On vulgarity

"Well, saying that is like when Bill Clinton said that wasn't sex, as Monica Lewinsky did bla bla bla."

Bla bla?

I asked what bla bla stood for.

"Don't force me to say things that I don't want to say, it's only morning."

Ok, the answer was funny in itself, but it also raised some questions.

What keeps us of using words deemed as "dirty"?

I encountered many men (and even more women) who withheld from using certain words they considered vulgar and not appropriate for usage in a civilized discussion.

Strangely, in the course of the same discussion they talked ill about their friends, gossiped about people who didn't afford to have the lifestyle they did, covered themselves with self-sufficiency and snobbery.

And that, my dears, is some kind of vulgarity no "dirty" word can match, regardless of how harsh and uncivilized it would sound.

Having the power to change the world

One of the great excuses of today's society is that change doesn't begin with one single person. That we are helpless towards the tempests of time and whatever we do will not cure the world of darkness.

So changing one's habits and disposition will not matter much, as we all are part of this big wheel turning indifferent to our own ways and wishes.

Uh...lame excuse for laziness...

Something strange and beautiful happened to me the other day. An incentive for losing that sarcasm that living in the City and being oh-so-bon-ton sometimes teaches you.

After making visits to doctors something sadly regular and feeling like no matter how I would sane on one side, I would break on another, I received a call on one evening. On my cell phone. Pretty late in the evening. Made the duck roar with dis-contempt.

Person: Hello, I'm Mrs. X, the doctor you visited last week. I would shortly like to tell you that your investigations came out well, I picked them up for you, and analyzed them. You have nothing to worry about.
Bob: Huh? Thank you very much, it's so nice of you to call. Can I pick them up sometimes next week?
Person (*Mrs X): Come over when you have the time, they are safe with me. I would also like to ask you whether the medication worked on you and how you are feeling.
Bob (slowly sliding from the chair in sheer astonishment): Yes, thank you, I really DO feel better. Also many thanks for prescribing me all those other investigations (n.n. prescription means that you don't have to pay for them). I really really feel better, the medicine you prescribed really helped...uhm....many thanks for the call....that's so extremely nice of you....
Mrs X: Oh, that's no problem. Please do keep taking in that medicine for about two months, it should cure the problem. And do not hesitate to call whenever you have problems.
Bob: Uhm...thank you very much....many thanx...that's so nice...


Goodbye-goodbye.

The lady doctor made my day in a way I guess she'll never know. It's nice to see that people actually care, beyond any professional obligations and patterns. I was speechless a while after we phoned, not knowing what to believe. Then a beautiful warmth filled my body and I thought to myself: "Well, while you are still in "danger" of being called in the evening by a stranger who cares, the world is worth smiling at every single day."

So I did. I do.

^_^

Loop

On mail today:

Life should go the other way round, it should begin with being dead.

Imagine that:

You lie six feet under, it's dark and tight,
Then you crawl your way into the light,
When you're out you go to the nursing home for elderly people
and are thrown out for being too young.
For some years you play golf having a big allowance,
You receive a golden watch and slowly start working.

When you finish working you go to college. In the meantime you have earned enough money to really enjoy your student time, take drugs, have nothing besides sex in your mind and stay drunk all day.

Then, having become too stupid for college, you go to school. In school you are getting dumber and dumber every year, until you are finally thrown out.

Next you spend some years playing in the sandbox, finally you snooze away for nine months in an uterus and finish your life as an orgasm.


Goood!

Bearing change

There is irony, sarcasm and criticism everywhere around us. It has become of bon ton to be dis-contempt, to see the dark and the dirty, to generalize the ugly until it covers all.

Romania is dirty, the Romanians are stupid, we have little to be proud of, change doesn't begin with one person, we are all caught up in a vicious circle, the world economy is going to hell (for once, I agree). We have little chances to achieve anything and we'd better all run away and hide.

Criticism is somewhat the easiest way out, just like feeling miserable is much more comfortable and requires less guts than feeling happy.

Still, a tranquil underground movement starts to make its way out to the surface. You can see bits of it on the street, in subways, in trains, at concerts and shows.

Just pay attention and you'll see there's a whole new young generation emerging. They dress freshly, unconventionally, communicate easily, have wide-ranging and cosmopolitan interests.

If you travel by train, you will see more and more people reading. Drifting away in their imagination, being silent and discrete, holding a book on their knees. In subways, young people hanging by one hand in an precarious equilibrium, holding a book with the other. Smiling remotely.

You see cosmopolitan young people who have seen the world and bring fresh new ideas into their homes. You also see a new generation of professionals who educated themselves to be the best and strive for excellency.

Teenagers holding the door for you when you are heavily loaded with groceries. Saying thank hello and thank you with a smile. Wanting to be better people.

It's not a movement of the masses yet, maybe it's just a niche effect that I noticed on my roads through the City and my more extended way through life. But still, I have hope that a fresh new generation, not bearing the sins of our past, able to bear change and brave enough to face happiness and beauty, has emerged and carries within the seeds of a new world.

May they keep their enthusiasm and teach us to share it too!

LE: On the other hand, my own generation has kept much of its enthusiasm within. If you don't believe me, check out this, this, this,this, this and many many others.

Thunder and lightning

A very special person told me once that you need to live out your teenage years. If you don't experience them with 16, 17 or 18, then they will follow you around, stay hidden in a deep corner of your soul and burst out when you least expect them, when your life seems set and done, and a straight path lays peacefully before you.

And being a 40 years old teenager with children and a faithful spouse often turns out more dramatically than expected.

Recent events of a friend who passionately lives out her teenage days some years too late make me smile inside for seeing her that dreamy and happy. But seeing the shatters of her former live spread out around her new self makes me worry about the results of such actions and decisions.

Being a teenager pairs with idealism, projecting images of love and beauty on plain people around one's self, loving passionately in spite of all faults and inconsistencies, taking all kinds of decisions just in order to try out what life can get one and what one can get out of life. When you're 16 and still bound to your family and felling cozy in the midst of your beloved, no decision you can make while under the spell of teenage hood, provided you have a balanced background and strong support from your surroundings, can really affect you sustainably. At one point, you can somehow always go back and start all over.

That's the trouble with out-living your teenage years. With 40, you have the power to decide for yourself, and decisions you make will affect you and your beloved for a long time. Going back is far from easy and the amount of pain and trouble coupled with your decisions rises considerably with every year that passes.

As when you grow into adulthood people cease supporting you unconditionally and one-sided and somehow expect balanced feelings and actions from yourself, you can end up facing your decisions all alone.

The whole drama is just about that.

Extreme living sometimes turns into extreme loneliness.

Sunny shitty days

If shitty days were to be measured on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 stands for quarreling with your partner, your colleagues and your mum and 10 for being stung by a bee (you being allergic to bees) while being carried by an ambulance after being hit by a drunken elephant in the middle of Bucharest (if we have palm trees, why shouldn't there be elephants?), the chick's 9/11 would qualify straight for an 8.5.

In such a situation, any words of encouragement are useless. Either you can help the guy or you can't, and if you can't, then feeling sorry doesn't lead to anything. The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

Still, knowing that even on your shitty days (may it be a 1 or a 10) you can always depend on someone, that you have over-worried mums and friends who would try to move the world for you, that whatever happens you never walk alone, is a refuge in life, however bad days we have. In the end, all that matters are the people.

Coulda woulda shoulda - a tribute to the ant

The most important good news of the last days is that the ant has started blogging again, and she does it in a kind of frenzy, posting ever more beautiful thoughts every day.

Although declared to be a cure against workaholism,I always knew that her blog was actually much more than that.

Blogging is our way to deal with the "coulda, woulda, shoulda"'s in our lives. And maybe to help us to a better understanding.

Meeting the ant yesterday (after some while of not seeing each other) lifted me up again. It put an end to an advanced phase of denial and struggling, of questioning and wondering, of coulda woulda shoulda.

I was writing some time ago that there are some people who make me feel better just through their mere presence. Make this a tribute to the ant, who more often than not makes me fly just by sitting in front of me and talking.

New job, new feelings

On the way back from my former workplace today, I considered the question everybody wanted me to answer so eagerly: How do you like your new workplace/colleagues/business etc?
The only right answer to such a question is that there is no right answer. But still, sitting on my desk and working on a project I am dealing with almost entirely by myself, I can't help but thinking of the good and the bad a job change brings along:

And I suddenly realize that I like it here, no matter how hard it was for me at first to see it.

Here are some of the advantages of working in a small firm:

- you take on much more responsibility and are more flexible, as personnel structures are not that rigid as they are in big companies
- you are part of the decision making - that at least theoretically gives you the impression that you matter
- there's no feeling of small wheel turning in a huge machine, and not being really missed when gone, as very easy to replace (and cheap)
- more direct contact with the superiors - the ones who really know their shit
- you know all your colleagues by name and CV
- you have very much private space at the office, as above mentioned colleagues are few
- cosiness
- when having the luck of smart and enthusiastic colleagues, you are easily motivated and stride along enjoyably

I haven't noticed many disadvantages yet. One of them may be that with fewer colleagues, the risk of not getting along with them is much bigger than in a big company, as you can't help but having contact with them. As many of you know, though, my dears, that is no real problem for me, as I am seldom critical and try to take people as they are. Thus people being different from me in some way doesn't really bother me (thanx to the turtle for reminding me that, though I guess he has no idea about what great good he did for me).

HERO OF THE DAY: The turtle, for being so sincere, finally getting to know and accept himself and reminding me that I am a lovable person after all.

Gummbubbles

I seldom throw oppinions at people. Maybe that's why the turtle rose an eyebrow when he saw me gesturing and frowning:

"Babytalk in a full grown woman is absolutely out. And annoying. And and and..."
"And what? It's a sign of intimacy, many couples do it. Don't you have your own language with the duck?"
"That's not babytalk. It's ducktalk."

Baby, talk is cheap.
Baby,talk is chic.
Babytalk is chic?

Din ciclul "limba noastra-i un comor"

Am primit azi pe mail:


ABUZ= (Om) fara buze
APOI= apa mare
BIZAR=zar dublu
MACEL= mac mic
MICROSCOP= scop marunt
SOIOS= de soi
INVIORAT = Prevazut cu vioara
INFOCARE = transformare in foca
IMPRASTIERE = rezultatul procesului prin care betivii se fac prastie
GHINIOANE = varianta moldoveneasca pentru ardelenescul "Bine, Ioane"
LESINA = pe unde merge "le tren"
MERITORIU = teritoriul ocupat de livada de meri
RATEU = pateu din carne de ratza
SCARABEU = cetatean ce locuieste la bloc, la scara a doua; din aceeasi familie de cuvinte se cunosc scaraceu si scaradeu.
TRACTOR = actor cu mult trac
TUTUN = a-a-arma de-de-de a-a-artilerie
TZURTZUR = Sunetul soneriei, iarna
BATALION = fratele mai mic al plutonierului Batal Gheorghe

Subject.

In order to keep the flame burning in a relationship, discussions between lovers ought to be meaningful, deep and true.

The duck-bob household is faithful to this belief.

Topic 1: What happens if a bird gets in the propeller of an airplane? It is dangerous? Do the remains of the bird splash on the airplane window? Do you actually see the blood splashing around?
Time: 45 min.
Result (after calling bob's dad, the final authority in the field): No. Because that would mean that the plane is standing still (centrifugal effect and all). The remains of the bird are pushed towards the back of the propeller. No bloodstains on the windows...
However, if the aiplane has a turboreactor, you're in deep shit if a bird gets in the engine. I hate to be the one to tell you that....have a nice flight!

Topic 2: How many people would have to die so that the bob-duck couple becomes king and queen of Romania?
Time: 25-30 min.
Result: Many many many, as neither bob nor the duck is a Hohenzoller. But then again, after all those people died, aristocracy and all, who would want to be king/queen of a country of peasants? So screw the monarchic dreams of bob-duck!

Deep shit, eh?

:-))))))))

Other news: Went to a wedding today; duck got salmonella poisoning just hours before the wedding (he was the groom's best man), guess weddings scare the crap our of him:))); read "Catcher in the rye" ten years too late - nice book though; ate strawberries for the first time this year; miss some dear friends.

On needs and needn'ts

Today, something hit me blatantly. Actually a phrase hit me blatantly, that I have heard pretty often over the past period and ignored consistently.

"The business need".

I'm an economist, as most of you probably know, if not by constitution, at least by education, so I'm familiar with the Maslow pyramid of needs. What it basically shows is that human needs are differentiated and that as we satisfy our basic needs, they will evolve to more complex and abstract ones - like pure sex evolves to sexual intimacy and friendship to confidence.

Well, guess Maslow was an idiot after all, because the "business need" appears nowwhere in his pyramid.

Looking at it, i tried to find meanings and hidden facs at every level. Where could the business need hide?

Under the need for security? For intimacy? For achievement and self-esteem? For problem-solving?

Nope. The pyramid is pretty straightforward. If the business need were a basic or complex human need, I guess it would have been included after all. Fact is, the business need is not a need of a person, but of a business (doh!), which makes it not a need, but a needn't.

As in "You needn't satisfy it in order to be happy, guys!"


Ok, guess with this post I'm just reinventing the wheal, but sometimes you just have to emphasize the obvious :-)

The fundamental things apply

Thanx, Andrei.

On happiness

Being happy and making yourself happy requires a lot of guts.

It’s so much easier to be sad and miserable; all people around you are feeling for you, they are comforting you and sharing all their attention with you.

While misery awakes compassion, happiness is often misunderstood. Not the beautiful, but the ugly and mad links people, because we all rather tend to find ourselves in the misery of other people than in their beauty.

I guess happy people must be either fools or fighters.

Forbidden feelings

Envy, hate, contempt, arrogance, insecurity, grief, anger, loving the wrong person, loving the right person at the wrong moment. It can go on forever.

What can we do when we can't help but have such feelings? Fight them? Ignore them? Accept them as part of our self?

It's easy to split the world in good and evil when you have never been tempted or acted on the edge. But when suddenly you are overwhelmed by the strength of a forbidden feeling, anything else, any concept of right and wrong becomes obsolete and useless.

Which makes me wonder: Can we put borders on what we feel? Or would that mean that we would keep our souls outside these borders?

Mine

Funny enough, while I was still chewing on this post, I took a quick glance at the ant’s blog, and she had wrote something very similar.
As usual when reading something the ant writes, I had the impression she had said it all and everything I might add to that would only be redundant and boring.

And still… I will write this for myself, in order to remember this feeling every time I feel lonely again.

The mountains make me happy.

Whether it’s because they are so still and grand and insert tranquillity into my restless little soul, or because their size makes me feel small and insignificant after all (a feeling of humbleness that I sometimes need in order to stop taking myself so serious) or because of their sheer beauty, never really being the same although they are the same for ages, fact is, in the mountains I always want to be alone, knowing that I will never feel lonely.
I am rarely so still and quiet as I am when I am climbing, and rarely my mind seems to function so clearly and flawless as in those moments. Fears I had for ages just fly away and complicated, “forbidden” feelings suddenly fit into place.

If we are the character that is easiest for us to bring through, I guess the real me would be the me sitting on the edge of a cliff staring at the white mountains on the horizon, saying nothing, as there would be nothing more to say.

On good and bad deeds

"So what did he do wrong?" a voice asked, when I described a sweet thing that impressed me on a dear pet.

And I couldn't help but wonder: Must a (wo)/man do necessarily something wrong in order to compensate it with a nice gesture? When have we become so cynical that we can't be happy about a good deed without looking for the bad in it?

Why can't we just let go and accept being loved and love back, no further strings attached?

And most of all, why do we always look for the evil involved in good things that happen to us, while when something bad happens we never bother to find the good in it?

On thinking and sharing

Note to self: Not every thought is meant to be shared. Unlike feelings, which can last for ages, thoughts are a result of the moment, and can change as soon as the moment's gone.

Sharing would only produce misunderstandings and greave, for when thoughts are written down, they last and turn into oppinions.

It's enough that we can't fight negative thoughts, also writing them down will only make us persist in our madness.

Prideandprejudice

There's something about prejudice. Even if you try to fight it, once it's there, it will drag your sense and brains apart.

Then suddenly your mind starts working like a broken watch: still somewhat pretty to look at, but deep down inside you know it's no use, 'cause it looks the same, no matter what time it really is.

And the time is to free ourselves.

Longdayandnight

Note to self 1: Having an office party can be fun, if: everyone is drunk and you are just a little less drunk than them or if you are the drunkest of them all and you just don't care anymore. However, beautiful friendships can emerge from magnificent drunkennesses.

Note to self 2:: Long island+Tequilla+Caipirinha+Sipping everyone else's drinks is somewhat deadly for the moment, but: does not produce a hangover the next day. However, it produces some very interesting drunk-calls and drunk-smses. Which leads us to

Note to self 3: Leave your phone at home when your out partying. Or at least try to disable the Sentbox, so that the next day you won't see what you wrote and whom you wrote to...