Lines Out of Nowhere

I'm working on a book meme my friend Patricia posted on her blog. Third day on a row and I'm nowhere near to complete it. Some questions are harder than others. For instance, it asks you to post an image of your favorite book covers, and though I've often chosen books based on their covers (it's the first thing that attracts your eye to unknown books), I realized that I don't have any favorite book covers, in fact I can hardly remember the covers of my books. It's like once I open the book, my memories are all about the content, and I quickly forget about the cover and my impressions of it, except to recall the book itself briefly.

I've gained weight, so I went back to jogging, which I had neglected due to weather and general laziness, and also have been drinking more water, but can't keep myself from eating all the nice things you can get your hands and mouth on, on this side of the Atlantic. Hell, it's AMAZING to be in Europe. However things might change, and I might find myself back in Costa Rica in a couple of months, so my mind is already adjusting to the possibility - the very possible possibility - and from a question in the letter of a penpal of mine, my mind has gone back to the thesis, and a few questions and matters I'd like to work out related to it, which could only be addressed if there. And I think, "Boy, I shouldn't have eaten those pita breads with hummus... though I made the hummus and it was packed with garlic and it tastes so good! I'm not losing weight this way... but since when am I so concerned about weight? Oh yes, since I look pretty much the same, but the table of measurements says I'm already in 'Overweight 1'. Shouldn't I actuall be fat to be in 'overweight 1'?" Life is full of mysteries. Oh well, weight gained can be worked off too, right? At least I hope I can... If a box of Jack Daniels' Fudge doesn't keep me from the straight and narrow. Evidently one piece of candy, some peanuts and pita bread with olive oil and hummus have more power than two hours of jogging every day.

I also think about the test I almost certainly flunked on Monday. I come time and again to a contract I had to check, and wonder why I didn't state clearly all I though about it, why didn't I start with that one and got it through and through... and then I realize that 1. I'm so meticulous I couldn't finish reading a contract in an hour unless it's a one page contract, for I'm the type of person who would cross reference every word and re read it stare at it like at a magical 3D dimension until I see as many hidden designs as I can, and 2. because if I said all I thought about it, not only would I've surely flunked the test (as I'm sure I did), but also earned being excomunicated for probably going against their policies and basically telling them in their face how idiotically naive they could be if they actually think that's anything other than a stupid mockery worded up by a junky floating on a cloud of acid... just like I do at work (the Lord knows why he didn't make me a lawyer, I would probably start every single contract my belittling the Law and including a much better elaborated Bill).

Thoughts keep roaming all over inside the infinite depths of my skull. I think of the Korean series I'm watching. Thanks to the set top box, I don't have to be here to see it on real time, but I can record it and watch it when it's convenient to me. The series ended today, and I know how it ended for I read the summary weeks ago. However I'm still four episodes behind. Still a couple of hours of the series to see, but then what? What will I watch when it is over? I checked the channel to see what will be shown at the time the series were scheduled, but they've filled the void with junk shows. Fortune tellers on TV doing their two-cent shows, calling people out, inviting them to call them for a reading, a charm or a circus trick, promising them always the same "money, now, but only now, only today", and forgetting to mention that the call has a raised toll. So what after? I haven't figure that out yet, but will find something to amuse myself from the box.

I pull the letters of my penpals - now they accumulate less than back in Costa Rica, where my job often tired me so much I returned home wanting only to fall on my bed, and stare dumbly at the tv, and fall asleep listening to The Simpsons, Futurama or any other weird thing I wouldn't watch in posession of my senses. Now I have the time, and I use it well. Now I want to stretch my letters. I'm one letter away, only one letter... what will happen when I reply to it? How much will I have to wait to have another letter to reply?

And the thoughts continue to travel, up and down the electrical connections of my neurones, playing all sorts to connecting games, jumping from Scarlett O'Hara's green dress and the burning desire that often traps me to leave everything and continue reading Gone With The Wind, to blogging and what will I blog about today, to "Oh, there's the book meme of Patricia", and from there the book I'm reading right not not on my Kindle - because Gone With The Wind is in my beloved Kindle -, which is a book by Jo Nesbo, to how much I want to read any of the books I've recently gotten about the life of Empress Sissi, to the life of her son Rudolph, to how I want to end reading View Finder, to the books on witchcraft anf witch hunts and Medieval history I want to read too, to... how I'd love to have a decent sized bath and take a long, hot bath with lots of bubbles, surrounded by candles and delicious scents, with some soft music... perhaps Strauss, and stink in there with a book or my Kindle and a glass of my favorite type of wine... that wine.

And that takes me to remember all those forbiden things that should never be mentioned, that perhaps should have never happened, but as they happened I'd never regret them and which I love, and which I cherish, which have changed me radically, and which make me tremble thinking that they could have never happened. That fragile fire butterfly that was cupped between four hands.

And that takes me to here and there, to my favorite cities in the world. Vienna and the desire to go to a concert of classical music, Paris and the wish to go to the Opera... spend another moment envelopped in the eternal, mystical magic of Sacré Coeur.

And sacred takes me to the wonder of Mother Nature, to Spring, to the Margit Island and my jogging, and we are back to weight, to food, to delicious cakes, to my penpals who love them, to one who might visit me in Budapest... and that to Budapest, to the test, to going back to Costa Rica, to the thesis... and here I'm back to plotting an planning my life again there.

One day, and my thoughts run in circles, over and over, as it starts again, and I'm rendered paralized, unable to take a book or write a letter, or blog, or do the laundry or check an e-mail... until I forcefully break the circle, pick on, do one... laundry, lunch, watch the Koreans, reply to my penpal, blog... but I know, where I to touch a book or my Kindle, and I would be lost for the world.

Books are such powerful tools to the mind...