Nice views for females

Photo: (c) Jutta Rotter, Pixelio. A naked man is running over a field somewhere in Germany...
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I added this photo because a quarter of an hour ago I saw a young man from behind with a copius boody ;o). I must confess that there are three things I notice at a man at first sight:

1. The eyes. I like it when a man has emotional eyes, the colour of them is not so important for me though I must say I prefer brown eyes
2. The charisma. The most attractive man becomes unappealing when his charisma is unfriendly, cold, narcistic, superflous and without any humor
3. The boody. I must say I like men with rather copius shapes, therefore I like to watch boxing on TV in the heavy weight class ;o).

It's regular to me that a man should be examined from both sides - from front and from behind, hihi

Concering the young man with the cupios boody I must say that his back was the only beautiful thing to be found, his charisma, his hairdress and his face were not for sympathy :o(. Marina also likes to look at men, especially her husband. For her, her darling of course has the nicest boody of the world! Though her husband is a slim, dainty guy and she loves that very much, I think she likes well-shaped asses, too, because she loves fruit and fruit mostly is roundish, tubby and well-shaped. Concerning men, Marina's and my taste differ from each other in some points - but only concerning the outward appearance, concerning the character and personality we're of the same opinion. Marina likes, as already mentioned, slim men who are not so tall - I like men who could rather be copious and are at least 1.8 meters tall. She dislikes men with hairs on the breast, I have no problem with that except the body hairs are also on the whole back and the shoulders because this reminds me of an ape ;o). Steffi, for example, has only less problems with men who have a haired breast but she dislikes axiliary hair, so this point of view is quite rare (and a little bit strange).

In one thing Steffi, Marina and me agree upon: We don't like men whose breasts look almost like the tits of a woman. We don't like it even less when those men additionally wear close-fitting, transpartent shirts, so you can see everything behind the shirt - the tits, the belly and, if applicable, the undershirt made of ribbed material *urgh*. In a German forum for English vocabulary, somebody wrote that the synonym for ribbed undershirt is wife-beater. I think this is straight to the point ;o).

Industrial and other street names in Essen

Photo: (c) Benjamin Vetter, Pixelio
It's Coal Mine Zollverein Pit XII in the northeast of Essen. Zollverein was declared as a world cultural heritage by the UNESCO. The last shift took place on 1 July 1993, then the mine and its coking plant were closed
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In Katernberg in the northeast of Essen, one street was named by the Coal Mine Zollverein (Zollverein Street). It leads from Altenessen to Katernberg. Of course there are many other streets in Essen which were named by coal shifts, mines, steel industry and so on. Here are some examples:

• Layer Street (Bergeborbeck)
• Coal Street (in Burgaltendorf, running on the city limit between Hattingen and Essen. Until 1979 Burgaltendorf belonged to Hattingen, then it became a part of Essen)
• Street of the 1st shift (Northern part of Altenessen)
• Street of the 2nd shift (Northern part of Altenessen, too)
• Steel Street (Center of Essen - some legal whorehouses are situated there)
• Northern Star Street (Northern part of Altenessen - the area of the former Coal Mine Northern Star range from Essen's neighbour city Gelsenkirchen to Altenessen. The pit frame still stands in Gelsenkirchen and is a part of the park named by the mine)
• Pit Francis Street (in Schoenebeck in the northwest of the city)
• Pit Crown Prince Street (in Schoenebeck, too)
• Levin Street (in Dellwig in the northwest of the party, not far away from the city limit to Bottrop)
• Wolfbench Street and Wolfbench Circle (in Borbeck in the northwest of the city)
• Haniel Street (in Katernberg, not far away from Zollverein)

Other streets are named by first names, fairy tales, planets, birds, trees, weather and of course they can be found in the same quarter. In the following you can read some examples:

• Ueberruhr in the southeast: Neptune Lane, Milky Way, Saturn Street, Pluto Lane and so on
• Dellwig in the northwest: Thunder Street, Thunder Hill, Lightning Street, Rain Lane, Dew Lane. The Rainbow Lane also exists but it is situated in Haarzopf in the southwest of the city!
• Ruettenscheid in the southwest: Alma Street, Manfred Street, Ursula Street, Anna Street, Alexander Street, Gregor Street, Alfred Avenue and some more
• Frohnhausen in the west: Kassel Street, Hamburg Street, Kiel Street, Schwerin Street, Stettin Street, Dresden Street, Lueneburg Street
• Katernberg in the northeast: Wishing Well, In The Magic Forest, Sandman Lane, Sun Road, The Star Talers Lane
• Stadtwald in the south: Blackbird Street, Blackbird Lane, Throstle Meadow, Throstle Street, Throstle Road, Sparrowhawk Street, Buzzard Road, Hawk Street
• Stadtwald, too: Ash Tree Street, Birch Tree Street, Elm Tree Hill, Elm Tree Yard, Maple Street, Maple Arm, Oak Street, Sycamore Tree Road.

In Stadtwald, right in the middle of the forest, there is a restaurant called "Secret Love" (Heimliche Liebe). The parking area is more or less 50 metres away from the restaurant. Especially it is famous for its good look over the Lake Baldeney in the Ruhr Valley from the terrace otside, various vension meals (for example deer roast with dumplings and vegetables, doe roast or rabbit roast) and its own trout breed. Every guest can choose his own trout he wants to eat *urgh*. When I visited the restaurant once and wanted to eat a trout, I asked the waiter to choose a medium trout for me because I cannot eat animals I know in person - the steaks in the supermarket are anonym to me, so I don't have a problem to eat it. The waiter smiled and said that this case is not rare, many guests don't want to choose a fish to be killed.

Though Secret Love is a really expensive, posh restaurant I was disappointed concerning the taste of the steak I had eaten there in the year 1993. In 1993 my boy-friend at that time invited me to Secret Love and I ordered a steak made of pig (!) with french fries and vegetables but the meat I had definetly was not from a pig because my steak tasted like being from a deer or roe! The taste of vension is more acerbic than the one of a pig. Nevertheless the waiter tried to tell me that this steak was made of pig...ha, ha!! In 2008, it was the second time I visited Secret Love together with a friend and though the trout was more delicious than the steak in 1993, it's quite disappointing there. Other restaurants in Essen also offer good meals with a high quality and are more cheap and some waiters at Secret Love are quite arrogant - the name of the restaurant makes more promises than it could keep. The atmosphere is rather snobistic and I don't like that at all though the surrounding landscape is really nice.

Tonight's the night

Photo: (c) Andrea Kusajda, Pixelio

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Tonight's the night because in the following night there will be full moon again! Beside thunderstorms and funerals, the full moon often plays a central part within my stories, especially in my book "When it becomes night in the Pot" (German: "Wenn es Nacht wird im Pott"). The book contains ten stories which are mainly setted in the evening or at night.

Me and my friend Renate like the full moon very much and my Dsungarian hamster James Hetfield (yes, I named the little one by the Metallica frontman - my James became nearly 29 months, this is equal to the human age of 114 years!) was moonstruck. In every full moon night, he lied in his cage and looked out of the window when the moon shone in - he was really fascinated by the light. He lied there like an Egyptian sphinx and became quite angry when some clouds covered the moon! My Campbell hamster Slayer who lives with me since 11 months and celebrated his first birthday on 3 April 2010 (this is equal to 48 human years) likes the moon, too, but not as much as James did. Last month he sat in his cage like a wolf and made some tones. Moreover, he was quite angry when I entered the kitchen in the early morning for breakfast and turned on the light because then he could not see the moon so well any longer.

When James died because of infirmity and an appoplexia, I buried him in our garden beyond a pear tree - he died in a full moon night. While I tried to trench his grave, an owl sat in the tree and watched me - I think it knew whom I was going to bury. The owl often sat outside the kitchen window and seemed to make some conversation with James. He liked the great bird though he might have been prey for it.

Nevertheless I know some people who dislike the full moon or are even afraid of it: Marina, Tim and a former classmate of me, Marianna who came from Yugoslavia. She always felt fear when she saw the full moon in the sky but she had no rational reason for it. Tim always called the full moon "asshole" when it arose above the school on the other side of the street because he couldn't sleep well in full moon nights. It's almost the same with Marina. Moreover, there are even people who say that the full moon has no influence on their sleep but other phases of the moon. A former teacher of me in basic school could not sleep when it was new moon. I normally sleep very well when it's full moon, too, but it could happen that my dreams are fucking wild and crazy ;o).

In more or less half an hour Marina and me will open the ice-cream season and buy some ice-cream in the supermarket next to the bank - or maybe we will visit a café to eat some ice. At the moment the sun is still shining ;o).

Crazy Frog and the raisins in her head

Photo: (c) knipseline, Pixelio
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Marina and me have a female customer who is quite crazy, therefore we call her Crazy Frog ;o).

Originally, Crazy Frog is a computer animated frog with a helmet, great teeth (including a space width) and a little penis. Beyond http://www.youtube.com/ you can find the original Crazy Frog by searching for "Crazy Frog Axel F." because this was the most famous song by the Frog and its inventors (released in the year 2005).

"Our" Crazy Frog is 40 years old, blonde and searches for a new job - she has worked as a secretary for many years but now she wants to make a change, for example by contributing old people in every day matters or as an administrator in an event agency. Crazy Frog is the first human we know who wants to get drunken by consuming mineral water. Medium is her preferred kind of water, this means it is no still water but it sparkles less than other mineral waters. Ostensible, the air in her office on the other side of the street is very dry because of the air-condition there, so she has to drink very much mineral water when she visits us and obviously she can't get enough of it. Cheers!

Moreover, she sits beside/behind us when we create a covering letter for her or scan her certificates - she's the first customer who behaves like this. A few weeks ago I explained to her that it takes some time to correct and improve a covering letter, so she finally left until I sent her the final version by e-mail. She was sorry for her behaviour and told me that she's often very impatient...I think this might have changed a little.

In the smokers' corner she told me that she wants to make a change in her profession and told me many, many ideas she had in her mind (as mentioned above) and these ideas are clashing in her head like raisins...;o). Marina and me think this comparison is very funny, so Marina also blogs about Crazy Frog, too. Certainly, she is sorry for the raisins in Crazy Frog's head because she likes fruit very much.

When I start writing my next novel I already plan to integrate Crazy Frog in the plot, at least in the first chapter ;o). In the first chapter there will be funeral (this is nothing new - funerals are often part of my stories) and Crazy Frog will drive the mortician and his assistant fucking nuts with her questions and the permanent twitch in her face. And, of course, Steffi will LOVE during the funeral ceremony, haha! The rest of the plot just remains a secret ;o).

Tornados in Germany and unintended mistakes

Photo:
Short before a thunderstorm in Germany - (c) Achim Plutzkat, Pixelio
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As I saw in the RTL news yesterday evening, a terrible tornado caused massive damage in the US state Mississippi :o(. I think, the Tornado season has started in the USA.

In Germany, in the last years the number of Tornados increased. Compared to the US where Tornados only appear in the so-called Tornado Alley in the Southern States in the time between April and June, in Germany they can be seen in the months between March and October but it's depending on the temperatures. When the March is still cold with much frost and snow, tornados cannot be seen in Germany - they first appear when the temperature is higher than 25°C. They can be seen in every part of the Republic. Especially they appear very often at the coast of the Northern Sea, even at the open water a few miles away from the shoreline.

On 18 July 2004, a tornado hit the Pot in the early evening. It started up in Duisburg, ripped through Oberhausen and parts of the Northwest of Essen, in this case Dellwig which is situated next to the city limit to Bottrop. Fortunately, no-one got injured but some buildings were partly destroyed because some trees fell on the roof of different houses in Oberhausen. In Essen only some roofing tiles were torn apart. This tornado was categorized as a F1 or F2.

Frequently there can be seen a lot of funnel clouds all over Germany in the months of spring and summer, so the tornado does not hit the ground but you can see who the clouds start rotating. These funnels can be seen more often than tornados. When there are terrible thunderstorms, mostly torrential rain, hailstorms with stones that could be as big as a tennis ball and lightning strikes might occur.

When I am going to write my next novel, it is planned to integrate a tornado in the plot, moreover Steffi will make love during a funeral ceremony ;o). I found this mistake in my last blog entry but of course I corrected it ("The other mourners were angry with Steffi because she laughed during the funeral ceremony."). When Marina and me read my unintended mistake ("The other mourners were angry with Steffi because she loved during the funeral ceremony."), we laughed loudly and could not stop it! Marina was quite disappointed when I corrected my mistake because the situation that someone is making love while others are mourning at an open grave is more funny and morbid, haha! This might be a good aspect for my next novel. Moreover we asked ourselves in this context whom Steffi might have loved during the sepulture ceremony. The priest? An attractive young men taking part in the funeral? The mortician or his assistant? Sorry, this is our black humour.

This is me and "The Pot"

Photo: (c) Marina Hong, 2009 shot at my 35th anniversary

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My full name is Alexandra Doell and, as you already know, I live in Essen in the middle of the Pot. Normally, Essen is the German synonym for eating but in this case something different is meant ;o). Essen also is an old German word for an ash tree, so it marks an area with many ash tree forests.

Essen is situated in the center of the so-called Ruhr area which was famous for its coal mines and steel industry in former decades. Its neighbour towns are Muelheim at the Ruhr, Oberhausen, Bottrop, Gladbeck, Gelsenkirchen, Bochum, Velbert, Hattingen, Ratingen and Heiligenhaus. Another cities that belong to the Ruhr area are, for example, Duisburg, Herne, Herten, Castrop-Rauxel, Lünen, Recklinghausen and Dortmund.

There are some more synonyms for the word Ruhr area: Ruhr Pot, Coal Pot, The Pot. This region was named by the river Ruhr. It rises in the east of Westfalia in a touristic region called "Sauerland" and flows through some cities of the Ruhr area - Bochum, Hattingen, Essen, Muelheim and Duisburg. In the harbour of Duisburg - it's the greatest domestic port in Europe - the Ruhr flows into the Rhine, one of the biggest rivers in Europe, running from Switzerland to Rotterdam in The Netherlands.

Though the Ruhr Pot has changed and most of the coal mines were closed between 1970 and 1990, the name still remains. Also the steel industry and its factories decreased up from the middle of the 1970ies. One of last active coal mines is Prosper Haniel in Bottrop. The most famous coal mine in Essen is Zollverein in the northeast of the city and in the last years it became a cultural center so that the visitors of Essen are able to see how the miners worked and the coal was processed. The last pit of Zollverein was closed in 1993.

I was born on 1 May 1974 so I will become 36 years old in a few days ;o). I live in the southwest of Essen near to the Highway 40 ("Ruhr Highway" but because there is often any long traffic jam, the people call it "Ruhr Creep") together with my Campbell hamster Slayer. Moreover I like my many stuffed animals very much, especially the mini mountain gorilla Sammy with the red hair ribbon and her little brother Egbert.

I am a mistress of social sciences/social work. Since October 2008 I work as an editor, job researcher and team assistant for an outplacement company that helps people who are or might be out of work because their current employee will be restructured. Our office is situated in Duesseldorf, the main city of North Rhine-Westfalia. Duesseldorf is more or less 28 miles away from my home, so I get there with my black French limousine (Renault Clio). I share my office with my colleague Marina - a funny, 32-year-old blonde girl with such a great humour like me. Marina is our office manager and she is a master of the American language, so she likes to read and to write in English. Her main topic are all kinds of fruit, especially pineapple ;o). Last year she made a photo story with me and our colleagues called the "Pineapple Massacre".

The third assistant in our team is Steffi who is one year younger than me. At the moment she only works here for more or less eight hours per week because she contributes the Green party within the election campaign for the election in North Rhine-Westfalia taking place on 9 May 2010. Steffi often makes an embarrassed face and becomes red when Marina and me make jokes about sex or morbid things, hehe, but this does not mean that Steffi could not be sexistic and morbid, too. Moreover she's the only one of us who got a laughing fit at a funeral of an uncle she did not know very well. This only happened because she made some jokes with her parents when they drove to the graveyard to take part in the funeral. Nevertheless the other mourners were angry with Steffi because she laughed during the funeral ceremony.

Beside Steffi, Marina and me some consultants work at our office: Zeno, Thomas, Annette and some other consultants who are only part time in our office. Our consultant Kumi will manage our little office in Berlin in a few weeks but Marina, Steffi and me will do the secretary's work and job research for the Berlin customers here in Duesseldorf - it's only possible because of e-mail and internet.

Other important persons in my life are: my parents, my best friend Uli with her little dog Herkules, my friend Renate (she's a real Duesseldorf original!), my buddy and former colleague Thorsten and some more.

I like music very much, especially Heavy Metal. My favourite bands are Metallica, Slayer, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. Nevertheless I also like songs that don't have anything to do with Metal but in the last years the good tracks unfortunately became quite rare. When I was a young girl, I bought a lot of records and CDs because there were many good musicians and bands but in the last years there's often superfluous monotone, always-the-same tracks on the radio :o(. When I drive my car, I always listen to a CD and not to the radio because of the a. m. circumstances...

Other interests of me are writing short stories and articles (since April 2008 for the German page Suite101.de, since September 2009 for the German page vnr.de as an expert for the topic applications), being on stage and presenting my own comedy, walking, swimming and reading. Though I am female ;o), I am moreover interested in some of "men's favourite topics" like cars and sports (soccer, boxing and many more).

The reason for this blog

Hello, my name is Alex and I have created this blog because of my new boook "Dark horror stories" in the German edition. Though it is written in my native speech German, it will be available in the USA, Canada and in the UK for readers who don't have any problems to understand the German language.

The book is available beyond the internet address www.bod.de and its German title is "Düstere Horrorgeschichten". Meanwhile, it is my 6th book. The first book I released in January 2007 has had the title "Straight from the pot" (Mitten aus'm Pott) and contained a selection of short stories in different genres like for example black humor, horror, love story and thriller.

My current book "Dark horror stories" consisting of 52 pages contains two stories playing in my home town Essen which is situated in the middle of the Pot (Ruhr area - in former decades it was famous for its coal mines and steel industry). Two cemeteries in the northwest and southwest of Essen are the main locations, moreover heavy thundershowers and their morbid consequences play an important role within the plot. The two stories are named "Night terror and dawn" and "Funeral orchestration". Especially in the last story one song of my favourite band Metallica plays an important role, namely it is the instrumental "Orion".

After releasing "Straight from the Pot" there were several another books written by me:

• Absolute Horror (Absoluter Horror). I chose the title because the words "absolute horror" appear in one of my favourite songs "One" by my favourite metal band Metallica. It contained two morbid horror stories, too. It was released in November 2007 at BoD
• When it becomes night in the Pot (Wenn es Nacht wird im Pott). In this book there were a collection of different stories that all played in the evening or at night. It was released in December 2007 at Marco Neumann Verlag in Lemgo. Lemgo is a town which belongs to North Rhine-Westfalia as well as Essen but Essen is situated in the west of this state while Lemgo is situated in the northeast near to the border to Lower Saxony
• Love, Death and Devil (Liebe, Tod und Teufel). This was my first novel containing a love story with a partly morbid, erotic atmosphere. Some of the protagonists work as morticians. It was released in November 2008 at BoD
• Slayer - document of a disaster (Slayer - Protokoll einer Katastrophe). It is a short story about a man named Thomas who likes Jazz music very much but gets the recommendation of his favourite colleague Alex to buy the new Slayer album. He buys an older album released by Slayer (South of Heaven) and this has some funny consequences when his conservative ears meet the thrash metal sound of Slayer. It was released in November 2009 at BoD

Each of these books is available in the German language. Maybe I will release some of them in the English language in the next year(s) because BoD offers a translation service, so that books which were written in German can be translated. In my next blog entry you will learn something more about me, the Ruhr area and especially my home town Essen.