Gently lonely

The sound of my heels makes the strange man before me turn around. He says to himself that yes indeed he had heard something. This quaint street in a Parisian neighbourhood isn't so quiet though. And he has his headphones on. How atuned must he be with the world around him. How his insides must churn with loneliness. His mind is the desert. It pays nothing to search inside your own world. There is no water to feed the weeds. There are no weeds to begin with. No object to bestow your love or your admiration upon.

Another man my heels cross notices how many little shops line up here. He too says it outloud, to no one in particular. My heart breaks a little, but it thinks mainly of itself and of a time when such need to communicate might rise within myself. Too late. I'm already thinking outloud. My streets are empty, no step makes me hope for an accidental ear.

The Chat seeks the confort of paws, its own too small for such a big head.

The Psychologist's Couch

Just Got Ditched! Yay! Not. I don't think I'm in love anymore, but it still hurts and I wonder why. Is companionship like any habit, more or less hard to pick up and give up? Doesn't say much good about my human nature, in that case. Would it have hurt less if I hadn't been through a hellish day today, what with Parisian buses and all? I don't know and I hate being so lost. A thought about whoring myself a bit crossed my mind, and despite almost constant self-destructive behaviour, it wouldn't be a revenge and it wouldn't help my self-image. Besides, it's not nice to use people, even if they use you right back, is it?
I wish for a better soul to take care of me.

The Chat longs for forgetful sleep.

Seeing Red

Stumbled a week ago upon this wonderful singer. And she's gorgeous too.

No copyright infringement intended.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6_lF0Klz5Y

"Loving Strangers" by Russian Red

The image comes from: http://www.listal.com/viewimage/387374 (Added by andré gomes on 9 November 2008)

Again, no copyright infringement intended. And thank you to those who posted the song and the photo!

The Chat can't stop purring.

Universal Sign Language

So. I was out and runing this evening and not 10 seconds into my run I was nicely encouraged to continue by a couple of teenagers (I think): "Run, Forrest, run!".

Amazed by their culture and witticism, I was only able to reply a few seconds later, by that very eloquent third finger of our superior limbs.

How come one only feels smart when comparing oneself with others? "I am so intelligent, I must be, seeing as you're so stupid..."

It could be an effort to exist - make oneself aknowledge by another, be it just a passer-by. Too bad it was done by trying to hurt. I wonder if my aknowledging this phrase amounts to walking into their trap. Or made this sad encounter into a dialogue.

And yet I can't help but feel pretty great, as I rarely stand up for myself. It felt like a victory, like saying "Yep, heard ya, don't give a damn, go *duck yourself".

The Chat would eat a duck, but killing is against his beliefs. And against the law, here, in Paris.

Public Library

It seems I'm only writing in these places so I can brag about it. On the down side, it's freaking cold in here as well, seeing as I'm in the hall of the library. But it's my choice, there's more space here than in the library room.

Thinking yesterday that I should really learn to like myself or rather put more effort into turning myself into a person I could like. I am going to have to live with myself until the end, after all. Egoism seems so easy to motivate - our path is the only life-long project we have a personal interest in. It is extremely brief, if one isn't a believer in the existence of other lives or universes. So, one should enjoy it, even to the extreme. Altruism, however, can be as easily explained - would you live all of your life with an egoistical a$$hole?

The Chat bangs it philosophical head on the table and goes back to its comulsory tasks. Ta ta!

School Library

Just wanna say it's freaking cold, even though I'm just by the radiator - and by the window, it's true. My nose and my hands are cold and it's just another distraction from reading and writing, besides the fanfic :( ah bof, I love it anyways... back to reality.

When I was little and had my own room (oh yeah, the world is a big big place, but Paris isn't, so here one has to share in order to keep warm and dry), I used to ask my mother to leave a light on in the hall - after a while, I think she let it on even without my asking. The door to my room was tall and had a rectangular window just under the ceiling, through which light would pour into the room. The glass was blurry, but the light was there, and helped chase the monsters it created with the semi-darkness.

Nonetheless, I spent years bundled up in the covers before going to sleep because I was relunctant to leave even a small part of my body open to nocturnal, invisible attacks. I did leave my nose out, as it never occured to the child I was then that it is a more fragile and important limb than the toes.

You know, sometimes I don't like my mother. When she used to imply that I am no longer that child (loving, openly affectionate) because I don't like to hug and kiss her and have her do the same to me, for instance. I feel somehow that cut a bit my connection to who I was back then. And the small glimpses I still have of the past make me want to know that child better. But I can't, I am no longer him or her and I forgot so much about those times long gone. I remember sad things only, as if happines never was. But that's impossible. I don't remember the truth.

The Chat is chasing the warm

I have taken some decisions and made some promises these last weeks, then backtracked and thus hurt a lot of people. I am also a big coward and refuse to talk to them, I cannot give them at least the opportunity to leash out. This is no way to grow up, I am incapable of assuming my choices and their consequences, so I always take the easy way out, being it by lies or outright avoidance. I realized I treated written or spoken words lightly, I give them without meaning them. In important or insignificant situations. Words that give me so much pleasure when I read them in fiction or listen to them as music. I give them and manipulate them and demean them and disgust myself and others.

I would like. I want to try. I really should keep up with my resolutions this time. To keep words short and true. To be true to them myself. To be rather cruel and stupid than a coward and a liar.

The fear makes me want to puke. My disgust with myself was making me want to puke myself out of my body. I couldn't look in the mirror.

To treat words like acts – like one word could kill or cut open the flesh literally. To treat words like blood – give them out only when necessary.

Out of automatism, I wanted to add here promises and actions projected in the future. Yet another resolution – word out past rather than future actions of mine.

Destruct myself, I hate what I've become am becoming; reconstruct myself new and pure.

Time isn't for sale, not like I thought – I give you my time and do stuff and you give me money. Because this time I spend for others isn't otherwise recoverable. It goes for good. Oh I see, time isn't money, it is a gift to give and to receive and it should always be enjoyable for all parties. I am a foreigner in a just world. Actions and reactions here aren't always apparent or hidden. Sometimes action is apparent, its reaction, hidden. Other times, it is the contrary. Other times again, both are hidden or both are visible. A thief can lead a long happy life or he can die right after having stolen. Or even right before stealing, before even making the decision to steal. Or yet again he may not be born at all. I have come into this world, I don't know if I have entered it pure or impure, if I am paying in advance for my mistake or only paying my debt. I have made terrible things in my eyes and in other eyes as well, I've not accomplished anything, I am learning. I hope. I feel learning isn't enough without the final exam, whether I pass or I fail. I must take that final test and the tests that preceed it, otherwise learning is sweet, but fattening. Or worse, just a mirage of the true learning. Because I went to all classes but last, last year, I never went to the final exam, and all that time given and received turned sour, then empty. The year has passed and I'm still here, trying to learn.

Writing and talking out my mistakes are a type of evaluation. Cutting back on my words, on chocolate, sleep and clothes, also. These are my faiblesses. I am not speaking about, I am not speaking my next exam because it does not exist yet. I've yet to enter the examination room. I act what I speak. I speak what I act. I try. Because the world is a big big place and there is room for hidden thought desire doubt. Lie is an insidous thing, it can hide in this space between thougt act and word, or in plain sight. Truth also. Truth also is an insidous thing. I breath more freely now. But. But I haven't entered the examination room. Fear is toring through me like a screw. Courage would take it out of me quickly, but it wouldn't be gentle. That is my fear. I am learning about literarity about being literal. To return to the origins to be pure naked blanched. I am literal and thus metaphorical lyrical. Truth and good are beauty why not having seen this before why having stopped before beauty. I am stupid and I take the still surface of the air for a brick wall. No. Honesty is beauty. Right and wrong is beauty. Standing erect, standing up for yourself, standing is beautiful. Bending can be beautiful too. But I need to stand now.

First real post of January

I just wanted to say - complain rather - that I am one of those types. The ones that want more of a good thing although the saying goes that too much of a good thing is not really so good. For instance, sleep in the morning, chocolate, internet, and coffee. Youth, time, well, just about everything I enjoy, so instead of enjoying it I am looking for ways of acquiring more. Which is not healthy, you can give it to me - not to mention it is not possible, in some cases. Unless I find a rich vampire that would take a liking to me or that youth-and-wealth fountain, you know, the one about which everyone dreams once in a while...

It is strange how certain gestures can lead to intimacy. I am thinking about the old lady I am presently caring for. I find myself taking her hand or smoothing her hair, like I would my own grandmother or child - just because I am also feeding and bathing her. Catering for one's such basic needs generates an interesting type of closeness, that grows from gestures and touches, as opposed to how things usually go (from intellectual or sentimental closeness to the physical one). Or maybe I am waaaay too lonely.

The Chat is not chatty tonight. He sips at his coffee and would rather go back to reading fanfic. Which he actually does.

Always

Although the following ramblings constitute the first post of 2011, I should specify I wrote them in December.

I saw the sweetest thing the other day, while hunting for chocolat bio in a supermarket in Le Marais - a guy in his late twenties perhaps grabbed a pack of menstrual pads from a very famous mark. He was all alone, from what I could tell (no girlfriend-buffer when paying at the checkout), and so he's either a transsexual or a very nice boyfriend (I obviously went with option no 2, being the helpless romantic all cats are, deep deep down... somewhere... when nobody's looking... Yeah.). Am I too jaded if I consider such a gesture hors du commun?

A few days later...
I'm listening to Kings of Leon. More jaded than ever, albeit melancholically hopeful. I've received a few messages from family'n'friends, holidays and all - I've yet to respond, but this simple fact (man, who hasn't seen or forgotten "You've Got Mail"? one of the must movies , between Ryan, Hanks and the ever eluding, but existent - somewhere - perfect love...), of being the recipient of some mail, gives me this warm feeling spreading from my stomach upwards.

So now I'm responding with equally good wishes and merry stuff - I usually give them the holy three, good health, love and joy; as far as Lenu is concerned, the first thing that comes to mind and should be intended for her is love, I'm wishing her all the in the world, as it is the one thing she looked for and never found, I'm afraid. Gosh, I'm so cheerless, I'm gonna hafta agree with Waits'n'Murphy on Xmas spirit - "The bottle is empty
The sleigh has a flat
The stripper in my bed is ugly and fat
Her tassels are tangled and what's worse
My jingle won't jangle "

And to keep up with stolen lines, a quote from Le Placard by Francis Veber, no copyright infringement intended.

Belone : Le chat est parti.
Pignon : Où ça ?
Belone : Je sais pas, il m´a pas laissé d´adresse !
(cf. http://www.replikultes.net/films/fiches/528/le_placard/informations/#content)

So yeah, The Chat is gone without leaving an adress... but Paris isn't so big. If one walks long enough, one can end up in the same streets.

Knocking over tea cups (Miscellanea, but isn't everything?)

x
I really am. All the damn time. And glasses, cutlery, plates, clothes, food, drinks, bref, various household objects and materials. Yes, I really am that inattentive. But hey, a cat is forgiven for anything it does, it's a royal prerogative humans respected for millennia.

A few days later...
My latest exploit was knocking over a lamp. A very nice, plum-coloured lamp. I regreted it for a moment there. It doesn't work anymore and I'll soon exile it to the garbage can. I should hurry because I'm actually keeping it hidden from my boss, to whom it belonged. This is how I came to use a little light one can attach to one's forhead, thus recreating the famous image of the light bulb going on. Now if I'd actually do smth with it...

At times, quite often in fact, when I'm listening to really nice music, I've got this craving, this restlessness in my heart or in the prideful part of my mind, to do smth with my hands, maybe a picture, maybe some words. It doesn't usually works, as I am regularly doing smth else or am too caught up in reading. Except now. Well, that ends it, I'm going back to reading. See ya in a few, I think I'll finish and post this tonight.

About the picture - it's with a really cool hat one cannot see in the photo. I have some other shoots with me in them, but I don't like the way my nose stands up in them. Metaphorically, it's not actually too up-turned. Anyhoo, this reminds me of a show I caught some glimpses of today on a French television channel, about aesthetical surgery. There was this little girl of fifteen that hated her chin and wanted it modified. Apparently this type of surgery is very popular with girls from 15 or 16 to 24. Beyond the fake aspect such things suppose, how can one imagine it in relation to children, how did children came to this. I'm on a rethorical strike here, don't bother to answer. I'm just flabbergasted. And so old.

And now for the argumentative part - medically speaking, bones aren't even ready for this kind of intervention before the age of 18 or so. The speakers kept rambling about self-image and its improvement, about confidence and such. Is the easy way out really a source of self-confidence or rather a temporary solution for a deeper lack of satisfaction? Control and the way to take it had been mentioned and this is perhaps a better angle from which one can see things. The train of thought goes thus perhaps - I'm taking control of my body, therefore of my life. Only one doesn't consider then external actions and reactions, accidents or purposeful incidences that shape one. Control is hardly attainable.
As for the way I see it for myself, I wouldn't modify my body beyond its natural capacity (that is, diet, gymnastics, empirical products of as biological an origin as possible). The innate data shaped me as well and keep on doing it, and I can't see it as fair that it should get modified just for the sake of an image I'd give to the world. Where would I be then, in a body that wouldn't be mine afterwards? How could I lie and pretend this is me?

Hm, I am rambling as well. Maybe this isn't really my cup of tea.
The Chat graciously laps at some spilt coffee, and watches the cup go round and round. He is also living on borrowed time, without a thought for tomorrow, and when in doubt, it bonks it.

Long time, no writing

Ah well, that's to be expected from me. I'm such a procrastinator, and a lazy, lazy one at that. I love to sleep and I love to waste time and day-dream and do nothing with my life, despite all declarations to the contrary.

Anyhow, it may be that tomorrow is a day for celebration, some would say, or just this lost moment of time, or an auditive scene I witnessed yesterday - whatever it is, it has me writing a bit again.

So yeah, yesterday... I was sent to retrieve a stepladder from my boss' neighbour. The neighbour - a lady in her forties, maybe, who lives with her mother and perhaps her son or sons - was quite polite and helpful, ready to lend the said object to my often charming boss (that is, when she doesn't scream her head off over something I or someone else did or did not do). Which didn't go over well with the mother - just when the lady neighbour was ready to pass me stepladder, a squeaky, though loud voice claim it beacause the owner of the voice wanted to hang curtains. There were sounds of a little fight, more screams, more claims on the stepladder and the reiterated affirmation of the wish to hung curtains. Then there could be heard the noises of little steps hurrying away with what was likely the object of all these negociations. I was asked to return in a quarter of an hour and blessed with an endearment term by the nice neighbour lady.

Of course I have a series of stupid, excessively romantic, impossbile notions for my life. Of course I'll wake up the same tomorrow. Why bother and why oh why keep on hoping. It's an impulse just as inexplicable and irresistible as, say, the soulmates one finds in books only. Wishful, dreamy, farway look to be inserted here.

It's ugly in Paris today. Grey and muted. Not very cold. Just another day after another day before another day.

The Chat mutters to itself - "Trop peu d'argent, trop de gueule". A statement future generations will spend many a night meditating upon.

bad boys

It's raining in Paris. Therefore, a perfectly shitty wheather - some say it's perfect for making love, I was thinking it is perfect for walking the usually busy-touristical streets of Le Marais - the rain has chased away what the night hadn't already stored safely in warm beds and too expensive hotels - and for finding strange characters, homless people, the occasional wrong-doer, hopefully a bad vampire who tries to redeem himself (or itself?)... Ya, right, keep dreaming, little Chat. I myself am feeling adventurous tonight, so I wolfed down a slice of three-types-of-cheese pizza (fromage, fromage and fromage - is it because it's France? on the other hand, a little boy here told me cheese-only pizza isn't real pizza, so there are people who don't try to stamp the national emblem everywhere... just kidding, I try to be neither xenophobe, nor nationalist; and the said little boy doesn't even believe in dragons, so I don't take his opinion very seriously - he is adorable though, thus redeeming himself). Where was I? So, a slice of pizza, a highily toxical, highily commercialized and highily (or so they say) caffeinated brownish drink, some peanut flavoured chips and... grapes. Bad, bad Chat.

Anyway, as I was saying, rain and night combined make me wanna take a refreshing walk in search of vampires or of danger of some sort. Stupid, I know - it is perhaps the nocturnal cover that makes things seem less real (less dangerous?) or maybe my feline nature, prone to - yet again - nocturnal explorations. Meanwhile, still true to this nature of mine, I'm perched safely and comfortably on a bed, just listening to a "bad boy" that wants "to do bad things" with somebody - the guitar riffs are almost as thrilling as the parisian night. Why the fascination with beautiful evil - besides televisual and literay influences, innate penchants for drama and an overly nested existence - no, that's about it ;)

***

I'd begun this message about bad boys two days ago. As a I'm quite moral and righteous these days, I wanted to add a little story to it - some weird but nice neighbours of my boss had asked for a little shampoo. Her husband pretended there was none and offered them in return a bottle of hand soap, stating that they were to return it after use. I must confess that my first reaction was very judgemental - I just realized later on that maybe I should've done something about it, but for watching from the side. To conclude, I had quite a disappointed-in-humanity -(thus-myself) evening and drowned it in evil, evil sweets.

The Chat apologizes for retaining this message, but notes that laziness is in its nature. Bear with it.

Afrikaans

It's a language spoken in South Africa and Namibia and has dutch origins. It's also the only one, so far, in which the word "seekat" exists - it means "octopus". I am so proud of my double origin - feline and molluscian - and I'm not even broaching the ambigous image of the octopus itself, the eight-legged quite intelligent cephalopod.

Links - with no intention of copyright infringement:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans
http://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seekat

Well, speaking of exotic animals, the recent update of an old picture of the Chat reminded me of a few days spent in a little Romanian town on the Danube, Braila; it was spring, I think, about seven or eight years ago; it was the first time I bought guitar strings - good ones, even, I've been told - that would later (about five years later) become a gift for a friend's friend. I remember clearly the dust and a bit the heat, the fact that we once travelled on the bus with other members of the Chordata phylum, namely a pig and some chickens 'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig), and the ambiguities of the intra-gender friendships (I mean come on, we hold hands, platonically, I guess, and have in-depth conversations one day and no e-mails the next?! I felt quite... used, which is totally humiliating for Felines. Luckily for me, I seem to respond better to inter-gender relationships...). To wrap up the latest trip down memory lane, I shall clarify that I was participating in a french language national competition and that the results were neither catastrophic, nor satisfying. Just like every other day...

Hélas, inexistent reader of mine, I too wonder were my joie de vivre went. Pe apa Simbetei, as a Romanian saying goes - litteraly, with the waters of Saturday. Hm, it must also be caused by lack of chocolate.

The Chat stretches and lazily closes its long-lashed intensely green eyes. Purrr...

Another Day in Paradise

I don't quote songs because they're famous, although the pattern I seem to follow points in that direction. It just so happens that random, popping-in-my-head fragments of lyrics define better than I could the gist of some of my day. Although lately every day is just another day. I'm tempted to blame it on the rain and grisaille of Paris, but come on... we're talking about Paris here, everything is brighter, better and sweeter, despite the season.

This morning, my most recent and temporary boss did a good deed and drove me to a Préfecture for a working permit. We acquired no such thing, as the bureaucracy is nowhere stronger than in France - or so the natives say. However, my boss managed to lock herself out of her car. And half an hour later, her husband was trying to break into said car, as the key he had brought was bent and thus out of order. I was surprised to see that both the firemen and the police drove past us and didn't stop, although her husband's efforts were quite obvious - he even picked up a metallic bar and tried to pry the door open.

Meanwhile, as the good-for-nothing that I am, I was busy remembering the first time I came to Paris, with a group of fellow students and one of the best teachers the world ignores. We took a - not surprisingly - group walk on the quais de la Seine and never made it to the E-tower. This is my fourth time here and I'm still ignoring this modern and even revolutionary piece of architecture. Maybe I should make a manifesto out of it - declare not that I don't have enough money to climb it (hélas, a thourough view of Paris is just as financially demanding as life here), but that I do not want to do it, considering my architectural and artistical beliefs. Chm chm. Cue bow tie and moth-eaten garnments.

In retrospect, the 1st times are indeed idyllic. Years ago, during my very first visit to this city, it was autumn also, like today, only warmer and with more leaves. I was thinking this morning that I always seem to see this city at its worse, raining and cold - would it be so magnificent, but for the name to cover up ugly buildings and shitty actions? Needless to say, the Paris night is now also warm and with a clear sky, just to spite me. And yes, it is such a beautiful city - but aren't all cats grey at night?

FYI, there are 2 cities in Canada, one in Kiribati, and 23 in all of the United States named after Paris or variations of it (FMI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_%28disambiguation%29).

Le Chat bows and retires :p

In a hurry

Just begun this new blog because I needed to justify somehow the sad and the funny of my so every-day life (quite a definition there, 'cause usually life isn't made of every day, or days in general).
Anyhow...
Wanted to write down the magnificent message of one of Amy Winehouse's songs, "I can't help you if you won't help yourself". I keep telling myself that, but I am not yet a young millionaire. Nor am I young. Or millionaire for that matter - one should always specify if one is a millionaire or not, thus sparing the others possible blunders. I digress again.
The easiest and most sincere way out - in writing this blog or anything, in living, and in the famous RL - would be to replace every word written or spoken by an "I". But one does seek variety, as well as many many words to speak about oneself and more often than not to oneself only. Therefore... I can't help myself if I won't help myself. Oh and I do intend to help myself to anything I can.... :p

The Chat sharpens its claws... and delicately scratches a spot under its belly.