So close…

I was really excited when I started this blog and thought “yeah, this is gonna be awesome! I’ll write every other day and soon I will have a cult of avid readers who cannot live without my blog!” Hmm, ok, that didn’t work out as planned. On the plus side I am almost done with my BA thesis. Well, at least haflway done. Almost.

Crawling Skin

From time to time you meet someone toward whom you feel a sudden rush of affection. Other times you meet people you initially despise and, surprisingly, feel good about that. Their mere presence makes your skin crawl, your guts feel like they’re being caressed with pliers and your ears start burning once they open their mouth to torment their surroundings with boring, utterly pointless drivel (I am aware of the tautology).

That’s all.

Scary Stuff

I don’t know who came up with the concept of having joint activities at birthday parties, but they sure deserve a kick in the noggin. Those activities can take various frightening forms and reach from stupid, made-up games (I hate going to my uncle’s parties – not sure they deserve this label) to passing something around the room to music and when the music stops the person holding the item has to do/say something. I got the pleasure to enjoy the latter at a 40th birthday last Saturday. Not that I cannot appreciate the nice thought behind it, but for Pete’s sake, what is wrong with those people? Maybe it’s just me (though I doubt that) but every time I am in the middle of some party-torture-game-thing I panic. Literally. Apparently, so does everyone else. People passed the umbrella (of doom) around like it was a leper, anxious to get the virulent thing out of their hands.

There I was staring at Pandora’s Box making it’s way over to me. The music had been going on for ages, centuries and it was bound to fall silent soon . . . very soon, when the umbrella reached me kind of soon. Discomfort turned into swelling fear rearing up inside me. As I extended my hand to grab the Kryptonite the music stopped. My fingers had already touched the handle but the guy who gave it to make still had it in a tight grasp; his fingers seemed to stick on it as if it were made of ice. My hand jerked away, seemingly on its own. I got spared, felt blessed and stopped sweating.

The only thing I have ever experienced that was worse than party activities was a 15 minute long Power Point presentation consisting of childhood pictures and retarded music for a 14 year old girl. Thanks, uncle.

Me, the movies and a deathwish

Avid readers of my blog know by now that I am ridiculously sensitive when it comes to noise. Also, I’ve already told you that always, every single time – I kid you not – someone weird sits next to me when I got to the movies. They either have the sniffles and cough or sneeze all the time, they breathe really loudly, or make some other weird noise. Was I important enough, I’d suspect a conspiracy. For now I’ll have to settle on the worst cinema-karma in the history of mankind.

I went to watch Sweeney Todd the other day and it was a wonderful movie. The acting was great, the music pretty cool and the story exciting. However, once again I could not fully enjoy the movie because of the three following reasons:

Number one: Johnny Depp fans. A bunch of 20-something girls giggling, screaming, going nuts.

Number two: The guy next to me, apparently, needed a lot of space between his legs as he was kinda pushing my knee away with his. I felt violated.

Number three: The guy who sat three seats over. He was talking throughout the entire movie, I heard every single word he said – keep in mind I was three (!) seats away – and 10 minutes before a major plot twist occurred he, of course, blurted out what was about to happen. Fortunately, lucky me had already figured it out. Other topics of his lively conversation with his better half (she just had to be (the better half that is, I don’t even want to think of the possibility that he might be…gawd)) were, i.e. the amount of blood used, how the subtitles (everything but the songs were dubbed) were not a 100% match to what was actually sung, and what was about to happen next. I wish I had had the courage to tell him to put a sock in it. Fortunately, I hadn’t as the guy turned out to be three times as big as me.

“Not Funny,” said PayPal

I rent a voice chat server with my best friend to stay in touch as much as possible as she lives in another country. Since she is billed for the server, I send her some money now and then to pay my half. Last time, I thought it would be hilarious, well, kinda funny, to write “Porn” in the PayPal transaction subject line. As it turned out, PayPal employees did not appreciate my fine sense of humor. Who knew! They sent her, surprisingly not me, an email explaining how wrong it was to take money for something which obviously (to them) is oh so wrong. First of all, even if I were paying her for porn I do not see why it is any of their business; and second of all, who on earth writes “Porn” in a subject line when actually purchasing porn? Think about it!

Anyway, it was all fun and games, until they threatened with suspending her account. What? Is PayPal run by some crazy, tight-ass nutbars? Apparently, it is. The issue was resolved with an email telling them that no porn changed sticky hands. Perhaps, I should use something less offensive like “slave child” or “eastern European woman” next time because porn, obviously, crosses the line. Gsus!

Munching, Breathing, “Noise-ing”

I am very sensitive when it comes to sounds. No, I really mean it. I am ridiculously sensitive to the degree of madness. For example, I cannot stand heavy breathing. You know, when someone only breaths through the nose and it’s barely noticeable at first, but as time wears on it gets louder, and louder, and louder. The sound of heavy breathing, this whistling of the nose, air being sucked in and air gushing out. Constantly. In. Out. Shuuuuuh. Everything around you falls silent, you can only hear this one annoying, nerve-wrecking sound. Try as I might I cannot block this sound; it’s an impossible task. Shuuuuuh. Drilling itself into my auditory canal like a jack-hammer. Inescapable. This is especially annoying during exams, or while watching a movie; Whether that is at home or at the cinema doesn’t matter. Although, I have to say, I always have the pleasure to sit next to a weird person when i go to the movies. Either they breath heavily, cough all the time, or make some other funky, annoying noise. Same goes for munching, especially when I’m no eating myself. It pretty much works the same way as with heavy breathing. Why I am this way I do not know. Come to think of it, maybe the problem is me and not them… No, it’s them.

Nothing Important Happened Today

Neither did yesterday, or the day before that, or the day before that and so forth. Actually, all I do is studying for my last two exams in this semester, talking to friends on msn or spend my days reading and watching The Office. I started to read A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami and love it. I guess I am generally quite fond of Japanese authors, however, I only know, besides Murakami, Banana Yoshimoto.

Anyway, I don’t really know what it is, but somehow Japanese authors, albeit translated, have this certain charm, a somewhat extraordinary feel to them. Their style seems to be different, yet familiar and maybe it has absolutely nothing to do with them being Japanese (although I doubt that is true), but merely with their artistic skills being simply overwhelming. They manage to suck you into their stories, their worlds and after a while you don’t really care anymore what they write about as long as they write… anything. I know, I know, style does not make up for a lack of substance and fortunately substance is something Murakami and Yoshimoto certainly don’t lack. To me, they are superior contemporary novelists, and all those critics who resent them for being “too pop-culture” are either to narrow-minded when it comes to literature or too arrogant to acknowledge the genius of what contemporary literature is: not the same old thing, but new, exciting, and above all different in the best possible way.

Gimme money you spoiled person!

This morning as early as 11:30AM (yes, to me that’s still part of the fairly early morning) the doorbell rang. The mail had already been delivered, I wasn’t expecting any guests and I doubt I had won something so big, it had to be delivered – plus I don’t do raffles). Perhaps a couple of Jehova’s Witnesses. Crap, I knew talking to them two or three times – during which I repeatedly told them that they’d never make me sign up for their club, no matter what – would come back and bite me in the ass. So I crawled on top of my desk and hugged the window to check if it was them standing downstairs at the front door. To my surprise they were not, but a very impressive impression of my face did on the window. There can’t possibly be anything worse than a couple of religious nutbars at 11:30 in the morning so I tromped to the door, afraid my paranoia just screwed me out of a multibillion dollar win. Boy, was I wrong about both.

I cheerily opened the door, already prepared to act all surprised when a hot woman in a bikini would give me a suitcase full of money, and there he was: a harbinger of feel-bad, luckily not wearing a bathing suit. It was a man, relatively short, bearded, not particularly clean and wearing socks in sandals (some people just don’t have any sense of fashion). He had already started to walk away, but when I opened the door readily scampered back. A little perplexed I stammered “Hey, what’s up?” and he said “Hello!” and shoved a picture of some sad-looking kid, along with his ID in my face. The text under the sad-looking boy’s face read (in several languages – how handy!) “Please help me and give me some money so my son can have that life-saving operation he so desperately needs!” Or something. His ID identified him as a citizen of Romania. I politely refused to give him all my life savings and with a “Ok!” he walked off to nag the neighbors. I felt bad at first. Maybe his son really needed this operation! Am I a bad person?

I learned later that apparently a couple of young boys needed very expensive and life-saving operations lately, as several men had been roaming the neighborhood, asking people for money. Ah, good, I lucked out this time, no harm done, it was only a scam, this is a good day for my karma. Still, I think I should donate some money to people who really need it – just in case.

Stupid Parents!

Once upon a time I stumbled upon a post on IMDB which read something along the lines of “Do you think my 13 year old is mature enough to watch Irreversible?” Yes, I thought, your 13 year old is mature enough to watch a movie with a brutal and very graphic rape scene! Come on. What kind of question is that anyway? Should I let my child watch a movie about rape? If you are so stupid, you are not even sure (and need the advice of total strangers) whether it is cool or not to have your child watch a rape with you then maybe you are not mature enough to have kids.

Writing…not…

I want to write. I’ve wanted to do so since yesterday morning but couldn’t. My mind was empty and still is. I desperately want to write something profound, something worth being written; started several times; still am empty handed, uninspired. That usually is not the case. Frequently, a sentence, a phrase, an idea marches into my mind and demands to be brought on (electronic) paper. It demands attention and affection, wants to be caressed and sometimes amuses me so much that I cannot resist not using it to make somebody smile. Also, they are cocky. This weekend, however, I drew a blank.

In spite of that I laugh into the face of inspiration, yell “up yours,” and wait for its return. It always does, just like a cat or addict. Although, I am uncertain whether the latter is not it but rather me. There is nothing to fret about, and on the plus side I learned a little something about myself.

First, I cannot write with music on. Just about to turn it on my hand jerked away from the on button as if pushing the button would have killed me or worse. Perhaps my unconscious didn’t want to scare away the few words pouring – dripping – from my tiered mind. I need silence. Second, I need to write, I do.

My apologies for drivel. There has been worse…