Counting calories. Clients. Going over to talk to an activist at Amnesty International. Giving my son his daily dose of Wonder. Being a young woman’s safe space, though officially am her English tutor. Answering questions on Palestine during what is officially a German lesson. Thanking the client for his willingness to listen. A rare occurrence. Sometimes I complain about something and then the next day reality, as if to tease me, proves me wrong. When I complain on purpose to be proven wrong, it doesn’t work.
A lovely thunderstorm is brewing here. Summer thunderstorms feel cleansing. The heavens decide to wash away the evil zoo. By evil zoo, you likely think of the same criminals I think of. The weather Gods don’t work like that, but one can imagine.

I had a short break so I went for cheap muffins to give to the guy I will meet at Amnesty. I will also give him a copy of book I once published in Slovak translation. It keeps surprising me how I keep being surprised that people want to make time for me. Hence the gifts.

The muffins are from Tesco. He might boycott Tesco as part of the anti-Israel, anti-occupation boycott.

My last client of the day wants to take me to a Vietnamese restaurant. I have the vague suspicion he feels guilt about forgetting one of our scheduled meet-ups a week and a half ago.

I have already reached my calorie total for today, so I had to decline. I told him he could eat and we could talk, but he didn’t want to eat alone. I told him I can join him if he just tells me a day in advance. I ‘reserve’ calories for it then.

Nuts. TOTALLY NUTS. Yes, totally nuts that I am restricting calories like am my own drill sergeant at some kind of fat camp of my own making while billions of people around the world are food insecure if not actively starving. That includes about 2 million Palestinians I refuse to stop shouting about online. Nuts. But if I don’t count calories I don’t get back to 73 kg. Am already down from 91 to 80. It’s already easy for me to fall into isolation cause of my rather fringe passions. I can assure you that I get frostier treatment everywhere with a few pounds extra. Again: nuts, utterly nuts, but I get more done from people when am leaner. And why not use that? Here in Bratislava thousands of women use their looks to not have to work anymore and become KIA SUV HOCKEY mums. The Slavic equivalent of American Volvo driving soccer mums. Imagine more make-up and far, far less bubbliness or chatter. Blonde ice queens with usually quite good cheek bones and firm thighs. Given the choice I think I’d prefer the American equivalent. At least they do small talk. But I suppose the new American trend of forcing raw fish on kids at birthday parties instead of carby pizzas would really piss me off. Am already triggered by Slovak mums who are waging an all out war on sugar. Not that sugar is good, but they take it too far. And if they had even 1 percent of fight left to fight real human evil I’d be more tolerant.

The client who listened longer than I expected to my ad hoc Palestinian history talk told me he had a good time at the end and laughed a lot. Not because of Palestine, which I could see shocked him a bit, and he’s not easy to shock, but because of inside jokes that would unfortunately fail if I reproduced them here. We went about 50 minutes over time.

According to chatgpt, always to be taken with a huge grain of salt, what would surprise me most about myself is how gentle and loving I’d actually become if tomorrow I woke up as a billionaire and didn’t always have to be running this rat race to get cash. Am mostly outside of the corporate world, but just like most people, my income is far from insecure and that constant stress does put the brakes on how spontaneous and generous with affection I am.

It’s just draining to know you have to sell your limited life force by the hour.

Today that life force goes to clients I feel something like Agape for, genuine love, let’s say, but that’s not always the case.

I have to go to my next client now.

We settled for the nearest coffee shop at a post-communist shopping mall.

It’s ugly and has dilapidated outer steps.

And that feels remarkably comforting to me.

I only really started to feel bad in Slovakia when everything got that perfect capitalist glow.

The more the buildings here started to glow, the less the people here started to glow.  

My client is from a tiny town with apparently the same suicide rate as my tiny town in Belgium and though he is completely full on immersed in the capital rat race, WITH A RELISH, he’s somehow managed to keep something I call ‘permeability’. He doesn’t seek it out, but things that don’t directly lead to money can still reach him and touch him. In moderation.

One time I talked a little too long about the Vietnam war and I understand he prefers the cuisine over the history.

Talk to you later.