a good day at the racetracks

So...the day started quite slowly. took young Finnish Scissorhands to see an anaesthesist, highlight being mutual admiration over archery enthusiasm and finding out fact that this guy's family is practically all dead, followed this with an incredibly bizarre irritating stupid prefecture meeting (the prefecture is set up to give foreign people nervous breakdowns since there is no sense of organization nor any hint that france has passed the medieval age), and then short sweet meeting with boss-girl, followed, finally by crazy roommate's slap-you-up-bitch-and-leave-you-in-the-gutter art piece (actually conceptual performance involving apples and trapezist)...very very tiring...but, that's not the end of it all. At around 7pm, four of us, Scooby, Gasp, the B and me packed into a car to cross the border and go betting.

We stopped at the Hippodrome in Oostende, Belgium...a very small quaint track that boosts views of the beach on one end, and a scenic view of sleepy Oostende on the other. Every Friday, in the summer, the track hosts a set of evening races, known as the Nocturne. We got there in time for the third race out of eight...I lost money on the first round on a horse called Mutton...I made the bet on name, because when you name a horse after food, you increase the odds of it winning...anyways, in the warmup, the horse looked distinctly sick...it didn't even canter. It walked...

After mutton, I looked harder at the stats and picked a favourite, Komet Gene, placing a sizable 3Eu bet on that baby...which, luckily enough worked. The horse won. The winnings were 2-1 so I picked up my 6 Euros and skipped forward. The next race was watching only...lots of good looking horses and something won while I was blowing my nose. The wind was picking up. The next race was the loser horse race, where all the horses are big losers that don't go very fast or have developed a habit of disqualification...we played triples/ I picked Purple Rain (8), Princess Raijina (3) and something for 11....and all my losers won!!!! On a 1Eu bet, I made 156Eu...holy crap. We went out to get a photo taken with the horse and then the fever hit so I headed straight for the bar, in search of liquid to cool off...at said bar, boyfriend came a little bit later. He didn't tell us but he'd also played a triple...and, holy smoking tutus!!! He won TOO!! We cleaned the night off a good 350Eu heavier, out of about 12 Eu!!! weird.

However, have to say that now that I've won, I don't think I can play again. I can feel the itch in my fingers and the hunger for the payoff...the pitch gets warmer after the first unexpected success. hard to say but feel family gambling curse must be avoided at all costs...guilt is very strong...even now I hear family curse hovering over my head when excited about new shoes I could buy with money...so really, no more tracks for me..... however, am thinking of making next film in said Hippodrome...wonder if I can get close enough to hot dog lady to get tips.

Money made sure we were slick with alcohol all night long, slipping out into the Oostende nightlife to find a restaurant that served ribeyes...found one right next to the casino...ribeye was so good that it needed absolutely no condiments...only a little bit of stroking and tongue action. Cooked to bloody fascination. Even though the red wine was chilled (obviously our skinhead waittress didn't give a flying buttress for wine protocol) the baked potato and sweet slaw made me slaver all night long. Short stay in Oostend Casino, where was observant of suicidal roulette tendencies of Scooby and Gasp...then G said that two people in his family committed suicide after bad roulette outings...addiction is most underestimated weapon of destruction in western world. Those two burned 100 Euros in under an hour...lucky it wasn't my money.

Don't remember much after, but money is in very safe hands. B only spends dough on Equipe and baguettes, so cashola should hold us out for months. Just remember kids, gambling is potentially fatal...even if a horse called Mutton beckons, remember the old drug ads and just say NO.

oh, and school year finally ended, end of year blues very heavy and sad...everybody running off and not saying goodbye. Small group of friends being sweet and sticking together but majority very nonchalant and running for the hills. Wonder if this is normal procedure, or if natural anticlimactic end to school diaspora effect is compounded by egoistic contemporary artist personality.