Wholesale

I've a bug infestation in my kitchen. I think I've seen a roach (albeit a small one), some ants, and something about halfway between the two. I reacted with what seems to have become my default response to life's nuissances: resignation laced with a sense of injustice. "I just don't have the mental or emotional resources to be dealing with this right now". Today I finally went shopping and bought some weird cubes of boric something or another that I'm supposed to leave all over the kitchen. The package has this comforting, industrial, DDRish look, which gives me hope. No bright colors, no fancy pictures, just blocks of text, all yellow and black. Because genocide is no laughing matter.

There was another storm today. I don't think we've had a single day without one over the last week. I was walking back home from lunch as the skies darkened and the wind started gathering strength. Always a smell the roses moment for me.

There was this quote... something about life being all the stuff that happens between the noteworthy moments. I think I'm slowly maturing into that school of thought, and it seems that way comfort lies. Barring any paradigm shift (and the only one I can think of is having a kid, so.... yeah) this seems to be the proverbial it. Get a place. Make ends meet. When in doubt - treat yourself to some sour jellybeans. I have a nagging feeling that this realization (or delusion, take your pick) should come as a disapointment, but... not so much. Stuff seems fairly groovy, in a restrained, Canadian anarchist kind of way.

I guess I'm having some sort of not-quite-midlife anti-crisis.

The pegasus lands again

I'm beginning to think there is nothing that can't be made better by the addition of Michelle Forbes, series-wise.

Apart

I've finally experienced this thing most of my friends complained about at one point or another - having all this stuff you want to write down, and losing all interest in going through with it as soon as you sit down at the computer. Hence the prolonged - for me at least - silence.

Work has really picked up. The festival preparations are gradually getting more and more frenzied, but we haven't yet hit the hysteria threshold. Me mostly because I have no way of gauging our progress and so I'm completely oblivious as to how much work awaits us still. Then again, there's the other translating stuff I'm doing at the moment - nothing gruelling, luckily, but the deadlines are absurd. I definitely feel the strain, but at the same time i'm almost grateful for being able to alternate between the two when one gets too stressful or unpleasant.

And things did get unpleasant at one point. The moment I got back from England, I had almost simultaneous head-on collisions with two translators who didn't take too kindly to my proofreading. To make things worse I wasn't without fault either, at least as far as the tone of my initial messages was concerned. It's all over now, and won't ever happen again (one of the few perks of this sort of job - I get to pick who I work with), but I just don't handle that sort of shit too well. But that was literally the only grain of salt so far. I get along with my current boss swimmingly, we babble away on gtalk all day long and I think it's safe to say we're having a blast.

Ana left for the US and it's very weird, even with the transitional phase of her being totally overworked and zombiefied over the last few months. With her gone, and the family no longer providing the background static, it truly feels like I'm flying without a net. Except flying implies motion, and this is just some sort of... stasis, I suppose. Not unpleasant, but confounding.

I feel like I don't see my friends at all. I just don't have the time. And somehow that doesn't really feel bad either. Things just move forward, and I with them, carried by the current. The loneliness thing just got misplaced somehow, I don't even know when. And obviously I'm not exactly turning the place upside down, trying to find it.

They're admitting dad on Monday. They've found another type of cancer in the meantime.

Maybe I'm just not processing all this properly. Maybe processing is overrated.

Bring your own sun

I stopped writing about Birmingham mostly because everything I posted was instantly sucked into my host's RSS feed.

But now I'm back, a wee bit wiser about group dynamics, and ready to mold this episode into a spectacular memory. I expect it won't be difficult at all:

Lest we acknowledge it

It's my second night in Birmingham. I'm writing this from an inflatable mattress in my hosts' workroom, accompanied by two laptops, a sewing machine and a small mirror, which I unsuccessfully attempted to break (I was cursed by a disposable Urban Outfitters bag, you see...)

As you can probably tell, I should be sleeping instead.

Last night was really cool. My hosts threw a birthday/anniversary bash, inviting their various friends from all over the map (I was pretty disalieved with the turnout). Everyone got dressed up in full noir regalia and converged in Mmffbb Mmmm Mffmfff (that's the name of the pub I can't recall) which looks like a full-fledged freemason joint, just without the secrecy. Opulent like you wouldn't believe. After a few drinks we moved to a retro cinema for a private screening of Chinatown (God this movie's weird at times), and finally ended up at Bohdan and Karolina's apartment, concluding the festivities at around 6 a.m. Laughs were had and photos taken, though once again I ended up without a single glamour shot. Mind it, there's some cool and funny ones, just not anything i could look at and say Ok, that's a good one. Which is all the more frustrating since it's not like I'm the Ass-Faced Boy and I'm pretty sure there has to be an angle that doesn't bring out my inner potato.

It's a bit weird visiting the UK without Ana. Instead I share the roof with the Three Graces, a gaggle of delightful - and contrary to this abbreviated description quite different - girls whom I nevertheless hardly know, and who on occassion seem a bit... overwhelmed by flashes of unfiltered me. Much as I would like to just let my freak flag fly, I can't help feeling somewhat self-conscious. Especially when confronted with queries like Seriously though, why are you staying all the way until Thursday? Gosh... Um... Good question, I guess?

That being said, I'm having a wonderful time, basking in Karolina's golden glow and taking full advantage of Bohdan's plug-and-play personality. Already had a couple Smell the Roses moments (you know, when you actually take a step back and go Oh, wow... Happiness) and I'm counting on grabbing a few more for the scrapbook before my time is up.

Ok, finally sleepy. Over and out.