2010 is off, 2011 is coming!

Another year is slowly going by, and that means late parties, fireworks and more booze than what you would normally push down your throat - whatever that measure is for you. A new set of dues and debts - damned credit cards - and new purposes, not like the ones you've made the previous year actually got done. Here and there some people do manage to complete them, so swear they do, but honestly the only person in the planet I believe that from is Dragonfly. Damned, that girl keeps to the program like nobody I've ever seen.

Some people who hasn't taken the time to greet you all year, come and hug you and toast with you and swear up and down how you are their most beloved friends, how much they think of you, and to prove so they pull up all kinds of outdated facts about you. As you about your family, your significant other - whose name they seem to remember better than you do, and even add their profession or favorite hobbie - and ask you about your job - remember your boss' name or your department or company, while smiling wide and making big promises and making you return them about getting together more often because blah, blah, blah. You smile wide enough to shrink your eyes, rise your glass and think "why on the fucking Earth would I want to see you more often when suffering you on New Year's Eve is punishment enough?".

There's of course, the people you only see in these occasions and you can't even understand why on Earth you don't see them any often. Well, usually that's my case with my best friend Alix, whom I see usually only on New Year, and only when I'm in Costa Rica... which is nearly never. Lately, thanks Hyne, we started meeting more and more often, which is good. =D I totally love her and her family, and I celebrated with them Halloween this year and we carved together our first pumpkin. It was freaking awesome!

These year brought a few unpleasant things to my plate, like the hassle with the coat, the trobles with the trip, the ripping of the luggage, losing of things due to airport looting. It may have brought some other unpleasant things - yeah, like the freaking building we are working in now - but those fade in importance. This year has certainly brought me a lot of good. I managed to lower my debts (thought there might be a surge in the debts due to the incidents of this trip), still, it's far more undercontrol than it has been in a while. I traveled again, got to Hungary quite on schedule, saw my boyfriend and family, had an EXCELENT Christmas, saw my adorable, perfect Father-in-Law, who blew me off my feet by giving me a book of Cicero, which simply got me FLYING! I totally, totally love this man. Really, like obsessed.

Also got to Vienna, where I met with my dear and beloved friend, a penpal of mine whom I love, and went for a coffee, had a great chat with her, then went to a pub, an amazing Irish Pub, secretly tucked away in a corner of Vienna, and revealed a side of me she never thought it was there: I ordered lager, and downed the whole mug. Hell, it was so delicious!!!! She also introduced me to my new Precious Posession: erasable pens. I think by now I've cleared three stores. The cashier ladies always widen their eyes when I dump the pens before them. I guess they are trying to come up with a plausible explanation, and the only thing they can come up with is "some people is crazy". Well, those pens are the end of my scratched out letters, so yes, I'm clearing all inventories!

This year I also ditched my mother-in-law's - also known as The Hag - Christmas get-together. So, let me get you on the line with this. This is Christmas-in-three-acts.

Act Two: The Father-in-Law

As planned, we went over to his place for lunch the 25th. To say that he was adorable, perfect and beautiful would be a crass understatement. His cooking was wonderful, and he offered me even some sort of sweet liquer for starting. He smiled at me, talked to me, showed interest and even called my judgement in a small dispute with my boyfriend over a yellow umbrella, clearly expecting me to take his side. I did. =D. He gave me as present a book by Cicero, as I mentioned earlier "De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum". We left him before his other son and his family arrived. I was told it was so that I didn't have to suffer through their yearly Brady Bunch presentation. I was sorry I couldn't see the orphans, but my brother-in-law and his unfortunate-looking wife are not really the type you can suffer calmly, mainly due to their overwhelming fake attitude.

Act Three: The Mother-in-Law

As I declared ever since the middle of the year, I ditched the the appointment. My boyfriend was less-than-happy with this but I had sacrificed too many hours of my life for his sake at this mother's annoying get-togethers and I wasn't certainly going to sit through yet another utterly obnoxious lunch, peppered with all kinds of "niceties" pointed at me, specially since my alotted patience had been all used up, and I was going to Federer back every single ball launched on my general direction, and trust me, I have ammo, all the way from "just because I don't have people of my generation burried at Luxor or the Pyramides, it doesn't mean I don't know what should I see in Egypt" to "it's nice you consider my father a materialistic man who didn't taught his children well, when you have to underachieving sons, one of whom doesn't even know what he wants and is totally pussywhipped by you and his wife". The warrior in me really wanted to go and smack her with a few remarks like "well, I know you find pleasure only in food, as your life is so empty, but I don't need to stuff myself with the shit you cook to feel achieved", but the Wiser in me decided that it was better if I didn't let my temper flare, that nothing truly profitable would come of it, so we took the "Coward Way". I had an amazing time, having lunch with my family, and then having the appartment all for myself, taking care of all the things I just love to do.

Kari came back sullen, silent, visibly upset. He hid the presents he got, and I noticed there were none for me. Good. That meant that I didn't have to sneak out and walk a few miles looking for a trash can far away enough to dispose of the stuff... like I had to do with last year's shit.

He said nothing, but this morning I submitted him to questioning, and he opened up. The truth was revealed. Visibly upset, he told me how she and miy brother-in-law had read my blog (the Hungarian one, so they don't know the whole extent of it), and found out what I wrote about them (which is mild compared with what I think of them and what I've written in my journal). Upset they decided I hated her, and thus she doesn't want to see me or speak to me ever again. My moronic, brain dead brother-in-law (whose knowledge in economics reduces to say "I studied economics, got a diploma, therefore I am an economist") decided to side with his mother in is dislike of me (I'm totally thorn and have no idea how will I go on after such a sensible blow to my social life) specially after Christmas, where I failed to come to the get-together. Thus, since they think I hate her - this believe fortified by my ditching their lunch-thing - , they decided that none of them want to ever talk to me (which puts in a new light the whole thing about the Christmas at my father-in-law's), don't ever want to see me and therefore will never again invite me over. When telling me this, Kari was looking at me like "it's all your fault! You shouldn't have written those things nor express your hatred towards them".

Well, 1. I wouldn't have anything to write if they would have been nice to me, so they are responsible for what they read in it, 2. I didn't make them read it, and 3. I'll speak my mind whenever and wherever I want. I was born free and my hability to express myself and my feelings makes me who I am. If someone doesn't like it, they can fuck it.

However, as Kari told me, I had to make hard efforts to remain expressionless. A huge smile was tugging at my mouth. I was free! No more excuses, no more fears from Kari that the Hag would realize that I hate her guts. It's all out and I'm FREE!!!

Blogs are a blessing.

Vienna, 2010

Before you ask, yes I have made pictures, even a picture with a good friend and penpal of mine - we look so great! - but what I forgot to bring with myself is, well, the cabel to connect my phone and my netbook. This also means, sadly, that my phone is struggling with a very feeble battery life. Damned. And here I really thought I had packed everything I need. Oh well, at least I packed up the cords for the netbook, the converting cube (because I've an American plugging end on the cord and I need to fit it into an European plug), and the netbook and mouse. So I'm able to keep communicating with the rest of the planet.

A week of my holidays has gone by, and honestly I've done little, written even less, mainly concerned with the whole baggage thing. Normally I would have a plan - you know me - to which I would stick and still have loads of fun, but when you travel with family, well, their things can trample your plans.

Christmas came and was gone, and I successfully ditched the Hag and her Christmas-Thing. I wouldn't call it "lunch" when it lasts all day, right? My boyfriend couldn't ditch it, though. He came back at 19:30 h. Yep, my thoughts exactly: I wouldn't have come back from that Hag-marathon alive... or sane.

Yesterday, according to the plan (because we had reservations) we came to Vienna, the whole lot of us. We are set in my favorite hotel of town, with the adorable staff, always so helpful and ready. Hell, you just want to stay here forever! Not much could be done yesterday, after all, from an early waking to a 3 hour train trip with two children, a big family wants nothing but lay down a bit. I myself, went to meet my dear friend, with whom we had coffee at our favorite coffeeplace in town, and then went to this pub - Irish pub -  she knows, where after an awesome coffee with Bailey's I had a mug of lager. One freaking big mug of absolutely delicious lager. I walked out of there by half past ten... at night, all happy and woohoo.

My friend was surprised. She said she had never pictured me like a beer drinker. My humor is much drier in person - she said, and probably she's absolutely right, for in person I honestly hardly open up as much as in paper - but beer? Big mug of beer? Would have never imagined that.

Honestly, I really don't come over like a beer drinker?

What's in Your Heart?

This is a Xmas with plenty of green, and no, I'm not in Costa Rica staring out of the window of my hut with a coconut in hand, listening to the ocean, as many people seem to believe. I'm in Hungary, wrapped in my boyfriend's robe, at night, in an apartment, surrounded by green fields. Weather these days seems to be somewhat bipolar, rather than the usual "maniac depressive" self, so proper of these changing, schedule oriented latitudes. Not that I mind, as this allows me to lose one layer of clothing, but still. A Christmas-in-three-acts has begun Today. Act one: Christmas with my family.

According to an impromptu plan communicated to us today in the morning, we had lunch at my aunt's place, where my brother and his family are currently lodged. The present-constriction due to the loss of the luggage (due to weather, KLM has blatantly decided to lose each and everyone of our 5 pieces of baggage - for which I was almost made pay $100 for 3 Kg in surplus on 2 suitcases, while the other 3 ever over 5 Kg under the maximal weight alotted, EACH), was somewhat felt, but everything did their best to shower with presents the children, who got an enormous amount of presents, and the two Costa Rican's  - 100% Costa Ricans -  with us.

Act two is to be done tomorrow, when we have lunch with my father-in-law, whom I love to madness. Act three will be the lunch-and-afternoon with The Hag, from which I've excused myself months ago, given the fact that I'm so freaking sick, like you can't believe. Thus my boyfriend will go to the lair of the Hag alone, while I have lunch with my family, and spend some quality me-time with me. :-D I'll be reporting about these if the happenings merit it.

In this Christmas time interesting sides of people surface. Some show out the Grinch side of them, openly hating Christmas, others pull out the Christmas Depression face, which often looks like something picked out of a Christmas story, others pull out the all-over-the-place-I-wish-Christmas-lasted-all-year kind of fever, or the gushy side, or the corny side, the uber-spender side, and other take out the "Gift Philosophy" side. Some get more religious, others suspitiously turn towards the "the best gifts are not the expensive ones" and so on. Now, I believe that the presents that matter  -for any occasion - are the presents that have a positive, unique, personal meaning and intention. Call it "presents from the heart" or "presents with love" or whatever, I'm talking about those presents that are not the ones you exactly needed, or the one's that you asked ofr, but those that tell you something about what the person giving them to you wants to say to you: the thing you share - a story, a hobby, a memory - or the way that person sees you. The money matter is a matter for the person giving the present, not for the one receiving it, so money doesn't come in consideration, however a lot of people don't think that way even if they say they do. 

It never fails to amaze me how this happens in Christmas.  Often people who say that "presents that matter cost nothing" basically are saying that they don't have enough money, so they are sending ahead the message that they will give "poor presents" and expect to be forgiven for it. So, exactly what do we see in a present? A tool or a needed produce we require - which by some social artifice we can't get ourselves and expect to be provided for by our friends and family? A way to measure love in regards of size, number and price of the gifts, or the rarity of them (again a matter of money)? A social obligation to exchange whatever thing impressing enough to be a present?

Perhaps we could think of presents as a way to communicate. In a present, this way isn't the matter to give someone what he or she needs - just as you don't say only the words others need to hear - but you say to him or her something in a language you share. Dragonfly, for instance, never fails to include something green in my presents. This way she says "I know you are crazy about green". It's not like she thinks I need more green in my life, but she knows it happens to be my favorite color. Skylar never fails to give me something related to writing and a book (at least one :-D), because she knows I've a never dying passion for reading and writing. My aunt always thinks about youthful, yet not trendy or too young things. She reminds me of our relationship, which is sweet, as we have the same name. My sister-in-law always gives me something related to clothing, in connection to our shared love for shopping, and my Mom always gives me things that have a sweet, soft nature. Soft fabrics, sweet colors, tender details. It's her way to say I'm still her little girl.

Kari basically asks me for guidelines, so I give him ideas, and he works around them. His message is "I'm listening to you, yet I will interpret you my way, and that way is always the most beautiful one I can think of". My friend Laura has this way to pick gifts that always go back to our days at the University. They have a youthful, bohemian, traveler quality you simply gara love. It's like being back in jeans and T-shirts before we used make-up and plucked our eyebrows. My friend Roo's presents are all about fun, party and guilty, guilty pleasures. Everything is "OMG, Roooo!!! Hahahahahahaha!". Carrie's presents are all about shared fangirling items. Those are the kind of things that send you shrieking like a groupie all around the place. Almost as if you had unwrapped the real Jesen Ackles with a bow and a smirk.

How much do they cost? I've no freaking idea. Some are handmade, some are bought, some might be expensive, some might be a bargain, but all of them are so freaking awesome! So, when people speak about the importance of the cost in gifts, I always wonder "the importance to whom?".

The Taqwacores

Yesterday I bawled like a baby. Sitting in my bed, I read the last chapter of "The Taqwacores" with tears running down my cheeks. In a rush to get the book finished before the trip (I want to fly envelopped in Asa Larsson's words), I spent a week with this jamaa, where Yusef Ali, Jehangir Tabari, Umar, Fariq, Amazing Ayyub, Rabeya, Fatima, Lynn and the rest of the posey. Welcoming Muzzamil, the liwaticore, Dee Dee Ali, Jehangir's role model, was smooth an easy. Along with Jehangir, you greeted every new character in a small 256 page extention with a hearty exclamation and a big hug.

An undefined period of time, shorter than a semester, full with winter, cold, crazy experiences, Buffalo weather and a mess of praying times ways of leading and observations about the current Imam. I'm not Muslim, but my heart swelled with the adhan, with the "Allah Akbar", and each of the times they observed the prayer. The questions, thoughts, matters, alien for a Lutheran like me, were brought close. Things that made sense, things that were plain strange, the junction between the punk world and the Muslim world, where a rather pasive Yusef Ali, like a tourist guide, takes you from one scene to the other offering from himself only the small, private details of his own unraveling from the preconcieved, allowing air to the doubts in his head and finding answers for his own. It's like the main lesson he pulls from his friends, mainly from Jehangir's words and behaving: "Answer your own questions".

Muslim or not, there's a lot you can pull from the book. I particularly loved the way Jehangir - in clear contraposition with Umar - fitted religion to his own believes. In the eyes of many, a joyous practicer of blasphemy, he prayed with an evident, burning love for Allah, casting aside the stiff conventions of religion. Prayed behind a woman, prayed behind a homosexual, shared the lead of the praying with his best friend. He fucked, drinked, skated and punked to the fullest. Followed his dream and pulled one hell of a taqwacore show and moved people.

A bunch of crazy kids doing crazy, Fasiq - whom I somehow always pictured like a sort of Jared Leto - soaked in the sweet curls of marihuana and escaped to the roof to smoke and read the Qu'ran, or do the adhan much like a muezzin perched at the top of a minaret. Hashishiyyun, was what he was called, a junkie, and yet, I can't stop but see the beauty in his smoke hazed attitude.

Rabeya, the burqa-covered girl simply delved and exploted before me. There's such a raw strenght, such a piercing bravery in her she could put anyone to shame. Cryptic as you always wondered what would se be really doing under her niqab, and probably I'm not the only one thinking that if I were in her place I would be mouthing al the time stuff like "Umar, go get fucked" and stuff like that.

I'm affected, I can't say I'm not. I finished the book and I'm still using Arabic expressions in my head, my tweets and my FB. The book is over and there's a broken record in my head going over and over Bilal's Boulder Bilal's Boulder Bilal's Boulder... I flew from cover to cover and I felt a life rush so fast, slashing before me like a punk on a skate. Currently I can't get over them. I can't. I'm so wrapped in them, so taken, as if a burqa had fallen upon me, dark and heavy, and I can't find my way out of it, can't seem to escape safely into my own "Occidentality", my Westernness, and through the grid of the niqab I see real life through them.

Yes, this is a cult book. Be warned, you my embrace it too hard.

Crayons

Today on Dr. Frank Buck's blog we can read about this idea of using Jumbo crayons for dry-erase boards. It wasn't only the pretty picture of beautifully colored crayons that drew me to the post, but also the topic, the matter, the core of it: basically to find ways to use crayons in your adult life without being a plastic artist or a kindergarden teacher. The idea came from yet another post in yet another blog, that takes it from yet another source. Truth to be told, I have never concieved this notion, has never entertained it, but it sounds rather interesting. (The links are found in each and every post, you need to just follow the link-sensitive brick road.)

The idea comes from the hassle many of us must endure when it comes to dry-erase boards (or white boards - I belive they are the same) and the markers made for it. Though we are all big now and we will hardly bring a permanent marker to a whiteboard - unless you are a kid or you are absolutely stupid or utterly stoned - several other problems arise more often than not with these markers. They are not well capped and dry out, bleed down the board (has happened to me. It looked like I killed the marker and it's greenish or black ink slid to the wall. Very unpretty), or run dry without any notice, and thus you must spend a few moments of public embarrassment trying out each of the available markers, or send the secretary for one so that you can do your scribbling. Ink gets on your hands, on your cuffs and when it's all done, you are left with a plastic tube to discard, addicng to the plastic heaps of junk littering the planet.

So, someone along the long line of links, has discovered that crayons can do the work, and can be erased. I guess they need a more energic rubbing than markers, but if they work, they give you all the benefits and none of the hassles. Unlike traditional chalk, if crayons fall they don't break, or at least no so easily. They don't smell, though it has been proven that many people still keep their childhood impulse to eat them, don't stain (not the new ones), aren't toxic, come in a freaking wide variety of colors, can get them on different sizes, which include the Jumbo size, which has much of the grip of a regular whiteboard marker, doesn't dry off on you, don't need to make sure to recap it, you can see when it's going to die on you, last much more than a marker, the waste is minimal and usually eco-friendly, and costs a fraction of the marker. A whole box of crayons cost less than a marker. So? Ready to give it a try?

It would certainly be something if offices started stocking up on crayons.

From my side, I rediscovered the crayons when I was in the University, as a student. Like all of my fellow classmates, I was hooked on highlighter markers, which were my most important studying tool. Add to it, I've always been fond to color coding, giving each color a different importance range, thus for when I would reread the given text, depending on the time I had, I could read only the highlighted part, and as resumed or detailed as I could. In the first years I went from highlighter to colored pilot pens, since highlighters meant a serious dent on my scarce student finances. Most of my money was spent in books, xeroxed copies, bus face and highlighters, and going at a 100 page-per-highlighter rate wasn't economically affordable. Going through a highlighter in 3 days wasn't something so strange, though some brands could last up to 1-2 months depending on the use. The colored pilots, while giving me a wider range of color, along with the occasional highlighter in there. These could last more than the highlighters, but one package wouldn't make it over 3 months.

This is how one day I came across crayons. I was looking for yet another refil of colored pilots, seeking for a cheaper brand, and lo there, there was a box of colored crayons, for a fraction - and I do mean a FRACTION - of the cost of the pilots. Durable, washable, erasable. I used them in the texts of four different careers for over three years. The same box. They were smooth and the color was soft enough not to hurt my eyes, as some neon highlighters do. I could mark over the text with no danger of rending it illegible. The tips never dragged the ink of the text, pulling after it dirty streaks on the rest of the text. They didn't bleed through the paper, nor the pressure was shown on the other side. Weren't sticky, and allowed me - again - a wide range of colors for my color-code thing. As a professor I kept using them, and at home I still used them here and there.

People often have preconceived ideas about crayons. They are kid-toys, they are messy, they don't cover just as good (which is why kids prefer often markers over crayons), they get dirty, etc. They are supposed to be playthings, but truth is that they are ageless tools, and terrific tool to it. Sure, their smell can pull people to bite a chunk off and munch on it, but if you think it rationally, due to cost, due to durability, due to their capability of leaving a minimal waste, which is eco-friendly, as they are often wrapped in a paper casing, why would you go for the smelly, big plastic waste, toxic solution?

If we are willing to push aside our unfounded ideas about crayons, step away from the phony snob attitute towards this humble, colored wax bar, could we think of offices more cost efficient, more eco-friendly, producing less waste. Could we think of solutions for our students, so that they can spend their money on something else other than highlighters. I'll give you a rought number to converto to whatever prices you have wherever you are. In 5 years (a regular University career), divided in 2 semesters, an average student could use from 80 to 200 highlight markers, or 1 to 2 boxes of 6 crayons, of the cheapest kind.

So, crayons or markers?

Last Week of Work

Monday, faithful Monday. This is the last Monday of 2010 that I'll work. Four days from now I'll be in my well deserved vacations, pulling my tight packed luggage to the counter of the airport, tickets in hand and thinking about the whiskies I will want to drink. That's a thing about me: whisky is teh drink I loooove to drink in airports. Not like beer tastes any worse in there, but whisky is like part of my tradition. It just never tastes better.

In four days I hope I'll have all my tasks done, all my boxes in my lists checked, everything packed, everything double checked, the clothes planned, the physical and mental disposition in order for the trip and all. Yep, mental and physical disposition. The physical disposition meaning my hability to sleep folded in three on the plane, lulled by the brrrrrrrrrr-POCK-POCK-POCK-brrrrrrr of the plane accompanied with the rocking of the turbulences. Really, now even KLM pilots seem to have this catch-the-turbulence game going on. Like they are gonna brag about it. "Duuuude! All drinks were shaken!" "Duuuuude,oxygen masks fell and everything!" "I've lost 1000 feet altitude! People were shrieking!". So juvenile.

Anyway, that's in four days, and rest assured I'll be reporting posting about it blow by blow, minute by minute, in every single airport where WiFi is available. Damned, hope Panama already fixed their inconvenience, in that sense! But, that will be then, Today I'm still on the job, still on Monday, still not on vacances. Yep. The day, however is rather calm and festive. I baked some gingerbread cookies yesterday (to test the cookie cutters) and brought some to the office. They didn't last 30 minutes, which left me with the distinct feeling that the form isn't all that important, people care for the dough. Damned, people always care for the dough. My sister-in-.law commented to me how much they loved my Halloween cookies and how the cookie cutters I used for those were so much prettier than these. Dude, I used a glass and cut every single Jack face by hand! We laughed on realization. I think that settled it for me: I'll have Halloween cookies for Christmas.

I received my first Christmas gift, from my friend Skylar, with whom we sat for a while gossiping about this and that. Also had a Facebook session with my friend Alix, with whom we discussed several utterly important matters that are nobody's business but ours. Then two of my friends in here, Smurf and MC called me over to have lunch at a restaurant nearby. Well, who am I to oppose, right? Grabbed my stuff and went with them, only to realize upon arrival, that this was a full-on Twitter-Lunch. Well, good they told me on advance. :-D The day has been chilling all day long, with clouds here and there, and winds that could and will blow you out of your socks if you don't watch it. Even the water arrangements before some buildings, like the CGR rippled and the waterjets were taken to their absolute minumum. Armed with our phones, Smurf and I went on taking pictures of the water and the effects. No selfrespecting twitter would pass on the chance to take a picture of a random thing and tweet it, so we did. The bragging rights, however, went to me, thanks to the fucking awesome resolution of my phone. Sony Ericsson. Gara love it, right?

Lunch was so freaking awesome I felt like a million bucks wrapped in a free bailout, wrapped in It's Good To Be Me. A bit of sun, festive environment, friends, food, good chatting, loads of free laughs... it was freaking paradise!! Hell, is fucking good to be in Costa Rica. I was in the middle of my working day, on a Monday nonetheless, in at lunch, and I felt like in vacations. Time was endless, friendship was eternal. Just check out this picture and tell me if it doesn't look like we are having one hell of a time together! And you should have seen the hamburgers we've got! They were so indecent, so shameless, so sultry, there must be a law against them somewhere. Mine was raw though, so raw it almost bit me down, but when have I been squimish about raw meat?

Back to the office, check on my JCPenny coat - which is out of customs and coming into me arms soon! Hope the tax for it isn't too high for my purse, though - tweet, blog, take pictures of a rainbow glowing over the city like a HUGE advertisement and that's it, I'm off to go home -  not without stopping by a particular store to order embroidered towels for my Mom, Dad and Grandpa. Christmas presents. I bet nobody has thought about them!

Today is Monday and it's a freaking-perfect day.

Tracking: The New Game in Town

Several series around in tv got in these days to their midseason break. A lot of sports finish a circuit in their seasons too, and red before the Playoffs. People plan their winter vacations, their holidays, and all sorts of new things come into view. Maniac Christmas decorating, heated declarations in favor or against it, a rush for buying gifts and planning huge dinners that will yield nothing but heartache and sorrow when someone doesn't show or they eat too much and their dieting efforts are tossed once again into the trash can.

For those of us who have gotten quite addicted to the online purchases, this is also the season when our Internet usage paramethers change. We don't spend so much time on the Twitter, or the Facebook, on google, youtube, sites of books on line and all kinds of magazines, but we are phisically and virtually glued to tracking sites. UPS, USPS, FedEx, DHL, you name it, and for some of us, constantly checking the site of the Smart Address company, minute by minute tracking our Black Friday purchases. In these days, for those of us who have to pick up our purchases at a counter, lines in the cold, easily going over one hour are expected. Worn out, tired clerks whose manners fray rapidly surround us, along with all the other customers from the horde. Here and there a newbie tries to strike a friendship with one elder customer, a seasoned online-buyer, and ask the most innocent questions, like "which sites are safe for buying?". Dude, do you remember those days? When the biggest worry was to have your card stolen?

You count your days, youwait for that specific checkpoint after which it will be in your hands in 24 hrs, only in this season, packages multiply and burst through the roof. There's no waiting room, and behind the counter you can no longer see the logo of the company. Everything is brown boxes and tons of friendly Amazon.com smiles.

Two of my three packages have arrived, with my beloved Colts' scarf landing in my hands yesterday after a 90 minute waiting in the cold, outside the counter in a tent that the wind was boxing into. My JCPenny coat is still in Miami. Hell, what's this doing still in Miami? Get it here right now!

Packs of customers reach out through every single available channel of communication, collapsing the entire system, with calls and messages sticking out like arms reaching from between the bars. Twitters load the different companies with questions and requests. The usual messages change. Now people hardly care about who's who and what's what, and the "I hate Los Intrusos" and "I love The Jonas Brothers" change for tracking numbers and "where's my order?".

For a courier company, it's a big season, for a courier employee it's hell, and for the customer a veritable nightmare we continue falling into over and over.

From our orders three packages are still on  their way here. Located, thanks Hyne, tracked, and we know where they are, but still, they are still to get to the counter. And so the tracking game is still on.

Day 2 Tripping on the "Next Button"

This could be considered one of those cases where something has clearly proven to be bad for you, yet you keep doing it. On a separate page, I let the search of the "Next Blog" yesterday at something trhat might be considered by my standards as readable. I say might, because the blog really looks awesome, but I don't know if it's due to the "Stay-home-Mom-blog" effect on me, which might have distorted my view and perhaps makes me see these things as better when they are not.

Thanks to Mozilla's attentions, this page remained with me today, thus given the loose conditions that reign upon us today, I spent some time clicking it to see what would appear now. It certainly never fails to amaze me how these so different blogs are supposed to be "the next one". Next in what sort of order or line? Who put them there and on which account are they the next? shall I be offended that I was placed next to the "Stay-at-home-Moms"? I'm certainly not in the same cathegory, Childfree, Freedom-fighter, opinionated, meat-eater me. Well, in this odd order of the cyberverse, after babies, embroidery and quilting came the artsy section, with blog after blog dedicated to pictures, photos, eisels and so on. It's nice, but it's not my crew. I'm a words-person, not only for writing them, but also for reading them, which is why I can't possible find a blog posting pictures only so amusing.

It's different than a museum, though admitedly, my behavior at the museums isn't either the most traditional. However blogs, picture-blogs are not like museums. Post after post with maybe a title and a picture. The thought "a picture worths 1000 words" came to my mind in sarcasm, and I couldn't stop myself from thinking how I would rather read those 1000 words than watch that monotonous sequence of "urban jungle" pictures.

One after the other, ropes of blogs with pictures and no words, monochromatic in their effort to be artistic, to present something mundane yet impressive, as if a particular grafitti, or a slum would yield them a prize for discovering the whatever on the whatever.

If that weren't enough, soon after them trailed the videobloggers. Really, what's with people? Why so adamant about the written word?

Yes, I'm Prose. I'm word without music, of long lines without danceable rhythm. I'm Prose, and thus perhaps I have no talent, no soul, no empathy towards other ways of expression, and perhaps this is why I don't get it, but as I click through the blogs, videos on top of videos scroll down and I wonder, what could these people have to say?

Ah, some prose. Tight line in tight columns, measuring up to elementary school notebooks, where people write so little and yet might look like a freaking lot. It becomes ironic how the diseconomy, the debauchered consuming people practices, the need to express in clothes, cars, jewelry and iPhones pulls out the strenght of communication from one of the most direct and elemental, primal ways of communication humanity has conquered.

I'm still clicking away, looking for those exceptional, juicy, delicious bloggers that ought to bet there, lurking in the shadows, sharing with the darkness of the cyberverse their snappy view of life.

Among the clicks I've found this lass from an Asian country, I believe, who mixes her personal life on her blog in masterful chunks. It's one of those "impossible not to love" type of personalities. In one of her posts she mentions she actually has only one pair of black pumps. Damned, I'm not much of a shoe-freak, or maybe I should say I'm not (though I'm a certified boot and red-shoe lover), but I have ... not a few black shoes. As a matter of fact, this Saturday I bought yet another pair, making a grand total of three standard issue, workplace proper black pumps (of a total of over 10 pairs of black shoes... not counting two pairs of black boots and one pair of black rubber boots). This kept me wondering about what other colors of pumps she may have.

The cyberverse is wide and diverse, but how much opportunity shall we give to a devious button like "Next Blog", that rag us through the seswers of hell, all to find those scarce pearls of Human Thinking? I guess this is not the end of my "Quest Into The Wild Next Blog Button", so I'll probably keep you posted, whether you like it or not.

Kill The "Next Blog" Button!

Two posts in one day? Yeah, miracles happen, so deal with them.

So it happens that the other day a friend of mine (following my Hungarian blog, not like you would notice, since I run a sort of "Witness Protection Program", for reasons that should remain equally protected) wrote in her blog (by the way, too bad you can't read Hungarian, nor I reveal the identity of my friend, because her blog is truly something) about the "next button" and the strange things you find in there. Once, in the begining of my bloogger-days I hit the button and soon felt I have lost track of the cyberverse and was trapped in an Alice-like maze where only the strangest, freakiest, wicked cyberfingers tapped the most strange things in the planet. It led me t a bunch of blogs in strange - Slavic-looking languages, with pictures of old folks in flower printed kerchiefs tied to the head or straw hats, leather pants and carts pulled by an ox. Yeah, full on "Welcome to the Balkans, this is Viktor Krum's secret life" kind that prompts from any soul the type of "I'll turn around and run away screaming and waving my hands over my head" reaction. I didn't try the "forbidden button" again (specially because the back button didn't take you back, it took you to yet another dimension of weird).

My Protected Identity Friend made the same life-branding mistake, and was lead down the "beading" world, where all sorts of bored, stay-home-moms posted about doing crap with beads. My friend bitched about it, with much right. It shall have scarred her for life. At that moment I shared with her my experience with "The Button" and we both laughed.

Well, today, possessed by Castiel-knows what wicked demon, I decided to see what will the Wicked Button yield to me. It was a nightmare. It was all Moms. Crocheting moms, quiting moms, knitting moms and moms who posted up from the picture of their offsprings. I saw pictures of families posing like "Eight's Enough"! Smiley Brady Bunches! It was a nightmare. My poor, pure, innocent Childfree eyes were scarred. I think I'll have to watch Rosemary's Baby and Friday 13th a freaking lot of times - maybe throw in the whole Chucky saga - to heal the damage dealt on me.

Like back in the day, when attacked by the Balkan onslaught, I'd love to elevate a plea to Blogger and ask it to please, please line up only similar blogs.

In any case, the experience worths mentioning also because it yielded also an interesting insight about the cyberverse. In Twitter many think that a "full cybernaut" has a twitter account and has a blog - the blog being the badge that acredits said cybernaut with the skills of opinion and expression, but after casting a glance at this horrid spaces, I believe the standards should be readjusted. You don't need a blog to have an opinion and be able to express yourself, and it seems that you don't need an opinion or expression skills to have a blog.

Sad. so sad.  where are the oversharing lesbian blogs or the coworker haters, the seasoned single blogs, the "fuck you" blogs, the opinion blogs. Where are the veins of new philosophy? Or are moms talking about how to knit mittens, or showing off their latest quilting project, or talking about how good it felt to potty-train their sixth child all there is? Are we, the opinionated the minority?

My Town

Here I don't live in the capital city. Wouldn't say I'm a Burb, but I don't live in the capital. Many of my acquintances do, and often their view of the place I live in is interesting, mostly colored with ideas of distances too long to travel, deserted roads, big buses and highways. I live in a peripherial town, that's still part of the Metropolitan area, but that houses no mayor Government powers. I'm not from the country, as my town isn't part of it, but it does have a flare, a something, like all the other 6 "Head of Province" cities, that makes us be more aware of our place of belonging.

For a country so little, you would be amazed at how different and particular each province can be. My town crowns the 4th province - out of 7 - and is known to be a conservative, peaceful place, whose daughters are the most beautiful women of the whole country, bursting with beautiful flowers and packed to the brin with pubs. Many may not have this much insight of this town, but will only know it as the City of the Flowers, where women are legendary beautiful. Well, we are. :-D

However, there's more to this town. Though criminality has spiked up quite badly in the last 5-10 years, the habitants still clutch to the traditions and habits of other times. There's no feeling of being among strangers, where men, even the younger ones, let women first on the bus or into stores, out of them, out of instinct. Black, short wavy heart, much in the style of traditional Pedro Fernández, with dress pants and pressed shirt. Like a colonial Latin city trapped in the glory of silverscreen epics.

There's a kind of old, traditional life, with the old crafters, the shoemakers, the coffee plantation owners and workers, the small farmers, taylors, artists, teachers, professors and so on. The galant, sober old men, the old ladies that leave the door of the house open and sit on their rocking chairs watching the TV, but more interested about who walks by on the street. The house of one of the finest president's this country ever had, son of this town (unlike another son that meant the biggest disgrace the country and the town ever suffered), the elderly, retired group of men who gather every afternoon at the main square, before the Parrish, to talk about politics, philosophy, the world, the weather, life. The town's band playing every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening.

More than a sense of safety, it leakes into the open soul a sense of pride and belonging I can't explain otherwise. It's your very tight, very own culture that nobody else with your same nationality, but from any other provice can't get. We are not as conservative and catholic as the Cartago residents are famous for, not was gay (not in the homosexual sense), cheerful, humble and resourceful as the residents of Alajuela. We are not as flavorful as the residents of Limón, nor as quite and hardworking as the residents of Guanacaste, or as party animals and laidback as the Puntarenas residents. We are calm, happy and drunk. We have our very own traditions, our little historic places, places that are not thought in schooltexts, but told from generation to generation, passing on one of the many versions of the same story.

Sipping on a coffee with my Capital City friends, watching them frown at my town and the distance one must make to get there, or simply talking about life, I find myself searching their faces, trying to find those things present in the faces of everybody else, that talk about these very provincial things. What do they have, these Capital City Kids, that would be only theirs? Can't seem to find it.

I turn to my town, my elders, all our friendly faces, our tendency to give every single direction by mentioning pubs, our pride for our ladies, our old fashioned courtesy, our saluting on the streets, our pensive artists, deep thinkers, and our knowledge of the old buildings, and try, for a moment I try to imagine life without these collective memory treasures. Live outside my cozy town seems so deserted.