I am electric

I am electric.
I mean it.
I can't get used to it, whenever I get off my car and touch the door to close it, I get electrocuted. And sometimes it's so heavy that the F-word is my first reaction...and not only that.
Apparently I shouldn't wear trainers.
I think.
I remember somebody on a radio show talking about it some 10 years ago, when this thing never happened to me so I sort of filed the information away in my mind. Now that I need it, the layer of dust on it is so thick I can't get through. Anyway.
May it depend on my mood? And the way I feel everyday when I go to work? Because I like my job, really I do. It's not particularly exciting, some might say, but it's not too messy either, so there are surprises, but they are manageable, and this makes me feel good. Of course I've only worked here...9 months, but it does feel comfortable. The only bad thing is...my boss.
I must say that he is a nice man, kind and even funny when he is in a good mood, and I like him because he treats us decently and doesn't force us to work extra hours or to transform our jobs into somebody else's job (examples: boss number one, Bergamo 2004: not only should I have been a secretary, but also a sales(wo)man to find a way and sell all the boss' awful useless books; boss number two, Valley 2004: job description just like this, only here I do what the description said, there I had to be a secretary-sales(wo)man-archivist-accountant-receptionist-etc-etc...and work at least nine hours a day).
But.
This doesn't change things: my boss is extremely moody.
So moody that it can bring me to tears when he explodes, and his being in a bad mood early in the morning throws me into total depression and suicidal feelings; and if they aren't really suicidal feelings, at least they are serious thoughts of finding another job.
Example: order confirmation for a customer. Several orders from the customer included on the same page. Same products, though. I put the same product and divide the quantity according to the number of the order for their reference. He disagrees. I must divide the product according to the number of the order, thus repeating the name of the product on two different lines.
Guess what: this is what I had done before going on holiday a month ago, and he had decided that I should have put the product altogether, simply dividing the quantity in brackets for their reference.
Example: this week the secretary is on holiday. Before leaving she tells me that I have to start filing all the emails and faxes, both on computer and as paper. I am told the same by the boss' wife. I even have to come here and work two days while on holiday so that I can start the filing job and when we get officially back to work I will have less to think about. So I start filing.
The boss then tells me in an angry fit that I mustn't file anything, that I have to do only my job and my job only, and that the secretary will file the stuff when she comes back. Ok then. The morning after he asks me where all the emails and faxes are that we have received in August while closed for holiday. They're in the computer ready to be filed, I say. So? He asks. So they have to be filed away, I repeat, and I wonder whether I should stress the fact that HE told me I shouldn't do it so HE is responsible for the missing documents in our network.
The point is, I like my job but my boss makes me extremely nervous.
I am nervous, therefore I am electric.
That's just it.

Home sweet home (or so they say)

We are having troubles everywhere, it seems. And sometimes I just wonder if the best solution couldn't simply be that of staying here and not looking anywhere else, just waiting, because if you let things go something happens, sooner or later. Then again, this has never been my attitude, because I get angry and discover a very determinate part of me, a part that screams and gets all red and finds the right words to say at the right time. This doesn't happen when I am being bullied in a foreign language, no matter how well I can speak it (to understand this, I should obviously type and attach the second part of the journey to the UK, and honestly, I cannot find the moral strength to do it).
Anyway, burocracy...it never helps. It's never used with those who should be "persecuted", so to speak, and it's used one time too many with the poor ones who have always respected the rules. This is a weak metaphor to say: US.
When it comes to these matters (or to the time when my brother screwed up my computer and deleted almost all my files, or to the time when I was bullied in Covent Garden...) I always think that I shouldn't write about it, because my memory is good enough, and particularly when it is something bad: I remember perfectly every awful moment of my life, and I definitely don't need to write them down to keep them more vividly! Then at the same time it looks somehow important to take note of all the steep roads we are following, because when we get to the top we can look back and see everything and feel the beautiful sensation of having made it, of having accomplished something good - or important, or whatever. So I guess I should talk about having nasty neighbours.
Ok, here it is: our neighbours do not want to sign a paper and let us do all the works that we want to do with our house. Which would become our houses once we're done, and which would especially become MY - OWN - PRIVATE - INDEPENDENT - APARTMENT. Or flat, if you want to be British. The thing with these neighbours is: they don't even share a wall with us. They are a whole terraced house away from us; their door is even on another street! To get to our garden, they should cross our real-neighbour's garden! And now, the flat belongs to their niece, who wants to respect their wish of not signing the paper, even though the flat is now rented to a bunch of formerly-noisy-now-quiet guys because the real owners are living downtown...So they're not even here anymore.
Still, there is no signature on the damned piece of paper. And the question would now be: WHY?
Guess what: there is no reason whatsoever. They just can't be bothered to let us do what we like with a house that has been ours for twenty years now, and which will be ours until we are all dead, because we don't have money to move anywhere else, and why should we when it is such a nice and silent place to live? (A-hem: nice - correct; silent...well...when you have five dogs around the neighbourhood and lots of random dogs who come and visit them...well...not that silent anymore. But the topic of dogs with neighbours is entirely another planet to be explored later on, when I feel in the mood for condemning people to death).
To pull all the strings now, what I mean is: we are looking for an escamotage, and we have almost found it. So, screw the senile neighbours! (excuse my French...).
The house will be made almost from scratch, and I will have MY OWN PRIVATE INDEPENDENT APARTMENT OR FLAT IF YOU WANT TO BE BRITISH by the end of next year, which is an incredibly long time if you think of it, but nothing compared to eternity, so they say. And in any case, the good side of the story is that this way I get to save more money when it's time to pay the first instalments of...everything. Because I will pay for the roof being remade (the house is going to become three apartments, one of which - mine - by throwing away the roof, lifting the walls, and putting a new roof), for the floor, the furniture...Oh, the furniture!!!
This is the moment when I start being delirious about armchairs and kitchens, and beds and wardrobes, and chairs and mirrors and...you get the point. I am spending most of my bed time (i.e., the thirty seconds to five minutes before I fall unconscious for 8/9 hours) thinking about colours and textiles and frames, etc. It feels as if I am already there. So, I am glad I have this job so I am so busy that I don't have time to daydream too much about things that are so far away.
But fingers crossed...

Back to work

The story of my journey to the UK and back is not complete, I know.
I should find the time to type it and put it here, so the record is complete, but I cannot really open my diary (the paper diary) and read about it. Especially when I have just started to put aside, file away the bad sensations, the awful feelings that had grown in me British day after British day. I had got to the point of questioning my decision to keep this blog in English instead than in my mother language, and everything was confusing. Or confused, like me.
Anyway, back to work means that I'm packed with things to do and my boss thinks I am wonderwoman...Of course the secretary has taken the whole month off, so that once back she can find everything tidy thanks to...me. So far I've managed to file away about 400 emails and faxes, which is not bad, I guess. Sometimes I'm very proud of the way I handle this job, wherelse sometime I just wonder what the hell is going on with me when I see the mistakes I've made and which I could have avoided with just a little attention.
However, how sad: I'm back to this little-thinking, quick-writing routine. I must definetely take the time to type the second and final part of the story of my holiday, and do whatever else I had planned to do in a moment of bored energy.

I was in Ireland. And Wales. And England.

Ok, I’m back. It does feel both good and strange, and it sets me thinking even before we’ve landed.
What were my words before leaving, ten days ago?
“To relax and…”.
Yeah, right.
I hope that writing things down will help me put them into the right perspective, and give the right importance to all that’s happened; however, and it’s a wrong thought to begin with, I doubt it will help me at all. But as record of my adventures, here’s the story.

Forget the flight: check-in is on time, we take off on time, we have a pleasant journey except for my natural uneasiness at the idea of going to a country I have visited only once before, and I am terrified that I will not understand their accent, they will not understand mine, and then we are not going to enjoy it because Dublin is not such a big city and three days would have been more than enough, and where are we going to eat since I promised my mum that she would eat fish every day, and fresh, and good.
When we land I’ve already cursed this idiotic holiday a thousand times and I can’t wait for it to be over and to go home.

Dublin is a shock.
After queuing for a taxi, we find one with an eerily silent driver, who drives like mad and enjoys stopping at less than an inch away from the car in front. My paranoid me, who respects the distances between cars even more after the accident (when I was bumped into!) is obviously happy when we reach a street with no traffic at all.
It is our street to be for the next five days.
But the house isn’t there.
Number 61 is not after number 59.
Actually, after number 59 there is…number 229.
Which doesn’t make sense, right? Even the driver is puzzled.
It takes me a lot of self-control and bell-ringing before I can find a house and a couple of kind strangers who answer the door in spite of the hour (it is almost 11 pm, after all), and explain the right way to our silent driver. So eventually we reach the house, and here’s the big secret: the street begins half-way, then ends at number 59, and if you want numbers 57 and 61, you must go back all the way to its beginning.
Rationality must not be into Irish DNA.
We have a first night of good sleep and I manage not to think about the coming day and the problems that we will encounter.
Which start as soon as we are out of the door: we cannot find neither a bus stop with indications to where it’s headed, nor somebody who knows anything about it. All car-drivers? Or don’t they ever go downtown? It hits me that there is an exceptional number of taxis, around the block, by the way…
A blond girl with headphones helps us in a super kind way, and a small gesture like this is beautiful for me, because I’m a tourist and I am not comfortable in a place where I don’t know anything. So, thanks, blond girl who told us the way to the bus stop, which is hidden in a street we would have never thought of.
Ok, one thing’s out.
Next, I get the amount wrong from the bus driver, who’s mumbling , so I understand 2.80 when it’s actually 2.70, and I’m told off by the driver “I told you so!”, he says, and all I can think is that it’s only 9 o’clock…
The rest of the day is a perfect comic picture of two average tourists swinging the map in any direction and looking at the corners of the streets trying to understand the way: neither of us has any sense of orientation, and I fall from grace right away when my mum, who’s never been here (vs I who have been here three days, ok, only three days five years ago, but surely I should remember better? Then again, geography is not exactly my subject) understands and directs us everywhere all day long.
(I must say that the miracle of “Navigator Mum” lasts for only three days, and on the last two I RULE! It takes me time, but once I get the idea of the streets nothing can stop me!)
Like perfect tourists we catch the hop-on hop-off bus and go around Dublin, then we visit Dublinia, the Cathedral, we stand in the middle of the street and we look the wrong way before crossing, we spend a fortune (not really, but it feels like it is) on shirts and silly badges at the tourist office.
And all the way I’m thinking: is this Dublin?
Somehow I don’t remember these streets, these bridges, Bachelors’ walk looks like a sordid cheap shopping street, I cannot find any market in Temple Bar where I was convinced there was one, the one where I had bought my Angela Carter five years ago, so I get more and more frustrated and sad.
The evening comes, and with a lot of effort I make our way to a famous pub/restaurant/hotel, where I went to watch Irish dancing, five years ago, on the advice of a museum guide on our second day here.
We enter.
And there’s a couple on stage.
Dancing.
Irish.
Music.
Tapping and moving like in my videos.
We stand and watch and I must hold back the tears as the tension releases.
We sit, I get a pint of Guinness, the dancers end their show and a couple of musicians begins to play beautiful songs, mostly Irish pop songs, and I sing along with them and the public and smile. They conclude with U2, “With or without you”, and all I think now is that yes, I’m in Dublin for real.

The day after we have booked a trip to Wicklow and Glendalough. All I know about these places is:
- they are vague names on the map, somewhere outside Dublin.
- There are lakes, a monastery, and some more Celtic stuff.
- There is some weaving mill which is the oldest on the country.
It turns out I don’t need to know more than this…

It is a rainy day, today.
I mean, it’s pouring with rain.
No, I mean that the streets are flooded with water, and we’ve soaked before the bus arrives to pick us up.
Us and another 50 noisy Italian tourists…August is vacation-month for 90% of Italy, so what did I expect?
After all it doesn’t really matter that it rains, since we spend almost five hours on the bus while a guide tells us about Irish history and all that; in the meantime the bus stops for thirty seconds so that we could take a picture of the Blessington lakes, if only the weather weren’t so awful that all I’m wishing is a cup of coffee, an armchair and a book. And my room in my house facing my garden and my mountains.
Mum is wearing sporty sandals and she’s wrapped her feet in tissues to keep warm, and I’m telling myself off for being such an idiot and forcing her to come with the promise that the weather would be good and she could even have worn her summer dress, and I know that she suffers this cold climate a lot more than I do, and that she should have been on some hot beach now, close to the sea and ready to swim in it any minute she felt like it, because she waits for the summer only to go and have swims in the lakes or in the sea, and where are we now? Freaking rainy Dublin, 10 degrees and pouring with rain. Where are my brains, all of a sudden?
When we stop in Glendalough and wander about in the Celtic cemetery (romantic, huh?), it’s raining as if the sky had decided to use up all the water of the world, and I get more and more depressed.
In Avoca we stop for lunch, and she eats a scone and coffee, which she enjoys, and I have a delicious soup, but I cannot stop repeating to myself mantra-like that the end of this holiday is nearer than I imagine, and then we will go to beautiful Wales which is usually decent at this time of the year.
I don’t know exactly what happens when we go back to Dublin, that evening: well, we go back to the pub of the night before, but we don’t like the group playing there, so we go home and everything explodes.
As usual, for a trivial matter.
My shirt is slightly stained on the back, and I’ve never noticed. Apparently she’s told me, but in such a way that I misunderstood, and so I get angry because I kept using it to go to work, and it makes me furious to feel that we haven’t been able to communicate over such a simple subject like t-shirts, and then I’m furious because we’re arguing over such a stupid, stupid, stupid matter, and I don’t want to yell, so I speak through clenched teeth, which is something I do only when I’m really mad, and I’m mad tonight because everything is going wrong and I want to be home.
Eventually she calls me a stupid, and I call her a smart one, ironically, and this is when she throws my bra at me! It sounds funny, I now, but I am so shocked and I can’t believe it, and I have a vision of her stamping on my feet last year in London because I wanted her to respect the rules and stand behind the line as the policeman at Buckingham Palace had told us ten times already.How come I always make her so angry and push her to these reactions? What is wrong with me? I am so upset and when she goes to the bathroom to prepare for the night I enter the bed and pretend to sleep so we don’t have to argue anymore for tonight.
Everything has crumbled and all my tension is back, redoubled. And it’s only the second day.

On the third day I wake up because my mum’s mobile’s gone off. I hear her getting up and going to the bathroom, and that’s when I switch on my mobile to check the time: 7 o’clock.
I have a vision (yes, visions are my subject) of her asking me to take her to the airport and send her home, and then she’s out of the bathroom and I feel her looking at me to see if I’m still sleeping. I believe she touches my head or something, so I mutter “Where are you going?”, and she asks me the time.
It turns out that she didn’t know if I had set the alarm clock, last night, so she had set hers, only she hadn’t changed the time, so she was an hour early. We laugh in our beds and look out of the window where the clouds have gathered but there’s no apparent threat of rain. Maybe we can have a good day in Dublin, today.
And we do, eventually: first the National Gallery (actually, first there’s a picture to be taken to the statue of Oscar Wilde), then, since we’re not interested in the Castle and she doesn’t care about James Joyce, it’s shopping.
Shopping at Trinity College (where we discuss about the differences between our universities and English/Irish/American universities), then in and out the shops in Grafton Street and Nassau Street, looking for what we had in mind to buy in Ireland. The daily argument over where to eat is soon settled and we end up in an elegant place where I have my first (and only) Irish stew.
As we are sitting and waiting, I see two women, who soon become three, two on our left and one on my right: they are sitting and have just ordered, or received, their lunch.
And I realise that I’m looking at my future me. They are what I’ll become.
Alone, independent, with no close friends that would come on holiday with me, and no partner or husband, so here I am, eating a chicken sandwich and writing on a notebook or reading a book.
I am speechless, really, it is so clear and simple.

As the evening approached, Grafton street becomes larger, people are going for dinner or for a pint, we walk in St. Stephen’s Green park and to the georgian part of the city, then we sit on a bench with muffins and coffee, waiting for the time to go to the Gaiety theatre, because the big event of the day is Riverdance.
And Riverdance is great.
It is music, and dance, and people screaming and clapping and standing, and “bravo” floating in the air, the dancers are so great.
I love two bits in particular: the flamenco part, all orange, which mingles and explodes with the silver of the Irish dance, and the American tip tap vs Irish dance, when they dance-fight and each group tries the other’s dance, and we’re all laughing and applauding. It’s fantastic.

The last day begins with the sun shyly peering in our room.
We go to Malahide, which is more beautiful than we had expected, and we walk on the beach, in the sea, we take pictures, we go to the park and see the Castle, and walk endless miles around.
Back to the marina, we buy two mugs (no, not for me…this year I’m not into mugs that much, and it must be one of the reasons why I’m not entirely satisfied: I’ve always bought mugs or cups as a memory of the place, but this year I only got this cheesy green mug which is meant to look like a Celtic-medieval cup, and it’s got “Ireland” written around, and all in all it’s….ugly), so we buy two mugs and then have a fantastic lunch before going back to Dublin.
We think we’ll go see the Cathedral one more time and wander about, which we do, but then it begins to rain. Suddenly and heavily.
We rush back to our B&B and spend the rest of our Irish time there, packing and watching tv, reading and chatting: the forecast for tomorrow says rain over Ireland, but I don’t care – it’s Wales, tomorrow.

Criticism and more

Troubles at the band...I mean, it had to happen, and then again, we are smart enough (I think) to understand that it's all a storm in a glass rather than something REALLY important. I'm not expressing well: what I mean is, we all knew that with HIS coming back to the band there would have been troubles, because (my opinion, ok, but I don't seem to be the only one) he is one who likes to provoke, and to complain and apparently he has nothing better to do than starting "fights" about every handy thing, from politics to the way the band should go. I cannot say I'm happy about it, because it makes me nervous and uneasy, it's like a cold draft in a warm room. Nice metaphor...(I'm being sarcastic here).
Anyway, the blog seemed a nice place to meet and chat, the forum seemed just as good, but first all those useless topics, then the idea of shutting the forum because people don't use it that much and it is a lot better to discuss certain things face to face, which is exactly what I had said but of course I was not listened to, then the argument over the weekend trip, then it was who should have the task of working on the website...It really looks as if he enjoys creating troubles and provoking people.
I'm not saying that a good discussion is to be avoided at all costs, because confronting, comparing, discussing, they are all good ways to grow and better understand one another, but is it always necessary? For everything?
Oh, nevermind...
The other night, sleepless because of the festival and the superloud music, I took my old school book of literature and read through it. It just made me feel like going back to all those lit studies...a specialisation...a master...a Phd...What a dream...So now I think I'll go see if there is anything interesting for me to do...
(A few minutes later, or shall I say more than half an hour later...)
After a quick glance it looks like there is nothing out there for me...Sometimes I think I should start from scratch, because after all I need to open my mind again and breath the air of criticism again. Now, since I won't register for university before next year, I guess I've got time to buy books and study on my own, and decide what I'd like to do best.
I am thinking...summer is a boring period...no social life because all the friends are away on holiday, and no band, so even less social life. Hot air, no sleep, the district festival, too hot to run, not enough Sundays to go to the lake, desperate efforts to suntan, too hot to lay in the sun like lizards do, shall I go on?
So even this diary is going to be boring, but then...tomorrow I am leaving for Dublin, and then Wales, and then such long holidays this year, a sort of compensation for the awful summer of 2005. That WAS a terrible summer. Yes, it's payback for all that bad time.
I should stop here...I'll be back in a month and I guess I'll have a lot more to write. And just to change, there will also be more hopes and ideas and my usual mental chaos.

Schizophrenia

(Morning...)
Well...A stormy weather is just what I need. Shame it didn't rain last night, only thunders, for the joy of all those idiots. Nevermind, we've survived.
I had a most boring day at work yesterday, but boredom is good: I emptied my mind and wrote. The story is set and even the ideas are lined up ready to be described. I keep thinking of Virginia and of the wonderful words she wrote: she had the time, of course. If I were rich and had all that spare time I would spend my day writing, no doubt. However, a few evening hours must do.
(Sometime later this afternoon...)
So what is this anger? This frustration, grown silently in me.
I snap, I get all red, I shake; I cannot keep calm and my thoughts become a blurry sequence of untranslatable words and images. Meditation? I swear I've tried...well...not enough, obviously! I feel stupid when I do yoga, I mean when I do it with all the new age thinking beyond and not for the sake of it. I mean, I thought I would do it just to improve my flexibility, to stretch and relax, to change from the everyday routine of work-run-sleep. But meditation is an important side of the practice, and I simply feel stupid.
I guess this is my problem, I am not used to consider my thoughts as important anymore: they weighed a lot more when I was sixteen than they do now. Of course I used to be melodramatic and give a lot of importance to single words, and feelings, and everything looked so heavy and...well..important. Now I am superficial, and I refuse to look beyond things, I don't look for the deeper image of what surrounds me, and my feelings are a bundle of confused sensations I cannot even classify.
I am angry, why?
I am tired beyond understanding, I am frustrated and I thought it was because I was a 26 year-old graduated who couldn't find a job, now I have a good, well-paid, permanent job, and I am soon going to have my own house, I AM BUYING IT for God's sake, so if my problem was the lack of stability, well here we are, I can just settle down for the rest of my life, and I even have money to travel now, so I can go to Spain, and Norway, and all the places I've wanted to be, little by little they will all be part of my photo album, and my books will have a decent place to stay instead of being stacked in my wardrobe; and again, I am even going to go back to university and study what I like best, so...
But see, here we go again, facts. No feelings. Only the outer side of my life, and what is life for me, now? Life is made of day after day and week after week, working, eating, working, running, chatting, texting and e-mailing, reading, trying to write, sleeping. A few evenings out, some music played, a dinner, a movie. I cannot be this irritable just because I haven't got enough sleep in these four days. But I am. I hate the whole world, and it's a feeling I have never had when I was younger.
I feel trapped. I keep thinking about alternative lives, and what it would be like to have a house, a job, a life somewhere else, because my heart lies in another country, even though split as it is it also lies here. I do feel like Samwise Gangee, and this is nothing new. It is terrible to always feel as though your life belongs somewhere else, and yet when I am there I miss all that I've left behind and I feel cold and lonely.
But again, more e-mails and paperwork on my desk pulling me away from the essence.
Where's the luminous halo? Somehow I must have lost my sight.