And so it ends

An obvious choice, but it fits. I think it's the first time in my life things got closed or wrapped up - some quite unexpectedly so - just in time for New Year's. So for once the day has some sort of meaning.

Out with the new, in with the cleaning crew. The playing field doesn't get any more even than this.

Whiplash

Bohdan put together a videoclip from our trip to NYC, because apparently he edits videos as well... What was that? Yeah, I know, but I'd still prefer you didn't call him that. He's kind of a friend.

Anyway, it's pretty great, and I couldn't ask for a better memento. For bonus points, try to guess:
a) which shot I insited made it into the video
b) what was Bohdan's pet obsession in NYC (hint: not the skyscrapers)

Incidentally, several days ago I finally got around to writing something about New York. It came out pretty disjointed though, so read at your own risk.

Holy nova

Turns out I can totally vanquish ghosts of the past by the power of the tampon thread. With the real thing I could probably cure cancer. Oh, perchance to dream, and other words Shakespearean.

The forum is open

Prompted by several complaints, I've decided to tinker with the settings, and you can now comment even if you're hunted by the C.I.A. and are desperately trying to keep your identity secret. I better get a fucking deluge of adulation though.

Denmark

The anatomy of a name. How silly Karolina must now feel complaining about her hyphen:

While great dynasties live in the perpetual fear of not being able to arrange suitable marriages for their offspring, small dynasties - or more precisely the dynasties which reign over small states - live in the hope of concluding some profitable union. They draw a definite advantage from their political weakness: that of not being a cause of discord between their powerful neighbors (...) Following the example of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, or Hesse-Darmstadt families, the Holsteins, who were descended from the ancient house of Oldenburg, practiced a policy of matrimonial intrigue, which as the centuries passed ensured them appreciable possessions whose names went on being added to their own. Thus in the eighteenth century the reigning house of Denmark was officially called Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg.

And a handy tip for any social gathering:

The children were brought up in Spartan fashion, and Vladimir d'Ormesson relates in his Enfances diplomatiques that the young princes and princesses had been trained to hold conversation with empty chairs on which a label indicated 'British Ambassador', 'Bishop of X...', 'President of the court of appeal', etc. He tells amusingly that each week, at the Opera, in order to give the public the impression that they were holding lively conversation during the intervals, the princes and princesses had acquired the habit of counting up to a hundred and then starting all over again:
'1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,' said the Prince Royal.
'7, 8, 9, 10, 11,' replied the Princess Royal.
'12, 13, 14,' Princess Ingeborg would interpolate with determination.
'15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22,' replied Princess Thyra, who was a chatterbox.
'How gay our princes and princesses are this evening!' the public would think with delight.

How gay indeed.

Always accomodating

When I moved the mouse cursor over an item in the Facebook "news" feed, I was presented with the following options, which I found absolutely hilarious in their utilitarism: the somewhat intuitive More About Paulina, but also the intrinsically facepalm-y Less About Paulina.

Christmas '08

We managed to get Christmas food shopping done in under an hour. Could be because mom got sick and I went to the supermarket with dad alone - less time spent on arguing, as it's kinda hard to argue when you don't have much to say to each other. I think we both took some pleasure in our efficiency though.

I saw a packet of dried beets, which gave me pause. I also learned that my mind is immune to the concept of buying prunes. It just shut down and I grabbed whatever caught my eye with nary a conscious thought. And so, on the first attempt I came back to my preplexed father with some dried apples, then I presented him with a jar of French toffee, and finally I came back empty-handed after performing a totally cartoonish halt-and-head-swivel after some random guy my autopilot glimpsed peripherally and decided he warranted further inspection. It was so obviously earnest I could have safely made an "oh I thought you were someone else" face, or performed some other evasive manouver. Except I was - as I've already mentioned - in a prune-induced coma, so I just stared blankly for a moment and went on my way.

I managed to get my mother the perfume she wanted, but the book I had planned on giving my father was nowhere to be found. Finally, before embarking on another hunting mission, I asked him if there was something in particular he wanted to get this Christmas, in case I failed, to which my family replied that they'll just package something from my dad's bookshelf in festive wrapping paper for the sake of appearances (i.e. - the uncle), and I can get the book after the shopping frenzy subsides. I think it's a good estimate of how vibrant the holiday spirit is in our household.

But maybe that's the secret to a calm and pleasant Christmas, cause I definitely enjoyed ours this year. I ate my weight in smoked salmon, watched a lot of Undeclared (which is HILARIOUS), and played entirely too much WoW. I also neglected to get any work done, and find that fact simply awesome.

Apart from that, I feel a bit like the last stand of a drainpipe clog - almost completely flushed, but still hanging on by a tampon thread. Monika came back home for the holidays and I'd hoped to be unclogged, one way or the other, by the time we got to talk, but I guess it was not meant to be. A fan of international postal service I am not.

It's kind of funny that I had about 2 weeks' worth of candidness in me, after switching to this blog, and then instantly reverted to unwieldly obfuscation. I guess it's not the venue, but the audience that counts.

My name's not Anne, and I got no plan, but you still need to listen to this:

She is better than this

I'm about one third through Secrets of the Gotha - a slightly outdated who's who of European royalty, mostly focusing on the anecdotal and scandalous. It's a book that got referenced a lot in the stuff I'd read for my thesis, so I was very pleasantly surprised to find it at that huge NYC bookstore... damn, forgot the name already. Oh well, nevermind. The style is nauseatingly pretentious at times, but that's probably to be expected, given the subject matter. And there are some pretty priceless bits too, like this letter from Napoleon Bonaparte to Eugène de Beauharnais:

Cousin, I have arrived in Munich; I have arranged your marriage with the Princess Augusta and I have already announced it. This morning the princess came to see me and I had a long conversation with her. Enclosed is her portrait on a cup. She is better than this.

Or this one, about the daughters and the mistress of Leopold II, King of the Belgians, all cheated out of an enormous inheritance (Leopold was one of the richest monarchs of the 19th century, due to the fact that the Congo was his personal property - as opposed to being a colony of the Belgian state):

In order to occupy her time as she grew older and earn some money [Princess Louise] began to write her memoirs. They appeared as Autour des trônes que j'ai vu tomber (Thrones I have seen collapse), and are a long plea 'pro domo' in which she takes up again all her grievances against her husband, the Hapsburg-Coburgs and her own family. Shortly afterwards her sister, the Princess Stephanie, published her regrets for a throne which had escaped her under the nostalgic title Je devais être impératrice (I should have been empress). As for [the late King's mistress] Baroness Vaughan, who did not want ot be left out, she gave to the world a little book of recollections modestly entitled Presque Reine! (Almost a Queen!)

More to come, probably.

Some things sound better in Polish

Okej, cykl reportaży Ludzie z dziurami jednak bawi mnie do stopnia rechotu na ulicy. Rechoczę także do wizji dowodu osobistego, w którym w rubryce "znaki szczególne" wpisano "jedno oczko ma bardziej". Skąd ta wizja - nie wiem, ale przełożenie oczka bardziej na angielski jest chyba niemożliwe.

News of the World

Recently I realized I have absolutely no idea about what is going on in the world, apart from the stuff I get from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (which is pretty US-centric). I've tried watching Polish news, but the main bulletins offered no international coverage whatsoever. I did, however, get to see a lengthy report on a bus that drove into a ditch somewhere rural. Again. I'm beginning to suspect bus-in-ditch stories are some sort of national fetish of ours. On a related note, last night Filip mentioned some cable news program with human interest stories that - according to him should probably just be called People With Holes, because day after day it's always about, like, some guy with a hole in his cheek who doesn't have health coverage, and his six blind children. (I guess i's not really funny at all, unless you consider it as emblematic of everything that is wrong with Polish journalism, so please let's do that, cause I remember laughing really hard about it last night, and now feel kind of guilty.)

Anyway, finally I just went to the BBC News website, and had an aww moment. The top stories of the day were: Afghan blast kills Danish troops, Belgian PM proposes resignation, Rivalries sharpen Ukraine crisis... but there was also this sidebar called Inside Europe, with two news items: EU agrees deal on fishing quotas and EU deal on new pesticide controls.

Oh European Union, our beacon of blah in this tumultuous world. Promise me you'll never change.

Stop, drop, and ponder

Sometimes, when my mind wanders, I get a sudden flashback of some totally embarassing moment of my life. The sensation is usually so strong I actually cringe, or groan, and immediately try to "change the subject" in my head. Over time I've learned that it helps to just say some fairly complex word*. Even if the miniscule amount of focus it requires to pronounce it doesn't snap me out of it, the sheer stupidity of doing so usually does.

Today, this happened while I was in the shower. Now, the shower is a special place where I get visited by God. Seriously, the kind of crap that just magically pops into my head when I'm in the shower... it's unbelievable. So, there I am, minding my own business, when all of a sudden I get an episode, and find myself instinctively groaning out:

The off-chance of off-chancing I am not even romancing

Yeah. Having read all that you might find yourself saying: Why Wojtek! I never suspected that beneath this sheen of polished turd lurks such a basket case! Well, editorial You - neither did I.

* somehow I always end up with sanatorium or lokomotywa, which is locomotive in Polish (surprise)

Make your own meme

I love... the aptness of the term crushing (on)
I like... the relative comfort of having at least partially crawled out of the crusher
I don't like... knowing how little it would take for me to fall back in
I hate... the fear of that relapse warping an essential (in epicurean terms) relationship of mine

And now, an alegory:



Okay, not exactly, but any excuse is good to rewatch this one. And Shirley emotes the hell out of this song. The bees laid honey in the lion's head, man!

Soul connection

I've finally gotten around to finishing watching Generation Kill (2 more episodes to go). Ana's already done that and moved on to scouring the Internet for additional info, which I think upsets the world balance in a very serious way.

Anyhoo, obviously it's a very well-written, moving, informative and eye-opening account of the war in Iraq, so let's focus on random trivia. There's this one awesome and hilarious supporting character, Sgt. Rudy Reyes, who doesn't get that much screen time, but pretty much steals every scene he's in (so far). Words cannot do him justice, so I've gone to the trouble of uploading a short clip (youtube account suspension, here I come... again):



Well, it turns out the guy who plays him... um... isn't acting at all. That's the actual marine who took part in the events described in the book (which then got turned into an HBO miniseries). Ana dug out a short interview with him, and - yet again - it has to be seen to be believed:



The shirt. The way he says "he was overweight...". The way he reacts to her saying he obviously works out... I truly believe he is a model citizen of the 23rd century's Most Serene Republic of California, sent back in time to help us on our way. I'm awestruck. And terrified.

New angles

I think I got hooked on books again. It started on the way to the US - I took William Gibson's Spook Country with me, just in case there was absolutely nothing to do on the plane. That I even had it in the first place was a small marvel in itself. I'd already resigned myself to my loss of literacy and simply stopped buying books, but it was only 25PLN, and I had such fond memories of Neuromancer...

Anyway, the book itself isn't exactly life-changing, but it has this instant accessibility - you get gently pulled into it from page one, and experience the same immediacy whenever you pick it up. It also seemed to provide me with a sense of stability (even though the main characters are constantly on the move* - I guess it's easier to cope with imaginary displacement). I always had this handy reference point, whether I was waiting for Ana at the Mall of America, or stuck in traffic entering New York City.

As for the plot, Spook Country takes place in the present, and is something of a spy thriller. Except, true to Gibson's cyberpunk pedigree, most of the spies aren't affiliated with any form of centralized government, and there's also a near-omnipotent, irrational, corporate presence. It also flirts with things like the nature of celebrity (and its data-preserving powers), the future of art, or Where The Hell Are Our VR Goggles - but these serve as ornaments rather than foundation.

It reminded me of some of the esthetic pleasures of reading. I liked some of his turns of phrase, like "Outside, wind found the windows from a different angle" or "Dawn was well under way, lots of it". Or how he somehow made an English-speaking French character sound French without using some weird accent transcription (I think the key was having her use the word "disconsolate"). But the thing that really stuck with me is how he made it seem like what you're reading is just a snapshot, and the fact that you close the book doesn't mean the people therin won't keep on doing their thing. Obviously, I know shit about literature, but the books I have read always seemed very self-contained and efficient, every plot point contributing to the greater whole, every detail a foreshadowing en route to revelation. Meanwhile, throughout Spook Country I found several threads that weren't neatly tucked in anywhere at all. It was always the tiniest of details: an extra sentence here, a small paragraph there... Almost subliminal in their subtlety, and never drawing your attention away from the main plot, but nevertheless succeeding in making the characters feel totally real. Like the story was merely something that happened to them, as opposed to them being a set of narrative tools used to tell a story. Unfortunately, I don't think I can make myself any clearer, and the only passage I marked at the time probably won't be much help either, but it at least gives you a sense of this non-sequiturial vibe (it's the end of a chapter):

"Milgrim nodded. Got up. He wasn't going to run, but for the first time, he thought Brown might be bluffing.
In the washroom he ran cool water over his wrists, then looked at his hands. They were still his. He wiggled his fingers. Amazing, really."

I remember Stephenson achieving a slightly similar effect in... Snow Crash, I think, except he made his world - not his characters - seem like something too big for the book to contain by hinting at certain, intriguing details only to return to the main plot a moment after, leaving you high and dry.

And now I'm on to Secrets of the Gotha, which reads like a tabloid adhering to the rules of the Spanish court protocol, so expect lots of random and absurd quotes about 19th century European royals in the near future.

* their route even mirrored ours to a certain extent, as they travelled from New York to D.C.. Eventually, they ended up in Vancouver, which I intend to treat as a portent.

Goat cheese +7

[PSA: Sometimes I get the nucleus of, say, a Nine Princes in Amber analogy stuck in my head that just won't go away until I at least try to pin it down "on paper". In the process, I tend to forego restraint and accuracy in favor of cohesion and impact. In other words: I'm not suicidal, merely pretentious. Thank you for your attention.]

The best way to get out of a rut is to do something you don't do every day. (That will be five bucks.) I found that the easiest way to do that is to meet up with someone you rarely get to see. Exotica on a budget. I immediately tapped Natalia, whom I'd been dying to see anyway. It turned out they were having some friends over, and so, an hour later, there I was sipping wine and stuffing my face with cheese. And having my hairdo compared to Zac Efron's, which I took in stride as something you don't hear every day, ergo: desirable in my current mindframe. However revolting the thought.

The friends turned out to be Hadi, whom I'd already met on several occasions and know to be a hoot and a fellow TV series whore, Jennifer Garner, whom I'd seen in a couple of movies, and her quiet boyfriend (surprisingly enough: not Ben Affleck). Seriously though, the girl 's resemblance to the actress, at least from the profile, verged on freakish. The conversation started out with the behind-the-scenes drama in Polish media (ohhh the intrigue!), and got progressively more interesting and... well, abstract. Buying palaces near Opole, attending a Canadian gay wedding during the Gay Olympics in Toronto, getting hit on by gap-toothed editors... Somehow it kept returning to the topic of living abroad - with no effort on my behalf, if I might add. Hadi said that as of last year you don't need a visa to go to Canada for a period under 3 months. And according to Natalia, Berlin is dirt-cheap compared to Warsaw - you can rent a 70m2 apartment in fucking Kreuzberg for around 300 Euros a month. That's what you pay for a single-bedroom shithole in... Wlochy, or something. Also, the British pound is supposedly worth three doornails and a half-hearted fart right now. I'll let it all simmer some more and then see what pops out at me.

All in all, a very nice, relaxing evening. And I managed to sneak in a song Bohdan sent me a while back. This is one of those you're kind of forced to like, or at least pretend to, because it's so undeniably cool, trying to refute it makes you decidedly less than:

This here song is not about shagging. It's about death.

Once again, I feel like my consciousness is behind the curve somehow. Like the Pattern has been altered, unbeknownst to me, the changes not even set in motion as much as already set in stone. Except it's only now that these ripples start reaching my shadow, rearranging the landscape with all the subtlety of breaknig bones to reset them. And they're never announced - true to form, it feels like it had always been that way, except I remember certain areas not hurting at all before, while other trains of thought that felt like a stab to the chest, now offer safe passage and comfy seating.

Having your neural structure cracked, bent, and molded into a new shape isn't exactly the greatest of sensations, but I have a feeling it's for my own good. A pre-emptive measure taken against the Logrus tsunami approaching from the opposite direction. Making sure that by the time it reaches me, everything will mesh with its imprint as much as possible. Cause the Logrus doesn't do ripples, it just slams into you, cutting off or bashing in whatever doesn't fit.

Anyone who's made it past that nugget deserves a reward, so here's a nice song. This girl's a bit uncanny from my perspective: I don't really like either of her albums that much, but somehow she surfaced during two (out of four, so far) of my howling phases, each time providing the soundtrack. And frankly I don't mind, cause the songs are very good, and she's terribly likeable (also, the intro to that one is mindblowing). So anyway, here's Mr. King. I love how she emotes it, especially starting from the words "Wintertime was hell, but it was fun... " The wistfulness is so palpable you can almost see her smiling.

You're welcome

You probably won't notice anything funny about this graph unless you just happened to be in the States between 14th and 25th November. Fun fact: I think the absolute peak (21th) was the day I purchased my notebook.

Within the realm of a dying sun

Adventures of the Tacitus, part 1

Dramatis personae:

The Captain - the ship's leader, though in name only, as the Tacitus is more of a shaky democracy punctuated by bloody juntas. The Captain's main job is negotiating an uneasy alliance between the other two crew members, and trying to mitigate damage when Vincent takes over. The Captain has no identity to speak of, or so he likes to claim. He is merely the executor of the people's will. He just happens to like working with one of the people more, but this tacit understanding is the first thing out the window whenever the balance of power shifts. For the Captain, the ship is king. The ship, and the mission (though he leaves it up to the other two to figure out what it actually is). His special ability is invisibility.

Theodore - Theodore likes being in charge, and most of the time he is, acting in concert with the Captain for the greater good of everyone. He likes listening to the hum of the engines, as the ship smoothly glides through space. He also likes a good movie, a witty lyric, and funny people saying funny things. He can list his likes in bulletpoint form, and almost comprehensively, too. He appointed himself Chief Officer of Most Things Pertaining to the Mission, and no one really objected. He's feeling quite self-importnat, which is why he takes it so hard when the Protocol kicks in. He finds the existence of the Protocol to be deeply objectionable, but when challenged by Vincent - in a rare moment of lucidity - to present an alternate mission objective, he was forced to resentfully admit that he couldn't think of one. His special ability is flinging razors, though, unfortunately, a persistent twitch severely hinders his targetting.

Vincent - Vincent has been stuck on this hulking turd of a ship for what seems like ages now, and good GOD is he bored. He knows the other two don't like him much, but frankly, he doesn't give a shit, this mission is just LAME anyway. Vincent has only one responsibility - collecting the all-important semen samples. No one - not even Vincent himself - really knows why the semen samples are so vital, but they must be, because it was he who was granted the power to initiate the Protocol: a major system override giving him complete control of the ship. Vincent spends most of his time sleeping in cryo, listening to melodic, sweeping music on his gigantic headphones, ignoring his fellow crewmembers, and groaning about having nothing to do. He only springs into action when the opportunity to collect semen presents itself. Unfortunately, Vincent has no idea how to operate the Tacitus (finding the communications module particularly tricky). He turns a blind eye to the Captain's efforts to ensure the proper functioning of secondary systems (sewage disposal, climate control, mining operations) while he's in charge, but will most certainly not take any advice from that spiteful bore Theodore. Needless to say, most collecting efforts to date have failed spectacularly. Needless to say, his special ability is initiating the Protocol.

Act I

The Tacitus is failing. It has failed (and recovered) before, but the crew always found the experience most unpleasant, so in a last-ditch effort, they assemble a high-concept, low-tech capsule to bring in help... or do something. They're not really sure, as Vincent's in charge.

THE PLAN

Theodore: Okay, I've finished programming the capsule.
Captain: I think we're good to go. Everyone ready?
Vincent: Yes, come on, do it already! GOD!
Captain: Initiating launch sequence... 5... 4...
Vincent: Guys, I really have a feeling about this. It's not good, but it's not exactly bad either, and it's definitely a feeling.
Captain: ... 3... 2... 1... There it goes.
*they watch the capsule sail into the cosmos as the Les Mondes Engloutis theme plays in the background*
Vincent: Okay then, I'm off to cryo. Wake me up when there's news.
Theodore and Captain, under their breath: Yes!
Theodore: We seem to have some surplus power now, I'll get to work on optimizing the mining systems. We need to restock on sparklies.
Captain: You do that. I'll let you know if something comes up.

THE EXECUTION

Theodore: Okay, I've finished programming the capsule.
Captain: I think we're good to go. Everyone ready?
Vincent: Yes, come on, do it already! GOD!
Captain: Initiating launch sequence... 5... 4...
Vincent: Guys, I really have a feeling about this. It's not good, but it's not exactly bad either, and it's definitely a feeling.
Captain: ... 3... Um... Wait.. I think you should take a look at this...
Vincent: What is it, what is it?
*Vincent and Theodore approach the instruments*
Vincent, leaning in: What the...
*the screen blows up in Vincent's face*
Vincent: AAA! MY FACE! MY FACE!
Theodore: Hrm. Abort?
Captain: Okay *shuts the launch bay doors*
Theodore: Wait. We didn't install any core containment on that capsule. Shit's toxic, we've got to get rid of it anyway. *hits the emergency launch button*
Captain: Dude, the doors...
*they watch the capsule sputter onwards unsteadily, trailing sparks and debris from what used to be the launch bay doors as Gorillaz' DARE plays in the background, almost drowned out by the blare of emergency sirens*
Vincent: MY FACE! MY FACE!
Theodore, with a weird accent: When I go home, I throw nickles into the oven, and i's muuuusic!
Captain: The fuck...?
Theodore: Winona Ryder doing Bjork on SNL. Just remembered it. Damn, that was funny.
Captain: And I thought Vincent was the retarded one...
Theodore: Oh yeah? Well, guess who won't be answering the door the next time shit hits the fan and you come a-knocking for a coping mechanism! That's right! WINONA! *leaves in a huff*
Vincent: MY FAAAAACE! MY FACE!
Captain, slumping into his chair amid the sirens: This is bullshit.

A day in the life of...

Wake-up call - 10:30 a.m.

Watching the 2nd part of the movie I had to translate - 1 hour
Posting Francoise and Iggy - 7 minutes
Washing up, etc. - 30 minutes
Breakfast - 10 minutes
Pizza, eaten while watching The Colbert Report - 21 minutes
Nap - 15 minutes
Sholazar Basin + Uthgarde Keep (heroic) - 1 hour 45 minutes
Sharpening a pencil - 30 seconds
Coming up with a dedication, writing it down, and erasing it - 3 minutes
Locating and queueing some k.d. lang (seriously people, her Hallelujah will canonize you) - 2 miunutes
Actual time spent IM chatting with Ana and Yssy, Ao and Boogie - 20 minutes
Emailing the finished products - 1 minute

End of work - 1:45 a.m.

Which means I clocked in about 11 and a half pure, crystalized workhours today. Tomorrow, I'm going to celebrate by working some more. And having breakfast with a girl from the University I hadn't seen since... well... graduating. And braving that post office out on that limb.

Cause I just know how to party.

Penmanship is overrated

Inspiration strikes again

I love rum, because if you happen to run out of Coke, you can just politely ask for some tea and keep on boozin'.

You don't have to be so defensive...

I have now idea how it's possible that I've never heard this song before (embedding disabled by request *sigh*) but I'm making up for the lost time in loopcountry. Looking forward to a late night of frenzied work and maybe a little bit of WoW if time permits.

Stayed up until 5a.m. last night performing a ritual which should buy me some peace of mind. It was the last trick up my sleeve, so I hope it holds at least until I get through this deluge of work. So far it's working really well, but I'm not taking any chances. Charted a simple course through my mindscape, from work to play and back again. Got my Coke, got my Fiona, got my giddy on, and I'm not even fucking glancing sideways.

Like a good American

She's gradually becoming one of my favorite stand-up comedians. I first saw her Comedy Central special a couple of years ago, and found her funny, but not exactly mindblowing . Then, quite recently, I happened upon In Other Words, and though once again the jokes weren't exactly Hedbergian, I completely fell in love with her delivery. I find myself smiling just listening to the sound of her voice, and those little chuckles of hers. It makes even the filler go down smoothly, and amps up the moments of true genius (So? Drunk people feel fire!) to the point where I'm howling with laughter. This woman just makes you feel good.

Landlocked

Met with Kajka for sushi today. She's going to the US early next year (D.C. and Maine), and wanted to hear my impressions. I find I have very little control over what I talk about when people ask me about the trip. I usually hit the core notes (Washington kinda cozy, NYC kinda overwhelming), but the rest is a pretty random selection. And mostly I just don't feel like talking about it at all. Kajka in turn feels like she's failing at life a bit right now, with various disapointments piling on one after another. She's s pretty zen about it though, if you overlook the way she drifts off from time to time.

We went to get some coffee after, and for some reason it was only then that we really got to... well, talking. Mostly about mobility, which is something I'd been thinking about recently. A while ago she went to Brazil for half a year, to teach kids art, or do something equally noble - and actually she's flying to USA to visit two of the people she met during her stay in Porto Allegre (one of them already visited her in Poland). Now she really wants to go to Africa, but it turns out the more impoverished and needy the country, the more expensive it is to live there. I'm not sure how that's possible - maybe they factor in security costs, or something. Anyway, she'd preferrably go to one of the Lusophone nations, to keep working on her Portuguese, but it's tricky.

She's also watching Buffy for the first time - currently the 7th season. We compared favorite episodes and there was practically no overlap (though she said her overall fav was The Body, so I guess we just look for different things).

As we were gradually getting ready to leave the coffee place, they played Destiny, Distractions and In the Waiting Line, one by one, which I took as a sort of musical godspeed and decided to walk home instead of taking the subway. Halfway through Park Saski my mp3 player served me Natalie Merchant's Letter, which in turn I took as a punch in the gut and getting any work done stopped being an option.

I'll totally make up for it tomorrow though. I always do.

Crossover

I found this short Prop 8 musical skit on towleroad, but despite the talent involved, I wasn't exactly blown away (maybe with the exception of NPH), so I didn't post it. Then I found the same link on whedonesque, which isn't in itself surprising, as they seem to track everyone that's ever been involved in any Whedon project. I was, however, surprised - and delighted - by the caption which read:

Neil Patrick Harris in 'Prop 8 The Musical'. Also starring John C. Reilly, Sarah Chalke,Jack Black, the living goddess that is Allison Janney, and other famously famous people.

The thing is: Allison Janney is, indeed, a living goddess, but as far as I know, there is absolutely no overlap between her divine province and Whedonland. So that's pretty much a random splurge of affection, and I absolutely love finding such unlikely crossovers. It makes me feel like the universe just had a giggle. So let's all celebrate with some vintage Janney genius:

Sweet

Total awesomeness, courtesy of filmmix. And the part where Bowie's vocals finally come in... Geez.

Morgueaine

About a year ago, Yssy gave me a lampshade with my favorite Buffy picture. I love it to bits, but the problem was, apart from the bathroom, my house has no overhead lighting. The wiring's all there, but somehow we never got around to getting any fixtures.

While I was away, mother decided to fix that and installed the BuffyLight in my bedroom. But since, according to her, a regular lightbulb made it look like crap, she fit it with a low-output, blue-tinted one that gives off... well, technically speaking, it has to be light, I guess, but it's really stretching the term to its limits. I'd say it's more of an aura of nascent CGI eye-candy. Coupled with the fact that at some point, a crack in one of my walls was covered with a huge, blue Indian spread that's been described as an inter-dimensional portal waiting to be opened, my bedroom's turning into quite the SciFi Channel Movie of the Week set.

System restore

I wish I could stretch the 5-10 seconds I get between waking up and placing myself within the general context of things, just before everything boots up and I get that punch to the cortex. Because I need to get some work done, and the pop-ups aren't helping.

I do find it funny though, how my brain seems really annoyed at all the shit the rest of my innards are putting it through, and tries to rip off the band-aid off as quickly as possible. It's like it's going "Hi, I know you don't even remember your name yet, but THAT THING - just a heads-up. Yeah, boo-hoo, now do something constructive."

I also wonder how deep down the rabbit hole you have to go before you start antropomorphising your brain.

Gnyah

This is the last time I try to write about past events based on notes I made at the time. It's nightmarishly tedious, and reads horribly. Also: sticking to just English? Not as easy as it seemed.

I have to be strong though. For James Franco.

Pickled ginger

About to leave for the airport. Looking forward to 12 or so hours in transit. Well, not really, but I'm not too worried about it either - the upside of scouring the smoky side of the emotional spectrum is that boredom's just not an issue.

My last memory of D.C. will probably be taking a short walk to an ATM a block away. Empty streets, a warm-ish breeze, Natalie Merchant's Carnival, and a pretty surprising sense of comfort. I know I can't be liking Washington more than New York - there are laws against that sort of thing - so it's probably the beachhead/safe haven effect.

This one's got proto-tendrils of thought shooting out in all directions, but none of them's giving me anything tangible enough to write down, so this half-assed impression will have to suffice.

Razorslide

I'm used to being unable to utter a single original thought in certain situations. I find it very frustrating, but it's a devil I know. However, I've never been painfully awkward on a tight schedule. Apparently, this sort of pressure-cooker environment results in an expanse of dumbstruck silence concluded with a dazzling verbal sepuku. And so, today I found myself suddenly saying - as in: outloud - "Thank God, I felt so guilty for dragging you all the way here basically just so I could stock up on jerk-off material." To an actual human person.

He laughed, I think - can't say for sure, as the moment I said it my brain froze in horror - but I've never seen anyone in such a hurry to get back to Jersey. Then again, I've never seen anyone on their way back to Jersey, period, so maybe the NSA won't come in the night to neuter me after all.

NYC, hazy as it is

This empty spot kept bugging me, so here are, at long last, my impressions of New York. I really don't feel like revisiting my notes from that time though, so expect some random crazytalk.

Our hostel was located in Harlem. The only thing I knew about Harlem was that it's supposedly predominatly African-American. That pretty much checked out - during the four days we stayed there, I think I saw only one white dude on the streets. The hostel itself was a different matter - like a pocket universe, very united in its colors of benetton. The guy at the desk was Brazillian, one time I think I heard a Slavic lilt from the kitchen, and I vividly remember two Chinese girls with Louis Vuitton bags taking half an hour to get ready to leave.

On the first day we crossed the Central Park, north to south, by foot. I was on the downswing of my hormonal extravaganza, feeling a bit disconnected and joking on autopilot. It was a cool, bright morning, the park was pretty much empty, Ana and Bohdan were taking their pictures, and all around us loomed those ridiculous, gothic scyscrapers. Finally, we reached the statue of Bethesda, which I was keen to see, as I have pretty much memorized Angels in America. The fountain wasn't flowing. They turned it off for the winter. Ice in the pipes. I remember recalling that line and feeling like I just might lose it. Bohdan picked that moment to take a picture of me. Unfortunately, it's ugly as shit - thereby disproving the myth that sad people make for great photography.

Then we left the park, and the bubble burst - suddenly I was in f-ing New York, there were people everywhere, and those ridiculous, gothic scyscrapers seemed like a really cool place to live once that Nigerian fellow wires me my money. For some reason we kept passing 30 Rock, and eventually even went to the top floor to take pictures of Manhattan at night - though in our defense, I think it was the only purely touristy thing we'd done during those four days.

We spent one evening at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, where I finally got the point of an MC. Mahogany Brown completely blew my mind. She had such amazing grace and energy you just had to laugh, clap, and cheer at everything she said, and she was able to transfer some of that boon to the performers. The slam was followed by an open mic filled with terrible, terrible poetry, which I have successfully repressed since. Left are only the cool things, like a Fillipino girl with a really intriguing piece about how your heritage informs even the minute details of your everyday life - in her case, what she eats for breakfast, as some of the basic foodstuffs are remnants of Spanish, Japanese, and American presence. Or the rapping white girl and her beatboxing black friend - nervous as hell, but still giving off a definite Veronica Mars/Wallace Fennel vibe. Or two German siblings, very earnest in their ghetto style, who kind of reminded me of European capoeira enthusiasts finding themselves in Brazil for the first time.

We also saw some pretty amazing improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, but all my attempts at relaying any of the jokes have failed spectacularly, so I won't even try to do it here. I was really excited that we managed to get in (which was a miracle in itself - we went there kind of on a whim, and there was a huge line of people with reservations), as one of the performers was Kay Cannon, who wrote some of my favorite 30 Rock episodes. Unfortunatley, the improv people never introduced themselves, so I don't even know which one she was. The funniest of them was a girl in glasses with short, dark hair, who said it was her last performance, as she'd just gotten a TV show and was moving to LA. So now, when she becomes the next big thing, I'll be able to say I saw her doing improv back in the day. That is if I ever learn what her name is.

We had amazing (like, really) burgers in the East Village. We went to that huge bookstore... Strand, I think was its name. We went to the NBA store, where I got myself a longsleeve with an actual NBA team logo. Trust me, if you know me - that's funny. We also went to Ground Zero... I'm not really sure what to write about that. I guess the honest thing to say would be that it was totally anti-climactic, but I remember even then feeling kind of weird about treating that place as a tourist attraction. Anyway, it's a construction site like any other. Things are well on their way.

We got ripped off by a Pakistani taxi driver. We zig-zagged between cabs on Times Square. After two days we tapped into that New York pedestrian hive mentality that seems to be only marginally influenced by traffic lights. We saw James Franco on the subway. We went to a lot of trouble to eat pizza from some sort of illegal oven. I imploded on the Brooklyn Bridge. We had cheesecake.

It was a very intense experience. The last memory I have of our NYC adventure is sitting on the bus, heading back to Washington. It was already dark outside, and for a change we weren't stuck in traffic, but instead moving up this 4- or 5-lane river of light. I was rehashing tha last few days, trying to form some cohesive... memories, I guess - and failing, overwhelmed. Bohdan was asleep; Ana could as well have been, given how things were between us, so I was left with all that mental vomit just sloshing around in my skull. It was probably the loneliest I'd felt during the entire trip. But then the song came on, and those lights certainly weren't going to cheaply romanticize themselves, so quickly it also became the most gloriously - and soothingly - self-indulgent. Loneliness is tough, but solitude I can work wonders with.

Quiz me

That's it, too much time has passed for me to figure out the timeline, so this one's going to be more of a mash-up of our last days in Washington before heading for NYC.

I remember visiting Bohdan at the Library of Congress and getting completely lost in the maze of corridors, tunnels, and - I'm pretty sure - teleport pads. Actually, some of those passageways were surprisingly creepy: all concrete, with bare pipes and wires sticking out. I half-expected us to pass a group of military personnel explaining to their superior how they're making great headway with establishing the headquarters, but things being still very much in the air.

In the evening, we went to a quiz at Fado, which is - as you might have guessed from the name - an Irish pub (huh?) The whole quiiz thing was completely new to me. I think it's some anglo-saxon thing. Basically, there's a quizmaster (in our case: a hilarious quizmistress) who reads questions, and every participating table gets an answer sheet, which they discretely fill out. There are several thematic rounds (I think ours had 5) of 10 questions, and then the winner is announced. Right now I can only recall that one of the rounds was about internet domains, and that we failed to identify .cy as Cyprus. And that another one was about Boston Red Sox, which made everyone very annoyed that Marcy Wasn't There (I met Marcy two days later, and only then learned how cool she is, so my level of annoyance wasn't exactly up to par). The whole thing was a whole lot of fun, even if I didn't contribute in any way. Then again, few people did, apart from Adam, who as it turned out is some sort of quiz freak (to the point of being televised).

I also remember visiting some museums with Ana, and having a sort of epiphany. Here's the thing: I first visited the States in 1999. My dad wanted to spend his 50th birthday in New Orleans, and I tagged along, mostly because Tori was on tour and that meant I'd get to see her live. I spent most of that trip in a car, driving from D.C. to New Orleans, and then from New Orleans to New York. In late August. With no air conditioning. Yeah. When I wasn't in the car, I was busy Squandering Opportunities. Sleeping in, instead of going to church to listen to gospel music. Staying in the air-conditioned hotel, instead of taking a - mid-day, mind it - stroll through New Orleans. And, as my father reminded me on our way to the airport, sleeping on a bench in Central Park, instead of going with him to the Museum of Modern Art. I remember sitting on the bench, but I must have blocked out going full-on hobo. What can I say, I was a weird, introverted kid, and none of that stuff seemed all that appealing at the time.

Well, after browsing through a single floor of the National Gallery of Art I found that, though by no means introverted anymore, I'm still definitely not a museum person. And so, while Ana plowed bravely through our cultural heritage, I busied myself crafting the most concise and effortless-seeming declaration I could come up with* (west building), and reading Spook Country (east building).

The next night Bohdan took us to an open mic thing at Busboys and Poets - a bookstore/restaurant/spoken word venue. There were a lot of Obama poems, and loads of stuff about social injustice. I remember feeling very uncomfortable, since I find bad poetry to be really painful (bad performance art of any kind, actually - I'm the sort of person who switches the channel, cause they can't watch Idol contestants embarassing themselves), but squirming and groaning at tales of the white man's oppression just didn't seem like a viable option. In effect, I was wound-up pretty tight, and ready to start explaining how Poland never had any colonies at the drop of a hat. There was also a schizophrenic junkie who did a pretty impressive - at least as far as I got it - poem about crack cocaine. Only in America. Finally, a group poem was passed around the room. Everyone was supposed to add a single line, and I think our party's contribution ended up being reasonably lucid:

the blossoms are falling
the kidneys are failing
But hark, steps are coming up the stairs
It is the season's first case of influenza

There were also peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (really good!), and gloomwings systematically fried by Bohdan's sunshine blasts, which I sorely miss. The blasts that is.

* which I ended up delivering in stump form

Georgetown stinks

That's not an expression. I think it's the rotting leaves from the trees that grow there (not sure about the species) - small, bright yellow, and reeking of shit.

We spent the entire Sunday walking around Washington, chanting "There are many things that make peepee sexy"*. We visisted the local flea market, had lunch at an All-American** diner, and repeatedly fell into the black hole of Urban Outfitters. Though I might be getting my chronology mixed up here - I just know I never want to set foot in that store again. Even if it did give us the brand name Fyaskoe, which is totally the new FAIL! (it's a Polish thing). Now that I think of it, much of that day was spent in various outlets, where Ana looked for the perfect outfit, while Bohdan and me sang along to whatever music was playing, until she had to drag us out to avoid further humiliation. Our specialty was R&B vocal gymnastics, honed to perfection in Abercrombie & Fitch.

We topped the day off with an evening stroll through Georgetown (for olfactory impressions - see title), which is ridiculously opulent, but not too offensive about it, and at times even homey - provided you ignore how much dough was allocated to the "make this shit feel homey" fund. Inspired by all the folks enjoying the finer side of life, on our way home we picked up some AA mac & cheese (vile!), and attempted to eat it watching The Soup and various incarnations of CSI. I'll bet you a molar that whenever you turn on your TV in America, you'll find at least one version of CSI playing on some channel. We actually tested it throughout our stay in the US (much to Bohdan's delight), and it never failed. Meanwhile, The Soup is awesome beyond belief - it's like a digest of the most ridiculous TV moments of the week (reality shows, news, daytime talk shows, etc.), so it's pretty much custom-made for me. I don't remember when I last laughed so hard, though now I only recall a handful of things: the gong commercial, some lady barking at people to interrupt them, and the immortal "And by record I mean... MY VAGINA!" - a phrase that immediately entered our vernacular.

Oh, The Soup, how I'm gonna miss you.

* a phrase we heard on TV, in a segment about the world's SEXIEST BEACHES, or somesuch. The correct spelling is "phi-phi", but that one still shouldn't have made it past editing

** or AA - this symbol will denote all the things I consider part of the American experience, as defined by "stuff I saw on TV"

Klugites

The bar was called Nellie's if I recall correctly, and it was pretty hilarious: crowded, lined with huge plasma screens showing various sporting events and some seriously homoerotic martial arts reality show (I think it's called The Ultimate Fighter, or something. It consists of sweaty half-naked guys hugging each other in a cage - apparently ultimate fighters spend most of their duels deadlocked. Which kind of makes sense, if they all are. Ultimate, I mean. Where was I?) and pictures of sporting teams from various championships. Basically the only way to tell it was a gay sports bar was to read the team names under the photos, as most seemed to go for the pun*.

But the main attractions were the people from Bohdan's scholarship program. It was loud, so I only got to talk to the ones in my immediate vicinity, but my cup still kind of overfloweth...ed. First, there was Vidhya, a hilarious, quick-witted, outspoken Indian chick, who (as we later learned) is totally into Buffy and Firefly, and who at one point got into an attitude-off with someone’s flatmate (gay talk-to-the-hand vs. ethnic oh-no-you-DIDN'T), complete with snapping fingers and The Zigzag Head Thing**. Then there was the impeccably dressed, gorgeous Natalie from the UK, who always spoke with this sort of melodic, slightly detached lilt ("naugh-TAY"), and seemed plucked straight from a modern-day Titania's entourage. Finally, there was Adam. And suddenly my trip to the US morphed into The Time I Met That Guy, Oh, And I Went to New York, Too. There are many ways of looking at it, and I think went through them all over the next couple of days, but most of that was still to come, and that evening was definitely one of the highlights of this entire escapade.

* okay, there was also a psychedelic cherub fresco on the ceiling

** you know what I mean

Trip + Washington

[Fair warning: I'm compiling these from cryptic bullet points, on the plane back to Europe, with a huge Italian dude occasionally reading over my shoulder]

The flight was long, but pretty uneventful. At the Frankfurt airport, my innate authority phobia kicked in, and when asked if I had purchased anything, I blurted out "A bagel..." and then added guiltily "...but I ate it." The official maintained his composure admirably. I watched Wall-E (the tiny, shitty in-flight entertainment screen REALLY did it justice. Sigh.) And that's about it.

The moment we arrived in Washington, I entered a state of permanent, low-level anxiety. I think the light went off when we were waiting in line to be cleared by the Department of Immigration, and had to endure a looped video of mind boggling American propaganda. Normally this would be cause for delight and mockery, but everyone around us reined themselves in after the initial burst of giggles, all too aware that the immigration officer can send your ass back wherever pretty much on a whim. To illustrate how arbitrary the whole process is: my guy, a weary, matter-of-fact African-American gentleman, asked me but two questions and gave me a June departure deadline, while Ana got grilled on how she met Bohdan (Oh, it's an epic tale of romance and adventure...) and was kindly asked to leave by February.

I don't think I ever shook off this weird guardedness. Don't take the kid's picture. Don't talk about race. Try not to do accents. It was all the more surreal since back home my circle of friends is notorious for its lack of political correctness, so my auto-censorship module is pretty rusty. We ended up just using Polish whenever discussing potentially inflammatory subjects. It turned out to be a surprisingly engaging exercise, since we've gotten so used to interspersing it with English expressions.

I remember the taxi driver being Indian (or Pakistani, I've no way of knowing, being a former Commie), and that was the case every time we took a cab, so it really is some sort of national (regional?) monopoly. At night, the outskirts of Washington seemed almost European (by which I mean: generic). Though maybe I was merely projecting, cause I remember being strangely comforted by the sight of a Siemens neon sign. It only registered with me that I'm actually on the other side of the pond, when I heard police sirens. It might sound naive, but to me sirens have really become the soundtrack of Washington. I've never heard so many in my life. And while in Poland they almost always signal the approach of an ambulance, here it was usually police cars. Even if you adjust for cavalcades, that's still pretty freaky.

Bohdan greeted us with open arms, declaring that I'll have to sleep on a wooden pillow* and cover myself with a towel (he told Ana to bring a sleeping bag, but neglected to CC me with that particular piece of information). It was kind of cold, so I finally got to feel like a scout. And now I know why I decided to miss out on that experience.

The next morning we walked him to work and set out to conquer the Mall of America. I have to admit I've no idea why it's called that (or even if it's the official name), but that's exactly what it is - all the national landmarks conveniently clustered in one area. We took the requisite Capitol, White House, and Washington Monument pictures, and paid a visit to Lincoln, but I was excited the most by the discovery of the Ordoss Embassy (pictured left). Then we picked Bohdan up from the library and went home to get ready to go to a gay sports bar (yeah, that's not a joke), where one of his co-workers was having a birthday party.

to be continued

* most of the pillows in his apartment had WOODEN EMBROIDERY, so every night was potentially an adventure, with lacerations but a twitch away

Now let's bump heads comically

Recently, inspired by a Sia lyric (I'm that deep), I've made a decision to just go out there, meet loads of people, and see where that gets me. So far, the results have been mixed at best, but apparently my plan ended up in some memo, cause today a supercute baker I'd been idly stalking for the past month invited me to his art show. That's got to be code for "marry me", right?

The whole thing had all the makings of a vintage Tom Hanks romcom scene, as we stuttered our way through awkward responses to misheard questions and scribbled things down on bits of paper. At a fucking BAKERY. I pray to God the art itself doesn't suck, but even if it does I'm dead-set on critiquing it favorably with all the expertise I gleaned from reading Pan Samochodzik i Fantomas.

Gaze into the crystal

For some reason I had no problems deciding where to post this one. I'll analyze that fact once I'm a wee bit more sober.

So, tonight I went to this... actually, I'm still not sure what it was exactly, but let's call it a dinner, as Darek's stand-in whatever. It was at his university professor's apartment, and from what I gathered it was supposed to be some sort of... once again, I can't even say for sure, but my impression was something along the lines of Dorothy Parker's salon for deviants - the university dude presiding over a menagerie of his "promising" students of the homosexual persiasion (and their stand-in whatevers, obviously). I know, sounds bizarre, but at the same time it was intriguing enough for me to give it a try, and frankly, I'm in no position to refuse attending a meeting of gay linguists with pop culture inclinations.

As it turned out, it was the university dude, his partner, their university friend, his insanely Hot Spanish Lovah (TM), who also works at the university, and some guy from TV. Plus me and Darek. Let me reiterate: well-to-do, accomplished intellectuals in their prime, and a faux-jailbait topping. For the life of me, I still can't figure out the evening's formula, but for the first hour or so I pretty much felt like some sort of exotic critter brought in for entertainment. No, scratch that: the exotic critter's stand-in whatever. Then I finally ingested enough wine to shut down my WTF node, and enjoyed myself immensely listening to stories about scornful Galician mother-in-laws and university politics.

The surreal feel of the entire situation was compounded by the fact that it all took place in this amazing apartment with an enormous balcony, leather furniture, loads of books and DVDs, and a gigantic flatscreen TV playing - I shit you not - Madonna videos. I really wish there were an emoticon for running your fingertips over your lips to make crazy-person sounds, cause that's exactly what I need to punctuate that sentence. It was just madness, and not the Spartan kind.

But at the same time, I had a lot of fun, and all those people seemed genuinely happy and at ease, and some even had Hot Spanish Lovahs (TM) (seriously, I'm not partial to that particular type, but God DAMN), and I found myself thinking: if this is my future, where's the fast-forward button.

Still, the highlight of the evening came when I was being driven home by Darek, listening to his playlist of Balkan abortion anthems and other such, when suddenly he went "guess what I have here though!", skipped several tracks, and on came Who Will Save Your Soul from VH1 Storytellers. By Jewel. Now, the hilarity of Darek listening to Jewel is probably lost on... well, just about everyone who doesn't know him, but I damn near peed my pants right there. Mostly with delight.

Yup. An evening to remember.

Quick reboot

I don't know how it speaks to my character that my first transitional creation got aborted halfway down the birth canal, but whatcha gonna do. The first name I came up with - Neon Express - was basically just a nice, generic prefix coupled with an all-purpose suffix. Fluff and vowelage, signifying nothing. But then I found this purdy sign, fell in love with it, plastered it on front and center, built the entire color scheme around it... and it's really kind of heavy-duty. This shit be grim. So the name got adjusted accordingly.

And that's precisely how you recognize solid, thought-provoking content - it's always posted under headers inspired by random google image searches. A little bit of insider info there for you.

Curses

Yssy just called to ask how long the Sia gig we attended earlier this year lasted, because she just happens to be in Dublin for a day, and just happened to pick up the newspaper, and apparently Sia just happens to be playing some Dublin club tonight. And she's wondering if she'll be able to make it to the venue before the proper set starts.

I would have strangled her with the phone cord, but a) I was on my mobile (damn you, technological advancement!) and b) she's in Dublin (damn you, ...space!) so I'll just have to settle for weeping enviously into my blanky.

Edit: apparently she didn't make it to the concert after all, which didn't make me feel better at all. Where's shadenfreude when you need it?

Can't believe they pulled it off

I love me some stunt casting! Seriously, how awesome is it that Tina Fey's Queen of Showbiz for the moment? It certainly makes a helluva more sense than the whole Gossip Girl phenomenon. To be honest though, I don't really see her single-handedly winning the election for the Democrats with her Palin impersonations, as some journalists claim (I'd link to said journalists' articles, but I read something to that effect too long* ago to remember where it was from. Or maybe I dreamt it?)

Anyway, go Tina! And good luck with the inevitable backlash!

* i.e. around two days - behold the Internet news cycle!

Woe is a three-letter word

So, I'm not exactly sure how this thing is going to work. I never understood the idea of having multiple blogs. It seems like so much fuss, and a bit schizophrenic to boot. However, I do need to get legally adopted by some well-off Vancouver family at some point (duh!), and chances of them deciphering what a delight I'd be around the condo from my Polish scribblings are pretty slim. And on the flipside, I've always felt kind of douchey and pretentious posting in English on the old blog. So here we are.

Except, as I've already stated above, I'm not sure where "here" is yet.