And the quote of the day is...

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined - Henry David Thoreau.

The Garden of Forking Paths

There I was on some bus, sitting two seats to the right behind some nun. And I find myself almost tearfully thinking Sorry Jesus, Sorry Ma.
I could be studying at some college like most of my friends. But where I am is on some bus sitting two seats to the right behind some nun, with a bag full of lingerie and a pair of plastic heels.
And sometimes I wish so hard I had that blind child-like faith or be that delusional to believe so strongly or stupidly, depending on the given perspective, and become a nun. To live in a convent full of fucking olive trees and small crosses hung on the walls of their every dull-colored room.
To justify my every thought by the God I seem to have lost my faith in. To think about the kids who need adopting and about the girls that walk around showing too much, and never look into boys' eyes.
Think about anything but myself.
Instead I walk mostly naked, one step away from dry humping old men for thirty bucks a song.
And I could be learning something useless at school right now. Or be doing what I fear and love the most. Perform. I could be cursing at my coffee at one in the morning, groggily studying for some exam.
Sorry Jesus Sorry Ma.
But is this what I've become? Could this be permanent, this creature I've turned myself into? Silly, naive me, taking off thinking things will sort themselves out.
And I'm thinking Sorry Sorry, but I don't know who I'm apologizing to anymore. Maybe the person who needs most apologizing to is myself.
For becoming this bitter cynic of a twenty year old with only a vague idea of where to go but no idea how to get there. What to do? I'm small and I demand somebody tell me what to do!
And maybe it's blatantly obvious. Maybe the thing to finding yourself is to go back to the start. And I'm thinking, yeah, this is me, quoting Coldplay songs but I need to go back to what I was before I consciously flung myself into shit.
Sorry Jesus Sorry Ma
And maybe I'm a bit lost. Or maybe I'm a self absorbed girl driving herself nuts.
But I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Space and the lack of it.

And I really don't know. Maybe this is just me being my usual 'weird' self but the air feels stifling and space seems to be closing in on me. Wherever I go, there always seems to be someone in the room with me. Or in the room next to me. Or in the room next to that. I can hear voices and other people's music and other people's T.V.s on and smell other people's smells, be it clothes or food or skin. And people are talking to me and demanding an answer and wanting hugs and kissing my forehead or my cheeks or touching my arm when they speak to me or looking me in the eyes and expecting me to look back. And everything is this massive blur of colors and all I want is to let out a scream so loud that scares the world into silence.
All I want is my own space. Where people can't come in. Where I'm with myself and my own sounds and my own air. Where nobody sneaks up on me. Where I go into a room to be alone and be alone. Where nobody touches my stuff. Where I can open my arms wide and fucking twirl around without hitting anyone, just because I can.
What I have is the opposite of the Stendhal Syndrome, where I open my eyes and the dizziness and the panic comes from the too much ugly around me.
Old George Orwell didn't even know the half of it. Big brother isn't just seeing everything. He's listening and feeling and demanding an answer.
He's in everyone we know. And he's taking our space away. Our time, our attention, our privacy. He's choking us.

The way it is.

How it is in the 'exotic dancing' industry is this; there are three standard lines the girls eventually get used to by heart. The men are called 'punters' in this case, a word which I am ashamed ( or maybe not) to admit I've never heard before until recently. Well, in this case the guy looks at the girl and says,
"You know what? I've got to be honest. Out of all the girls here, you're the most beautiful."
Not necessarily in that same word structure, but you'd be surprised how unimaginative those men can be. They say this to every single girl they talk to during the night.
The second thing they say is
"What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?".
After a bit you learn that there is no sober way of answering this. Mostly you say 'I was waiting for you' and smile sweetly. Or knowingly. Or both. What is says is 'Subject Dropped'. What is says is ' I gave you a fake name and a fake story. And I'm sticking to it'.
It's not method acting when you're living this every night.
Then the punchline is, and this is tops really, they say
"I hate to see you here, like this. If I can do anything to help you, I will. I will give you anything you ask me for".
The sad thing about this is having this happen in this exact same sequence every time, it ceases to be entertaining and starts irritating the shit out of you.
The sad thing about this is that they, the punters, they actually mean it. To an extent, that is.
They want to save you, be your knight in shining last season's Prada glasses, not even bothering to hide their wedding bands.
Of course, the underlying subtext is ' I give you what you want if you give me what I want'.
They are not so much the saviours as the mother who never wants her kid to grow up.
What they do is they convince themselves that they're saving you when what they're really doing is saving themselves. Making themselves feel better by thinking they're needed. Distracting themselves from a boring life. Buying a simulation of love.
Everybody is so absorbed in themselves.
Mostly, I don't feel sad about this. How I feel is very Matter-Of-fact-ly.
About how this applies to just about any situation in life.
About how you're always somebody else's means to some end.

Of Sea, Sand and SunScreen

T'is but summer. It's forty degrees Celsius outside, my attention span rivals that of a fish and I can do little more than float about the blue sea all day and moan about the limited ice cream selection in general.
I am now very set on working on my tan, which is on hell of a bitch. I have to use different sun cream on different parts of my body if I don't want to end up looking like a patchwork quilt.
It's so hot I can't even read ad I can feel my geekiness morphing into blondiety under the sun's unforgiving glare.
In my defense, this is where I find myself right now, I shit you not;



Maltesia. Hah. The only thing I can bother to think about is my next escape to Florence and Rome. Before I head somewhere else. Whatever. The world is my home and all that.
It's too hot to write anything else.
Off to swim.

You are now dismissed.

Rumblings of a soul when drunk

What you don't realize is, the minute you stop talking your dreams out to strangers is the minute you give up on them.
And you tell yourself, it's because I don't want people to mock me or bring me down. It's because it's no body's business but my own. It's because this is a vulnerable part of me I don't feel like I have to share.
But the thing is this. The minute you stop talking about them is the minute you stop believing in them is the minute you decide to start fooling yourself into that you're being realistic and you're only giving yourself time.
People, they give up on their dreams and then they want you to give up on yours. Like a domino dream effect. And they all tumble down...
And maybe, just maybe, the thing is this. You have to stop running your life by other people. Someone is always going to think you're being ridiculous.
When you shape yourself to fit your surroundings, you don't get comfortable. All you do is blend in and kill some other little part of yourself.
Become a little bit like everybody else. One more mediocre pedestrian.
Maybe the thing to do is to shut yourself up and smile and nod and scream your dreams at the top of your lungs, so loud that you don't hear anyshitbody yelling back.
Just like when you were a kid. And you told everybody, smiling, that the tooth fairy brought you money. Such unabashed conviction and naivete that nobody wanted to say otherwise and people actually egged you on.
Maybe this is how our approach to everything should be. Childlike. Untainted.
Funny story, how our belief in ourselves in inversely proportional to our size.
And maybe this is the just the effect of the cheap wine I had earlier. And maybe not.
You know what they say. Vino Veritas.
And when that time comes when you realize that people believe in you more than you do, start screaming. Scream your hopes and your dreams. Scream your plans.
Eventually you'll find that not caring who's listening has given you the strength to believe in yourself again.
Become who you are.
Extraordinary.

Between a girl and her whisper

To beg To ask for To plead To cry
Kill the monsters under my bed.
To whisper To murmur To mouth To say
Take me out of inside my head.
To try To wish To hope To dare
On one dying burning light.
That you rip me open and see me be bare
Give me space yet hold me tight
To skim To stroke featherlight To caress
Kissing love letters onto my skin
To make up To want and To wait and To dream
Of meeting and letting you in.