i told you things that turned out / that turned out to be untrue / when i said them, i meant them / when i said them, i meant them.

the field mice - willow (below is the link to the song)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QSV0SG9V 

[2nd May, getting on for midnight] 

I tend to listen more than I speak. (Translator’s disease? Someone should put a new entry in the urban dictionary). With newly met people, I usually check my grounds first, speculate about what to say, when, why – unless it clicks from the very beginning. It rarely does.  

Deep down, never mind the camouflage, I never got over my teenage shyness. We’ll have to work on the camouflage then.. 

***

A dieting-fitness holiday has two dubious advantages. Apart from dieting and fitness, obviously. The options are thus:

a) one has ample time to ponder over life + varia. This can lead to  

   a1) fruitful introspection     

   a2) futile melancholy -----or both, at intervals.

b) one meets people one would never otherwise have met. And talks. Or listens. 

Since neither introspection nor melancholy proved particularly useful in my case (nor did I get any slimmer as of yet, but that’s another story), let us proceed directly to b).

I have devised yet another dictionary entry: sauna-talk. I mean, there’s pillow talk, so why leave out the sauna? Sweating side by side in a small, dimly-lit room one can engage in all sorts of conversation. 

Mostly with middle-aged women, true. And mostly just to pass the time.

Yet apart from the small talk, the age difference would inevitably crop up between waves of heat.     

***

I have a confession to make. I find the last year of uni painful. Mentally and almost physically painful. I do realise that this is a childish, immature reaction, fear of the new, or whatever you’d want to call it, but i can’t help it. On the brink of “true” adulthood, I feel I’m drowning. The world doesn’t open its arms to welcome me, beckoning gently. It’s rubbing its hands with glee. You’ve had your fun. Now shut up.

However, in the sauna, there surfaces another point of view. Young age is wonderful, no one could deny that. Yet only later on does one learn to really appreciate life. Get a feel for its true taste. (blank space for another cliche of choice) Well, you know. I guess they mean having children and stuff (surely not work?) 

I nod my head, marking understanding.   

It’s not that I don’t agree. It’s just seems too much of an abstraction. 

Sweat trickles down my neck. I go out. 

***

A couple of weeks ago, G found out none other than Brett Anderson would be visiting Poland this summer. To play at a lousy festival. End of an icon? I decided not to give a damn and just be excited all the same.  

Consequently, I’m re-living my teenage fascination with Suede. My peculiar initiation into music. The reason why my English vocabulary in primary school revolved around words like ‘obscene’ or ‘androgynous’ (plus a number of motorway-related terms. I didn’t get all the references to drugs at the innocent age of 12. Or 13. I might have begun to guess something at 14. But that’s quite quite irrelevant.) 

Well, what can I say.. My walkman+hi-fi destroyed my Sci-Fi Lullabies tapes. A plot, surely. I’ll unscrew the plastic box and glue the tapes together, I’m sure they’re actually indestructible.  

Brett’s accent still makes me swoon. 

I miss high school. I miss the times when I’d be alone in the flat, listening to music way into the small hours, dancing, drinking. Feeling like the razorblade was my only friend, sometimes – but then again things like that are bound to happen, sometimes..

I miss when I first met K. He came down to Warsaw and stayed at my place. We watched ‘Love and Poison’ to break the ice and I told him I started playing the guitar ‘cos I wanted to be like Richard Oakes. Although in the process it turned out I’d rather become Bernard Butler instead. (None of which happened, of course. My guitar skills are well and truly indiepop. Or below). 

And I miss England like hell.  

And here I am now, writing all this in the middle of the night in a hotel room when I should be translating a documentary on Berlin’s Hansaviertel. Feeling happy that I still feel the same about the first band that was important to me and feeling sad about the passing of time, and all of its crimes and petty offences.  

Oh, real drowner.

xx

[16th May]

Phew, that took a long to publish. I guess I was afraid of sounding all melancholy and pathetic again. Somehow whenever I start writing I seem to get muddled up in images from the past: the Glorious Past, that never seemed so glorious when it was the present.

But then again I promised Madame I would write something before Xmas. So honestly, I can't afford to discard anything that even vaguely resembles a blog entry. Even if its soppiness level is way beyond average.

So, disclaimer done, what's new.. On Tuesday I concluded my diet with 3 pints of beer (currently awaiting yoyo effect). Still, I daresay an encounter with my new-found old friend justifies the excessive alcohol intake. Madame threw another splendid party last weekend and sang songs about ambulances and straitjackets. Lovely. I made my maiden voyage to the linguistics faculty by bike (yay bike!). Am still alive, and so is the bike (yay bike!). Am planning some bike trips with Syl. Am planning a holiday trip with the Boyfriend. And I love you all.

Yes, you.  

“I really should come back to writing my blog. There’s nothing better than spectacular comebacks”.

That’s what I thought some three weeks ago, and left it at that. But the thought of a spectacular comeback was growing on me. So in the most unspectacular of moments, I decided this might just save the day. 

I went abroad. I came back. 

I got to be a false VIP during the Berlinale. Which was nice.

But lasted only 5 days.

I won a Nespresso coffee maker in a competition organised by a translation agency. As far as I know I’ve been a language freak, like, forever and this was actually the first time it ever brought me any tangible profit. Ever. Still, being quasi-recruited by a quasi-corporation feels mighty weird. 

On a different note, I think I made a new friend.

My thesis has only 20 pages so far.

I’ve started going to the gym.

I might record something again, too. Possibly to my own dodgy lyrics instead of James’s, but we’ll see. All in its right time. The thought is so exciting it’s actually scary. 

The Boyfriend came. He went back. 

Oh, and I soon will be joining the bike club. Yay.

But for the time being, I’m translating again. Words. I like. Very. 

“And that’s all? All you’ve got to say after so many months of lurking?”

Mm ‘fraid so.  

//CUT//

*ie 'good news from the dead spot of my loneliness'. PeterLicht 'Gerader Weg'.     

Po dzisiejszym (a w sumie już wczorajszym) meczu po pierwsze nadal nie chce mi się spać, a po drugie ogarnęła mnie nieodparta ochota na pisanie po polsku. Tłumaczenie leży, magisterka w ogóle jeszcze nie wstała, a ja radośnie sobie sprawdzam "Z czuba" raz na parę minut. A w lodówce - o ironio! - tylko malinowe Karmi matki. Life's tough.

Przypomniały mi się też dawno minione czasy oglądania meczów z Chłopakami. Nie będę się tu zagłębiać w dywagacje na temat pochodzenia z Marsa, Wenus czy inne trele(srele?)morele, ale naprawdę czułam się w pewien sposób wyróżniona. Że zamiast oglądać mecz z kolegami, oglądali go z koleżanką. Przecież jeśli chodzi o futbol, to płeć piękna jest zazwyczaj kojarzona z pytaniami w stylu mojej mamy (minuta 76: "A czemu ten mecz jeszcze trwa?") albo bardziej hardkorowym "A co robi szeregowiec na boisku?" (Autorki nie ujawnię, bo to i tak było dawno i nieprawda :) A na przykład w Hiszpanii nie jest niczym dziwnym jeśli jednym z komentatorów meczu jest kobieta. Dziwne, co?

W ogóle to fajnie by było założyć takie żeńskie "Z czuba" ("Z obcasa?"). Zamiast panienek w negliżu byłby na przykład ranking włosów zawodników obu drużyn. Ach, rozmarzyłam się. 

Swoją drogą, to dziwne - raz zmieniam język i już z wpisu robi się bzdet. 

===============================================================

For foreign readers of this blog: Driven by a peculiar surge of patriotism after today's (or rather yesterday's) game, apart from a rare disinclination to sleep, I felt an indescribable urge to write a post in Polish. Translation is left untackled, master's thesis still waiting for better times.. and I'm glued to the screen, reading football-related comments (mostly). Nothing but mum's alcohol-free caramel beer in the fridge to celebrate the victory. How inconvenient.

I began thinking about some of the Old Days, when I often watched football with the Lads. Worry not, I shall not serve you the Mars/Venus drivel or anything of the kind, but I did feel special then. After all, they were consciously choosing to watch a fotball game with me and not their mates. And let's face it: the fair sex is more often associated with asking my mum's kind of questions (76th minute: "Why are they still playing?") or the even-more-hardcore "What does a private soldier do on the pitch?" (The author of which shall remain nameless. It was a long time ago anyway). And in Spain it's not considered weird in the slightest if a woman is one of the radio or TV football commentators. Weird, eh?  

So, yeah, it'd be nice to start a female football website. Instead of publishing photos of nudes in the break, we'd do a ranking of the player's hairdos. Or something. Ah, got a bit carried away there.

Isn't it strange, though, that my language shift equals instant trivialisation.

I think this is a note that changed working titles most while still in the making. Whenever I take longer breaks from writing, the comeback is all the more difficult..

The Warsaw Filmfest has been great this year: a 10-day bubble of excitement and activity, energy and stress (consecutive interpreting and stress just go together, can't help it). A few familiar faces, some new Friends... And a void left to be filled after it's over. Like this time last year, the autumn swooped down on me, with all its faithful companions: melancholy, confusion and future-oriented worries.

I can be a true Drama Queen when I want to, you know.

Sitting on a window-sill, enjoying my temporarily motherless flat and drinking up all the leftovers of yesterday's Ola-ween, I began to wonder. Love, life - you know, the usual. The thoughts never formed any coherent chains; there was no time. All too often I would stop them in the middle to come down to the floor because the record had just ended. (Am still excited about my old Technics, you see. How could I exist without a record player for months at a time is very very puzzling indeed.)

Thus, the thoughts came in sms-like form. Troubles come unexpected. Relationship troubles come all the more unexpected. Everything in life is so bloody frail - a moment of disorientation, a spell of weakness, a mistake - and there might be no coming back, no second chance to sort things out. Life itself is so bloody frail. No time like the All Saints' Day to contemplate that fact, eh.

For all I know, whoever killed James is still fucking free and still holds a driving licence.

Painful, puzzling, pointless thoughts, mostly.

***

***

Sitting on a window-sill, enjoying my temporarily motherless flat and drinking up all the leftovers of yesterday's Ola-ween... so adolescent-like and silly, haven't we all stopped doing that after high school? I like those rare  moments, though. Watching city lights from the window, sipping vanilla vodka with juice, just me and the Music. Perfect company.

I think it was Goh who said yesterday that she doesn't understand people who don't listen to music. Or - I hastened to add - people who, when asked, say they listen to 'oh just any kind of music'. How do they keep their memories, G asked, without songs. How is it possible to come back to a certain phase of your life if you don't have a soundtrack to it? How is it possible to remember moments, feelings, situations, with no song playing in your ears? The mere thought is so strange.

Yesterday's Ola-ween witnessed some other (more or less drunken) talk of the kind. Like: does anyone know what a Best Boy does in films? (And could there be a Best Girl?) We didn't know. Contributions are welcome. Can you drink while taking steroids? Why has all the best music already been recorded? What is the nicest ice-cube box you can get in IKEA? (My type: black box for star-shaped ice). Why are ringtones like "*electronic plim-plom* YOUR WOMAN IS TRACKING YOU DOWN *some more electronic plim-plom*" so fucking hilarious?

Oh, the great mysteries of life.

I'd hereby like to thank all my lovely Guests from Tuesday and Wednesday for sharing their time and making my nights nicer. You are much loved.

Off I go then, time to change the record and go back to that window-sill of mine.

That's Entertainment.

No. No medical certificate. Nor do I have an official excuse or explanation. I've just been away, mentally or organisationally unable to write. Most often both. 

I'm back though. 

In Warsaw, in here, in limbo. Applying the most useful technique whenever future-worries (what to do/where to live - in varying order) appear: I'll just think about it later.  

Being back isn't half-bad, though, and seeing that Friends haven't quite forgotten me yet.. True, the Boyfriend is missing and mother is being her usual self... ale co, nie damy rady? Damy radę!

Besides:

• on my first visit to the Central Railway Station underground passage there was a guy playing guitar and singing sailor songs - "(...) And so I plotted a cunning plan" were the first lyrics that reached me. Amazing.
• I can actually afford food. Nice change.
• I can actually afford cinema. See above.
• I've got a job! (In fact, had it been a permanent one, I would have used the pre-head modifier "dream". Mal sehen, was kommt.)
• Oh, I dunno. Warsaw is OK.

By the way, I wonder what was first: me making lists or reading Erlend Loe's "Naive.Super". One of the great unsolved mysteries of the past.

***

I had a massive reading spree in Barcelona. Not that I didn't listen to music in the meantime - that'd be unthinkable - but I didn't really care to find anything new. Now it's the other way round: I can't find enough concentration to read (maybe the boss will call in a moment and I'll get a new film to translate? hmm how about going out since the weather is mercifully alright.. yeah, I'm bored, let's call someone! etc.). So I'm re-discovering the old wonders, like walking round the city with the headphones on (mp3 or walkman, take your pick). I've also spent the best part of tonight browsing myspace and soulseek, planning mix-cds for friends, thinking of designs for covers, looking for new bands and new songs... I've missed that. I've missed the suspense and excitement.

I guess getting old begins when you stop being curious.

***

PS. Ultrasport seem somewhat over-represented in the lyrics I quote. Oh well.

PSPS. Polska wersja dworcowych szant: "Więc uknułem szczwany plan...". Skąd się biorą takie piosenki??

black cat, Black Cat, why did you run and cross my way twice?

Magpie /// /// was it you who stole the wedding ring?

after the first time i just put salt instead of sugar into lemonade. what are you planning this time?

Or what other thieving bird would steal such hope away?

...or were you trying to counterbalance, avert the bad luck that people believe you bring? like when two minuses make a plus, two wrongs can make a right?

I am lost among the hinterland

you can't help me anyway. 

'Isn't it strange how life won't flow, like a river, but moves in jumps, as if it were held back by locks that are opened now and then to let it jump forwards in a kind of flood? There are these long still stretches—nothing happens—each day is exactly like the other—plodding, uneventful—and then suddenly there is a crash—mighty deeds take place—momentous events—even if one doesn't know it at the time—and then life subsides again into the backwaters till the next push, the next flood?"

isn't it strange how only writers and poets can describe how you feel about the world?

i don't usually think about life. i don't make long-term plans (what's the use). i just dream and flow. yet, when i heard those words today, i was in awe. a lightning. a sense of realisation.

that this is *precisely* what i have always felt.

i still haven't recovered after my flood. i try to concentrate on the little drab unimportant things so as not to think, but the thoughts find me anyway. and i don't fight them. i drink them like icy vermout and near-choke. icy-vermout with a heart-shaped ice-cube.

a sense of realisation.

words elude me.. we were never the best of friends, and now they have decided to leave me altogether. high and dry. in a meaningless void.

songs i begin to write and never finish

colourful clothes i wear to fight // the darkness growing inside

little drab unimportant things. tomorrow is the last day when i have to get up at seven to rush to the metro then the train then the shuttle uni bus. on friday i can sleep at least an hour longer. essays are waiting to be written, texts translated and thoughts thought. tomorrow..? mañana, the one spanish tradition i take as my own. tomorrow. darren hayman asking me where warsaw is and if we have record players there. i still like his hefner songs better than his solo ones. i have a flower on my desk, will it die? my room smells strange, i don't know why. no, it's not grubby, it's just the windows that need cleaning, before kin and goh come to visit. flatmate keeps caterpillars in a box. they eat and eat and eat and then their life is over in 24 hours. sometimes, just sometimes, i would like to speed up my life like that, just to see, just to know.

***

i miss poland when i'm abroad and i miss abroad when i'm in poland, why's that?

***

it's all such a mess

(ps. book quote = Anita Desai's "Clear Light Of Day". just so you know)

..and so it fell. The News, the realisation that there is no time left, that nothing can change, that I won’t see you again 

that I didn’t say goodbye. 

That our History is now just history. Locked away in a part (many parts?) of my mind: access denied, changes outlawed. No conversation about it will ever take place.

We will not compare and contrast

accuse and deny

apologise and forgive 

…was there anything to forgive? 

I deleted the bad times and bad thoughts long ago.  

Meaningless is everything. Jokes, smiles and laughter all equal guilty conscience. How can life go on normally for me, why does it?  

Why do I wake up and go to sleep and try to plan the ominous Future if there is no future left here for you? 

and so you will stay,

eternally frozen in time.

the good person.

the dreamer.

the dream.  

***

our forgotten dream. 

This Is Farewell  

All these news, all these thoughts, all these things to Plan and Execute.. Only 'execute' often turns into 'postpone' and as destination-departure is approaching, time is running out. I'll have to start that laundry at last.

Last days weren't half-bad. Either lazy/cosy or filled with running round the city with my headphones on, taking care of things to Plan and Execute. Somehow running round the city in a private music bubble is so much better than just running round the city, n'est-ce pas?  

When there's something, when there's something in the air

Even if all my bouncing and hand-waving and singing sometimes raises more than one questioning eyebrow, who cares. Even if my headphones are not nearly as cool as that guy's in Dark Horse. One day, maybe. Even if there are more even if's. Who cares.

It gives me an illusion that plans are feasible rather than futile, realistic and not just romantic. That everything occasionally Makes Sense. 

"What? Surely walking about listening to music can't cause all that to happen". Seems loopy, doesn't it? Well, it works for me.

I remembered a lovely moment yesterday. Great big snowflakes falling from the sky as Goch, Mar, K and me were coming back from a gig, ages and ages ago. I have long forgotten the band, but it must have been a good one: We were all in this hazy post-concert state, nightbuses were not in sight, and so we decided to walk all the way to the centre. Talking, laughing into the snowy night and an occasional snowball here and there (I admit, the initiative was mostly mine here).

So long ago. Blimey.  

Tonight when revolution fails we're too drunk to even care

Only we never thought it failed, it just got put off, put aside in waiting for Better Times, and they were always within sight, sometimes even at arm's length. Surely they would come eventually. Have they ever? I dunno, but I do miss a lot of Then.

[No, I'm not complaining, I'm going to Bcn after all(!) I just find it hard to grow up, I guess]

I really needn't have mentioned those frying pans in my last post. Not only have I found myself on one, but immediately afterwards a whole army of cutlery fell on my head. Tutor-to-be turned into tutor-escapee, all information is indirect (at best) or inappropriate (mostly) and my 5 months in BCN are still far from certain.

But, as I was pointed out, being angry is usually much more effective than being sad, so this is the strategy I began to implement. People with frail nerves really should keep away from Linguistics, at least in Warsaw.

***

That's when Little Things came in to save the day (or week):

• my students came up with some lovely absurd essays on Thursday (including phrases such as "shit happens" or "this was our bloody mistake"; and events such as being frozen for 21 years and waking up in unfashionable clothes. On second thoughts, I begin to wonder: am I a good influence or bad??)
• there's loads of Radio Dept. in the 'Marie Antoinette' soundtrack
• my favourite Finnish band added me to their friends on MySpace
• listening to the songs of my favourite Finnish band makes it easier to imagine there's snow in Warsaw
• for the 1st time, the Polish branch of AI published a translation with my name

We also got a belated Xmas gift from my favourite cousin (the psychiatrist): a special mat you put in the bathtub and it creates bubbles, like in a jacuzzi! Woo! What's more, shopping on Allegro means surprises, and we got an instruction manual written in Czech. Perličkova koupel s bublynkami! *giggles* (foreign readers of this blog: trust me, this sounds very funny :)

This (late) morning was nice then.. Long sleep, long bath and listening to the Fairways. Even the sun came out! Wonder how long it'll last..