A visit to Highgate - paying my respects

It's easy to separate us mourning fans from the gawkers and other onlookers at the sea of flowers at George Michael's house in Highgate, London. We all have the same slightly dazed look on our face, trying to make sense of the incomprehensible. Some, like me, have tears in their eyes.

When I get there Wednesday morning, a week and a half after the devastating news of George's death, there are quite a few people around. They are all walking around quietly, looking at everything that's been left as a sign of love for George. Almost everybody has their camera of phone out to make a little video or take some pictures. But not in the tabloid way, in a respectful way. I talked a little while with fellow fan Yota, she is a Greek fan, living in South London. She felt it was 'important to be here'.

About me (2005 version)

Here is my very first blogpost of a few years ago. I wrote it for a short-lived blog that I started a few days before my marriage. It's pretty weird to see both how little and how much I've changed.

My wife and I got married in 2005

My name is Ada, short for Adaobi. I’m a black woman, I'm 38 years old and in 8 days I’m going to be legally married to my girlfriend of 10 years Maria. So I’m a lesbian and I could be living in the Netherlands or Belgium as these are the only two countries in the world right now where same-sex couples can legally marry. Thank God it’s the Netherlands, I like it here!

Finding a treasure at the back of your closet.

Yesterday evening I got busy with the computer equivalent of cleaning out my closet. I was  looking for a pdf-file on how to write a book proposal. Yes, like countless others who write for a hobby I want to write a book. With real people in it!
But where to start? Then I remembered that I once downloaded a instruction how to write a book proposal. I did a quick search in 'My Documents' and came up empty. Note to self: when downloading important stuff it's generally best to change the file name into something searchable. A filename like WritingABookProposal won't cut it!

So there I was looking through all my files when I came upon some old stuff I wrote for my first blog. Once upon a time I had a blog for about 10 minutes. I was blogging in the days before my wedding, as it was a very stressful time and writing usually helps me clear my mind. Blogging wasn't quite as easy then as it is now with blogger.com, so it wasn't right for me. Yet!

Reading some of the old stuff helped me escape out of the dark hell hole I've been in these last few days. My inner critic, that nasty inner voice we all have, was making life difficult for me with sweet nothings like: "You're a loser and a waste of space. You can't do anything right. You can't write. You bring nothing good to this world". And so on. Thank God this time the voice stopped just short of telling me no-one would even notice if I was gone, let alone miss me. No wonder I was feeling quite depressed.

I'm so glad I kept some of the stuff I wrote earlier because I can see now I've come quite a long way. And also because it tells me that I've always wanted to write. It's what keeps me sane. But most of all I was happy because I actually liked most of what I wrote back then! So there, inner critic!

So for the next few day I'll be blogging some fun old stuff. Next up: an ode to George Michael I wrote in 2010, a few months before the infamous Snappy Snaps incident.