Kickstarting and Wondering

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Pinterest.

Let me start this early morning Monday with a sip of coffee. May I ask you how do you start your day? And how do you start your week? I need coffee. That's like... yeah, I need coffee to function. Well, of course, I can function without coffee too, but with coffee I am more pleasant for the people around me. You know with all that "be patient with people" and so on. So, here I am, at the office, sipping on a thumbler of freshly brewed Guatemala Antigua coffee from Starbucks. And I like to mention that it is fabulous, though still, my favorite is Pike Place. Boy, that blend is wonderful.

Yesterday I had a bit of unpsetting news regarding the some accounting I'm doing, but nothing that can't be fixed, but still, that kept with me for a while. I know, I'm a bit of a... well, I'm not a perfectionist, but more like I really dislike it when things don't run smoothly. Things don't need to be perfect, just keep up with the plan. But then, I took a sip of coffee and everything became ever so rosy. Is it ok, that my whole outlook of the day can be so dramatically changed by a beverage? Explaining it one way or another might end up sounding like trying to explain away the issue, but still, here is what I've learned from my  morning coffee:

Often times some things happen that put us in a cycle of worry, anguish, sadness or anger or any sort of negative feeling. We then try to fix them or get rid of them through a series of mechanism usual for us to deal with them. However, in many occasions our usual negative-ridding-tools don't work or don't work as well as we would like them to do. In this cases it might help to take a step back, recede to a point of calm and happiness that could take us to a "resetting" stage, recharge us, clean our head, so that we can face the issue again, without a looking cloud of darkeness conjured up by our own. This is what coffee makes for me.

As a kinetic person, I find it easier to "fall" into my tactile, smell and taste senses for resetting. I've always been particularly sensitive to textures, sensations, touch and smell, and a cup of coffee - along with the taste - always transport me to a good place. Through feeling the ceramic of the cup, or the metal of the thumbler, and the heat sipping through it, the wet heat rising up from the lid in soft curls of vapour hitting my upper lip and carrying the scent of fresh coffee can erase everything from my mind. It's like the magic of archery, when you take stance, place the arrow in the rest, push the nook into the nook point and that snap as it clicks in place reverberates in your chest. Then you move. Arms and bow raise as the arrow is drawn, the side of the index finger finds the anchor point under the bone of your jaw, your breathing slows, you aim, and as you aim all goes away. Nothing clouds your mind, and your whole universe reduces to the aim. Then... you release. That's me falling into the arrow and the bow, and so I fall into the coffee. In this moment I disconnect from the world, get lost in this one, beautiful, full thing, and then, when I emerge, my mind is clean.

Of course, in order to be able to fall, you need to let yourself fall, concentrate in the thing you like and release yourself, so that you can absorb this, experience it, and relish in it. Not in a conscious, reasoned effort to grasp the thing, but more... as if you were coffee in a pool of milk: flow into it, go wherever it takes you. Take the fall as a moment to leave worry behind, you are not required to write a report of your experience, so simply enjoy the moment, fall.

Now, it's important to notice that falling to clean your head isn't the Holy Grial and answer for all ails and problems. There are problems and conditions that are far bigger than what can be solved with a clean head. If you fall and come back and the issues still loom big over you, consider seeking help. Falling isn't an alternative to pills and medication, if you have a condition, and it's not a solution for larger problems that affect you socially, economically, politically, and on other areas. But take that moment of clear headedness to asses the scope of your issues and seek the help you need to solve them. Seeking help doesn't make you weak, less or a coward. Seeking help makes you smart.

Go and be smart.

The Readings You Consume

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www.twelvebooks.com

This week is dragging a little long, or so it seems. I finally finished reading "Russian Roulette" by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, and had immediately jumped into "Collusion", by Luke Harding. This would be my fourth book on the topic and my fourth book of the year. It's also curious, but after reading Russian Roulette, I feel more prepared emotionally to face the series of harrowing revelations included in this other book.

It's hard to explain what was I exactly expecting from my readings - maybe something more political and abstract - but facing texts writing about the crude manner in which Russia has apparently attacked another country's political and democratic construction has been horrifying, to say the least. Yes, of course, it is an "eye opener" and "this is how the world works" and so on, BUT I still find it deeply objectionable that anyone would think it's justifyable to toy and manipulate people into making them believe a false narrative in order to make them behave in a way that's contrary to their own objectives and best interest. Because say all you want, but what's happening to the United States, Great Britain and Europe is not, in the least, in the best interest of the population. Is it in the best interest of Russia? Honestly, I wouldn't say so. It is in the best interest of a handful of people, but not of any country or any larger, significant population on the planet.

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Penguin Random House

The book by Luke Harding reads so far more like a novel with romantic tones to it. I don't mean that it reads like a romance book, but more like a dreamy, rose-tinted story of a guy who finds himself in the middle of a huge, awful conspiracy, led by a deranged leader aparently trapped in the web of nearly steampunkish pipe dreams. It gives less a sense of helplessness, and more a novel-like recount of a story that's dirtier and more horrifying than what it lets the reader perceive.

So far, as I read it, it certainly feels like this book is the perfect grounding text I needed after my soul was filled with dread from Isikoff's brutal revelations.

Through the readings, though, I've also learned about RT and Sputnik, two Russian news media outlets used to pump Russian propaganda and the Russian agenda into the world. This suddenly got me thinking because I had at that point RT and Sputnik in my timeline. Except that I had clicked on them as a source for German news in German. Yes, I found the name "Sputnik" strange (I made my search with "Der Spiegel"), but the articles it brought were short and easy to read - which is a big plus for me (in spite of being about to enter the C1 level, so I should have a better German than what I currently command). After Isikoff's book, I decided I didn't want anything to do with either of those news outlets, so I clicked them off. The articles I clicked on seemed mostly harmless (again, my management of the language doesn't allow me to read extensively and in depth about politics and economics), but I started getting suspicious about what could be being fed to me, or even what could be getting planted in my computer. It might say they are "cookies" but you never know about those.

Then, in a local digital newspaper I saw the journalist refering to something about this country that had been mentioned in RT International. Well, that got me totally paranoid. How come a Russian State sponsored/controled news outlet writes about what happens in little-ole Costa Rica? Why are they even here? Are they targeting us too? What for?

My dad has discovered Facebook some months ago, and has gotten hooked on it. I've noticed that he has begun consuming large amounts of fake or adulterated news and actually believe them. He's taking sides upon reading, without practicing a minimum of cross-checking with other sources. I know, that's hard to do, but it's worth it. It might take a bit of time, but I urge you all to take everything you read with a grain of salt. Cross check, make sure other, more reliable news sources also cover the same events and pay attention to what they say. Look at the evidence by yourself and draw your own conclusions.

I'm still reading books on collusion and the Russian interference with the United States. I know no hackers, but there are things that do get me thinking, like the surge of so many anti-virus programs made in Russia, and how they are so good... but don't seem to fix things (I know, I have one). The politics now reigning in Russian, among them the medieval view about the LGTBI community. The large amount of poisonings of Russian disidents, the non-answers one hears from top government executives in the news, the Crimea thing. Things add up and not look good.

This are hard time, and we all yearn for stability and trustworthiness, but lets not let our desires be the tool with which the wool is pulled over our eyes.

Perfume

Source: Google Image Search

The new year has started, and with it, a curious change in preference from my part: I have been feeling drawn to a perfume different from the ones I've been using daily. Though I consider (and still consider) Halloween by Jesus del Pozo as my signature perfume, on my day-to-day I've been normally using other perfumes I've bought a while ago, when I was purchasing the bulk of my cosmetics from Oriflame, a Swedish cosmetic brand that works from a catalogue.

The scents I have on my bathroom counter (I'm not a woman with a dresser table or a vanity, but instead I find it much easier to pack all my stuff on the bathroom counter and deal with it there), are Tenderly Promise, Paradise and Possess, with the first being the one I tend to use the most, due to its subdued scent. And there is nothing wrong with these scents, and I still like them, but...

source: Google Image Seach

source: Google Image Search

Source: Google Image Search

In 2017, when I headed to my annual trip to Budapest - if you remember - my luggage got delayed in Paris, with the inconvenience, that I had put my hand luggage in the check in luggage, thinking it would be easier to maneuver when I got out of the airport, since I planned to stay a lovely night in my favorite city. So, there I was, in beautiful Paris, with no change of clothes and no cosmetics. Air France, of course, was adorable and so kind and considerate, and told me I had up to 100 € to spend in clothing and toiletteries, shall I need them, and they will reimburse me. They did. (And my luggage was back to me three days later, and they still reimbursed me.) Why was that important? Though the temporary loss of my stuff was the root for this topic, I still wanted to make sure you understand that the airline was responsible and spending about it.

Anyway, so there I was, in Paris, with my backpack and in need of clothes and cosmetics. So I went and bough the essentials. I won't go into the details of the clothing because that's not important here, but I'll tell you that part of my essentials include the cosmetics I use for my facial care. In Europe that actually extends to facial and hand care. You see, I live in the tropic, I'm used to a certain (high) level of humidity in the air, so when I get to Europe, the air is too dry for me, and if I don't take care of it, it breaks. This is no exaggeration or outright lie, truly, my skin cann easily break in dry environment. I know this because in the past I used to be more careless about my skin care, and then I had broken, bleeding cuticles, and the skin would also bleed around my nose and the corners of my mouth.

Source: Google Image Search

Being older and wiser now, I did what any sensible person in my situation would, and went to Sephora. There I've got myself some basics, among them a Lancôme honey make-uo remover that, up to this day I have no idea who in Hell am I supposed to use it as a make-up remover. (But it works wonderfully as a cleaning mousse.) I bought a bunch of other stuff (including my first couple of pieces of Kat Von D make up), but a lot of other things were missing. Since I didn't know when would I see back my luggage, I continued my cosmetic search in the ariport (honestly, one of the best places to look for it, since there you can usually find travel sized packs), where I hit the jackpot with a Clinique face care set, which after it became my go-to brand for skin care. Another thing I bought at the airport was a set of 3 mini traveler parfumes of Flower by Kenzo. This parfume used to be my signature scent many, many years ago, and I remembered it with fondness. Life had it, though, that one of the small vials opened during the travel and drenched my few possessions.

Now, if you have smelled Flower by Kenzo, you know it's a strong scent. Now imagine it all spilled into your stuff. I hated it! I couldn't stand the scent. Thankfully, my luggage was delivered to me in three days, so I was back to my old parfume (I think I traveled with y small bottle of Halloween), and a doubled arsenal of skin care. I didn't threw away the remaining parfume, but kept it and wondered if I would be able to ever use it again. Well, come 2019 and I'm back, enamoured with this scent.

I'll go through my minis and then decide whether I want to get myself a full size bottle (the smallest full size, in case I get bored of it again), but so far it looks like 2019 is the Year of Flower.

Life and The Social Question

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Remember that year when I was doubting the bullet journal method, but in the middle of it got excited about it and decided to try it, only to try it and decide that it wasn't for me? No? Doesn't ring a bell? Well, it doesn't matter, since I decided since then to give it another go and I've been working with it for... well, I guess I'm entering my second year this year. So far I like it, yes, thanks for asking.

Since then I've been doing my thing and posting pictures of my haphazard spreads in my Instagram account and what-not. :-) I decided to do so not only because I like my pages, but also because the net is full of perfect and artistic #bujo pictures, and thought that it needed a bit of a balance. It's like when you want to check on videos and pictures of other people's journals and most of them look so elaborated, so full of arts and crafts that your plain written-in notebook looks like... well... not even like a passable draft. Are you familiar with that sentiment?

Well, as things go, the creator of the bullet journal, Ryder Carroll wrote recently a blogpost titled "Back to Basics" (yes, the link is in the title, go read it), in which he explains his experience with users - or "practitioners", as he calls them, which makes me smile because it sounds like we are doing witchcraft or alchemy, which in a way it is like it, if you think of witches as people who raise up to be independent, guided by their own vision and willing to be enchanted by the magic that daily surround them - who had lost their mojo. He makes reference to a case where the shared images of a bullet journal "not attracting enough likes" was the cause for the practitioner to drop out of the Coven. Sounds shallow? Well, I advise you to hold your horses before you go on judging.

Though from the outside the decision to drop something because of what others think or the lack of attention it gets, might sound shallow (well, put this way doesn't sound so shallow, right?), this is actually we often do. You see, though we live and move arround things (and situations and social constructions) that seem to have a given use or purpose, we as humans often give things multiple uses or purposes. For instance: a shirt isn't just something we put on to keep away the cold or the sunrays from burning our skin, but also to comply with the social remand that we do not walk around naked. We also give that shirt other uses and purposes, like a symbol of status or pertenence, a way to enhance our appearance or communicate a message to others. Just like so, we give everything multiple uses and purposes. Think, for instance about your breakfast. I'm sure there are things in that breakfast that do more than serve the purpose of feeding you. Something as simple as your coffee could not only be the difference between you being amicable or murderous, but it could also have a statement about you. Maybe the decision on brand or brewing talks about your political, economical, ecological believes.

In that sense, when we take on something that has come to us through social media - or if we take on something that has been hyped up by social media - we might also charge that thing with a social media value, use and purpose. Mr. Carroll doesn't refute that, but also brings to us a point that got me thinking and spinning: when the item - whatever it is - starts failing to fulfill the social media purpose or decreases in value (or becomes a burden), shall we outcast the item entirely? He recommends the practitioners of the bullet journal, that when they bump into an obstacle that takes the joy out of the system, to strip it down and go back to thee barebones and work from there.

Now, I do agree with that idea, but I was thinking about projecting it further, to other parts of life. For instance, if you have a relationship or a family and you've packed up everything about it with a lifestyle, activities and whatnots that crush you, well, you can't actually go back to the bare bones. Just think for a minute: you can't just sell your mortgage crushing house, or give back your kids, and it might not be reasonable to divorce your spouse because... whatever. Not that I wouldn't do that and go for it as the first option (just see my track record), BUT... most people are not like me. (No, I haven't had kids which I had given back... wherever kids are given back to.) However, a good option is to scale back. Just because a part of something has stopped working for you, it doesn't mean the rest have. So how about you cut back on the part that has become troublesome?

Though giving multiple uses, purposes and values to things is natural to us - actually, marketing preys exactly on this to make you buy stuff you don't need - it is also possible that some of those values wear off quicker than others attached to the same item. That's ok, let it. Make the mental exercise of telling that part off, check if other purposes and uses also need to go and, hey, maybe you could find new values! Maybe you could find it that trips with your partner every weekend for some Insta photo-op has stopped being fun and it starts being time and budget consuming as you feel the pressure to find new and fancier locations. Well, no need to leave your partner over that! Instead, find a new subject for your Instagram (coffee, books and cats tend to be the hoot), and find the value of cozy, lazy weekends with your partner (or partners, really), munching cereal, wearing pajamas and crunching through Netflix series.

No need to be unrealistic and ask people to drop social media and the pressure it puts on them. I might be ok with it, but I assume asking people that is like asking me to stop reading: it ensures a hurtful witch cackle-laugher followed by a sardonic "no". However, we can keep things around shifting and accomodating, recognizing that things around us serve many-many purposes. So even if one use or purpose stops being served, all others may still be happily fulfilled. :-)

New Year, New Starts

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It has come that time of the year, when we all make resolutions (or at least a significant part of the world that does celebrate the New Year around this time and adscrie to this type of rituals), and so, of course, I have made my own. One of them- which I fully intend to keep, because it's one of those I have more control over - is to post 52 posts this year. This translates pretty much to one post per week. No, of course you don't have to endure this journey with me or anything, so feel free to do as you wish, the same way you have been doing so far.

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I don't have that many resolutions either - I wrote some of them in my new bullet journal - and then I discussed some with my gods... which I should probably write down before I forget them. One of those was to considerably reduce my spending on physical books, mostly due to the plans to build my own house, and in light of the impending expenses and moving. I'll try and keep that one in mind.

2018 has been a wonderful year for me, full of achievements, successes and blessings, so I am happy. One thing I'm quite happy about is that I finished the year with having read 46 books! Awesome! :-) For a slowpoke reader like me that's quite an achievement. This had emboldened me, so I made it my resolution to read 45 next year (instead of my regular goal of 24 books per year). I actually made this resolution in the last days of 2018, when my count of books in Goodreads was somewhere around 41 or 42 books read. I decided to challenge myself - really challenge myself - and go for the kill. I mean, next year I have no classes planned, save for my German lessons, and only will have a thesis of marketing to write, which will rest mostly on groundwork than theoretical construction, so that should give me the time and space to gnaw my way through roughly a book per week.

Property of Stormberry

One added blessing from 2018 was the addition of a new client for my accounting private practice, which I appreciate greatly. As per usual, it's a relative of a friend, so someone with whom I have a previous relationship, and someone I care for a lot. Given the particularities of this case, I travel once a month to the location of this client to do some basic accounting, and oftentimes, after meeting them, I meet with my friend, who lives close by. Yes, it's a tad far, but I like driving, the road isn't challenging and I like the chance to meet with this friend, for otherwise we would hardly meet at all. So it's an absolutely positive situation for me.

My friend and I often meet at a Starbucks close by, or either I pick her up and go there for a coffee and chat. We are both big pen-&-paper junkies, so we have our raves and long, gushing chats away from people who do know us and who would never understand how can anyone get so excited about fountain pens and paper (or pay so much for it). I know, I know, but you know muggles: they just don't get the excitement of experiencing a smoothly gliding pen, or the delight of the right quality of paper, the comfort and joy of handwriting or... having access to text that does not depend on electrical power to exist.

We had our date, had great fun and then her husband came to pick her up and our ways parted. Before I went to my car to drive back home, I went for a coffee and a bottle of water for the road. As I stood there, a man came to order and noticed a frog shaped pendrive I have hanging from my bag... that was missing its bottom half. He told me about it (I had no idea my frog had lost its legs), and told me he had found the legs outside. I thanked him and thought that was it, and proceeded to turn away and make a mental note to go out and pick the legs up. The man, however, kept talking to me, telling me he would help me find them, which was odd, because the place isn't all that big and I had an idea where it could be. Anyway, we struck a conversation of sorts.

It turned out he's a physician, and works at one of our biggest public hospitals. That's impessive. He also has a private practice, so as an accountant (I felt no need to explain to him all of my career background as that can be compicated for anyone upon first meeting) I gave him a couple of useful advise. He was quite free telling me at once that he was divorced and got the custody of his children, which was hard to get, but he had a good lawyer and... why was he telling me all that? The man was being a typical Latin male, seeking to rope me into a formal relationship. He seemed nice, and his children also seemed nice, so I kept contact with him - not to mention that he could be further a source for more clients to my private practice - so I was nice and polite.

He started texting me a lot. A Lot. Daily. Ok, I wanted the friendship and the contact, but not any relationship. I am not looking for any kind of boyfriend or partner or anything. By the second day he was already asking me if I had a partner, so I told him that I wasn't into relationships. He did try to make his case defending relationships, but not in a too pushy way, but it did was... unpleasant. He clearly thought he would need to "work me" in order to convert me. Yeah... no.

We kept texting back and forth, me pushing longer and longer pauses, and him quite clearly trying to get into the space of intimacy in conversation that would help him leap closer to a relationship. He also started to unload a lot of personal stuff about himself that I've found... intrusive. I don't know him all that much, and I don't need a crash course about him either. The whole feeling about him was that of a person absoutely desperate to get a partner, like the kind of person that invites you to a date (not even starting with a non-date casual meeting for coffee after work), and by the time water is served states that they don't want to waste time with someone who doesn't want to commit for the long run. And I say this because, by the second day he was sending me a frog emoji and saying stuff like "your frog brought us together", and then saying the third day that he was happy to have met a woman like me, "with values". I was flabbergasted, because I acually doesn't know anything about me, and though I have values (actually everybody does), he doesn't know mine and if he did, he would probably not agree with them. It did sounded, though, like the kind of flattery you say to someone you don't really know, but with which you want to get into that person's good graces. Providing the person is clueless enough not to see through the ruse. Sadly, I do see through the ruse.

He did try to edge into asking me out on some promenade, but I cut into his attempts (he asked me what plans did I have for the day... on the second or third day) by telling him I was spending he whole day reading. Which I actually did. Next day? Yeah, I'm still reading. Oh, I read a lot. Yes, I want to spend every single available second of my vacations reading. Hey, this year I didn't travel, so I was going to use this exceptional occasion to do what I haven't done in ages: read, and read, and read non-stop. And you know something? Fuck, it feels like heaven!

Anyway, one thing he did learn about me was that I read a lot. He asked me what I read, I told him in broad lines (LGBT Romance, Crime, Politics, History, Philosophy), and he said "Great, crime!". O...k.

Property of Stormberry

Day... what would be today? Like... day five? He asks me what I'm doing. I reply that I'm reading. What I'm reading? Fire and Fury, and I send him a picture of the cover of the book, so he gets a better idea. I'm about to tell him about all the other books I plan to read after it (A Higher Loyalty, by James Comey; Russian Roulette, by Michael Isikoff and David Corn; Collusion, by Luke Harding; and Fear, by Bob Woodward), when suddenly he goes off track saying that history is often partialized. At first I'm taken aback thinking he might be a Trump supporter or something, though I actually think he has no idea about what this book is really about, or anything about the books written on Trump. But he goes on and on, fueled by himself, bringing the Second World War in his next text, and then how the Germans were painted as monsters only because the Jews wrote the history books (someone needs to see videos about the concentration camps), and from then on, and through some 30 texts he unleashed the most horrendous, ignorant, conspiranoic anti-Semitic views I have ever witnessed.

I was baffled that he thought he could unload such a hate speech on me. Not only he doesn't know me, but such intolerant views are preposterous! And no, those are not an "opinion" or a "humble opinion" as he wanted to portray his hate speech: it's intolerance and hate-mongering. In hs diatribe he called Jews a cancer and justified the many attempts throughout history to exterminate them.

This is a man with higher education, a good job, family and looking for a committed, stable, long term relationship. The first impression he makes is that of a catch, the best party anyone could have. Within five days he proved to be everything but.

I have held my turf, and I have come out convinced that social convention doesn't assure you neither happiness of satisfaction. By today, I could have found myself in a long term, committed relationship, mature and adult and proper in all superficial and socially meaningful aspects. I am free from it, happy, and have been able to discern good from bad.

I share with you this experience to let you know that patience is important, that looks deceive, that you need to see beyond the surface, and always consider your true needs, your true desires and your true expectations before those imposed by society. Pursue your own happiness and satisfaction, not the one society tells you you must chase.