No news good news

So, what’s going on in my life…

First of all, genius brother did not pass that interview/test. Obviously they decided to hire somebody who was already working there, therefore making the whole thing look ridiculous…welcome to the world of recommendations, everybody! Of course genius brother is quite new to this world, whereas elder sister aka Peggy knows what life is when it comes to jobs…which is why I have never applied to publishers around here, and have lost any hope in finding a job where they would hire me for what I can do, not for the people I know or the graduation mark I got (which is not splendid, I confess. But then again, lots of people who’ve graduated with a higher mark can barely speak two words in English in spite of it having been the subject of their degree….oh, a long story here, let’s proceed with what I was saying).
Anyway, genius brother is a bit angry (more for wasting time and money – and not going to work for two days, where he could have taken 2 days off for a more productive reason) and possibly also sad and dissatisfied. If he’s a bit like me, it’s when it comes to daydreaming about a better life, where we have a job we really like and a house that is ours and is comfortable and we can do what we like. Well, I was considering that he lives in a beautiful city, with a job that gives him a whole lot of spare time (they work till 4.30, I must have mentioned this), where, a year after he started, he’s already advanced and is getting more money, plus, a real bonus to me, sometimes they “send” him to schools and companies to teach IT, and in those occasion this woman comes and picks him up, drives him wherever he needs to be, takes him out for lunch, drives him back…and since they’re becoming friends, they may be possibilities that she gives him a hand in advancing further in his career. Plus, he lives in this pretty flat, with a wonderful view of the beautiful mountains, five minutes by bike from his working place, the bus stop right outside the door, and the city offers a great amount of things to do (especially compared to our small town…). I mean, WHAT MORE DOES HE WANT???
But it’s my acid me speaking here. I wish I had a better job, and yet the only place where I could apply and have a chance would be the UK. And I cannot go for the time being, what with the house that will be and parents will need a hand, what with my mother who would be left alone with father, what with…holy crap.
It feels like I cannot leave and I cannot go. Which reminds me of an episode of “Law & Order” which I saw a couple of days ago. Too bad when fiction resembles my life so much.
However, look at the following ad:

Duties will include dealing with the general office administration i.e. post, petty cash, telephone calls, stationery and generally keeping the office running smoothly. You will also be involved with taking in corrections to page proofs, checking layouts for accuracy, liaise directly with clients, authors, editors, designers and image libraries; answering questions and solving problems. You will also be involved with picture research on the internet, organising and assisting at photo shoots and researching competitions, writing blurbs and creating AI`s for clients. The successful candidate should be of graduate calibre, have good computer skills with excellent organisation and communication skills. The ability to multi-task and work on your own initiative is essential as is an excellent eye for detail and the ability to work to deadlines.

The good thing about these requirements: they are all things that I can do. Easily. Plenty of experience (if you exclude the phone part, because, as I mentioned before, I’d rather send pigeons with messages tied to their pretty little legs than pick up the phone and call).
The bad thing about these requirements: they are all things that ANYBODY can do. Easily. Little experience? Training and “exercise” will make up for it.
Oh, well: I am going to send my cv anyway.

What else is going on…nothing much, really. I’ve been extra training again at the gym, yesterday, being full of energy, so I could run and do everything and I feel good. I am going to run tonight too, and tomorrow more gym, without the S&S guy who’s away, but it’s ok. He’s very sweet when he comes over to chat at the beginning of the training and he takes my hand. I am a physical person, in that I like hugging people, and I have vices like caressing peoples’ hair, so I like it when people do the same with me. Anyway.

I am also looking for English courses for genius brother, who wants to spend a month in England this summer and follow some intensive course. I will have a good excuse, then, to go to England one more myself, if only to accompany him there, and see him well. We may convince him to come with us to London for a weekend, in March.

Last but not least, I will let things calm down a bit (with genius brother, I mean. It would not have been nice to ask him about it today, right after being disappointed for the fake interview) and in a couple of weeks I plan to have my laptop. Plus, tomorrow I will have my own copy of the project for the house that will be, and I can start planning the furniture and look around to find what I need.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!

First of all, a dream I had forgotten to write about when I last posted:

I am in London (apparently…you know what dreams are like); since my mum is somewhere else and it will be a while before she’s done, I decide I’ll go to Hull for a quick visit, so I catch my train and lo!, I am at the students’ union, precisely at the bookshop, huge, beautiful, sunny, with people everywhere, the store on two floors and so many shining books…I am nearly moved.
Mum calls and she says that she will be done in a short while, so shall we meet in half an hour at our usual place for a tea; I say “ok, perfect”, and I think of the very nice tea-shop with the small tables outside in the sun and cups of sweet tea and scones with jam (I suddenly think that I have Cambridge in mind at the moment). I then remember that I must catch the train to go back to London to meet mum, so I start wondering about to find the train station, which I’m sure was close to the students’ union, so I walk down the hill (and this is a memory from Canterbury) and find directions for nearly every place in England except the train station, so I start walking back to the direction I am sure I came from….
And this is how I wake up at 6.53 sharp.
And all I can think is “why would I want to go to Hull?”
And: “oh, I so need to go back to London, even just for a couple of days!”
And: “I miss Swansea!”
(and probably I also miss Hull, for that matters….Or the idea of Hull as I lived
my exchange year in 2000, as a student, with friends from Europe and the U.S., with dinners and parties and study sessions at the library, and coffees at Planet Coffee and all that. It was a good time, all in all).

The point is, I have just found out that I have “earned” six days of vacation to be used (possibly) within June. So my plan is to really go to London for a weekend, in march though, and I will also go to Paris, where I’ve never been, and I will use these days off to travel. My, not that they are a real lot of time to use…but still, if I take a Friday off here and a Friday off there…all in all it’s about 6 weekends, isn’t it? Or slightly less if I also take a Monday off to make a longer weekend. Cool…

Ok, to sum up the first day of the week:
- I woke up with the sound of genius brother using the world’s reserves of water (if he takes a shower every morning, no wonder we are running out of water)
- I came to work and the first call was from angry boss because HE had misunderstood an email (which I had got clearly, but wouldn’t dare contradict him)
- Got another call from angry boss, angry because the secretary had cut his call while trying to put him on conference call, and he had forgotten that the telephone people were here, so he was barking on the phone for the mess we were making with the lines (have I mentioned I hate using the phone? Really really really hate it? I’d rather drive all the way to Germany than call on the phone our agent there, and this says a lot on how I HATE the phone)
- After a promise of being alone for lunch, father shows up (late), ruining my plans to watch Starsky and Hutch in the kitchen while playing with my brain-training.
- Once back at work, our agent from Bosnia calls because our idiot agent has called her because our boss has called her. As a result of a long story with many “he said, she said”, I get shouted at fir not asking the boss in the first place. I would have, I’d like to reply, but my investigation brought me to him while going backwards, and going backwards meant that the first has become the last to ask!
- Less than twenty minutes later, I get shouted at again for not having a copy of an email, which I personally didn’t need since when I showed it to my boss the first time he simply read two lines and then decided that the offer would be according to his personal idea of what to put on a 20’ container. Now, all of a sudden, the offer MUST be prepared according to what the agent wants, therefore I am a stupid disorganised un-attentive person (he doesn’t say this all, but his shouts are more than enough). Consequently, I spend about ten minutes crying in the bathroom.

And it’s only Monday.
And it’s not six o’clock yet.

I think this is the right time to turn to drugs.

Snow! (Or not?...)

Dream # 1: the secretary, aka The Leader of the Triumvirate (TLT), and I are at the office and the payslips arrive. Since there is nobody else there, we decide to take them all and leave for Pavia (a nice city of Northern Italy where I spent a couple of days two years ago). ………………………..
No, nothing else.
I wake up on Wednesday morning feeling all confused, and cold because it is getting colder and colder: winter’s here!

Dream # 2: I argue with my boss over some of the usual matters (he thinks he’s right, I KNOW I am). I explain, screaming, what has happened, for the umpteenth time, while trying to do my job without his annoying intervention; I give example after example while they listen to me scream and cry. I decide there and then to quit my job and go downstairs, with the boss’s wife and somebody else trying to convince me not to go, worried about what I will do now. I think about it too, since I cannot find another job, and I would not earn enough with the work I do for my mom, because she doesn’t need much from me. The boss’s wife then tells me that they can send me to work to some other office where I would be dealing with tourism, so I would be satisfied and have a regular pay, and I am undecided because I’m not convinced that this is what I want, I only want to quit this place.
I wake up: tired, confused, upset.

And outside it is all…well, a beautiful colour. It is still dark, and the mountains are covered in snow. The sky is greyish-purpleish, rain and weak snow are falling in the misty air.

Thought number one: !”$£%%/&$%%£!”%! (Translation without the cursing: “of course it had to be today! So I go to work today, and tomorrow I can’t go out because of the frozen streets, but by Monday it will all be clear and clean and I will have to go to work all the same!”)
Thought number two: awww! The snow!
……..
Well….It didn’t last, and it wasn’t real snow anyway.
The sky has already cleared, and it was beautiful to see the road from my street to the higher mountain, all covered in a thin layer of snow and the blue sky behind. Absolutely brilliant.
This is when I wish I had a digital camera, so that I could take pixies and publish them here to share them with those who read. Well…tomorrow I will take some photos with my “normal” camera (better quality anyway) and soon or late I’ll scan them.

The weekend’s almost here and I have no plans except sleep and heal my bad back – I can’t sit or stand without feeling this piercing pain – delightful.
On the side of good news I can also say that:
February is almost here, which means the fair in town, a dinner with my friends from university, a lot of evening work, the new laptop (but first, genius brother has to go for that superlong interview where if he passes he’ll have a supercool job and travel a lot and earn a massive amount of money and…), and hopefully the beginning of the bassoon: the conductor is looking for a teacher, since the one working for another band has proved to be an excellent player but a terrible teacher, so now they’re looking for a replacement. When they find him/her, I can start too. I CAN’T WAIT!

Finally, work-a-holic friend is freaking out (a long process that so far has made her get a tattoo, plan to get another one, get the driving licence for motorbikes, BUY (!) a motorbike, buy a brand new mountain-bike, buy a videocamera, and, recent news, book a one-week cruise to Greece and plan a weekend in a beauty farm – where I will have the pleasure to go too), so, she’s going crazy, and her latest email announces her decision to buy a treadmill…And my friends say that I am mad??? At least I’ve gone mad in a long span of time, not all of a sudden! My mother should thank me for that, and for not exploding with changes and new things...
And now, for the weekend...

One thing that I need to do

After a couple of posts with Welsherella, and after the incredible discovery that she's not in Wales (anymore), I spent ten minutes reading random posts from her blog to understand what I had missed...
Guess what: I never read profiles...

So the one thing that I need to do is: pay more attention to details...

Only 24 hours in a day? Really?

Very well…
I am not very happy, these days.
Where do I begin?....
I would not talk about my mother getting angry when I decided I would finish packing the books, and being angry because she wanted to take part in the process and I said I could do by myself, she said something like “ you’d better find yourself a hobby”. She was really cross and nervous and tired and all that. Still, it hurt. Because I have hobbies, and I use my free time in different ways, and I also like tidying and working in the house, and I was doing it because I didn’t want her to work too hard on that, and my only spare time would be Sunday mornings, so what the hell. I would tell her about it, only she wouldn’t understand.
Second, the ex-pregnant girl is back next Tuesday. I have moved my computer so she can go back to her private office, and she will use flexible times for her child. The boss’s wife said that for the next two years it should be like this, and asked me if everything is ok, and all, because she knows I’m scared of the secretary, and she understands that this is not the job of my life. God, do I know. But she’s right, and I know, that if I just work and then live my real life outside this office, then things are ok. And I have lots of plans, among which I am counting the bassoon, the second degree, the writing, and all the running and working for the house.
Of course, it would be a lot easier if this stupid boring job didn’t swallow ALL my time, leaving me a few hours in the evening where generally, after working out, the only thing I can do is fall unconscious on my bed…I was also thinking that with the arrival of my new laptop, and the going back to writing, I will have to be extra organised, so that writing, reading, working out, watching movies, studying…the routine will be strict and possibly pleasant, because I’ll be doing things that I really like.

I think that now a general overview on the things to be done this year would be good; so here we go:

January: almost over, and the only thing I can count is going to see a laptop (tomorrow) since genius brother is too busy going back and forth from Turin for his (probably) new superpaid exciting job.
February: buy the laptop; get back to writing; begin the bassoon – study planned every night for at least half an hour + Saturday and Sunday; buy a kettle.
March: sell the treadmill and buy a cross-trainer (end of the month); works in the house begin (mid-month or end of it); start organise summer vacations.
April: go to Trieste (after Easter); go see for the kitchen, armchair and sofa.
June: register for uni test; pay car insurance;
July:
August: holiday (to be spent…I don’t know. Somehow I feel I shouldn’t go with mother this year, what with our both being so hysterical and arguing very often. I don’t know.). And that’s it.
September: test at uni + register for the first year.
October: buy the books for the exams; go see for yet another kitchen and for a wardrobe and bed for my bedroom to be (maybe also for a solution for the living room – where do I put all my books??).
November: shop for clothes –traditions must be respected – for the Big Event of the Year; buy some furniture (to be decided); something for the car to be paid.
December: prepare for concert; spend more time on the bassoon and on the exams at uni; car insurance and guarantee to be paid; plan what exams will be done in January and inform at work.

********************************************************************************

So…my boss is moody and extra-black, and finds reason after reason to be even angrier. Of course he is always right even when he is not. Like when I tell him that the order does not say when the things must be delivered, and he says that I haven’t paid enough attention. Or other examples which I don’t want to give now, because I am so angry and nervous about it.
Fuck, I need another job. Or I want this as part-time, so I bother about being shouted at only for the morning, and I don’t have to suffer from insomnia, or feel my heart sink when the gate opens and the first thing I see is his car, or when I see his car arriving, or when I open my mailbox and see the fall of emails from him, or when I have to ask him something, one more time, because I don’t have a clear idea of what he wants, since no, I am NOT good at mind-reading, sorry about it. And more.
Anyway. I wish I could change, but my cv is not good, really, and I am not able to do anything. Maybe I should just move abroad and “recycle” myself as…what? Oh, hell.
Thank god for the lunch break.

*******************************************************************************

So, update update update: I have a day without angry boss at last, although he keeps calling us – by which we understand that he is not driving, so is bored and therefore spends time thinking over things and finding the tiniest reasons to call us and shout at us…he is like a child with short attention span..shame he’s over 50 and is a lot more difficult to manage (see: we cannot shout back at him because…well..he’s the boss).
Anyway, in spite of now being in the worst possible place with my computer (no, not really! Only, as I said, my privacy has decreased…), I have had the time to search for offers in publishing, and found a few things. So today I plan to send some forms and cv and obviously cross my fingers!
Secondly…
No, there isn’t a second for this update. Maybe later, though…

Update on the switch to the new blogger version: nevermind, people, I can’t do this! I should open a google account but the page won’t open, so, to hell! I don’t care! ! have better things on my agenda that this switch! Where have I put my flowers of Bach?

Recap

Friday

Good things going on in my life as opposed to what makes me feel depressed, angry, or hopeless.
My treadmill is not entirely bad and I can still run with it for another couple of months before I sell it;
The weather is sunny and cool and beautiful, although not as cold as it should be ;
Tonight I am going to the gym, which means work out, music, some fun, a chat, and a general feeling of wellness;
Tonight at the band we will discuss of important subjects and we may be good enough as to get a result, this time;
Tonight I am also going to set a plan for my study of the bassoon with our conductor ;
Less than two hours to lunch time, less than six hours to the weekend, less than a month to the next payslip, less than I think to some bank holiday or vacation;
I am going to enrol for a second degree and this will let me learn new and interesting things, and will also give me the possibility to take a year off as an exchange student and to find a better job when I am done.;
Number of times I have to do the chores at home before we begin the works: 6 (or 7);
And talking of the house that will be, we have just received the official project and my apartment is gorgeously large and organised, with enough space for my messy me;
By December or by next January I will have my own apartment and I will be “free” at last (with all that this implies);
By the beginning of February I will have a laptop to work and watch movies whenever I want, which means that I am going back to writing soon;
I have just received a nice letter from David and I have the occasion to fulfil my goal for the new year: write more letters and less e-mails.


Saturday

Things that have filled my day:
Sleep late and then go for a hot chocolate in a town I really like;
Clean the windows while listening to loud music, then do the chores upstairs, tidy the kitchen and sing;
Meet shop-a-holic friend, rambler friend and trendy friend for yet another hot chocolate while playing with my Brain training and chatting for a couple of hours;
Watch the end of Everwood, which has been one of the best endings for a tv series: it left me both happy and melancholic, and the music was well used, albeit cheesy, but I fall easily for these things when I’m in the right mood. Everwood has been by far one of the nicest series I’ve seen in a while (not counting medical dramas or Law & Order, that is, which are entirely a different genre);
Work for my second part-time job while listening to good music even though I was in a terrible mood;

Sunday

Things that have I should have done vs. things I have actually done:
Wake up earlier to finish the chores vs.wake up late and argue with mother over my decision to pack the last five boxes of books;
Have a lazy lunch and watch tv before running vs. have a lazy (delicious) lunch and sleep until past four;
Have a long run vs. walk for an hour;
Begin a book vs. play endless games of sudoku while watching NCIS (which I thought I didn’t like, but probably got some interesting episodes);
Go to bed early vs. go to bed late due to my long siesta in the afternoon (as a result, I overslept…which I never do…Scissors Sisters crept in during my sleep, but only to become a soundtrack of some dream I have forgotten. Anyway…).

Monday (after getting to work half an hour late…)

Things that will keep me going these week:
My dvd have arrived and I will soon watch them on my new laptop;
I have lots of things to do and being busy is the best way not to be depressed;
Tonight I am going to run and then fill in all the application forms I downloaded last week (not that I have a chance…but trying is always worth);
I promise and swear that on Wednesday I will go swimming;
I will have some time to look at furniture and see if for my new apartment to come I can find something nice to begin with (using the current furniture and replacing only a couple of things, like…the kitchen. Or get a decent armchair, or a proper closet for all my clothes and bed-sheets and all that. We’ll see. Right now).

And one thing that will NOT make things easier at work:
The ex-pregnant girl is back next week and today I have moved my computer to the big office, shared with the leader of the triumvirate and another guy. Luckily I am at the end of the room, and I have quick reflexes to close any page that shouldn’t be open while working…

And with all these things to do, I had better get going.

Thursday rant vs pink thoughts

Ok, the rant goes first:

I WANT ANOTHER JOB!!!!!!!
One where I don't make all these mistakes because people don't talk, because people say less than they should, because people believe that I know...and I DON'T!
I want a job where I do something I like, where I don't have to deal with a hysterical boss and his enygmatic albeit damn scary wife, and with the queens of darkness, aka the Triumvirate (althought the third girl is still at home on maternity leave..but next month she's back and oh, hell).
I want a job with decent working hours, as in: let me enjoy the day instead of waking up-run to work-extremely long and useless lunch break-run to work-go back home when it's past 6 o'clock and the day is ending. My brother ends his working day at 4.30, bless him, when the afternoon has just begun...and there is still light outside!
Crap...

Pink thoughts to balance this awful feeling:

- tonight I am out for dinner with bride-friend, which means a good pizza (I mean, a GOOD pizza) and a good chat;
-tomorrow's Friday!!!! Yey!
- I will start studying the bassoon!!! Double yey!
- and I am desperate enough to be happy about being 5.30, which means 30 minutes to the end of this crappy day.

Cheers to my next more productive, more satisfactory, more MORE life...

I used to read at night

Now I play sudoku.
But first:

I would be a terrible mother.
Today my little neighbours came to see me, my children.
We played, and I drank my coffee, and we didn’t have time to make some fake coffee with lots of milk for them; the little one jumped around the kitchen and was happy to chat with me about her new Barbie watch.
Then I had to leave for work, so the little one said she wanted me to drive her up the hill like I usually do; we went downstairs and I opened the garage and said they had to stay still while I took the car out; something happened as I was doing this, and the next thing I know is that the little one is looking at me from the top of the street and she’s crying. So I go to her, and she jumps in my arms, and we go close the garage, while I ask what happened, and “who made you angry?”, with my mum-tone, and she is crying in a way that her mouth is open wide as if she wanted to scream but she cannot even breath, and she crumbles the piece of paper we’ve been testing the pens on a moment before. I put her in the car and give her my toy lion to cuddle while I drive uphill. When she gets out of the car I say goodbye, and she runs to her house, then she turns and looks at me and I wave. She just looks at me, and I know she’s still looking when I leave.
I drive to work feeling so bad.
I remember the time when she wanted to come home with me but her mother forbid her, and so I said goodbye and went to open the door, and I looked at her from the terrace to the street where she was, and she was looking at me and crying in that same way, holding her breath with her mouth open wide, and my heart broke into pieces and I had to go down and cuddle her and play with her a bit more.
I would spoil my children to infinity, in that I would cuddle them, and play with them, and hold them and spend all my time with them, and I would not care about anything or anyone else.
For the way things are now, however, I can only hope that my little one doesn’t grow too fast, or I won’t be able to lift her.

On to other subjects, I received an e-mail from the guy of the band I have complained about a few times (no, I don’t feel like putting any link about it). He’s a nice guy. I understand his constant tormenting people with his ideas and projects, because he is a believer, and we are…a lot less.
He probably doesn’t remember, but he did something for me once, for which I will always be grateful.
I had to explain my emotional situation, which is a bad excuse for lots of things, but still, I am trying to control myself now, and being in an UP mood things are not going too bad.

That said…I’ve spent another sleepless night, and reduced myself to playing sudoku for more than an hour because I couldn’t be bothered to go downstairs for a cup of hot milk. I should read, damn!, but this brain training thing has really got me and I spend hours every day playing and exercising (still crap at the multiple calculations, though.. My mathematical mind is NOT going to improve, ever!).

My mind is also occupied with all the things to do at home, since we should (hopefully) begin the works in a month, and there are lots and lots and lots of boxes to fill and put away, and furniture to move.
So last night, after an hour of sudoku, I thought about the following plan (my housemaid mind buzzing with ideas):
- tomorrow, since we have a meeting at 7.30 and therefore I cannot run, I can pack some more books for at least half an hour;
- on Saturday I can clean the windows upstairs (which would require about 1 and a half hour…at 10 minutes per window...) and then clean the rest of the house (I have moved a few things from the bathroom to my room to make more space beforehand, how clever of me! Now my room, which is the smallest place of the house, is also the most crowded place ever seen in a house: treadmill between the bed and the table, music drawer and chest under the table, shoe drawer where the music drawer was - the only free space left, in front of my bed-, my stereo on the shoe drawer - the coolest solution! I wish that drawer were full of books, though…-, and oh, did I mention that a bookshelf fell on me the other week? As I was looking for a scarf at 7.30 in the morning? It wasn’t exactly a bookshelf: it’s a shelf in my closet, which should have kept bed-sheets and such, but everywhere else being crowded I was using it to keep my books on cinema, my complete Shakespeare, a huge glass dish I received as a Christmas present two years ago from work and a huge…glass dish I received from my participation to a wedding three years ago. So picture me as I see this hell of things dangerously sliding down as I open the closet, and my blurred mind (7.30 a.m., people, remember) vaguely communicating the message to my arms to let everything but the glass dishes fall …so while my arms are protecting what’s fragile, my head happily (or not) welcomes the fall of Shakespeare and of “A Mirror of the Times – English Literature and Society”…and good morning again! But I have sidetracked as usual).
- I guess I won’t finish the chores on Saturday, because I also want to go for a walk and to go out in the evening, so I will finish on Sunday morning, and I will also finish the packing of the books (three more boxes left, I would say). In all this, I want to run, continue my book (which will be started tonight, as soon as I have decided what I want to read…), play with my brain training, and think about my Future, in terms of: the house that will be; the expenses that may be required from me for it; my decision to enrol for a second degree and the money involved in this project; and my father (haven’t talked to him, not even to say hello. I would do it in the evening, when mother is also there, because in a way it feels that if he doesn’t respond, then I will have a witness to understand that I am perfectly right in what I am doing. Do I sound mad?).

That’s pretty all. I have a busy yet eventless week ahead, so I better go back to work now. But first, I will find some drawings to colour for my child, so when she comes and see me tomorrow I will have a present to make her smile.

Specimen Days

(a short comment, sorry..no time to study the subject in depth as I planned)

I haven’t read any Whitman, I confess. As we were packing my books the other week I looked at my copy of “Leaves of Grass” and thought if I should keep it out, then thought better…I’ll use the library and the Internet, sometime later this year.
Anyway, the book is good. I mean, GOOD. It’s again made of three different stories, linked together by Whitman’s poetry, but the characters are also somehow the same, reappearing in time.
We see old New York, the ghost of a dead brother and the vital beastly force of machines; we have New York of our days in a thriller, and New York of the future with androids.
It’s good read, and quick and strong.
The reviews I read on the website helped me seeing better the connection between them, as the boy of the first tale is also the potential brainwashed terrorist of the second, and the deformed child of the third; so the girl he is in love with in the first story reappears in the third, and his brother, a ghost at the beginning, is a business man (unimportant character, I would say) in the second tale, and the android in the third.
There is also a bowl.
A white China bowl.
Only one review mentions it, possibly because it has no role in any story apart from..well, being there. Being there when the boy buys it as a present to the girl he loves, which she re-sells, which is bought by the woman of the second story as a present to her boyfriend, which is still there (can’t remember how) in the journey of the android and his Nadian companion. I found it the most unsettling thing, a presence that silently reminds you of time.
The website is not very helpful, apart from some reviews.
But still, here is the link to Michael Cunningham’s work.

A bit of this, a bit of that (and on murders)

What will all this talking of family and stuff I have put off the fourth post for my bookclub. But first, for casual news and uninteresting events of the week and plans for the weekend, just to calm my mind and pass the time (seen as the boss is not interested in shouting at me at the moment, so…let him be).
I’ve worked out so much last night, or so it feels…if I think of it, it comes down to nothing, really, but still I went home shattered, and this morning it was so hard to get up, and not only because it’s Friday and this is the heaviest/hardest days of the week. The S&S guy was happy to find out about a problem in my back he thought I had (“you have made me a happy person”…well, see? I make people happy!...), and consequently made me work on it for a loooong while, and it was so hard I could barely breath. Mind you, it was only stretching and that, with interval training made of cross-trainer, bike, and the final blow of 20 minutes on the treadmill (which should have been 25 running, but I made 10 running and 10 walking, and then suggested that maybe, next time, can I have the treadmill first and not last, pleeeease?). I woke up this morning with this incredible tiredness in my body, and with the Friday mantra “only eight hours and then I’m free”…I can do it!
I also plan to run a bit tonight, my 5K, easy, before going to the band. This is because tomorrow we have another destructive mission at the shopping mall, where I intend to buy, and I feel so vain when I write or say these things. But I do need clothes, since most of my tops and trousers and shoes have gone into charity, and…well…I also “need” some dvd, if only because my laptop will be around soon and then I will set myself to the noble mission of watching more movies every week. So, this is my plan. There are also chores to do, sometime in the weekend (I guess Sunday morning), and more books to pack and carry downstairs (I would say another...oh, five boxes, probably, and then we’re done with that and can pass to the kitchen..ha, that will be fun!).
Last night I was almost going to say hello to my father, then couldn’t do it. It sounds stupid to say that I may try today. But that’s what I intend to do.
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I am shocked by the way things have come out in the investigation over the people killed last month near Como. This article is but a piece of what I could read, and it leaves me speechless to hear of such hatred. And it is awful that we all thought or had the suspicion that yes, it must have been the husband who did it, because he’s an immigrant. Or in any case we were given that possibility as the first to follow, as if the locals would not do anything of the kind. It’s terrible; like the girl and her boyfriend who killed her mother and brother out of jealousy and hatred and then said it was a group of Bosnians or such. It’s also true that if it weren’t for his alibi and for the guy who survived we may have never known the truth, the investigation may have stopped. Or not, it may have gone on for months, with people accusing other people and all that. Like the mother who killed her son, three years ago. Evidences proved that it could only have been her, yet she went on saying that it wasn’t her, that it must have been this or that, the case was open for so much and messed up with false evidences or accuses from her defence that someone had messed up with them, until eventually she was charged with the murder. Out of no reason, though, she had “only” gone mad, what some psychiatrist called a moment of split personality or such. But still, it’s scary. Images and stories of past murders, like the nun killed by those two girls because of some anti-christ idea , like the mother killing her daughter because..can’t remember if it was because she wanted to be with a man who didn’t appreciate the idea of having children around, or because she was “too noisy”. Maybe they were two different cases.
At times it is fascinating, in the morbid way murder can be: I mean, why, and how, and when does the idea rise in a person’s head, and what the hell is going on there?
Apparently now, what with the new resources of criminology (C.S.I like), there may be new results on a case dated 1992, and I am very curious about it because it was one of the first I heard of. After the monster of Florence, that is, which is still amazing to think of, especially when it comes to who the killer was, although at the time there was less (or no) talk of profiles and dna, so…
On second thought, maybe I should embark on some criminology degree…

Family

Just back from a different lunch break.
There were some of my father’s relatives, from his father’s branch of family; a distant uncle died a few weeks ago, and the widow with her daughter and another man (her son? The daughter’s boyfriend? God knows) came up to see us for it was a loooooong time since we last met. I didn’t remember any of them, and had a vague memory of seeing them, some fifteen years ago, at their house up in the mountains on the lake of Garda, near an ancient mill, which was still visited by schools (I don’t know if it is still a visiting place, now. The old woman – a distant relative too, who was almost 100 years old when I met her – died a few years ago).
Anyway, it was sweet, somehow.
We sat at the table in this bad restaurant (which serves truck drivers, mostly, and the food is…no, not good at all, but hey), and we were all chatting away before ordering, when the old woman started to cry silently; my father’s cousin (the son of his father’s sister, who was also there) stood up and went consoling her, and when his mother asked what was going on he said that she was crying because it was the first time we were together without her husband. The woman being quite old too – I guess she’s more than 90 – made me think about how terrible it must be, to see the world crumbling around you, and maybe even realising that the end is not too far away. It was sad.
We were eating and chatting – me, I was listening and thinking that I haven’t got my gym kit with me, so after work I’ll have to run home, prepare my bag, run to the gym and…run more! – and as they were talking, the daughter also cried a bit, for her father’s recent death. This brought an immense sadness upon me. And I thought of the moment I arrived at the parking lot, with my father crossing the street to show me where I could park, and how smiling and happy he was to have us all together then.
And then there was the moment, before we ordered any food, when he went to his car to get my brother’s id, a photocopy he has because he must go and get some certificate for my brother from the university he studied at, and after that there was the moment when he opened his wallet (a very American thing, this, because I don’t know many people who go around carrying pictures in their wallets) and showed some more pictures, and the wallet came up to me to show to my cousin sitting next to me.
The pictures were three id photos: one was my mum, in black and white, with curly hair (I guess it dates back to 1972, because I have seen pixies of her with that hair style before. And – it was a wig: she has the straightest hair ever seen on earth); the other two were of my brother – and of me. When we were, oh, I can say about 7 (me) and five.
This, and the fact that I was the youngest person of the table (of the restaurant, as far as I could tell!), which is something that doesn’t happen anymore (new year’s eve, the guy who joined us – friend of a friend – was asking what year we were of, and Cris started saying “she’s from 1984, she’s from 1983”, etc, etc. The guy himself was from 1981. Then they came up to me and… “’78”, I said smiling, knowing that it was somehow funny because it sounded so old…and homonymous friend said with a smile “oh, don’t worry, it sounds wise and cool, not old”. Sweet of her), but I have sidetracked.
I was saying that the pictures, and me being the youngest there, and the feeling that there was somebody missing (the old woman’s husband, my father’s step-mother who died a few months ago too), and all the talking of brothers and mothers and sons, and all that, it felt melancholic and bitter-sweet.
I haven’t expressed myself very well.
I am one who broods over the past, and my family history on my father’s side is quite blurred: grandfather was born in Germany after the first WW. Moved here with his family when he was about 2. married, had a son who died, had my father. I don’t know anything of my great-grandparents except their surnames and we have a bad picture at home. My mother’s side is just as fragmentary. Also, my father’s mother died when he was one, and his father re-married to the grand-mother who died in October; my mum’s parents are both dead, from 1972 and 1994. My father’s father is also dead, since 1972 too. I have a cousin I haven’t seen in years, whose parents (my mum’s brother and his wife) have been dead for 15 years now. Distant cousins somewhere, whom we used to meet once or twice a year but now we don’t hear from anymore (distant as in family relationship and as in space distance).
So when I hear of family reunions with dozens of cousins, and husbands and wives, and daughters and sons, and grandparents everywhere, I always wonder what it is like, because I have never experienced it.
It must be why I always think that in the impossible event of me married, I will have four children at least, and I hope my partner will be in a crowded family, so there will be lots of cousins and aunts and all that, and it will be fun to see them grow all together.
But then again…maybe in my next life. The one after being a penguin, that is.

Only Tuesday and too many thoughts (not all here, though)

What should I think of a day that begins after too short a night (welcome back, sleeplessness!) with a bookshelf falling onto my head? Which: OUCH! Shakespeare’s heavy!
My neighbours came to see me and I really missed carrying the baby girl in my arms, she’s so sweet. We looked at a book with the map of Europe and we drank fake coffee with lots of milk. Then I had to leave. Sometimes I wish that a part-time job could be enough for me, so that I would have free afternoons for my life. I could give lessons like I did in the past and be a lot happier. Right from 8 o’clock yesterday morning I realised that I was already hysterical and hyper-nervous, which doesn’t convey a good impression of myself. And again, I’ve forgotten the flowers of Bach at home. Not they I seriously believe that they could help me. But they expire next year, so it’s worth a try anyway.
Tonight I’m going to the gym…and…I’ve decided that I don’t care about the B&S guy anymore. As in, you don’t want me, then you don’t deserve me. Also: I don’t have time to waste over impossible dreams. And: I plan to leave this godless place in a year, so why bother?
See? I’m good! New year, fresh start, turn the page and go! I’ll celebrate with a massive tidy-up of my room tonight, after the crash of the bookshelf, and…with a massive shopping for books and dvd on Saturday, so I’ll have something to watch on my new notebook (when it arrives, that is…I still have to choose the model, with the precious advice of Genius Brother).
Then, for more serious thinking:
I miss my father.
And I am so angry about it.
Because he’s an idiot.
A useless moron, the lord of darkness who never open the shutters at home, the dictator who thinks he’s always right and knows the Truth of the world, the lazy bastard who wakes up later than anybody in the house and leaves after we’ve all gone for hours, and never unloads the dishwasher or lays the table even though he’s always the first to arrive home at lunch time (although now he does lay the table for dinner, since I don’t have dinner with them).
But.
I do miss when the laugh, and the jokes, and walking together, and saying goodnight when I leave the kitchen with my cup of milk in the evening. The little things.
I haven’t spoken to me for two months, now. The thing is, I remember that one or two days after our big argument, I came home after work and he was preparing his lunch, and I said hello, and he didn’t say hello back! And that really drove me mad with anger, because he was behaving as if he was right and I had all the faults in the world! Now, the point doesn’t obviously lie in who is right and who is wrong, but what I mean is that a normal father-daughter relationship is not possible, because I cannot forgive and forget the way he always behaves, and I also know these are things that cannot change.
This has happened before, back to summer 2005, although I cannot remember why, exactly. And I remember that I started talking back to him about a month later. Can’t remember how it happened, though. But I remember that I was super depressed for my unemployed situation, and the not-speaking to my father was making things harder to bear.
But this time it’s different, you see, because he behaves as if he’s right, I said, and therefore maintains this angry attitude towards me, and I cannot forget when he didn’t say hello back to me that day, which would have been a way to start talking again. He sort of pushed me to it. So in a way I feel he still deserves the silent treatment, because if he really felt like going back he could just say something. It feels like it’s becoming too late to go back.
And what I was thinking the other day while washing the dishes (washing the dishes prompts thinking, apparently), is that if he died tomorrow, I would be…angry. And immensely sad, because I would regret every single day we haven’t spoken.
Mind you, it is no longer a matter of pride. It was never for me, anyway. It was a matter of self-respect, of anger and one drop too many (which in English would be “the last straw”).
I don’t know. Maybe I could just say hello tonight, or tomorrow, when I see him.

P.S., after posting this I am going to try and switch to the new blogger version. I have no idea of what is going to happen or anything, so…fingers crossed.

Aaaaand...here I am again

First of all, people, sorry! For not writing letters, cards, emails for all this time! I’ve been thinking daily about doing it and then no, I just laid back and let time pass…but I’ve been thinking of you, as I do every single day. Thanks for being a part of my messy colourful bubble.
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Well, I’m back.
And after spending a whole week chasing away the ghosts of the return to work, I am almost glad I’m here, because it means a return to a normal life style, albeit without the super morning sleep and the relaxing intimacy with the sofa after lunch, and the brisk walks in the cool winter air in the morning.
So yes, good holidays this year, and I will not mention the disastrous Saturday of bride-to-be friend’s wedding, when I walked away and spent the afternoon with rambler friend. Hopefully now all my friends are married and the friends from the band are definitely too young to marry. At least for the next, uhm, ten years?
Quickly, the concert went too well to be true, and I am still surprised when I think of it; and people LIKED it! They really did! It was a good night, although my hair was a mess, and although I was too tired and too cold and too thirsty to enjoy it fully.
Anyway, now that my life can be normal for a short while (works at home planned to start in march = superwork involved during weekends, plus when they begin we will move the kitchen downstairs and life will be hell, and then I have January and February with meetings almost twice a week for our second job…Please find me a millionaire to marry, thank you), so, I intend to work out a couple of things for my future.
Therefore, please welcome the first PLAN OF 2007 which is also the first plan of the month (my neurotic me had to be stopped several times last week while frantically looking for pieces of paper where I could write a plan for my days off-duty, and I had to remind myself “No! You’re on holiday, no planning, no planning, no planning!”).

As a panoramic view, I can say that first of all, this month I am going to find more opportunities to start a PhD, a master, or something of the kind. It will most probably be in the UK, since my country is not too good at education these days.
Secondly, I will be working out with a lot more effort that I put in the past, oh, 3 weeks, when I was forced to go out every night and eat and drink and consequently spent the days at home, lazily walking and running on my tired treadmill (still sliding treacherously, sometimes), taking those brisk walks but never really running…and oh, I got shin splints again, last week, so great!, three days without walking, even, only pilates and such…awful. And mind you, I’m so proud, I have no pounds to work off! But still, the second resolution for this month is to go back to swimming, and change my gym night from Thursday to Friday, so that on Wednesday I swim, on Thursday I run and maybe go to the cinema, on Friday I go to the gym. Great.
Then, by the end of the month (hopefully) I’ll have my notebook pc. Which means, more time for movies (on dvd wherever I want, which means hello video rental, I’m back!), and more time for writing too, which I have neglected for so long I am ashamed and don’t feel much of a writer anymore. Then I think, I’m using this as an excuse for my not finding the time to write, but it’s true: writing on the computer is a lot faster and easier, and my computer is in a place where the thought of using it causes unbelievable pain in my shoulders, and so…a vicious circle.
Also, in March I’ll sell my treadmill and start running open-air. As in, the weather and the light will be better, and I will switch my beloved huge machine with a cross-trainer, more silent, smaller (my treadmill has just been moved to my room…and no, there is no space for anything – or anyone – else)…and maybe running outside will decrease the rate of shin splints episodes I get. Hopefully, or I’ll be very very angry!
Moreover, I’m going to save up money, and this means, sadly, less books to buy…and more time spent at the local library, probably…where there are no interesting books in spite of the massive catalogue they have. But I’ll be good, and will try to read different sorts of books so my brain will become more elastic (two in one, cunning, uh?)
(sidetracking, this money-saving thing can mean only one thing: next Saturday I am going to the same mall I went to in October with shop-a-holic friend, and…well, you get it).
Next, I have also decided that I am going to take one weekend a month to travel. Which means, how to invest my money in something that doesn’t take up space in the house like books, but which gives me just as much satisfaction. This month it is Milan, next month it will probably be Venice, then Trieste, and then I have a few more in mind…Not to include summer holidays, which should see me either in France or in Spain, and a possible weekend to accompany genius brother to the UK where he intends to join some intensive course of English.
Last but no least, I will ask our conductor to let me study another instrument, with the promise I will not try to break free from my current semi-leadership as first tenor sax. But I really want to learn something new, musically speaking, and my heart is still and always on the bassoon, so…may I? Pleeeease?

Ok…this wasn’t the last point of the list, but I think it’s enough for the moment…and having a few spare moments I think I can start working on some of these points…
Happy new year, everybody!