Part one: I measure.

'I measure every grief I meet
With analytic eyes;
I wonder if it weighs like mine,
Or has an easier size.

I wonder if they bore it long,
Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the date of mine,
It feels so old a pain.

I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if they have to try,
And whether, could they choose between,
They would not rather die.

I wonder if when years have piled—
Some thousands—on the cause
Of early hurt, if such a lapse
Could give them any pause;

Or would they go on aching still
Through centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger pain
By contrast with the love.

The grieved are many, I am told;
The reason deeper lies,—
Death is but one and comes but once,
And only nails the eyes.

There ’s grief of want, and grief of cold,—
A sort they call “despair”;
There ’s banishment from native eyes,
In sight of native air.

And though I may not guess the kind
Correctly, yet to me
A piercing comfort it affords
In passing Calvary,

To note the fashions of the cross,
Of those that stand alone,
Still fascinated to presume
That some are like my own.'

Emily Dickinson - Part One: Life (116)

Is food the new sex?

I'm asking this question after a smoke of going through a little Leamington London to a Bridges shop where I bought an icecream and a marble cake. I started eating outside the shop... it felt extremely public. No longer private, nor intimate. But-but-but-butter but... I didn't have the first bite. I had gained appetite.


http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/38245724.html

'Come buy, come buy'

How easy is it to get to three thousand five hundred words while debating about why the soft gummy pretzel that comes with potato leek soup is better more nutritious than the penn state sea salted pretzels how easy is it to taste words that answer you why hot coffee makes you sleepy but thank redbull for toothpicking your eyelid with a feather but you don't want shaky bingo wings have a nut have a raisin it will keep wakeful redskin autumn stuck in your teeth while you talk to another friendly curl and a worried blue eyed red both he and she too weak to pull two all nighters are unhealthy but we're all in this together so maybe we can do it answer in a slubber why the fizzy coke flavoured football chews in maomai mix you share together does not fizzjuice longer than the juicy lime chew things of the spirit i ate and ate my fill yet my mouth waters still you cannot think what figs my teeth have met in what melons icy-cold piled on a dish of gold too huge for me to behold she sucked and sucked and sucked the more fruits which were unknown orchard bore she sucked until her lips were sore then flung the emptied rinds away but gathered up one kernel stone and knew not was it night or day as she turned home alone but sad eyes admire faithful sacrifice in that white and golden lizzie that stood like a lily in a flood like a beacon left alone in a hoary roaring sea sending up a golden fire like a fruit crowned orange tree white with blossoms honey sweet sore beset by wasp and beelike a royal virgin town topped with gilded dome and spire close beleagured by a fleet mad to tug her standard down.
an inward laughter.

'for there is no friend like a sister
in calm or stormy weather;
to cheer one on a tedious way,
to fetch one if one goes astray,
to lift one if one totters down,
to strengthen whilst one stands.'

I wish Rossetti would have told me all of this earlier, sister.
My tongue in eye is kinda dry.

Gentle spikes through fog.

'I'm in the river. Let the water carry me along', decided the Hedgehog. 'I'm totally soaked, I'll drown soon.' He sighed deeply and began to float down with the current, till Someone pulled him quietly to the shore.

There's no owl here, not anymore. It scared me a bit. Now it's just me and my timid spikes. I guess I'll be counting the stars tonight, on my white horse. Quietly.

Brainbugged.

What will you say when the rain fills up your mind?

Time to make more time... All I dream is to stay and dream.


Let's close our eyes and walk across the sky...

Emerald endings.

Fare thee well Emily...



What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.

Beam me up, Scotty.

Peppermint tea? Check. ✔
Haribo sweets? Check. ✔
Tramadol? Check. ✔
Mushroom soup? Check. ✔
Star Trek (2009)? Check. ✔

Shuttle is ready to embark on road to recovery. Permission to reply affirmative to occasional "can I get you anything?" - granted.

Medals for mums. Mums for medals.

mami:

"Sunt asa fericita pentru tine si bucuria ta, pentru realizarea ta, ca numai la tine ma gandesc. Sper ca te odihnesti si visezi frumos la tot ce ti s-a intamplat. Eu sunt coplesita de faptul ca-ncet incet te maturizezi si o faci atat de frumos si responsabil ca nu-mi vine sa cred ca e adevarat. In toata perioada asta despre care de-abia in seara asta mi-ai spus ce s-a intamplat cu tine intr-adevar, eu credeam ca esti ca o pasare...libera...linistita... imi dadeai impresia ca esti chiar o femeie fericita si de-abia acum am realizat din nou cat de complicata si totusi simpla esti...

Ar fi tare bine sa fi mereu ca azi pentru ca e mult mai sanatos pentru tine in primul rand sa-ti exteriorizezi trairile decat sa tragi o cortina mereu si mereu fara sa te arati... sa-ti dai drumul... sa te arati in toata splendoarea sau simplitatea ta, dar oricum sa te arati...

E mare pacat sa stai ascunsa. Numai comorile se ascund si uneori uiti unde le-ai ascuns, precum animalutele oscioarele sau papa bun. Nu te mai ascunde, ti-am spus... viata e una singura, nu avem mai multe. Traieste-o cum iti place, fa ce-ti place, dar fi om asa cum te-am educat... restul vine de la sine. Si o sa te simti mereu nu numai cateodata ca o pasare in zbor spre lumina si spre noi orizonturi. Fa ce trebuie facut ca sa fi mereu ce vrei sa fi si nu altfel.

Te iubesc mult si sper ca viata si bunul Dumnezeu sa-ti aduca ce e mai bun. Asa cum ai grija de tine acum, asa si cel de sus te va ocroti. Te pup si noapte buna... nu uita intotdeauna sa nu-ti fie frica sa recunosti ce-ti trebuie, ce si cat de mult iti doresti ceva... pentru ca numai asa ti se va implini.

Fii tu insuti si daca nu vei uita ca esti printre oameni care le au si ei pe-ale lor, vei reusi sa traiesti frumos si normal... ai contestat amenda de parcare sau nu ai avut cind? Bucura-te de fiecare clipa a tineretii, a vietii tale pe pamint ...pentru ca pe luna nu se stie ce va fi pina la urma si la urma.

Uite de-aia te iubesc...vezi... pentru ca eu vorbesc si tu dormi... bravo tie. Hai pa."

(sent at 00:30, 27.01.2010)

---

Nu dormeam, intr-adevar ma ascundeam dupa o perdea, luand notite in banca mea, ca de obicei, de la mama. Ma gandesc ca daca as fi intrerupt-o spunandu-i ca sunt acolo si ca citesc cu ochi ciuliti tot ce-mi zice, poate ca ar fi asteptat un raspuns sau un fel de confirmare dupa fiecare paragraf de intelepciune al ei. Insa cateodata apare nevoia ca pe cei ce ii iubesti sa-i admiri si de la distanta, silentios, invizibil... Sa devii un spectator, un martor, un participant si toate in acelasi timp, pana la caderea cortinei. Eu deja mi-am predat monologul, iar acesta a fost monologul mamei. E bine de stiut ca exista martori si ascultatori fideli, chiar daca uneori nu esti constient de prezenta lor. E nevoie doar sa vrei sa le simti prezenta, mai ales atunci cand iti lipsesc, cand doare un pic. Lipsa unei comori, cum spune mama, sau in cazul ei lipsa (disparitia) frecventa a broscutei testoase care ii tine companie mamei de atatia ani, determina cautarea comorii, dar doar dupa ce micuta Hope (nume dat de mama in ciuda faptului ca testoasa e de fapt mascul) se face nevazuta o buna perioada de timp.

Prima data cand m-am ascuns si eu in seara asta a fost pe o mica scena, dupa vreo trei perdele, una dupa alta, care mai de care mai transparenta sau mai opaca. O simpla iluzie. Dar tot am fost prinsa... si asta doar din cauza ca am fost nevoita sa-mi fac trecerea printr-un al patrulea perete: o perdea care s-a dovedit a fi de o transparenta izbitoare (si nu vorbesc de cea de mai jos).
I guess that sometimes fate makes everything simpler and clearer for us, simpler than any 'complicated splendour' we build ourselves around.

I remember when I was little, playing hide and seek used to scare me; nowadays, I'm always there... waiting, yearning to be found.

It's all over now... It's all past, it can't be changed...

Emily of Emerald Hill.

This would make my mother proud. It happens that I am to play her role, while living out her dream, my dream. I like to think that if she could see it, she would realize that I do actually understand who she is more than she ever tried to believe I could. It would be another stepping stone towards getting rid of several unsettled frustrations. At least, that's what a longing daughter likes to think.

So yeah, this is for you mum... Unlike all the other times before, I'm now lifting more than a finger to help myself.
I'll do it in style, elegance, and with the firm poise of a matriarch, asa cum numai de la tine am invatat.

Old-fashioned Nonyas, you'd say? I think I'll go for emerald femmes fatales instead. Just for the jokes. And for the make-up.

'The longest unzipping of my life'.

I promised I would write about a particular recent experience in my least poetical, least metaphorical, and least euphemistic way possible, something which my dear reader is perhaps not so used to. So here goes, I pledge my troth fools!... at bare length.

Whoever said that the longest journey begins with a single step, not with a turn of the ignition key, I'm afraid, couldn't have been more further away from a practical truth. After all the hype in the news about the dangerous monster of snow that has shook the island, about people freezing to death in their cars and all that blablayaddada, and against what my folks insisted I should do, me-being-me went hand in hand with a stubborn gut squeezing tight, telling me I should buckle up for my heavily anticipated four hour drive. So I hit the evening road like Jill; and it turned out to be the best drive I've had so far since I was given my driving license a couple of years ago. The journey took three hours on the dot (never drove to the same destination for as short a time as this)... roads couldn't have been clearer, half-filled by heavy trucks busking in queues, and far fewer car drivers who drove timidly without reason behind these lonely trucks. Well, with the exception of one, or maybe two if I count myself in.

And if you drive, you'll probably know what I'm talking about. It's that quiet time of the night where you find yourself driving across a motorway either head to head, behind, or in front of another car, both of you sensibly keeping within the 50mph speed limit that is permitted over a lengthy bit of road works. No rush getting anywhere, changing your CD meanwhile, keeping a fair distance between the two of you, easing on the speed when one decides to overtake the other slowly, and so on. Basic driver's etiquette that not all drivers seem to feel comfortable with. However, when one of the drivers is a female and the other one a male, that usually tends to add a different ingredient to the chemistry that is taking shape on the road. It certainly does not level the individuals out, especially if one is driving a shiny snow white Range Rover, polished like a baby's bottom, and the other, well, an old runny family Merc... and ridiculous though it may sound to have these two cars put together, you find yourself competing. Sort of.

So what follows after you become unbound by the 50mph limit is a bit of a daredevil game of catch-me-if-you-can. The unwritten rules were that he would slow down and let me catch up, but only after he would let me have a go at keeping up. And boy, did I not go for it... The handsome Rover would bring it back to steady again, allowing me to leave him behind, while I satiated my appetite on tarmac '...she then proceeded to pump her vehicle in and out of turns sometimes dropping down to 50 miles per hour, only to immediately gun it back up to 90 again. Fast, slow, fast fast slow! Sometime a wide turn, sometimes a quick one... she preferred the tighter ones. The sharp controlled jerks, swinging left to right before driving back to the right, only so she could do it all over again until after enough speed, and enough wind, and more distance than I had been prepared to expect...' [video is the bare shizz.]

And it's all happening like you're on a first date, girl drops a tissue, guy picks it up, guy fires something up, then girl brings her bazooka and spreads conflagration. Except, there never really is a bombshell crashing the party from any of the parties involved. It's all a playful, youthful flirtation (even with death at times, but let's not be tragic) of two gentle folks, I'm a gentle girl, and he most certainly seems to be a gentleman by his way of driving. And you can't beat that. Flashing out, flashing in, fast slow fast fast slow, really you become partners in crime as you both bend the law while perfectly aware of the circumstances. Then you go your way, he goes his way, as it is ever so the case. Nothing complicated, no mumbo jumbo, nothing that you do not wish upon, just a friendly ta-ta wave from one back to the other ~ enough to keep a smile on your face for the rest of the drive. Simplicity at its best. This type of affair is maneuvered by changing gears, speeding up without any sudden intimidating breaking, keeping your steering wheel solid, and your eyes always set on the road, never on each other. Neither of you will ever stop, even if the road takes both of you in two different directions.
And it always does.

Looking back on it, a day hasn't passed without my thinking about how much I wished I would have recorded that whole event, like so many other moments of the past that are worthy of being recorded and kept alive through other means outside your own head. Writing about it shall have to do.

Someone once told me that if you wish to know a person's true character, put him behind a steering wheel and you shall find out. I quite liked what I found, and left, on that snowy night. And on that bombshell, here's a few excerpts from my wonderfully solitary six hour drive in a little bit of snow. Sit back and relax, or else buckle up ;)



And as I was saying...

Hey pretty...
Don't you wanna take a ride with me?
Through my world

The end of pidginization.

"It often happens that, to communicate with each other, two or more people use a language in a variety whose grammar and vocabulary are very much reduced in extent and which is native to neither side. Such a language is a pidgin."
How can you teach an old pigeon new tricks? Once you finally gained their trust to make them stop awhile, how long can you keep them still enough to take a quick snapshot that will clearly document the comfortable state you managed to safely bring them in? ...only to see them flying away again in their own mistakes, whilst taking away a solid crumb of you in flight as well.
They never have a destination, except perhaps in winter time when they have a warm yet wooden nest always awaiting on them: a shelter offering an overly estimated comfort for their weak, fine-china bodies. And so, when these faint-hearted bundle of feathers are not on their own, but in homely company, they can stay still for ever, and you can steal as many snapshots of their identities as you wish, enough to build a wonderful feathery album that will keep a truth alive only in pictures.
Fat and content, the pigeon would then fly back to you for more crumbs, intently turning a blind eye on previous portraits of itself from your record. You'd see it modestly posing, even if now the camera lies settled like a rifle cozy in your hands, ready to go off on the pigeon's first deploring coo! Using this instrument will thus keep the gutter bird away from any unnecessary spotlight, while it would pigeonhole it back into an even more unnecessary hiding. A Pavlovian camera on a never-ending timer shall do the trick too.
Note to self: handling with care is now no longer necessary.
'Tis a bird I love, with its brooding note,
And the trembling throb in its mottled throat;
There's a human look in its swelling breast,
And the gentle curve of its lowly crest;
And I often stop with the fear I feel--
He runs so close to the rapid wheel.'

A year of snow, a year of plenty.

This year came with snow falling, and it bruised. A Scotsman once said that we build statues out of snow, and weep to see them melt.
I didn't see it coming.


I used to be Snow White, but it drifted.

Down a long language.

Daddy Daddy, it was just like you said,
Now that the living outnumber the dead.
Where I come from it's a long thin thread
Across an ocean, down a river of red.
Now that the living outnumber the dead
Speak my language. Hello. Hello.
Here come the quick. There go the dead. Here they come.
Bright red. Speak my language.

However long the night, the dawn will break.

A dull thump on Christmas Eve.

Donna was bitter about Christmas coming this year. She wished to delve into as much bittersweet self-indulgence as she could. When the eve snowflakes outside her window fell in an uncomfortable silence however, she suffered a sudden change of heart. Donna decided to quietly wrap up some of the dull heart aches and pains that she should have dispensed herself of long before. A moral recycle is now essential, she thought. She would wrap up the aches and pains in a stone cold newspaper, put it in a cardboard box, and leave the box under the Christmas tree for Santa, with a message pencilled in on the front side of the box.

The instructions she would ask of him to follow were to, first of all, never look inside the box. Eyes-closed, he would then have to gently ease his hands in, fingertips exploring, until he would gasp enough courage to grab unto whatever ache throbbed to be released. Handle with care, she would further insist. Donna expected that his knuckles would often go numb during this thin-skinned investigating process: a matter not for the faint of heart to have to deal with, surely. One hand’s fingers half spreading across his eyes, Santa would pull the other full hand out of the box, while a nervous tickle would begin to scratch inside his closed fist. One by one, his gloved fingers would bloom out the tender December newborns.

Escaping from the old man’s curious palm, the aches would fizzle, shoot into the air, and spectacularly flutter into milky-white talking doves, carrying messages to all the wide-eyed babes in the woods. Wings flapped with mature anticipation. Pencilled in on the doves’ wooden lips, the messages contained an ensemble of wise theories and lists of hypothetical how-not-to’s. These theories carried the mark of Donna’s own stitched experiences, and were specially aimed as practical counsel for little knowing girls. From house to house, Donna’s dutiful Santa would free the message-carrier doves onto roofs where the gentle birdies would coo their way down chimneys, and into every girl's chamber.

Entering in a silent flurry, the watchful doves would paint tender dreams across the ceiling. Others would flap the air clean of any heartsick dust, while few others would knit their good luck feathers to the carpet. All of this, of course, would have to be done in preparation for their choral chirping. Beaks now set, ready to whisper Donna’s bedtime message to all the sleeping beauties.

Flushed butterfly lips kept away
From charming toads that hop astray
Will keep your milk teeth strong and clean
From suckling fibbed fruits sweet and keen.
So prick your ears and spread your eyes
And duck away from green croak cries!
Knock to unlock this wooden beak
And eat this truth bean while you dream.

This could, Donna thought, be the only way that one would ever be able to learn from another's experiences. Donna felt motherly of helplessly gullible girls, and hoped that, in the years to come, they would find Santa’s delivery of her words of wisdom to be a useful gift in their everyday lives as young women.

Donna assumed that by the time the doves flew back out through the chimney, the charcoal would probably blacken their delicate bodies. A white, pretty bird would thus turn into an exquisitely ebony raven camouflaging itself away into the darkness of night. To this thought, Donna smiled cordially, for not even her ghostly Santa, an expert in childish shenanigans, would know how to distinguish the black doves from the starry night. He would lose sight of them, and soon forget about them too. They would finally be freed.

Donna’s thinking was interrupted by a loud thump that the snow made when it fell off the roof under which her mind was at unrest. It seemed rather unfortunate that the snow would start to melt on Christmas Eve. Too short lived.

Still there, the dull aches and pains lay quietly. Perhaps she can hold on to them a little longer. Maybe till next Christmas.

Who said romance is dead?

"obviously te iubesc aussi
although if i was you i wouldn't iubesc me"

Probably the best rhyming couplet of the decade. All you poets out there, beware!

Ourselves Alone.

" - Love? It's such a silly word. We've never spoken it. It's just that when I'm totally me and he's totally him we swop. Do you know what I mean? His arrival is the best time. It's his mouth on my neck, his cool fingers touching me - I make it last right up until he has to leave. And then I row, I fight, I do everything I can to keep him with me and when I hurt him, I hurt myself. It's as if we're driven, that bed is like a raft and that room is all the world to us.

- You're lucky you can feel like that, you might not if you had to live with him."

On teasing.

She will not know when to quit walking, or why.

Featuring a kindred spirit.

Selves are always lingering to be found.

~ by a poet who knows too well that the card he was holding close to the vest was the lying queen of empty hearts.

Chirping for Drops.

She hears the moth-eaten train raining in the distance,
Its heartbeat thumping in the back of her bark neck,
Her lumbered ribs swell and sweat
A drop trickling down to her timid pulp.
She swallows her breath down, waiting for the moth-eaten train.
Black vultures above her wisp the clouds away
As the smell of metal cutting vein deep
Stays sweet on their wooden lips.
An army of daymares come stumbling down the hill
With knives for feet dug deep, they limp.
Her shrivelled roots pull their sharp necks into the thirsty soil,
Weaving traps for Erl-Kings and choking gargoyles.
Victorious, yet she won’t step, root away
From the chooing rail that churns closer.
As the train spots the lit tree house in her shoulders,
A flashlight mirrors a flicker in the sky
She feels her parched spine tingled,
An unzipped rail teased by lightning,

She is being watched.

Three brothers clasp arms around her trunk,
One weeps a weeping song to her drying bark
While the other wails his promises of Burma shave
And another woos to branch her down a thousand kisses deep,
But the tree now seems deaf, her senses asleep.
As the train spits steam shots reaching the woods
Her three brothers now chant like woodpeckers,
Musical notes chipping at her roots
But her leaves now shake with forecast.
The train is still trying towards her,
Hopeful metal rusting, wanting to be one with nature.
The climax begins as she stretches out her trunk
Eager for collision, the swelling storm, the damp wonder,
He crashes into her mercy seat,
His final stop (birds whistle).
She sweeps what dust is left of him into the air
His particles spring to the sky, cocooning a thunder,
The sound of a drop in a tin metal can that haunts her.

Holding out her skin soft branches in the rain,
She wonders if her chirping brothers are the ones to blame.



[The rain choos:
“When will I ever be your husband?
When will you ever be my bride?
When will you take me from this place
Where hope and hopelessness collide?”]

In my own dream.

She smashed all my senses into something soft like sand seeping through to my ears. Dylan said of her that she had the voice of Billie Holiday, and played guitar like Jimmy Reed. To me she is out of this world. And it's her company that satisfies a hungry soul tonight. She is the rare, the cult, she is the true Katie Cruel.



I didn't know I could be fooled.

Laid on with a trowel.

I ain’t a funny person. There, I said it. Attempting to make jokes just to appear funny would make me even less of a person that is already not funny. I do however at times use someone else's poor joke to test others' humour, or better said, their nature. But that’s not what I was gonna say. I was gonna talk about it being breakup season. But I’ll come back to that in a bit. Now, for some people, trying to be funny is hard work. Especially when it’s not part of your innate abilities, nor when you don’t have an eye or a ear prepared for moments that present the potential of being well-timed, perfect for side-splitting satire. And I slightly branch off from humour to its neighbouring ‘satire’ because being sardonic is, on the surface of things, easier to do than actually being comical. Anyone can have a go at playing satirical, while making sweeping statements that are hard to swallow – it’s the fashion these days to ‘act clever’, right Cha-Char boy? And we don’t like clever people, mmno Sir.

Then comes the more complicated part, which is how successful one's attempt at playing the satirical, wise fool, really is. And when you meet people trying to be lampoons with the intention to cut deep, that’s when things get nailed up, back to front. When these failed buffoons become far more focused on hurting and on being cutting (these are people with issues btw), than on exercising their ability of being funny and on attempting some wise crack... well, when that happens you just wanna snap their little limbs to pieces and brush them off under the carpet, in a gasp puff. But, as we live in a eunion-civilized world, we serious people can only satisfy ourselves with eyeing the culprit during a long buildup to which some others have to be unfortunate witnesses. And as with any worthy long buildup, we have our kitty-like wits climax by telling him to chill the fuck out and have a cookie. Tesco-value, asa cum iti plac tie ba!

Now back to breakup season, this should actually be the case for some people (soz for my cool impetuousness). Because for what's worth, and as my to-be-hubby puts it no-jokes, We that are true lovers run into strange capers; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly.

How do you like 'em apples?

Wise jam for break(ing) fast.

Last night I went to bed at 4 in the morning, today I seem to be following the same route. Late night conversations about nothing get me tired but keep me going stubborn, perhaps on the lookout for a revelation that my dreams could probably never reach. Except they do, and often they do it better than any conversation at the crack of dawn.

When I was little, mom told me that once I'd grow up, I would be able to tell truth from untruth from anyone that would cross my path. More so, that people would uncover truths to me that they would hide from others. Thx mom. Frankly, that's not great, and it's not even a special gift, since at times you will find yourself in awkward situations having to choose between sticking with the true, or not so true, while being perfectly aware of the consequences, just to save someone's backside from being named and shamed. She also told me that if in my closer relationships I would be given truths in half measures (which "draga mea, se va intampla o data, sau chiar si de mai multe ori") I would have the instinctive ability to choose if I should know the truths from untruths, all a rather subconscious process, mind you. While it all sounds a bit like psychic mumbo-jumbo, a mommy's witchcraft doing, whenever I make the conscious choice of sticking with the untrue, and therefore the err, dreams come pulling my eyelids up to show me who's pulling my leg while I sleep. [Sleep talking then becomes a Beckettian tape which my Lady Dreams play in rewind to make me look quirky to whoever happens to hear me.] Then I wake up listening to those that celebrate a clear conscience, and this my friends, is a sign of a bad memory; but while that conscience belongs to them, memory belongs to me.


A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow.

Humble vagaries

I'd like to shoot one down.

A game we once played.

... Pretend we're faeries. I'm a girl faerie. My name is Laura Lee. And you're a boy faerie. Your name is Tita Lee. Pretend, when we're faeries we fight each other, and I say "Stop hitting me or I'll die!" And you hit me again and I say, "Now I have to die." And then you say, "But I'll miss you." And I say, "But I have to. And you'll have to wait a million years to see me again. And I'll be put in a box, and all I'll need is a tiny glass of water and lots of tiny pieces of pizza and the box will have wings like an airplane." And you'll ask, "Where will it take you?" "Home." I say.

Salty days for Jackie Cane.

If you can't spend your special day with some who you wished you would have spent it with, then move unto noisier pastures, where your hurt will go unnoticed. Even better, they will see it at as your being overwhelmed by old age, or as being traumatically affected by a chest infection. Either way, move on.

That's it, you're older now.


... it won't be too soon till I say, goodnight moon.

One Art.

The art of losing isn't hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.


--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Unravelling again.

While you are away
My heart comes undone.
Slowly unravels
In a ball of yarn.
The devil collects it
With a grin,
Our love,
In a ball of yarn.

He'll never return it.

So when you come back
We'll have to make new love.

" We're always going different, if not opposite, directions. Yet we always find a way. Trainstation romance we can call it. I love it. And you. Most of the time."

" Dear,

I found how different our ways of loving can really be, and I know that sometimes we are not in harmony, like the food we're never sharing. But I really want to give this a chance. While we may seem like perfect strangers down the line, lovers out of time, I would like to learn to love one the way they like to be loved. And maybe that would come the other way around too. Love would flow with milk and honey then, dancing like a hungry moonchild in the shallows of a river. Until then, we can spend the occasional time together, finding playing cards on empty streets, diamonds, aces, kings of hearts and what not. I hope that nobody out there throws them at us in a shuffled order, for I would hate to think we're part of a gamble. You think I have no cause. But if you could find within yourself to let me, I would hold the hand of your mind, calling you forward, never leaving you behind. My thoughts fly to catching the next train. I'll be old by then, and wait for you by the sunset. Please be there. I think of you often, and hope we see each other as soon as possible. Until such time may the winds be at your back, the dice be kind, and the Gods turn the occasional blind eye.


Sincerely yours, beyond the clouds, beyond the sun,

the rebel without a cause. "

When in doubt, wear red.

Do you ever wish you could have a change of thoughts or attitude as you have a change of clothes? I do, and I get it pretty often. Whenever I open my closet I think to myself that whatever I'm going to wear that day it will change my thought patterns and myself generally just for a day or two. Go go appearances! So if I change into Creativity, or Productivity, Playfulness, or Comfort, Laziness etc, I'll wear that attitude like honour would be my clothing. For one should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art. Ah, Wilde you trickster.

But today I didn't really wish to open my closet just because most of the clothes I have in there were bought this year, so while they're new, they're also familiar. Who needs recent familiar, ongoing thoughts? Not me, thx. Even charity shops would be better off without them.

I wanted to wear sparkly, colourful Productivity today, but that never really happened because I just don't seem to fit in it anymore. My mind has grown thin, and it started wandering aimlessly around launderettes late at night. Evil places. And so today I went clothes shopping in my head's departments, just because I felt nekkid. Out of habit, I'd do it on my own, shopping I mean. But today I took someone with me, for the little rogue was in my head too. I'd do the wild goose chase, I'd spin in front of the mirror, trying on new clothes, new thoughts, but really, my mind was just going round in circles in the thought-changing rooms.

Looking at me through the mirror, the rapscallion would say "Oh no, that one doesn't look that good to behold, I tried it on before and it wasn't prime material, it gave me the cooties. I know all about it. You should not allow yourself to wear that nowai, etc." The message would also repeat itself through the PA system of the neurotic malfunctioning brain. So then you're left there, looking at the dissolved girl in the mirror that is made to fade. And you know that even if you're not going to buy it, the material has already been stuck to you, the attitude of the clothing has already been embedded in, and absorbed by, the pores of your skin. You've got the bad-thinking-pattern-cooties now, you're dead skin. And really, nobody else is there except for just another voice occasionally. You're on your own even in your head just as the only person that is with you 24/7 is yourself. It's easy to remember when it came.

There was no voice that told me, "Ok buy this, and wear it if you have to today, wash the bad cootie-thoughts away tonight in a nice warm bath, and let me take you 'clothes' shopping tomorrow, and we'll change your attitude by the next day. And if this weird analogy of yours between clothes and thoughts stops working, then I'll still love you like silly anyway." Now haaang on, hold your hosses Squire, who is the culprit guilty of letting her mind wander shamelessly beyond such impervious (and apparently unreasonable) limits? All of those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand and send me to the naughty corner.

So yeah, pyjamas were all I had on today, and I locked myself in my room all day. Learning from the Laziest of all, hard work pays off in the future, while laziness pays off now.


Know, first, who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly.

Another dream of chasing shadows.

Last night I saw him again, Dark. He followed me through the spring meadow that I had built the night before. The hours of light should have kept him out of my lucid maze. But then he would always flung his breath around my neck, my mouth biting the air as I ran tiptoed across the thick soft soil of the meadow.

I slipped through the mud and started falling, my face battered against the mud was falling with me too. I landed on skin. I tried to swim across the depths of his palms but on every movement of my body, a twirl of perfect stillness kept dragging me down.

The smell was charged with the burning rustle of a willow that wallowed louder each time I dropped focus and gave into him. His hands had embalmed my mouth, drawing me inside the seductive shallows of his river. When Morning had come, she had chased him away. But then he would always come back at night, famished and flustered, and I would always have to feed him with dreams of the past.

I wanted a change of dream. I wanted to forget who he was, I wanted to dance with who he used to be, blow my head away into the wind of the night. But then he would always wrap himself around my dancing arms and legs, stopping me.

Losing last night's breath, I threw stones at his eyes so that I could gasp in the blind goodbye kiss from him. I woke up dancing with the Wind. Dark’s willow eyes were watching Wind and I sailing on to the howling ballads of the leaves, while he slowly dissolved into the liquid morning.

What have you found? The same old fears.

There are certain things that annoy me, like those doltish tests that one does, out of boredom of course, to find out what type of whatever you are, which then makes you roll your eyes and even pop them, wondering why you're doing this to yourself after all. Normally two reasons come up, one: that you're probably so desperate for some light being shed on a matter regardless of where the questions seem to be going; and two: that you're so cynical you want to give it a chance no matter how half-baked it is because who knows, maybe it will crack you or the cherry up ;).
I know, the two aren't that much different from each other.

http://www.quibblo.com/quiz/lPr9y/What-kind-of-boyfriend-or-girlfriend-are-you

Yes, blame me for taking a peek inside Quibblo - one world, many answers. I'll be looking at just two questions here (for obvious reasons), and just two answers, and I can leave the rest to you. Enter if you dare in the world of Quibblo, and see what your present beholds of your future.

Here goes nothing:

Your boyfriend or girlfriend had a rough day and is not feeling very social, you...

a) Make him or her a cup of coffee (or a strong drink), and then go in the other room to let them breathe.
b) Hug and kiss them until they tell you whats wrong, and get angry at them if they don't respond to your affection.
c) Tell them that they are being a baby and that your life is way more stressful and they should be thankful for theirs.
d) Tell them to get over it so you can continue on with the evenings plans.

"Hun, you're being a baby, stop that." People can be quite harsh. So c) and d) are definitely too crude and irrational, and they're instantly out. Then b) is probably less likely than a). Whereas there's a chance that I may be put off by his rejection of my trying to make him feel better, I always make myself feel better thinking that I'm an almost freewheeling lover that is perfectly capable of giving her partner the space that he may seem to need. So it's got to be a) a back rub!1 It's what I see myself doing anyway -.-

Your partner forgot to call you when they said they would, you...

a) Call them 38 times until they answer, but in the meantime, leave a voicemail accusing them of cheating, asking them if they even love you anymore, or simply just crying.
b) Don't call them or answer their calls for four days (maybe they will learn their lesson and call you when they say they will.)
c) Call and leave a message telling them that if they don't call you back, you are breaking up with them and finding someone who gives a damn.
d) Give them a call an hour or so later, or wait until they remember.

Call them 38 times and you're a dead duck. Whereas none of these choices truly apply, I must say I've been guilty before of going into a slapdash-heedless state of mind where I just don't ring anymore. Ever. Again. Ok, I kid. I once refused to answer their call back and it made me feel petite. So I learned from that and went to the other end of the spectrum. My problem is that sometimes I may seem too available, too ready to answer even if a significant other don't answer. And it's not being desperate, I'm actually cool like that. I've had many interactions with people that enjoy beating around the bush, and I've never been good at hide-and-seek. They'd never find me, nor would I come out. And the begats would go home to eat and they'd leave me be, out there, in the woods lovely dark and deep, and then I'd have promises to keep. To me. And those weren't particularly sad days. But it's true, some people enjoy tit for tat games, and I've never been good at that either, 'cept I do enthusiastically reciprocate attention, and all things nice. But I also try to understand those who play hard to get... meh, whatever bounces your mattress I guess.

Ok, so what kind of girlfriend am I, master Quibblo?

Independent Yet Devoted.
You are confident enough in yourself that you do not always need that someone by your side, or need to know what they are doing. You trust that they are loyal and don't need constant reassurance. You can spend a night out with your friends and have fun, with or without your partner. Despite these characteristics, you always assure that your partner knows you are devoted to them, even through the most subtle gestures.

Gee, now that's a description that seems to have had much more thought put into it than the actual questions. But never mind, let's look at its silver lining, et voila independence: liberté, egalité, fraternité. For what's true, I do actually see myself like that, not like France I mean, but like an independent lover. And there's probably some who wouldn't agree but maybe they just don't know me that well, bon? 'Independent yet devoted' is definitely the label you can stick to my forehead. And I love practically too, and the other way around. I am an independent lover but I don't thrive on it, nor exploit it, it's a condition that comes more in terms of an unwritten rule. Open to circumstantial changes of course ;). So if my skylark can't, for some time, like a season or two, be in the same nest with me, his nightingale, it doesn't mean that birdy would get annoyed at this, but she would slowly get past it, and get on with things normally too. That is unless she's having the blues and is in helpless need of him, and his feather-loving. That's when I turn into a cry babybird howling at the moon. He would hear my song and would praise me as the light-winged Dryad of the trees, but would then confuse my voice with that of a deceiving elf, for man is ever suspicious and even fearful of too much love, and cannot comprehend constancy. My song would be a never ending tale that travels through rattling branches and reaches the ears of those who wish to hear and listen.

But I deviate, such a romantic escape from the world of reality to the realm of poetry is inadequate. I'll save it for Keats.

I'm not so sure about "you always assure that your partner knows you are devoted to them, even through the most subtle gestures". One would probably say that in a happy world, your partner shouldn't need reassurance. But as growing lovers, I think we do. The act of reassurance is a reversible process, it's like two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year. You can't reassure one without yourself being reassured in return. They have to float together like synchronized small fish caught in a bigger school of fish before they enter love's predatory mouth. Don't let fish turns its belly upside down, but do grab a free love ride in the death car, if you get lucky :). In the words of Goran, the fish doesn't think, cuz the fish knows everything.

Changing direction, but without going too much floyd-wise, I don't think we can tell heaven from hell, nor blue skies from pain, nor a smile from a veil, unless love is secure. Tonight I think I traded my heroes for ghosts. And so it turned into another lonesome night, running over the same old ground, and finding the same old fears. I do wish he was here.

But I'll shush now.

Opening the book.

Anyway, let’s turn a few pages more and let us move on. Where are we now? Ok, that’s it. So now we’re going through a period in which I’m being read by individuals worthy of being remembered. I guess I got lucky that way. And I don’t know if this has to do with my having a cracked spine, bent page corners, or being rough around the edges. Nor if it has anything to do with my front cover saying “DON’T TOUCH THIS!” The important thing however is that there is something which attracts them enough to pick me out, off the shelf. Who knows what genre I’ve been put under once I got published in ‘88. Classics? Likely not. Books that should have never been published? Hope not. Comics? Mm, not necessarily, unless I was about kid-heroes. Self-help books? So help us God. Sweet quirky shizzle? Hmm, that’ll do. There have been no huge profits from the sales so to speak, sales which took place in charity shops and not around HMV Best Sellers, along Twilight and what have you. And frankly, I’m more than fine with that. Up till now I’ve had quite an interesting readership, good folks who read well, and in some vain ways I feel rather happy for choosing them more or less intuitively. How nice to be able to pick your readers. To this day I look into their eyes and watch the corners of their mouths stretching in their heights; usually they seem bemused, if not fascinated by what they read. What else can I say – I must be a real page turner.

Now I’ve landed in the hands of a person who tries to read me between the lines. For what is true, he is very cautious when he turns the pages if he is interested in finding something new. Pricking up his eyes he warily studies the typeface of every single letter, he looks for words written in invisible ink (but let’s be serious, I’m too old-school to be written in that), sometimes he even feels and strokes the page in an inspective manner until he finds out what new or old ingredients it is made of, how thick it is, whether the binding is tight, etc. I guess that all of this physical examination adds to the reader’s whole experience, but with his nose so close to the page, I am far too easily misread. A paragraph of some importance will then have no meaning to him in the face of this hunt for nonexistent ‘important’ details.

Whenever he is unhappy with what he reads, like happenings that are written before they actually happen, or incoherent emotions, or even when he does not understand the style of writing, which is rather ‘different’ (and nonsensical at times, I suppose), this mature reader begins to ruffle through the pages just like a despotic child. Sometimes he is too tired to stress himself even longer, and he chucks me away on a shelf next to Top Gear, where I’m forgotten for days. Sometimes when he reads me and I look into his eyes, sad or frustrated by what they read, I can see a strange desire to rip out a few muddled pages. But like the pathological collector that he is, instead of throwing the ripped pages away, he would put them away in a drawer containing worthless objects needed for ‘just in case’ situations, only to end up forgetting about them too.

Instead, I’d like to think that he would make paper planes out of those lonely pages, and write love messages on them. He would then let go of them from his window on the fifth floor, and they would never hit the ground, ever. And if, while reading me, it happened to rain, what if he would then put me under the pillow which he lays his head on every night? He would read me dreaming, and would dream beautiful dreams.

QFT

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no. It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

A Perfect Looking Day

Today was all about appearances. The sun broke through my window and started inspecting itself in my mirror. Rather vain. The room came alight, as one would expect. The shrubs outside were also trying to branch in, but I pulled the curtain’s veil in time. Nina joined in and was waving her words at me. Birds flyin' high you know how I feel, sun in the sky you know how I feel, breeze driftin’ on by, you know how I feel; it’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me... and I’m feeling gg -- gggh -- [crackling sound] I’m feeling GGHHGHHGGHH. Hush.

Mmkay.

In truth, I wasn't feeling good. So I spoke out, as one does. "I ain’t feeling that good, OK? Is that ok with you shapeless matters of weather gaiety? I’m like a square peg in a round hole. Dragonfly out in the sun, you know what I mean, don’t you?"

Crime Scene No 1. Culprit trying to ray himself in.

Crime Scene No 2. Shrubs trying to be nosy.

Then I decided to retreat myself, or rather, glue myself here ^ because that's my stimulating rigid work corner. Yes, I know it looks more like a play area, but it has to, else I can’t take anything seriously. Today it didn't work though. My corner was bathing in too much warmth and light, and my responsibilities simply melted away in the sun. The glue did too. Or maybe it's just my brain going through a perpetual global warming.

I ended up being dragged outside by appearances, and old habits, where all God's creatures were happily bathing in the new dawn of the final term. In the words of a pretty lyricist, if it's not a rainy day, you simply don't go outside.

Now that I'm back in my inspiring chamber, those bunnies in a box are giving me silly ideas.

One of those dreams in April

'Azi noapte am visat ca inotam intr-un lac de acumulare si ca tata ma urmarea prin apa. Totul era foarte clar. Desi era adanca, el mergea prin apa si nu puteam sa-mi explic cum putea sa faca asta cu asa usurinta, si fara sa inoate; dar in acelasi timp si eu pluteam fara mult efort. Aveam urechile sub apa si nu auzeam tot ce-mi spunea. Poate de-aia nici nu am prea facut conversatie cu el, mi-am vazut de plutitul deasupra apei. Era placut. Nu aveam decat un tricou si niste pantaloni scurti pe mine, si vedeam totul ca printr-o camera de filmat. Filmam apa si cerul de un albastrui palid si ma gandeam ca totul era asa cum trebuia sa fie. Eram un corp strain plutitor pe tot intinsul apei. Am strabatut lacul de doua ori pe spate, dar tata nu ma anunta cand ma apropiam de mal, si ma incurcam in algele de la mal de fiecare data.

Dupa ce-am iesit din apa ne-am indreptat spre o alimentara unde asteptam sa mi se dea o paine si un vin rosu. Pe el il lasasem afara. Cand am iesit din alimentara un cuplu de tigani stateau langa el. Barbatul avea in mana un pumnal. S-a uitat la noi din spatele femeii cu care era si printr-o miscare repezita i-a taiat burta femeii in lat. Reactia ei nu a fost una prea surprinsa. Ochii ei s-au transformat in doua pietre si urechile mele au inceput sa tiuie groaznic. Tata nu mai era acolo, iar eu m-am trezit cu ochii umezi.'

Inapt people make me ill, and sometimes delirious.

- Hi, I would like to book an appointment with the doctor for today, please.

- Eh, is it an emergency appointment you wantin'?

- Uh, yes [I lied because I knew that otherwise I would have had to wait at least a week]

- Right, can ye just hold the line for a minute?

- Okay.

[At this moment Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto starts playing while I’m put on hold]

- Eh, sorry ‘bout that. What’s yer name?

- Tra la la.

- Aand how dew spell ‘at?

- T for ‘troll’ , R for ‘retard’, A for ‘arsenal’, L for ‘lugnut’.

- You’re not registered with us.

- Yes, that’s because my medical records have been moved to the university where I study. Can I not register as a temporary patient?

- Eh, probably but I’m not sure.

[I didn’t know what made her so dumb but it really worked.]

- I just need to see someone while I’m home. I was given a referral by the university hospital to see a doctor at the end of term.

- Okay, I’ll put you in for an appointment today at 11:30 with Cath Bowell.

- Thank you. [hang up]

So I walk into the medical practice centre at about 11:25 and I give them my name and the time of my appointment. They tell me to take a seat and I do. I pick up ‘Vanity Fair’, since it seems to be the only periodical that’s slightly more decent than ‘OK!’ and ‘The Sun’. 10 minutes later my name appears on the screen followed by “...to Sr Cath Bowell”. Ehm, “sr”? as in, SISTER? What happened to my DOCTOR’s appointment?! You sure that’s not a typo? I swallowed the thought and rose to my feet totally unenthusiastic.

I knew I was on the way to the doom of 20 minutes of my life. They were buh-bye from then on. In moments like this, I start thinking about things that I’ve always wanted to do in 20 minutes but never have because if I did do them, then I’d probably run out of things to imagine and I’d be stuck in awkward jiffies seeking solace. Wakey wakey silly, your pants might catch on fire.

In front me there was a door that had the inscription “Sister Cath Bowell – knock before you enter”. My eyes must have somehow muddled the letters for I could now read a twinkly “Fairy Godmother Cath Bowell’s Headquarters – where all your wildest dreams will come true.”

Moriccone’s ‘Paranoia Prima’ starts running through my head. I push the door wide out of its hinges and I stand there, feet apart, eyeing her with my glass eye, fingertips opening. As she grows aware of me, the song changes to Luis Bacalov’s ‘The Grand Duel’.

- You alright love? What can I do for you today? [Song changes again to Bernard Herrman’s ‘Twisted Nerve’]

- I’ve had this problem since November, so please... don’t let me be misunderstood. Sometimes I feel a little mad, but don't you know that no one alive can always be an angel? When things go wrong I seem to be bad, but I'm just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood. If I seem edgy I want you to know that I never mean to take it out on you! Life has its problems and I’ve got my share, and that's one thing I never meant to do...oohh noo.

[Thank you Santa Esmeralda for the inspiration. It broke her heart it did. I could see it in her eyes, the juice of emotion!]

- Flowerpot, unfortunately I don’t qualify in these matters, I think you should probably see a doctor instead. Go to the girls at the reception and ask them if you can see a doctor.

- But I already did, this morning over the phone, when they booked my appointment in with you.

- Oh, sorry ‘bout that, things like that can happen.

- Ok thx bye.

- Bye love.

I left the room wishing that I slammed the door behind me. When I walked past the reception, I kept wishing to shout in anger: “A nurse can’t make my wildest dreams come true, you thickos!”. They might as well have started singing gaily in chorus: “That’s the way the cookie crumbles, it’s you that pays us for the shambles!”

I walked out with my loyal cough holding me by a sweaty hand, and outside a lonely shepherd’s song was playing. Se rupsese filmul.