Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Southern Comfort

Saturday, August 1, 2009

...but with a whimper

I'm back in Warsaw and have no idea what to do with myself with no people or deadlines to meet, no movies to miss, and no food to binge on.

I also happen to be exhausted and couldn't be more thankful for this long-overdue implosion.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

My name is Calypso and I have lived alone

On Monday night, most of the Kropka people went out to party. I tagged along, and it was cheek-muscles-cramping-from-smiling amazing. There was singing, and dancing (the first time I saw Rafal and Piotr, aka the Beauty and the Beast dance - both were quite spectacular, if for different reasons), and drinking, and general merriment. And on Tuesday morning I packed my stuff up and went back to Warsaw to see Suzanne Vega live - still undecided whether I would come back to Wroclaw afterwards, despite the previous night's events.

I went to the concert with filmmix and - unexpectedly - Irmina, who got her ticket as part of some despicable corporate tie-in. I spent the first two songs mildly anxious about how bored she would probably be by the experience - Suzanne isn't exactly the most flash-boom-bang type of performer. The gig itself was a bit uneven - I found myself drifting off at times. The middle part was the strongest, with a killer arrangement of Tombstone (which I had never heard live), My Favourite Plum, and of course Left of Center, which I find to be absolutely enchanting live (it's just vocals, bass, and - as is usually the case with Vega - pretty compelling lyrics). She did, however, play Some Journey, which I love, and then came the encores - 4 songs: Calypso (with a killer, spatially nautical electric guitar background), Rosemary, Pornographer's Dream and In Liverpool. It's not even that much of an exaggeration to say they're my 4 favorite songs. Or at least they represent the absolute pinnacles of achievement in the 4 major emotional realms of her music. I was over the moon.

And it turned out Irmina really enjoyed herself, so things were good.

I eventually decided to go back to Wroclaw for the remainder of the festival - mostly because the appartment was in desperate need of cleaning, and I was in desperate need of not having to wash any dishes and/or vacuum anything. I think it was a good idea. I've developed some sort of laid-back rapport with the Kropka managment, so most of the time I just end up lounging at their Wroclaw HQ, translating odds and ends, and enjoying the general ambience.

Last night we went out drinking again, and I finally got to talk to the girl with whom I had clashed during the run-up to the festival. It's a good thing I did, because while we were completely unable to resolve our differences, I at least learned that I'm an incompetent emotional cripple with personal issues, which is in turn a very good thing to know when you're having second thoughts about how you handled a particular situation. I love the sizzling sound guilt makes as it dissolves in a pool of vitriol.

And today marked ao and Irmina's arrival. We went out to dinner, ate some ridiculously delicious stuff (seriously, Wroclaw rocks cuisine-wise, it makes bulimia seem really appealing), and got shitfaced on Sangria. Right now I'm chilling in my hotel room, riding out the last of my buzz, about to pour myself a bath, and get ready for a night out with fun, intelligent, cheerful people... Those Somalian kids have it a bit worse, right?

p.s. part of a short text message from Asia. In Polish, deal with it : "uslyszalam po drodze goscia, ktory spiewal: 'a ja wole moja mame, bo ma oczy jak twoja stara'

Monday, July 27, 2009

Ballpark

- So, what's the story behind your t-shirt?
- Actually this is one of the very few I own that doesn't have one...
...but I do have this one with two unicorns fucking under a rainbow, which would save us both a great deal of time.

Naturally, I didn't say that outloud.

The least you can do
Is be flattered
By affections squandered

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Working at the milk farm

They serve breakfast until 10 a.m. but after getting up at 8:45 for 2 consecutive days I was at the end of my rope, decided I won't be terrorized anymore, and slept in. It was glorious.

Then a bubble bath with Anansi Boys (which are better than I thought they'd be), a short hike downtown, a big mocha, and 4 pieces of mozarella & tomato toast. I'm ready to begin work.

3 peons in the gold mine, 3 peons gathering lumber, and a turret up. Bring it on.

Edit: Ok, a kitten just sauntered in, made its way onto the table next to mine, and lied down on it, preparing for a nap. I feel like I'm in the Eastern Bloc's answer to Ithaca.

Edit2: a random dude just picked the cat up apparently only to peer inquisitively at its genitals, and then tossed it back onto the table. My mellow was somewhat harshed.

Unexpected

Fun fact - I just decided: enough of this bullshit, time to start posting on the Polish(ish) blog again. Except apparently it doesn't exist anymore. I mean, it's still there, you can access it, but I can't log into the admin part of it. Which means, I guess, that I'm stuck with this experiment for better or worse.

Anyway, tonight was some sort of solstice. My main problem during the Wroclaw festiwal usually is being very acutely aware of how far away I am from my power source, and not having a dedicated wingman who would alleviate the resulting anxiety. Even when I come here with friends, I'm never the no. 1 person on their priority list, which means that potentially there are times when I'm either on my own or forced to tailor my plans to someone else's agenda.

Which is, as you can imagine, a nightmare in our time.

All this has heretofore been merely a nuissance. This year, however, I have actual unpleasant shit to deal with (or to desperately try to avoid dealing with, as seems to be the case) and could really use some backup. So, naturally, almost none of the usual suspects bothered to come, and those who did are, by nature of the aforementioned shit, benevolently neutral at best.

The critical evening (for reasons too boring to get into) was tonight, and it sent me into a downward spiral followed by a total mobilization. I tapped ley lines I hardly even sensed, just to get through the potential showdown in one piece - or at least have something to fall back on. The bloodbath thankfully never happened, but I was so flush with reinforcements that sudenly I was having the best time, darting strategically to and fro, and reveling in my newfound sense of security.

All in all, a great evening. I just hope that overkill won't result in some sort of mana burn. Hopefully they abolished that mechanism in this edition.

Friday, July 24, 2009

ENH

I arrived in Wroclaw, and there's already shit I don't need.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Life, the universe, and everything

Hung is off to a very slow start, but it did manage to sum up my entire existence in a single, brilliant telephone monologue:

"I wanted to call you, but I've been been drowning in paper all night, the whole law firm is freaking out... I'm not really certain, some bank is going belly up... I don't know, I just make sure all the words are spelled correctly when it does."

Embrace your redundancy.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Things that are black

I think the thing I miss most about my old room is the sound of rain on the street outside my window, and of the odd car driving in the night over the wet asphalt. There's something about nighttime storms that I find incredibly comforting. The more tempestuous the better. Here, none of my windows face the street (thought that's actually a blessing, JP2 is far too noisy), and something's off with the angles - the raindrops never seem to hit them. And when they do, the sound is abrupt and unpleasant.

When my dad was 20, he decided that he would spend his 40th birthday in Vienna, his 50th in New Orleans, and his 60th in Reykjavik. He went to Vienna alone - it was a big deal back in 1989. Mom tells me that she took me to meet him in Budapest, and then the three of us came back home. The only thing I remember about that journey is that I got a Hungarian Tom & Jerry comic book. We didn't have those in Poland yet. Ten years later, he took me to New Orleans - that trip I recall much better, though for me the entire thing was still mainly about seeing Tori Amos live for the first time in my life. But I do remember walking with him down Bourbon Street on his birthday night.

On Tuesday, I bought him tickets to Reykjavik, trying very hard not to think about the whole thing in terms of a "proper sendoff". I could tell he didn't expect it, but we're both titans of emotional display, so the whole exchange took maybe 10 seconds, and then we were off to the next topic. Mom was incredibly happy, and later told me he actually teared up. Of course I never even noticed.

We'll know on Aug 8th when he starts chemo.

The sky is really uncanny tonight, Pitch black. You can almost feel the void beyond. No moon, no stars, not even any of that reflected city glow. And certainly no rain.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Open'er and other festivals

Back from the coast, with somewhat mixed feelings. It was probably my last Open'er (unless the lineup is totally stellar - never say never and all that). Too much of a hassle for too small a gain, at least music-wise. I was only actually having a good time for a few moments during Santigold's set. Otherwise it was a world of meh tempered with hysteria (Crystal Castles, what the fuck?)

...

Aaand I drifted off to do other shit on the Internet. Writing in English still doesn't come naturally. Anyway, there were several surprises. For one, it was probably one of the most effortless group holidays EVER - at least that's how something in my brain chooses to remember it. We had this easygoing cameraderie, and things just flowed naturally. And most of the time I felt perfectly content with where I was at the moment, which is a new development - I usually keep wondering what's going on with the OTHER groups, regret not staying up with the rest, or resent not having the good sense to turn in when I should have. Yet for some reason during this weekend, I felt equally at ease surrounded by friends as I did making my way home by myself (I was usually the first one to call it a night).

But probably the most interesting - at least to me - part of this weekend was that I returned home yearning for a real vacation. Like... at a lake. Or in the mountains. Or something. I don't think I've done that in... well, years. Ten, maybe more.

I won't write about the obvious stuff, because I beat that horse to death in actual conversation, and I won't write about the less obvious stuff, because I just unloaded that part on an unsuspecting victim. So thank you for reading my Open'er odds-and-ends presentation, and good night.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

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.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

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.

Friday, June 19, 2009

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.

Friday, June 5, 2009

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:

Monday, June 1, 2009

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.