One of those days

Sometimes I'm like one of those bands that do a goodbye tour and then a final tour and then some other kind of last chance to bee seen by fans for years in a row but never actually retire. Just the
opposite of that. I keep saying I'm gonna start working on things but then I don't.
I at least changed the appearance of the blog again. It's more clean and easy to navigate, I've set four tab labels for things I should be writing every week. I should be sharing at least one of the awesome stuff I cook and at least a little of the books and movies that eat away my free time, and some memories of my travels and, the new thing, a little diary of the construction of my look. Which is not a defined thing, but more like a theatre dressing room, and that is fine, and it's fun and it's something I'd like to share. And then, if I still have the time, I want to keep whining on the main page of this blog.

I also want to start a PhD diary. I hope I get my ass to work so that I can say something about it. Anything at all. Because I want to finish it. I need a break from the academia for a while, because we've been having this distant relationship that doesn't make me happy or excited anymore. If we're not going to break up, we at least need to see other people. I might want to go back to school a year from now. But considering although they like me they didn't put at least a tutoring or research assistance offer on it I have to realize I'm not getting what I wanted from this relationship and move on. There are plenty of careers in the sea, and according to them I'm everything they ever wanted (ok, I'm pulling your leg here). But really, I can't do this anymore. And it's not me, it's them.

If I could figure out what is wrong with me, that would be great

You know, when I get sick or tired (not sick AND tired) I lose a part of the ability to like myself and even to enjoy life and be happy. Well, now I'm both, because it's been three days since I'm back from a week long journey around Europe, in a bus, and I came down with a cold and still haven't managed to get my shit together, sleep enough and be on schedule with the work I have to do.
The only problem with this is that now it doesn't only affect me. It affects my family and my love and my cat and even my work. I get to see people hastily, I fall asleep when watching movies, I break stuff and I can't spend a solid hour with the cat in my lap, because I have to multitask, of course. And I'm still behind on the cleaning and the writing, I have so many meetings I have to schedule and well, I'm low on money.
Somehow, I just wish I could get a happy pill, something that would give me tons of energy, do my sleeping while I fold my landry and allow me to work at double capacity. I just need to catch up with everything and not have to drag myself from task to task because my head hurts like a bitch, I get cold and hot every other minute and my nose is like a broken fountain. Not to mention I am constantly asleep deep inside, but no amount of time under the covers really does it for me anymore.
So, yes, I obviously came here only to bitch and complain, because I can't keep doing this to other people. I'll write about it until it gets better, until I get better.

Love matters

As I was returning home today I ran across a beautiful dog. His legs were hurt but in the process of healing, he was limping and he seemed to be excited about all the people he met, but too afraid to let them approach him. I had some bones for the cats around the block and I gave them to him. I then waited for him to come to me and we sat on the grass in the park chilling. He followed me further home and I wanted to take him to some people from an animal protection association that had an adoption stand nearby. He would not come, as there were many dogs and he was obviously afraid of them. So we sat again for a while, I was petting him and we were looking at the dogs playing. I then had to let him go, as I don't have the space to even foster him. I do hope he gets the chance to have a good life somehow.
I kept thinking as we were sitting side by side that me petting him and him following me home does matter. It does matter when creatures share affection. When they stop to really be by each other, even for a while. And when I said love I obviously did not mean romantic love. I meant heart soothing love, warmth, openness, that thing that is just there for everything on earth and sky, but we just choose to channel it somehow. And love matters. It may not feed us, clothe us or shelter us. Though sometimes maybe it does, it's what makes the world go round.

I have this habit of collecting strays. I can't keep them, but I can't walk by and not pet them or say a nice word. I do that a lot with humans too. The world just seems less empty. Just like animals, we get to be both saviors and the saved ones. We get to end up around the weirdest people who just hang out and maybe we want things from them, but in the end the thing is we get to love them just because, no matter how fucked up we all are. We also get to meet the nicest people who seem to stick around and we want things from them as well, but in the end we get to feel loved just because, no matter how little we think we deserve it.
Love matters because it yanks us out of our retarded bubble where we think we know how things should be done in life, it throws us into this whirling pit of amazement and inner light, because it teaches us so much about ourselves and keeps us curious about others. Love matters because we never get to be our full potential, but from time to time we do get to be enough and, trust me, that is a wonderful thing to be. I spend a lot of time berating myself but I believe love matters because it's the best mirror we'll ever have. Our mirror should not tell us "who's the fairest of them all", but it should say "you is kind, you is smart, you is important".

It's my hair and I'll cut if I want to

I feel so fancy with my new haircut. Suddenly, I looked in the mirror and it was the 27 years old me, not the 17 I have been staring these past few months at, trying to get her to grow the fuck up. I actually grew into myself, but I guess it's easier to blame your hair than admit all the things you've been through. I feel that more fancy because I'm wearing my favorite sundress and my huge hat and my antique ring and my cat is parading around the house and we're listening to Charlie Parker and smelling scented candles. I am so very tired it would have been a disaster if I went out. I'm not that stupid to think a big change in haircut will mean a big change in my life. But I am that stupid to keep reading and writing and talking to friends, trying to not give up on the struggle to make something of myself, and that would be a strong autonomous being who will be nice randomly and will bake at the most inappropriate hours. I will give myself the time to handle whatever comes my way at my own pace. Short or long hair, I want beauty to be what I make of it.

Girls and women

I shared Laurie Penny's article last week on Facebook, highlighting a paragraph that appealed to me in particular, especially at that point in my life: "It’s definitely easier to be a girl than it is to do the work of being a grown woman, especially when you know that grown women are far more fearful to the men whose approval seems so vital to your happiness. And yet something in me was rebelling against the idea of being a character in somebody else’s story. I wanted to write my own."
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the distinction between the two, but also about how much the TV show Girls reflects experiences that many of us, even on the other side of the ocean, live through in our mid twenties. I like to call these years the quarter life crisis, because that's the general feeling I've been living with: a constant interogation about where I'm going and why my trajectory is so different from that of my parents, and the one they taught me I should have, for that matter.
But going back to Girls (I've been obsessed with watching the two seasons for a second time, since I have so much school work to do), I saw this caption a few days ago and I almost cried. It was about when Hannah asked Adam "If you don't like ice cream, what do you like?" and he answered "I like you". I mean, who says that?

I really wish I could say my Adam turned into that guy who "was always here". I wish at least one of my Adams did. But in my experience, it doesn't work like that. A guy who doesn't respect you and only sees you as a random hook up will not wake up one day and say "You chase me like I’m in the fucking Beatles for six months and then when I finally get comfortable with things, you wanna shrug?" He will not go and tell people "I had this girlfriend who at first I didn’t like very much, or, I didn’t take her very seriously, I guess. She just seemed like, you know, a piece of ass. But she was persistent, man. And she just hung around, and hung around, and showed up at my place—and gradually, it started to feel better when she was there. It wasn’t “love” the way I imagined it. I just felt weird if I didn’t know what she was up to or whatever. And I liked knowing that she was just gonna be there, and warm, and staying the night." That. never. happens. to. me.
But generally, if we look closer, Girls is a simulacrum for what becoming a woman means to some of the people of our generation. We learn from Marnie's self-searching adventure, we learn from Hannah's self-abandonment chaos, from Shoshanna's rants and mostly from Jessa, who is her own brand of charming. I think that no matter how much we grow up, we'll always be vulnerable to our desires, especially to those we cannot explain. And at the end of the day, we should just own it.

Swollen

I slept for ten straight hours and woke up with a swollen face and some swollen sinuses. Also, tired like a mill horse and permanently on a mental screen saver. We'll be working on four newspapers this couple of days, so I might be incomunicado. All I want is for everything to turn out fine so that I can finally have my vacation. A ten day vacation! They say it's gonna rain, but I don't give a damn. I need some regrouping, resetting and time out of the city. I know I always say I need to get my shit together. Repeated trials may eventually lead to success. I bought Palahniuk's Phoenix from Amazon and I already know how I'm spending today's free time, except for sleeping and eating crazy things, of course. Here's something to brighten your morning to the dim level mine is lit.