No Scarlet Coat

Dudette. Looking for the pink side and facing the dark.

May 2, 2012
by Rux
0 comments

Cand ma fac mare, am sa -

Sunt putine chestiuni mai delicate decat subiectul proiectului de lege 58/13-03-2012.  Solutia propusa e bastardul had de reglementare nascut din noaptea lunga a incompetentei care s-a-ntalnit cu prejudecata.

Cum a fost?

In 2011 auzi ca Romania are cea mai mare rata a avorturilor din Europa. Te ingrijorezi si te gandesti ce inseamna. Ai deja cateva “educated guesses” (asa le zici, in romgleza ta nativa) cu privire la motiv, iti spui ca ignoranta sexuala nu ar putea sa nasca decat statistici triste, ca asta. Un an mai tarziu vezi o pancarta la Brezoianu colt cu Campineanu care spune (reproduc din memorie) “Spune NU avortului, si tu ai fost un embrion”. Strambi din nas pentru ca est pro-choice (desi nu vrei sa fii nevoita vreodata sa faci alegerea asta) si pentru ca oricum tie nu ti se poate intampla (pentru ca tu esti sexually literate). Apoi iti zice cineva (si la televizor strambi din nas, ca tu ai “reader”) ca a auzit de o lege (e in stadiu de proiect si a fost inaintata Senatului in 19 martie a.c.) care “obliga la consiliere inainte de intreruperea sarcinii”. Te sperie cuvantul “obliga” dar te gandesti: consilierea e buna. Iti imaginezi circumstante si conditii in care e ok. Trece o luna. Citesti o postare si iti amintesti. Cauti legea sa vezi in ce stadiu e. Citesti proiectul.

Liniste. Ca dupa un zgomot asurzitor.

Ti se intoarce stomacul pe dos. Te ingrozesti si nu sti de unde sa o apuci, ai vrea sa spui ca e o ineptie imensa, ca e o solutie jalnica, perfida, inumana si superficiala la o problema adanca si sensibila moral. Citesti “criza de sarcina”, cum au zis ei sarcinii nedorite, iti vine sa razi. Ce serpi. Citesti “consiliere” si deja stii ca n-ai de ce sa te astepti la niste prevederi care spun ceva de consiliere. Ai, in schimb, un film de groaza in varianta text (tie ti se face putin rau numai cand te gandesti la filmulete explicite medical, chiar cu subiecte mult mai ingaduitoare cu sensibilitatile tale). Apoi, la final, prea tarziu ca sa mai absolve proiectul, vezi si partea de consiliere – prea subtire si daca ar fi lipsit partea de inceput, mai ales ca toata experienta se recomanda ca o pista buna spre un scaun de terapie pentru stres post-traumatic. Mi-e atat de sila. Unde sa mai zic si ca mi se pare sexist? Unde sa mai zic ca e discutabil daca incalca sau nu dreptul la viata privata si de familie si ca face dreptul la alegere al mamei de a interupe sau nu sarcina un soi de tortura psihologica care ma imbie sa intemeiez o familie in tara asta asa cum te imbie iron maiden la somn (si nu ma refer la formatie). Ah, iar trimiterile din preambul, referiri pompoase la texte de reglementare ale caror legaturi cu obiectul legii va rog sa le faceti voi daca gasiti de cuviinta: libertatea de constiinta (a oricui mai putin a femeii insarcinate, presupun), dreptul constitutional la aparare (adica legea are directa legatura cu dreptul… nu stim sigur al cui… al fatului?! de a sta in proces si de a beneficia de un avocat), principiul infans conceptus… conform caruia copilul conceput dar nenascut are dreptul de a primi prin donatie sau testament. Nu e nimic ce un om rezonabil ar putea considera rezonabil. Nimic, bineinteles, despre rezolvarile durabile, serioase, pentru problemele spinoase… Nimic, de fapt, util.

Probabil nu trece (sper – si aici imi vine sa invoc divinitatea – ca n-o sa treaca de Senat), dar mie imi arata ca educatia sexuala obligatorie ar trebui sa inceapa mai “sus” decat ma asteptam. Ma ofer sa fac eu programa pt materia asta.

February 27, 2012
by Rux
1 Comment

S-a schimbat mirosul

 

 

A fost o duminică excelentă, pe care am ameţit-o până şi-a dat ultima suflare. Şi am ieşit puţin, dar eficient: am sesizat mirosul. De când mă ştiu identific anotimpurile după miros. Duminică seară a fost primăvară.

Aşa cum de ziua mea în 2011, când plecam de la petrecere, spre dimineaţă, am simţit iarna. Era prea devreme, dar eu am mirosit-o.

Tot timpul în aşteptarea a ceea ce urmează. Nu a trecut nici primul trimestru al anului – de când sunt om mare cu impozite de plătit număr anul şi-n trimestre – şi eu mă gândesc ce voi face în 2013, ce-mi trebuie pe următoarele trei luni şi cum să îmi răspund la toate întrebările pasibile de-un răspuns. A nu se înţelege că sunt fata cu planurile. Planul cu 2013 e, probabil, cea mai ambiţioasă planificare de care-mi amintesc.

Doar că mult timp am trăit în viitor şi nu sunt sigură dacă am înţeles exact cum să mă bucur de moment. Cu excepţii.

Oamenii şi trăitul în viitor. Păcat.

Văd pe mediile sociale în fiecare zi de luni binecunoscutele imagini care demonizează ziua de luni, sanctifică vinerea şi amintesc din când în când şi de celelalte zile, în legătură cu luni şi cu vineri.

Sunt perioade de derivă (mai mare sau mai mică decât deriva naturală, prezentă oricând) când şi eu îmi amintesc că trăiam pentru vineri. Probabil că am să mă mai trezesc, la un moment dat, alunecând acolo. Dar acum, cel puţin, nu mai ştiu cum era – îmi amintesc că era şa, dar nu şi cum trăiam aşa. Nu ştiu dacă e joie de vivre sau altceva, poate chiar perspectiva pe care mi-o dă planul meu ambiţios – şi altele, mai neambiţioase – dar nu mai sunt acolo acum.

Mai repede mă sperie că nu-mi dau seama când s-a dus şi februarie.

Pe feisbuc, mai devreme, văd că cineva l-a taguit pe Tata într-o poză. Îmi atrage atenţia că e alb-negru. Mă uit şi văd o gaşcă de oameni (studenţi – judecaţi voi dacă pe perioada studenţiei suntem sau nu oameni) la 2 mai, cu mai bine de-un deceniu înainte să exist.

Ah, bun, o confirmare că timpul curgea şi înainte să exist.

Ştiu că şi în ale clişeelor să povesteşti de fuga noastră prin timp, sau a timpului prin noi, e blasfemie. Ştiu că e o conştientizare blazată şi nenorocită de repetiţie.

Dar lăsând la o parte lunile şi vinerile, pofta de viaţă şi pozele alb-negru, îmi dau seama că un lucru e încă la fel. Dacă ies afară şi miros primăvară, o aştept. Mă bucur. Nu ştiu de ce. Nu primăvara îmi face asta, orice schimbare de anotimp – în afara nostalgiei secătuite de frumos care ne cuprinde când ne gândim la trecerea timpului – îmi aduce acelaşi extaz.

De-asta, când încerc să mă definesc – ceva ce nu recomand fără trei diplome în gargară şi până nu împlineşti cel puţin mai mulţi ani decât am avut eu vreodată – fără să folosesc prea multe cuvinte, îmi vine să spun că sunt tot timpul în aşteptare. Dar am aflat că e ok să fii şi azi şi mâine. Amcititundeva că toţi avem un eu care trăieşte pentru viitor şi unul actual. Conştiinciosul şi risipitorul. Mi-am amintit, era un articol despre behavioral economics.

Eu-azi zic noapte bună pentru că eu-mâine tocmai a făcut aritmetică de clasa I şi a realizat că mai are deja mai puţine ore de somn decât vrea.

January 21, 2012
by Rux
0 comments

Leather straps and brick walls

Some mornings it just doesn’t seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps.

- Emo Phillips (comedian)

It’s not one of those days, I just remembered the “leather straps”. That is to say, it’s one of those days of slowly nibbling at them.

We set limits to ourselves, we put up walls around ourselves to protect against the outside, and, within ourselves, to keep us from spilling out. Once the building project is on, we never stop. I’ve no idea where it starts, but I’m assuming it’s very early in life. When we’re formless. And free. Or, more exactly, as free as we’ll ever hope to be within ourselves. We let go of that freedom, we go to school and get jobs. We lose the inner freedom so that we can sustain ourselves, become productive members of society.

We give up inner freedom, I suppose, in order to be free of curfews.

Responsibility is such a pain.

But the issue that responsibility exists is never questioned. Well, for most of us at least.

But is it tragic?

Or does it make things interesting?

Babies, children, they embody hope, limitless possibility, they have made no choices yet. We come into this world as clean a slate as we can be. We have genetic baggage, but not much else.

And the moulding begins.

It is generally futile to attempt and resist it. Perhaps the most successful of us are fast at ascertaining when to resist and when to go with the flow. Though, of course, success is hardly measurable, it’s as subjective as they come.

I’m finding it particularly difficult, at times and more so of late, to express myself. I use society’s standard of thinking, imposed definitions, and then I try and align them in what I feel is harmony.

The process sometimes stops me dead in my tracks.

A world of thinkers scares me about as much as a world of doers.

Expose yourself to the right experience, take the best from whatever horrors come your way, enjoy every moment, hold an eye out for a future, learn from the past. Let go. Hold on.

But the joy of life is lost on us, the state of beatitude becomes a memory. Where’d it go, how can I have it back?

To forcefully take down someone’s walls when they’re not paying attention, or against their obvious will, constitutes as inhumane a crime as can be thought of. Taking down our own walls puts us up there with the bat-shit-crazies.

We all want to choose the bricks to remove.

Slowly.

I like to focus on them, think on it an eon or two, and then, usually later than anticipated, take a brick down. How many opportunities are lost along the way? Oh, millions. I lose so much every time. And I learn.

If I’m walled in am I lost or found?

But the excitement of taking a brick or two down with four hands working on it… Is that what they know and I don’t trust?

January 10, 2012
by Rux
0 comments

No satisfactory resolution

“In another of the boxes I find the scraps of lace and embroidery that my mother had salvaged from her own mother’s boxes of mementos.

The jet beads.

The ivory rosaries.

The objects for which there is no satisfactory resolution.”

- Blue Nights, Joan Didion

I love that expression. “No satisfactory resolution.”

The objects for which there is no satisfactory resolution.

Nobody sends postcards any more. Not to me at least. That’s not true, sometimes my dad does. I still send postcards. But the few people I send them to, aside from Dad, seldom reciprocate.

But I like postcards. I like picking them out, the urgency with which the most trivial thoughts are recorded and then sent back home. My thoughts while drinking coffee after I’ve seen a work of art that I liked, or perhaps a concern regarding the state of the world, or my own state of mind. Nothing serious, yet they are not necessarily frivolous.

And I send them as a tradition. I’m now realizing that Dad and I probably picked up this tradition from the same person. It was a habit we were taught into.

I like sending them because I enjoy the strangeness of alien cities, specifically the discovery of their post offices. In Amsterdam, for example, I again remembered why I never get postcards.  We were having our late breakfast coffee in a cafe close to Waterlooplein. We asked the waiter if he knew of a post office nearby. “Sure, it’s just across the street.” He showed us the general direction, then pointed to the building. When we got there, it seemed like the reception to a youth motel, perhaps a campus building.

“Excuse me, we’re looking for a post office. It’s supposed to be nearby.”

“Oh…” she said, looking at us quizzically, “this hasn’t been a post office in years.”

We eventually sent the postcards from the hotel on the last day of our trip, just before leaving for the airport.

Between the seemingly endless night when I began typing this post and now, I stumbled over this: the US post office is shutting down next-day delivery. So there you go, in a nutshell, the main reason I’m not getting postcards. People don’t send them.

The narrative for which there is no satisfactory resolution

The narrative for which there is no satisfactory resolution.

It was late one night, last year. Perhaps it was October. I was coming home from work, or more likely I’d met with friends and went for drinks after work. I was wearing high heels and they were making a racket while I was heading to the mailbox to check my mail. I so rarely do that and it gets packed with useless “spam.”

I don’t have the key.

I slip my hand in and get the envelopes, papers, fliers.

There’s never anything that I want to read. I need to get some print subscriptions to magazines so that I will have any joy in checking my mail. You now already know that I never get postcards.

I heard a shush noise. I looked around and tried to remember whether I’d heard a door open from one of the apartments on the ground floor.

No further disturbance.

I rummage in the mailbox, I pluck the papers out, one by one. The echo of my footsteps to reach the mailbox is now trumped by the sound of paper rubbing against metal. The hissing resistance, echoes of a tragic end for the hapless trees cut down in order for me to receive IKEA catalogs, stuffed in a box clearly unfit for such large packages.

The sound of paper being pulled to the point of tearing. There’s nothing in there that I could care about, and I don’t mind reading torn bills.

Shush! That shush sound again. It irritates me.

A little hurriedly, I tear an old electricity bill. I know it’s old because it was underneath tons of fliers. I look at it and sigh in relief as I realize I’ve already paid it – part of an ongoing saga with the electricity provider to change the contract and put it on my name.

I hear someone behind me. I gasp and turn to face them.

“Miss, do you live here?”

No, I want to say. I just go through other people’s mailboxes. I stop myself and I observe my interlocutor. He looks odd. I can’t place it.

“Yes. I’m sorry, I’ll be done in a second.” He turns and walks toward the elevator, and disappears under the stairs.

I get back to my business. Ten seconds later, while I’m extracting yet another supermarket flyer, I hear a disapproving grunt. I’m almost through with my mail and I turn back to see the strange man standing behind me, shaking his head in clear disagreement. I put the flyers in the carton box posing as a trashcan and I head toward the elevator. He looks at me with distrust – is she possibly done with her midnight sweep through the mailboxes?

Only then do I see the bundle under the stairs, the makeshift bed of torn cloths. I understand what seemed odd. I feel uneasy. The elevator is on the ground floor and I hurry in. I don’t like to have my back turned to him. I feel guilty.

I resolve to bring down food. I fiddle with the phone, I unlock it and lock it again on the elevator ride. Key in the lock, turn. Hallway lights. I open the fridge. There is nothing. I was supposed to do my shopping after work.

I feel guilty. I resolve to forget.

The narrative for which there is no satisfactory resolution.

Life.

However.

We are relentless whiners. We so frequently forget that there is a redeeming quality to this life that we take for granted: it is its contrast with the alternative.

“At the outset of my mature life, before everything suddenly became so difficult, I had a great talent for being satisfied. I’d had it all through childhood, and in my freshman year at [college] it was in my repertoire still.”

- Indignation, Philip Roth.

Perhaps in our youth it is given as a gift, if we are lucky, so that we may recognize it later on in life, when it must be strived for.

December 28, 2011
by Rux
2 Comments

Language

I love the English language. Granted, it’s one of the two languages I’m anything close to comfortable with.

And I know the rule on ending sentences with prepositions. But I also love the Winston Churchill reply to a reprimand on such wrongdoing: “This is the sort of thing up with which I will not put.”

I love Lynch’s Guide to Grammar and Style and I’ve been using and perusing it ever since I first discovered the website some years back. That’s where I first read Churchill’s quote. You can find it under P for prepositions. Also look up bugbears. Go on from there.

I love my “adoptive” language.

Not to say that I don’t love my mother tongue.

But they are such different mistresses.

I feel  that the English language, which I’ve been using in all my posts of late, gives me more freedom (there is the numeric aspect of the words of the English language which partly explains my preference, and also the audience, albeit mainly imaginary).

I love that there are different words for the same thing or two ways of spelling certain words and I like finding out which is English and which is American. I love that I never really have it figured out.

Romanian is such a charming language too, it has a depth to it, it is less dynamic and inspires responsibility, rather than freedom. I imagine it sounds like the love child born of an illicit relationship between Latin and a Slavic language, but raised by French parents.

In any case, I saw this and loved it. It’s Stephen Fry talking about the English language.

Enjoy:

 

December 16, 2011
by Rux
0 comments

Back from Amsterdam

December 7

This post will not be done tonight. Because I’m already breaking all the rules, it’s late and I have to get up early and look sharp tomorrow. A few days of vacation can pile up a helluva Wed-Thu-Fri.

I’ll start by saying that although it was enormous fun, Amsterdam is – of course – more than what your average 25yr old can figure at a glance. I’ve never been keen on going, not badly. Because of all those stories I’ve heard about the coffeeshops and the Red Light District. And how much fun can that be? The coffeeshops are very still, there’s usually no free wi fi (and as a Romanian gal, I hate paying for internet), no real interest to chat up the other coffeeshoppers, so what’s the point? Weed is not an attraction in and of itself. As for the Red Light Districts of Amsterdam… well… imagine the fun…

So I left Amsterdam as a half-thought, a “perhaps”. But… the day came, opportunity arose, and as it usually finds me in a seated position, behind my Grandfather-of-laptops (tablet, please), I made a phone call, bought two tickets, and off we went.

We hit the RLD first thing, because we landed late and the Dam is the center of attraction (on most of the tourist maps we were provided with). We walked from the Dam to the first coffeeshop, then seemingly unaffected, continued bar hopping, street after lurid street. Then pub-pint-pub-pint-pub-scotch. I’m a fan of English pubs. Me and my friend, R, we both are. Not admittedly, but our actions speak for us.

But I won’t take it chronologically, it makes little sense that way. I’ll take it the way I felt it: the Amsterdam experience would have, perhaps, come and gone without much fanfare. Fun times were had, and that could have been that. It just so happens that it mingled with Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, which I’d been carrying around with me all November. By the time I was taking in the poetry of legal prostitution, which is as much red as neon-lit, my companions, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, were already on death row. Oh boy, does this stop happening? Everywhere I travel I carry books with me (way easier now with the Kindle), but it changes the experience. Because I’m so hungry to read, so happy to have this unbelievable amount of time on my hands that I sometimes neglect the experience itself. I forget why I’m there.

But the truth is: sometimes… that’s why I’m there.

I won’t get into the ethics of it, legalisation is a good thing, and of course it turns out that it’s not that profitable, not when there are taxes to be paid and little social renown to be had. So, in fact, he RLD is dying, or looks to be. And it’s owned by foreigners. No respectable Dutch men or women put their names on the businesses that are run there.

But enough about it before my little feminist (I have a lot of little -ists in me…) starts with this one.

Then we visit the Anne Frank house. Where she lived in hiding. Which was a warehouse, really. They made jam.

So I top the short trip with a canal cruise and Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking”.

Amsterdam was not an intoxicating experience, but a sobering one.

And now I have to stop, get up, and go to bed. To be continued.

——————————————-

Later

I spent the entire flight back reading Joan Didion’s 250 page autobiographical book charting a year starting with five(ish) days prior to her husband’s death. I don’t remember how I stumbled upon Joan Didion, but it was not long ago. I bought the book in September (I think) and started it a about half an hour after I was done with Capote.

This is generally bad. Not bad, but not recommended. There should be time to process between experiences. Time to process Amsterdam, time to process a book, time to process the neon lights and the gaudy outfits, time to process dating, movies, friends, love, loss, joy. There should be time to enjoy what is beautiful and sad and wonderful, lest it become overwhelming. But I have none of that time. So perhaps I hurry into things. It’s become (or has it always been) a personality trait (?). It changes the perception.

Back to Joan. The 250 pages were still raw. 40 years spent loving this man. Many of these 40 years were spent close – real close. The type of closeness we may ignorantly raise an eyebrow to.

And then it’s gone. And the survivor is left with little else but memories. And a daughter. And a life lived.

I put down “The Year of Magical Thinking”, which records the year 2001 and fast forward to 2009. Blue Nights. Which was shorter but just as harrowing.

I cried on the airplane, I cried when reading “Blue Nights”. Let me slightly correct that. I did not cry on the airplane. Whenever it got overpowering I blew my nose in a napkin and looked up at the small light bulb. Closed my eyes. Breathed.

Focused on Amsterdam. Van Gogh. Anne Frank. Van Gogh. That didn’t help. Out the window. It is night and all I can discern are the lights on the wings of the plane.

If she is grieving the loss of a loved husband and that of a daughter, what was I empathizing with?

What fear was so closely connected to the strings that were struck while I was reading? I am not a mother. I am not – nor have I been – married. What could I possibly fear? Aside from the abstract fear that we all feel, of death, of loss. I never ever want to feel what she felt. I never ever want to experience such loss.

But then I realize. It’s so horribly obvious that I cringe.

Anne Frank wrote diaries. Anne Frank was a different person in her diaries than she was known by her father. Goes to show how little parents truly understand their children. And how could they? How can they… really? We hide from them. I know we all do, in various ways. We are, however, most ourselves, in whatever artistic expression our personalities grant us. Was I myself  in my tragic, suicidal, angsty poems? I’m sure they better expressed my 14 year old self than my hi-howwasschool-fine-wait-gottagobye ever did.

But they never know us. Nor we them.

Not in the way that we come to know most people. Perhaps it is the love that blinds, binds and changes the perception. It allows us to exist, to survive, to thrive. Of course, we can better understand those closest to us if we ever took the time to observe beyond what we’ve seen and experienced. If we look beyond what we’ve come to know, beyond the routine, beyond those things which we take for granted.

It was my deepest darkest fear growing up that we are all lost and that no one holds any real answers (not even them), that everything has a caveat. My worst fear came true. Yet I’m still alive, still breathing, still trying for “happy.”

Will I not be able to understand my children? I write this and I know the answer. I will have them “all figured out”. And I will be clueless.

My fear?

My fear, the chord that resonated deep enough to make me stare at the light bulb and count my breaths? That made me close unto myself in the fetal position while reading the last paragraphs of Blue Nights?

My fear is that that is not the worst.

My worst fear is not that.

Should I, need I explain myself?

Van Gogh. I’m not a great fan. I don’t dislike his paintings, nor do I fall in love with them. Some of them stuck. But I’m not certain it was because I had a back story or because I earnestly appreciated the art.

Amsterdam was good to me. But so is anyplace. I saw Vermeer’s milkmaid, and Vermeer I love. I lost track of time in coffeeshops. And time is my enemy. I found Joan Didion. And dotted some i’s.

Dotting i’s is a favorite pastime.

November 27, 2011
by Rux
0 comments

Dear future me,

This letter was written to you mentally, while you were listening to your mother dearest impart advice.

First of all, Jewish men are tender and/or gentle but overall good lovers.

Second of all, marry a man whom you can depend upon. Find that good, family man.

Don’t rush.

Love.

Oh, honey, you are so beautiful.

Your mom also talks business. For example, she says things like: unless they give you at least 25%, you shouldn’t do it, no discussion about it. She gives you real career advice. But I think she’s a little afraid for you, because she thinks you’re too independent. So she keeps telling you romantic stories, I think she tries to soften you.

I’ve never once (since high school) heard her insist that I study, or focus on work. She’s never had to say it.

Why is that so?

It’s not that I’ve always been incredibly focused, but if there’s something I did with any sort of focus, it was work. Because, as you’ll remember, it’s the math part of life. You add 1 to 1, you take out the sentimentalism – even though, as with anything, the chemistry between people is a lot – and you get a pragmatic answer. But somehow, you can fit in the chemistry in your work life equation. Because you have an end game, because you are generally aware of what you want so you think about it, you calculate the risks, do the work, and sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad. If the equation is good (and always well adapted), it’s bad less often.

This is much opposed to younger bro’s experience. I think his entire memory of Mom-advice is strictly related to doing the work, being responsible, focusing on school, doing something worthwhile.

Future me, you must’ve figured things out. Good for you. Mom must be so less worried then.

And now advice from me: your kids don’t need to know too much about your love life before they existed. If they’re adults, it’s fine, but otherwise, keep the info to a minimum. It might just be that it helps not to scar them for life if they imagine you beginning to exist when they were born.

Of course hon, you had a life before all that (you lucky wench), just be careful when you start sharing that.

Because you will be sharing it at some point, and a whiff of nostalgia will fill the room like smoke filled jazz-swollen bars in Manhattan and Chicago in the 1920s (as I imagine it did). It will feel good, like memories usually do. And your kids are grown up, they’re having fun listening to your stories and, of course, they’re judging you like ungrateful little bastards. And you are happy. Enjoy, because if you’re there, you’ve worked your a** off.

Because, right Mom, we don’t cut corners? We know the difference between moral, amoral, and immoral. And we know to spot that thing that we want. We were born with the gene of restlessness, yes, but we were raised with the proper instruments to be happy.

And it’s all that we can wish for in this life, isn’t it? A real chance to identify and then pursue that which makes us happy.

November 26, 2011
by Rux
0 comments

Freelove

Just think about it for a moment. Close your eyes. That kind of thinking. Freelove. Roll the word off your tongue as if saying it, but whisper it at most, mouth it out. It must strike up an image. Maybe it looks like a surfer, or a happenstance kind of encounter on a cold night in Paris. A mysterious lady in red, perhaps?

Just think about it, let it soak through. Let it fill you up with the accident of it, the ephemeral beauty that it conveys to your rule-abiding-mundane-to-the-point-of-bare-survival-existence. Think about the smells, the flavors, the tiny speck of joy.

Feels nice, doesn’t it?

Freelove, come take me over.

If life was made up of “freelove”, we’d all be superhuman. You know, kind of like supergirls with the fascinating ability not to cry. Or rather… who could cry, but don’t.

I don’t want to dwell on it. Just softly land on my fluffy bed with a smile on my face. I’ve been walking through the cold for the past 15 minutes, I’m warming up with green tea (and ginger) and typing this in while the warmth from my hot 60′ shower takes over. Then into bed I go, reading the same book I’ve been reading (slowly, obviously) for the past month.

Be nice to the people around you, pay it forward. All that.

Oh, and since 2011-2012 are the years of “discipline” for me, I’m going to try something new. I need to lose the cynicism. Just try it out. For a day, at various intervals. It might not be as much fun, but I really want to try and remember how it felt. Before everything said was a double entendre, when the world was your oyster, not a market. When your eyes were wide open and staring into the distance, transfixed by the sheer impossibility to grasp the possibilities. If I can do that for an entire day, I can do anything.

November 23, 2011
by Rux
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My nails are drying

Yes, it’s a bad reason to post. It’s a bad blog post subject.

But that’s exactly what’s happening as I type and I’ve looked through my reader today and I don’t want to waste my time on Facebook. I’ve also loaded a brainwashing TV show, but I won’t watch it. Not tonight. Not soon, either.

Because I’m prioritizing.

And clearing out my brain here should be just about enough.

It’s almost 1 A.M. I have this “new” rule that I need to be in bed by 1. Because otherwise I’m not good enough in the morning.

And because, although my Dad says I don’t need to discipline myself at 25, I do need some discipline. And nothing in my lifestyle will help me unless I help myself.

I’ve set deadlines. I need to quit smoking (altogether or mainly) by the time I’m 26. I also need to take up sports on a regular basis by then. That’s what I want to do. Need to do.

I’ve discovered – and it was a hard-earned epiphany – that I’m not happy unless I do things. Like setting goals and trying hard to keep up with them. I don’t always do it in an orderly, healthy fashion. But they give me a N and S in an otherwise depolarized life.

I used to be so available. To everyone, all the time. Anytime. But that changed a lot three years ago when I finished school (mostly for good). Working like a grown up has its benefits. It does, also, have the downside of making you grown up. And it’s not just the complicated concept of one’s own finances. Which would’ve been complex enough, thank you very much.

But I’m not that available anymore. I have less time. And I’m bleeding spare time with every passing month. And this noscarletcoat thing, it keeps my mind in some sort of order. Strange.

My life is in its usual semi-disarray, but it’s starting to look somewhat “together”. Better than it did at the beginning of this peculiar year. I’m ready to take on new things. (And I was not born ready.  I was born late. And I took (and I take) my time.)

I’m content. Sometimes even happy. That’s big. For me, at least, being content, and, on a more profound level, slowly crawling towards a general state of contentment, that’s really big.

I do need to change this grandfather of laptops that’s barely holdin’ on.

But aside from that, I am still working on a system that will enable me to be more organized. Still fighting my natural procrastination instincts. Still wondering about the meaning of life. Still gawking at the world around me like it’s brand new.

I don’t know what the fuss was about – can’t remember – but I was telling brother dearest Dude, what a world we live in. And here is the reason I love him, aside from our blood relation: Stop talkin’ like that, he replied, like you’re implying there could be other worlds out there.

True enough for me, although some physicists might disagree. No other available versions of reality.

This is it.

By the way, he’s back from Amsterdam. And he gave me his map for my trip in two weeks. And he called me after he landed and we met. Out for drinks, just the two of us. So very grown up. I actually missed him these past few days. Like I’d miss a friend.

Siblings are awesome.

Ain’t that a kick in the head?

Our twenties are amazing. I will miss them when they’re gone.

Also, my nails are dry.

G’night and luvs, in case one isn’t enough ;)

November 15, 2011
by Rux
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Xs and Ys

Strange, I know, but this post is not about math equations.

My friend and I, we talk all the time. We’re in a good place, have been for a while now. Somehow. We were in a bad place for a while, but then something changed and we grew. So we talk nonsense, and then, sort of out of the blue my friend asks me, do you still think about him? Although sometimes exes come up, we mention them jokingly, fleetingly. This time I take my time to reply. My mind wanders to a song. All for a woman. And I smile to myself. This was all very New Age 2.0, so we were online. It’s all hazy, I tell her. Like it was a dream. None of the smells and feelings are still there, just their memory. She laughs at me. Well, good, if the smells were still there I would’ve been worried. And I think about it a second more and then I say that I remember it like it was a dream, like it wasn’t real. I think I’ve already painted over the memories whatever there was to be painted.

I wouldn’t dare disagree with L Cohen, and he clearly states that “there ain’t no cure for love“… There ain’t. I’m sure that given the chance all my old loves could come back and bite me in the ass. I mean, you know, well up again in the balloon that is my heart, just like that, like no time’s passed. The real loves. And then I realize there ain’t been that many real ones.

So although there really ain’t no such cure, we plod on, tread through. I’ve already typed here on this subject. I’m rehashing because, well… life rehashes things all the time. We carry those bags around, heavy, light, colorful, wet or whatnot, we have them with us. Our childhoods, our relationships, our friends, our wins and our failures. So it’s not surprising that if we make a few wrong turns, slip a few times, maybe close our eyes on reality, we could end up somewhere pretty dark. Recognizable. But dark. Like former relationships.

But we have to move onwards and upwards. And, as I have a soundtrack for everything, this is my feel good song for moving on nowadays.

I’ve never quit anything other than relationships (for good) my entire life. Smoking has come and gone and that’s one toxic relationship, so I can only say that the really bad/good relationships are like trying to kick smoking. Even if you cease to smoke, you will feel like a smoker still. For how long? I couldn’t say, I have a lit cigarette adorning that dainty space between the index and middle finger of my right hand.

Anyway, maybe I was one of the lucky ones, so I have no reasons to act otherwise. But whatever past I carry with me that I’m aware of, I carry it without fear, without modesty. Without pride, either. At least I try. The point is that’s how I should carry it. Of course I get bitter sometimes, or forgetful and cheeky. But I’m not afraid of it, not any more. I think it’s all in the packing. It takes me a while to pack, I’ll give you that, but then, once it’s all tucked away and I’ve made sense of some loose ends, accepted that others will not be made sense of, I go on.

But you know? Writing this… it hit me that I’m being a little sure of myself. Pleased. I am, I’m in a really good place. But I fight for it. I pack every day sometimes. Because travelling rearranges (and disarranges) what you initially thought you’d made perfect sense of.

And I travel. And I travel. And I travel.

And I never want to stop.

Until I do it for good.

The other night dear, as I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you in my arms
But when I awoke, dear, I was mistaken
So I bowed my head and I cried.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
You make me happy when skies are gray
You’ll never know dear, how much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away