THE DAY BEFORE

Her mind grows sharp. She’s not edgy though. She’s calm. And she’s not cold. She’s cool. She’s all water.

Water in an ocean. A deep, blue ocean. Calm and cool.

But when the time comes, she’ll be a flood.

ARTERIES

I didn't dare cycle in the forest yesterday. I was too scared. I trusted that fear in the way you only trust the irrational – totally.

It was the heart that made me so afraid of going the usual way, the way down. Irrational. So I listened. ”Don’t make waves, don’t make yourself(,) a clot," I heard. ”You trusting me is you trusting you.” Irrational. I listened again. And so I stuck to the main arteries that time.. No going against the flow, no risk of anything jumping out from behind the arch of the aorta.

I let the heart pump me out and about in the same direction as the rest of the school. Upstream, but not against the stream. A rush of blood to the head? No, a levelled, balanced flow.. That's how I reached the brain cells. But they are so hopelessly useless in explaining fears and trusts. All they can make you do is stand up to something by playing it down or follow it by rationalizing.

I trusted the heart, not the brain. I don't believe what people say.. that trust needs to be well-earned, and fear – well-grounded. That there must be experience involved. Real trust is, by nature, sudden and instinctive. And it's given lightly. Otherwise, I make it acquirement, fossilization, lie. Real fear is just as immediate, inexplicable. Otherwise, it's only a phobia.

I can only trust a world in which trusts and fears are irrational. I also feel it's not the only way they are connected. Cos I fear that trust.

NG

Yes, Angie is explosive. And it is not solid. But is this the matter of choice, really? The not-solid Angie cannot be the rolling stone you see.. It only is what it is: a liquid, and a trans-parent one. And so it flows, both assuming and sculpting the shape of the surroundings. If you don’t mishandle, it will never go off. Needs to be hit, dropped or shaken.. forced to send the carefully manufactured, neighbouring molecules into the neverwhere. And Angie prefers to apply itself elsewhere, assist those with hearts under attack, really. Slowly disperse in their mouths, sweet and acrid in taste (they say). Bring them some moss to rest upon. Or to chew and spit out, but nevermind.

Yes, Angie is explosive. And it is not solid. But it's active. And this is the matter of choice.

WYSIWYG?

What you see is what you get? No. Not always. Not this time. Maybe not ever. I wanted to be made. Please turn a blind eye to this homophonic layer suggesting certain connotations. So I have been made.. into a little (bit of a) scribe, a little (bit of a) project coordinator, interpreter, translator, secretary, junior advisor.. a little (bit of) whatnot. I am an assistant, so I assist in this a-little-bit-of-this(,)a-little-bit-of-that kind of way. And I’ve just concluded that it cannot be more obvious why I’m not a manager.. What a bout of self-awareness, huh? Triple huh. This awareness is no reflection on me though.. Aaah, so I have managed some little thing after all..

I’m also a language learner, you know, you knooow.. But this myself has made myself into. What you see is what you get? Again, hell no. With this language, you can forget the sense of sight. So I can see, store, recall. So what? It won’t stop the sound in its tracks. And it’s the sound that I'm chasing, at breakneck speed and yet.. Too always too slow I am.. Androids might dream of electric sheep, but dragons won't stop for hitchhikers.

GIRL UNINTERRUPTED:

.. 120 minutes of an activity rated as “restricted”, performed upon..

.. 30 kilometers of unknown woodland paths in the ambient temperature of..

.. well, say, teenage temperature, which has limited the number of crises on the way to the whole..

.. 1,5 downs (rounded).

In numbers dwells happiness. Count your blessings.

BLOODSPORT

He certainly knows which way the wind blows.. Fathers just know that, you say. But my wind-swept parent really does. He hunts for things, remember? I went to assist today. He span his usual hunting yarns and I took my usual hunting photos. We carried out the ritual beer tasting, which (quite unfortunately) led to my scaring off one of the prospective victims. I refused to throw this empty can away, so I crushed it to fit in my camera bag. All that on principle, I can't stand littering. The noise alarmed the beast and it buzzed off.

I was kind of disappointed, I must say. No action, no fun. Not so long ago I would have been more than glad about that. I would have let out a huge sigh of relief that no murder had taken place in front of me. And maybe I would have even crushed that can on purpose, who knows.. On most occasions like that I used to invoke all the gods I could possibly name, including those I didn't believe in, to please please please make my dad miss his shot. I felt sorry for his prey-to-be. And soooo embarrassed that I wished to be someplace else.

Funny how things change. Only a week ago I voluntarily held a dead animal in my bare hands while flaying. It was still warm. Pretty intense.. But I didn't feel a thing for the creature. It was being violently deprived of its.. belongings, one by one. And I held it still and felt damn useful.

I don't think this makes me less human. Or romantic. Maybe even more? Shouldn't surprise anyone, considering what is really behind humanity and romanticism..

DUSK TO DAWN

A few sleepless nights ago I witnessed a perfect crime. The last nocturnal insects were mincing soundly up the walls to take their fallback positions, the first morning birds practising games to the detriment of being on their guard. Then silence. Poor feathered things! The creepy-crawlies certainly know what makes good early breakfast.. You need to abstain from sleep for more than one night to understand that it's just a game they play, a sort of amusement for the nighthawks. The acting crew come back every night to stage their little show.. The thing is that I don't really abstain. It's just that my brain doesn't seem to be able to recall how to switch between modes. It won't ahem at the eyelids to shut the hell up. Three to five hours of sleep a night? At best? Are you kidding me? Only a month ago I was the official record holder in the unofficial Olympic discipline of sleeping one's ass off! And lately even the beer strategy, quite helpful on those very few occasions when I needed assistance in being put to sleep, has failed to take effect.. My last resort. What's left? The DIY tool box with a huge hammer inside. Hmmm.. This will surely knock me out, but I suck at DIY. Need assistance. Volunteers?

Just like any other irregularity, this must be a result of historical changes. A formal shift in the quality of certain components of this complex biological system I constitute. But can a thing which has passed unnoticed really cause insomnia this harsh in nature? Impossible to establish, really. What can be demonstrated at this point are the particulars of this 24/7 stand-by mode I can't switch to any other. Burning any after-midnight oil awakes ravenous hunger, one that won't go away just to let me draw nearer to the off mode. Also, no sleep = constant thinking. This inevitably leads to identifying connections and drawing conclusions which go vague unless put down. Anything can make them go away unattended: untimely arrival of the slumber I long for, break of dawn, or more tidbits of my alleged wit and sophistication elbowing their way ahead of the bashful pioneers. This aggravating necessity to record impressions is just enough to make me turn on the light. A beginning of any good story is an end of something you need to give up for its sake. In this case, my dream of getting at least some sleep at a relatively civilized hour. Biologically speaking, light averts the possibility of dropping off. Mathematically speaking, add the upright position needed to get down to writing and you get an equation whose result can be calculated without pen and paper. I save these for more noble purposess, like the one I left those messy sheets for in the first place - immortalizing and romanticizing reality. Am I hopeless, romantic or both, preceded by an indefinite article? Indefinite, how funny. This last option would probably make me look least pathetic in the eyes of others. But I refuse to consider now. I have a looooong sleepless night for that.

BEHOLD! THE NIGHTMARE

I stand corrected. There must have been something not-quite-humble about my thoughts or words about Mother Nature since there’s a thunderstorm going on outside. So as not to see the lightning-thunder chain reaction, I’ve had to seek shelter in the bathroom – the sole windowless room in the house. I can’t possibly watch a storm, just can't. It makes me count the time in between the flash and sound and calculate the distance.. And that captures my imagination a little bit too much.

I think I know the whys and wherefores of the storm. A humble creature would by no means believe her actions could influence the weather conditions.. This will teach me. But if I say pretty sorry, will anyone send the visual aids away? Anyone? That’s all I ask for. I can put up with the auditory side. I can put up with anything that’s unexpected. But when dreadful sounds are ceremoniously announced by a firework display or the like, bathroom confinement it is.

Despite all the distress, I should get down on my knees to show some well-earned gratitude for not having to be on my way to the far-off factory I occasionally visit, in a taxi equipped with maliciously clean, transparent panes forcing me to witness the spectacle outdoors. That really happened. But wait, there's more. The most intense set of lightnings, almost simultaneous with the accompanying sound effects caught me unprotected, rallying from the porter’s lodge to the office building. The umbrella I was too scared to put up banged against this body of mine, so prone to bruises.. Luckily, at the time it was far too focused on accelerating to acknowledge the newly-arrived injuries. Can you believe that this seemingly useful rain protection equipment actually hurt me and slowed me down? Appalling!

The weather-induced distress of mine didn’t go unnoticed. Yet, I wasn’t quite sure about the quality of this noticing work contained in the smile of my astute welcomer. It could have been any kind of smile really. I was unable to interpret it in the dark corridor I had chosen instead of the target room with a huge window overlooking the imposed show. The only thing I know for a fact is that I was smiled upon. But was it a display of good-natured amusement caused by my irrational fear or just a candid, welcoming gesture preceding a handshake? This I was (and still am) unable to identify. I desperately needed reassurance and I couldn't (and still can't) really tell if I was offered any. Ah, irony. Even when the welcomer revealed his own feelings for this kind of weather (a liking quite similar to mine), it didn’t help much. Now, why not? Because shortly after he did the most natural thing one does on entering a room: he turned on the light. My heart sank. Shiiiit! Now we’re the next target for all the stray lightnings!

"There’s no way we aren’t getting struck now”, I thought. And said, as it turned out when I heard my own stuttering voice struggling through this ill-assorted set of words. "We’re too busy for that”, I heard in reply and.. grinned! A balm on my paranoia and a pulse retardant in one.. I must say I still can’t think of a more comforting thing to say on an occasion like that. Unintentional, accidental reassurance? I don’t really care.

I’ve engaged in writing just to endure this storm. It works. Who knows.. Maybe one stormy day I’ll yawn and chase away the nagging enchanter with his noisy toys, saying: "You go show off elsewhere, I’m occupied.” And the time after that, I'll make the brat choke on his greens and bury the corpse in my backyard.

Until that day, however, I’ll try to apply myself to whatever I lay my hands on in order to fight the daily nightmares. May at least some of them get erased by means of hard work, so that I can say a thunderstorm is one of those very few things that intimidate me. For the time being, it’s one of a great many.

THE WORDS FOR ME TO HEAR

Nothing worth flagging has crystallized and yet I feel the urge to type: a lining especially hard to shed. It cast me into the neverwhere long enough ago to stop struggling against its timelessness and this irrational (ridiculous, to use my word) tickling it offers. Tickling pinkish in aura, begs to be said. Funny weird. I used the –ish deliberately, but not purposely. Let’s not be too flashy about all this, I say. Just a hint or two. No alliteration, no rhyme, no emphasis or driving at anybody’s sense of orientation. The itchy pinkishness seems to be the sole reason for writing that won’t bleach. Perhaps it’s better this way. Bleaching sterilizes the fabric, after all. 

PAPER FEEDER

For some reason, many aren’t pervious to the worthy argument that future can (and will) bring changes for the better. To me, looking forward to what future has in store has its charm: one comparable to the irrefutable appeal of a piece of paper yet intact. I know those past scribbled pages have been beyond number and of paramount (depressing) prominence to your brainbaby maker and hands worked to the flesh. Yet, the prospect of soiling and spoiling should by no means kill the fun of orchestrating, I say. After all, isn’t turning over an unreadable or tedious page of print a breath of fresh air to you? Or at least a sigh of relief that you can start all over? If you feel your actions only court doom and disaster to the paper matter, the world and his wife, it’s a blot. In any meaning you choose.

I ADMIT IT

I doubt the magical contagion; I disbelieve the poetic charm and power of affection. I would deaf-mutely rely on all that, but last night opened my eyes (not only literally). It seems now (when wholeheartedness is no more) that when people don't meet up and talk, it feels inevitably awkward when they finally do. Appearances? I'm not willing to keep them up anymore. Well, unless I get the forbidden-fruit crush back with its taste of an over-the-rainbow promise. Promise of understanding.. so sweetly on tap not so long ago.

MAGIC REALISM

Lately I was asked whether I could think of topics to write about. Well, the poor content of this blog may speak for itself, but still I am shallowly convinced I would find it in myself to constitute a wellspring of ideas. The question was due to my alleged flair for writing, which is able to bring me some additional Jagiełłos in near future. Yet, apart from motivatisation and talent, one must be creative to dabble in journalism. And I gullibly thought it was fact, not fiction that scribing was all about. But maybe once I am part of the machine, I'll get to the bottom of things. For the time being, however, I like to think it's all pure and simple. And that I'll fit right in with purely groundless self-complacency simply making up for the lack of creativity in me.

THE I-OFFENDING PARAGRAPH

I was accused of copying this from the net, so I may as well put it here. Ah, irony.

"Marilyn Manson and Marilyn Monroe seem to have little in common. However, only a closer look reveals an astonishing number of similarities. To begin with, the celebrities in question share the first name. Since Manson, enchanted with Monroe's gracefulness, christened himself Marilyn, the very name is a common feature between the two. What also makes Manson and Monroe alike, are their controversial biographies. Monroe, infamous for her affair with John F. Kennedy as well as for photos and movies considered risque at the time, was a rebellious figure. Similarly, Manson's gigs with dead animals and oral sex on stage, adorned with obscene song lyrics and an image leaving a lot to be desired in terms of morality and aesthetics, make him just as controversial nowadays as his name sake was for her contemporaries. Another characteristic the celebrities share is their questionable talent for singing. Both of them continued producing sounds in public in spite of having no real ability to make ones pleasant to the ear. All things considered, Marilyn Manson and Marilyn Monroe have, in fact, a lot in common. Their skin-deep differences are easily smothered by their in-deep resemblance put forward in this paper."

I'VE GOT THE POWER

There is no such thing as eager beaverness in me anymore. Has there been any? Well, ever since I started my long-lasting education; Sunday best, combed down hair and shrewd eyes; I have considered the state of knowing things to be a weapon rather than anything else. Knowledge is power, isn't it? But as each and every kind of power in this and other worlds, knowledge can be abused and misapplied. All you need is to find a person like me and make her believe there's no grade of punishment for mistakes and no one who sins by making one deserves to live. This is what I was shown and told in the first grade. You know, I don't want to be powerful anymore. I don't wanna know. I'm aware it's no good to stop exploring. As my Dad always says: she who ceases to learn descends into her own grave.. voluntarily. Still, it's hard-wired and neurotic on my part. And it echoes in my head every time I get down to studying; that strive for perfection induced by the sovereign voice of my primary school teacher. "What a blunder. Shame on you."

I must study. Imagine hurt, imagine tears. Go on, laugh at me. I've been violated.

DON'T BREAK MY AMATEUR RECORD

Writing is no way to unwind after a hardly intellectual and intellectually hard day's work. The time off ought to be spent just as actively as possible and devoid of sedimentation and language, apart from the strong one. I should aim at ending up soaked in sweat and worn out. I should run until I drop and acquire the only common denominator with time: the quality of being spent and wasted. I am no writer; regardless of the possible oddities of spelling. And be it activities or passivities, I make no points.

iMID

I'm just like you; I tend to forget whatever there is in between the beginning and the end of whatever there is. Just like you, I focus on the first and last words in a book, sounds in a song, images in a movie. And just like everybody else, I'm very much convinced that the position does matter, whether you pick or you get picked and regardless of the kind of position taken into consideration. People plan, order and sequence; they make lists of their mosts and favs. Why would they if it didn't matter who won the race and who trudged or straggled? No one remembers those who come in second, third and last but one. No wonder. It's so natural, after all. But isn't Nature the cruellest Mother of all? Unlike you and Her, I'm struggling to appreciate the filling and feeling of being stranded in the invariably sore spot; in the middle there.

DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES?

In men and women different parts of the brain are responsible for experiencing (sexual) pleasure. Whilst the whole male grey matter is engaged on the way to climaxing, most of the female encephalon must switch off before she can feel any arousal at all. It doesn't mean, of course, men get more out of sexual activity; it only means most women must learn to get as much as men do. To meet this tempting objective, they need to make their brains slow down with the exception of what is called the cerebellum which must remain good and ready for what's in store for its possessor. How unfair: what men owe to Nature and get effortlessly, women owe to themselves and a lot of strenuous exercise. However, before you start deploring this flagrant injustice, there's a pleasant surprise for you, ladies: what is so hard for you to get in bed is presented to you with interest in everyday life.

The cerebellum controls all the tediously repeatable activities people engage in. That is why we are so conveniently able to pursue certain activities absent-mindedly. Everyone must have experienced locking the door or turning the faucet off so automatically they weren't sure if they had done it. Double checking showed they had, of course. They were simply thinking about something more absorbing; the cerebellum was there for them to do the donkey work. Women perform hundreds of such little obligations on a daily basis. Cooking, cleaning, vacuuming, sweeping, washing-up: all this engages the painstaking cerebellum alone in the very same way sex does. Have you ever regarded chores as something pleasurable? Many women claim to feel relaxed or even contented while doing housework. No wonder, it seems to be a peculiar surrogate for sexual pleasure. Men, needing the whole brain active to get their satisfaction, get nothing measurable out of helping their partners in the house and maybe that's the reason they hardly ever do lend a hand. But maybe they would if they only knew something so ordinary and unsophisticated as chores was always there for their women, offering effortless satisfaction at no expense. I can't help it, I'm jealous.

LEFT OUT

Left-handedness is not about being left-handed. It's about being prone to jeopardy.

Many studies agreed that this variation (deviation?) in perception and orchestrating things is not a human phenomenon; not only, that is. Fish, chickens, monkeys: they all show symptoms of lateralization that helps them survive. And if a specimen is directively-challenged, it has difficulty getting by in a group. The funny thing is that the poor creature is unaware of this handicap and won't get to the bottom of things and find out why it is always a bit of an outcast.

Chickens, by way of illustration, have an inclination to attack whatever approaches them from their left side. Therefore, they approach one another from the right if they have peaceful intentions, such as mating rituals of shaking rumps or friendly clucky conversations. In contrast, those, say, reverse ones do it the other way around and end up pecked and left-out. They tend to fall upon those who want to say "hi", whereas those who want to fight get a warm welcome. They can't tell who's the good guy and don't know why their best of intentions lead to one disaster after another and this cluelessness often results in a peculiar cognitive dissonance. Psychologically put, to minimize the accompanying tension, one has to aquire or invent new beliefs and attitudes, which leads to trial and error practices (breeding frustration) or reconcilation with the hermitic fate (breeding frustration).

An analogy for humanity? Shudder to think.