Guess what, world wide web? I'm back!

Not sure whether anybody noticed, but this blog has been in hibernation for a few years, and so many things have changed in the meantime. Well, maybe not so many. I've changed quite a few places, or better – I've only changed two or three cities but switching between so many rooms and apartments and trips here and there, it really seems like a lot of water's been flowing under the bridge.

Another thing that's changed is that I started writing for a living. As I may have blathered already on this blog a while ago, I moved from apprentice-scientist to science writer. Ever since that happened, I've been kind of hating it. Well, I don't hate writing. I actually still love it quite a bit. But I do hate the modern logistics of writing, i.e. the sitting position in front of yours truly's beloved laptop. HATE THAT.

So I've been trying all sorts of alternatives: pen or pencil on pretty notebooks, pen or pencil on scraps of paper that I find lying around, typewriter (thanks to my awesome Heidelberg friends by the way)… I swear, I'm this close to start writing with a felt-tip pen on the walls of my apartment just to avoid the despised white and shiny apple-stamped machine, seriously!

Clearly, it didn't take long in this economy before this blog was written off the scene. But then some conversations with friends in the past couple of days about blogging made me think about it again. Well, this specific blog was not really part of the plan – the idea was more about starting a brand new blog from scratch, with a proper story-telling angle, narrative persona and all that. The topic, well, that remains to be chosen. Maybe science/astronomy related, maybe not. But for a p-p (perfectionist procrastinator) like me, that would take any time between six months and a couple of years. So I thought, why don't I dust off the good old blog, just to get some practice and, well, for good old time's sake?

I kept thinking about this over and over today as I was having one of those "narrative" days, when you feel an overwhelming urge to tell whatever's happening to you. Maybe it was because I drove to and back from work instead of taking the train, as I usually do, and rather than my usual book or whatever I'm reading, I had that couple of hours to kill in company of me, myself and I. Then I went for a run, so another hour with the same shenanigans.

It was actually while running that I conceived this entire post. Rather than boring my very own friends telling the minutiae of my life on Facebook (which I don't do by the way) I thought, why not tell the entire world – or whomever's actually reading this blog. The post actually is about running. Something was happening, something so silly that nonetheless I felt I absolutely had to talk about it with someone. But there wasn't anybody around and, of course, I was running, so not the ideal situation for sharing one's thoughts with the rest of the world. The silly thing is that I felt so incredibly tired as soon as I started running, which is something that hardly happens to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the sporty type. I go for a run every once in a while, but when I cross the door of my house and I do start running, I enjoy it a lot. When I'm really into it, especially in the summer, I try to do that once a week. I'm not talking astronomical summer though, I mean the meteorological one: any day that's not too cold and with no rain would do. The two things hardly coincide here in the Netherlands where I've been living in the past couple of years – actually we have so few and sparse days of the latter that it's hard for it to coincide with any given lapse of time really. But these days, in spite of not being the true summer days someone who grew up on the Mediterranean like myself can only dream of once she's crossed the divide north of the forty-something parallel, are special summer days nonetheless because, at these northern latitudes, you get tons of light at this time of the year. It's almost 11 pm and it's still bright. Again, don't get me wrong. It's *not* warm – we had some fifteen degrees and I was so happy I was wearing my thick sweatshirt. But it's a crime against the conservation of energy to waste that much sunlight (yes, allegedly it does come from the sun, although spotting the shiny circle in the sky hasn't been trivial in the past few days) so I *had* to go for a run after work. And that's something I never do. I like to run on Sunday mornings.

So I started running down the street and I immediately felt so tired I almost had to turn back and go home. I didn't, but it was such a pain to run even the two km or so that separate my house from the park. That never happens, not even when I start running again after a few months' break in the winter, and this time it's only been a couple of weeks that I haven't trained (thanks to the gods of the Netherlands, by the way, and their gracious gift of, well, lots of rain). So I was puzzled. It may have something to do with the fact that this was at the end of the day, rather than at the beginning. Not that I did much physical work during the day though.

As I was puzzled, something even weirder happened. The more tired I felt, the better I was enduring the whole thing. I didn't have to stop a single time. This only happens when I've been training regularly for a while, and it wasn't really the case this time. What a fantastic feeling! The more you struggle, the more you last. It's gonna have to become my mantra for the coming days.

Well, actually I did have to stop that once, but it was for an entirely different reason. There was this guy, who was wearing jogging clothes but walking very slowly and pressing his hand against the forehead. When I pass by him, I see he's freaking bleeding from his forehead! So I stop to check on him and give him one of my very own precious two hand tissues. That's the least I could do, really. I also asked him how he was, and he kept saying I'm good, don't worry, almost pushing me away. Which probably makes sense given that I had somehow crossed the don't-you-freaking-approach-me bubble that the locals carry around when they are in public spaces in these flat nordic lands. He was probably scared – too much eye contact, direct conversation, what the hell, lady, please step away!

Ok, let's tone this down now. He was probably in shock, after all he had just hit his head. Plus, I really didn't mean to turn this blog from the rantings of a neurotic girl lost in the middle of Germany to the rantings of an even more neurotic girl trying to navigate through the incredibly weird habits of the Dutch. Now that I think about it, though, my invisibility cloak story (am I made of exotic dark matter or why the hell can't you see me??) is almost ready... I tell that to myself every time I'm walking or biking or anyway am out of the house in this dangerously-lived country, up to the point that I do feel the urge to share it with the few brave readers of my blog. But that's going to be another story.

The adventures of Petite Cla in the land of the Dutch
Coming soon at a blog near you – just another blog