Penpaling Issues

It's something, definitively something when you haven't written/posted/podcasted in a while and out of the blue you do it (whatever is that you do) and suddenly you double or triple or simply multiply your share. Has it happened to you? You know the drill, don't you? Whatever your number of penpals, there's always that one or that tight little handful of them you love to bits and pieces - and don't get me wrong, you love them all, which is why you keep writing to them - but there's always that selected little circle that click with you right. Then it happens that you are out of the mood and the letters pile up in your desk, in your box, in your basket, in your kitchen counter or wherever you store them before answering them. It isn't something you can control. It happens that you are up to your eyeballs in work, either from the office, or college or both, domestic issues also pile up in all colors and shapes, from the freaking washing machine you've to replace and you still have to pay the Internet bill and the phone bill, which reached to heavens, and lets not talk about the credit card, the gas and all upcoming taxes and insurance payments on the car.

It also happens - because it does - that you are out of it. It may feel a lot like being burned out. A spoonful of depression or depression-like feeling, two cups of tireness, a spoonful of general annoyance, a hint of procrastination or tendency to procrastination or even two pinches or newly found procrastination. Blend it all together and you'll get the perfect out-of-it cocktail. No energy to read, no energy to write, the haunting feeling of "chore" when it is a hobby and you love it! and above all, a blank mind. Even if you read it and the letter is awesome - because all letters are awesome, or at least all my penpals are professional letterwriters who write only but awesome letters - you can't get yourself to reply. Serve it cold.

Have you felt that? And if you force yourself to reply, the letter feels off. Struggle as you might, as you want, you can't shake it off. But then, suddenly, out of the blue, you get a hang of it, you are back, your mojo is back, you've got your faery coat back and you are flying! Writing and replying isn't enough and you BURN in desire to write yet another letter on top of the letter you just closed, maybe write it again, maybe start a new one as you post the last one, specially when it's about that handful of clicking-penpals.

How can this be? Beats me, I've no idea. However, as a penpal on and off for the last ... lots of years, there's a couple of things I can tell you:

1. When the mood is off, sit it off. For this purpose, keep only those penpals that understand, and you two be understanding.

2. Perhaps consider issuing a short e-mail or a post-card to your "on the waiting" penpals - if that's a custom you've taken -  and simply tell them that you are in the process of, but currently off it. Post cards are great for this purpose because they are usually nice, collectible and the space given is small, so your message, however short, will always look plenty.

3. Don't stress yourself about the off mood. It happens to the best of us.

4. Relax, go to the movies, and keep a small notepad with yourself. Why? Because as you relax, if you are a hardcore, letter-loving penpal, when you are enjoying yourself, you'll think about that penpal of yours who would surely love to know about this and that. You quickly write it down, record it, and when the drive is back, you've a few extra ideas lined up to fill lines in your correspondence.

So, the next time the out-of-it strikes, reply to it with a soothing spa!

The Time that Passes The Things I've Done and the Book I'm Reading

After a freaking long time since my last post (oh yes, I had to mention that!), and some of the feedback I've got on the subject (the annoying people), I finally sit down again to write and mumble and share my musing. As a matter of fact, today I FINALLY went to Dragonfly's cubbie to pivk up a lovely-lovely souvenir pouch she brought me from her trip to Puerto Rico. Well, I'm head-over-heels for it! Post-its, pen (with black ink!) and a green little sum-sum... it's plain PUUUUUUURFECT! We also took the chance to recap on several things, talk about a certain immature, Bitter-B who rants like a child and can't get through her thick skull that certain things she does to "keep her turf" only make her look stupid and causes more damage than... well, causes no benefit, but it sure causes damage. Truly, the sheer number of stupid people.... and the stupidities they come up with! If I've got a dollar ... if I've got a penny for each time I had to witness or endure stupidity, I could buy a country and get back enough change to annex a few minor islands too.

Also learned that she moved from her old cubbie to a new one, but not for long as they are moving - again - to yet another district. I'm sad because that means that Dragonfly will be once again far away, BUT now I've a car, and hopefully will be taking it to work soon, so I could meet up with her more frequently. On the other hand, her whole division moving out to another building, kinda puts in evidence (for those willing to see) the huge mistake the acquiring of the current building was. Then again, you gara take some of the 1300 people you crammed into a 600 people building before teh structure collapses, right?

While talking to her, I mentioned that she hasn't blogged in quite a while. Says me, who also stopped blogging for some weeks. This is how I decided that it was time to shut my pie hole and do something about it. Thus I blog.

In the past days I finished the book on philosophy I was reading, but haven't got around to write to my father-in-law about it, which I would really like to do. As a matter of fact, I've been lagging terribly with my letters, piling up my adorable penpals in a waiting line suitable for a Public Service Office, while I juggle with either a down mood - have had a few of those - or the gigamontic amount of work that suddenly lands on my hands at the office, and even lately the craptacular amount of work related to the thesis my mate and I have to tackle thanks to the latest observations of our second lector. That, ladies and gentlemen, is one fucking big animal to tackle. After checking them over (some 107 observations, from which 37 are "major" and 2 are "cardinal") my mate and I sat in a sweat-boot in a local BK looking at each other and asking "do you think he read this part?" and "fuck, what the hell do you think he means?". There were also a few observations that were down right outrageous, which I won't even repeat, but were of the kind that dumbstrike you and after being launched and landed you stay paralized, eyes wide open and thinking "Totto, I've the feeling we're not in Kansas anymore".

It has been raining like it's the end of the world, which brings me to that latest "end of the world" crap. Dude, aren't all those uneducated "sheppards" tired of pulling out the same old stupid stunt? Since I remember we have been having "end of the world"s at leasts every 5 years, but right now the rate of them has boomed! Every month we have a new end of the year, and people are actually waiting for 2012, just like they did for 2000 for "the end of the world" only to wake up the next day with a huge MORON sign on their foreheads. But do you know how the end of the world will look like? Well, with climate change, widening of socio-economical gaps, and the spread of different illnesses as well as all sorts of wars, population will start to diminish. The planet will heat up, resources will disappear GRADUALLY, less and less people will be born, less even live until all life dies. Millions of years later this planet, turned into a dry rock, like the heart of those motherfucking preechers, will hit something and explode. The End. So rapture? Look me in the eye and tell me who the FUCK is worthy of being raptured?

However, our current end of the worldy rains and storms have been cutting the power more often than not, forcing me to light up all the candles I can put my hands on, just to read.Yes, those on the picture are 8 - count them, 8 - candles lit, but those are not all. There were 4-5 more lit in my room, just to have enough light... for reading. So, work on the thesis? Not so easy, sure I would if I could light up my laptop with a candle, or power it on gas, but no. Battery does work, but I wouldn't trust myself to watch the 2 hour time window it gives me, and losing my work because the battery died on me is not acceptable. However it has been done. We are back at doing legwork, tapping some sources, hitting the library for more backbone and trying to better fit our baby.

So there was that, but for everybody's ease of mind, my mate and I are working really hard on the matter, even if at times it's disheartening, but we are not giving up! We're so, so close to our goal and we're gonna make it!

So, yes, there's that.

The new book I'm reading is "Women in Love" by D.H. Lawrence. Yes, you know me. No self respecting fan of Anaïs Nin would leave without reading the books of her favorites, of the ones she has inspired and have inspired her as well. Thus Henry Miller and D.H. Lawrence. (I have the distinct feeling of having written about this...) Miller is, awesome, though for Nin lovers I strongly recommend to read his books - as far as possible - timed up with her journals. This gives far more meaning to the text, explains it better, and allows you to find the vein of the writing more easily. Just like "House of Incest", of Nin, the poem in the light of the journal becomes an "aha!" experience. With Lawrence, on the other hand, her unprofessional study, as she named it, gives you her very personal vision, quite submerged in her own self. The study is rather a "Ninization" of Lawrence, than a study of it. Rich and wonderful, where you keep finding her need and attraction towards servitude and punishing humbling - marks probably bore after her childhood and her relationship with her father.

This particular edition has the crapiest introduction ever, so if you pick up this copy of the book, don't read the introduction first, read it after if you'd like, and prepare to be confronted with a man who lashes bitterness and will tell you just how bad the book is and how crappy the writer is. But is Lawrence that way? I'm still quite in the begining of the book, few chapters into the story, and what I can tell you is that he seems ambiguous, keeps you on your toes and showers you with flawed characters. Not flawed in their construction, though it's early for me to judge their building, but rather humanized characters, all of them with visible flaws. Love is vanished off the scene, hatred is the primadonna of the show with strange, heated discussions, shock and losing of patience, which are all fun to witness.

Pornographic? He has been labeled so. Maybe when he published the book, his constant drawing attention to genders in biology, the stopping to describe male and female flowers being drawned by children, was indeed considered pornographic, but today that's Discovery Channel, and nobody would think that Discovery Channel and Playboy Channel are one and the same thing.

The book has yet another interesting feature: the mean characters are actually treated like secondary characters, devoting tremendous amounts of attention to just about any other thing around them, but them. Well, we shall see what comes up from that too.

On Those Annoying People

Yes, this is again one of those "dude, why don't you drop dead" kind of posts, and it's about a particular person I won't be naming, but whom for the description will be plain evident for some of you. Then, if you don't know me in real life and live or work in here, you wouldn't even care about who this obnoxious fellow is, but perhaps you have encountered the same type of maggot, though I really hope you don't, because this kind of leech is annoying! So, I'll send my best wishes out there into the universe hoping that you, dear stranger, have never experienced what I'm about to describe, but please, feel free to share this horrendous story with your peers whenever you feel it suitable (like when someone is describing how aweful someone else is, how obnoxious, and you would like to see it's obnoxious and raise it a bit).

Here we'll call this individual Mr. Cheapass. Mr. Cheapass is a particular individual, who works a job a lot of people would be grateful to work. He has a very good income - and when I say very good, I mean he makes around $3000 a month, which in here, where the $1000 is the accepted lower level of "high wages", is a fucking lot of money. He also has an excellent boss - one of the finest if not the finest of the whole company - a nice group of coworkers, among whom he can count himself as part of the higher-paid ones. His job is no brain surgery, no dividing the atom, but something suiting and rather easy for his career - he's an accountant. His working hours are rather good and has the chance now to start early and leave early. However Mr. Cheapass isn't pleased.

Mr. Cheapass doesn't like working there, and is often heard saying that he's working there only because of the payment. He would really rather do business on his own, and he does - he asures. He hates sitting in the office, he claimes to have been born to drive the roads and be always in motion. That's what he likes to do. Allegedly he works selling cars "and other business", but when I was looking for a car for myself - in the days before my beloved and adorable Sookie - and I asked him what could he offer me, he checked on the same site I was checking and tried to sell me cars from there with overprice.

Cars are his passion - or so he says - so you'd expect him to have a car, and he does. He actually has two cars: his wife's and his own. Only his own has been broken since forever, thus he always carpools or ask for rides from other coworkers who live in the area and have the same schedule. He's already leeching on a coworker everyday. Got pissed though, as she got telenetworking one day a week, so that day he has to get a replacement, or use public transportation. The coworkers has to go for her child after work, and he doesn't mind imposing/going with her for the child as long as she takes him home.

So far you are thinking: if he has such a wage, and does business on the side, why can't he repair his car? He might suspect, but the coworker driving him home everyday badmouths him into the next millenium, saying that he will never fix his car because he's a cheap ass, who won't pay a dime if he can make someone else pay it for him. He does dress poorly, if you ask me, but then there's people who like to buy supercheap clothes, and wouldn't feel comfortable with something that may have cost an eye and a hand. This woman has also shared that he doesn't pay her regularly, something he denies. It's a twisted, wicked relationship and I'm not going there, thank you. The woman has her own sets of weirdnesses, and that would make another post.

So, Mr. Cheapass is freeriding, and does it compulsively. Well, there's people like that. Then, in this same line, it is said that he always looks forward to get his lunch partners - other coworkers - to share a part of their lunch with him. Kinda odd, huh? I mean, when I've no money - and it happens often when I get myself into a strict regime of no spending, but focusing on saving or paying debts and so on, like now - I carry food from home. It takes a little bit more of time everyday, unless mom has made something yummy, and I just spoon from that, but yes, if you have no money for lunch, you carry your own lunch. He carries here and there some stuff - like lunch stuff - in a lunchbox, but then again, maybe it's not enough, or sometimes its just a can of tuna and some crackers (so have been said). Could it be that he's ashamed of the food his wife cooks? Well, then he could eat alone, and nobody would judge his food. 

I generally eat alone, but mainly because I prefer to read than to talk to my coworkers, with whom I talk all day long. Of course I would not prefer to read if I had the chance to talk to my dear friend Dragonfly ^_^ or my dear Skylar, but that's not the point here. I also am known for my non-conventional food. Either it's too little compared with the disgusting proportions other people consume (some people eat like they were Shaggy), but then again, I eat as much as I want. There's also the fact that I don't like traditional food, so usually I bring stuff other than rice and beans, and people seems to always have an unholy fascination for what I eat. So I go when nobody goes and sit where non of my coworkers and other acquintances sit. Guess if his problem is that he's ashamed of his food, he could do that. If not, if he's too lazy to prepare something for himself, he should get over that. If the problem is that there's no food in the house, dude, where is he spending those $3000?

That's not the matter. If you pay close attention to Mr. Cheapass, the thing with him is that he doesn't feel good unless he can feel he's squeezing something from someone, unless he manages to get favours from others. His envy - and he envies so much people and so much things it must be exhausting - is always wrapped with disdain. There's another coworker, very well paid, an old maiden, who takes pleasure in being grand with the people around her and paying them all kinds of stuff. This old maiden spends lots of time traveling around the world, and she can do so for she has lots and lots of accumulated vacation days. Three weeks in Europe, six weeks in Argentina, a week in Peru, two weeks in Chile... she's always packing and on the go. If someone has a birthday, she buys her the cake and more often than not also prepares a small gift.

Mr. Cheapass despairs her, often letting go a negative remark about the way she spends her money and how that's because she never married and lives still with her parents (she's the youngest of all her siblings, and as all her siblings left the house when they grew up, she decided to stay and take care of their folks). Remarks like "you can see she has nothing better to spend her money on" are often heard from him, which is upsetting. Dude, it's her money! And at least she's not making a lot and still acting like living on a shoestring like others we know! His driver is also a source for his venting about money. How much she spends of doctors and medicines for her child, and hoy much money her husband makes - husband whom she doesn't love, but evidently married for the money - and so on. Things got more fucked up since she's going for some two weeks or so to Spain for a training, and her husband decided to go with her, so she, her child and her husband are leaving for Spain for two weeks.

The poisonous remarks about her husband dripped right away, once away from her. Well, yeah, he makes a lot of money, she's so lucky, you can see they have nothing else to spend it on, hope it keeps coming, because now it's the time to save, and blah, blah, blah.

First of all, yes, she has said it more often than not, that she married her husband for the economical benefits on the short and long run. She usually speaks with contempt about her husband and consider him inferior to her in many ways, but that's her. So what? Everybody makes their own decisions and marry or not or get together for whatever reason they choose and consider good enough for that, and live with the consequences of it. I'm not the one living with a man I don't love, to whom making love is a chore I rather reserve only for the occasions when I have a favor to ask, nor is he. That's her marriage and her decision.

Then it was made clear that I'm yet another milestone in his road to envy. He has issues with me having a car, but not taking it everyday to the office. Dude, it's my fucking car, and if I decide to use it only on weekends to drive around the house that's my fucking business. He wants to know how much the car costed, and has issues with it being paid by my dad. (I'm cutting down loans, so I'm not investing in a car even if I have the money to do so, comprende?) Has issues with me traveling every freaking year to Hungary, and has commented more often than not, that that's because I don't have any responsabilities and family obligations. Had issues with Kari and I going to Panama on Easter, and lets not go into us going later on to the Caribbean Sea!

Has issues with Kari traveling often here, with the job Kari has, because that's the job he wants and he's sure it's a difficult job and Kari has not much money. When I told him he's doing fine, and has enough money to back up all his whims and all these trips, then he had issues with that too.

This is how lately he has asked me around five times in less than a month when am I going to Hungary this year. Five times I've told him, that not this year, this year Kari comes to celebrate a tropical Chrismas, but he keeps asking, and keeps falling into the topics he has issues with. And what does Kari does, and how much money Kari makes, and how expensive life is in Hungary, and "you don't like it in here, right?" and asking for the n-th time when am I going to move permanently to Hungary.

Last time, when he started with the "when are you going to Hungary now by the end of the year?" (a self-answering question, if you notice), I told him "dude, you've asked me that five times already". He seemed off track - caught evidently in the effort of trying to do small talk to feed his envy and contempt - and then "oh yes" and answered himself, with that "well, you are not as rich as you look, you don't have as much money as you look like and you are a bad spender, unlike me, who have an keen eye for business" tone. I felt tempted to tell him that I won't answer his questions if he's evidently not paying attention to them, but honestly that would be caring to much for his cheap ass, so I simply hooked on my earphones and filled my head with Elva.

I've never claimed to be rich, nor I've claimed to be a financial guru. I live my life and take responsability for my actions, just like any normal adult should and would.

He's an annoying, sad creature, actually quite fucked up by his family and the decisions he has made. Nothing else can explain his need to find ways to diminish those he sees as superior to him. Which is worse, it's probably pissing him to know that I actually make less money than he does, and yet I have the resources to sustain my lifestyle, and excuses such as my childfree status, my living arrangements, my "wealthy boyfriend" simply don't cover it. I don't have a business on the side, and I can make my own arrangements. If he can't... well, that's because he spends more time envying others and trying to make them look bad, than living his own life.

Georeference

Today Blogger died on me. Hopefully it will be resucitated soon, because this is not acceptable - specially when I finally have a topic to write about, so Google-people, google up and get it googling! This must be some freaking curse of mine: I write off and on, but after times of dryness and nothing really to write about, when the bulb finally lights up, the blogger shuts off. So, since I'm writing, because I'm writing, I'm writing from my e-mail account, which explains the lack of pictures and the "ragged edged" text.

The topic I meant to develop today - Georeference - isn't about the technical or commercial sense of georeference, but something entirely different, and georeference was the best word I could find for it. The thought came from the Internet and the people I follow through blogs and podcasts, and how suddenly the blogger or the podcaster they realize they have an audience in places far away from where they are.

Through the Internet reaching the whole planet with a click has become a common place, however, though you can pick and click at anything, and pages from a multitude of countries far away pop up, eventually a picture of your favorite movie embroided around with letters from a language you can't even start decyphering, so yes, there are countries out there far away from where you are, and sometimes they also pop up in the news or something, and there are products you buy from there, or you want from there and so on. However - though you realize there's people there - you don't really think that there will be people in there, or people who would equally find you on the Internet.

Maybe not so much on blogs - or the blogs I read - but on the podcasts I listen to often the podcasters mention that they've discovered they have a listener from some country far, far, far away, and you can hear the excitement in their voices at discovering that their throughts were not confined to their rooms and computers, but that have gone around the planet. When you plop down in here, and start seeking blogs to read, podcasts to listen, videoblogs to watch and so on, sometimes you get surprised when you find the thoughts of someone from a distant part of the planet  - distant for you - and often how they relate to other places. As you know, and if you don't, well, now you do, I'm currently in Costa Rica - which is in Central America, North of Panama, and I hope you do know where Panama is - so that's my reference point. However I travel rather regularly to Hungary, which I could say gives me a double georeference. Sometimes still, when I read the blogs of people from Europe, and they mention that "oh, they are going to take a short vacation, a weekend thing and go to Venice", startles me. Dude, I need 20 hours at least just to get to Europe! So, escaping for a weekend in Venice it's not doable for me. And yet, though you know that this person, this blogger, this podcaster lives in Sweden or Germany or You-Name-It, when they describe going to this or that place, it still startles you.

One of my favored bloggers that gives me the most of these surprises is this lovely lady from Singapore, I believe, who has one of the most amazing, rich blogs I've read, Grousing in Progress. The first post I read from her, she was talking about this business trip she had to do to Vietnam, I believe, that it was some short, small trip or something of the sort, and I believe she mentioned she had just come from another trip from somewhere in the area. When I read that I didn't know previously that she was from Asia, so I was flabbergasted. Hell, there's people out there who consider Vietnam as some place around the corner! Of course, right then it downed tome that she was from Asia - duh. I kept reading her because it was fascinating to witness this, tough yes, also because she's quite fascinating ^_^. Then, as my favorite podcasters here and there mentioned they had listeners from this part of the planet, and that part of the planet, I wondered about the obscure readers of my blogs. Originally it was just the number of hits - I wanted to make sure this was still haven and only my reported readers where reading me (all your identities will remain protected, worry not) -  and so I sought out the statistics and found this map thingie, pointing out several countries from where I'm being red - allegedly, as we all know that IP addresses ain't as acurate as we'd love them to be.

It came to me then that maybe I must be also a freaking georeference thing for others (particularly for readers in Australia, Germany and United Kindgom). As for me is fascinating how Grouch talks about places in Asia, I imagine what would be like for other people to read when I write about crossing the ocean to go to Hungary, or when I debate about taking some short vacations and deciding whether to go ON PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION OR CAR!! to either the Pacific Ocean or the Caribbean Sea. and no, I don't need to fly or cross the Panama Channel, it's basically a left-or-right decision for me. Going to Panama or Guatemala, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Venezuela... these are not big deals - or not so big. Mexico, Miami, New York, Los Angeles... a bit far, a few hours on a plane, but perfecty doable. Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Peru, yep, all'em in here. Che Guevara roadtripped the whole thing with a bike, and thought it takes a lot of freaking time to go to Brasil or Argentina - not to mention the freaking lot of money, since we are all on the same piece of land, it doesn't seem like all that far. But Russia, Sweden, Norway, Greece, Egypt, or China, Korea, Japan... that's like Star Trek-far. You gara like go with the Enterprise or something.

Even in real life, not only on cyberlife, when my in laws mentioned going to vacation to Egypt, and totally talked about it like anyone gere would talk about going to Miami, I was gobsmacked. Dude, that's Egypt! Like fucking heat, dusty mummies and ancient curses! On return, when you offhandedly mention how EVERYBODY goes to Miami, how sick and tired you are about hearing people go on and on and on about Disneyland, Epcot center and Universal Studios, they bulge out their eyes like "really? everybody goes there?" My friends here go to Mexico, New York, Canada, and for them me going to Bulgaria was like I was going to the end of the world, deep into the land of vampires and werewolves and stopped short from giving me a garlic necklace "just in case" (or send me off with a small pack of meat for the wolvies, in case I saw them ^_^).

In the end, no matter how aware we are about the rest of the planet, how we follow the crisis in the Middle East, pray for the miners in Chile and China, the earthquake victims in Japan and Spain, the tornado victims in Alabama, and so on, no matter who we follow on Twitter, who we like in Facebook, which news we subscribe to, when someone from any of these far away parts of the planet materialize before us, it always surprise us. Maybe, inspite of all our techonology, as real people, trapped in real life, there is a space that "centers" to us, that becomes our "georeference" whether we like it or not, and instead of being sucked into the cyberplain, we suck the cyber into our real life squarefeet, and locate all this places within our own location, unconsciously.

We are not as broad and evolved as we'd like to believe we are. No GPS, no Internet, no iPad can change simple facts, and the simple fact is that honestly, any average one of us, can't really grasp the enormity of the planet and the interesting connections among us, that our toys make.

« Every schilling you save puts a man out of Work for a Day. »
          - John Maynard Keynes

Random on Ends and Beginings

On Monday my boyfriend went back home, many freaking miles away from here, I finished the latest book I was reading and listened to the last episode of yet another podcast I've subscribed to. It also means it has been a time to start several other things. I started driving Sookie all alone - practicing still, but driving and doing it alone - and I parked her for the first time, in reverse. I started listening to another podcasts (found one insanely funny that keeps me laughing constantly!), reading another book, went to the movies to watch Thor on 3D - I have a problem with 3D. Since I use glasses already, putting on the 3D glasses becomes uncomfortable after a while. I so gara get to using contacts again - changed the way I do my bed, and changed my clothing a bit (well, rain season is coming, so yes, I replace pants for skirts to avoid standing in soaked pants if I get wet).

It's natural, it's the order of things, but we are fond of forgetting this simple rule: life works in circles and ends entail beginings. Yes, when you finish a book you pick a new one, when you finish a project, you start a new one, yet there are many people out there with this insane need to dwell, to mull over the finished things, cry after them, mourn them, wish them back and so on. The clothes you don't want to throw out because you want to back the skinny preteen body you used to have, the credit cards you don't want to get rid off, even if they are choking you, the lover/spouse/crush you can't leave or let go even if it is absolutely clear that they don't love you any more.

Ends are not the end, but the chance to start something new and exciting, so get on the train and live, enjoy, explore and try out while there's still life in your body.

Friday Lunch

I love pizza. I really do, so when a coworker of ours started circulating an e-mail to organize a communal lunch today at a local pizzeria, I was all for it. Now, "communal" in this case means "only the very exclusive Economical Team", not the whole department or division. Just "The Team", the "E-Team". (Okay, there was one accountant among us, and you could spot him in the dark, but the rest of us were all economists ^_^). When the place was selected I kinda winced, because I haven't had much of a pleasurable experience with that particular chain, BUT, I thought, maybe another restaurant from the same chain would be better.

The restaurant in question is "La Fabbrica Pizzeria", a rather posh looking place. I don't like it because the pizza is exceedingly thin and too toasted, so when you take it it crumbles between your fingers. I also recalled the non-existing customer attention, as they would take ages with everything, as if you had all the time in the world to wait for them to move their asses and get the job done. At the last minute the organizer ditched us, so for a moment we thought the communal feeding won't go through, but in the end we decided to go nevertheless. Economists have to eat, you know.

Well, this time we went and were attended at once, the waiter taking our orders quickly, and then bringing the drinks swiftly, and some 10-20 minutes later the pizzas. Since these are paper thin, we ordered three pizzas for the five of us. It already seemed unproper for me that with the drinks one of the drinks didn't come with a proper glass. When the guy who got the misshappened glass asked why that one wasn't like the others, the waiter said: we don't have anymore of those. Okay, a table of five, in a restaurant that can easily hold 40-60 people, and they can't supply five proper glasses? (In this case the type of glass is utterly important, and the variation affects the drink, but I am not in the liberty to disclose those details in question.)

Then the pizzas. To my delight they were all a tad thicker than I remembered, but then one of them had anchovies (long, stinky, brownish, eekich, guacalish), which none of us remembered asking for, or listed as included in the description. This was the Napolitan pizza. The Marinara pizza... well it was the flat bread slaundered with tomato sauce. I expected oregano and garlic, as it said but their taste was missing. The third one was a Quattro Fromaggi, which tasted good, but for the inflated price it had, I would have expected it to sing while being eaten. Aside from this, the edges were toasted so they crumbled when you tried to cut them, which was unavoidable as the slices weren't perfectly separated, so either you cut them or rolled up the whole pizza like a cigar and smoke it.

We spent a good time, joked and chatted merrily, though in a little time the restaurant was filled and the noise was so loud you could hardly hear your own thoughts. No, there wasn't live music playing, it was a batch of customers. The noise customer produced at eating and chatting, along with the noises of the open kitchen bordered deafening. Those of us who got phone calls could hardly even speak or understand, so we decided pleasure was waning off and the lunch break was becoming a nuisance, so we asked for the bill, which we decided to divide in equal parts as we all ate from all the pizzas. There were objections voiced from one of the members of the communal lunch as we decided by overwhelming majority to split the bill and pay with plastic (deb and cred), but the voice of the overwhelming majority was imposed. Honestly, why deal with one person paying the whole bill and all the rest then making transfers to that person, when the bill can be easily be split in five and dealt with right then and there? Not to mention it puts less strain on one card, as well as the awkwardness of chasing those who take their sweet time to pay for whatever reason (back site isn't up, still didn't get the account number, doesn't have an account on that bank, something came up and can't pay right now but will at least at the next payday...). But we are not here to judge hearts, IQs or motivations. I leave the wondering upon it on you, for you to draw all the conclusions you like - some of which I have already drawn myself.

The bill itself was rendered quickly, but after we gave our cards to the waiter, time started flowing, and flowing, and flowing, and the lady at the cash register simply vanished - some fat ass pregnant bitter bitch - and we all started to wonder what on the fucking hell can take so long. We waited more for the cards than we waited for the pizzas, which in my eyes is entirely unacceptable. What are they thinking?

They can pretend to be very posh, but this is third strike with me, and thus they are out.

Call to Stop & Relax

Perhaps if you've subscribed or you follow several blogs, podcasts, streaming vids, video blogs and so on - basically some sort of product put out there to the world by regular people, who express their views and opinions without being centrally edited by some Bureau or Corporation - you may have noticed how there are here and there moments when they - thought you love them and follow them gladly - become heavy. Here and there there might come up a comment - very personal - that might make you uncomfortable regardless of the fact that it might touch a matter concerning you, or simply because the way it was put, the tone, the general conversation where it came up made you feel it was a bit too loaded. You know this feeling when you are reading or listening or watching someone and you've get this feeling that tells you that this is going too much. Too much criticism, too much of the same type of attacks, too much on the same line of commenting about something, too much delving into their own little world of something, too much on this or that topic. As audience, you might feel a bit stupid putting up a complaint about the matter, as you can nearly see or here are you are replied "don't like it? don't follow it", and well, that's an option indeed.

Through my listening to podcasts - some of which have really made me think about starting my own - as well as through the feed of posts from the blogs I follow, time and again I have come across these heavy opinions, and thus I pull away from them, seek to go out somewhere under the big sky where the wind blows and lighten up my heart. I might be a bit simple minded for some, but I believe in energy, in people being moved and living through and by their bio-energy. This energy that runs inside us, around us, from us and towards us is variable, and slight modifications on it might affect the way we feel. 

For the skeptic, it's kinda like with any machine or equipment: if the energy that goes into it isn't right, the given equipment will work differently. Of course, nowadays you can get an adapter that makes sure the 110v using machine doesn't get toasted with the 220v, or vice-versa. However we - people - don't really have an adapter attached. Not that we really need it, as we ourselves can tune and clean and make the energy that flows around us proper. In a way it's a matter of what you let in, but also, about how you deal with what has come into you. Now, you'll gonna like what comes next. One of the best, most wonderful energy cleansers I have found is relaxing.

Relaxing, on the other hand, doesn't mean necesarily, to make plans and spend a small fortune on a big name hotel or a Caribbean Cruise, get into a fight with Human Resources and you boss to give you some days of vacations, and then be treated with all sorts of expensive spa stuff to "make you feel good". Relax means relax. Spend absolutely nothing. Let's start cleaning your energy from the negative vibes money problems put on it. Spend absolutely nothing. Grab a small piece of paper and fold an origami something or fold a plane and let it fly. Take a handful of clips and chain them together. Try folding a heart out of one, or unfold it unto a straight wire and then bend it into a spiral. Stand up and walk slowly for another fill of coffee. Don't take the elevator, take the stairs and take your time. Concentrate on long breaths with each step. Slow and easy. Pick a flower from the street (if it's allowed) and place it in that water bottle you were about to discard.

Repurpose, rethink, and let go, donate, discard all those things that no longer have a place in your life. Pay attention to all those things around you that don't demand a dime from you, which you can turn into something beautiful, things that can add value and smiles to your life.

This past weekend my boyfriend and I went to the Caribbean shore. For us here is rather simple, we only have to hop into Sookie (my car) and drive some 4-to-6 hours depending on how many turns we'll do and the average IQ levels ruling the driving on the road ^_^ and there we are. Does it has a cost? Yep, well it does. Cost on gas and on food, maybe even lodging, but it's a simple matter we can arrange right now. Down there we went on some of my favorite beaches - it was his first time, so before that moment he didn't have a chance to pick a favorite beach - and one of them has black sand. I filled up a plastic bottle we had handy with it, and now I'm thinking about the uses I can give to it. With perfectly good, beautiful black sand I can very well fill bottles and and make some lovely decorative things that will make me happy while making as well as while watching, but I was thinking that I could also build a small wooden box with some wood scraps we have at the house - and the help of my dad and boyfriend - and make my own, very unique Zen Garden. It's a chance I have here, but just as I can make something like that - and I wasn't even thinking about a Zen Garden! - the world around you is filled with lots and lots of opportunities to relax, disconect and let your energy get clean, full and flow good through you.

What can you do? Plant a small plant in the yoghurt cup you were about to throw away or the mug that got chipped or broken. Don't worry if the damage is big, glue it up, try punching a hole on the bottom of it with  and plant some seeds or a small plant (there are ways to do so, often suggesting drilling, but I imagine that if you go at it very carefully with a nail and a hammer, hitting gently and then grinding the nail on the spot as if you were trying to drill it in, it could work). Fill with the residuals of the hole puncher (all those little confetti-like round pieces of paper) the bottle of Starbucks coffee you were thinking about to throw away? Make a candle holder out of the baby food container, or make it into a little pot of coins, where you just drop your spare change.

You can make what I'd like to call "hope bottles" or "memory bottles". Take an empty bottle or jar - transparent if possible - of any shape or material that you like or you can put your hands on. Don't look down on plastic, as plastic - as a matter of fact - can be cut, bent and shaped any way you want, so it has it's own advantages in face of glass. Fill it - though not entirely! - with the pebbles and shells you brought from your latest trip to the sea, or the pebbles from the river, bits of bark fom the trees you collected at the woods. These bottles of memory hold in there those vacations for you, in a small way that also keep them from gathering dust or getting deteriorated. If you have no such "organic" material, nobody said you can't stick in the bottle your old museum tickets, or Disney tickets, the keychains you bought, some pictures if the bottle is more of a jar, napkins, the remaining tabs of those fabulous teas you tasted, a piece of lace, the earring that lost it's pair on that trip, you name it. I bet those neon bars that you have to break to make glow would look amazing in a jar full of other memorabilia, and nobody else would have another like that!

A hope bottle, is a bottle or a jar filled with things that lift your spirit. A bit of sand or dirt to keep you grounded, and a piece of paper with a Psalm or a quotation from the Qur'an, Torah or the Holy Scriptures of your religion if that works for you (it does for me), or simply the word Hope, Joy, Energy, Harmony, Peace, a quotation you like the best, or the drawing or representation of it. The sign of peace, the right of your religion, a picture you like, or a small, smooth pebble to represent endurance and strength, a feather to represent lightness of heart and spirit, always ready to fly on the wings of hope and dreams, a bow made of lace or yarn to remind you of fate and how things have plenty of time in life to be solved. If you have access to beans or rice, or any grain that hasn't been precooked or isn't canned, then how about you grab some small pebbles (those from the road are fine), well washed!, place them on the bottom of the bottle, put on it about an inch of dirt from the local garden, the park... just try not to loot from the office pot plants!, and then plant your grain? (The pebbles will drain the excess water, so that the roots of your plant don't rot.) 

I guess my Pagan friends will say I'm near to recommend you a "mojo bag", or in this case a "mojo bottle", but how about making a bottle of jar that contains all those things you like? I'd rather call it a "Hope/Spirit Bottle". Maybe a small piece of paper with that word, quotation, verse, poem, picture you like the most or represents that what you would like to achieve or invite into your life. Peace, hope, happiness... you name it. Add those little things that make you you, and the little things you like or you'd like. Coins for money, a small pencil - those maybe too small to write with - for studies, for creativity energy, for fluency to communicate, for letting your artistic mojo flow... to add color to your life, to make plans come up... whatever you feel, whatever the pencil may mean for you, if it talks to you, if it has place in your jar, put it in! Glitter if you like a bit of faery, fantasy, joy and fluffly to it. Place a small candle, maybe a votive candle, or a small piece left, perhaps tie a small ribbon around it, or soften in a little and stick some shells or glitter - if you are into it - sand, small pieces of orange peels, pistachio shells... anything you thing would look good on it, if you'd like to represent that hope with the candle, or light in your life with the candle, or the warmth of home, love, friends, with that candle. Feathers if that suits you, perhaps to represent freedom, or air to breath, dreams to follow, impuse to get going, an incetive, a reminder to aim higher. A wrapper of your favorite candy to keep a reminder of the sweet, good things of life.

The point of it, is not to follow a rulebook about what means what, what to add, what to leave out. The point is to go on what you feel, what you believe, what things mean to You and You alone, and make it in a way that's pretty for you. Put on the lid ig you like, put on a cork if you like and you have one that fits, or over it with a piece of cloth, maybe with an old handkerchief, or even a piece of paper you can draw on, and secure it with a rubber band, like the ones used to hold the morning paper rolled up.

It's fun and relaxing doing it, and the point is not to spend a dime, use only the things around you! And then, as you look at it, you'll remember, remember the good energy at doing it, and it will make you feel that great again - hopefully.

Sometimes take a moment to breath, to relax, even if it's just a tiny one, and smile, do something free that makes you happy and see life in it's better light.