Friday, September 17, 2010

being smart AND romantic

I gave myself two surprises today. Downloaded iTunes. And spoke French. NOT at the same time.

I have to go and lie down now.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

call of the wild

My neighbour two floors down goes clubbing every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night.

I know because she has a dog that howls when he's home alone.

I can't decide whether I should go clubbing too or get a dog.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

ex post facto

I dreamed you had left me a note letting me know how to find you again. It's been nine years. I still wonder what could have been, sometimes.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

stop and stare

Holy crap, I have not changed at all in five years!

Saturday, September 11, 2010

my father and the cats

"Let's go see if we can see any cats."

One of my earliest memories - perhaps because it was a recurring event: I am little, crying because of fever or ear infection. The darkness in the middle of the night, no lights on, the helplessness of pain when you are too little to understand it, the exhaustion. But also my long-suffering father's arms around me, carrying me around and around the house in the middle of the night, trying to lull me back to sleep. His soothing whisper in my ear as we approach the living room windows. I always stopped crying as we looked out into the dark garden. There could be a cat out there, stalking around. I loved cats.

Now, many years later, with my father at a difficult and heartbreaking mental distance, I suddenly remember this. And I start crying again.

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

coloured lights and stampeding elephants


My circus history:

age 8-15: wanted to run away with a circus (because I had read that kind of books). I visualized being a breathtakingly beautiful lion tamer and living a dramatic life in a yellow circus wagon.
age 14 (approx): visited my first circus. It was tiny, far from glamorous, and the only animals were a couple of poodles but I was spellbound.
age 25: abandoned my circus dream definitely when a friend laughed his head off and said I would end up cleaning elephant droppings and forever regretting a destructive marriage to a violent knife-thrower called Vlad.
age 31: my second visit to a circus, this one English and genuine and huge, with all the right circus attributes and atmosphere. I took up my dream again, but this time my circus wagon would be one of those expandable caravans that looked so luxurious and I would share it with a very athletic lover. We would be carefree vagabonds lit by coloured lights.
age 35: read Water for Elephants by S. Gruen and realised the most romantic life imaginable would be spent on a circus train (staying clear of sociopaths and stampeding elephants of course).
age 37: my third visit to a circus. Was spellbound, analyzed the role of the circus as a critical voice in society and ate too much popcorn.