useless brothers and sisters

21st January, USA. President Barack Obama: Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.

25th January, Poland. Krystyna Pawłowicz, lawyer, politician: We cannot expect homosexual relationships to provide the continuation of life because they are not procreation oriented. (...) Those people are useless.

''look, the snow, the stars in January, just for you..."

no idea no idea no idea no idea how I still find energy for it all.

at the pale office I have stomach cramps as I hear questions asked with the assumption that I am a heterosexual woman, yet everyday at 5 pm it occurs to me that it's not that bad after all. only from time to time I get struck by the astonishment that it is actually possible for me to work there and not go crazy.

on Fridays there is beer, drag queens and J., a girl two years younger than myself. we come from different worlds, lead divergent narrations and use codes that are incompatible – probably this is why I'm so attracted to her. plus her smell.

on Saturdays I have gender studies: we read Sarah Kane and watch Ghost in the Shell. I find myself in extremely pleasant states of mind.

my pants stink of tobacco and there are pieces of chocolate all over my laptop.

I turn too shy when I'm near the pretty O., so I trick her to get her phone number; this gives me hope that I'll meet her not that accidentally one day.

I see my father rarely, so his depression seems to fade away to me, then I meet him and I feel guilty again.

I cuddle up to my mother on those rare days when I'm with her.

I call my sister very often with lots of laughing but not much sense; there is no content between us, but I keep up the form so that the bond doesn't get broken.

the snow looks unearthly when I get back home drunk at 3 am. intact, so special, and kitschy.

I talk to gay men who are strangers to me and I get very little sleep.

and I can't stop any more, I've given up reflection a long time ago. in this hum and hurried activities I keep the low murmur constant. this won't give a chance for the deeper thoughts to come to the surface.

not much contact with myself, which is I probably I feel so good.

the carnival stylistics has always had magical influence on me.

"My advice to anybody is GET BORN." (J. Winterson)

We were standing on the sixth floor and Sz. said that he did feel sorry for all the cats and dogs, but the fireworks were just so pretty. And we all wished each other that things would get better – as if it had ever been up to us.

As if it had ever been up to anybody else but us.

The cat, paralyzed with fear, was sitting quietly on the kitchen chair, I was drinking up my third bottle, and around me there were revolving a few satellites – a bunch of old friends who are my little family in this city.

Sarcasm can save you from collective hysteria, excess of emotions and hasty enthusiasm, but using it against people who always remember about you or against family who is always there ready to help when you turn around – it’s like hurting yourself really.

I don’t dream of revolutions, miracles or great victories. I have developed a liking not for a life that glitters, explodes and rouses me as a life like that happens only rarely – instead, I have a liking for a life that goes slowly but also surprises you with places and states of mind you find yourself in, and the quality of those places and states is so weird that you can’t even tell it good or bad, yet you feel immense pleasure of experiencing them, perceiving them and remembering them in a funny selective way. It’s good to realize that life is not a streak of pleasures and to find pleasure in being alive instead.

2.30 am, a short message from a gorgeously smelling girl whom I met on Friday; well, it deifnitely helped me sense that pleasure.