Peggy was here, 1997-2004 (on and off)

I've been having nostalgic thoughts of my life as a student, recently..even if, let's face it, most of it sucked! Sharing a house with 12 hysterical girls, running to catch over-crowded buses every single day, attending packed classes where I (almost) always had to sit on the floor, and the smallest library in the world...
But.
It was a great time. Reading all those books, taking notes, discussing literature and linguistics, gender and philosophy, complaining over impossible times of lessons and (illegally) photocopying books...And coffees before classes, hot sandwiches or slices of pizza in Piazza Vecchia, walking/running from class to class in the beatiful narrow streets of the town...And when spring and the first warm sun arrived, lying in the square (defying killer pigeons!) with books and notes, feeling the sun on our skin...how cool was that, how beautiful and never long enough, how...

I plan to go there next week, for the first Christmas market of the season. It's too warm, and sunny, and Autumn-like, this year, it doesn't feel like Winter/Christmas at all. Last year this time I was half-trapped at home watching the snow endlessly falling down, shining everywhere.

And I may try to be crazy enough and look for a job there again...a change of scenery is exactly what I need, after two and a half years trapped in this valley (and they feel like two thousand...)

The sleepless waltz and two dreams

As I said, 7 is a recurrent number in my sleepless nights...So it's 3.27 tonight. I just don't believe it!
I turn in my bed for ten minutes, and then I give up and go for milk and last night's rerun of Law&Order, which I watch after moving the armchair from the kitchen to the living room. I drink my hot milk, feel my body go back to sluggishness, stretch my back, wait to the end of the episode so I won't go to bed too soon.
Aaaaaand....Nothing....
Sleep comes to me a long time after what I thought, and by the way, it is full of awful dreams.
Dream number one stars me and Simon (Simon? Annoying childish 37-year old English housemate of my Welsh life? What the hell, what the hell, WHAT-THE-HELL!) and a hammock which I try to call by its real name (???) after being prompted by a guy standing near it, and the resulting word, which I cannot utter for the life of me, sound like "ally" (WHAT??? Some language-freudian-or-whatever specialist to analyse this, please).
Dream number two is oh so so so bad!!!! A proper nightmare, ladies and gents, and of the worst kind! It features the grasshoppers outside my window (yessire, they are still there! Now that they are friends and have made themselves at home, no doubt they don't want to leave), my window which I cannot close (my current worst dream in real life: I want to open the window, I'm scared because of the gigantic grasshoppers, when I actually opened it a bit to let some fresh air in I came back two minutes later to see that the (then only) two beasts had moved an inch towards the room, so I closed the window, or should I say tried to close it since it wouldn't, and soplease picture me pushing like some American cop on the door of some possible drug-dealer or such, only the American cop would want to open the door, and I am desperately trying to close it forever!) (...a-hem...I made it in the end...and boy am I NOT going to open that window again! Fresh air can come from the other 6 windows of the floor, right? And it's winter, so do I really want cold drafts in my room?). So anyway, grasshoppers on stage, window-that-won't-close on stage too, enter...a toad! Who's crawling upside down! FUCKING SCARY, and excuse my French! It's all dark green with a white "belly" (?) and it moves back and forth on the window sill.

Boy oh boy, how tired I am when I hear the radio playing "Downtown" at 7.15 (nice to hear that song, though, long time no hear), and how tired I am NOW!

A thermos of white tea on my desk, and the loopy question in my mind: why didn't I stay home today???
Another loopy thought: pleasepleaseplease let Saturday be as nice as it is now! I need this weak sun shining on yellow leaves and a quiet walk!
Although my weekend plan has changed, actually, so my afternoon will be a visit to bride-to-be friend who's just back from the hospital...
And now excuse me, I need a coffee or two...

Going down

I am trying to find a sensible explanation of the events of the past weekend.
So I tell myself:
I was not happy at the thought of going to a wedding where I only knew a couple, and not too well, and I don't even much like half of it, and the idea of spending the whole evening with them was appalling.
I was not in my best mood, considering that I had been disappointed by a bad birthday present from people who should know me well, by a birthday day spent at work, by a lack of celebration with somebody I like, by having my parents back home just when I was beginning to enjoy an empty, silent house, by the fact that I am still not talking to father who behaves as the total asshole he is, by my chronic lack of money and by the general restlessness at the realisation that I may spend here the rest of my life and I don't really want it but feel tied to too many things - most of which I haven't chosen but which have been imposed on me.
In the end, it's four o'clock of a grey rainish afternoon, and I am crying in my car, parked not far from the church where library friend is going to be married in less than an hour. When I think I can drive again, I start the car and decide I will drive until it's late enough to go back home - since I cannot go back and say that no, I didn't go to the wedding and no, I am not too well, and also no, I don't know what's going on. I drive for a while and get to the office where work-a-holic friend is sure to be. So I get there, and I can only say a few words before starting to cry again, while caressing the dog who's come to say hello. Work-a-holic friend is puzzled and almost scared to move. I spend some time with her, look at her working, then I leave again.
As I am driving, I wonder where I could go, and I realise that I don't care; I'm too practical to think about leaving and never come home again, because I would need a change of clothes and all that, but the thought of just, you know, going. Leaving and not go back, be forgotten, run away. Disappear.
Then I also have this vision of me in my car, and of not following the road as it was bending, and going straight and crashing.
And it is normal, as it was normal when I had visions of me climbing on the terrace and falling down.
I end up spending the evening until almost 11 with trendy friend, chatting vaguely. My eyes are sore and my vision is half blurred for all the crying of the day.
When I go back home I am still a bit confused, but lie pretty well at mother who asks me how it went and why did I leave this early. After all, the idea was to leave the wedding early, because I would be surrounded by couples, people I don't know, old people I don't know.
On Sunday I spend the morning tidying up, moving my computer to my room, watching tv, and in the afternoon I fix the treadmill, send a message to the B&S guy, curse curse curse myself the second I press the Ok button; then I go for a quick tea with shop-a-holic friend, who kind of offends me by calling me a child for not telling mother about not going to the wedding. As if my greatest desire were to make mother be even more worried about me, after the Annus Horribilis of 2005.
So I spend the following hour with my mind away, chatting of silly useless things, and then I go home and I run, because that makes me feel good. I conclude the day by reading a good deal from Jonathan Strange and switch off the light feeling satisfied.
On a Tuesday evening, and feeling strange yet better. Gym in an hour, boss still away, 250 pages to the end of the book, 17 days to the beginning of Christmas vacations, which is fantastic because I am feeling supertired, and this kind of weekend, which is overtiresome on the physical and especially on the emotional side, this kind of weekend is not recommended when one only wants to recharge one's batteries, recover, feel better; even though I did sleep more, and a real lot, but I am really extra tired, and I cannot wait for the next weekend to catch up. My plan is actually a nice day break, going to my uni city for a walk, a look around, a carrot cake with coffee at my favourite café, the first Christmas lights. I think I need to breath some fresh air and look at the colours around me, a change of scenery.
I am getting restless.

New Year's Resolutions

I know it is super early for this...Today I am writing to clear the confuse whirl in my head.

A new list of random thoughts and researches and results from this morning's messy trip on the net:
- There are quite a few interesting paths out there...I could pick one and see where it leads me. The idea is to follow what I like, rather than focus on a future gain. Of course, a PhD won't take me far, but still, I will be a lot more satisfied with my books than with orders and delivery terms and a moody boss...
- The consequence is that I have another seven months to plan things properly. Why seven? Random number, really! I only mean that the academic year has started and so I must wait till next year, and June/July is an appropriate time to start looking around and preparing papers and enrolling, and all that jazz.
- Also, from a financial point of view, I will have some more money..I have just paid off my car, which means that from now on I have no more expenses for it, if you exclude insurance and taxes. Which are not extremely high anyway. So this is cool. I have just tried to make a prospect of what I will earn and what I will spend next year, and I would like to stick to this saving program where apart from the odd book or mug or contribution for somebody's birthday present, I will not spend a penny on anything, so I should arrive at the end of 2007 with..oh, quite a lot of money...
- The decision is then to hold on for some more months, saving money, dedicating myself to the gym and the writing and reading, literally preparing for the master/PhD I would like to take, therefore cutting the time wasted over reruns of "House" or "Scrubs" (I am one for medical dramas, you can tell), and use it for all the books I want/need/must read in preparation for the sort of things I want to do in a few months' time.
- Attention please: what about those job applications I found this morning?
...........................................Well............................
I guess I will not apply, because I cannot stand a chance and it would only be a waste of time and energy and hope. I'd rather keep my hope for something more important and interesting and suitable for me, like...the PhD.
- In all this, a problem rises: the house? I guess I should inform mother about my ideas. Also, I can tell it won't be easy/100% sure that I'll do that PhD (sad but true, I don't know anyone who can "give me a hand" to pass the entry tests...so I am not likely to be admitted in the first place); however, at least letting mother know that I could be doing something unexpected could be nice on my side.
- This sounds vaguely familiar...in fact, I remember doing this before, and it was last summer, some time before I went to the gym and started my craze over the B&S guy. Back then, I was concentrating on finding MY way, a level of satisfaction that I knew I couldn't achieve with this kind of job. Also, it drives me nuts with anger the thing that the chief of the lab said yesterday, when he said that here I cannot really hope for a career. I knew that, dumb ass! And it came to me that I was saying the same thing to my friend: this kind of job is ok for somebody who has something beyond, like all my colleagues here, who go home to their families every night. Me? I don't have anybody. So why should I spend my life here when there really is nothing here for me? I wish I could hope on a long-term relationship with the B&S guy, but chances are that I would wait and my hair would helplessly get grey and my neurotic me would wrinkle and dissolve silently...and alone. So what's the point?

This really feels like some sort of anticipated New Year's resolution (something I have never done, honestly, because it makes me feel stupid), but it feels better because it fills me with energy and strength.
For now though, and I have said this before, it is only a matter of waiting, and preparing. Patience.
Which is not my strong point.
I guess I'll have to start again with those flowers of Bach...(Impatiens is mine, in case you wonder...).

So now I'm 28

My computer at work is giving me troubles...but this won't stop me!

So, in alphabetical order:

Brother-of-Metal friend
CCB (Crazy Curly Baby)
CCCB (Cousin of Crazy Curly Baby)
(Emigrated) Baby friend
Future-teacher friend
Kitty
Lussy
Rambler friend
Red friend
Rigmor
Shop-a-holic friend
Teacher friend
Trendy friend

Thanks to all of you for texting, e-mailing (yes, Rig, I got your card! I suppose I have to listen to it, but have no headphones at work at the moment...I will try later!), ringing...I really appreciated it.

I celebrated at work yesterday, where coffee break became a coffee-and-brownies break, and then my boss' s wife left a present on my desk so when I was back after lunch break I found this small envelope with a voucher for a free book, which so far, fogive me all, has been the best present! I shouldn't say it, I know...But feeling bitterness coming, I cannot refrain.
And this is why:
my friends at the band have given me this pinkish jumper. Now, unlike Rigmor, I am a bit of a pink girl, although I feel more of a red girl (and my newly-dyed hair prove it). The idea behind the choice of the colour cannot be explained unless you have a certain knowledge of current Italian idiotic commercials, so I will spare you. However, I do like pink.
Shame that the model is totally NOT my style, being high-necked (I am one for V-tops and such). Also, unfortunately the whole idea behind this present is wrong...since it is some sort of pun about me and the B&S guy. And we all know that I am so depressed about this situation that the thought of a present connected to "him" is..well, depressing.
Anyway, thanks, mates! It was very nice of you. I know I am not an easy one for presents...

After work I went to the gym...but I had spent a bad day in the office, what with the overwhelming desperation of the current situation (parents back home and father still a complete asshole, not to mention my limited freedom just when I had started to feel ok with being alone), and the usual New Year's thoughts that have arrived more than a month earlier this year. So I found myself thinking of how old I am and what I have accomplished so far, and what awaits me in the future, and what I can do to change my situation, and what I really want, and so on. I ended up arriving at the gym on the verge of tears and with painful cramps. As a result, I was under-talkative and felt weak, and had to control my breathing a lot more than usual to refrain from crying. I felt stupid, really.
After getting changed I went to the reception to fix the next session and leave the special brownies I had promised I would bring. So I did receive three kisses from S&S guy, who then called the B&S guy so that he could wish me a happy birthday too. He arrived, and between the planning of a session with a guy who was leaving, and the calling to another guy who was finishing his series of reps, and all that, he came over to kiss me (focus on the words "Let me give you a big kiss"), three times as is usual here.
Out of the door and up the stairs to the exit, I felt the tears coming back; I got to the car and decided that I couldn't go home just yet: I had said that I would be back a little later than usual because I was going to stay at the gym and celebrate shortly, so I would have been asked if something had gone wrong if I had come home too early, plus I was on the verge of tears and anything could have unchained them. In fact, after less than five minutes in the car, while waiting at the traffic light I burst into tears, and that, as I say, was the end of me. I cried all the way to my friend's town, and on the way back I cleared, like the sky after a storm, I switched on the radio and put a song I have just discovered on a cd borrowed from rambler friend.

(After lunch break)
I have just finished to cry again. This is worrying me a bit. Because it feels like that sort of depression I had some years ago, on a bleak Welsh January, and I wonder how to get out. Experience has taught me that only time can do something, but this is not my "free" me, who can spend a day at home, or call sick at work. This is my responsible me who goes to work every day and who cannot even cry freely at home because the parents would bother me on what is going on and all that...
Luckily I have discovered that I recover quite quickly, so I suppose that with my daily run and by keeping my mind busy over things I will not have depressing thoughts wandering free in my mind.
It doesn't help my feelings to think of library friend's wedding in 3 days, though..and the fact that I don't know anybody there and that it will basically be all couples looking at my single me. Oh, I hate weddings!

Next on this post is then: THE LIST.
Here we go:
- Boss is away till December, 5th: take advantage of possibility to organise the time and look for alternatives to my current job (life) situation
- This includes considering a master/PhD somewhere
- Get back to writing - after a good start some weeks ago I was too crowded with things to do - again...
- Increase the running

Not many things for this list this time, but if I went into details I would write the longest post in history.
So now, let's turn to action and have a productive afternoon.

Pictures from The Great Event of the Year

I have tried to create a pattern for these pixies...but I must confess that I really suck! So, the nicest are here as you see them. The camera is my brother's, and it's really bad...So the quality is not as it would have been with my old faithful "normal" camera...

TODAY IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!

Thanks to all of you who have been texting me since last night, I really appreciated your kindness.

Of course I'm at work now...
And my parents are back from Egypt...
And I've had two pieces of chocolate brownies...
It is my birthday, after all!!!


Update, November 29th: I have deleted a random letter which was floating near a pixture...and apparently this has cause the disappearance of another photo...People, I am really bad at this...

Picture number one

The first of a (small) series of pixies from The Great Event of the Year...
More will follow when my computer is back to normality (Monday, people...Monday...)

Random thoughts

The house is beautiful and silent and scary (but that only at night).

Eating food you have cooked yourself is a lot more satisfactory - even when it's something simple.

Managing spare time the way I like is something I had almost forgotten - and it feels good.

The weather is very November-like: kinda foggy, greyish, splashes of colourful leaves everywhere, and chillier - love it.

It is my birthday in five days!

My boss is not happy at the thought of me being off-duty tomorrow - but I don't intend to let him make me feel guilty, and my mobile tomorrow will be off all - all! -day.

The mobile number of the B&S guy has been deleted from my mobile - this feels like some obstinate spot (of grass, coffee, fruit...those things that never leave your clothes) I need to wash over and over again in the vain hope it will go away. I am trying, people. Desperately. Maybe I should change gym...Then again, I actually still have his number carefully written on the back of the appointment card of the gym...but I know I have hidden that card somewhere and I'll try to forget where. Cunning, huh?

Does anybody know who sings a song that goes: "The first time I ever saw your face I thought the sun rose into your eyes"? Rambler friend lent me a cd, but it's all Johnny Cash singing somebody else's songs, and of course there is no information of what is what. It's a romantic song, really, to indulge my current romantic, daydreaming attitude.

Ah, daydreaming...

Home alone

I'm home. Alone. I park my car in the middle of the courtyard, I go get the mail; I open the door and take off my jacket, breathing the emptiness and loneliness and freedom of the rooms.
I prepare my humble lunch; I lay the table by spreading the cloth on half the table only, one glass, one fork, my plate filled with vegetables, a slice of bread toasted in the oven.
I switch on the tv and listen to the music while eating and reading a magazine. I wish there were cartoons on.
I put the dirty plates in the dishwasher, and wash the coffee machines that have been left in the sink this morning. I drink soluble coffee, so I won't use coffee machines, so everything will be tidy and empty and clean for the rest of the week.
I go upstairs, and open all the shutters; I am going to leave them open, at least the one in my brother's bedroom and the two in my parents' bedroom, because this way the light and the sun can stream in all day. When I have my own house the shutters are going to be open all day and all night, so that every shade of light can come in.
It is a warm November, so I don't need to switch the heating on. I thought I would use this week to create some tropical climate in the rooms, but apparently there is no need, and the few hours planned each day should be enough.
I think about mother, excited and shining at the thought of the pyramids, the sphinx, the desert.
I think about looking for another job, moving somewhere else, moving abroad, staying here; I think about myself in five years and of my grey melancholic face, of my eyes with no light shining from them anymore.
I am already losing the light.
Tonight I will sleep with my door open.
I will get up and be as noisy as I would be in the morning if I didn't have scruples to wake somebody up, so I will switch my radio on, but not too loud because I don't like loud sounds in the morning, and then I'll sing a little. The shutters will be all open so there will be a lot of light everywhere.

It's Wednesday, now, and I am still in a thoughtful mood. Kinda melancholic, really.
Last night I went to see my teaching friend; so, first the good news:

I HAVE MY FIRST BIRTHDAY PRESENT!!!

THANKS FIORELLA & MAURO!!!

This is really a special year, in a way.
I spent a very good evening, ate a fantastic chocolate dessert (which I can take since I am such a hard runner, so once in a while I am allowed...), chatted and talked, had some really good time. I love her house and I love her company. I wish we could meet more often, with tea and scones, and talk about books, and school, and travelling.
I went home, and I wasn't very sleepy, so I started preparing my lunch for today: spicy grilled aubergines with tuna (I love grilled aubergines...and I love spicy food..I'm really treating myself this week). Then some liquorice tea, and a couple of chapters of Jonathan Strange (I'm halfway through it...if all goes well I may finish it before Christmas..Gosh, I've never been this slow. Lack of time, that's all. Lack of time and too much running on my daily schedule), and light off at about one o'clock.
Sounds coming from everywhere around the house. The creaking-like sound of the radiators, the neighbour coming home, the donkeys in the field. I think I hear a muffled sound, like mother moving silently to go from her room to the bathroom.

There is no moon tonight, but the sky is clear; I have left the shutters open in my room because I'm scared of opening the window, since there are two huge grasshoppers outside my window - I am scared of grasshoppers, cannot stand them. And apparently my terrace is the only place of the house they like.

Suddenly I am thinking "This is me in a few months".
Because this IS me when I have my own flat, and I am living by myself and managing my life the way I want, and I have all the rooms to myself, and all the time I want to read, sleep, run, watch tv, write, be idle or superactive as much as I like.
But this is also me, having a solitary lunch with music and a magazine, washing the dishes, looking out of the window with my cup of coffee, lying in bed and jumping at all the mysterious noises around me.

So this is me, watching my days go by - alone.
Ok, there are friends to go out with, and have dinner with, and see a few times a week, but then what? Is it going to be like two weeks ago, when all I wanted was to go for a walk in that wonderful warm sun with someone, and I ended up reading outside in the garden and thinking of the cycling path with all the trees at the sides, and the colourful leaves, and the river, and the magical light of November afternoons? Is it going to be boring Sundays of chores, eat, run, read? Is it going to be me leaving my mobile switched on all day and all night vainly hoping to receive some message?

Last night before going to sleep I texted a couple of people...Honestly, I was slightly scared of being alone in the house, this irrational fear. The first time I heard the muffled sound I found the good excuse of having forgotten my mobile downstairs, so I went to get it, switching on all the lights on my way. I went back to bed and sent the same message to two people.
The message went like this:
Hi! On my second night alone because parents are away...but too many strange sounds...and probably there are monsters under my bed...Goodnight..:-o

It does sound childish now, because it's day and there's plenty of light and I really was a bit silly last night. But still, I felt lonely.

And I must confess that the first person I thought of was...Correct...The B&S guy...
I texted another friend, first, whom I haven't heard from for a while.

And then him.

I regretted it the instant I pressed the "ok" button, but it was too late.

COUNTDOWN!!!

If I needed a reminder that my birthday is getting closer...but I don't need it!

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY IN A WEEK EXACTLY!!!

And the first sign that it is my birthday soon is the very first BIRTHDAY CARD:

THANK YOU LIZ! YOU'RE WONDERFUL!

When I receive Liz's card (every year she's the very first to send me greetings) I know that there aren't many nights to the Great Event of the Year...

But wait: the Great Event of the Year is the dinner with the band to celebrate the protectress of music, right?

Correct!

But being that night on the weekend when I would celebrate my birthday, since the Day of Music is the day after my birthday, then the two things collide and an incredible party emerges! There are all my best friends (excluding university friends and friends from abroad..but if you happen to be around, come and join us!) and some 80 people more, and there's music and food and fun until 2 o'clock at night, when the restaurant usually shows clear signs meaning "get the f...out of here!", and this is when we move to the band (well..at that point there are about 20 of us left) and we continue the singing, and the laughing, and the chatting. Then the few adventurous ones go see the sunrise by the small lake at the top of the town, or should I say they go freeze by the lake just for the fun of concluding the night properly...

Anyway, the GEY (I hope this acronym doesn't have other meanings, let me know please!) is THIS Saturday and I AM READY!

Unfortunately this year it looks like it's going to be less fun than usual...

Some people are missing, some other are not exactly in their best mood...and dont' look at me! I've recovered from the B&S guy depression, if only because I'm too busy enjoying the house without my parents around!

(And anyway, my birthday is on Tuesday, which is the day when I go to the gym, and I promised I would offer something to eat, like my special brownies, and so...you never know...)(Yes I'm hopeless).

To sum up:

- on Saturday night, 18th, there is the Great Event of the Year, and I AM READY!

- and next Tuesday, 21st, I'll celebrate my (drums..........................................) 28th birthday!

Of course now, what with all these things going on, emotionally I mean, B&S guy, frustration at work, troubles at home, and all that, my birthday is probably going to be a bit different from the other years, when all I cared about was to be noisy and crazy and selfish and not care about anything. This year I'm afraid there will be a lot more thinking involved. Also, two days after my birthday I will "celebrate" my very first year here at work...And yes, even more thinking will follow...

But for now, who cares, carpe diem, let's just think about going to the gym tonight, and after that I'll go to see my teaching friend who will have prepared one of her fantastic desserts, and we'll chat and plan and I will feel better thanks to her rational mind, that makes my thoughts look clearer and brings new ideas and points of view.

And now, for the countdown...

To the Great Event of the Year: - 4 and counting...

To my birthday: - 7 and counting...

Ah, American think-pink

From a rerun of "Law and Order":

- Well, if we get him to testify we will find Alberto Napoli, the boss of the Family.
- And if we find him, the mafia in New York will crumble.

(An aproximate translation, sorry about it).

What I found extremely funny is the American optimism of "find the man, crack the system".
As if by jailing one single boss the whole mafia structure would fall.

More on the subject when I have more time...boss is back and in a really bad mood (for a change).

Plans for the weekend

I'm writing this only to pass the time, really...

In an hour I'll be at the gym, ready to sweat my bum off, as it is exactly what I need and what I must do. Nothing makes me more frustrated than having to spend more than 2 days without moving, and what with these two meetings I had to attend for mother's second job, I didn't run on Wednesday (I was also depressed, so running would have helped) and yesterday I only had half an hour, and duh, what can you possibly do in half an hour? I don't even get started!
So, I wonder if my decision to begin the conversation with the S&S guy tonight with "make me work till I drop dead" would be taken as some indication of a masochist side of me which I haven't shown yet, and I also wonder how he would take it...So no, I will be my smiling energetic me with no hint of fitness masochism.

We're having the most wonderful November, and I love the sun and the yellow leaves falling and being carried around by the wind, I love the crisp air when you walk, and lying in bed listening the cold silence of the night.
Well...I love November also because...it's my birthday in...11 DAYS!!!

I think that tomorrow I will go for a bike ride.

So here are my plans for the weekend:

- shop for wedding presents: I've got two weddings to go! One on November, 25th, and one on December, 23rd. Hey hey, I seem to be the only one left to defend the fortress of singleness...and mind you, it is no longer a choice.
- top up my credit card for mother who's leaving on Monday! Bless, the countdown is - 3. And counting.
- get my glasses and daily contacts! I can't wait to wear that lovely dark pink frame!
- shop for next week: food, actually. I'll be HOME ALONE and cook, at last, for my own satisfaction, be it only my favourite dish: pasta with courgettes and saffron. Love it.
- Bike ride! Long, endless bike ride. It may be the last one of the year, if the weather gets as cold in the day as it usually does. We've been lucky so far.
- Not going out on Saturday night. I'm not really in the mood for mini skirts, smart tops, cool drinks. And it's freezing cold in the evening, now. And I'm not in the mood for being x-rayed by trendy guys and tiny supercool girls everywhere I go. And mind you, they don't x-ray us but for commenting on how not-as-cool-as-them we are. I'd like to indulge my depressed state and spend a night reading, reading, reading.
- Chores. Holy circle, I'd forgotten that. I also have to fulfil my weekly task of running around the house and clean and tidy and sneeze because I'm allergic to dust and the house is crowded with carpets. Well...My walkman and go.
- Run. I'm on Sunday now, folks, and Sunday means a lot of spare time and a lot of running involved. I must really make another cd because I'm getting tired of the one I'm currently listening to. Must see shop-a-holic friend and her vast music archive for inspiration...
- Write. No time to describe anything about my writing work in progress, but it's slowly seeing the light, and I like it.

And now, time to go and begin my weekend with a large dose of S&S guy, and...the band.

A depressing post - so if you're depressed too, don't read

Today I am very depressed. It's almost six o'clock now, and when I started writing this post it was nine o'clock - but still, I am very depressed today.
Last night I was at the gym.
I should first say that on my sleepless Monday night I texted the B&S guy, joking on how I usually don't sleep much after the gym and this time I anticipated the whole process, instead. Of course I got no reply but kept on looking at my mobile during the day, and when I got two messages I hoped one of them was from him. Deep disappointment, but I expected it.
So last night I was at the gym. I worked out a lot, chatted with the S&S guy, had some fun, felt better. The B&S guy came over to say hello, with a foxy expression of "So what are you texting me these days, girlie?" in his eyes. I joked with the S&S guy about texting the world when I'm sleepless. I tried not to look at the B&S guy too often, and managed it quite well. I loved the way he called me when he said hello, and appreciated a lot when he greeted me goodbye as he left, some time before nine o'clock. I felt like a dog who's happy to receive a pat from its master. Which I guess is not such a dignifying feeling.
I went home and was not my happy-after-the-gym me. I went to my brother's room to watch tv as I was too tired to read. As I was watching, blame it to my tiredness, I started to think - sad thoughts.

I thought that whatever I do, the B&S guy won't ever be interested in me; whatever trendy friend and shop-a-holic friend say, he is NOT the guy for me. Or if he is, he doesn't know, doesn't care, whatever.
I thought that I cannot invite him out for my birthday because he won't come, and all I'll get will be disappointment and a blushing face, and an awful feeling.
I thought that there is no point in hoping, planning, daydreaming, talking and being excited over something that is not going to happen - ever.
I thought that I am going to be lonely and hopeless.
And I cannot decide what's worse, the pointless continuous daydream that leaves that aftertaste of desperation, or the screaming pain of loneliness echoing in front of me.

I went to see library friend today, and she gave me the invitation to her wedding. She asked me about this mysterious B&S guy who keeps me awake at night (well...thinking of him does).
I had not even begun to speak when she interrupted me and said "I can tell this means really something to you, because your eyes are shining now, but I can also tell how bad you're feeling, because your face has suddenly turned sad".
She said I should just ask them (B&S + S&S guy) out anyway, for my birthday, because ok, they could say no, but what if they say yes? And this is exactly what rambler friend said, and my reply had to be exactly the same: "Oh, come on! It's NEVER going to happen!".
Please, everybody: don't make me hope and daydream more that I already do; it will only make things worse.

I'm really, really, really sad today.

And now I'm going home for a run: I'm going to run so that with a little luck I can leave all this melancholy, and sadness, and bad, bad feeling behind.

I've been tagged!

I've been tagged by Rigmor, which is kind of exciting! And so I should write eight things about me...
After a superbusy day at work preceded by yet another sleepless night, here is what my mind has come up with:

1. I am, and never have been, satisfied with myself: there is always something wrong, be it my job, my look, my mind, anything. I am a schizophrenic, neurotic butterfly, yes. But somehow this is good because my never being satisfied makes me be always on the move, always looking for something, even when I don't have a clue of what I'm looking for. Which is like U2 singing "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" (not my favourite song from U2, though). Sometimes I think that the missing piece in my life that would make everything else look right is...yes, you guessed right, I'm talking of L-O-V-E. But my pessimistic side refuses to be deceived by these ideas, even in these over-romantic times.

2. The character who reflects what I feel most of the times nowadays is Samwise Gamgee. Torn between his love for the Shire and his affection and sense of duty towards his master. Me, I am torn between this life in a small town, with my closest friends, a full-time job, my little things, and the exciting feeling of living somewhere else, doing some other job, trying to find my way. Every experience's got good and bad sides, but I always tend to remember the good ones only (don't we all). So I end up feeling frustration and a sense of being chained...but because I've chosen to be chained! So, back to number one of the list: I am a neurotic, schizophrenic butterfly.

3. I am also an obsessed, solitary loony. Nothing new here. But sometimes I wish I could tell all the awful experiences I've had in the past, and how my memory is exceedingly good, and how my emotional me has always stood up after being kicked down. However, all this has brought me to be this introverted, think-too-much person, when I remember being a happy crazy child and girl. I am also one who looks back with anger and nostalgia at things not done or not said, or done and said at the wrong time, to the wrong person. Therefore, here is my new old me, a frightened pup in the rain. And still I won't say or do things that may cause any harm to my fragile me (like talking to somebody I like for more than 2 minutes).

4. Methods I use when I need to cry my heart out before starting again: listening to the "Adagio Doloroso" from Vivaldi; watching "The Hours"; thinking of how I will never be loved and will never have a baby; thinking of the time when my mother will not be here anymore (but rather than cry, this thought stresses me out so much that tears come out of tension, not just emotional pain); thinking of the love I have buried somewhere in me and am too scared to show or give; thinking of children crying. Yes, I'm not just a schizophrenic neurotic butterfly, I'm a masochist, schizophrenic, neurotic butterfly.

5. Methods I use to cheer myself up or just have a refill of energy: listening to any song from Queen (particularly those from Queen I and II); playing any band song loud in my room; playing with the band (ah, the good ol' times); see my friends; well...running, of course!; walking in the woods and in the streets of my town (autumn and winter only..more romantic); set down an action plan or a draft for a story; tidy my messy room while listening to very loud music.

6. I wish I could be more involved in things; anything, really, from the decision at the band to political stuff. I wish I knew more of all that's going on, because I always feel blindfolded, with things happening around me that I can't see. I wish I knew more about history, to understand this messy present time; I wish I knew more about geography, and chemistry, and astronomy, and physics; I wish I had enough time to read all the books I have of history, sociology, politics...

7. One of my greatest pleasures is to cook for somebody I love: that's why I cannot wait to live by myself, so that I can organise dinners and lunches for my friends. What's nicer than an evening with your friends, music and food? (A-hem...this is a rhetorical question, mind...).

8. I like celebrating birthdays; not just mine (!), anybody's birthday. I think it is the most important day for a person, and should be celebrated properly. I do my best to send cards, or emails, I even make phone calls (!), and I am usually the one who buys the present, because I am so concerned over the nicest possible thing to buy with a limited budget...

So, task accomplished, and although I think I have been very serious in the first points, I am quite satisfied.
And now, for something completely different, I would like to announce two things:

Number one, I am officially back to writing - more details will follow;

Number two, I am almost done with the brainwashing process: I can tell by my depressed feeling last night, which felt almost exactly like the realisation that it was over for he-who-must-not-be-named, some years ago. As I told my friend, I've learnt my lesson, and have given up before it was too late.
What happens now? Don't know, really...I just go on with my job, my running, my books, my writing, my friends, and, as I said before, the rest is silence.

Back to running and writing

(Interrupted) thoughts from Friday afternoon:

Only a few hours to the weekend...The longest hours of the week...
So, not that I have changed my mind: I know and am convinced that the B&S guy is not interested in me. I don't want to take anything coming from him as a sign, like when last night he greeted me before I left, and started chatting about his Halloween night (spent at home with temperature, sweet baby). Oh, he also (apologised and) explained why he hadn't reply to my message.
But this is not a sign.
The rule is to be realistic and not build fantasies out of common, ordinary moments.
Daydreaming is to be limited.
Difficult, that.
Sometimes I think that I could let slip in the information that my parents will not be at home, and casually invite somebody for lunch (not dinner, because they work until 10 pm).

And thoughts from the weekend:

Bless business trips...
I can think of the weekend as a convergence of things to do all crashing one on the other, and suddenly it was Sunday, late afternoon, and I was on the couch watching a video of "Law and Order", which I love, and thinking "oh, Monday's here already". Which is the usual thought of Sunday, as the poet says.
Anyway, I did have a good weekend: bought shoes, relaxed, enjoyed my spare time, and in spite of going to play on Sunday morning and freezing to death while listening to the same boring speeches, I could spend some time with my friends. Winter is beautiful because the weather makes us closer to each other, in every sense.
First of all, the band: because it's my weekly drama and I am constantly thinking about it. Rehearsals on Friday were awful, and if it hadn't been for CCB (Crazy Curly Baby), with whom I laughed continuously for two hours, I swear I would have left after the first piece. We cannot seriously go to the concert with these boring, slow, useless pieces! Every year since I started we've proposed an alternation of fast and slow, of serious and fun, of easy and difficult, for us to play and for the audience to listen, like Blue Shades last year, or In Folk Style the year before, not to mention things like "Der Dämon" back in 2000, a real nightmare, but beautiful.
This year the programme is an "adagio" from Mozart...a religious piece written by Mozart...My way...Silent Night...That makes four slow songs, and two of them (unfortunately, the ones from Mozart...he wrote such splendid music and what do we play? Funeral-like stuff?) particularly hideous, and no offence, please. Then what, a march-like piece which would be decent, or maybe even nice, if:
- the girl who plays the piccolo would play just a little less: she is turning us deaf, and apparently she should clean the thing, because it's an indecent sound;
- the final part cold be rehearsed slower, so that the clarinets could learn it better. Now this is strange, and annoying: the conductor always stops in case of difficulty, and makes a certain section play the difficult bit over and over, slowly at first and then increasingly fast in order to understand and perform better. With this bit...no. I mean, he stops when my section begins an easy two-beat part because he wants a more confident sound, but won't stop the poor guys in the end when they really have troubles. Consequently, they are not too happy, they don't play too well, and frustration spreads in all the sections. I don't understand...

So, apart from me deciding to go to alternate rehearsals (two Fridays a month instead of 4, I mean, what's the point?), I was considering two things:
1. leaving the band AFTER this concert, because I see no point in playing things that I don't like or that motivate me to play well, in a place where I cannot socialise anymore, and where I have to endure the screams and frustration of the conductor, and mine too, really, since I know we can do a lot better than this.
2. Leaving the band BEFORE this concert, for how can I seriously go there and play those awfully boring things? And feel the warm cheers of the audience, when every year we get less and less approval, and think that up to a few years ago we would set them on fire, so to speak, they would cheer, and scream, and keep the time by clapping their hands, never ending cheers and whistles and screams that make me shiver even now when I think of it. Now...

Then yesterday we were out playing. Apart from freezing to death and listening to the boring speeches, as I said, there were a few positive points: going for a hot cappuccino and fresh pain-au-chocolat while the others were at the mass, and laughing when the guy who was giving the speech said something really really silly, and me being in the front line I head to bend my head down and pretend to blow my nose to hide my laughing convulsion; jokeing with the conductor, and with the others, and going through the usual ceremony as I have done for the past nine years, feeling, after all, well. Well because I knew what to do, because I was with my friends, because I knew we would go for a coffee and a chat and we would wait in the cold November air together, complaining about the usual two girls who were wearing boots in spite of the "law" that forbids boots with the uniform, deciding that next time we will wear boots too (it will never happen, but we will always threat to do so), I mean, our ordinary things, that I would miss, that I actually missed when I lived abroad. Not that now I would miss the (lack of) events during the rehearsals. Because nothing really happens. But sometimes it is something unimportant, like the percussion guys freaking out with laughters when they couldn't find all their parts; like Gong playing as if he were hammering, a thing that makes me laugh even now, three years later; like the baritones going mad and making all the rows in front laugh till we cry; like somebody beginning to play "Jingle Bells" at then end of a song during a rehearsal in May, and suddenly we are all playing "Jingle Bells", rock-style, and at the end we laugh and we feel, somehow, lighter.
These are the good things.

I really wanted to write about serious things, today; because the situation is going crazy, and the government is talking of the use of the Army to calm things down, and the new economic reform is making everybody angry, and the Financial Times is writing awful, pathetic, stereotypical articles on mafia and football, and this mafia thing is getting stronger and stronger, so there is this guy, who's MY age, and has written a book, listing all the bosses that are literally governing the South, and now he has to be escorted because he could be killed any minute. I keep on reading articles and books and watching programmes about it, and they just make me feel weak, powerless and afraid. This, and the future, and the lack of certainty, as always.
So I think that at least when I am writing on this blog, I am allowed some easy light reflections, however confused and meaningless, and superficial maybe, but useful to take my mind off all this dark, fearful dimension we're living in, if only for a short while.

The Brainwash (part two)

Remember The Brainwash? I'm at it again. But this time it's for real and I'm determined to keep going.
Facts:
Tuesday night, my depressed me being pampered at the gym by the S&S guy, who makes me work softly on the bike and the cross-trainer, then some exercises for my shoulders, and a lot of nice stretching on the bench, which I really like.
The bench is in the B&S guy's operating area, so we get to chat a bit.
At the end of the session I go to the reception and they are both there. We are talking about Halloween, an imported tradition I'm strongly against (long complicated train of thoughts would follow, but I'll save it for another time). He jokes on his plans, and says that he wants to see me around that night, we joke some more, I leave in a better mood and my shins are even feeling fine.
Wednesday, bless, it's day off work, so I can sleep and take my mind off everything.
I'm very annoyed because there is nobody I can go out for a walk with, and with the weather we are having (I'm going around wearing T-shirts! November and I'm wearing T-shirts! Really, this is the end of the world), it would be nice to go somewhere, stop for a drink by the lake, anything of the kind would be appreciated.
But no.
All my friends are:
a) still at universities enjoying a day off lessons with their schoolmates;
b) sleeping in their beds all day after some Halloween party;
c) working (this is obviously Anna, who said that she would be working "only" three hours in the afternoon, but I didn't believe a word..Matter of fact, at 6 pm she texted me to say she was still at work and thinking of the great weather we were having and of her motorbike...Thanks, girl, for the deep consideration for my messages and invitations to go out for a drink and a chat. God, why do I still bother.
Anyway...I'm bored out of my skull, and I decide that I'll text someone, if only to say hello.
So I warm up with the shop-a-holic friend, followed by the fashion friend (aka Cinzia), go on with Pseudonymous Friend, then it's Anna because I never lose my hope, then it's Kitty, I believe, anyway, you see the point, I text the whole world on my mobile.
The irresistible need to text the B&S guy is screaming inside of me, together with Kitty's words to "take any excuse to text him, like if you are asleep after a session at the gym, or anything, just to say hello", and I think that after all yesterday we chatted about his plans for the night, and joked and all, and tomorrow it will be a day too late to ask him about it, so why not texting him now?
Here I go, and here is the message as I wrote it (third draft...):
"Hi, how are you? I torment people via sms today...Just wondering how your "trick-or-treat" night went yesterday...And thank you both for cheering me up last night. See you."
Not bad, is it? Friendly and easy.
Well, after that I texted some more five friends, I guess. Then I went for a walk, I took a bath, I baked a cake and tidied my shoes (charity shops will be happy to receive all the almost brand new shoes I refuse to wear - from now on, it's trainers only! Except for my new lovely boots, which have no heel.).
In the evening, while watching "Tommy", I received a few replies.
Nothing from the B&S guy.
When I went to bed, still no message.
When I woke up at 3,47 (noticed? Seven is a recurrent number in my awakenings), my mobile was on and there was no message.
It's past 11 am now, and still no message.
I know I am going to see him tonight, but still. This is clearly a sign that he is not interested, or he would have replied.
So (see my over-nervous, paranoid, hyperactive mind) I know what I'll say tonight, this being (after all) an unimportant thing: I'll tell the truth! That I was super-bored, and that of all the contacts in my mobile I had only him and my boss left to text...(half true, ok...I could have texted my friends abroad, but I think my veeery long emails are more than enough...).
What I mean is, I understand, I've always knows, he is not interested. He is neither shy nor anything of the sort, he's simply not interested. End of the story.
And there is really nothing else to say about it.