Swimming.

97. "Do you swim in the ocean?" Bowser asks me. Earlier today, I forwarded to the Super Marios an Australian map, sent to me by a patriotic Australian friend.

This prompted Bowser to ask about the sharks ("What are sharks with frickin' lasers?" "Haven't you seen Finding Nemo?"), and then about my swimming in the ocean. 

"The question should be, 'Do you swim?'", I reply. 

"Do you swim?" 

I look at Princess Peach. Princess Peach looks at me. She was there, the one time I ever attempted to swim in Brussels. I suppose there is no way to go around it. 

"No, I guess I don't." 

"You... do..." Princess Peach generously concedes, "Just not very far. Or very fast." 

"Or very deep," continues Mario, even if he has never witnessed me in action.

"Really? You don't swim? You don't know how to swim? My God how do you not know how to swim? How long did you live in Australia? You really don't know how to swim?..." thus begins Bowser's seventh passionate speech of the day. After failing to use Cassandra, the only other non-swimmer, as a replacement target, I ask for help. 

"Peach, which sport doesn't Bowser play, so that I can make fun of him?"

"Like, most of the sports?" Princess Peach offers. 

Leaning towards me, Mario whispers, "All of the sports..."

98. View from a window. 

99. One bottle into the evening, and we are already fighting like an old married couple. "She doesn't know anything about me," he tells his friend. "Even her friend whom I've met just two or three times knows where I was in the States." Stealing a piece of cucumber from his pasta sauce, I retort, "Oh yes? Where was I in the States?" "New York...?" he ventures, hesitantly. "Yep, that makes one out of 15." "But you were never there for long..." "What about that place where I was for three and a half months?" He's stumped. Of course he is. I am grinning. His friend watches us, resigning to an evening of arguments from an old married couple who just don't give up. "You don't know anything about me," I'm mocking his Belgian accent, "name five things..."

He starts with two easy ones. Easy, I suppose, is relative. Strangers wouldn't know those things about me, not many know about the first one and I can count on one hand the number of people in Brussels who know about the second. The third one surprises me. "You don't like green apples. You prefer pink lady," he says. "Four: You've been to 20 countries. I bet Zoe doesn't know that..."

Another reason why we are like an old married couple: We know things about each other that people don't.

Purposes.

82. In his free time, Waldo volunteers for an organization that helps raise awareness about the situation in Palestine. 

"So, what do you actually do at your meetings?" I ask him. 

"We learn how to make bombs."

"That's all?"

"And how to throw stones." 

"Does it work?"

"The bombs?"

"No, throwing stones. But yes, do the bombs work?" 

"Didn't you see 9/11? That was our work."

"There was no bomb involved."

"So you think."

83. [28/04/11 21:38:18] shellaplank: Greetings dear!

Do you know that the most attractive ladies in the world live in my country? That's true!
I invite you to a very good international dating site where hundreds of lone I am searching forly hearts are looking for their future lovers.
I dream about meeting a charming one I am searching for for longterm relations or even marriage.

Are you the one I am searching for?

Probably not.

84. 11ish pm. Seen on Chaussée de Wavre.

Explanation A: Lab scientist got mugged; thief discarded one glove because it's contaminated. 

Explanation B: Late-night murderer tried to get rid of evidence. Unsuccessfully, it seems. 

Explanation C: Contemporary art. 

Colours.

4. I’m pressing my nose against the windowpane, looking at the wide canvas of Brussels that my fourth-floor apartment affords me everyday. Usually, sitting at my desk, I can only see out to the left: the assorted arrangement of red, ceramic roofs at different heights, spreading out to the horizon; the gigantic, glass-walled European Parliament that for the initial many months I have embarrassingly mistaken for the Schuman Building; the lone modern building in the far left standing out not only because of its shape and size, but also because of its bright neon lights that used to read, “The Hilton”, but have recently been mysteriously changed to, “The Hotel”; the dome of Palais de Justice, possibly the only part currently not obscured by the building’s seemingly continual renovation; and, a necessary component to any picturesque landscape, a crane. When I stand next to my bookcase, I can only see out to the right: the treetops of Parc Félix Hap; more ceramic roofs; a partial snapshot of, I believe, the Schuman Building; and, to compete with the left, three cranes.

This morning, Brussels is uncharacteristically blue. Delaying my breakfast ritual, I stand directly in front of the bedroom window, taking in the complete view. What I haven’t - and couldn’t have from the desk or the bookcase - seen before is an explosion of pink. In the backyard of a nearby house, a little girl in a pink sweatshirt is immersed in her little pink world: a scooter with pink handles and pink wheels, a tricycle with pink pedals and a pink front basket, a mini pink stroller, and various other pink objects that I can’t quite make out from my window. She is busy arranging little items into a pink briefcase, when that’s done, she authoritatively put on her pink-rimmed sunglasses. One hand carrying the briefcase and the other clutching the protective fingers of her father, who has just come out to collect her, off she went, leaving the explosion of pink behind, and watching her go, suddenly I wish I were four again.

5. The weather broadcaster is sweeping her arm across the map of Belgium, explaining something in French. Her audio commentary seems unnecessary, as there is already a little caption, "Nuit", and white raindrops populate indiscriminately all over the map. This seems to distress Waldo. 
"No. No. Nooo. Noooooo!"
"She can't hear you." 
"NOOOOOOOO!" *pauses, then grabs the BlackBerry* "I'VE GOT TO CALL HER."

6. Doing the swan dance to Seven Nation Army. Laughing uncontrollably at the sight of Zoe and Pierre jumping up and down, yelling in unison, "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me." Doing the swan dance to pretty much any song we don't know. Singing at the top of my lung with Zoe, "Breaking my back just to know your name. But heaven ain't close in a place like this." Have I mentioned doing the swan dance?

The night had started out with a vague sense of déjà vu: two girls and a guy getting lost on the way to Windows, a small bar near Gare du Midi with a dance floor separated by three adjacent windows, which explain the name; keeping up the annual tradition, I came in my trench coat. Nevertheless, losing myself on the dance floor next to Zoe, me in a pink floral dress and her in a red spaghetti, I glanced through one of the windows, picturing us last year standing near the corner where the Tartes de Francoise were, and thinking to myself, what a difference a year has made.