on her neck

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

white, rosé, red...

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

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!

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

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

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

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

"Those are all traps."

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!

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.