for sentimental reasons

stay & watch

2012-02-10T14:32:00.000-08:00

living in herds is something I truly believe in
but somehow cannot put into practice.

isolation brings stories about oneself
which get verified in the clear and simple mirror of another human being
without any inquiry about permission or state of mind.
isolation favors abstraction, daydreaming and wishful thinking.
communication requires literal reality and common language of immediate associations.
living in herds is a bitter medicine I need in order not to go crazy with my raging neurosis.

transformations

2012-02-01T01:56:00.000-08:00

leaving the agency was weird. I'd been sure they didn't want me to stay there just as much as I didn't want to work for them. but when the flowers and hugs came, I got confused. I gave a speech.
and then at 4 pm I left.
I'm officially unemployed now.

HELL YEAH! :)

off to Georgia. wish me luck.

how to turn shitty into pretty

2012-01-29T06:06:00.001-08:00

I don't really hold my liquor well these days, but I've found out that when I drink quite a lot before going to bed and leave the heating on, I have the most beautiful dreams about the tropics.
last night, I won the canoeing contest!

apnoea

2012-01-28T10:23:00.000-08:00

this movie is incredible.

but somehow I was wide awake.

2012-01-27T10:47:00.000-08:00

when falling asleep, I cuddle up to memories. they are warm and human. they are my proof that life can happen for real.

it was about midnight and I really wanted to fall asleep

2012-01-26T10:45:00.000-08:00

what's typical of solitude is the endless silence.

it separates me from the world like a still buffer and it amplifies distant sounds that imprint marks in my head even when I don't want to listen.

hairband & marriage

2012-01-23T12:58:00.000-08:00

Today, after the exam [I passed!!!], Il. said she had to wait an hour for her Spanish classes and asked me whether I felt like going with her to H&M. And so I went. On our way she told me that she'd been living with G. for three years now and recently, in the "Favorite" file on his laptop she had found some jeweler's websites with engagement rings. And she began to wonder, well, at our university there's more and more married girls, and by the way, have you heard how A. named her daughter? Liliana, would you believe that?! So she, Il., doesn't feel like getting married at all, because now, when she fights with G., she can just ignore him, she won't serve him his dinner, will she – and after they're married – you know... [do I..?] And a baby? Oh, please. She, Il., is still a kid herself. And by the way, Gab. gave her a most horrible hairband recently, but then it's Gab., she has her style, doesn't she...
This hour lasted FOREVER.
I wondered - would she have said if I were a man?
Did she say it all because I'm a woman and she thinks stuff like that are supposed to be said when talking to a woman?
Or maybe this speech mode was because she expects herself to be using it being a woman herself?
All I know is that the total amount of energy I needed to interpret a German text about samurais was just about nothing when compared with the power I need to go shopping with Il.
PS I tried on a blouse with the Beatles imprint. But I guess I have to find a homonormative shop as my lesbian abdomen doesn't fit in the H&M clothing at all.

online archiving

2012-01-22T07:40:00.000-08:00

I'm currently reading "The Argentine adventures of Gombrowicz". The documentary style of the book makes me think in its rhythm, the rhythm of short, quick pieces of information.

So.

Sunday, the second half of January. Not much snow, more rain. One mug of coffee, two cups of tee. Broccoli soup.
A message from Dee and one from Sz.
Yesterday, a whole lot of fantastic moments with my parents. I didn't know there was a dance called "let's kiss". I watched an Internet tutorial with my mom: http://youtu.be/4wRS2y4UB4c
The ticket to Warsaw: PLN 9.11.
Plans for the next few hours: prepare myself for tomorrow's exam (interpreting German-Polish, at 5 pm); look for a hostel in Yerevan for the six of us; try to avoid Sunday sorrow; iron a blouse for the Monday at work.
Remember about I.'s birthday on Tuesday.
Answer N.'s email.
Go to bed early.
Remember not to miss her, not to try to understand.
Not to lose my hope.
And to take my zinc.

holy thursday!

2012-01-19T23:27:00.000-08:00

Oh, it is so nice to get up at 6.40 am and go to the doctor's.
It didn't begin all too bad. I managed to get the second ticket. I was supposed to be seen at 7.45.
So I go upstairs.
At the office I see a girl, totally terrified by me, by the world and by herself. She has the 7.30 ticket. Here comes the doctor. We give her a warm welcome with singing and flags to make sure she has noticed her patients waiting. Dr. Marlena, smiling as if she were high, hides in her burrow. Not to be seen anymore. Five, ten, fifteen minutes pass. Nothing. A new patient has arrived. We talk to each other in a VERY LOUD MANNER, to make the first patient hear us, that perhaps it wouldn't do any harm to knock and ask whether she could come in. But the lady seems to be not only terrified, but also slightly unperceptive, so, at 7.50, I say to her: Couldn't you ask Her Majesty? The Terrified One gets up and approaches the door, which takes her an awful lot of time. She practices the gesture of knocking to make sure it will go smoothly and finally knocks on the door, so quietly I'm kinda sure even the door wouldn't notice. She opens the door slightly (about 5 millimeters), says she's sorry to be alive and asks if she may enter. Yes. She may. She probably could at 7.30 just as well, but the poor doctor "didn't know there was someone waiting". Lordy.
The Terrified One gets out, I get it. Your name? So I tell her. Oh, well, I can't see your file. Would you please go downstairs and get it?
Finding no words to describe this ever so curious absurdity I take my bag and run from the third floor to the ground floor to get my file. Here I catch the nurse who's just about to leave for her gossip & coffee break: GIMMIE MY FILE. She: DON'T HAVE IT.
Huh?
Here it comes. The whole department starts to look for my documents. Telephones, catalogues, whatever you wish. The nurse calls my doctor to say the file is not here, only to find it the very next second. She tapes the envelope up with due diligence (which means another five minutes of waiting). I go back upstairs, but guess what, the next patient is already in the doctor's room. Some idiot says it's my fault so I'll get punished and will wait another fifteen minutes for my turn. I explain to myself his underestimation of my deadly powers is a sign of his mental illness and decide not to kill him.
Then I finally get to the doctor's office.
I sit down.
My doctor loves the whole world and makes sure every part of it feels well looked after. After one sentence uttered to me, there comes a sentence to a nurse, one to a doctor, one to miss technician – as all those people keep walking in and out to discuss some matters of life and death: nail polish, croissants and stuff. GODDAMNIT. The circle closes, back to me. The doctor turns out not to be able to tell one medicine from the other and apparently uses "zinc”", "calcium' and "magnesium" as synonyms.
I feel I really want to go home.
And forget to ask her one important question. In fact, when I realize this, I still have the time to go back and ask it. But I feel it would take too much of time and suffering.
At 9.30 I feel like a zombie and try to mentally prepare myself for the day.
In the afternoon I go where people spend their time talking books, language and translation, that is: workshops with Professor M. He's smoking and I'm asking him hundreds of questions. Each time he laughs and says: you may ask, but I may not answer at all.
But he always does.

And in the evening I meet Ol. in a café owned by a famous writer to choose a book for my mother. When I'm choosing between a story of a portraitist from a concentration camp and a book by a German woman of Turkish descent, I hear a deep male voice. It's him – the author of the most beautiful stories about Czech Republic. I copied fragments of his books and took them with me to Prague to have a walk around the city according to his hints. He goes crazy – he recommends dozens of books, tells me about them and their authors, and he says it all like a friendly host who shows to his guests everything that's best at his larder. Finally, I choose "Life. A practical guide". I write to my mom: something wonderful has just happened to me, but I won't tell you about it before your birthday. She writes back, but you'll forget it by then!
I won't.

So after all I'm quite happy to have gotten up this Thursday morning. Even at the dark 6.40.

reality can take so much more than fiction.

2012-01-18T09:38:00.000-08:00

my mom has become matchmaker between me and some country boy.

spinster sunday

2012-01-15T10:24:00.000-08:00

I've just washed pieces of chocolate out of my pillowcases.
washing out the smell of sex was more fun.

I didn't know I was dreaming big.

2012-01-14T15:20:00.000-08:00

I get down to writing as if it would hurt. I needn't try to capture whole weeks in these few sentences; all the facts, their meanings and my conclusions, too. it makes me not write at all. I just tear off my thoughts one after another like calendar pages, OK, keep going, don't look, it might hurt, move forwards, just forwards.

today's evening was absolutely special. Dee's lips are very sweet. her warmth is humane and soothing. I don't have to change into someone else. there was a moment when I was starting a sentence about something that's difficult for me to talk about and seeing her face lighting up I already knew she would understand. it was probably the most comforting experience of last few weeks.

I can't figure out why the accidental and unthinkable relationships I began when I was fifteen, are a hundred times more valuable, real and deep than the ones I developed as an adult – a woman aware of her sexual and personal identity, better up on the society, more confident of herself and her arguments. it's as if those early intuitive attempts, so trustful and full of childlike curiosity, were to pay off to a much larger extent than those adult games we play now in this general feeling of being lost between the need of creating our own families and social networks - and stepping back into ourselves, that primeval home. have I changed that much or has the world changed?

last night the snow fell at last. about 2 am I was coming home in a night bus; it was slippery and white, alcohol went to my head and I stuck to the moment and the fluidity of motions and the peaceful views I observed through the window, one after another. I could feel, like I frequently do these days, that this is what I am left with: this momentary anesthetization, short compensation in this state of empty hands. I have failed to build in this big and buzzing city anything I could fall back on. when the emptiness comes and I fall down, I keep on getting back to the center of the system: to my mother and father, to my Dee of a long standing who's still the same and still beautiful; to R. and his sentiments, even to A. with whom I'm still unable to communicate. everything that came later, all those people I met here, stay only on the surface, no ties, nothing promised and nothing matters if I should disappear. funny, back then I thought those few miraculous encounters, meeting people like Dee, were just the beginning, some kind of introduction to some fabulous things awaiting me in the future. but the promised city turned out to be nothing but space where I can walk away my pain, solitude and fear. and the offices of psychologists who spread their arms helplessly. and colorful people who are so difficult to reach because they feel safer if you keep the distance. more and more bills left in places I can't really afford, but then I deserve some pleasure, don't I.

it all makes me get back to my old dreams and read them like some original and only truth that can tell me more about my humanity than here and now, the real time, this day, this bread, this January snow, cause now it's all mistaken, distorted and twisted in a sad expression.

Dee and the memory of her warm hand will let me fall asleep without hydroxyzine tonight.

stay

2012-01-08T12:45:00.000-08:00

got back to the W city, to my tiny room with bars in the window. until the end of January I have eleven days at work to go and it feels like a whole lot of time.
I'm not sure whether the music I'm listening to is actually helping me or bringing me low.

I sit and wait patiently for the thoughts of this particular person to become irrelevant and just stop coming to my mind. this is the only way. let them die out. there is no substance that could veil them. nothing bigger than this in me. nor out in tonight's world.

loving from a distance

2012-01-06T12:09:00.000-08:00

lacuna

2012-01-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

"eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" is definitely one of the most overrated movies I've ever seen, but tonight there ain't nothing I'd love more than to become one of the characters & undergo surgery like the one they had in the story.

winter solstice

2011-12-22T05:57:00.000-08:00

björk's vespertine is probably the ultimate winter/christmas album to me.

"in icelandic, christmas is "jól", which has nothing of christianity in it but is believed to be from way before that and i have heard some theories that is related to the word "hjól" or "wheel". it is about winter solstice and reminds us of how the seasons roll wheel like forwards: it is a celebration of the days getting a little longer and the light returning. i have always absolutely adored christmas, for me it is the time when i sense harmony best.

ever since i saw my friend sjón's poem "solstice" i got excited about writing a song to it. i felt it poetically pointed out that the tilt of the earth gives us the seasons and reminds us of our place in the universe. we are a part of a gigantic gorgeous mobile run by physics, solar systems and as the poem points out in the end: love. in the poem, earth's position in our solar system is compared to a christmas ornament hanging on a christmas tree, 3rd from the star.(...)"

(björk)

so I better stay away

2011-12-17T03:05:00.000-08:00

to be with you
and to dream of you

gives me the very same
absence
of yours

and then came Wednesday, the 23rd

2011-12-04T14:18:00.000-08:00

how just a few November days can be horribly cold outside and totally warm inside of me.

Prague. Charles Bridge in the fog and I can hear INXS immediately. Dusk was falling and I could hear all the world's languages around me. the city gleamed in the mirror of Vltava – the "mother with claws", which becomes creepy and psychedelic once you've been to the Kafka's museum - just to turn out overdrawn and absurd a few hours later, when you see David Černý's Peeing Statues or Sigmund Freud hanging over the street. I also wanted to see the Trabant, but whoever can tell me, how to get to the rear of the German embassy, where the statue is said to be?
The Czechs, I do like them. Even if they don't speak English, they manage to communicate with me by willpower.
It was getting pitch dark, I left my bag at Hlavní nádraží and took the subway to the SaSaZu. I couldn't find it, so I asked a Czech the way. She turned out to be a German, so deeply into Russia, and her name was R. Such a strange encounter, but then - such a natural one. In the club there was her, me – the Pole, two Slovaks, and a huge crowd of Russians. And her. Zemfira. strong make-up and a glass of red wine (spilled over the console table). again, she, so beautiful in who she is and who she becomes. cheerful, precious. she knows how to do it. probably the best show I've ever been to.
then M. and the train to Bratislava. it turned out that what we'd gotten was just booking without the tickets proper. also, the booking was for the male compartment. it was no problem at all to us, since our fellow-traveler was ready to lend us some Euros that he gave me without a word, reaching from his low couchette.

Bratislava, I meet I. and from now on I will hear a lot of beautiful Russian in his conversations with M.
the gray city enveloped in fog. I meet two Poles at the castle. Coffee&Co at Michalska street (it was where I was reading "Intelligent Life": "Human beings need unhappiness at least as much as they need happiness"]. a bit of fine shots at some exhibition, too bad I forgot the names of the photographers. mulled wine and beer. then some more cold beer. and lemon vodka. kofola and halušky with ewe’s milk cheese.
the Studentská chocolate. and one obyčajný ticket at the Zochova bus stop.
but it all would have been nothing if it hadn't been for M. & I. beautiful people, you can always recognize them by the music they listen to.

I had my time to enjoy the life. to watch it. to listen to it. to taste it and smell it. to interact with it. see the intense associations in my head. feel the thrill. watch the situation unfold in the most positive direction. find out that my intuition was right when it told me to trust someone. be happy to see my everlasting problems still there and yet go further and further by my own, 'cause I receive signals of approval and safety – and that particular energy which gives me so much motivation to develop, to keep on searching, to want it all and not to be afraid. there are moments when I forget about my inhibitions and suddenly find myself functioning smoothly. I'd like to know how this struggle of mine looks from outside.

I want to learn Russian. I won't let it go. I have positively no time for it and there are just loads of other things to do, but I want to learn it.
like I want to
be,
travel,
be moving.
leave the cold places and find warmth where I didn't expect it to be. doing easily things I didn't know how to do not so much long ago. it all sounds just too sentimental and naïve. but then, I'm a bit about sentimentality myself.

it was Tuesday, 11/22

2011-12-04T13:55:00.000-08:00

so when I travel alone, I feel like getting back to the larval stage of childhood. I think of my parents, with whom I've travelled thousands of miles in my life. then I think of the narrations which stimulate my instincts in an animal, non-intellectual way. so this won't be Winterson, Sapphire or Janion, although they have grown so important to me. I think through Stasiuk and Legátova, a bit of Schulz as well, it's inevitable. but most of all, Stasiuk and Legátova, it's them, when I watch dry Slavic November, grayish-ashen, illuminated by the strong sunlight. I guess without their books I would never recognize this abundant austerity of the out-of-town world, even with the time I've spent in the countryside.

I remember taking some Autumn photos of rows of trees. the distance between the rows was big enough to make the last one look as if it'd been fading away – 'cause the whole November, if it's without rain, seems like the Javanese shadow play: bare, sunny existence just before it ceases to be.

in a small town I was passing through there were doors for sale presented like prostitutes in a colorful window display.

in another one a tiny little kiosk had a sign that said "Wedding dresses salon".

in a big city I saw a red-haired girl and a gigantic square, through which I watched the sunset.
less and less light, more and more evening smoke.

and when I travel alone, I take care of myself like never. it might well be that it's the way mothers care of their young when facing danger.
I get sentimental and inclined to cry.

there is a song by Bregovič called "7/8 & 11/8", I could hear it at dusk. after all it was Bregovič whom I listened to when reading Legátova.

it was at dusk that I needed to see the world organized in some decent, proper way.

and those dry soaring poplars looked like the ones on the cover of Irena Jurgielewiczowa’s book that I read as a child.

the ginger world was vanishing into thin air.

it was only 4am and it was already dark. I thought I saw a bat flying over. I thought it was a pity A. didn't wrote back – I would have been looking forward to Wednesday afternoon if I had been supposed to meet her.

that morning I drank a glass of milk and this white felt comforting to me. it occurred to me that living with a cat makes things easier – people who keep them can nestle in the fur and make their mornings and evenings brighter with a bit of milk.

that day the need to belong was as strong as if it could take control over the vital functions of my organism.

strong meat

2011-11-05T07:01:00.000-07:00

yesterday, I paid with my nervous system for acting like an exaggerating hysterical drama queen.
well, at least no-one can say I'm indifferent.

the kind dispersion

2011-10-30T16:26:00.000-07:00

I ride my bike through autumn. quiet layers of smoke and the birches will soon fade away. baked apples like every year. mother and father play cooking in the kitchen, two fifty-three-year-old children in woolen sweaters. the two of them save my life every day. the cat gallops between my feet. I would cover myself with this whole world and fall asleep. I don't have to wait to see the winter, snowberries are perfectly enough to me.
the spirit of gipsy nomads, the mood somewhere in between Bregovič and Kusturica. in the harsh narration of Květa Legátová. my favorite G. made me drunk on rowan vodka. I like the places I come from.

smoking life with God

2011-10-26T14:09:00.000-07:00

tonight I feel like breaking up with reality once and for all.

anna melikyan, i love you

2011-10-13T11:57:00.000-07:00

it's winter and the suns, the oranges, have not risen. that's how I feel with my 37,4 degrees.
I was so worried about my lack of money for what I'd planned that I've fallen ill. it's kinda sad when there's no point going to see the doctor as you won't be able to buy the medicines anyway. oh, well.
B. is going to take part in a casting for extras. she wants me to go with her. I asked her, but what am I going to wear? and then she went, you know, I'll wear my homeless style outfit and you'll weare your gay club one.

my flat mate has come back from her monthly journey. she's not really in a hurry to find a job. do I envy her? no. I'm just enjoying the image of her.

"Mars" is a beautiful movie. I'd like to keep the whole script in my head. just like I want to keep some poems forever by learning them by heart. to make them a part of myself. hoping they will change the thoughts coming to my mind.

"so many people, yet so few thoughts". ("Mars")

the feeling I'm losing a friend of mine got me worried for quite a while. till I finally realized that it might be yet another relationship of which I thought more than it actually was. my mind is a famous illusionist. but then it's all because it's too sad to be alone in this world.

when A. came for lunch to my place a few days ago, she said it scared her that soon she would have to become responsible for herself. back then I thought it sounded ridiculous and bizarre. now it's ridiculous and bizarre to find out I feel just the same.

I'm tired. oh, well.

god save the queen

2011-10-03T16:03:00.001-07:00

always wanting to tell you all the stories
and yet when I do
it's like losing another part of myself

unless you sanction the narration
it never counts

"Her" by Jackie Kay

2011-10-03T08:01:00.000-07:00

I had been told about her.
How she would always, always.
How she would never, never.
I'd watched and listened
but I still fell for her,
how she always, always.
How she never, never.

In the small brave night,
her lips, butterfly moments.
I tried to catch her and she laughed
a loud laugh that cracked me in two,
but then I had been told about her,
how she would always, always.
How she would never, never

We two listened to the wind.
We two galloped a pace.
We two, up and away, away, away.
And now she's gone,
like she said she would go.
But then I had been told about her—
how she would always, always.

hear it here.

don't lose me.

2011-09-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

life's way too beautiful to experience it alone.

"stupefied by the light"

2011-09-29T13:00:00.000-07:00

wide-angle countryside with the sun low & orange. trees still ripe, but first light grey strips anticipate the October time. the depth of colors and the very last moments, the neighborhood does its best for soon it will all start fading away.
baked apples, the hot syrupy sweetness spills out from the hollowed medulla. with all its abundance, this time of year is under the sign of Schulz.
there is immense hunger for tales inside me. so I read the Czech stories by Szczygieł, although it doesn't come easy to me to forgive him (even him) the forrible Catholic discourse. he somehow urged me to start the apostasy process. the first step is always the hardest: the priest on the phone was an asshole that hung up and he was gone. I've got a feeling it all won't be a quick thing to do.
so I read - I'm surprised to discover that the academic book "DUET encounters" turns out to be not a collection of scientific articles, but half-private memories of some linguistic conferences. it's totally useless when it comes to my thesis, but it's warm and full of the peculiar satisfaction brought by academic work – demanding, exhausting, badly funded one – one which makes you a better human being through the intellectual effort you made. (so I assume. I have never done solid academic work myself.)
and on the radio Maria Peszek (Mariah Pescheck as I call her in writing) tells her Asian story, so vivid a tale, I guess it sharpened my unbearable hunger even more. texture skin structure. aromas. I've got some wine that's most suitable to this. shell segal.
how I love radio. radio is larger than television. radio is larger than the internet. radio combined with literature is beautiful feed for gigantic hunger. horizons, spaces, phantasms.
today my life has been very, very pretty.

Gracias A La Vida

2011-09-24T15:11:00.000-07:00

today I thought for a while life was amazing because I went out just for a coffee with a friend that I was supposed to walk to a concert hall, for a show of one of the most incredible singing women of our times – and surprisingly, I found myself at the concert just as well.
but actually, life is amazing because when I switched on my mobile after the show, I read a message that she cares. the one I want to care most.

new art from India

2011-09-22T06:18:00.000-07:00

***

***

***

(or from elsewhere.)

and I'll stick to my standards just as well.

2011-09-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

I don't want to make a fuss about it, but I really do have human feelings. I have an empathy module and a need to experience the same in other people's behavior. in behavior of some particular ones.
also, among the living creatures, I definitely prefer the human ones. the humane ones.
setting yourself free of social conventions is brave and interesting. and it can be funny, too. but like everything else, once overdone, it becomes absurd.
allergic response to human reactions is absurd.
just this absurdity doesn't seem very entertaining to me.

but I guess I'll stick to Russian.

2011-09-21T05:41:00.000-07:00

what I hate you most for is that if I could, I would take you to, say, Provence and feed you with cheese and wine, and teach myself this god-damn language. I would smell your hair like herbs and weave elaborate micro-worlds, one by one, for your chaotic yet effective exploration. I would create things beyond the epoch, for you, the only one in the era, the only one in this world.

someone scattered raspberries on a sunny pavement.
why are you leaving again?

gimmie another script

2011-09-20T08:50:00.000-07:00

so this is it?
so my future job will boil down to eight hours in front of the commuter screen at a grey-painted office, with a hare's-foot fern on a tall cabinet? and to salary stable enough to let a bank tie me to itself with a loan for several dozen of years?
so our relation comes down to sex and a few stories about our friends, told to each other as a form of entertainment?
so I meet all those people only to make us stop being busy with the computer for a while and not go completely crazy? (and to make our self-esteem properly high?)

I really did thing better of this Warsaw reality we have.

Kawasaki's Rose

2011-09-19T08:53:00.000-07:00

it's been a long time since I last went to the L. cinema on a cheap Monday. (PLN 8.) on the left: a fat woman with a bag of chips from a no frills supermarket. behind me: a guard of elderly ladies trying to outdo each other in their manometer results. the movie – like most Czech ones I've seen – decent, a few pretty overexposed shots and a girl with pink hair.
then I leave the cinema and it's not that muggy any more, since the day is past its worse and it's all getting better now; grey, late summer Warsaw, I walk under the arcades at the C. Square, I've changed at home and I'm wearing trousers instead of my skirt, so nobody's seeing me, nobody's talking to me.
I get back to my flat at W. street, cook myself some powdered soup that was best before the date half a year and eight days ago (like those PLN 8 at the cinema) and I read reviews of books about Berlin, which I'll probably never read and it might be that I'll never be in Berlin again either.
keep moving. keep moving to spite the solitude.

switch it off

2011-09-17T06:36:00.000-07:00

I didn't take many photos this summer. it occurred to me, cause this time last year I was sticking together dozens of black sheets of construction paper with spring and summer photos. now all I have is a few shots somewhere in the web, taken at a few afternoon walks. I sat throughout the summer. no lakes, forests, clubs. just a smart jacket and office computer with a password – eight or twelve characters, small and capital letters and one special character. cover your feet, cover your tattoo. in the evenings my relationship grew, then it fell apart. at nights there were rows and sticky sex. everything gets washed down like watercolor, the July rains might still have something to do with it. I'm tired, I've got two weeks of holidays and no plans what to do with them. no money to make any plans anyway. I bought books and magazines, but I don't read them. I don't visit places. the season is fading away. girls are slim, neat and distant. I'd like someone to take me somewhere, but things like that never come when you want them to. I have this picture of myself in beautiful scenes, I know they can happen, cause life can actually be like that. but I don't seem to find them.
burning thoughts come to my feet, like: I make positively no progress at yoga, my love is destructive and I don't lose weight at all. visualizing basement brings a relief to me, which probably isn't the best symptom of my mental condition.

creative chaos

2011-09-16T13:55:00.000-07:00

I like it when a sticker has a slit on the back so that I don't have to unstuck it starting from the corner.
at the end of my traineeship I got a calendar with a picture of a neutrino observatory as a gift.
life shown in the "beginners" movie smells nice.
I don't want order. mess is so much more interesting with its landscapes.

gentlemen, things got over the top

2011-09-07T13:19:00.000-07:00

I walk & walk, I go out with a fake aim in mind, with zemfira (спасибо) in my earphones, with or without a cigarette.
I prefer the 'with' option, though.
summertime gave me five kilos, so I steer clear of the bakery and I use Excel to count how many calories a fruit candy has. (it's eight.)
I watch a few threads reaching the zenith – the zenith of their energetic efficiency, the zenith of my resilience. the wall. thanks but no thanks. as usually, the future image without them seems scary. but that ain't a reason good enough to keep the monster by my side.
occasional smoke is just enough to me.

Indian summer

2011-09-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

recovery is a miracle.
each time it happens.

SaSaZu

2011-09-03T07:00:00.000-07:00

i double checked
the trees definitely get yellow

i listen to paul kalkbrenner again and again, i don't seem to digest anything else
anything more literal, anything more sentimental

i can't communicate with my mother and father successfully, however we try
so we exchange objects:
i gave them a box of soan papdi*, they gave me a few strings to wear as a necklace

at the rossmann at the train station i chose dried apricots instead of chocolate
cause colors is what i need now

i dream of going to Zemfira's concert in Prague. i assume i'm the blog's only reader, but in case i'm wrong – anybody?

the poster: http://zemfira.ru/img/afisha.jpg

* OH, LORD! that's just awesome.

oh, Hare, Hare

2011-09-02T13:26:00.000-07:00

autumn, the world is dying just like every year
every time when an important era in my life reaches its miserable end, I trample it during my nighttime walks
city centre
black devils
martini
I go to all those film shows, poetry evenings, performances for free
apart from me no one but elderly ladies and gentlemen
they don't know how to switch off their mobiles and they rustle with their sweet wrappers
they're harmless
I take the singular
it requires getting rid of the feminine a bit

also,
I guess there's a tramp on the street, I can hear him yelling "Hare Krishna!"

missy messing up

2011-08-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

- berlin calling soundtrack.
- Mon is a carrier of cruel truth, which she seems to read from my consciousness after my story sketched in just a few sentences. at times all I want to do is to close her mouth with my hand.
- my mother knows my flame. against her upbringing, her habits and all her will, she let my love for women find its way to her awareness. (still, the final remark had to come: "but... that Simon guy... what about him?")
- the belle époque woman embraces.
- the real time woman is being released from my arms.
(however, the two of them are not to be treated as alternatives. two ever so different stories.)
- putting on weight. sweet pastry = comfort.
- for a moment I'd have rather been blind and deaf, only to be able to ignore how things get screwed up, be able to believe we're gonna make it.
- facing severe lack of data I didn't want to make any decision at all. then I provoked events that brought data filled with guilt and meaning. that's already something, huh.
- the height of August, falafel, hummus and ayran on a warm, Sunday street.
- one of plentiful good points of the W city is that you can wipe your tears and blow your nose with it; you can walk away your grief and crying, the city never ends, your sorrow inevitably loses with its hugeness.

night walking

2011-08-05T09:51:00.000-07:00

most of all I would like to wrap myself tightly in this August city, let my body become yet another square burnt by the sun every day, deprived of another layer, beaten and swept. I'd like to become this city myself - create possibilities, bring energy, inspiration and shelter. never come to an end. act in a dispersed way, with the responsibility unspecified, but with one strong rhythm.

I keep on searching for a way for us to come true in this big, big city.

sky and sand

2011-08-04T11:42:00.000-07:00

love impossible.
love. who you are and who you are becoming is more beautiful than anything I've ever seen. it is the best, the most sophisticated, the most precious human phenomenon.
impossible. we cannot give each other what we both seek. an attempt to reach each other brings grievance, confusion and resentment – and successfully kills the sober perception of the other one's value.
the awareness of your existence makes me utterly happy and at the same time it reveals to me the quiet, painful knowledge of truth so strange and ambiguous that only life in this world could have created it.
August, early morning, your smell still in the air or just in my receptors' memory, I am crying, but if anybody should ask, it's because to see you is to realize how much, how incessantly, how terribly I miss you.

darker sweeter better

2011-07-30T11:13:00.000-07:00

my sister texts me from Southport, I cried in my girlfriend's arms today and it seems to have been raining incessantly for a month.

the humpback whale

2011-05-28T14:10:00.001-07:00

through the water. of your eyes. I pray. I'm calling you.

Songs Of The Humpback Whale

I never looked for it. you were just about to leave. and yet you stayed. and yet I approached you. it was the tide. you, rocking me in your arms. the waves come slowly. Sedna can tell whether there are ghosts to be afraid of.

ripples

2011-05-15T11:38:00.000-07:00

it has rained over the whole May Sunday. I'm too tired to let the lack of comprehension of what's going on disturb me in any way. I watch it all, stimulating myself at the minimal level, only not to miss the very last moment when the end of the thread slips away, the doors close, the train leaves, the wind builds the emptiness. gone. once back, we'll celebrate. with the grapes, wine and touch. I'll be waiting right here.

out-box #6

2011-05-14T09:35:00.000-07:00

cynicism spreads like wildfire.

reading can save even a comic book!

2011-05-03T12:39:00.000-07:00

Alison Bechdel – yes, yes! YES! and it's not only because "Fun Home" is a story about a lesbian.
it is an open world.
not like the fantasy stuff, all the Tolkiens and the ludo board games his people play. not one of the enclosed worlds that you can stuff yourself with to forget about what you lack, forget about your fears and the work you fall behind with. not a pack of sweets for the inhibited boys [no matter what's their gender] with a tendency of fixation – for them to hear the white hum that will let them survive a couple of hours in the state of muted consciousness. an open, spacious world – which can be seen even in the broad, movie-like perspective.
I think literature is the key here; Bechdel is a reader, she reads physically and intellectually and what she came up with is a novel itself – I have no problems imagining the story as a fine piece of fiction, there's a narrative spirit to it and the drawings add a whole lot to the expression, instead of enclosing it in a tiny little chest, where the fantasy fans can have their imaginary wank as much as they wish.
besides
the main character is so like MTV's Daria that I just must love her.

streetcar named desire

2011-04-28T04:02:00.000-07:00

it was in the number 7.

'the situation has changed... I've started to have the feeling of love, you know... is there going to be sausage...?'

lost in time and space and at the newsagent's

2011-04-28T03:50:00.000-07:00

'do you happen to have yesterday's newspaper? I need the one... exactly the one you're reading!'
'huh?'
'um... what day is it today?'
'Thursday.'
'oh. so I'll take the regular one.'

this is post no. 301

2011-04-28T00:22:00.000-07:00

I enjoy sharing my interests with the sophisticated part of audience
even/especially if it means being among millions
this is safety

the death of the reader

2011-04-27T01:03:00.000-07:00

those aerograms
it seems all my life I've been sending them instead of megaphoning my heart out

to live
ain't enough to me
the message needs to be conveyed

Wer dichtet, ist nicht tot.

out-box #5

2011-04-26T08:33:00.000-07:00

my yesterday's arrival to Warsaw like Your cheerful "home! home!" a few months ago
I opened the window in the long-not-aired flat; warm fragrant May came in, in spite of the calendars.

I've failed not to think
failed in the shopping center, in the old part of the city and in the university library
I'm working
I'm watching the tree on my street getting greener and greener
I've stopped crying
my longing is less dramatic
but more
confused.

I'm wondering what all those people who have grown quiet these days are doing – or whether You got the parcel – or what this summer is going to be like
no prospects so far
but the sun is already here
warmin'
.

out-box #4, meaning as psychosis

2011-04-26T00:13:00.000-07:00

Jeanette Winterson's novels and articles are the only works I ever re-read. (Apart from Szymborska's. And Tove Jansson's. And Virginia Woolf's.)

'End of story. Gotta start again. Gotta be positive. Gotta move on. Don't look back. No regrets.'

That's how he said it. He said it like a mantra. I wonder how many times a day he had to say it to make it true? It was a poultice over his heart.
I didn't know how to poultice my heart.

(...)
After the Talking Bird, the nice man at the Tavistock Clinic kept asking me why I stole books and birds, though I had only ever stolen one of each.
I told him it was about meaning, and he suggested, very politely, that might be a kind of psychosis.
'You think meaning is psychosis?'
'An obsession with meaning, at the expense of the ordinary shape of life, might be understood as psychosis, yes.'
'I do not accept that life has an ordinary shape, or that there is anything ordinary about life at all. We make it ordinary, but it is not.'
He twiddled his pencil. His nails were very clean.
'I am only asking questions.'
'So am I.'
There was a pause.
I said, 'How would you define psychosis?'
He wrote on a piece of paper with his pencil: Psychosis: out of touch with reality.
Since then, I have been trying to find out what reality is, so that I can touch it.
(...)
In the morning I was woken early by the chromatic bell of the Orthodox Church.
I unlatched the shutters. The light was as intense as a love affair. I was blinded, delighted, not just because it was warm and wonderful, but because nature measures nothing. Nobody needs this much sunlight. Nobody needs droughts, volcanoes, monsoons, tornadoes either, but we get them, because our world is extravagant as a world can be. We are the ones obsessed by measurement. The world just pours it out.

I went outside, tripping over slabs of sunshine the size of towns. The sun was like a crowd of people, it was a party, it was music. The sun was blaring through the walls of the houses and beating down the steps. The sun was drumming time into the stone. The sun was rhythming the day.

'Why are you afraid'? I asked myself, because fear is at the bottom of everything, even love usually rests on fear. 'Why are you afraid, when whatever you do will die anyway?'
(...)
I used to be a hopeless romantic. I am still a hopeless romantic. I used to believe that love was the highest value. I still believe that love is the highest value. I don't expect to be happy. I don't imagine that I will find love, whatever that means, or that if I do find it, it will make me happy. I don't think of love as the answer or the solution. I think of love as a force of nature - as strong as the sun, as necessary, as impersonal, as gigantic, as impossible, as scorching as it is warming, as drought-making as it is life-giving.And when it burns out, the planet dies.

My little orbit of life circles love. I daren't get any closer. I'm not a mystic seeking final communion. I don't go out without SPF 15. I protect myself.
But today, when the sun is everywhere, and everything solid is nothing but its own shadow, I know that the real things in life, the things I remember, the things I turn over in my hands, are not houses, bank accounts, prizes or promotions. What I remember is love – all love - love of this dirt road, this sunrise, a day by the river, the stranger I met in a café. Myself, even, which is the hardest thing of all to love, because love and selfishness are not the same thing. It is easy to be selfish. It is hard to love who I am. No wonder I am surprised if you do.
But love it is that wins the day.
(...)
The light was lengthening in soft lines along the river. Whether it was the quality of light, or the clarity of my feelings for you, I don't know, but there was softness and no blurring. 'This is not a lie,' I said to myself. 'It may not hold, but it is true.'

[Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping]

new spring resolution

2011-04-25T13:31:00.001-07:00

me refuses to think
me will do anything it takes
will drink anything it takes
and walk anything it takes
to prevent myself from this fatal activity.
so help me work.

out-box #3

2011-04-25T05:53:00.000-07:00

yeah, I know
you don't care about this day
like perhaps you don't care at all
so
it might just as well not be for your birthday
'cause to me it's for
ever
or
totally for nothing.

wishing You.

cause the verbal channel is just one among many available

2011-04-23T02:23:00.001-07:00

me: I don't know if I'm going.
she: I thought you'd made up your mind.
me: no. it's just. I'm not well. [tears, spasms, hyperventilation.]
she: oh. have some grapes. and an apple. oh, and a pear.

http://schizoid.in/schizoid-chill.pls

2011-04-23T01:21:00.000-07:00

drop drop drop
staring at the wall in front of me
another cup of coffee
another hour
my body is waiting
what for
there's nothing to come
nothing to come.

Renata Litvinova

2011-04-23T00:33:00.000-07:00

& the world's worst bra:

but I terribly liked the movie.

...because you're such a SISSY and you'll be one for the rest of your life!!!
Biegunova as Vika should be my personal coach.

Esc

2011-04-22T11:59:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid – don't ask me: of what. there is no reason; everything is the reason. silence, a glass of water, a broken conversation somewhere in the background – everything causes tension that I just can't stand any more. I'm scared. I look into faces, searching for understanding, searching for rescue, searching for warmth. I can hardly count the bottles I emptied trying successfully to make that feeling go away, that void, that panic when you cease to feel yourself, your will, your consciousness. I can't remember when last time finding peace was so difficult to me.
constantly I need feed, the permanent presence of those few people that are somewhere far away right now, out of touch, because the time has come to sit on your ass with your family, to eat like animals do, the holidays of church I don't even recognize. so they're not here – and I need them, their attention, the physical contact with them, their messages and their being by my side. when they disappear and when alcohol evaporates from my veins, the sharp silence falls on my mind and my body. I can't feed myself.

I don't think myself a parasite. it's scary, though, how I burden them with my misery. I'd give anything to take shelter in a warm body – although I know very well it won't change a thing – it will only make my disorder retreat a bit into the shadow, but not disappear completely – but just not to feel it for a while, that is: be able to believe for a moment that it's not there and what's real is the safety, the good smell, nothing more, the arm around me, the collarbone, the tummy, not even trying to make it mean more than it actually does, just this, so full and good
now
when it's not there.

caution

2011-04-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

the female bleeds badly

emergency

2011-04-17T02:27:00.000-07:00

grief gives me skin disease
drama gives me a cold
good people give me joy [& more]

sunbeams from the womb

2011-04-15T07:03:00.000-07:00

lipstick on the mug is a sure indicator my mother was here.

overeating the next day is yet another one.

out-box #2

2011-04-14T00:51:00.000-07:00

I guess I'll have to pin the coffee filters to the shitty device with my barrettes when percolating. 'cause good morning dishwater is like good morning heartache. and when it's twice in a row, it's mourning already.

update

gotta get some pink ones. would be more glamour.
wondering whether they'll dissolve in the process.

also, to blog to yourself only is kinda frustrating. maybe I should get back to the old school bridget jones mode. but then, that one doesn't have the embarassing content filter. oh well.

out-box #1

2011-04-13T23:49:00.000-07:00

so I started practicing night walking. yesterday, around 9.30 p.m. I froze seeing the funny little shop that sells the plastic cameras being closed. while I was staring at the empty display window, a weasel made a torpedo run straight from the gateway where I took some photos a few weeks ago. a weasel. not a cat. not a dog. not even a rat.
a weasel.
M. wrote that the ermine without the lady never counts.
damn, I so agree.

gentle retouch

2011-04-13T06:21:00.000-07:00

the girl at the photographer's told me I should sleep more.
that kinda moved me.
deeply.

∞

2011-04-12T22:58:00.000-07:00

the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty the immensity the beauty the cruelty

leeet's pretend we don't exist

2011-04-12T12:58:00.000-07:00

April snow

2011-04-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

I ate the hard fruit candy that the V-Girl spat out before She left.
there ain't nothing I can do to make Her forget obstacles Switzerland the whole big world outside
and want me instead

I had rushed into your life
And you were dumbfounded
I wanted love
But you did not want it
Maybe I am not saying what I need
Please listen
Listen
I am giving you the stars,
Selling my soul -
Listen harder!

And I was dreaming that…
That the people wanted something else
I was wrong
I ended up myself under fire
The first snow is outside
But even that is for nothing
You are silent
Listen
My god, you know I am a cynic
And you are talking about some soul…
Have mercy on my ears!

I understand the conversations are pointless
I don't want to fight with you
You believe,
You know more than I do
One can fly off -
Fly away -
Fly too much
One can leave
Or stay
But you are - melting
Snow

Forty minutes flew by
Like the word "tomorrow"
There is snow on the boots
And total lies in the eyes
I am so tired
Exactly what did you want?
Do you know that yourself?
Probably not,
And that's why you are just fooling around
Wasting my time

I understand the conversations are pointless
I don't want to fight with you
You believe,
You know more than I do
One can fly off -
Fly away -
Fly too much
One can leave
Or stay
But you are - melting
Snow

JWvG

2011-04-09T07:58:00.000-07:00

Oftmals hab' ich auch schon in ihren Armen gedichtet,
Und des Hexameters Mass leise mit fingernder Hand
Ihr auf dem Rücken gezählt.

[Often have I composed poems even in her arms,
Counting the hexameter’s beat softly with fingering hand
There on the back of the beloved.]

I love V-words in English.

2011-04-09T04:07:00.000-07:00

variety. vagina. vulva. virginity? Virginia Woolf/is for lovers. vague. vanilla [in the Shane McCutcheon sense]. vintage. vanishing [act]. vegetarian! verbalize. viscious circle. virtual hands. vivid! vivid!
most of all, I love when one beautiful girl I know makes the V-gesture, like the one the House Guy did.

loved the movie

2011-04-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

downtempo in the phoenix city

2011-04-04T09:35:00.000-07:00

the champaign bubbles of life when I'm choking with tears and breath
the air the air the air
sometimes I lose my habit of exhalation, that's when I put a shell from my hands to my mouth, reducing the amount of the inhaled life, finally, I stop choking.
I wash down my chocolate cigarettes with the lemon balm and lavender tea.
two years ago at this time of year something broke, too, and bent steeply downwards. I took my summer exams in half-sleep, doped after the paroxetine. now I don't live at the Joli Bord any more, now it's the tarry, hot city center. with a blond girl still living next door, but now a different one, a dyed one, one more prone to cooperation, not on the level I'm likely to cooperate with her, though.
so,
I daydream of a one-room apartment. does anybody feel like sparing me 1500 PLN a month?
today, when people talked to me, the tension in my head opened a straight way to madness. it was like a fresh tablecloth, white bread and sobriety when all I need is night, martini and dancing till I sweat like a pig.
I need a healing micro-world, a herbal comfort in a blissful state of mind two meters over the ground, I need some chamomile on my eyes, some lemon balm on my tongue, some cannabis on my brain.
I need it to be quiet and clean, I want this hotchpotch of scraps, the leftovers, the broken sentences, the unfinished thoughts, to go down at once.
I sleep naked in the embryonic position, I wait and I believe that this Spring solstice will finally rumble through the time and space somewhere high above, beyond our awareness, without the active role of the city's forces - grease - muscles, till I wake up, get up, put my favorite gray sneakers on, go out, walk down the street, feel lightly to be moving, without the sense of guilt, without the sadness laying heavy deep inside my head; I'll walk alone, but knowing there are the best people ever within my reach - sight - capabilities. and I'll be able to exhale, without the grief, without the chopped feeling of a loss.

exitement, exactly.

2011-03-17T12:30:00.000-07:00

with the back all wet
and the bike leaned against the left iliac spine

I repeat certain phrases and motions intentionally
to have it one more time

exercising my mind, I imagine sb-sth disappears suddenly
I make a transformation into the past tense
I print it on a transparency, raise it against the city lights at five p.m.
in March it's already twilight

what one is forbidden
is to feel frightened and guilty
too much

cherry liqueur as sweet as sirup flexibly concentrated in a tiny dot
of blood
intensified life form
tight strings
of unhurried interaction
at night

that's a must! x 3

2011-03-07T00:40:00.000-08:00

~ Jeanette Winterson's March post

I stick with my list of small things; buy good local food. Buy stuff that is sustainable. Use my local bookshop. Get the bike out as much as possible – spring will make that easier. Plant those plants that support biodiversity. Even a window box is worth it, and I have a fondness for window-boxes – so small and cheerful. Don’t buy bloody dwarf conifers stuck in a tub – plant something you would like if you were a bird or an insect or a bee. Plant annuals with scent – nature loves colour and smell – old fashioned sweet peas grown from seed – start them in March in a pot – you will love them too, and once they start to flower you can cut them everyday and more will come. Magic!
Wear clothes you like wearing and buck the billion dollar fashion industry that is turning us all into hysterics.
[...]
Try and be gentle with yourself.

~ Endangered Species Women

with the Emma Thompson's supporter:

~ AnyBody

contains compulsive eating workshop. quite scary. quite revealing.

life's what you make it

2011-03-06T03:10:00.000-08:00

type in the word freedom
press the enter key

the discreet charm of existence

2011-03-05T00:15:00.000-08:00

I went to the disreputable district of the W city to get my keys. on my way there, seen from the streetcar: birds were falling in waves on the roof of the covered market. on the destination street two men were destroying public property with spray cans in their hands. Z. said to me: see, how many times a miracle was supposed to happen, but it was only shit we got. in the view of it all, Irena Kwiatkowska went to dance in another dimension. which marks the spring time, I guess. I miss someone to the point where it really gets on my nerves.

that's why I got myself an awesome haircut.

2011-03-02T03:51:00.000-08:00

x is good enough to be given what she needs

where

x - any human being

the theorem applies universally

call me Taz

2011-02-24T07:59:00.000-08:00

so today I made a new folder called MA. it already contains the first file for me to study before I get round to my grand scale shamming of the academic work on the protagonists' gender in the great, sophisticated literature. here we go.

after a cup of green tea and a bucket of coffee I'm frisking like a wacko. where the fuck is my lover when I need her.

the secretary in our stately institute gave me today a digitalized version of a document that I'm not really allowed to possess. you're pretty much hot, too, missy.

what else – my organism used to the Riga standards demands alcohol in godless amounts. the problematic part: the Riga company have gone their separate ways to the hell, to London or to work. so, my evening bottle of wine will have to do [2/3 of the bottle is mine, anyway], but I still wash it down with my secret martini on the rocks, loved by no one but me.

I'm looking forward to the short period of being here and there which starts tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's evening. I'm looking forward to what I'm having here and now. hell, I like this жизнь of mine, that bitch. wondering when things will get fucked up.

plus, I'm eating like a pig these days, making a resolution with every bite to do better in the future, to lose some weight and stop stuffing myself with food that much. there's definitely something wrong about me and the feed. so, let's go to warm up a ciabatta, shall we?

know-how

2011-02-23T08:43:00.000-08:00

stuff like that:

http://elka-gra.blog.pl/
http://transfokator.blogspot.com/

should inspire me.

but

in fact

I feel like sitting back deep in the blissful passiveness of an audience.
clear the way for those who know how to do it.

balancing acts

2011-02-16T11:50:00.000-08:00

tonight
I don't want to talk to anybody
I just want to listen to Zoë Keating.

people are mad wolves
or maybe I'm out of my mind.

there's a haven I reach every few days
I'm trying not to be
greedy
possessive
insatiable
about it.

my university has never been that disappointing. from the eight terms I've been through, this one is going to break the record of futility.

can envious friends
absent friends
still be trusted?

mother and father are growing more and more distant after I set them adrift.

so, I have to be careful of my haven
not to break it
but not to let it dominate everything I am.
call me an equilibrist.

bedtime story

2011-02-05T12:14:00.000-08:00

May my life be a port town, open to the world and spacious. May the humid wind blow, may the tulips be in bloom. May I have the patience to welcome with serenity, wisdom and kindness everyone who finally reaches the shore. The port pub like a lighthouse, waves of rain against the roof, let it be, may it come, and I'll know the way to the inside, to the warmth. May I be impressive, full of opportunities and stimulation enough to be really sufficient.

on her neck

2011-01-30T03:38:00.000-08:00

Seeing her safe, sound and merry, he ceased to worry. He could well see she did not get soaked at all. His cape was very thick and although it seemed rather short on himself, it covered her so neatly that the rainy dampness got only her dress deep. Her wet hair, however, now twice as heavy, were falling on her neck. She shook her head; her bun, loose and even more disheveled after the storm, got unwinded and swathed her back in a black, drenched wave. Perhaps she was not aware of this beauty of hers. But he clung with his glowing eyes to the falling, curvy hair and standing just a step behind, he held out his hand to her head, then withdrew it and reached again, and finally touched it fearfully, this soft, shiny mass of her hair. [E. Orzeszkowa, On the Niemen 1888, translation mine]
Finally, I've found this piece, the only one I remember that well from the novel. I recalled it a few days ago, when I told someone I had a crush on Justyna Orzelska throughout the book, just like Czesław Miłosz said he had had. I read On the Niemen at some point in this two year and a half period when I was living in the countryside with my parents. It was when I thought in the language of intense colors, the smell of cows and low evening sun -- a kind of narration totally different to what I have now inside of me. In the late afternoons in full summer I used to sit on the stairs behind the house, the sky was something between blue and violet, there were the pulsating lights of the only house I could see from where I was sitting. Crickets, soft bread and suntan. Květa Legátová, Goran Bregović and Tomasz Tomaszewski. And yet instead of sanity it gave me yearning and anxiety. But at least I was writing.
Now I'm here for two days only, watching the trees and snow not closer than from behind the window. 'Cause I'm in a totally different place right now. I don't write any more. I don't like having things in excess, I don't like feeling sorry for myself and I don't like misery. I like work. I'm getting heartless and conceited – that's how some would like to see it. I'm calmer.
So I'm here and it's been smooth and peaceful so far. My father picked me up from the R. town yesterday and it was a piece of cake 'cause he doesn't nurse any grudge for my rare visits like my mother does. I managed to divert her attention as well, giving both of them a bottle of choya for their twenty-ninth wedding anniversary right away. Then I baked two roasting tins of oat cookies, which will probably guarantee my safety till my happy departure on Monday morning [if not, I'll bake some more]. Then I basically nodded off in a chair the whole evening. In that Japanese restaurant Higashi I slept over my tofu soup, tempura vegetables and tirasake. Finally, I woke up for a moment to tell a naughty joke and make a remark on Japanese moshi moshi sounding just like German Muschi, but then I had to say what Muschi means and my family wasn't particularly happy to hear this one. Apart from my father, who was in a very good shape yesterday, especially when he held the sushi menu under his arm and was trying in despair to learn how to use the chopsticks, and his concentration and clumsiness made him look quite autistic, an effect enhanced by his statement that he really doesn't like changes, which he mumbled over and over again. Got me weeping for joy.
I'm glad I've got so much to do back in Warsaw, but it's harder and harder to get around to preparing the private lessons. Gotta break it. Work's good. Know it.
One of the female strangers gave up the Riga trip; at the same time, my favorite concubine decided to go. The hostel is booked, so nothing can stop us now, unless our plane crashes, but it's not really in my schedule.
I feel like going to the theater and to an exhibition; I want to see the Heartbeats movie. I want to bake a fruitcake and make some dumplings. And I want to drink a lot of wine. The Israeli Shell Segal.

definitely definitely no logic/but yet so yet so irresistible

2011-01-27T02:48:00.000-08:00

So there we were, seven of us, from different corners of Poland – Konin, Radom, Żywiec, Bielsko-Biała, Lubaczów, Toruń, Płock... – and everything that happened between us, over the vodka shots, was actually very enjoyable and funny. But today, with the sober morning light, somewhat scary as well. 'Cause there was J., who's too embarrassed to confess it's a Cameroonian that she's in a relationship with; there was G., whose gay identity was already accepted by most of us some time ago, and yet he struggles in quite an absurd way to ease this shameful state of affairs, praising women's legs and claiming that men with powdered faces really do evoke aggression in himself [my angry look told him what I thought about it, so he got me some more vodka with an apologizing phrase on his lips]; then there are M. and A. and their sudden friendship that grew on the disgraceful foundations of gossiping about G. as "the warm guy" and excluding me as the lesbian from the world of the living ones; then there's R., who seems too slow to know what's going on at all, and finally my flatmate A., the saint mediator, who won't let the whole ferment turn into some disagreeable situation, so each time in troublesome points she'll say most weird stuff, like praising G., the host, for having cleaned up the place so neatly. Deep in her heart, she regrets that W. is not here tonight; he's in a relationship with O., true, but then everybody wonders what the hell he sees in this girl.
Yesterday I took it with all its obligations typical of interpersonal relationships. After all, it was really nice, even hilarious, when J. told her stories of her ever lying flatmate or of the tickets the police gave her back in Germany, or when we were going home with the night bus and we were so surprised to see the same police car going along all the way through Żoliborz, to which J. kept on asking me with her Cameroon accent whether I had the déjà vu thing. But today, with the hangover, but my mind clear, I'm kind of terrified [at least disgusted] by it all and I'm recalling my Russian teacher, who says that nowadays more and more often she just wants to stay at home. Alone. Because if there's something I really like about myself, then it's that I have positively no problems looking at myself in the mirror when there are only two of us, me and I.

a discovery

2011-01-24T11:47:00.000-08:00

I don't like Dariusz Twardoch's work that much any more.
or A.M. Jopek's.
or Sheila Chandra's.
Bruno Shulz might be the only representative of sensual abundance in art that I still admire.

I've grown sceptical.
less is more to me now.

the queen of the W city

2011-01-23T16:08:00.000-08:00

I think the one who really knows a lot about life is the woman who works at the all-night grocer's and every night sells all those bottles of beer, bars of chocolate and packets of chips, for which the customer yet again can't pay the full price, cause he ain't got that much in his pocket.

the best playlist in town

2011-01-23T02:39:00.001-08:00

Amiina Bent Boards of Canada Flunk Lamb M83 Mackintosh Braun Mari Boine múm Royksopp Sigur Rós Stina Nordenstam Télépopmusik
how many of you up there also think yourselves boring, deprived of imagination and nerdy?
come on, people.
nothing of the sort.
Antony and the Johnsons.

f

2011-01-22T09:08:00.000-08:00

people have sentenced me to ostracism due to my sexual preferences
what makes things worse
the sentence involves my [heterosexual] flatmate as well
what makes things hilarious
she doesn't give a shit and suggests we should appear at the next party [on Wednesday] as a couple. [the problematic part, I'm not invited.]
the ever chirping A. leaves for her Erasmus exchange, farewell party next Friday, I don't know what I don't feel like more: going there, but having an excuse not to go home on Friday, or going home. of course, I can skip the party and make up a reason not to go home just as well. it's just, I don't like telling lies.
winter's back to Warsaw, the palm at the de Gaulle's roundabout looks like sprinkled with icing sugar, I like standing behind it and watching it as it gets overgrown by the arc of buildings at the Jerusalem Avenue.
yesterday I bought super tasty white grapes. we ate them at night, they were firm and ripe.
the end of the winter term at the university turns out cunningly successful to me; the last exam on Tuesday.
yesterday one of my relationships was called a friendship. I discovered with satisfaction that it was an appropriate name for it.
in February I'm going to spend three nights in Riga. I look forward to visiting the town, but I'm scared to death by the company.
I'm losing the contact with my parents.
having watched I Killed My Mother, I'm totally crazy about Xavier Dolan. he has made an excellent movie and has beautiful teeth. and lips.
this week was a killer, working in a rush, little sleep. if it hadn't been for a few gorgeous women, it would have been really hard to take.
Saturday [today] morning, a conversation on gender:
some time ago, I wanted to get my breasts removed
you would actually like to be a man?
I would pack my bag and leave the town.
and being a woman, you can't?
no.
?
society/norms/roles.
don't turn a man, plz.
I'd be gay for sure.
I can't imagine a life without women in my most intimate spheres.
man's life is easier.
but more boring.
true. and somewhere on a deeper level, although I really like my male friends, I kind of despise them.
don't get your breasts removed.
look, your loudspeaker's back looks like an awesome cunt.
***
I've lost some weight and I'm pale.
having gotten through lots of academic texts on intercultural relationships has created a very pleasant ferment in my head. successful relationships are about negotiating mutually acceptable identities.
I admire A. for her clear-headedness and pragmatism. I admire O. for her ambitiousness. I admire M. for her beauty, intelligence and creativity. it's fantastic when you can be proud of women around you.
and tonight I'm going to learn social semiotics. with Kontroll soundtrack in the background.

big soya latte

2011-01-15T04:43:00.001-08:00

trying to be functional with this kind of weather can be actually inspiring.
but it is not.

white, rosé, red...

2011-01-08T13:45:00.000-08:00

don't let yourself be deceived -- i'm NOT a drunkard! alcohol really is the only thing that helps to relieve my stomach/duodenum/whatever ache.

which definitely is not something worth blogging about.

gimmie some more

2011-01-08T07:58:00.001-08:00

i like sane people
i like sane people with a passion in their life
a lot
i love beautiful sane people with a passion in their life
incurably!

ladies, off we go!

2011-01-06T11:09:00.000-08:00

the power of having your hair already washed: no matter how tired/busy/jaded/glum you are, you still want to go out and show the perfect wave to the world.

between dark and dark — a shining space

2011-01-06T03:32:00.001-08:00

Sick Love
Robert Graves

O Love, be fed with apples while you may,
And feel the sun and go in royal array,
A smiling innocent on the heavenly causeway,

Though in what listening horror for the cry
That soars in outer blackness dismally,
The dumb blind beast, the paranoiac fury:

Be warm, enjoy the season, lift your head,
Exquisite in the pulse of tainted blood,
That shivering glory not to be despised.

Take your delight in momentariness,
Walk between dark and dark—a shining space
With the grave’s narrowness, though not its peace.

flashes, sparkles. lighthousekeeping

2011-01-05T15:08:00.000-08:00

to sit in matt red light, unable to tell words from cigarette smoke, with the only burden of deciding between mulled and cold beer,
and then,
get home, eat some chocolate, have a warm, comforting shower, just like Bibiane Champagne did.
and go to bed.
how encouragingly easy. isn't it.

...and prosper

2011-01-05T01:43:00.000-08:00

to shed the comfortable skin
never stop thriving
progress
courage time creativity
make it happen, make it happen

"Those are all traps."

2011-01-03T06:10:00.000-08:00

no. staring at the empty desk top, trying out the slow flow of time on my own body, attempting (unsuccessfully) to recall my own form as an autonomous individual,
no.
this is not freedom.

go!

2011-01-01T01:46:00.000-08:00

Accepting the switch in the right bottom screen corner comes easily to me. It has come somewhat unnoticed. No high jinks. Z. came along and cooked some penne with spinach. We drank two bottles of sparkling wine and watched an interview with Magdalena Środa till 4 a.m. (At four o'clock: "Well, she's samo smart, and the thing with the courage, yeah, she's right about that, but you're just dropping off.")
It's 10 a.m., Z. is sleeping like a baby while I'm washing the spinach off the kitchen. Strong coffee. My drip coffeemaker Alaska (in honour of the blogger called Alaska Wilde) is one of my three favorite gifts this season. (The other two are M. and my gorgeous jeans drainpipes. Oh, and Z. for the New Year's Eve, that's samo the sweetest cherry.)
I didn't answer the telephone three times, suspecting that all of the people, M., M. and R., wanted to meet me. Kind of a pity, especially that I really do have a liking for the second M. and R. Yet I did promise there would be only the two of us on the New Year's Eve, our fantastic gay-lesbian team, yay. Besides, I don't like being forced to excuse myself. I'll make it up for them with some sweet little cookies. If they give me a chance.
I've just deleted 555 files from my computer trash. There's inevitably something final about this day.
At midnight, on the phone, M.'s* voice was very cheerful and pleasant. I had to promise I would go on a visit to her in the first quarter of the year. I like making promises like that. I like nice voice timbre.
Z. is still asleep, my poor tired translator-lawyer. I guess I'll drink up this year's first cup of coffee and I'll take this year's first shower. Then Z. will maybe get up and we'll have this year's first scrambled eggs. And then, in the evening, maybe I'll see M. for the first time this year. If so, I'll feel happy. On this dark, cloudy first day of the year, in this goddamn wonderful Warsaw.

*Please notice that there are four different Ms in the post. I guess it's time to introduce a new nomenclature here.

in the middle of my picture

2010-12-29T09:30:00.000-08:00

'into the fire, I'll reunite'

2010-12-27T10:22:00.000-08:00

mother always told me not to torture myself with thoughts about stuff that's not up to me
but I can't help getting obsessed with keeping up the fire
that burns totally on its own.
I want to feed the fire.
take me.

desired constellations

2010-12-25T09:59:00.000-08:00

what if that person didn't come to your life to see you, but just happened to be passing by. maybe in your perspective the lines and the angles constitute a frame in which things are clear. you speak one language and you look each other right in the eye. but you're not the master of the constellation. neither of you is. it's not up to you. there are those inevitable natural laws you have to adjust to. according to them, if your chain and hers aren't complementary, it just won't work.
no matter how much it makes you tremble.
no matter how well she responds to your yearning.
and they call science a perfect kingdom. ridiculous, now isn't it.
do we dare to bend the rules of time and space. to bow to each other's demands. now do we.
does the happy ever after make the game worth the candle. now does it.

fireworks down at the waterfront

2010-12-24T02:57:00.000-08:00

"Whatever it is that hurls you past the boundaries of your own life into a brief and total beauty, even for a moment, it is enough."

[Jeanette Winterson, Gut Symmetries]