choices...

i was re-reading some of my latest posts in this blog. and i've come to realise somthing... something important, i think.

and that is the fact that who i am today and where i stand is mostly the result of the choices i've made. and looking back... some of them were good choices, others were less good. most of them were the best i could've made in a given situation; a few were the only ones i had. alltogether, however, there are few situations in which my hand was forced one way or the other. or rather, to be more precise, few situations of which i am aware that happened.

i was looking at some of the people i know... friends... colleagues... acquaintences... relatives... at their lives. some of them are worse off. many others are what may be considered "better off" under various aspects. and... well, the good news is, i wouldn't want to walk in any of their shoes.

and then, back to me... i considered the other options i had at various points in my life. of course there is room for improvement. there are things that i would like to have done differently. however... no major ones (yay, even more good news).

because, in the end... even though it pains me that there are things i am not, things i haven't done, things i don't have... i know very well that i couldn't bear to look at myself in the mirror had i taken another road. as i've stated before, there simply are prices i am not willing to pay, however much it hurts me. there is a certain line i draw and i try hard to go no notch below that. i've been called inflexible, irrational, stubborn, impulsive, cold hearted, uncaring and a sucker for that. i may be all that and more, but still the choices that brought me here were mine. and i stand by them to this very day.

and somehow... it's a good feeling. i may not be happy with who i am today and i may not be happy with where i stand. but i know i am here and now mostly as a result of my own choices, influenced or not. and there is little else who or where i could be and not only not love myself, but not being able to live with myself. with that in mind... it's somehow easier to face the choices to come. some of which are maybe some of the hardest yet. and some of which... are not mine to make :(

ps: images by kyoji and frixin on deviantart.com

saved by the T

not the post i meant to write.... but somehow i'm too depressed to be depressed. or too depressed to write another pointless depressive mumbled rant that doesn't interest anyone anyway.

so i remember stumbling upon this site a couple of days ago... i was slightly amused by it. didn't fall off the chair with laughter, but it smoothed a wrinkle or two. now, who knows who dustin diamond is? somebody? anybody? don't google it, i'll spare you the trouble.

it's the guy who played screech in the saved by the bell series. you know those, right? well, he kinda faded from public attention afterwards. it's the merciless, pitiable fate of child stars. well, screw you kids, you've had your five minutes of fame, now get the hell outta here.

well, dustin didn't want to fade away. so he - or some smart PR person - came up with the idea of this site. i wonder how many people actually laught at it and in memory of good ol' times actually buy the t-shirts. for half a minute i considered getting one too but... hey, that's the equivalent of a filter for my camera and i have my priorities well sorted out ;)

anyways, here's the banner with the link to the site. read. marvel. smile... even if just a bit.

greedy bastards

i had just complained about the fucking money, hadn't i? of how much i hate money, depending on them, needing them for anything, having to do for them what i don't like...

well, here's another dish for you. no, actually two.

greedy bastards part one: i got sick of discussions on internet forums stating that women are interested creatures, who're dating guys for... well, not necessarily money, but gains of sorts: appartment, fancy lifestyle, going out, prestige, careers, being driven around, holidays, getting more or less expensive gifts. not necessarily the cash, but what the cash brings.

yesterday - tv show with the fucking same issue and my parents discussing it. and the point is... it's not that i don't think they're right. i think it's a shocking number of people out there, doing precisely this thing: prostituting themselves for material advantages. more or less. taken strictly, working your ass off in a work you don't enjoy is a sort of prostitution. however, it is a common, socially accepted and morally acceptable type. there are far too many people out there selling themselves in worse ways.

and... well, women seem more prone to do that in relationships. in this case... well, my respect goes to the regular hookers giving blowjobs for money. at least they're not trying to pretend to be something else. they are prostitutes and this is what they do for a living: sexual services to whoever pays. how many people out there love their job anyway? the rest... are the real whores. they never go home after 6 or 8 or 10 hours of job. they are prostitutes 24/7 in order to eat expensive dinners, drive flashy cars or sport expensive shoes and a tan made in italy.

again... the point is... i know that it happens. far more than it should. and the price goes down, too. it's tending to become the normality. i believe it's anyone's own problem if they sell themselves. but i hate generalizations. i hate it when i hear "women do this and that". i even hate it when i hear "most women do this and that". because somehow, people tend to overlook the minority. and then it becomes "most of you women" or "what can we girls do, it's so hard to.... we need to...".

well fuck off, stop labelling me! cause unaware or not, you are including me in that stupid category. i don't know what we women do, cause i am not the collective conscience of womanhood on earth. neither do i know what we girls could possibly do, all i know is what i do or am willing to do. and blowjobs for holidays are not on the list. neither are sheepish smiles for dinners in town.

conversly, i am absolutely not impressed by guys telling me what car or mobile phone they have or boasting how 'cheap' they got a really good apartment with 50.000 euros. that is not an asset from my point of view. in fact loads of money put a big warning label on your forehead. the more money and the more you boast it, the brighter the warning, the louder the sirene. and the more likely you are to include all women in the "suck up for a little attention from the rich guy" category, which belief is confirmed by your experience, since your boasting attracts them as naturally as flies to shit. you don't make me faint in delight, you make me puke, people.

greedy bastards part two: duran duran are having a concert in romania. well, it's a bit soon after the placebo experience for me... but i thought it's a one time chance and i'll regret it later if i don't go. so i told myself i'd go, cause it's harldy possible for tickets to be much more expensive than placebo which are a top band right now.

placebo tickets were 75 RON, so i expected the duran duran ones not to be over 100 RON, and that just in case they were really really assholes. well, surprise-surprise. cheapest tickets are indeed 60 RON, somewhere in the back where you're not likely to see much. good tickets are... (hold on to your seats) 250-300 RON. that is... well, outrageous to put it mildly. it's fucking 85 euros (100 RON are 28 euros) . who the hell pays 85 euros to see duran duran?!?!? i mean... hello, this is an attempted comeback we're talking about. i didn't check on other european dates (all east-european, i might add...), but the most expensive ticket in chicago is 65 USD... meaning 50 euros. like... hello?!?!? where do you think you are? and who do you think you are?!?!?! greedy bastards!

for a reference: since april 2006, the minimum wage is 370 RON brutto (104 euros). according to the www.wall-street.ro, the average brutto wage for august was 1122 RON (317 euros), meaning 842 brutto (238 euros). i'd be curious to know what the real average is, though... that is, extracting from the calculus all those money - for - nothing - makers: parliamentaries, bosses and bosslings of various public services that show no improvement but sport ever higher fees, football players all mouth, no action and tv presenters who have trouble speaking but think they're stars and earn stunning 5-8000 euros a month...

bottom line: yeah, i live in a fucking poor country. yeah, i do have a good salary, compared to others and those minimums and averages. yeah, duran duran are greedy assholes. and yeah, under these terms, of course loads of people boast their accounts if they have them. and yeah, of course prostitution of sorts is alluring to the rest :(

and no, i do not find this normal, because i do not belive normality is dictated by the majority, however much sociologists and statistics and good ol' gauss state the contrary.

well... i've just made myself sick. i am going to go puke the nerves out of me.

ps: pics to be added when i get home... am too angry to postpone posting.

ps2: i've checked. 65 euros for the most expensive tickets in both bratislava and athens.

am i crazy?

funny that you should write what you did, ilya. well, part of it :P now, this is the last post triggered by that long sleepless night when various thoughts haunted my memory, even though its content was at the root of all that more or less gloomy but definitely nostalgic thinking.

and that root is... that i stopped for a minunte and thought about where i've been, where i am and where i want to go. not a good thing to do in autumn... anyway, bottom line is this (i've already mentioned it in a comment reply to elfu): i am nearing 25. for all i know, a third if not half my life may be over. and... what have i done with the time that was given to me?

feels like i've wasted it. i've spent more than two thirds of it learning mostly useless stuff. i've tortured myself memorizing things that are long forgotten and acquiring skills i neither like, nor use, nor need. i am in a dead-end job that stimulates neither mind, nor spirit and i'm keeping it because it pays me well to waste myself away. stuck in a rut, stuck in a rut, stuck in a rut...

i have done various things, but probably not nearly half of what i would've liked, i've found temporary delight in some, but none i can imagine myself doing for the rest of my life. i honestly don't feel that i've realised enough - not enough to make me satisfied and not enough for the amount of time and effort invested. i am still pursuing several things at once, in the hope that one will eventually work out the way it should (or the way i want it to - same thing from my perspective ;) ).

and it is not that i lack happy moments - cause i have enough of those. it's just that... the things that once seemed to make all the difference in the world are not so important anymore. those that have grown in importance are the seemingly unattainable ones. yet somehow, i still have that feeling of life passing me by - i am waiting to go to work, then waiting to get home, waiting for weekends, hoping for time to rush by faster, never really achieving something significant, wishing my life away in the process...

i was thinking of taking some steps to remedy the situation. one would be concentrating on my "want to do list" instead of the "have to do one", but there is a delicate balance that must be kept. i can only afford them if i check enough "have to's", and "have to's" seem to just swallow my time. and usually, also my energy. they are huge disgusting leeches :) i want to get out of this rut. i want to have something to look back to, other than a box of dusty, cobweb covered, bittersweet memories.

so, the biggest step i'm planning for is... quitting my well - paid - for - doing - nothing job that everyone envies. ka-boom.

ps: picture courtesy of bogdan h.

sleepless and undone

just the other day i read someone saying that i sleep a lot. oh, how i wish that were true, especially now.

starting yesterday in the morning at 6 am till this morning at 7 am, at the umpth attempt, i managed to sleep an interrupted hour and a half, with my head on my desk. i got some six hours of sleep this morning finally... am just about floating now, but it'd take more than that to keep me going. especially seeing that i had probably slept around four hours on the night before.

so, what did i do? yep, it was shift change, of course. so yesterday i got the 7-15 shift. my colleague had some trouble, phoned he'd be in late, so i got out from work at 15:30. went for some last minute birthday shopping then - i still haven't found the precise thing i wanted, but it was cute enough to pass my cuteness test ;) i got home at 16:30, ate a little bit of something, washed my hair and headed for a board meeting of the doggie association. we have a major event in mid-october that requires careful planning and then, of course, organisation. of course i was late for the meeting *blush*, but by the time i got there, i could've already used some sleep.

i left at around 19:30, caught a bus back home, showered, changed and left for the next thing. at a couple of minuntes to 20:00 i arrived at the meeting with the girls. a good friend of mine is getting married next weekend and this was going to be her errr.... what's the equivalent of a stag party for a girl? (sorry, i still can't think straight. i can't think gay, either. i can barely write, let alone think... but i won't let that get in the way of the blog ;) - when have i ever? had i thought just a little, i wouldn't have posted what i did).

so, when we finally arrived at the location, we were six girls and two future mother-in-laws - yeah, they came along too and they were really cool - and the future bride. i've been saying i won't get married since i was twelve, for half of my life... i am holding that opinion up and yesterday only went to prove that i made wise decisions with 12. there is no way i am going to go through something like that. that being a one man show of strip and lapdance for the future bride. well, she missed half of it, since she was blindfolded - all the more fun for us, until the guy had the brilliant idea of moving on to the next girl... well, he only had two other 'victims' (i can tell that one of them definitely enjoyed it), since the rest of us 'fled' to 'safety' - that is, behind the couch. the two moms had the greatest time of all, i think =)) i made the mistake of saying out loud to the bride that i'm glad i wasn't in her place... i think i'm going to spend my birthdays alone from now on, cause i definitely didn't like the hints she and her mum dropped...

we were supposed to change location at 23:00, i skipped what followed 'cause, yep, that's right: night shift. i went straight to work - actually one of the mums dropped me off there. by 2:00 a.m. i could've used matchsticks to hold up my eye-lids. by 3:00 a.m. everyone on messenger had gone to sleep and i was developing a slight headache from lack of sleep... around 4:40 a.m. i finally managed to nap with my head on my desk, must've slept around an hour or so and then i kept nicking in till around 6:30.

then i got a sms from my shift relief, so i called him. he had had a long night himself, said he'd be late about half an hour and that i should just forward all calls to him and go home. i didn't even attempt to protest. it took me quite some minutes to steady myself on my feet, i opened the window wide to catch some fresh air and washed my face. i walked home when i was confident enough that my feet would carry me. i had forgotten the darn mp3player at home, so i had no music in my ears to keep me awake.

i slept like a log from 7 a.m. till around 13:00-14:00. just enough to recharge my batteries, but a far cry from what i'd really need. am at work now since 15:00 (the third shift in a row with only 8 hours in between). in order not to fall asleep i'm listening to coming undone in a constant loop, the korn song i mentioned before. serves this purpose well, as well as to anger release. if i had audioscrobbler at work, it would easily climb in the top5 of most listened songs :)

ps: am posting this later from home, since it's a mess with image attachment from work.

pressure to perform

i keep avoiding any situation where i could actually find myself with no control over what is happening to me, at least in public. it goes well hand in hand with the subject of an upcoming blog.

this is the precise blog i was referring to (told you i had some blogs planned in advance - that was a real 'productive' night in terms of gloomy musings...). i've had this pressure applied ever since... well, ever since i could remember, really. giving responsible persons the benefit of a doubt, i'd say they tried to instill in me the confidence that i'd do great in any situations, because - modesty aside - heck, yeah! i was a smart kid.

however, they only managed the quite opposite. there came a point where failure simply was no option. and by failure i don't mean messing up things. by failure i mean performing lower than the 'exceptional' bar of the standard meter :( good just wasn't good enough.

when i started going to school, my brother was having a rocky road towards to finish of the highschool, i'd hear arguments about his marks at school, how he's going to mess up his life, how all the tutoring was wasted time and money etc.

quick note on the romanian grading system: marks range from 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest). you get 1 for cheating. 2 and 3 basically have the same function of zero idea of what you were supposed to learn. so is 4 actually, which renders the whole system even more subjective than it is. 5 is a pass, but it actually means very poor. 7 would be the middle mark, 9 is good and 10 would be flawless; they've changed it for the lower grades now, but when i went to school, this grading system was valid for all levels of education.

thinking back now, i don't really recall ever hearing that i'd get punished for low marks... however i somehow went to the first grade with the thought in my head that if i ever got a 4 i'd get my butt spanked, even though i've only been beaten twice in my entire life. so, in order to avoid that, i studied hard. i was the real life equivalent of hermione granger. i finished grades I, III and IV with straight 10s in all subjects and actually was the best in my class through 12 long years of school life, with the sole exception of thesecond grade when i was... well, second. and i was ashamed of that, because i somehow felt that my parents weren't proud of me.

i only got a 4 once in my life, in the first grade, because i was talking to my colleague in class and not paying attention, however the mark was not toed in the catalogue. still, i was so scared that by the time i got home, i was literally sick with fear. physically. i went straight to the bathroom and then straight to bed and heard nothing about the 4.

i cannot possibly explain or recollect how the whole pressure system built up in my head and what and how added to it. i'd need siggi for that. i was neither cute, nor hot, no popular so i guess eventually this is how i made up for that. on the other hand, hadn't i been so focused on performance, maybe i'd had time or interest for being something else. all i know is that i lived under the constant impression that people around me always expected top results from me.

i was at the blackboard in maths class in the second grade. i made a mistake and had to go back to correct it. when i went back to my desk, my colleague announced with spite that he'd used my corrector for his notebook, since he copied my mistake from the blackboard and "you made a mistake"... you wouldn't believe the reproach in his voice. i already mentioned i felt like i failed my parents in second grade for being... second. my godparents were praising me publicly and i couldn't afford not to confirm that. colleagues copied homework from me and i couldn't give out the wrong answers. teachers would ask me the question if no one knew the answer and i just had to know. i came home one day in the 7th or 8th grade with results from three tests - a 10 in english and a 9 and a 10 in romanian. i announced the 9 first and my mum made a sour face. i told her about the other two marks and she said that doesn't make her feel better. i still recall the scene, she was in the bathroom, washing a blouse. she'd probably only had a bad day... but she made my world crash.

it was all coming down on me like the matchstick house. i cried that day and i was outraged at the unfairness of it all. just like i was outraged that my colleagues were allowed to go out or go to parties or on school trips and i wasn't. and i just couldn't understand it, because most weren't delivering anything. they were most likely more trouble for their parents and yet they were allowed stuff. i was doing my best to do well and i was denied all that they had and i envied.

and the thing continued... it was absolutely no issue that i would make it to uni, that i'd make it on the non-payed list, that i'd get top results... i did. i did it all. i was over the trauma of the marks, no one would say a word to me about the grades i got. but the happy or disappointed faces were cutting the much deeper. and anyway, it was already instilled too deep in my system. the thing still goes on at my work place. for crying out loud, i got the best evaluation in the entire firm and the only 100% result. at least they raised my salary for that ;)

i have no doubt that all those people only ranged from well-indented to unaware of what they were doing. they were probably honestly either being proud of me or trying to support me in keeping me on track and acting to my full potential and for that i think i should be grateful. however, in doing as they did, they also managed to virus my system with this bug that kinda takes the joy out of it. winning is fun, but there comes a time when the amount of payment in matters of time, effort, stress and distress just stops making it worthwhile.

i still feel it out there, feel the air compressing around me whenever i have an assignment, whether it's set to me in a formal context or a mission i set to myself. failure is no option for me - it leads to depression and shakes my meager self-esteem to crumbs. add the fear of public ridicule to my already expressed distaste for not being in control of a situation, to an almost chronic dislike of competition (isn't it ironic? i hate the sheer idea of it)... and to the fact that if i do enter it, i got to end it top notch. the result is that... i only enter when i'm certain i can... well, perform.

take this and transfer it to what i've said in previous blogs that i've started doing because i felt i could do it better than others... yup, it's creeping all over my life - even in what i am supposed to do as a means of relaxation. thing is... i can't deconstruct this thing logically. and nothing and no one can ease the pressure. "you have no chance" only spurs me to prove that wrong and "you'll do fine" only manages to add more pressure. i feel compelled to deliver. according to most, i do. however, in time i set my own standards higher than anyone else's to make sure i live up to their expectations. as i put it once... i don't bid for three points when my cards are only for two. and that... that keeps me from 'looking beyond' and finding my hakuna matata... from stepping out of the comfort zone :(

losing control

... or rather, giving it up. to quote an old friend of mine: "i resent that". it is possibly the worst situation i can find myself in. i am a complete and utter control freak, i know that, and i also know what that means in relation with other human beings.

i said i wanted to smoke a joint. whoa, there, calm down. i am not going to do anything illegal - i'll do it when i'll go back to amsterdam (i love that city. and no, i haven't tried it before). however, i am not going to do it in public. it's a curiosity of mine that i feel i can satisfy, but i want to do it alone, in my room. why? because i so completely resent losing control. i will not let my state of mind be altered beyond my control in front of others.

same goes for drinking. i've never ever been drunk, in my entire life. seeing how much i dislike alcohol, it is also not likely i'll be drunk anytime soon. should it ever happen, however, it will most likely be in the privacy of my room.

the above are merely examples. it's probably ok that i don't want to lose control like that. but the same goes for any situation and most definitions of (self)control. i hate team assignments because i do not want to leave the results up to others. unfortunately, it has been proven to me over again that not controlling the way you are going in an assignment turns out to be a modest disaster (at least for me).

same goes for falling in love. well, not for actually falling, i'll admit i can't control that one. however, just like with drunkenness - never ever acted on it. exposing myself to the approval or disapproval of another, depending on an answer instead of setting my way myself? no, sirree, not my cup of tea.

slowly but surely, i've developed this into some sort of paranoia, anyways. i keep avoiding any situation where i could actually find myself with no control over what is happening to me, at least in public. it goes well hand in hand with the subject of an upcoming blog. i am pretty much aware of the impact it has both on me and on others occasionally and sometimes the loss is greater than the gain... even though i can't possibly know that. quote from j. (interesting post about this issue, i recommend the entire story):

...to remember that there are times when, despite the discomfort,... being willing to open oneself up to new experiences... which sometimes require relinquishing a certain level of predictability and control... and which can definitely make you feel a lot more vulnerable (and human) than you'd like others to see/know...

...those moments can be as just as exciting as they are frightening...

...and sometimes hold even more rewards than you'd ever imagined...

...but you'll never know, of course,... unless you follow through with the decision...

...to take that first step... on stage.

however... i can't stop myself from thinking that... crossing that safety zone line is emotional suicide :(

so, if someone came knocking at my door asking me to give up cold reason for trust... they'd need 1. one written guarantee that "everything's gonna be alright" and 2. one up to date insurance for any broken, scared or otherwise injured heart should the guarantee be broken. fixing up such damage costs immensly nowadays... i just don't have enough mana to perform such wizardry.

losers weepers (3) when the world was still in order...

...i was a lot younger. or the other way around: when i was younger, the world was still in order :)

this it the blog promised in the mtv one. both come from some late night reminiscing from the night before, when i couldn't sleep. and, oh yeah, a couple more on the way...

i was just thinking about my childhood... and i reached the conclusion that grown ups told me i would reach, but of course i was smarter and didn't believe them. and that was that childhood is the most beautiful time of your life and you are to enjoy it to the fullest while it lasts, instead of yearning for and hurrying towards the real life, for the true beauty of life lies in childhood years :(

i remembered my second kindergarden year... loving playing with wooden cubes... and drawing... i used to be good at that. i remember that around four years, i was drawing in perspective. i had drawn a house, two persons and a tree. the teacher asked me how come the persons were bigger than the house, that can't be. and i answered "because the house is farther back".

my sixth birthday was "celebrated" in the mountains, i was there with my parents, skiing. i got a chocolate and a skiing diploma and i made a huge snowman on my birthday... it stuck with me. so did the fact that i was there with a colleague named victor and a certain incident with the cat of the cabin's owner :)

i remembered laying under christmas trees and looking up at them, to green depths adorned with globes and shiny lights... i remembered resenting filled eggs (i love them now) - a christmas meal treat - and having my dad take out the filling and eating only the egg-white, and singing carols with my godparents (how ironic that my godfather died on christmas eve), and the feeling of suppressed excitement, the knowledge that something important was happening and i was living through it, just before christmas 1989.

i remembered playing around with a young collie pup named rocky who grew into an old, sick and tormented dog whom we had to put to sleep. i remembered how mum helped me out and supervised me doing my homework in the first grade and how dad taught me to do crossword puzzles and to play backgammon.

i miss that, and i promised myself a couple of months ago that i would do that with him one of these days. just that i never seem to find the time and he always seems to be tired. and i fear. now that he is in pension i've just come to realise how old he actually is and i got a totally illogical and uncontrollable fear that i should get playing with him really fast, because otherwise i might not get the chance to do it and regret it for the rest of my life.

and then, like all thoughts of the sort, i try pushing it to the back of my mind and forget all about it. shove it in my closet. but like so many other thoughts of the worst sort, it keeps slashing out tentacles from underneath that locked door. and like all things i mentioned here, it makes my heart cringe. i feel it physically, a pain in my chest and a real cringe of the heart, like it's being squeezed. and i know all too well what that is: it's the feeling of complete, utter, irreversible loss that only time can inflict upon a life.

i lost all those things, they're buried with the innocence of a child, which withers and dies with the birth of reason. wooden cubes look silly, the acknowledging of my meager skills spoils the fun of drawing, i was too scared to fly downhill when i went skiing in the tenth grade, christmas is only a depressing time of memories and cheap commercialism and backgammon with dad probably just wouldn't feel the same, anyhow...

i feel time trickling to me and then accelerating, taking away from me everything i ever cherished and enjoyed, whether i was aware of it or not, and in its flow it is... well, disintegrating me, melting me like some freakish Dali figure. anyone seen the Korn video to coming undone? it's something like that. just that i am not coming off in shreds.

it's like... a stream of golden yellow light hitting me in my face and coming out on the other side of me. at first everything is clear, but then you see particles traveling in the light. first slowly, but they are slightly accelerating. and then you notice there are more particles when the light gets out of me - it is taking away particles of me, dwindling my essence. it is not noticeable in the beginning but as it goes ever faster, i become translucent and while the stream of light accelerates and gains in power, it starts tearing away pieces of me, leaving holes in my already weakened frame. and i am pretty much helpless about it. and assholes around the globe with a diploma in psychology call it growth. i call it dying while still being alive.

right now this being-grown-up-thing feels like being caught up in some weird half-breed of matrix and groundhog day, caught in the rat race and i can smell no cheese at all in this labyrinth. only filthy sewer smells invading my senses and blurring memories of a mythical out-of-time past when the world was still in order.

now that i've shared a piece of nightmare with you, sweet dreams. and if i don't blog tomorrow, it's probably because the nice friendly people in white came to take me and put me in one of them nice jackets with long sleeves, that are hip to be tied at your back :)

ps: request still valid: can i share it with adrien?

ps2: indulge me, i don't want to spend the rest of the night crying.

quick note

nope, this is not the blog that was supposed to come. that one is due some time during the day - i am going to stick to my habit.

however i am too tired to do it now, seeing that i've been working on something else: my fourth blogger blog. tonight, another "baby" was born, and that is my photoblog. it took quite some time to customize it in the blogger beta, i got a headache from it, but now i am proud to announce it is ready to be posted in. i've added it to my list of links (the dragon's mouth is the ongoing poetry blog, while the dragon's eye is the photoblog).

you can take a looksie at it at www.bluedragoneye.blogspot.com. so much for my quick note. see you later for the blog of the day.

losers weepers (2) mtv trip in time

sorting out stuff in your room is really an occasion for a trip back in time... provided you are as good at piling up stuff as i am :) so, apart from finding things that should've never been written, yesterday i also went through stacks of audio cassettes.

in case you are too young: audio cassettes (or tapes) are those plastic things with a magnetic band inside, that you inserted into cassette (or tape) players and you listened to music... and every once in a while, you'd hear your favourite song completely distorted and it was no studio special effect, but the tape inside getting all messed up and you'd spend an hour gently pulling it from the player, trying not to wrinkle or god forbid, tear it.

yes, i am part of the generation who not only knows what they are... we worshipped them. it was back in a time when there weren't mp3s on every site (what is a site anyway?!?!), when cd-s weren't used as car decorations... when all you had was your radio and your... well, yes, mtv. and a walk-man for tapes if you were really hip. and you taped stuff. and you felt like it was easter when buying a cassette.

woo-hoo, those were the days. well yesterday, among other things, i found my... (ok, buckle up and hang on to your seats, folks) well... errrm... take that and east 17 tapes :D


yup, i owned those. i caught the Take That bug on the last few meters of their career, admittedly. and i was the weirdo who tought neither robbie nor mark the cutest, but jason (is anyone out there following me here?!?!?). jason orange. hell, i wonder what he's doing these days... as for east 17... they had a couple of nice songs and well... yeah, i thought tony was a cutie (still following?).

i remember watching the video for e 17's hold my body tight on dial mtv each day... i knew all the dance moves... i noted and kept the charts... and i died with happiness when my first ever love bon jovi conquered the dial mtv charts with this ain't a love song... yeah, those were the days, when my only worries were whether it would be ingo or enrico presenting the show. and those guys were hot, and i mean hawt (ok, maybe it was just me being a hyperventilating teen).


which, finally, gets me to the main subject of this post :) it is good old mtv, in the days when it was still good. in the days when it was only mtv europe and people all over the continent had a say in the shows... when it brought people together and showed issues they all cared about. when it had a teletext to which i owe some friends (cheers!)... when it was showing an attitude, when it was an edgy thing ahead of its time... and not merely a commercial television showing all the latest crap.

oh, sure, they had crap back then. but they also had some great stuff. they had the unplugged shows (first thing i ever saw on mtv was the aerosmith unplugged), and yes, they had the hottest guys around - ingo schmoll and enrico silvestrin. there was also the great ray cokes and his davina on mtv's most wanted - hey i've still caught robbie williams' naked butt live on air, ya know... and... well, they had greatest hits and mtv wasn't ashamed or feeling out-dated to show bruce springsteen or dire straits or aretha franklin along with take that and nirvana - who were polarising the listeners at that time (i liked both :P)... and mind you, we are talking mid-nineties here.


now? i am sick of turning it on... stupid mtv regionalization was a disaster from my point of view. no hot news from the heart of musical europe - the uk. no europe-wide video text service. crap vj-s who lack both professionalism and charisma. shitty music and idiotic listeners. this isn't the mtv who rocked the vote, who hosted the show that gives out the free your mind awards, who promoted young artists with their mini-mtv-clips... this isn't the mtv of which i was proud to be a viewer.

that mtv... that is locked together with a bunch of other memories, that remind me of a time when... when the world was still in order. but that's another post. this one was just meant to revive some sweet memories: glueing my eyes to the tv every saturday for the european top 20 (i had three notebooks filled with weekly charts...), pinning up posters with ingo and enrico, laughing my ass out with ray, watching singled out on summer nights (instead of a slutty pimp-show dismissed), learning dance moves from east 17 on dial mtv, feeling close to kids my age during hanging out, crying when watching the groundbreaking video to everybody hurts and... well, yes, taking the first steps into the world of rock :)

post-secret

remember this?

i still resent taking my insides out in public. there are certainly things that will never make it into a blog. if i am to write them, i'll write them on a paper and burn it afterwards. or send them to postsecret.

well... i thought i remembered writing one of the things down sometime this past year. my innermost insides, so to say, but i wasn't sure whether i had really done it, or just thought about it. it's 2:20 a.m. and i am still rummaging through the mess in my room (making progress, too). and... well, i found it. i had really written in onto a little piece of paper.

god knows where it has been all this time.
it is still accurate and valid. and holding the paper in my hands, i remember that i considered sending it to postsecret. i was holding it, reading it, acknowledging its truth and... i decided that it was to only see the light of day once, and it had already overstreched its time.

so tonight, i did the other thing: i burned it.

the blog about the blog

in about three week's time, it's a special day for me. maybe it is a special day for you too, a bit, just that you don't know about it yet. i will let you know when it is time, though :) however, the day got me thinking.

i've been treating myself to more of my latest fave reading. it's a fun blog to read. it's pretty short entries (as opposed to mine...), they're funny and... they deal with the little things. nothing life-changing just as yet, but still... those little non-life-changing things are what actually make up a life.i enjoy reading about those. those that make me a sort of modern day voyeur, or does it make bloggers modern day exhibitionists?

i used to write blogs for the eyes of others. i'd lie to myself if i said i'm not still doing it. however, as i mentioned before i have come to little or at all censor what goes in. in a way, i am writing more for myself. it helps to read the things i think, as they become clearer like this. i still resent taking my insides out in public. there are certainly things that will never make it into a blog. if i am to write them, i'll write them on a paper and burn it afterwards. or send them to postsecret. which, by the way, is a great blog i heartily recommend.

so this is blog is going to keep it's style, at least for the time being... little pieces of me, i'll try not to slip into the indecency of over-selfexposure ;) and yet keep it personal at the same time. and if that means the usual semi-coherent rambling... well, you'll either have to bear with me, or move on. :)

ps: yeah. me. :)

random blog on love-hate relationships and to do lists

random blog because... well, i don't have an issue to blog about... but i have many small thoughts that run through my head that i feel i have to get rid of. or rather, to formulate them somehow so i can see them clearly and follow their thread to an end.

i've been mentioning the thoughts i am having lately, both about writing and photography... and how i wouldn't have embarked on any to such lengths, had it not been for outside impulses. however... i do not consider that i have taken on something from the outside world and added to my personality, it's not that. these things have been with me for long. just not to this degree or with this intensity or with this passion about them.

this doesn't however change the fact that i am still vexed that such intimate and personal things as those have been triggered by something from outside me. because both are a form of expression - transfigured, changed and shaped yes, not conveying the exact message in my head maybe, but even so containing a piece of my soul and more honest even than these mutterings here, which i've come to censor little or at all lately.

and with these things, like with virtually everything about me, i have a love-hate relationship. because even the most despised and loathed things about me have something about me that i like. and everything i ever liked about me has a dark side that i both hate and fear at times.

and somewhat connected to the things i like or dislike to do... it the part with the lists. i have my attention spread in many directions. that comes to me personally, as no surprise... i have an oligarchic thinking style when it comes to setting goals, i work best when there are several to pursue, from which i can then choose to work on. the trouble however is, that not all of the things on my 'to do' list are set there by me, nor are they all fun to do :(

yeah, life's a bitch. so what i came up with, is two separate lists: the "have to to" list, which is not short by all means, and the "want to do list", which isn't particularly short either. some few items are present in both. if however i merge those lists and sort by priority... the outlook is grim. seeing that some of the 'have to' things are the on-going type and that the 'have to's have deadlines... you can imagine that the 'want to's rank pretty low :(

ps: yep. marcin stawiarz

so small...

well... that previous blog was a treat. it's not everyday that you get to see a happy blog from me, so i hope you enjoyed it... for a short time.

i've been delving a bit deeper into jason's blog. and once again, as if i needed it, i realised what a kid i am. i know nothing of the real world out there. i have been spared virtually any (major) form of trouble, my entire tender life of 24. i have not been seriously ill, i have not had family trouble, the only close death i witnessed was that of my grandmother (who admittedly was paralyzed for half a year and in need of care for much longer) but she was 82... i have not had any material problems, i got all i need and much more, i worked for the rest, i had no trouble finding a job, neither during uni, nor after. it is a laid back one too, a pretty good salary for almost no work.

i consider myself a pretty stable person, emotionally speaking and apart from some disappointments have also been spared any major heartbreaks. people keep telling me how good i am at various things - half of that i don't take seriously and the other half i believe to be misjudged; i know i give off a good performance, but i also know that nobody knows the real me.

all in all... i have never ever been truly exposed and left to cope on my own with the big bad wolf called life. assurances are worth nothing up to the final test. and that one, i keep postponing, to the degree to which it is in my power to postpone.

i have considered moving away. out of the country. because, frankly, i am sick and tired of it. but that would mean that the little birdy would have to fly. alone. the one thing that truly keeps me here, is most probably my mum. seeing how she copes with my brother being halfway across the world, i think i would sincerely have her on my conscience should i ever leave. please, spare me the story of us having to choose our own way. it doesn't always work like that. i cannot consciently choose a way that would most probably bring my mum to her ruin or her grave.

i feel small... so very small... lost, exposed and threatened by a world a i know nothing of. and i feel even smaller for complaining the entire time, like i was at the end of my life, with the entire path laid out before me and unchangeable... and not merely in my twenties.

ps: image by marcin stawiarz. again.

proof to the contrary

"looks and sounds like heartbreak season. actually, been looking and sounding like that for some time now. people breaking up or falling apart... people whom you'd never expect to do that. people being broken hearted who'd never deserve it, people breaking hearts from who you'd never expect it"

sounds familiar? 'course it does. or it should, mind you. it's just a couple of blogs below, the starting paragraph. last night was night shift, that's when i usually talk most to people in my messenger list who are night owls just like me, hehe. well, one of these talks quite fit the paragraph above. unfortunately. the guy, let's just call him c., is just about to break up with a long term girlfriend. i told him such news always get me depressed and made a :( face; he said i shouldn't as it always happens in the end. well... my remark was that i am still looking for a proof of the contrary. we ended talking about the issue by agreeing that i have a talent for in-vain-things.

well, well, well... i've got news for you, folks :D. i've found a proof for the contrary and i was laughing my ass off, alone in the office, at 5 am. i am really happy for these people, if they weren't on the other side of the planet, i think i'd like to give them both a hug for that hearty laughter. first of all, because i found the aforementioned proof. and second, because i simply adore irony. even if it slaps me in the face :) ladies and gentlemen, please proceed to examine evidence no.1. it is a quote from a blog i came upon accidentally while seeking an image of a breakfast table, believe it or not.

My boyfriend and I have been together for over 6.5 years. No, we don't have an "open relationship," and no, we don't do 3-ways. (Nor do we have any intention of partaking in those activities in the future.)---Yes, we've both made our share of "mistakes" over the years. (Most couples who say they haven't are usually lying.)

*A brief word on "mistakes" in relationships: If a relationship is based on honesty, a couple really can work through any possible problem or "mistake" that either one makes or encounters.---There comes a point in a relationship when you stop thinking "Will we make it through this?" and focus on "How can we make it through this?"---Yes, it's possible to attain a point where "breaking up" just isn't a viable option.---And yes, there are situations when it can be incredibly painful, but (here's the good news)... hurt feelings can be healed, lost trust can be restored, and "things can be like they used to be" (most times, even better!)---If doubts arise as to "whether" a couple might "make it through" a conflict, then... well... they're just not at that point yet.---However, when you get there,... it is glorious!

this is by far the most reasonable and at the same time sweet thing i read on the issue of relationships lately, and trust me, i read a lot. note the 6.5 years? blog post is dated july 14, 2005. today's post from the same blog reads:

"Yesterday afternoon, as I drove home from work, I started thinking about my boyfriend... and how much I loved him and... I started... sobbing,... just... sobbing. I pulled over to the side of the road and called his phone at work. "Forget about the blog tonight, honey," my boyfriend said. "Skip the errands, go home, and relax.".

and yes, by all means, it is the very same boyfriend. oh, yeah. have i mentioned the irony before? the author of the blog isn't a chick. it's a guy called jason :) and yes, you read correctly on first attempt (congrats on that): he has a boyfriend.

right at'char faces, assholes. no, not you people. those stupid brainless giants in windmills i've been fighting for some time. monster considered squashed with proof the contrary.

woo-hoo. draco vincit.

so fell autumn rain...

my spontaneous written answer to the written question "why do you love autumn?" sounded something like this:

"because beautiful songs were written about it.
and because in autumn... i sometimes find myself, even tough i always feel that i'm scattered with the leaves and melted away in the rain."

and only after reading it again, and seeing it in written, did i figure that it was the truth. had you asked me the question before, i would have probably said that i hate autumn, because of the inevitable depression in which everything starts sinking all of a sudden, with the heavy rainfalls.

i am speaking of late autumn here, when the fire of the foliage is long since extinguished by the constant drizzle and pour out of leaden skies, leaving behind only the charred twisting branches, that spike at the clouds, trying in vain to tear them to shreds, to let some golden sunlight shine down.

not the foliage is what defines trees, but the roots and trunks and branches. leaves are but a passing adornment, an outburst of faked joy of green and yellow and orange and red. they come and go, the rest remains. and in late autumn, the trees show themselves as they are.

that's why, i am like the trees. it is not the depression that comes over me with the coming of the autumn... it is the faked joy that i shake off, tired or wearing it, like dried out leaves. that's why, when those passing conventional smiles are scattered with the leaves and the tears melt away in the rain... i find my self.

so fell autumn rain,
but all things must pass
so fell autumn rain,
washed away all my pain
i feel brighter somehow,
lighter somehow
to breathe once again
so fell autumn rain,
washed my sorrows away
with the sunset behind
somehow i find
the dreams are to stay

lake of tears -
so fell autumn rain

ps: the image is called 'dead bodies everywhere'. the author is marcin stawiarz. i warmly recommend his site www.stawiarz.com as it is a treat for both eye and soul.

RIP, Crikey :(

there are few people out there who have a Dream with a capital D. there are fewer people out there who get to share a Dream with someone. there are even fewer people out there who dare to fight for their Dream. and only the fewest of them actually get to live it, to be come the living, breathing, talking, walking incarnation of that Dream.

take away the commercial side of the croc hunter, and you will have a person who took their dream out into the world. maybe he didn't raise many followers, but he raised attention on something else than your everyday issues. "I believe that education is all about being excited about something. Seeing passion and enthusiasm helps push an educational message." i hope it did. "ain't she a beauty?". no, she ain't. or at least she wasn't, until someone pointed it out.

a stingray may kill a man, but it may not kill a dream. and seeing the odd chance there is for such an accident, i just can't help thinking that this was one of those things that were meant to be. and that stingray did nothing else but fulfilling a mission. it gave a hero to a cause. "I have no fear of losing my life - if I have to save a koala or a crocodile or a kangaroo or a snake, mate, I will save it."

let's just hope the world gets the message and that it won't forget the idea over mourning the person. and yet... farewell to a piscean who swam against the stream and to the degree to which dragons still exist... farewell to a dragon whisperer. rest in peace, mate.