at the tram stop

yesterday, at the tram stop, i met another cute little old lady. am convinced that romania has some of the cutest old ladies ever. she weighed, like, 90 pounds was all kinda shrunken. she had this bright red colored hair. old romanian ladies (in bucharest anyway) seem to really like dying their hair totally improbable colors. i have seen little old women with blue and purple hair. i am totally convinced that my theory, which is totally unsubstantiated and nothing to back it up, is correct. at least i just like to believe it cause its probably cooler than the actual reason. i think that many of these ladies are discovering and deciding to be punk rock in their old age. they would be in mosh pits it they didnt have to worry about osteoporosis, fragile bones, and hip replacement surgery.

anyway. am all kinda proud of myself cause the conversation was all in romanian. i stumbled through it (okay falling and not being able to get up) but managed to understand and convey meaning. it centered on where i was from, why did i come to work in romania instead of staying in the u.s. (a favorite of people around the world), how much money i made (also a favorite around the world) and my hair.

she liked it and told me so repeatedly - maybe she saw a kindred spirit with the crazy hair thing. mind you, am not sure how much she would have liked it if it was all fro-ed out. whenever i have the courage to venture out with the fro in evidence, i get so many looks its disconcerting.

a little old man joined the convo to but have decided they are not as cool/cute as the old ladies.

samples - seriously TMI

yep. its about that time of the year. now that school is all done, i can take time out of giving to others and give a little time to me (um. . . i say this in all seriousness, i think but am a bit shaky on the meaning of the word). so i go to the doctor for the yearly check up. alls good - i go to a very modern center and the drs are very nice.

so i have to do lab work. sounds okay, right/ they send me home with cups and tubes with little spoons and am supposed to return the samples the next day. um. . . okay

next day. things are double bagged and then carried in a yet another bag. now i have to take public transport for about 30 minutes to get to the hospital. cant even tell you how paranoid i was. i kept on wondering: can people smell this? why do they keep looking at me? do they know what am carrying?

was a harrowing experience . . .

then when i get to the lab, they put my samples on the receptionists counter with labels so all who come in can have a view. Yikes!!! totally embarrassing so i avoided looking in that direction assiduously.

new but sad addiction

been playing a lot of text twist recently. you know cause i gotta find something to do in between games of jawbreaker.

have realized that am on a somewhat rapid decline. will be drooling and pooping on myself real soon. i went through a bout of playing it alot about 18 months ago. sad to say this time around am way way dumber at the game. have yet to reach my previous high score. if am really hardcore, i get about 2/3 of the way before going caput. its very sad and am a bit ashamed that i cant think of words like 'ret' and stuff. is that even a real word?

to be fair (really just whining and trying to make myself seem less stupid) i would do much better if the game accepted bad words, words in other languages, place names and slang. its not too much to ask for is it?

the good old days

apologies - have been dealing with the whole 'find an apt and moving' thing which will finally happen this weekend. oh yeah , and with the energy sucking of totally having nothing to do.

but the good thing is that i've spent loads of time listening to music. have been listening to bloc party, menomena, the gossip, and of course bjork - loads and loads. some of this stuff, esp. menomena, is so freaking good, i could lick it. its been a while since i have just viscerally liked a band and wanted to listen to their music over and over again. there are the old standbys of radiohead and r.e.m. and pink floyd etc., but a new band is bliss. . . sigh . . . theres something totally beautiful of just nothing but music and it got me thinking about the good old days of music listening. i remember when i buying a cd was a time for my roommates to hate me. i would listen to nothing else for days or weeks. i used to lay in my bed listening to the music with the insert, reading through the lyrics or sometimes just in the dark letting the music wash over me. it was kinda like communing with the music and musicians. i just dont do that anymore. its not that there is no time, but there are no cd inserts (plus the dearth of good, satisfying music) just downloaded mp3s. i miss the tactile aspect of music. it used to be a whole body experience utilizing so many senses (though not taste cause i never actually really licked anything).

its funny when i realize that am showing my age and how little things can represent generational distance.

heat wave

dear lord! its gonna be in the 90s today and will hit the 100s later this week. europe is freaking burning up and people are dropping like flies. but most importantly - i am hot! and i aint got no a.c. this is the first time in a long time that am a.c.-less and can pretty much say that it aint a good thing. the desire for a.c. drives one to do things like go to the mall, where one is repeatedly accosted by students.

the desire for cool air is so great that i would give up my first born child. okay i know that i offer up this kid alot but as soon as i get a taker for that one, will offer up the second.

veggie guy and girl

a friend of mine and her boyfriend are traveling about the countrying in a veggie oil modified car. kinda crazy, kinda cool. enjoy. http://veggieguyandgirl.blogspot.com/

my sorta new addiction

the kids at school reintroduced me to this in the last days of the school year - its like non-peer pressure. of course, i had been exposed to it previously and found it difficult then and now to disengage but still i play and play JAWBREAKER. the insidiously ingenious game with pretty colors and sounds. i remember forcing myself to stay up during most of a 14 hour flight from dubai to new york playing this. and now i have been sucked in again! luckily, this time around my strategy is way better so i've got much higher scores which only means that i must play more. its gotten so bad that i am seeing the patterns everywhere and looking to see if i can just click on them. i wake up in the morning and i play (its on the pda so it tucks in with me at nite)

jawbreaker is a cruel cruel mistress. am sure will wind up with some sort of repetitive motion injury.

ahhh, the phila-poo-poo

reading the nytimes style section (my way of pretending that i'm bettering myself while wallowing in my shallowness) i saw a mention of a new tv show coming out called the "age of love"

whenever i go to church (an almost annual occurrence) i find myself praying and asking god when will the reality show craze end!?! apparently s/he doesnt listen to my prayers much (or i really should ask for more worthwhile things, you know - like for that ginormous zit on my cheek to go away) because shows like age of love and things involving donald trump abound.

apparently the star of age of love is mark philippoussis a greek-australian tennis star - and i use the word star in the very loosest form of the word. i had forgotten about philapoopoo until this forcibly brought him to my attention since "tennis star" faded a while ago. a few years ago i saw him play in Dubai (i have to say that i freakin' luuuv the tennis. its very zen in a 'wow i just lost 3 hours watching a little green ball' sort of way) when he was closer to the top of his game. this dude is like 6'4" and from a purely female perspective he is absolutely lovely. but that joy faded with the utter and total horrendousness of his ability (luckily, being crap means a short match). he lost to some belgian dude shorter than me because he could not serve over the net!!! thereby double faulting. heck, i could have won even with my incredibly poor hand eye coordination, lack of spatial/depth perception, and inability to not stumble over my feet.

now he is trying to find the 'love' of his life on a reality show, which seems like a really really good idea. he must be more popular than this in australia, right? on the other hand, we could thank him as this could turn out to simply be an extremely long PSA - kinda like an after school special but with lots of self-aggrandizing behavior, debasement, desperation, cleavage and the possibility of spreading STDs thereby encouraging the kiddies to finish high school lest they wind up in such dire straights.

tears of joy

yay yay yay! shcools over and i have been celebrating by doing nothing. absolutely nothing. have hung about and ate pizza and took naps and stayed up all hours.

am ready to stop now but i had to celebrate my freedom to be an absolute total slob.

am terribly busy, i must now go do nothing..

enjoy your summer sukkaaaz!!!

visions of days to come

yeeeesssss. i had an absolutely lovely day. it was warm and lovely and beautiful and sunny and the predictor of things to come. today i spent the WHOLE day doing nothing (kay did some reading for my class in political geography on civil divisions in the U.S. - somehow not that fascinating). i met up with a friend and we had lunch in a restaurant in the park under an arbor of flowing plants and roses. then we spread a blanket watched the boaters on the lake - sadly that was interrupted by the security people so we went to another really awesome park that doesnt care about the grass (though the first one had way better bathrooms) and watched kids swim in the lake. its amazing how time flies when you are doing nothing and a half. the day came to an end when my bladder was about to stage a rebellion but my olfactory was unwilling to experience the port-a-potty.

ahhh. . . this week is the last last week of this school term. then a blissful 10 weeks of kidlessness. may every day be as lovely (but with conveniently located normal toilets)

relating to nature

one of the things that i truly like about Romania is the opportunity to be outside. mind you i have to be as i must be intimately acquainted with the public transport system to get anywhere. but the UAE is such an indoor culture and i did it for 3 years. i didnt realize til i got here how much i had been missing the whole being outdoors, going to parks, and just enjoying the sun and weather thing.

with that said, as always, i've got complaints. nature is not as beautiful in reality as in my head. the landscaping has not been thought out - there are fruit trees all over the place and they SHED fruit. this seems okay til walking the sidewalk is like a fruit squooshing exercise (kinda like the wine stomping in that "I love Lucy" episode). frankly i am worried about my shoes (you know i'm shallow so dont shake your head). i must say, am all about the useless and pretty tree school of landscaping but i may start collecting fruit and making jam (you know lemon -lemonade thing). then i walk under a tree and am pinged by cherries that just 'happen' to fall from the tree - in actuality, i think the squirrels have it out for me and arent shy about letting me know.

the slugs come out at night and leave trails all over where i walk. its like their taunting me, trying to drive me insane cause they know that i have a big phobia (yes yes , its true but aside from that, i think they are a mistake of creation). I dont think the cops would appreciate me littering the streets with shallow dishes of beer to do them in (though the drunks and people with a slug problem in their gardens may applaud my efforts).

finally, spring is supposed to be all miraculous and about life and all that slightly nauseating and mushy crap. just to show that if you really dig deep enough, you can find some tenderness in me, this one is really sad. i keep seeing dead baby birds - no not some Jungian craziness that i could write a song about and make lots of money (peter gabriel) but actual baby birds on the side walks (i look down a lot as i am desperately trying to avoid the dog doo so i wont have any more shoes camping on the balcony not being worn). i dont know if they have been pushed out of the nest by parents or siblings but they are tiny, naked, and recently hatched. eyes are closed and i wonder if i have stepped on any, not realizing it in those moments when am not looking of the ground.