Happy Thursday

From a joke I learned that while Friday is known also by the happy acronym of TGIF (Thanks God it's Friday), Thursday is known by the acronym SHIT (Sorry Honey, it's Thursday). Well, today I guess we can say TIGT: Thanks God it's Thursday. Yes, today is a kind of Thursday that's more like a Friday, because tomorrow is a holiday! Yeah! No work for tomorrow! Wake up at anytime, smack away the clock or cellphone that wakes you up everyday to tell you the same old bad news: another day of labour has come, wake up and join the ants. Today is the International Day of Labor, so we rest and do whatever we feel like doing.

However, not everybody has today a happy Thursday, for some people gara go work tomorrow. Year after year more and more people in Costa Rica have to work through holidays. People with jobs that pay little, such as cleaning and construction, but also others like stores and restaurants mainly in big commercial centers, or Malls. However now also people working for foreign companies, particularly in the call centers. I have friends who work in these and it amazes me how these enterprises are allowed to function under this method, forcing their employees to work through the holidays all year long. What's Government doing? Because it's one thing if I volunteer to work throught a holiday in exchange of an extra payment, but it's entirely different if I'm made, if in order to enjoy a nation, and Hyne forbid, an INTERNATIONAL holiday I'm made spend vacation days, and even then have them tied to the chance of being rejected because "a lot of people is asking that day out".

I'm a public employe, like everybody knows by now, and this things are simply unheard in my environment. Nobody questions holidays here. Then again, it's also in our Laws, in the Labor Code, chapter III, article §148, the list of holidays that are obligatory and must be paid by the employer, that must be given to the employees. So what's going on here? Foreign Direct Investment, that's what's going on here. They, namely the current Administration, and other Administrations prior to it, that follow the Liberal and Neoliberal way of "fucking it up", for such brain fart can't be considered "way of thinking" or much less philosophy, allow enterprises to ste up here, have no union and take from the workers as much as they want. Young kids, barely out of their teenage years, working for dollars, some handsome fee... for someone with no preparation whatsoever, and have them locked in a somewhat relaxed environment, socially, where they can dress up their cubbies like one arranges a bedroom, with pictures, posters, toys, and have them work for more hours than they should, for more days than they should. Most of them resign quickly. Most of them hardly last a year, and jump from call center to call center, from this tech support enterprise to that, from this merchandising enterprise to that, here and there like crazy bees, making a patched up career as call center agents,or "account executives", however do you wish to call them, but what kind of career is that?

A generation is growing up without knowing what's like to work for years in the same company, getting to know it, love it, become part of it, feel proud about it. I hear kids ten years my juniors talking about the plans they have with the money they'll receive when they resign from their current workplaces. What happened with the value of stability?

Today everything is fleeting. You buy a new house and a new car if you get a new job with a higher income, but you don't think ahead about what you'll do to pay it. No. While your income is enough, you pay it. When you resign or get laid off, the bank takes the house and the car, or maybe you'll be able to sell it, pay the bank and get something with the remaining money. This workers spend differently than their senior generations. While others bought land, estate, these kids buy toys and electronics. Things they can get quicker, that won't force them to remain in a given enterprise for too long. They won't anyway.

People live short term lives making no plans, maybe just dreaming al kinds of farfetched dreams that feed their desperation, but possess no real base to be achieved. A kid that does nothing but plays videogames all day, works every once in a while for a few months and quits, eats up all his or her money in matter of days and lives a messy, unorganized life can't possibly expect to become "rich and famous". And yet many of them do. Many wait for fame and fortune come knockng on their door. Really, I have more possibilities of developping telekinesis that they have of achieving such unreal dreams.

You know, it never cease to amaze me how people who actually seek to avoid working hard to achieve something, are capable to getting themselves into jobs that squeeze them in exchange of nothing. Wouldn't be better to put all that energy in something that can get them ahead?

And yet, on the same page, there's a lot of people who has been left behind, cut from the chances others had and are stuck in these jobs, trying to get ahead. These are those who stay the most, seek to remain employed as much as they can, because they need the income. You can recongize these people from the others, separate them from the addicts to the instant gratification, because they have to work far harder than many of us. They do these "marxist nightmare" jobs and next to the them they study. Either they manage to attend class, or they are enrolled in online classes, maybe thought distance learning, where they enroll to different classes, pick up their books and do their homework for a given date and then go to the university only to do their tests. I've been there, so I know it's no piece of cake. And yet there are many of these kids, who seek for a chance to make their dreams a reality and follow a career this way while breaking their backs in all kinds of neo-imperialist "coal mines".

All other jobs are being erased as enterprises that work with the old methodology, respecting the law and keeping up with it are forced to close because they have become "inefficient" and "too expensive". Who will have the strenght to work at this pace at the age of 50 or 60? Who will be hired at that age? How will anyone live at that age? Many of these kids, of this workers are not insured, and even if the 9.9% of their wage is retained by their employers alleging "Insurance fee", employers are keeping that money for themselves and not insuring their young workers. "What for? The kid won't be here more than 9 months, so he or she will never notice it". Only, each time the kid remains only 9 months to 1 year at the enterprises, and so, when he or she turns... 65 the Insurer will tell him or her, "Sorry Homie, no money!".

I don't think it's fair that only a layer of our society can have a good life secured. Holidays are for the whole country, not only for those few "blessed ones" who got the right education and the right job and the right connections. Why only a part of us can enjoy the Social Guaranties secured some 13 years ago? Why this benefit, this right we have shed blood for is not for everyone? If we work for a wage, if we all have to pay taxes, and we do, why only a part is subjected and protected by the Law?

So, a day before the International Labor Day, I'd like to leave this thought for reflection about what have been fought, the great revolutions on this matter we had in the XX.th century and what are we doing of it in this new XXI.st century.

Live and Love in Writing

It has been awaken in me, the flame for writing fiction. It has been renewed in me the desire to pour myself in letters, write out my mind, my desires and its many possibilities, live the lives I cannot live, the lives I won't live. Fiction, stories... and more. I have been writing stories in my mind that don't reach the paper or the laptop. I have been writing also words for my Kari, that don't reach still the paper, but live there, in my head, in my heart, on my lips and burn in desire, in desperation to be spoken, written and thus be born.

Writing is a powerful way of traveling. Writing takes you to people. I write to Kari and feel him with him, think about him and laugh with him, smile at him, kiss him, touch him, whisper in his ear my desire to lick up his lobe gently, slide my hand down his chest and tell him how good he looks tonight and suggest the kind of thoughts that wakes in me.

I think of stories for Carrie, my shota-hunter, to let her know I love her and I think of her and we still share a deep vein, that slash, yaoi or whatever you wish to call it, is still our common ground, it still makes our hearts race.

I write, for myself, to keep myself, to wrap around me and bask in my, in who I am and feel the swirl, the strenght, the current of what lives inside me flap around me and live around me, not only in me, and smile, laugh and dance. I love being me, and thus I write. I write for them, for you, for myself and so, I take this path to express love.

Swine or Whale

Once upon a time I used to know a girl whom we'll call here simply The Whale. Among friends we used to call her affectionately "the whore", but after yesterday's "avistamiento" (a word used in Spanish to describe witnessing extraterrestial activities, or "sighting", but somehow in Spanish this time around sounds much more proper), I believe we will continue refering to her a "La Ballena Josefina" or simply "Josefina". Josefina is a whale from a very old Japanese animated series. She's this whale who lives in the fantasy of this kid, whom we knew as "Santi", short for Santiago. She was really small, but Santi could make her big by wishing her big and then go on all kinds of stories and adventures. I always hated that series because it was unbelievably corny. Anyway, you know how it is, that your mind keeps record of a lot of things you don't want to remember, because, really, it's embarrassing.

Well, thing is that I haven't seen The Whale in years already, lost track of her life and the whole deal. You see, she and I were friends a long, long time ago, but then life took us on different paths (basically I had to extrincate myself away from her needy, lie-based personality). Last time I heard from her, she was planning to marry her boyfriend and was "putting up a bit of weight", which, really, wasn't so good because her whole self esteem system lays on her appearance, on the attention of others and, well, she always had a problem with her weight, particularly the flaccid way in which lard sat on her frame.

The "sighting" occured yesterday. I was traveling on the Alajuela-San José bus that goes across Heredia, when it made a usual stop at the Universidad Interamericana. Herds of private university kids gather there. Some attend classes and others skip them by going to the Paseo Las Flores Mall. I had my light aqua hood on, San Marco sunglasses, listening to my music and pressing my forehead on the window, thinking about how dark would it be when I arrive to my busstop, should I take a cab, trying not to forget to get home and copy a work file from Nagi to a pendrive so I can work on it today, and.... ♥ thinking about Kari and just what a great guy he is. ^_^ What can I say? I'm a woman in looooooooooove. As the bus was moving slowly to continue towards the center of Heredia, I saw a clog of what seemed to be students greeting each other and looking around as if to decide where to go and when... typical, you know. Checking the traffic lights, looking for a missing friend or something. I didn't notice much except when this big black mole turned her head. Thick greasy black hair stiffed up with a concoction of hairgel and hairspray LIBERALLY applied, almost as if she had confused herself with some hot dude, gel and spray with lube and her own out-of-style bags with a hard cock. Note: "it sounds good in gay fiction, it looks bad on hair!!!". Then there was the puffy cheeks and the battered glasses.

Glasses. I shouldn't say much because my Kari has the most chipped, twisted, scratched glasses in the universe and I love the way he looks in them, but really, dude, change those glasses, or repair them, or stop wearing them! How expensive can it be to get a new pair or have those repaired? I'm sure at least a jewelry maker can polish the frame and remove the chipped painting, and put on a decent treatment. I'm a contact lens kind of person, and everybody knows that, but I also have glasses, two pairs to be exact, and even so I don't like wearing glasses, I take care of them. Why can't other people do the same?

Anyway, when I recognized the head, I noticed the body on which it was set. It was of the size of China. I don't know, maybe it was the tacky black sweater she was wearing, maybe she was escaping from home and did the Anne Frank thing and put on al her clothes to be less conspicuous, or maybe I'm the only person who doesn't know this and black actually makes you look fat. Maybe she's happily married and pregnant... though then her pregnancy got also to her back and arms, because that's what I saw. Whatever it was, I remember I thought: "Look at that HUGE black hole!" And yeah, it fit her. One look and what came to mind was: big, black and you want to get away from it. Poor thing, really.

People like The Whale makes you think of the truth behind the sentence: "Your attitude eventually catches up with you ". People don't think about it seriously, but really, if you are cool and nice to people, you life a nice, happy, cool life. Whatever attitude you take is the destiny that awaits you. It's as if life were out there to give you what you send. If you complain and complain, you get more things to complain about. And well, actually, if you live to complain, all you'll notice is the bad things, so you'll continue complaining.

If you are messy and don't care for doing things right, then all things will turn bad. If you put no effort in success, then you'll get failures. If you surround yourself with lies, then lies is what you'll get.

The Whale, well she made me smile thinking of a few jokes. Well, I thought the nick "The Whale" was better suited than "The Swine", because I saw her in the town I live, and if she has the flu, I really would like to avoid having the swine flu anywhere near. Then again, swines don't beach, while whales tend to beach... and The Whale bitches, and for the looks of it, also beaches. (Probably went beaching on Easter). A small joke came to my mind also.

"Boss, I guess it's time you give me that promotion."
"Why?"
"The Whale took a flight this morning to Orlando."
"So?"
"So, you said I'll get the promotion when pigs fly."

Hehehehe... oh, I know. ^_^ But you love me nonetheless.

Hair

Yes, hair, but not like "Hairspray", the musical, but hair as in the hair that grows on your head, or you wish it did. Call it hair, cabello, cheveux, haj... call it birdnest, mane, "barely-there", wig... this is an entry about hair. Then again, I have always had a reason to talk about hair given my world wide famous hair, always dark, long and in the way. And then it happens so that I get a boyfriend after successfully escaping in countless occasions from relationships of any kind, and guess what? He has quite an extent of hair on himself as well! Long, rich, dark blond, slightly curly on the ends, sprinkled with silver and yet not what you'd call salt-and-peppa. So yeah, when it comes to hair, I may say, I feel at home.

Here in Costa Rica, the weather has been playing around, fooling with all of us, breaking the dry and rainy seasons into bits and throwing them at us without any order. It's been a while since I had my hair short, so I don't remember exactly how does this affect people with short hair, but those of us who Samsonically wear our manes long have to stiffle under the hot wetness or hot, dry days pinning our long strands somehow and somewhere away from our overheated napes and shoulders. Do you know the feeling? Your hair getting in your face, sticking to it with the faint layer of sweat spraying it, turning your skin from forehead to shoulders into a sensitive, sticky surface that seems to work better than those "paper cats" people use to catch flies. The discomfort seems to ignore all boundaries, and the mane you have suffered for, endured time and patience making grow, dreaming with the day it would reach... whatever you want it to reach, is suddenly threatened to have a close encounter with the scissors. Any scissors, as long as you are free from it.

So, to cut it or let it live?


Truth is that long hair actually poses a wide versatility for us women. Any number of hairstyles can be managed with it, from simple ponytails to elaborated buns and braids. Yes, there are things that can only be done with long hair. Then again, that's a plus for women, for I really can't imagine a man spending 30 minutes in front of the mirror on a morning before work doing a double French braid with his hair, or pinning it up in a ballerina bun, or a 60's bun. So, in the end, well, if you are a guy, you just fish some hairband, gather the whole thing in a ponytail at the nape of your neck, which seems to be the only socially acceptable hairstyle for long maned men these days, and get over. If you can, you turn to the barber, who will smile at you and chop your mane, happy that you decided to join the ranks of the STUDS, the REAL MEN again. The barber will probably think he made another worthy man out of a sissy or some useless, rocker rebel in the path of becoming... a sissy.

Us women, endure the hair, or we "free ourselves" by chopping our hair off and into some trendy style that will fall out of style in a few months, when the hair reaches that impossible length where it's in the way all the time, but it's not long enough to gather it in a ponytail and live with it. By then we probably will regret cutting it in the first place and will think of all those years spent letting it grow not dumped on the floor of our hairdresser, or a dumpster. So we suffer, pin it up and keep it out of the way.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to put an end to it. Once a hairdresser of mine said:

"If you are going to wear it up all the time, why do you want it long?"

Well, God bless his soul, he's right. The point of long hair is for it to be long, to be free and to flow behind us, flapping in the wind like a banner, a flag or the wings of a beautiful black swan. (My hair is dark. Your swan is whatever your hair color is.) And it's not that I'm against hairdresses and Hyne knows I love to get my hair in many, many different ways, but truth is that if you are always going to pin it up, loop it up, tie it up, Honey, stop the suffering and cut it off! There are very, very beautiful hairstyles and I'm sure you can find the one you like and that fits you best. Take this one, for example. This is very short, trendy, feminine without being some dripping Emily Brönte, "romance and femininity above all" style. I had it, I love it and I can whole heartedly recommend it to everybody. It's fesh, nice and requires a minimal maintenance and care. You can brush it or comb it and get a style, or leave it as you woke up and have a magnificent, enticing bed-head style.

However, if you want to stick to your long hair, then let it loose. Take the clip, the band, the sticks out of it and let it fall on your shoulders, cascade down your back. I understand that at first it might be difficult. Or maybe your hair is not really in condition to be let loose. Maybe it's too dry, too greasy, to messy or it has peacock-complex and opens up like a satellital dish the moment you let it loose. Yeah, I know the feeling. Suddenly it's like you receive Eurosports Channel directly into your brain. I understand you don't want your friends calling you "Sputnyik". However, all these things can be solved, by letting your hair go.

Now, you must understand that long hair requires a substantial investment in time, care, patience and, yes, products. Not like you MUST get all the Alpha Parf line, though it is desirable, but you certainly have to take care of it.

First of all, get to know your hair. Be realistic. Don't see more damage than what really is, nor minimize the real damage. Check the ends for splits, check the color comparing it to the color of your hair closer to the roots. A certain amount of discoloration can be normal, particularly in lighter coloured hairs, but jet black roots and pale caramel on the ends is a no-no. Make sure to check if your hair tends to have frizz (looks all electrified, sponges up), lacks shine, lacks body, has uneven ends, doesn't look curly or flat but some undefinable something that's none of all. Something I do is take a small portion of my hair, like a lock, and point the end up. Start with a few inches and then try pointing up longer and longer parts of hair. A few inches can stand against gravity, but never more than four. The hair that stands is dry, lifeless. Hair must be flexible, and must bend down, otherwise is dry and dead and you should trim it down.

I suggest you look for a hairdresser that you can trust. The most expensive is not always the best, nor the one with appointment lists. Your hairdresser is like your doctor, your dentist, your lawyer: it's for ever, so make sure to get someone you trust. The best way to find one of these is talking with your friends. You may want to go with your friend once just to see how the hairdresser works on his or her head before you put your mane under their scissors. Make sure to be clear with your hairdresser and tell them what you want. There are some hairdressers who believe to know better than the client, what the client should do with his or her hair. Avoid these. Remember that you are the one walking with that hair around, not them, so the decision must be 100% yours, and if they don't like it or can't do it, you can always find someone who can.

So, after telling your hairdresser your plans with your hair, which can be let it grow, and discussing a plan of action about whether styling it somehow or leaving it plain (that's my style), as well as the frequency with which you should get over for trimming, you must do the first trimming. This one might require you to cut a bit more than you wanted or expected. Don't be afraid, hair grows. However, make sure you are comfortable with how much length are you losing. You don't wanna walk in Cher and walk out Sinead O'Connor when you were going in for a trimming. This is why you should first assess the damage by your own.

At home, prepare a care plan, for which your hairdresser can help suggesting you creams, shampoos and treatments. There are things, like "butters" you put on, leave for five minutes or more and then wash out. I suggest you to select a line of hair products according to your main problems. However, please, never put more than four products on the same time on your hair. If you need to use many, either seek for a multipurpose treatment, or divide the treatments on different days, so that your hair can take in all the creams and don't get saturated and dull. Also, just because a line has many, many products, it doesn't mean you have to use them all. Use those that fit you, those you can handle. Sometimes products describe how can the different products be used together. Which comes first, which follows, when use which... In these cases, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS and the DOSES. Do not overwhelm your hair!

I, for once, love Gliss Kur. Can't find it in Costa Rica, so I always buy myself a large arsenal of it when I go home. However, you don't have to marry with with one brand, one type, but try different types. Your hair can also get "bored" of a product. Hairdressers recommend you to change your shampoo and conditioner every 3 months. If that's your case (my hair is in love with Gliss Kur, so that ain't happening to me) take the chance and combine the different treatments by using the different shampoos every three months. Frizz, split ends, flat hair, shine.

Give yourself time to know your hair and treat it well. A soft brush shouldn't miss from your things, and yes, brush it not only to get it untangled, but also to help the natural oils spread on it and make it shiny and stronger, and also help the blood circulation on your scalp, which aids your hair be healthier.

Long hair, like all lenght hairs, needs to be freed from time to time, so please, as often as you can, just let it flow, let it go. The strands will thank you. Hairbands and clips mark it weaken it and then will start fraying it where they hold it together, ripping it, damaging it. It doesn't matter how loose, how soft the hairband or clip is, it will damage and kill your hair if you use it too much. So don't. Loose is the only way your hair has to move, so that the roots get a little action, your scalp gets a bit incentivated to increase your blood flow to it, bring more nourishment to the hairstrands and so, get you a healthier mane.

So really, the bottomline is: free your hair, free your style, live it, love it, and if it is too much trouble, find it in a new style.

Grateful

I'm so blessed. I really am, and not only for having someone like Kari at my side, but also for the wonderful friends God has put in my path. Since yesterday the passage of 1 Corinthians 13 from the bible keeps coming up in my mind, and though I can't recall the entire chapter by heart, it's topic, "The Ways of Love" touches me deeply. Well, thing is that these ways also apply to friends. Wherever love can have a place, love have something to do, somehow this passage fits.

The one message that has touched me so deeply this morning was the comment Dragonfly left on my prior entry, as well as the mail she sent me to keep in contact with me through Skype. I can say I've made true friends here that will keep with me and whom I'll treasure in my heart forever. No ocean, no land, no distance and no time can ever break our love and friendship, and that means the world to me. My friends have ways to tell me that they love me, that they want to see me happy, that they support me and that they'll miss me when I'm gone. It brings tears of gratitude and joy to my eyes. If I could I'll put them all in my pocket and take them with me wherever I go. However we all have lives and we all have our own paths and destinies to which we walk day after day. My steps take me back to my birthland, my birth town, where I've been happy and where my place is.

I'm happy here as well, and God knows I do love this country even if I bitch so much about it and even if I'll always prefer my beloved Hungary over this. And it's not only due to it's beaches and landscapes, it's slightly wet and so warm air that seems to bring Cacique in it to make everybody feel like everyday is party day. And, well, my friends, that extended family that grows around you and nurtures you with love, which you nurture as well with as much love as you can give, warms you, becomes an organic, an important part of your life, and also makes life so much better and so much prettier. And it's not just another Kodak moment, or Hallmark postcard message, it is the fact, the truth and what lies in my heart: friends are the salt of the world. And then some are the tabasco, the tequila, the lemon, the nachos, the music, the lights... and, yeah, no matter the moment, or how fucked up things seem to be or are, they make you feel better.

Some of my good friends will remain here, always here, some others will depart whether I leave or not, such as, I believe, our sweet Dragonfly will one day not far from this day, flap her glossy wings and go to the place where her heart lives: Mexico. Though the strange thing is that I have this "sense", this feeling of seeing her "South". Particularly Chile and Argentina come to my mind. Then again, maybe it's something else.

We all must go or we all must be there where our hearts live, there were our place is, so we can be happy, and not be afraid of making good friends in the way because our hearts will forever remain together.

I love all my friends!!!! ^_^ God bless you all, dudes!

"So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
I Corinthians 13:13

Long Distance Love

Today I went back to my old rutine. I woke up around 06:30 though I was waking up, in and out since a little before 05:00. I was supposed to meet Kari over the Skype at 08:00, so I took those 90 minutes to start again writing him my weekly letter. I had already started one on Tuesday, but somehow I didn't feel like continuing that one. Letters, just like entries, can have to them a certain "time" quality that ties them to a moment or a feeling, and if you don't capture it in the moment, you must discard the whole letter.

The contents of the letter will remain in the paper, between Kari and I. ^_^ Along with the letter, it occured to me that Kari wanted to have our pictures from this Spring. I hadn't been able to send him the pictures so far because gmail kept freezing on me. It also occured to me that it would be nice to have around pictures you can look at without turning on your computer. Some perhaps could be set in frames and placed here and there around the place.

I love our pictures.

In this technological era a lot of things are getting lost, things that made live so much cozy and so much prettier. Now pictures remain enclosed in the computer and all kinds of electronical devices, held to the supply of electricity. A pile of bits and colors that depend on the quality of the screen you get. Like those digital frames you can load up with pictures to display. No, there are some things that can't be removed, that shall not be removed from the paper. Letters and e-mails difer, and if you ask me, I prefer the letters even if they take longer. Handwritten letters because those have more soul. Electronical pictures and photographs. I prefer the photograph. A picture in a frame, place over a piano, on a shelve, hanging on a wall, on the desk, lined up in the coffee table, there in so many places where your eyes fall casually and wake a smile on your face. Why keep the pictures locked in your computer? Displayed on the desktop, where it remain hidden by all the programs you use. A picture relegated to those few minutes when you start up or shut down your computer. How much time do you spend looking at your desktop? Right. So why display a picture that's important to you there?

I printed out a few of our pictures, those in which we appear and some of my favorites that might hold his interest as well (so, none of the flowers or Hungarian landscapes he looks at everyday), and thought maybe he would like to look at some of them and remember, leave them inside some book he might be reading, leave them somewhere close to his computer, on on his nightstand, or simply fixed somehow to the kitchen window. I printed out two of them for myself, and placed them unframed on my bookshelve next to the one we made in Tamarindo. I guess I'll take at least one of them to the office so I can have a bit of solace there, not to mention brag silently about what a handsome boyfriend I have, and how much do we love each other.

"Love each other". Three words I thought I would never say, not like this.

A lot of people say, long distance love is for cowards, and that love doesn't live that way. Well, those people are unable to really love. Love, true, real love doesn't depend on closeness even if it desires it, to live. Love can't be killed with physical distance, only with emotional one, but those who have not emotional beat or depth, would tend to replace that closeness with physical one. Some people call love what really is just "lust" or some fix-up remedy to fight loneliness, and yes, that one dies with distance. However love, like an ivy, a weed, adapts and strenghtens. Distance, in fact, helps me with my demons, allows me air to breath and think things over, ready myself and not jump into conclusions, even if I tend to do so... even in letters.

Dear, what a blessing is my Kari to me! I love him so much!! ^_^

Bag: Exposed

Well, I finally took the courage and did it. I went to my brother's old room and bumped my stuff on the bed... because that's bigger and the cover is white. I ended up making several pictures, suddenly getting a kick out of taking pictures almost in a CSI fashion. Anyway, let's get the show started.

First of all, I made two pictures of my bag: the black one is what could be called my "regular" bag, and the yellow is the backpack I've been using these days to carry all my stuff. Along with my bag, I also carry now a flax bag in case I end up carrying more stuff, to suplement my bag if I chose to go with a smaller one, but mainly in case I go to the grocery store, or do any shopping I have an eco-friendly bag to carry my stuff and so I can reject the plastic bags stores usually push on us. Making a parenthesis here, I'd like to note how happy I am to see more and more flax bags around in different stores.

A few months ago, when I started carrying first my own reused plastic bags to reject as many plastic bags as possible, some people looked at me funny, and then they smiled, and then some came and told me they started doing the same. Of course, I wasn't the one starting it, but I do was one of those loners starting by themselves before the fashion caught up. Now the industry is helping on with this, and I'd really like to take the chance and invite everybody to have a bag, flax bag, paper bag, plastic bag... any, it doesn't matter, really, only have one on you and reject all new bags from the stores and help our planet, okay? Can I count on you?

Back to the bag... I really made a lot of pictures, of the stuff I was really carrying and the stuff I usually carry. So, I decided, just now, that I'll publish what I usually carry instead of the whole shebang. So, let's get it going.


On bulk, I carry my journal, which I can let go or I'll feel lost. Worry not, I write it in Hungarian, so if it falls in wrong hands... good luck trying to read it! As for what I'll do when I move to Hungary... probably write in code or something. I'll figure that out later. There's a book because I HAVE TO have a book on me all the time, my "memory notebook", my Oriflame orders notebook, wallet, coin purse, card holder and cards, keys, company ID, Renu, contact case, PDA, mobile, hands free, antibacterial gel, chapstick, Salbutamol pump, gum, paper tissue.

My eyes are becoming somewhat sensitive, and so I protect them with sunglasses, which sometimes are in my bag, sometimes on my head or hanging from my shirt. These days I also pack an umbrella.

As you might imagine, the pencil case. Black ink pens (I would like to know why I carry three, so I'll be removing two), black ink fountain pen, red marker with thin and medium ends, peach-pink highlighter pen, green led automatic pencil, black led automatic pencil, black ink cartridges, black led, three pendrives, eraser, computer mic, earphones.

Yes, finally, the make-up bag. Finishing powder compact, mirror compact (why two? I don't like to flash out a compact when I want to check my contacts or something. I find that somewhat... vulgar), nail cleaning stick, black eyeliner pilot pen, Nózi, lip gloss, hand cream, another Salbutamol pump, Nivea cream (I use it mostly for my face), a small tinbox of mints, candy, eyebrow plucking pliers, nail clipper, sanitary pad, tampons, hair clips (on an old credit card. Try it out! It keeps them tidy and avoids loosing them or having them getting around), two larger hair clips, menstrual painkiller pills, two pairs of earings and a comb.

Usually I also keep a couple of hairbands, but I have found also that larger hairpins or hairclips can help me hold my hair in a bun, which with a hair as long as mine can me more refreshing that pulling it up in a ponytail.

You may wonder whether I keep condoms on me. I normally do, and actually I usually keep three on me. I have only one on me right now for I had used up the other two some weeks ago, and haven't yet come around to replace them. ^_^ I forgot to take two from our home stash just to keep me loaded and ready for action. ^_~

Well, this is my bag. What's in your bag?

Pre-Post About The Contents of My Bag

My friend Dragonfly, God bless her heart, made this interesting post yesterday about the contents of her bag. She published pictures and the whole shebang, and it was so much fun, that I thought I'll do so myself. You are wondering where the post and the pictures are, don't you? Well, you gara wait. You see, due to a series of inconveniences with my job and Azrael (the laptop I use, yes, formerly known as Nyikolaj Rosztov, but since the presence of the Cyber-demon is stronger in him, I call him by the name of its possessor), I've been carrying an unholy amount of stuff in my bag. Bag, btw, which I had to switch to an old, mustardish-yellow backpack, which doesn't even look as good as the one on the picture. (Yeah, because for the pictures, the fill the backpacks with shoeboxes and empty pastic bags, but I bet that backpack won't look nearly that handsome when put to real use.)

A quick review of my current contents (no pictures because this is not the actual post. That I'll prepare calmly at home, with a more "up to what's normally in my bag" version of things), would include the following items:

Backpack:

1. A pink plastic folder with Oriflame catalogues (April and May), the Oriflame bulletin, some printed papers I still have to look at and a stack of pink, letter size paper sheets I use for letter writing (sort of my "stationary").
2. Nagi, my laptop
3. Nagi's mouse (his own, inner one is broken, so he has an external one)
4. Nagi's cables
5. My journal (because it seems writing four blogs is not nearly enough for me)
6. A cloned book about Global Commodity Chains. Extremely boring, but I have to read it to make our thesis tutor happy.
7. A small notebook with a lot of notes in it.
8. A small notebook with the Oriflame orders.
9. My PDA
10. My wallet
11. A small bottle with vitamin capsules.
12. An ecological bag, which Kari got for me in Krakow, for shopping, so I don't have to use the plastic bags the shops usually give us with our purchase.
13. My pencil case with:pens, pencils, markers, eraser, a small case of led for my led pencil, three pendrives, ink cartridges for my fountain pen and earphones.
14. My makeup bag... which contents I won't go into now.

Backpack pocket

1. handcream
2. keys
3. presentation card holder
4. mobile phone
5. my mobile's cables
6. my change purse
7. chap stick
8. antibacterial gel
9. Salbutamol pump (I'm asthmatic, remember?)
10. chewing gum
11. Renu contact solution
12. contact lens' case
13. paper tisue packs.

Bag thing is that, yeah, that pretty much sounds like what I carry around normally... Anyway, wait for the real entry, with pictures of the real thing, so we shall see what the hell I carry around so much.

Some Scattered Thoughts

It's funny how I have these words in sound in my mind, but I can't write them down, because I have not freezing idea about how should I. Then the word itself scrambles in my head and I can't recover it. Such is the word "gibberish", which I had to google to get right. Dude, what would I do without my reliable search engines. Then again, what I do with them is not enough for them, isn't it? For those who work at an office, such as myself, you probably have received that mouthwatering presentation with pictures about what life is at Google, what they call "office environment", probably thought to yourselves "all those fucking motherfuckers. Why can't it be me? Wonder if they need a [insert your profession]. I could go there. I could definitively use some time on [insert your favorite feature]." Fancy food at the caffeteria, pool tables, slides, relax-rooms... you name it.

Maybe that's all still on, but when you read that Yahoo! is laying off people, you look around your battered office, your "ergonomical" chair that gives you more headaches that the folding chair your use at the dingy, smelly caffeteria to which you are already used to drag yourself to somehow sniff up your meager, homemade lunch and sit for 45 minutes or less (if you have to return to the office and brush your teeth) laughing like crazy on the jokes of your colleages, or pouring your liver out talking and hearing about "what the HEADS did or said now". It doesn't look so bad now. At least you still have a job, your job, and even of it's crappy and you wish evers day to be somewhere else, working something more fulfilling, surrounded by less assholes and more people who actually has an idea about what they should do and how should they behave with their peers. At least you have a job. You look at those idillic pictures and idillic workplaces and work envitonments, and the cold runs down your back. They flew so high and they are falling now. The Icarus tragedy. It's amazing how people in misery can bond so tight and look out for each other, care so much and pay so much attention. The shitier the job, the tighter the relationship among the people. Well, my experience at least. Do Google and Yahoo! workers have the same?

World crisis is taking its toll all over the place, smacking sensitive places: jobs. Who are being laid off? It wouldn't surprise me that it's the lower ranges that are being decimated by the crisis. I always wondered why companies ain't more practical and slash the higher heads. Those make the more money, so by firing a few you could save a lot. Or don't fire them, simply cut their income. The lower ranks do the job for which all the others are paid, why bringing the ax to them? Because the ones deciding that the lay offs are neaded are the HEADS and they would never take the ax to their own necks. Stupid, really, because they may save their jobs, but they are fucking up the enterprise. Why would you need the decision makers when there's nothing to make decisions on? A Head would NEVER roll up it's sleeves and do what the lower ranks used to do. That's "serf-job", and they don't do "serf".

Think for a moment: they need to save costs. The lay off X thousand workers, and it's up to the rest to cover for them. Bosses remain. The more lay offs the more work to the remaining, thining layer of ants. Productivity takes a nose-dive. Company "struggles" (makes the ants work harder, lays off some more) and then either crumbles or the crisis ends and people starts buying again (because someone had to hire them or they won't have any money to buy), and they can get on their feet and hire again, get back to normal. If companies would lay off bosses and keep the ants, they could make a serious expense cut, keep the productivity up, and I'm sure bosses have plenty of secretaries and assistants to do the thinking for the laid off heads as well. The productivity would remain and probably the company wouldn't have to "struggle" so much, because there where also more people out there with jobs, and so with money to buy their goods.

Then again, unlike economics, business is not about rational, but about profit. The profit of the Heads.

A Matter of Beard

You might think otherwise, but as I look at the pictures of my boyfriend, I've come to the conclusion that he does look better with beard and mustache. He does have a pretty face, but rather long, with a long neck. His jaw narrows down instead of widening, like in the case of a square jaw, and that sometimes give you the weird sense that his face goes melting into his neck. A beard, nicely trimmed, but there, particularly the lovely beard he has, blond with sparkles of firey red liting it here and there making it richer, gives his face definition, at the same time it renders a graceful, wise softness. His allure becomes more that of a man, rather than some juvie doll. Maybe we should see him with short hair, or shorter hair, maybe that changes his features significantly and the beard is no longer needed to give humanity to his face, but right now, his beard, even if a lot of people advocates against it, becomes an enticing feature on him.

Well I guess he should take advantage of it while he has it.

Standing for What's Right

On Monday we had a conversation, which he himself started. I believe I told him what I feel, what I think, what I see, with no filters. No consideration for his feelings, his situation, no diplomatic approach, but down right the Status Qvo of my labor. It took a good part of the morning, mainly because I led the conversation and cut him off his wondering by showering upon him all the flaws of his chieftenship, the often mistakes in the job, the undervaluation of my profesional time, the fact that he takes me for a secretary or an engineer when I am not... and I didn't even had the chance to talk about his attitude.

He didn't learn. He didn't understand. He went back to do the same.

"Prepare my presentation for the Quality Group."

Fuck, I wonder how does he do it, to be so shameless. How can he pretend for over a year to lead a quality team when he doesn't know about quality, and then how does he pretend to talk about "Customer's Experience" when he doesn't even know the meaning of "decent human treatment". He's going to preach about the right way to treat the client when he can't wait to exploit others? When he lives only to abuse those he can in any way abuse?

He's hurt. I can tell that. Too bad I'm not affraid.

So it happens that Azrael is kicking the shit again. So I had to ask the IT to come look at it, and then ask for the HP people to come and look at the computer. I called the Director's asistant and requested her to do the contact. She did and the guy actually came today in the morning (and fucked up the computer even more). I sent the mail, with copy to my boss, so he knows what's going on. Well, he sent a mail, with copy to HIS boss saying that it was imperative that my computer was fixed because I had "almost a month's delay" in my job. What a motherfucker.

That was yesterday. I took a day to think on the matter, and then today I replied the mail. I started saying that the asistent had fixed me with the HP tecnician, who would be coming today: I added also that I noticed he said my job was delayed a month due to the problem with the computer, and that wasn't entirely the case. (That's not the case at all.) He had to consider that we had problems with the provider, who wasn't sending us the reports on time, which was delaying us, which I noticed, but nothing has been done so far, plus the fact that there was no order, no priority with the tasks at the process. A lot of small, instant jobs had to be done and that delayed greatly my regular work, which was postponed until after smaller tasks, unplanned, smaller tasks were fulfilled. Add to it, I was out the past two weeks. Finally, it was important to keep in mind that all these smaller jobs were properly fulfilled and rendered in time, therefore there was no ground to say that all my job was delayed, or that it was delayed due to the computer.

I sent it to everybody who had received his mail.

A lot of people would say I shouldn't have to do it, but Giselle said it was the right thing to do, when I commented it to her. She's a lawyer and she has been advising me on this matter. Like I felt it, she found that my boss was placing the blame on me for the not delievered work, which is mainly his fault. By copying his boss and the asistant of his boss' boss, he was making me look like some slow poke worker, who has this "excuse" of having problems with the computer to cever her delays in meeting deadlines of rendering any jobs at all. It did pissed me off that I am working as fast as I can, shouldering the stuff that has to be done, making it on time, because, sorry, I do not do "delays", unless I am delayed, and I want to stress that out very clearly that all delays in my job have been thanks to him, and him not being able to handle the job.

What would happen if I let the mail go unanswered? His boss would think that if the computer is fixed, he can depómand for all the jobs, not to mention that he would think that all de delays my boss has incurred on are due to me. Baloney! A lot of things can be said of me, but being a bad worker is not one of them.

You've Missed Me, Haven't You?

Five days with not one single post on. Well, that's what I call outrageous. I could explain why, but since I don't believe in "explanations", only actions, I'll defer from giving them. In these days that passed, some things got out of hand, so I'm working hard on managing them, put them all together again. It won't be an easy task, but I believe you can solve pretty much anything if you keep your options open, your mind clear and your eyes on a thought-through plan to get out of the swamp.

Some pictures have remained on Nagi after my trip home, and many of them can't be worked into a post anymore. I somehow have to write things when they happen, and rememoring them, going back to them doesn't always work for me. The feeling washes away, mutates, gets lost, and it stops being the same.

Time is an interesting contraption, that holds us in this net-like bubble. You get a different sense of it when you travel longer distances, like from Hungary to Costa Rica. Even if you don't get jet lag, it's an interesting feeling when you have to adjust your computer, your phone, your PDA and your watch, or watches (like in my case), and your mind goes to that other place, that other time, and while you are still wide awake, you think of your beloved, who is already in bed, sleeping, maybe snoring, which becomes the sound that makes you smile and you love even more than Tupac's "Gangster Paradise". Time holds you to a certain life, a certain routine, and when you get a bit dislodged of it, it's like you get trapped for a moment in a castle in the sky, from where you can see far, far away, to lands and lives you cannot touch.

God knows how much I miss being home, miss waking up with Kari, have his arms surround me when he wakes up, his long hair on the pillow, his nose against my cheek. My bed here is so soft, so smooth, so perfect, but it has no Kari in it, and I miss that more than my three fluffy pillows and my fluffy duvet. There was nothing from my regular stuff in there. I had two drawers in a very messy cupboard, clothes in two suitcases and books piled up in to cardboard fruit boxes. CDs piled up on small places, and yet I was home. I was lost in dreaming, in planning, in holding his hand while we walked in Budapest, Krakow, Wien and looked at the things I'd love to see in our home. A lamp for the dining table, or for our little reading corner, that would make it cozier. The bed I wanted for our bedroom, taking the forms to him, and discussion the tone of the wood, cheking his demands for storage under it (which it has). Smiling because we want the same kind of turn of the century, distressed furniture, that speaks of old and simplicity. No overdone additions, just the beauty of well balanced handmade woodcraft. The smile in the peace, the simple, daily things, such as watering OUR little plant, him smiling because I talk to it in English, me picking and arranging his many magazines and papers, seeking constantly ways to keep him organized and make it easy for him to find and follow. Getting to the point where I know where he put this or that, which he forgot and has been turning the apartment upside down.

It doesn't have to be big, spacious, only ours, and be filled with us and the things that speak about us. Our pictures, our memories, the things we pick.

Now we are apart, but only in space, for my heart has not left his since January.

Krakow

The prior entry might not make sense to many people, and it shouldn't for it is an unfinished one. I tried to finish it, but the feeling was tied to time and space, and though the feelings remain in my mind, they can't be reflected the same way. However, as I read it, even if it was unfinished, I believe it captured me, and so I thought I'll share it. There's a lot of unfinished business here, a lot of bottled up feelings I have shared so far only with my friend Shimmy Gin, the one I thought of calling first thing, but upon not finding him available, loaded out in my journal.

Shimmy, you are truly my memory and my judgment. You know more about me than many.

Today I took a lot of pictures for everybody to see, to share and to post. It's amazing how I actually take pictures for my blogs, and not as much for memories. When I find something great, the first lines of the entry rush to my mind. Maybe not all of them make it to my chopping block and past to my blogs, but all of them are taken with this sole purpose. All pictures have a small thought, a potential entry stuck to the back of them, just like before there was history even if the words were fewer on the back of the photograph.

Kari and I traveled today to Krakow, a lovely city at the South of Poland, known for several things, depending on what are your interests. For me, it's a city with a rich Medieval baggage. For religious people, I believe this city is tied close also to the beloved Pope John Paul II. I was eager to come, though the original idea was to go to Milan. Well, Milan couldn't be and Kari wasn't up to go to Firenze, or Venice, and Sofia was out of the charts. Mom had been at Krakow and she enjoyed it a lot, and so have been Dad, so I thought, what the heck, I should give it a try.

Okay, few pointers: DO NOT TRAVEL WITH BUS. The bus, from Budapest to Krakow makes one stop, and one stop only... in Slovaquia, and rather close to the border with Hungary. The stop is ... at a gas station. Really. I have evidence.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

I guess I can rest my case in the matter of the "station". The bus offered coffee and hot cocoa, but cold beverages were charged, and there were specific instructions to use the toilet only on extreme emergency cases. No, it wasn't the travel attendant telling us so, it was the "Safety Video".


Krakow is sold mostly as a "friendly place" where you don't need to speak Polish because everybody speaks English. Wrong. I had to endure headached until FINALLY someone was kind enough to show me were we were on a map. Oh yes, a traveling tip you better do yourselves than leave to anyone else: if you plan on traveling somewhere, GET A MAP AHEAD, know were you are arriving and where do you have to go, and PLAN THE TRIP. My beloved boyfriend seems to have problems in this particular matter. Needless to say, it pisses me off like you have no idea. Anyway, if you want to come to Krakow, have in mind that:

1. You'll need a map to get around.
   
2. Mark on it your hotel or where you'll be staying, where you'll arrive, where you'll depart and the main places you'd like to visit.
3. Pick up some Polish from somewhere. Internet is a good a source as any, if you live ina country like Costa Rica, where your "foreing language textbooks and guides" are pretty much limited to English and sometimes French (unless you are culturated enough to go to Librería Internacional and find a broader selection or request it).

When we finally made it outside the bus station, we found that Krakow ain't that big a place, really, and you can find a lot of great places, specially in the Old Town, and awesome place surrounded by old castle walls, and a thick feeling of Medieval times. A radial of boulevards laced around with beautiful and interesting shops take your from the gates of the Old City into a wonderful square where at the top of a tower each hour a trumpet player plays a short song in remembrance of the coming of the Tatars.

Story says, according to Kari, that the trumpetier was trying to play the alarm that the enemy was coming, but his tune was cut midway, as he was taken down and killed by an arrow. The tune still finishes abruptly.

I have to go now, sorry I didn't have anymore time by now, maybe later (but I have to wake up Kari and drag him to have some dinner). However I can't leave you without a final recommendation: if you come here, avoid a restaurant called Ristorante Imperial Realle. It's in his Square (Rynek Głowny, I believe), and has big Tyskie beer umbrellas. I enclose you a picture.

What should you know about them? A bit too expensive for my taste, the food is very little (even for me), they don't fully cook the pasta, the Farfarelle with blue cheese and cream have not taste at all and it takes them around 30 minutes to get you your drinks and 45 minutes to get you your food. Oh, and there's no policy of first arrived, first attended, first served, so you may see people who entered after you, whose order was taken after you, to have their mean BEFORE you do. A family in a table near ours couldn't take the wait and simply stood up and left... prior getting a waitress to pay their drinks, for it was the only thing given to them. So, you are warned.

However, for tender hearted people, there are lovely things to see as well, such as a Teddy Bear store! ^_^ Kari got me a bunny from there, whom I call (so far) Krolik. He won't travel back with me to Costa Rica this Sunday, but stay in Hungary with Kari. ^_^ There's no reason to take him with me, when he would be traveling, back, now would it? ^_^

Okay, I'm off to lunch!!

Leroy... Again

God bless my hometown, my home, my country, and the wonderful Wi-Fi that allows me to have Internet while sipping a galss of very pink Cosmopolitan. Minutes ago my creditcard just reached it's limit, and I hope it did only that and didn't run into some + $2500 of limit, for which I'll have no coverage whatsoever. It will be then time to talk to my Credit Card company. Other than that, "Love is in the Air", or so that says the guy singing in the radio. Kari will arrive any minute, from a day which we had spent mostly separated. I do have pictures, but I don't have the cable with me right now to upload them for you to see.

I went to the Fine Arts Museum, next to our Square of Heroes, to watch an exhibition of posters made by my favorite artist, Alfons Mucha. His art is breathtaking, and having the chance to watch them up close was awakening. Senses became sharper, as ----

It's Eastern!

Happy Eastern to all of you, boys and girls! Many of you are going back to work today, but I ain't! I still have one week of happiness! Weee-hee!! Then back to the mines, with all of you, but even so, I had this year an extra gout of fresh, lovely, homely air. My dear friend Dragonfly rightfully demanded some pictures on my blog. Well, she's absolutely right: I'm traveling on far-far away lands, where the sun shines different and the air has a taste of ancient, and yet I have shared not even one picture with you. So I was thinking, I should give you a few pics. Problem is that I actually have very few pics, since I've been engaged in... other activities different than taking pictures, you mind.

Well, this picture to the right is Kari and I in front of the Kunsthistorische Muzeum in Wien, where we went to score my glass of candy... but there was not, soe we were "stuck" staring at the art of the Italian Masters. I can't get enough of Tizian, I tell you. The kid we asked to make the picture concentrated more on the building than on us, which is why you can't see our feet. Those two days in Wien were great. Well, what can I tell you? Wien is a wonderful city to visit, even if they are boarding up the entire city because they pick that precise moment to refurbish the whole shebang. Why can't they do the remodelations little by little?

We really, didn't made that many picture... I think we made two more, goofy pictures and that was it. But if you want, I'll share with you one of them, for all of you to have a good laugh at it. Here we are posing as "celebrities".


Hehehehe... Well, maybe more like blinds than celebrities, but that's the point.

There's also a fresh picture I want to share with all of you, one I just took. It's a picture of our first "common asset", which is a plant.

I saw it and I wanted it. Kari doesn't have any plants that have flowers, only greens, and I find that a bit darkening and depressing, so I asked him if we could get one (because in a week it will be his responsability, and we won't be living here, so the plant should be moved eventually... and moved by him, you mind), and he said it was okay. So I went to this tiny flowershop on the corner of the Márvány street and the Királyhágó and choose it among the selection of other plants there. First of all, it's not blue, it's purple. I call it Sunshine, and talk to it in English constantly. Hopefully it will bloom a lot and grow pretty and strong. I'm not much of a gardener, but I really like Sunshine.

Now, if you don't mind, I'll go wash the Keraflex out of my hair and change, because we have to be at Kari's Mom's place in... 30 minutes. ^_^

On The Road

We are in the car, running towards Mezőkövesd, to go lunch with János and Marcsi, Jules' parents. The weather is... warming up quite steadily. The landscape I usually see glistening in frost is now swelling up in luscious, soft, lively greens. Here and there thick walled houses in stone gray, yellow, white and orange line up the road, here and there among lots of trees stretching thin branches into the playfully swirling air. This is my home in Spring. The sky is one uniform mlass of milky blue. No mountains embroid the egdes of the land, like at Costa Rica.

I forgot the camera at home, so there will be no pictures to come with this words, which is a shame. My home is so beautiful! As we run deeper to the country... to the North, North-East. This land is covered with the kind of flora and the kind of forest I like. These are woods. Woods and lakes and hills. The trees have, on some of them, some strange things that look loke balls of some other kind of plant. Some trees have only one, others have more and others are completely covered by them. I didn't know that they were, and so my aunt explained to me that it was some kind of parasite that kills teh trees, and it's hard to remove. It hurts me to see them on the trees. People say they are beautiful, but I believe them disgusting.

The days are going by and flowing into the past. There's still a lot of people to see, a lot of things to do, and day by day there's less and less time to do it. Time becomes hard to manage. But then again, I'm getting a few things done. For once, and this makes me very happy, I've got my eyes examinated and YES! I can wear lens again. Of course, not any kind of lens, which they never cared to check in Costa Rica, only either some Ciba or Bausch&Lomb. I picked the Bausch&Lomb because I know them, even though I have never used them before. When I told my doctor what kind of lens I used to use (Focus), here eyes bulged out. Well, I guess thgat's what damaged my corneas back then. Thanks Hyne I was careful with my eyes since January and my corneas built up some. I can't use coloured lenses (so far) because those are thicker and don't let so much air pass to the eye, like these ones. Well, I don't mind sporting my brown eyes instead of my green ones, I'm simply happy I don't have to use my glasses.

I'm happy!

Wien

It's 6:49 am. Outside an hour ago some workers started making noise drilling something. Well, we are in Vienna, what can I say? Kari is asleep, so I finally get enought time to be around Nagi and write some. Ain't funny either that we are both coming down with the flu. Thanks to him, you mind. Hell, sharing a disease ain't the most sexy or the most romantic thing I can think of.

Vienna in the Spring is beautiful, except that they have chosen this moment to do some remodeling on the city. As we arrived, the trainstation was littered with bags and garbage. Parts of the Westbanhof were closed with hideous wood pannels covering former beautiful gardens, and add to it, large chunks of the Herrengasse were turned up because they want to change the cement blocks of the boulevard. It annoyed me, to say the least. On top of every annoying thing, we went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum and they didn't have my candy. The sole thing I went for, and it was gone. Talk about being upset.

The hotel, as usual, was nice, save that this room has a hideous bathroom. My goodness, the deception. If you can, avoid the Mariahilfe straße side of the Hotel Pension Continental. All the other bathrooms are beautiful, but this one has a hideous one. My boyfriend, given his expertise in the mattero of construction and real state says it's a "mobile bathroom". I don't care for the name it has, I simply call it "darn ugly".

However, sickness, darn ugly bathrooms, littered streets and no candy aside, this place is lovely and I love being here. Well, maybe I shall wait until my credit card balance comes, and I have to pay for a small... ummm... "expense" I had to make. Well, it ain't my fault that H&M has such great clothes, and I did have a wonderful time picking up some skirts and blouses.What I like about the skirts I bouth is that they are not your traditional short, tight, sexy skirts, but they are somewhat wide and reach your knees. The flow of them are fun and very comfortable. One of them, my favorite, I must say, is a bit big for me, so probably I'll have to take in from the waist to make it fit, and yet, it's a lovely piece. (It has pockets! Nothing as good as a wide skirt with pockets because that way you can put stuff in it, like you cell, and it won't bulge out! It's simply magnificent!)

I realized one other thing. Though it is widely known that my favorite color in the whole wide universe is green, I tend to but and unhealthy amount of brown and neutral colored clothes. I had to actually conciously stop myself yesterday at H&M when I realized I was carrying an armful of brown, beige, grey and raw colored clothes to the changing cabins. Clothes were pretty, and really, they all looked good, but why on Earth should one go around melting into the background? Not that I picked bold colors, buut I made a change. I picked blouses of bolder colours, and went with a CLOSET of clothes to the changing cabins to see how things fit together. The excercise was actually a great experience. You see, you can always learn something, get something and see something new.

I guess, when you go shopping you can follow these simple rules (among others you might have) to have a successful experience:

1. Try on all the clothes you want to buy. Trust me, they might look good on the hanger, but you are not a hanger. Sometimes, some pieces are not cut well, and the flaws only show when you put the piece on.
2. If you are displeased with something about the piece, DO NOT BUY IT! Remember, usually is that one little detail we dislike that makes the piece to live forever in the bottom of the closet.
3. Be daring. When you pick and ensamble, take something else, of some lively color, or some new color, and take it with you to the changing cabin. Try it on. The worst thing that could happen would be that it doesn't look good, or that the colors don't match well, but at least you would be trying something new, and letting a new side of yourself get expressed.

Never forget that you are complex and delicious, and you have the right and the duty of being all you can be.