and the pills are

dragging me down.

drowning. A new life.

Then it, too, changed. I came to the civilized new world, put on some clothes, committed into relations, tied myself down (did you exchange?). It was pure anarchy back then. We didn’t resent or enjoyed it, we simply lived.

These days, I don’t know why (actually I do know why, but don’t want to materialize it, to make it happen, to define it by naming), I keep thinking and re-thinking of this story Neil Gaiman wrote: A Dream of a Thousand Cats. When we decided in favour of being tamed, I think we were supposing that we can hold/keep the memory, the past and if we weren’t content with the current, we thought that we could always return back to the things as they were. But we made the wrong decision and we forgot about the memory. So we lost it.

We think, we are free and have the freedom to choose. That’s exactly where we are wrong. We only have the freedom/ability/illusion to choose among the things that are offered. And whatever we choose, it doesn’t make any difference. It is either this or that and that’s it, that’s all. And how pathetic that we think we made a choice! How tragic that we spend time, we ponder over which one to choose. We are confined within a grammar, we can’t think outside of it! It has surrounded us so firmly that we think of it as part of ourselves while it slowly suffocates us.

…and now for something completely different:

You know (you don’t know, but) I’m against many things, and one of these is polygamy. It’s an unbearable thing for me, even in the thinking level. Yet, I really do wish that, we (“we” as in “humankind”), in our evolution path, had adopted polygamy instead of monogamy (that is) and such that, it would be the norm today, instead of the other. But then again, maybe then I would be writing a mirrored version of this entry, I don’t know (do you?).

If we could live different lives in different stages. Like a clown fish or a starfish. We do live in an imitation of that life, we hypocrats (and also You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère (And jane came by with a lock of your hair)) acting as if there is a connection, worlds colliding (“always awkward” – by the way, can I use your toothbrush?) but it actually is nothing. it is just some fragments of a pale life. Instead, we should have absolutely lived a different life for each occasion. Partnering with different person (people), having different worries, all confined within the boundaries of that life. Home/Work/School/Internet… and with no regrets. We should have stopped the act and see it as it really is. We should have been different people for different seasons. We should have taken the number of these different lives to infinity and then we could be free (“free” as in “no ties, no responsibilities, no regrets” – class, repeat after me), then we might have lived (as in life).

Not to worry much, but I will be spending this Holiday Season from beginning to the end, alone (but not forsaken). The New Year will be bringing the greatest gift of all, so when one knows what the future is gonna be like, it’s much easier to endure the waiting (and -possibly- blessed are those who doesn’t even realize that they are in the waiting line (everyone’s saying different things to me, different things to me))..

I’ll see, I’ll write, I’ll be happy (I guess, I hope). Veni Vidi, youtelltherest,

Yours, faithfully (with a bullet!)

Pretentious Ford R. Stiltskin

Now that I’m gratefully settled in this wonderful relation and it’s been running for some time now, happily, ever after, still from time to time I meet these wonderful people with whom, without doubt, I could attempt to start an advanced relationship had the cards been dealt differently. Sometimes (most of the time) the feeling goes after knowing the other party better (Most of the time, I’m clear focused all around; Most of the time, I can keep both feet on the ground; Most of the time, it’s well understood; Most of the time, I wouldn’t change it if I could). But there has been these other occasions, give or take one or two where I couldn’t simply evade the suffering it brought. I mostly dodged the blast, that’s right, but some collateral damage managed to hit me from side and back. Yet I lived (to tell, as you are reading this now).

The acknowledgement of this feeling was never necessary. We both knew what was on the table but we didn’t talk about it since, c’mon now, what good would come of it? So we let it pass and leave some skidrow marks on our hearts. It’s interesting, though. On other occasions, the party in question enters into a vicious circle in the initial step. While she evaluates how it would be or thinking that “it would be good but it can’t be now, too late for that, we couldn’t even if we would, I’m being silly, that’s all and these are funny feelings but only if..”, I already arrive at the other end of the tunnel*, seeing and understanding that it would be almost the same thing, most likely less than the real thing and I would be thinking the same things and once again, this thing on the table is left to go sour before any of us touches it. The difference I guess is the awareness. For my correspondent, it was a possibility while for me it was just a matter of observation (remember, I left my heart on the table so it’s really easy to be able to write like this).

On the other hand (once again) on the other hand, when both parties have acknowledged and (yet) stepped back from what might have been, then it is completely different. They don’t need to talk about it (they never talk about it) yet they know and even though they see all the leaks and maybe just because of this, they are able to imagine/dream/fantasize about it. I’m repeating myself repeating myself repeating myself.

Summary: I see, I love, I acknowledge, I store, I bury. We could but we shouldn’t so we wouldn’t. It’s not the possibility but it’s the wisdom.

And then, there’s this kind of a girl we also see in (different) movies, the kind of a girl who is deeply in love with a boy, yet too shy. And the boy’s not a bad person either, he is a little bit confused, maybe clumsy, that kind of thing. During the movie, we reckon that, given the time, they will eventally come together, confess, kiss, kiss, cut to the happy ending. Other than the fact that this never happens. Instead, another girl comes into the movie, also not a bad person herself but she has this charm, she’s more sociable, but certainly a lot dumber and certainly 0 level of empathy contained. So, she makes the first step, kisses the boy, has the boy, the boy doesn’t stand a chance and so our first girl just accepts this fact and tries to move on with life, occasionally visiting this couple and the boy has already forgotten that budding love which, given time, would become a nice thing.

Now, if I’d be somebody, I’d be the boy in the first example. If I’d be somebody, I’d be that girl in the second example. If I’d be somebody, I’d be me. If I were a train, I’d be late, again. And if I were a good man, I’d talk with you more often than I do.

Liz White, ladies and gentlemen. Could also have been Alison Moyet or Sophie Barker.

On these days, I always, unmistakenly, grieve. Not for the things I left behind but for the potentials of the things that could come. I’ve never been contend with what I had, always thinking of what could happen, what would happen. But it was never like that, so I lived and learned. The grass on the other side wasn’t greener after all, couldn’t be greener at all cause it was and would be -after all things said and done- still a life just like another.

And this new city. I don’t know her, she doesn’t know me. At the moment we’re just acknowledging our presence. She causally bends her river just a notch further for me, I stand saluting her in her bus stops, things like that. It’s as if we’re checking each other to find about our limits before plunging into each other with all our might.

Closing your eyes as the bus you’re in leaves the terminal and opening it in a different city, in an another world. Not understanding what the people say, trying to adapt to the new weather – too cold? too warm? too different? Don’t worry, it’ll pass and eventually you’ll have to start all over again. Am I not making any sense? Check your eyelashes then, there, behind the drawer in your left pocket. Yep, that’s where you always store your grief…

Beautiful People

When you turn 30, you happen to have a circle of people, friends that you see regularly or from time to time and for some weird reason, it gets more difficult each year to add new people to this circle. The fact that, the people around you being really nice and kind doesn’t necessarily reject the existence of beautiful people other than them. And just at this point, there lies -at least for me- a very interesting phenomenon.

There’s this person that you — both happen to be present in the same locations for various occasions; saw as he/she participates in some acts with other people; probably know by name (which in fact you had heard this name when somebody you don’t know called this another somebody you didn’t knew’s) — and you think of this person as a “beautiful person”. If it was in the past, maybe you’d look for ways to meet him/her: shared taste in music or books or just a simple “The weather is such lovely today!” maybe… But, I suspect due to something to do with age and I’m not sure how appropriate it is to call it as “saturation”, but you don’t attend to do anything about this person, the mere acknowledgment of this person as a beautiful person is sufficient for you. You even start collecting and recording somewhere all the random information you acquire about this person as if participating in a game (at this point, I’d like to clarify this recording somewhere issue: what I mean is just a some kind of a mental recording, not an actual, real, weird and scary one!). Anyway, without further stepping outside of the trail, let us return once again to our Michel Butor (Transformation) mode:

…then, one day, you see one of these people you’ve marked as beautiful communicating with another member of your beautiful people category. When you come to think of it, this is very natural since the world is small, -let it be the university, then- the university is small, similar to the fact that the beautiful people you know and share a friendship with have common characteristics, interests, humor, aspect, it is highly possible for the other beautiful people you don’t know to have such/similar common things and thus participate in friendship with each other and the paths to cross. At this point, the location factor steps in: if I had been in the same -let’s say- department, given the chances, I’d also most likely be friends with him/her. Alas, now, we’re just sharing the -for instance- same bus or coming together around a table when there’s a meeting about the computers, etc, etc… I mean, unless one of the parties involved makes an extra effort, there’s no chance of meeting on a regular basis.

I don’t know, this just occurs to me as a strange, mysterious, mystifying and charming at the same. Such a reign of time and location!

A very clear example to this beautiful people phenomena can be given regarding to the best friend of your best friend: imagine that, on one evening, you meet her outside, in a cafe and she has also brought this friend of her ’cause they haven’t met for a while and this friend coincidentally has something to do in the proximity… In times like these, the introduction and the “Hi stage” follows:

- Hi, this is my friend X, and this is Y.
- Hi..
- Hi..

Ironically, just how much potential do these ‘hi’s contain within themselves. But, both sides know that, the possibility of seeing each other again is sooooooo low. Both parties then open up their memory books as they take the note “a beautiful person” placed just next to the person opposite’s face on the same book, which will be lost in a week from now..

If we hadn’t broken up like that and you know, managed to remain friends and all that, I’d summon the courage. That or if the trip lasted an additional 5 years to that 1 hour. But we weren’t and the duration was just that and I couldn’t.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me) / it's always ourselves we find in the sea | e.e. cummings

She. She was the first one who loved me and thought about nothing else. She was the first one for whom I was the first love. And that gave me strength when I was most shattered, mostly in ruins. Then we started. Then I started assigning a meaning to everything about her, to her. I interpreted everything too deeply, I took every detail too far. I transformed her in my perception into something which she wasn’t. And I loved that reflection more than the real thing. The real thing suffered (I thought she suffered, turned out she didn’t), she wanted to break up because of this (I thought it was because of this). We broke up. I was happy. She wasn’t. Soon the relation (& its reflection & its perception version) turned complexer and nastier, all tangled up into knots and barbs… and I hurt myself (and she was hurt (I thought she was hurt)). And following an unsuccessful re-run and despite all of my promises, we failed once again (it was she that left at the end – the she I never had met nor known which, as must be obvious at this point, the real she, her real self).

You’d suggest I should write this down, turn it into a children’s book, have it published and I would smile to you then, and you’d understand. Then I would be silent, and you’d keep your silence and we’d look into the night now coming to an end.

Death is just the final suffering, that’s all.

A really nice quote, don’t you think? But dear Houston, we have yet another problem. I was sure that this was one of Italo Svevo’s aphorisms but then again I’ve failed to spot even one hit on Google prior to writing this post. I think I’m surpassing myself, I’m getting closer and closer to that library where, next to the stacks of everything that has ever been written, lies the works that could be written (yep and that poor old blind JLB is still the head librarian, putting locks on everything).

I’m sleepy but there’s a party going on upstairs. So I thought about giving another push to this blog. I checked the previous posts and I can’t say they were cheering. Not at all… But c’est la vie, you know. If you prefer, you can try to hit me with that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” crap… Beauty isn’t there –I’ve relocated it yesterday while you were sleeping, now it’s on top of the mantelpiece, there, you see? That and also, y’know that women never really faint, and that villains always blink their eyes, and there ain’t no cure fore love (but if you first take Manhattan, and then Berlin, maybe, just maybe…)

and speaking of that, I had fallen in love for the second time and also when I was still young with the most beautiful girl of our high-school. She was beautiful and she was clever (although a bit short considering the average). She first played with me, you know, like the thing you do when fishing, with the tackle and the bait and so on… Unsurprisingly, she too had a boyfriend (I think, back in those days, a boyfriend would come with the package or it was a mandatory thing) and I was kind of a part-time lover for her, whereas she was kind of everything for me.

Then she made me suffer on the prom night (hats off to Carrie) and I still don’t really have much account of the 2 weeks following that day – I can only tell that I was about 1150 km away from the scene and without any money (true story). Oh, and we parted our ways. Until she called me two years later which we met again for a one night only performance (despite the innuendo, no sex was involved, again, it was purely suffering). But that time, something different happened for a change: I didn’t lose my head, or to be more precise, maybe I did lose my head but didn’t go wandering – instead, I started writing. Writing  my train of thoughts, materializing them to (many) scratches of paper.

Years later, the internet was invented and I set up a literary site. Among many other things, I’ve also put those whatchamacallits there, too.

Flashforward to 7 years later. I have a life and office, and in my office, playing chess with a friend and phone rings and I answer it. Guess who. Yes. She’s talking about the old days and I reply politely that we are now living in an era where bygones are bygones. She asks to meet and I say no, thank you for calling and please be kind, rewind. I eventually lose the game I was initially winning.

Fast forward to 2 years ago. I have a complete set of life now, kind of a settled one. One day I receive a mail kindly asking if it was possible to remove her name (name + surname) from the proses which were mentioned in this post 3 paragraphs ago. I sincerely apologize for the troubles, admitting that I hadn’t been aware her surname was also there, saying that I’ll fix them right now (right then) and I immediately do that.

Last year. All of a sudden I’m asked (by her) in a comment for my (other) blog if I’m in the process of producing any literary stuff. I confess that I can’t, since my life is set on such firm and nice tracks that, happiness prevents me from plunging in that deep sea of darkness and come up with more proses. Then she asks if we can correspond in private, you know, like in the old days and so I a) ask my wife’s consent and am granted one (because she knows me and trusts me because of that); and b) reply to the inquirer that, if it’s also OK by her husband, then I’d be glad to (you see, I was still digging for a possibility of producing more of that proses that I still read in awe, yep, they are perfect :). And I’m met with a terrible fit of angry outburst that might be summarized as: blahblahbla, who do I think I am, blahblahblah… I choose to ignore this and continue with my life. Days passes and all of a sudden -yet another- message from her: how sorry she is, how deeply she loved me, how afraid she was to spoil our love, she couldn’t risk to lose it, I was the idealized lover. So – at this moment the movie is frozen – the reel is stuck and in a minute it will be burned due to the heat coming from the projector’s lamp. Let me put a disclaimer here: following is a selfish and ungrateful depiction of somebody in love’s possibly sincere feelings by a heartless rascal (and yet, Schopenhauer had already warned you about me).

She had kept our love for her satisfaction. I bet whenever she felt down, she would open the lid, and breathe in that air of our pure, naive and adolescent feelings. When I turned her down by imposing my condition, it spoiled this “preserved” but actually idealized love. Her toy/drug/whatever was taken away from her hands. And in the wake of her panic, she did the only thing she shouldn’t have: she gave me the upper hand and this action alone undid all that magic that was left in us: Love is not a show of grace nor it’s a victory march – it’s a cold and broken hallelujah.

Later Addition: You can’t preserve love – the preservative solutions you’re applying for the purpose transforms the love to something else. It’s like a pickled/mummified version of the original. It never is the same.

“I love you.”

We must keep these words in their box behind glass. And when we take them out we must be careful with them. Men will say ‘I love you’ to get women into bed with them; women will say ‘I love you’ to get men into marriage with them; both will say ‘I love you’ to keep fear at bay, to convince themselves of the deed by the word, to assure themselves that the promised condition has arrived, to deceive themselves that it hasn’t yet gone away. We must beware of such uses. I love you shouldn’t go out into the world, become a currency, a traded share, make profits for us. It will do that if we let it.

But love isn’t an atomic bomb, so let’s take a homelier comparison. I’m writing this at the home of a friend in Michigan. It’s a normal American house with all the gadgets technology can dream (except a gadget for making happiness). He drove me here from the Detroit airport yesterday. As we turned into the driveway he reached into the glove pocket for a remote-control device; at a masterful touch, the garage doors rolled up and away. This is the model I propose. You are arriving home–or think you are–and as you approach the garage you try to work your routine magic. Nothing happens; the doors remain closed. You do it again. Again nothing. At first puzzled, then anxious, then furious with disbelief, you sit in the driveway with the engine running; you sit there for weeks, months, for years, waiting for the doors to open. But you are in the wrong car, in front of the wrong garage, waiting outside the wrong house. One of the troubles is this: the heart isn’t heart-shaped.

Julian Barnes, from A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters