life without a plot

*sigh* Business as usual. I should be doing a lot of things, but end up paralysed, procrastinating a lot, and constantly feeling guilty, guilty, guilty. At least made it through another 40 pages of my Excel book today. Still haven't done any Russian homework, though, and I really should be studying more intensively to prepare myself for the two weeks in July... On a more self-indulgent note, there are a couple of things I'd like to write, but rewatching anything is pretty much out of the question right now, and my mind is so tied up in the struggle between avoidance mode, guilt, and panicked should-do-that-s that I'm completely incapable of focusing on anything. Pathetic, I know.

Anyway. A few pictures from yesterday's walk that started in Hütteldorf and ended up in Mauer six hours later, because to complicate things even further, my body is apparently conspiring with the avoidant part of my brain and keeps insisting it wants to spend a lot of time outside & moving... Partly it was a bit meh, but the evening was just lovely; the first two photos give a bit of an impression, but obviously there's no way to really convey the mood of it all, coming out of the darkness of the forest into the meadow, walking up the hill into the light of the evening sun low over the trees, the smell of earth and mown grass, all the scents stronger towards evening; the stillness, peace and momentary solitude, until you reach the top of the hill and see a couple with their two dogs and realise you're not quite aone after all...

In a way I'm dissatisfied with my photos, because they're always too... smoothly, and I'm almost tempted to say, superficially, beautiful. I'd like to do something a bit... rawer, I guess, more realistic, with more life in it, but I just don't know how. In the end that's probably not me, I suppose. The problem is my life, not my photography. Still, though, I wish I could just do a little better. Maybe I should take a class to really study the technical aspects; perhaps that would help. But see above—really no time right now.





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From today's walk from Neuwaldegg up to the Sophienalpe, after which I kind of lost direction and found myself in Klosterneuburg three hours later already in the pitch dark. Sunny and warm (probably too warm for the season, but still very pleasant), and really beautiful especially in the evening with the sun shining low through the trees, except that I kind of managed to forget that there's still snow outside Vienna at least up on the hills. Lots of graceless sliding and slipping and clinging to trees and falling on my ass, especially downhill. My jeans are dirty up to my knees & beyond, and my poor Doc Martens weren't really up to all the wet snow, mud and water and will probably need days to dry.





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# Was hit by a car door on my way home. That thing when people say they don't know what hit them? That was it. I had absolutely no idea what happened until I picked myself and the bike up and the driver started apologising. I'm fine, though. I'll probably have quite a bruise on my left thigh, my left wrist hurts a bit, and the bike's front light broke clean off, but I got € 50.- for the repair. The kind of stupid thing is that this happened when I made a detour to a supermarket that has an offer for bio-yoghurts (buy two, get two for free). Somewhere there's a moral in there. Or, then again, maybe not.

# My sister wants to watch the new HP movie, but I already turned down R. I was so utterly disappointed—disgusted, actually—with the last one that I don't want to risk having my favourite HP book spoiled by a mediocre (at best) movie and actors I never identified with the characters at all. I guess if the critics are extremely good I might give it a chance, but otherwise... meh.

# A few more photos from last weekend...





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Autumn. From last Sunday, when I was still allowed outside, walking from Neuwaldegg to Hütteldorf.

Just to prove that I'm actually doing non-TW related things, this is from a walk in the Lainzer Tiergarten that I took Sunday afternoon. It was a lovely clear day (the view across Vienna is rarely this good), and thoroughly enjoyable - a three hour walk and then lying on a picnic bench, soaking up the evening sun...

Saw a few wild (actually more like semi-wild) pigs (a sow looking sceptically at me across the clearing for a minute before she shooed the piglets back into the safety of the wood), a small deer that totally obliviously walked on the path before me for a while before finally fading into the wood, and more dragonflies than I've ever seen in my life - the air was full of them; it must be the wet weather we've been having this summer.

And all right, I had a notebook with me, and some TW-related scribbling might have happened. Er.


Also, my bike apparently hasn't a flat tyre as such, someone thought it was funny to let the air out. I guess I should thank them for not actually using a knife, but who does something like that?

In other not-news, work continues to be mind-numbing and exhausting. *sigh*

The last few pictures I posted were all from the abandoned stands of the harness racing track Krieau - which is actually still in use, but they've modernised only one of the three stands; another is used as an open air cinema in summer and in a not too bad state, the third one is completely closed off (or supposed to be, since you actually can get in, even if you probably shouldn't) and left to decay at least since 1986, judging from the newspaper page I found there. I have to admit I only became aware of that when the pictures from a flickr meet-up I couldn't go to turned up on my contacts-page, but I've been there twice since, and will probably go again. It's an absolutely fascinating place to take pictures in, and in the afternoon the light is simply wonderful, especially now that it isn't blocked by trees. There are more pictures from both visits on my flickr account if anyone is interested.




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