50 % ? embarrassing...

You Are 50% Normal

While some of your behavior is quite normal... Other things you do are downright strange You've got a little of your freak going on But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself

How Normal Are You?

hello, hello, turn your radio on

i'm in one-song periods. i've been to this music festival (no, i don't mean the b'estival, which i know i still haven't blogged about) and one of the bands playing was a romanian band called vita de vie (the grape vine). and they played one of my fave songs, called varza, which means cabbage, which is however a slang term :P so for two days i listened to that song on powerplay. since it's about legalising pot, it has a pretty reggae feeling to it. that's how the streak started, a week ago. it ended today, again in reggae-ish mood, when two songs mainly shared the list. one was amy winehouse's rehab, the other was a pure reggae song a friend gave me, prophet benjamin's ah field, ah weed. (does anyone else notice a common "vice" theme to these?).

anyhow, the absolute poweplays of the last days were the ones in the middle of the streak. and they weren't the cheery ones, obviously (this reggae night thing was more like treatment, than acting how i feel). i mean goo goo dolls' before it's too late and stone sour's bother. i could listen to those songs... well, not forever, but for a long period of time, as i think last.fm will confirm. i missed the goo goo dolls. the song is in the same vein as all of their materials, they're not the most original of bands out there, but they always touch me, mainly through the lyrics. the stone sour one... well, if you search the blog, you'll find it posted somewhere, lyrics and vid. it's an old love, if you can love pain. and it's still the undisputed king in my most played chart.

You don't need to bother; I don't need to be; I'll keep slipping farther. But once I hold on, I won't let go 'til it bleeds

not the most optimistic of songs you've heard, huh? well... it quite caught the moment. and while i was listening to it, a nagging thought came back that i've been trying to push away. i haven't mentioned it here before, but i fear for my dog. it may be nothing, just a lack of calcium or something (she'll have a thorough check up soon, at yet another vet), or it may be something really bad.

and all my un-kept resolutions came back to me. i have no person to care for (save myself, and anyone who knows me can tell you that i don't) and i can't even care properly for a dog :( i care for her, emotionally speaking, but she gives back so little and i've stopped really caring as in "acting on it" for those who give back next to nothing. however, she is a dog. it's not fair to treat her like this as she can't be aware of hurt feelings. i shouldn't project my attitude towards people on a dog and the fact that i can't relate properly to humans shouldn't affect my relationship with a dog. i mean... c'mon, even autists manage okay in that field... before you ask: no, i am not fine. not at all.

Wish I was too dead to cry My self-affliction fades Stones to throw at my creator Masochists to which I cater..

you know the rest. you don't need to bother. because, after all, i don't need to be.

:(

A black cat moans
When he's burning with the fever
A stray dog howls
When he's lonely in the night
A woman goes crazy
With the though of retribution
But, a man starts weeping
When he's sick and tired of life

I keep on dreaming dreams of tomorrow
Feel I'm wasting my time
Lighting candles in the wind
Always taking my chances
On the promise of the future
But, a heart full of sorrow
Paints a lonely tapestry

The sun is shining
But, it's raining in my heart

No one understands the heartache
No one feels the pain
Cos no one ever sees the tears
When you're crying in the rain
When you're crying in the rain
Crying in the rain

~ whitesnake ~


I'll never let you see
The way my broken heart is hurting me
I've got my pride and I know how to hide
All my sorrow and pain
I'll do my crying in the rain

~ a-ha ~

nothing left to add...

PDE*

i've written blogs before in which i have expressed my abhorrence toward certain public displays. showing love, fear, embarrassment, pain, gratitude, anger, panic... whatever - in public is perfectly ok and perfectly normal. people who claim that displaying these in front of others is wrong are either completely morons, thinking you can just switch them off, or else emotional cripples who understand neither the strength of spontaneous emotions, nor the tension that constantly hiding your feelings creates. just a personal opinion, that is.

however, putting on a whole show for the public is an entirely different matter. parading your feelings in front of others, showing them to make a point, to spite, to shock, to impress... that is completely not what feelings are about. because feelings are a personal thing. it concerns you and whoever else is involved - which is most certainly not the entire population of your town or the crowd in the street or in a room or whatever.
and this thing goes for 'positive' as well as for 'negative' emotions. i'm fine with PDA. i'm not fine with ostentation in a bus. i'm fine with being scolded (well, as far as fine with that can go), i'm not fine with being yelled at in a room full of people. i'm fine with people not holding back their tears (again, as fine as it gets). i'm not fine with people crying, yelling and tearing their hair out in the streets.

i resent gestures and attitudes whose sole purpose seems to be "hey people, look at me, i'm so in love/angry/hurt right now". because, hey, guess what: we ultimately don't fucking care. or i don't fucking care. maybe i would if you didn't try so hard to make me. but when you put on a show, i've labeled you either fake, or gross or else a nutcase or whatever.

now, what sparked this blog was a glimpse i caught on tv. there's this stupid tradition in this country of the "mourners" at funerals. losing someone dear is a terrible thing, i agree. but the way i see it, you mourn and cry for them in private. because it is something you have within yourself and maybe with the soul of the deceased, if you believe in such. it is normal that traces of pain will show. but to cry and yell and tear your hair from your head and your cloths from your body just to show others how much you suffer and impress them with your pain... it grosses me out. it grosses me even more out that women are hired to do just that at funerals. it's tradition, they say. well, it was perfect for the year 1200, to appease the spirit of the deceased and prevent them from returning from the grave to punish the living and the likes. it is not okay in 2007 in europe. with the risk of repeating myself: G.R.O.S.S.

same thing goes with the public display of religious beliefs. and when i see people making huge crosses when they pass a church and staring at you horrified for washing on sundays and saying a prayer when you say you don't go to church, not even on easter and christmas... i would like to remind you that it was jesus who said that when you want to talk to god, do so in the privacy of your chamber, not parading your belief in front of others.

*PDE = public display of emotion

turtle power!!!

You are Leonardo. You are a natural leader with a strong sense of honor.

storm

i can see why the ancients believed that it stormed when gods were angry. i think it storms when they cry in pain... it started half an hour ago... coming from the direction my office window faces. first, the roll of thunder in the distance, and flashes of light without a distinctive source. the rumbling came closer, threatening. the flashes lingered seconds, showing the layers of clouds above... a huge storm front in the north, with clear skies in the east, the margin of the cloud shroud clearly visible. then the lightnings. vertical ones, horizontal ones, single-line ones and zig-zagged ones. it's a godly spectacle. a god roaring in pain and anger, releasing all frustration in mighty roars of thunder and lightning. a magnificent spectacle of several minutes... and then, having vented all, he started crying huge raindrops for tears, hitting viciously on windowpanes. i had to close the window, lest the office carpet should get drenched. silly me has left home without the camera again. not that i truly think i could capture a lightning, but still... the thrill of the chase for a sign of a emotion from a god... i love storms. yeah, i know, you'll think "you wouldn't say that if it caught you in the open". no, i probably wouldn't love a storm then. but i'd still find it magnificent.

i was born too late...

... in a world that doesn't care... i wish i was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair.

that is one option. c'mon, would've been great to've been a teen at woodstock. but taken that's impossible, how about being born three or five years earlier. i was just looking at sweet child of mine. heck, i swear i would've fallen for axl had the band still been around when i discovered music :)))) i often catch myself wishing i'd... remember things. things that happened during my lifetime but in a time i wasn't aware of them, or interested in them or whatever. i wish i'd... been there.

i've mentioned before how out of place i feel, though i think it's rather out of time. and... well, yes, i think i could've gotten along just fine without the internet and e-mails and mobile phones and digital cameras and 24hr shows on 42 channels on color cable tv and microwave food (well, i don't actually use that, but it just came along the line).

i... fuck, i have no idea what i actually want to say in this post. it's a bit of school nostalgia and... nostalgia in general, but for something i haven't been there to see. like the urge to travel one gets, but not travel in space, but in time. i was born too late... :( hey, i'm as old as E.T. ... he got to his home, i didn't. i'm entitled to be depressed.

i hope i'm not right...

... this thing has happened twice to me in the past. it might've be a coincidence that a superstition confirmed as fact when it was just that - a coincidence.

first time was in early may 1994. it was but a brief thought that came to my mind then quickly darted away - a thought i laughed off as silly in spite of the uneasiness it caused. the thought was "how would i react if he died today?" followed by a flash of myself, wide-eyed in disbelief in front of the tv. he did die that day, though i was not there to see it. i hadn't had the patience for the race, so i went out to play volleyball instead.

second time, it wasn't a person, but a dog following me to school one morning, in the eight grade. again, the thought came and went; again in the form of a 'what if' and 'what would i do'. oddly selfish way to shape thoughts about others' death, though rather common, i'd presume. i tried to shoo him away, but he wouldn't go. he got hit by a car at the next street crossing. bastard didn't even slow down.

last night, it was an image flash, so short i didn't even realize what it was. it left behind a smell. i was half asleep and it took me several seconds to identify the memory it belonged to. smells are among the most powerful memory-callers i know. then i woke up and also identified that diffuse anxiety that went with it and the two times i'd felt it before. i hope it was just a dream and i remembered it for waking up so abruptly. i almost never remember dreams but for some rare exceptions, which are either very queer or nightmares. so... i hope it was just shreds of what i was dreaming when something woke me suddenly.

ps: nightmare by Paul Bielaczyc on elfwood

random stuff

i am back, though some might not even know i was gone. amsterdam and bonn in case you wonder and/or care and if not, what the hell are you still doing reading my blog? it is strange how one (or i...) can feel so at home in places i've been but once before. as it is equally strange how a mere change of setting can change my mind frame for the time i'm there. all the nastier the realisation that this here is my life, not that one there. perhaps i will tell you a bit about the trip on another occasion.

on another front... one more down. they're less and less by the day. less strings. a pity or a relief, i am not sure.

work stuff... i got a raise. not much, but it's something. doesn't make up for giving up moderating, but makes the difference between then and now less obvious. i am still relieved of having given that up - the strain on me is much less.

the project... well, just goes to prove that if you want something done, you have to do it yourself. though i've left all materials when i left and asked my 'colleagues' to conduct it, nothing has been done. needless to say we're one and a half month overdue. i don't know who'll sign the report on this one. i for one, won't. i've re-read my mails in october, calling out to people. i stated there and then that i don't have the time to manage all aspects of it. i can't wait for it to be over, so i can formally retreat from any such NGO actions. they've been a thing i took pride in for a long time and they gave me a sense of accomplishment, but i've come to see, quite cynically, that it's not worth my time, effort and least of all involvement. like anything is!

school's coming along ok, though i'm a bit behind with my final paper. seeing that i picked a subject i can plunge myself into out of pleasure, i am not too worried about it though. once i start out on it, it should come along ok. keeping the things in an area that interests me is a lesson i learnt early on. for my last exam, i did a PR campaign plan for a tribe i lead in an online game. for the one coming on saturday, i started work on a website for my tribe on the romanian server. and i enjoy every bit of it.

moving on to the games section... neverwinter nights 2 is the hit. even if only for this, my brand new computer that cost a fortune was well worth its money. and hey, it just looks better on a wide screen lcd monitor :D. the other game i'm in is the aforementioned one. tribalwars. come join on world 8 if you are bored. :D of course, there has to be some bickering and bitter musing about it.

people cheat. they create multiple accounts to support their main one with resources and armies. i don't see the point in cheating in such a game. what does it prove if you are a top ranking player and got there cheating? not a fucking thing - only that you are not good enough to make it by the rules. i can understand theft, arranged football games, bribe, whatever, when it gains something. but this is a game for god's sake. i despise cheaters. bragging cheaters even more so. a colleague of mine got his account shut down for it - all seven of them that is. as much as it pains me to see how it has affected him, i can't help being holier-than-thou and thinking he got what he deserved.

well... what else to report? oh yeah. books. big books. big english books. big english fantasy books. drizzt absolutely rules. i love them. they are my trips away when i'm still here. or when my body's still here. i almost never am.

makes me wonder...

i have no idea how to start this blog so it will begin pretty abruptely. actually, this thing is in relation with the previous blog: the two were intended to be squeezed in the same post but in the end i decided i should treat them separately, as there is no direct link between the two... merely a stream of consciousness one :) (or 'scream of consciousness, as a friend of mine put it... am gonna change my blog labels to that one - far more fitting).

thus, it is not in direct relation with the respect i give to certain people or the way they lose even the most basic form of it... it's something that happens before they get the chance to do so: i've always been some sort of a snail. cowering in my shell and reluctant to get my antennae out to explore and take the first step in a new social situation. forcing me to do so has never resulted in anything good for me, emotionally speaking. i do things like that in my own time and in my own way, that, admittedly, is hard to understand by most. i also have some apparently weird criteria based on which i choose the persons i consider worth 'exploring' more in depth. however... i did. i bonded on several occasions.

i guess it is a fact of life that people disappoint people. nothing new in that. but it always leaves me with a very bitter taste. and of course, the more i like the person, the more faith i put in them, the higher the expectations, the harder the fall. at some point, i've reached the conclusion that it's just not worth the effort i put in knowing people (again, in my sense of 'knowing'). why bother, really? so i just try to go with the flow, whenever possible.

i'm glad when interaction goes to a deeper level then 'hi, how are you?', but i try not to expect it... and even less expect it to be rewarding in any way when it does. and even when it gets there... i kind of half not expect it to last. it's a darn pessimistic point of view, i know. but what is generally known as 'faith in people' has gone down the drain as far as i am concerned.


so basically i've just retreated back to my shell. if anyone's curious about me, they can knock on my door, i am not going to volunteer to come out. i don't believe in marketing oneself. because i don't want to sell an image. tried that, i don't know whether because i was following a trend, trying to stay in line with the way people my age behaved or because it was an artificially created need... but i tire of upholding an image and it's not worth it in 98% of the cases. so if it's image you look for, you might as well move on without stopping... you're in a rush to live your life anyway and i'm not curios about that.

i still don't have a reason
and you don't have the time
and it really makes me wonder
if i ever gave a fuck about you...