big legs, and 2) doesn’t make him look like a failed drag queen. Of course I don’t mind looking a bit girly (or, in fact, wearing ladies’ clothes, provided they are available in my size), but I really, really don’t have tits to write home about.

Any stylists around, wanting to dispense free professional advice?

I could die.

Those words reverb and echo in my head. It’s not that the accident I had was so major. It’s that I still believe I am immortal; that things like those (or like cancer, or like fire… etc.) happen to Other People. Yet there I was, flying through the air, hitting the ground, being shit scared of the speed with which my body, suddenly bike-less, moved over the pavement. And now here I am, with my palm bandaged, aching knee, leg and shoulder, and the words “I could die” in my head.

It’s not “I could have died”, because, well, I couldn’t, not really. Perhaps if I hit a tree or a car with my head, or if I broke my neck, but I wasn’t even close to doing that. There are relatively few bikers that actually die in accidents like this, and when they do it makes the papers; on the other side, accidents like mine are a daily occurence. No broken bones, nobody famous involved, not much blood other than my surface wound. It’s just the realisation, once again, that I go through life making plans, putting things away to do somewhere in the future, but really, next time I could be less lucky. There could not be much future to speak of. Maybe I have 50 years left. Maybe I have two weeks. And as for my plans, trust me, that accident wasn’t among them.

I have those plans to write books, to learn to draw, to go to dance classes. One day. Sometime in the future. When I’m better, smarter, when I have more time. Because I can wait. Right? Wrong. The bandage on my hand reminds me about it. Because I could have perhaps not died, but I could have broken my wrist in a way that would make sure I would never use that hand again. That wouldn’t make my drawing better. I could have also broken that leg, not bruised it, and that could have somewhat influenced my future dancing.

It was really hard to make myself step on the bike in the last two days. I looked at it, and I stepped away, and I stepped back towards it. I thought “I could take a tram”. Then I thought “But if I don’t bike today… will I do it tomorrow?” I had an easy excuse — I was all sore. But I knew, deep inside, it was an excuse. I had to do it. Not because a tram costs money, because I have to wait for it or for any other reasons. I had to jump into the future. And I have to do it again, be it my future in writing, dancing or drawing. And I have to do it soon; perhaps as soon as the bandage goes away.

Because that future thing, you know? Who knows how much there is left of it.