To Whom It May Concern: It's another Friday of Mountain Dew and Complete Boredom at Work

The urge to smoke stronger than ever. And I'm whining. Rather loudly. It's unsightly.

Damnit. I guess i'm more addicted to cigarettes than i thought i was.
The patch is not working - of course it isn't, since every time i put it on, i have to take it off twenty minutes later, if i want to stay alive. It makes me dizzy. Not fuzzy, euphoric, pot high kind of dizzy - but "I'm about to pass out" kind of dizzy, with splitting headaches, 80/40 blood pressure, nausea and vomiting. Sorry for graphic details. It was bad. Really bad. Didn't help that first time i tried it on, it was late in the afternoon and I had not had dinner yet. I thought that maybe the full patch was too strong for me - but nope, half has the exact same effect. The other day i had to turn around and walk back home so that i don’t faint in the street, in the middle of all that traffic. How pathetic would it be to die from an attempt to quit smoking? Or nicotine overdose. But that's exactly what this whole quitting business is doing to me. I've been irritable, bitchy, headachy and plain depressed for the last several days. Why am i doing this again? Oh yeah, so that i can run happily ever after for forty five minutes a day, three days a week. That's right. When's my next marathon again?

I need to devise a new plan for quitting. The patch's not working.

i guess i was looking for an easy way out, hoping that it would make me not want to smoke. Of course it isn't going to work. What did i expect? Did i innocently and naively believe that tobacco companies would actually allow an easy and effective way of quitting to be roaming freely out there in the open market?

Well, maybe there is no easy way out and it's going to take more time and commitment than i'm willing to dedicate to at this point. But perhaps, if i keep working on it, one less smoked cigarette at a time, i will, eventually, wean myself off of this habit. Just like it was with the recovery from eating disorder - it took time. A long time. And headaches. and stomachaches, and weight gain, and dizziness. And relapses. Many many relapses - but it worked in the long run, didn't it?

Need to write a blog on overcoming eating disorder, because the way i make it sound here appears way too easy-breezy. I also need to start writing that damn paper on effectiveness of foreign aid, or the lack of it thereof. Got a World Bank report of nothing but two hundred pages of bullshitting on the effectiveness of development assistance, without providing any statistical or other evidence. The whole point of the report summing up to yeah, aid works, it's efficient but there is no way to prove it. Of course. Sure the World Bank is being effective fighting poverty. The amount of funds it spends on organizing seminars, and conferences and trainings and shipping one confused consultant from one corner of the world to another. Business class travel. VIP reception and nothing less. As J. Maarten Troost said in "The Sex Lives of Cannibals", the World Bank is very concerned about alleviating poverty, one consultant at a time. Or something along those lines. The only reason for the whole organization to exist is to keep airliners and five star hotels in business. And that, we have to agree, is a significant contribution to global economy. Transfer of funds from one wealthy pocket into another. Plus you appear concerned and nobel and oh-so-altruistic in the process. Nice. Funds are disbursed as shown on paper. Where they go is a matter of little importance. We have the numbers. They're satisfactory. We've got something to brag about at the next UN or whatever other summit that may cost an annual budget of an entire Pacific island to organise . And write another two hundred page BS report.

So here i am, aspiring to be one of those consultants who will fall under big guy's mercy of big paychecks and tax exemption - that's what thirty thousand worth of hoity-toity education from an elitist school is there for, right? At least that's what their career service web-page claims to do. It better does. But wait, i have to start school first. And finish it, for that matter. But before i do that, i need to write this paper that's due the end of the month. And quit smoking. Oh yeah, that's what this whole blog started as. Went off on a tangent.

So smoking. So far, i haven't gone too far. In the last five days i've smoked a total of twelve cigarettes. That's not quitting. But at least a lot better than what it was a week ago. So patch is no longer an option. Cold turkey is not something i can do with my non-existent will power. What's left? Therapy? Right. Acupuncture? No way. Nicotine free cigarettes? I might consider that at some point. For now, it's Marlboro Ultra Lights (they taste like shit, by the way), proscribed at a limited doze of no more than four a day. That's the only plan i could stick with for now. That's all. Done bitching.

Poshla kurit&.

I’m twenty six years old. As someone gently reminded me not that long ago, it’s still ridiculously young. And yet old enough to be able to drive, vote, buy cigarettes and alcohol, get married and divorced, have children… It’s an undistinguished age, untelling, neither an indicative of maturity nor an excuse for irresponsibility. Maybe an age of quarter life existential crisis of some sort, but then, isn’t life in its entirety some kind of existential riddle in itself?

I’m twenty six years old. Still young, and yet at times I feel like I’ve lived several different lives and have aged without actually getting old. And now I’m starting to notice the first signs of actual aging. Like the first gray hair. Very fine lines around my eyes that are hardly visible, but there nevertheless for me to know where the first wrinkles are going to appear. I no longer seem to have adequate amount of energy to rush through the day juggling a million of tasks without any sign of tiredness and exhaustion. I can no longer survive getting only four hours of sleep during the night. I cannot go longer than four or five hours without having sufficient amount of food. But apart from those physical signs, other things have changed as well. I have mellowed. Significantly. Fast paced environments that used to give me highs make me dizzy and disoriented now. Schedules and deadlines that I once lived on make me now cringe. I am no longer willing or able to handle stress and intensity in any aspect of my life. I’m burnt out on drama. It all appears to be unnecessary fret, meaningless noise and ado. I’m tired. And I know I’m getting old, not older, not only because I seem to have gotten used to the slower, quieter pace, but because it seems like I will no longer be able to go through what I have already been through, and that I can no longer afford to make the mistakes I already made once, in the past. These things are starting to have a toll on me. I’ve grown protective towards myself and my well-being. It seems that all I want these days is peace of mind and sense of normality – the very concept I am having a hard time finding definitions for. Maybe what I’m trying to describe by this normality may appear as plain indolence for someone else, or mundaneness for another. But given my past, where nothing but the early years of childhood came even close to resembling “normal” no matter how lose you set these boundaries for defining normal; where everything was complicated, burdened, disturbed, fucked-up, stressful and strenuous, it is only natural to want that one thing that I have been deprived of, right?

My otherwise happy and unclouded childhood was interrupted by troubled political, social and economic events that my country underwent after the collapse of the Soviet “Empire.” My early adolescence was spent in loneliness and fear and hiding the feeling of loss and grief for my father. My college years were all about growing bitterness and apathy. It was one big disillusionment, years in school, because I was old enough to openly see the reality as it was, to openly reject and criticize it, and yet not old enough to be able to deal with it with the knowledge and maturity of an adult, and more importantly with less destructive, and healthier ways. Granted I was a product of overly idealistic parents, raised on the only religion they believed in, that of ultimate human goodness and universal values of morality, it was easy not to get disillusioned. I tried to find some kind of salvation in my marriage. I grabbed on to it like a drowning at a straw, as a desperate attempt to save myself from dreaded cynicism and apathy, without having the foresight to see that my very salvation would grow into source of depression and even greater destruction. There was nothing normal about that marriage, and I am equally guilty for contributing a considerable share to its insanity.

Troubled and interrupted childhood, painful adolescence, disillusioned youth, broken marriage, broken faith, bitterness, callousness and subsequent apathy –I’m not listing all of this to evoke some kind of pity or compassion - in fact, my life hasn’t been worse than that of millions and millions of people that once lived and are living now. I know that I am far better off than many others. I am merely trying to make a point, first and foremost to myself that it is understandable to want to have things that are normal. To want to be normal. To want rest, and peace and quietness for at least a little while longer.

I can not afford another broken marriage. I do not want to go through life from one failed and disastrous relationship to another. I do not want to live in the humiliation of poverty and deprivation if not in economic sense, at least in moral sense of pride and dignity. I no longer want to feel disabled by another mental or physical disorder. And i no longer want to try and build yet another life from scratch... These things are starting to have a toll on me. They are. And I’m tired. And somewhat lost.

Part of me wants to simply give in to this current state of indolence and serenity. It’s probably the first time in many years that I have felt so peaceful, to undisturbed, so quieted and humbled. Part of me knows that I could be happy like this, living like this, taking care of my humble little needs, taking it day at a time, a moment at a time. I could be happy in Richmond. I could make Richmond feel like home, even if I were to end up living here on my own. But then, the other part of me knows that it’s not really an option. Giving in is not an option. Not at this point at least. Not until I’ve tried to be happy at another place, in another mindset…And only after having experienced something other than this, something different than this, but still normal nonetheless, only then I can make a legitimate choice and a conscious decision to come back to the quietness that Richmond is for me now.

I say I’m happy now. Perhaps I’m confusing the concept of happiness with a glass of orange juice in the morning and a back rub at night, and perhaps all there is to them is joy and pleasure and comfort of ordinariness. I don’t seem to mind it at all. In facts that’s one of the few things that seems to make me happy these days. And what is wrong with the idea of wanting an ordinary life anyway?

I’m not sure where I’m trying to get with this… I still catch myself having to hold back the urge to simply spill it all out and let the daylight see what really is on my mind. Or maybe I let myself get lost in these overly long sentences with overlapping clauses so that I don’t have to say what otherwise could be said in one simple sentence, without even a single subordinate clause.

A Picture of Time

by Lynne Tillman

You say there’s no time like the present. But what is the present here? I’ve watched TV for ages and seen movies since I was three. TV’s daily life and movies are a communal fantasy. Today is in color, yesterday’s in black and white, and there’s no agreement about tomorrow.

I hear music everywhere, and then there are voices. Everyone’s speaking in a flow and rush of language, the words are like water. There are echoes, too. And I know the whispering won’t stop. It’s the past. Time passes on and fools us by living underneath the surface.

You say there’s a reality we all exist in, and I say I won’t agree to it. You become red, enraged, and I make something from that. Red becomes an opening, surprising you. But I put it in the corners, where its brilliance is held in suspension. I keep explosive red, like time, to myself. I keep it, like dreams and wishes, for myself.

I suppose it’s obvious. I’m always fighting time. It’s relentless in its mission, and I’m nothing to it. But there’s no time in dreams, which is why I need them. There’s protracted suspense, the ragged drama of discontent and tempestuous wishes. And morose blue may suddenly pop up, disguised as threat, to announce the predatory present. I may be able to appease it, the blues, if I can find a place to put it. Even in dreams I want to control sadness and danger. I surround and contain them, and later everything catches up with me.

You say take hold of yourself. I hold on to dear, difficult life and keep track of success and failure—and loss, the holes and emptinesses where I could fall off and forget the world. Oases and shelters beckon, tempting illusions wrapped in bars and stripes. I reach them and take the time to think about what to do next.

Time moves on without my consent. I should have known better. My schemes might be planted next to startling green thoughts and in earthy, black fields. If I’m lucky, the dark is rich and compassionate and will let me rest for a while. Something good might come along.

Is it judgment I’m awaiting or mercy? I don’t know. I draw a broad line around myself and make a fortress against inevitability. Suddenly there’s static, an impish, contentious energy I never expect. It disrupts connections, compelling me to assimilate forces I don’t fully comprehend. Like electricity, which I’ve never stopped relying upon. I know it was discovered and had to be captured, even subdued. Yet it was always there, and it probably wasn’t waiting, the way I am.

You’re naked, you say. Protect yourself. I cover myself in shame, lust, and greed, smearing and hiding the humiliating marks of battle. I’ve done this many times and have become a funny kind of palimpsest. You say no one can escape, and I run down a narrow, single-minded trail. I burrow deep and throw on another layer, for warmth or as a palliative. I grow big and orange. Fire is more orange than red and, like anger, throws off more heat than light. When it dies, there are embers and ash, wan reminders of its glory. The sky becomes night and swallows everything. The night is a thrilling action figure in the human theater. I hide in the dark.

You say I can’t fight the inevitable. But what else is there to fight? I arrive at my destination and tremble at reason’s door. It’s inviting to enter, seductive, but there’s really not enough room. Still I’ve learned I can’t be an exception and walk in through the back door. To outfox reason’s complacency, I escort the unpredictable unconscious. As usual no one notices. Later, perpetually, everyone’s surprised.

You and I watch the current match between rationality and irrationality. I bet on what we can’t know, which wrestles with everyone’s limits and confounds certainty. It usually claims victory, and tonight I win easily. There was more behind the scenes than we ever appreciated. You’re sorry to lose, and I console you. But the truth is I applaud the victory and prefer it to reason’s insensible claims. Like the one that says time heals all wounds. Time’s no cure, no doctor. You and I go on. We continue somehow, and our persistence is the source of everything we make. I want to surrender, but I can’t, and I live in that paradox, and so do you.

It snowed in Richmond...

after an entire winter without snow, with the exception of couple of snow flurries that didn't last more than a few minutes. It was strange, to open the back door in the morning and see everything covered with a thin layer of snow.

A few months back I was somewhat looking forward to the snow - winter snow brings some kind of peace and relief. i couldn't wait to see the snow on these littlebrick houses that look like doll houses, when their windows are lit... But it never snowed, not even once during winter. And now there was something strange and discordant seeing this snow, when all the trees are fully blossomed and after i had folded and put away all the thoughts of winter in the farthest corner of the closet together with my warm clothes...

Speaking of smoking

... and nicotine patches.

Running out of cigarettes in the middle of the night used to be my biggest fear. I could not possibly imagine what I would do without them for an entire night of long hours, without holding the dry, thin, cylindrical object in my fingers, seeking comfort inhaling the bitter smoke. The idea that I might, one day, not be able to smoke was enough to drive me insane. And I mean INSANE. To the extent of calling a cab in the middle of the night and paying two dollars for a trip to the nearest kiosk to buy a one dollar pack of cigarettes (yes, prices in Armenia are still relatively cheap last time I checked, despite the US dollar losing its value against the local currency).

I buy cigarettes in cartons these days. Cheaper, more convenient, and the risk of running out is not as frequent. I have three packs of cigarettes left. A few days ago I told myself that once I’ve smoked them all, instead of buying a new carton, I’ll get a patch. A nicotine patch. I’m still uncertain when, why and more importantly how that idea came to me, but lately I have been thinking, that perhaps, one day I should stop smoking. That perhaps, one day, I could and would stop smoking. Even as I’m typing this, I don’t think I fully believe that in about three or four days I may stop smoking. Altogether. Hmmm.

The thing is, I’m not just addicted to those damn cigarettes. I like them. In fact, I love them. I love the taste. The bitterness. The process of lighting up, the first drag, inhaling, holding it in, exhaling. I even like the gross, nasty smell that sticks to my fingers long after I’ve smoked. I like those few minutes when even at my most distressed, I can distract myself and not think about anything. Just draw it in. And out. The serenity of it…

I also cannot quite imagine how I would continue doing my everyday things without them – it’s as much of a habit as it is an addiction. What do I do when I first wake up? When I drink coffee? When I’m listening to that one piece of music that simply has to go with a cigarette? What do I do when I’m sitting outside, writing. Or people watching. Or meditating. Or decompressing. Do I actually think that sticking a little patch soaked with a certain chemical to my skin is actually going to stop my cravings for a cigarette by simply giving me sufficient supply of nicotine so that I don’t go crazy? And bite somebody’s head off?

And more importantly, do I really think, and really believe, that I’m going to quit smoking? Really? REALLY?

Smoking has always been more than an addiction to me. I grew up in a traditional society where women who smoke are look down upon with dismay for reasons other than mere health concerns. They are often considered of questionable, if not altogether lose moral character. Smoking was my way to revolt, to refuse to conform and follow the rules of a society I could not quite identify myself, let alone accept and reconcile with. This was my way of asserting myself and standing up for my choices, even if this particular one was harmful and damaging to my health and possibly gave me a questionable reputation. At the same time, I used to be attracted to the dark aspect of it, and apparently had certain fascination with self-destructive behaviors. It surprises me that considering my compulsive and addictive nature, I never got into drugs and alcohol, never even tried to. I’d be just the type for a junkie, I’m sure. But I used to find it attractive - a dark, stick thin figure, an empty stomach, strong black coffee with no cream and sugar, and cigarettes. Lots and lots of cigarettes. And books. And notes. Scattered all over the place. And I pretty much lived that life for several years. And all these years I have fought battles for my rights to smoke. I’ve kicked off quite a few men who I’d date randomly and sporadically during my school years, who would as much as dare to hint that I stop smoking. There were also those who were less subtle and would tell me pointblank that they could not possible be seeing a woman who smokes. That an Armenian woman does not smoke. That women should not smoke. Period. I’d shrug my shoulders – your loss, now get lost. And continue smoking. Some of the worst fights in my previous relationship were about my smoking. It had gotten to the point of absurdity of me being forced to make a choice between cigarettes and the person I was with – the ridiculousness of the idea enough to throw me into blind rage. I stood my grounds, I defended my choice. I yelled and screamed. And broke dishes. And I continued smoking.

I’ve been smoking for almost ten years. I’ve always pictured myself as a woman who smokes. And drinks coffee. And smokes. Relentlessly. I’d go through a pack of cigarettes like it was a handful of peanuts and by the time the evening was over, my pack would be empty. I have spent endless nights awake, smoking, reading, writing. This time last year I had an entire month of doing nothing but stay at my mother’s apartment, try to eat well and figure out what I was going to do next. And chain-smoking from morning till night. Since then I have cut back considerably. For one thing, no more indoor smoking. No more smoke breaks every thirty minutes or so during my work hours. No more smoking in restaurants, even in tobacco capital, unless I’m sitting outside. And I no longer go to bars.

And now I’m thinking about quitting. In about three days I’m planning to stick a patch on myself in hopes that that little piece of whatever it is will substitute not only the nicotine to which I’m addicted, but everything else that smoking is for me. A habit, pleasure, distraction, comfort, my past, my memories… What's ironic, I’m not even sure if I want to quit. Well, that’s not quite true. I do want to quit, but the funny thing is, my reasons are far from all the reasons you'd think one would have, including the money i'd save and the obvious health concerns, which one would think should be a priority.

I more and more realize that this whole smoking thing has become a nuisance to me and the very few people who are around me these days. And of course they all have to be non-smokers. Even the guy who works at Phillip Morris is a non-smoker. Blah. Whatever. It’s only now and here in the States, that I have thought, for the fist time, about the discomfort that smoking can cause to non-smokers. It actually bothers me. But what bothers me more, is how much I have to go out of my way to make sure that I’m not suffocating anyone in at least twenty yard radius. When I’m surrounded by people, the fact that i have to wait to finally be able to snatch a moment and sneak out to smoke a cigarette, while feeling guilty the whole time, is humiliating. Making sure that there’s no one in the aforementioned twenty yard radius is just plain aggravating. Feeling constantly guilty and apologetic about my smoking is just as demeaning. It belittles me, and I rather not feel that way than go outside and smoke my damn cigarette. And as much as I continue saying that “It’s my thing. I love it. Let it go.” the constant bitching about my smoking is not going to stop. The funny thing is thought that the one person who is most discomforted by my smoking doesn’t bitch. And rarely says anything. But sometimes it’s even worse than loudly expressing disapproval. That way I can at least snap back, like I did in the past. And have extra motivation to stick to my guns. His silence is disarming. I can’t yell back. I can’t break dishes. And smoking no longer gives the satisfaction that it used to. All I can do is feel bad and guilty and make sure I washed my hands and brushed my teeth before I go back into the room where he is.

But the main reason for my trying to quit is that a few months back, out of sheer curiosity and in hopes of getting rid of pent up frustrations and anger, I started running. And now I’m really getting into it. And truly enjoying it. What amazes me most is that after all these years of self-abuse my body is still strong and capable enough to perform this physically and cardio-vascularly demanding activity. It stuns me that my tarred lungs still have the ability to last me for entire two, three and even four miles on my better days, at more or less decent speed, without having to stop. The high I get from rush of adrenaline and endorphins is magical enough to make me swear, while I’m in motion, to never smoke another cigarette in my life again.

Smoking and running generally don’t go together. It’s either one or the other. I’m at a point when I’m starting to like the latter more to try and stop the former. Do I actually believe that it’s going to work? I’m not sure. I am not as enthusiastic as I might sound in this post, but mainly because I’m skeptical by nature, especially when it comes to things immediately related to me. But then, most of the things that I’ve accomplished so far were driven by this skepticism combined with something else that sort of resembles curiosity. Depending on which one overshadows which determines the outcome. Or something along those lines. A mind trick of sorts, i guess. I have to admit that I’m just as curious about quitting as I’m skeptical. So there, I said it. I know I talked too much. But before I go…

I bought new running shoes today. Really fancy and expensive ones, named after me, to replace the shabby old pair that I’ve had since… high school. I can’t wait to I get them in the mail. Tomorrow I’m getting the patch, although I won’t stick it until Tuesday. I’m sure there will be rants and raves about the whole process, so please forgive me if I start getting on your nerves. I’ll try not to turn this into a full blown anti-smoking campaign. But this is my blog, god dammit. And this poor little thing has witnessed everything I once thought I ‘d never be able to do, from breakup of my marriage, to my full recovery, to grad school acceptance and now running. Maybe, well maybe, smoking will be one of these things.

Last week, talking to my brother on the phone, i told him about my recent kick for running. He was silent for a moment, and then asked;
"When do you smoke then? Before? Or after. Or both."
"While i'm running," i answered, " i smoke while i'm running."
He laughed.
"i'm not surprised at all..."

This is a prelude for a much longer rant and post of smoking, running and nicotine patches.

Stranger Than Fiction

"This is a story about a man named Harold Crick. And his wristwatch."

Click, click. The voice with British accent reading the script as sharp and crisp as the sound of the typewriter.

"I am not crazy. I'm just written that way..."

An ordinary story about an ordinary man with his mundane every day life planned out and calculated minute to minute to the last second. I wonder if he goes nuts over the weekend, unless he "plans out" his free time as well. The story doesn't tell. What it tells thought is an overly comic story of a tragic writer with writer's block who can't figure out how to kill this Harold Crick guy.


"As much as I would like to, I cannot simply throw Harold Crick off a building. "

And the Harold Crick guy, who suddenly starts hearing a voice in his head talking about his life like one would read fiction.

Over all, a cute movie - despite the fact that it's not overly exciting or artsy or deep or weird or surreal enough to my taste, and not at all dark and tragic for me to immediately fall in love with. But still, something about the movie that makes it a Nika movie, and very few get to be honored with that title - "I Heart Huckabees" and "Run, Lola, Run." would be good examples. There's something in all these three movies have in common, something comically existential despite the first glance silliness that makes me like them more than an average cute movie.

Favorite snippets...

"I adore you." "I adore you too"
"Anarchists have a group? They assemble? Doesn't that completely defeat the purpose?"

"You don't like cookies? What's wrong with you?"

"I do not need a nicotine patch. I smoke cigarettes..."


"Little did he know! Little did he know! I taught an entire class on little did he know..."

And of course i loved the idea of making the world a better place with cookies.

I still have an eternity of four months in this city...
and another spring and entire summer left.
Thinking about it this way makes me smile -
There still is another summer to be lived...

This picture, taken today near downtown Richmond, looks like a random shot of Yerevan...

It’s always been hard for me to voice what’s really bothering me. I’ve never been good at expressing unprocessed emotions, frustrations, fears and anger. I have been equally unsuccessful in dealing with uncertainties, although what’s ironic is that these uncertainties often arise from my refusing to openly say what’s really on my mind and what exactly it is that makes me feel uncertain, uncomfortable, insecure at any given moment. I’m shielded in a way. There’s things that I simply cannot bring myself to talk about. Sometimes I cannot even write them out – this whole blog, or most part of it is a collection of cryptic messages, riddles that no one besides me can decipher. Why is it so hard for me to simply say, like I would be stating a fact that “ “This is white.”, “This is black.”, “This bothers me.”, “”This is what I’m afraid of.”, “This is what I need.”, “This is what I’d like to know...”. Do I actually think that by voicing such thoughts of discomfort and fear is going to kill me? Like words would cut my throat before they even reach my mouth? Is it really that big of a deal to let someone other than myself know that I’m uncomfortable, in pain, hopeful, wistful, in need of something, afraid of something else.

Is the fear of being rejected or misunderstood so great? Or is it simply because I do not think that my own feelings or needs are good enough or important enough to be voiced? Either way, these are some deeply rooted issues, and as much as I hate issues and would rather ignore than deal with them, I have to admit that they bother me on ongoing basis and inevitably result in my growing bitterness, resentment, frustration, which when bottled up for over a period of time, ends up exploding in a most graceless and emotionally messy way.

I am not sure when and how it happened that I simply stopped letting others know about what i feel and how i feel about whatever it is that may be important to me. When did i start to believe that showing need or emotion is a sign of weakness? Perhaps if I dig a little deeper, I will find a specific cause – some past event that has brought this on, but so far I’ve learned that analyzing past issues only gives me an understanding of the cause itself and does not necessarily help me deal with consequences. The consequence is that what once used to be a justifiable fear of rejection has grown into a habit of not talking and bottling up. And being more concerned about keeping certain appearances. That showing emotion, need, dependency, voicing fears, frustrations are signs of weakness, inadequacy, incompetency and that it will inevitably end up hurting and disappointing me. And that as long as I keep all of it nicely hidden, I will not run to risk of appearing weak or being hurt, even if the pain of unvoiced emotions is much greater than actual rejection. Since then I’ve been very successful in hiding all that stuff, in convincing not only others but myself as well that I’m fine, that I don’t need anything, even at times when I really, desperately need help, compassion, understanding. And just like it was with food, I sometimes deny all love, compassion and understanding to myself, thinking that I do not deserve it. I have become very successful giving an appearance of being fine. Since then I have developed great tolerance for pain and discomfort. I have eliminated my needs to the very basic. I’ve learned to live without expectations from others. I have become extremely self-sufficient and independent. Obsessively, to the point of neurosis independent only to realize not that long ago that this obsession with being self-sufficient and independent is driven by nothing else but the past fear of being rejected. Even when there are no longer any grounds for this fear.

What bothers me now is that even after knowing and understanding all of the above, I still choose to deal with these issues in the same habitual way, of keeping quiet, pretending to be fine and dealing with them on my own. What bothers me now is that I still choose to put myself in blatantly ambivalent and uncomfortable situations whereas for the most part these situations can be avoided if I choose to as much as hint that there is something wrong. What bothers me now is that I still seem to be more concerned about keeping certain appearances, like being strong, self-sufficient, cool, reserved, polite, nice, undemanding than actually being honest with myself and everyone else. Even if I don’t even care whether I’m strong, self-sufficient, cool or reserved. And what bothers me most is that I rather label all my uncertainties with “questions you don’t ask” and shove them away instead of having the courage to ask them and live and deal with answers. Especially when I know that pain is not what I’m afraid of anymore.

reposting

There are questions you do not ask….
Because you no longer want to know the answers. You don’t need them, just like the questions themselves, they’re pointless…So you push these questions far back to the corner of your mind, keeping them quiet and still, locked.

And there are questions you do not ask no matter how badly you want to know the answers. You try to ignore them, hoping that these questions will outlive themselves and disappear completely from your event horizon…
It’s not important,
It does not matter- you keep saying to yourself… cause you know that deep down you already know the answers to even the unborn questions and the only thing you can do is accept them each in its own time.

And you live day by day in self inflicted bliss of denial and ignorance, choosing it as your only mode to exist, knowing that the only thing you can ask and hope for is that you wake up the next morning…

* I no longer question. I merely accept. And I’m no longer afraid of pain- you don’t question pain just like you don’t question your own happiness…

I’m no longer afraid of getting hurt- and by having realized this I seem to have somehow eliminated all the possible pain I may have to endure at whatever point in the future.

i already miss Richmond.
i haven't even left yet...
i woke up this morning with a tight knot in my stomach and a pang of panic as if i was already gone, feeling disoriented, lost, alone and nostalgic. i still have what seems another eternity of four months left... and i already miss Richmond.

Spring on Monument Avenue

Snippets

A man and two women sitting outside at Betty's. Drinking wine. Smoking. Laughing. Engaged in a light and leisurely conversation. They seem to be enjoying themselves. The man gets up and leaves, soon to come back carrying a white cardboard box, our of which chocolate cake comes out. They start eating the cake, continuing the conversation and as i watch them, i can't help thinking how cool it is to have someone to bring you chocolate cake, while you're hanging out on a Saturday afternoon thinking that life could not get any better.

***
Once i woke up in the studio apartment of a guy i used to spend considerable amount of time with, to find out that he wasn't in bed. This rarely happens, since i'm usually the one who's always first to wake. He was in the shower, the door between the room and the hallway shut. He had closed it intentionally for the noise not to wake me up. i found this little detail very touching and endearing. Later the same morning i made french toast and scrambled eggs for him, and left his place with a smile on my face.

***
I have a whimsical, almost wistful desire to have someone bring me breakfast as i'm waking up. Or make breakfast for someone other than myself, even all that it involves is making coffee and pouring milk into a bowl of cereal. But i almost always end up with men who generally do not eat breakfast. Bummer.

I have so far learned to tell the difference between a regular and diet drink. But to learn to tell apart Coke from Pepsi is yet another skill to be mastered...

On accomplishments

I used to wonder whether accomplishment is about the actual achievement of some kind of end-result or the feeling that arises when you know you’ve done something productive, positive, no matter how small. I used to further wonder whether this end-result had to be something tangible, valuable or material or was abstract and just as relative as anything else.

I don’t really like the word accomplishment – it’s too finite for me, too definitive, too focused on this end-result, whereas I do things for the sake of the process and would rather not think of its outcome.

I’ve never had a clear view of what I’d like to do with myself, things I’d like to have, or have accomplished. True, since I was little I liked to speculate about what I could be or do, more considering those options with wishy-washy wistfulness than any kind of seriousness of intent. With the exception of becoming a doctor - I was pretty determined on that one for a while until my mother talked me out of and for which I’m forever grateful to her. Since then I've dreamed about becoming a biologist, psycologist, a writer, but I could have just as well been dreaming about being an airline hostess, train conductor or astronomer.

If you asked me some five-seven years ago where I thought I would be at this point of my life, I would hardly have a clue, and Richmond would certainly not be one of the places I would start guessing.

The problem with me has never been about being or not being able to do things that I want to do – the problem has always been in not wanting to do anything at all, and being depressed, bitter and disillusioned to even get motivated enough to do something. And if that was not the case, it was insufficient amount of faith in myself that wouldn’t let me as much as even try. And besides most of my late teen and early adult life was spent worrying and taking care of things of more basic and imminent nature, like supporting myself, helping my mother, making sure that at least she didn’t have to worry about me. Granted considerable part of that time was spent feeling completely hopeless and apathetic and helpless to try and change anything. Another part was spent in an unsuccessful and failed relationship that was a complete desaster, unless you consider choosing no relationship over a bad one as accomplishment in itself.

Today when I think about accomplishments, I can hardly name a few that appear important, significant. The fact that I was good in school and good at the very few things that I actually did end up trying hardly accounts for anything. Yes, I did manage to miraculously graduate from school with straight As, despite my less than exemplary attendance, my active attempts to drop out at the beginning of each semester, and simply not going to class the whole senior year. And yes, I’ve always been successful in finding jobs that I more or less liked and was appreciated enough to feel “accomplished” about them (one of my bosses actually called me the best legal assistant he had had, since the existence of the firm – how awesome is that?). I’ve been described as “talented, promising, bright” - but when it comes to accomplishments, I really don't have much to brag about. I have not written a book, made a movie, become famous. I haven’t built homes or opened a business. I don’t have exciting experiences of exotic countries and foreign cultures other than what I’ve found here and the ones that were sort of “given” to me by birth. I really haven’t done anything much at all, except for moving from States back home and back to the States again every two-three years or so ever since I was fifteen.

And yet, when I think about what matters to me, and what I feel “accomplished” about, a few things come to mind. Being able to pull myself out of my previous hopeless and helpless state was an accomplishment. Overcoming depression, bitterness and apathy was another one. Saying no to a relationship that was bad and harmful for me and realizing why exactly it was bad and what about it was so harmful for me was an accomplishment. Staying alive and not breaking down after a strenuous, emotionally demanding breakup was an accomplishment. Choosing my sanity over chaos was accomplishment. Giving up my illusions, delusions, utopias and dystopias and learning to live and cope with the reality as it is was certainly an accomplishment. Overcoming an eating disorder was one of the greatest thing I have ever done, knowing that I did it on my own makes it even better. Being able to overcome part of my fears and starting to make weak, but at least some kind of attempts to do things that I want to do is an accomplishment. Learning to appreciate life as it is and being happy with the mere thought of being alive is an accomplishment. Having been in a new relationship for almost a whole year without going crazy about any of my past relationship issues is definitely an accomplishment. Learning to dream again is probably the greatest one of them all.

I may have not accomplished much, but I’m still young enough to afford to think that the greatest part of my life is still ahead of me. I may or may not write a book, make a movie, save the world or millions of dollars. But at least I have overcome one of my greatest fears – the fear of living – and that, definitely is an accomplishment.

Where does a Human Rights and Social Movements major find work without prior experience?

Mental checklists

of things that i absolutely have to do
(even though i keep ignoring and postponing them as long as i possibly can, trying to pretend that one can be an adult and be just as fine without...)

• Get a divorce (seriously!!!)
• Learn to drive and get a license (and dont even ask me to elaborate on this one...)
• Get a credit card (sounds easier than it actually is)
• Get a degree!!!

and things that i'd like to do at one point or another, with no particular order

• Make a bead curtain
• Take a photography class just for the sake of it
• Write a research paper on causes and origins of poverty
• See the fat bastard one more time
  
• Make a documentary about Armenia
• Teach my own class at Yerevan State University of Linguistics the way i wish the classes were taught to me
• Write a book - "Perfect Vacuum" that currently lingers as an unfinished blog project. Maybe even turn it into an artsy, surreal, david lynch like film that nobody would watch.
  
• Speaking of David Lynch - i'd like to meet him and try to talk him into visiting the lovely town of Kapan, that is in the South of Armenia- a town that would be dead was it not for an old Soviet mine that is currently run by the British (?) - is it still them, digging out there? A place with really desperate people and freaky things happening that everybody knows but no one talks about-Twin Peaks without the excitement. To imagine what great source of inspiration this would be for David Lynch to make a whole new miniseries that would be so much better than the Twin Peaks...
• Make an apple pie and learn to say "pie" in a deep Southern accent that i find so cute and am still unable to master.
• Get a job in Planning Commission of the City of Richmond, the likelihood of this being very slim - that is if i decide to settle down here after i'm tired of my yet unstarted career of foreign aid work and am ready to trade it for community development, which is another way of naming miscellaneous projects that do not fit neither under urban planning nor under social work, but sound nice and cute enough to be considered.
  
• Have a kid, and if it happens to be a girl, name her Inessa, after my Bosnian roommate who i lived with back in Charlottesville
  
• Get another degree, in counceling, and work with people with eating disorders.
• When i'm old, and i mean really old, become an armchair astronomer and try to figure out the secrets of the universe...
  

Recently I was asked if I ever wanted to go back home to Armenia. Or rather, the question was put before me this way: “You don’t want to go back to your country, do you?” The question itself struck me as ridiculous, if not insulting, and despite the fact that lately I have been wondering whether I actually will be going back home anytime soon and knowing that I’m in a much healthier place now, that I’m away from everything that used to frustrate and aggravate me about my own country, my immediate respond to the question was “Why? Of course I want to go back. I love it there…” In respond to which I got a look of disbelief and something resembling pity – the way you look at slightly disturbed people, like they don’t know any better…

It makes me slightly uncomfortable to think that I might be looked upon as a refugee, who was lucky enough to escape a post-communist, underdeveloped third world country and has found shelter in this land of freedom, wealth and prosperity. As much as I know that this is not the case, I am aware that very often that’s exactly how I am perceived. As much as I try to persuade them (as well as myself) otherwise, I am not sure if I will be able to list at least one rational and legitimate reason for my being here, other than this "wealth, freedom and prosperity". I’m here after all, aren’t i? This time neither as a student, nor an “alien relative”, my permanent residency status obtained in series of rather unfortunate than lucky events. In a way I feel like I’m being hypocritical. I could have chosen not to come back at all, or if I had to, follow all the steps to obtain a student vise before I was granted a residency status. Yet I made the choice, and even if I know that it wasn’t the promise of a “better life” that brought me here, I don’t think I will be able to explain to myself, let alone anybody else, why I chose to come back. Does personal paranoia of being trapped and landlocked in one place for too long stand as a valid reason? Do past unresolved issues and memories appear legitimate? Does it appear plausible that one day I would probably be just as happy to leave the States, once again, for some other, completely unfamiliar and unexplored place? This pretty much ends all my arguments… So where do I go now?

The truth is, I’m split between the two countries. And it goes beyond liking them both, for one reason or another. Or disliking them, for that matter. They say when you spend considerable amount of time away from your own country, you will no longer be able to go back and feel at home in your own home. You change somewhere between exploring a new, different culture and reconsidering your own. It's inevitable, especially when the process starts when you're relatively young and flexible (I was fifteen, when I first got here). At the same time, as easy as it was for me to adapt to this new country (and I do not think that it’s possible to get more assimilated than I am right now, unless I was born here), I will never be able to feel fully at home here either, knowing that as open as I am, I will always be foreign, to one degree or another.

Being split between two completely different cultures, this partial assimilation to the new, acquired culture and dissimilation from your own gives you a unique, dual vision of both worlds, and a somewhat split and at times surreal sense of reality. It is both fascinating and overwhelming at the same time. It takes away the ability to take any social, cultural or political phenomenon for granted, or as some kind of an absolute. It makes you constantly question, compare reconsider, and makes you a bigger skeptic than you'd actually want to be. They say that’s how you grow beyond cultural borders and broaden your outlook, but perhaps that’s just being spread thin and scattered, with a feeling of being constantly uprooted…

It’s true that a part of me is glad to be away from Yerevan. As much as I love it, I know that it’s better that I’m away right now. It’s not starvation, oppression and economic hardship that I’m trying to escape, but whatever the reason is, I should consider myself fortunate, if for nothing else, at least for having a choice to be here on my own volition. Something that many others don’t and will not have. But at the same time, I have this nagging feeling that by being away from home, I am missing something important and valuable and losing the grip of the reality there. As if soon enough I won’t be able to claim it as my own ( and more on this later…)
It actually disturbs me more than being considered a first generation refugee-immigrant who was lucky enough to escape whatever it was she was trying to escape.

Twelve Random Musings

that i'm too lazy to turn into full blogs, but i've never been good at blogging anyway, so what the hell...

• i drink coke when i'm bored - and by coke i mean every carbonated soft drink that's out there. I do not drink it very often, the reason i mention this is cause i'm drinking coke (Mountain Dew) right now, which means i'm bored out of my mind - it's Friday, and i really do not want to do any more work.
  

• Morning is my most favorite part of the day. I like the promise and possibilities it holds, even if the day ends up being as undistinguished and uneventful as any other ordinary day. Still, i find the promise of early morning almost intoxicating, when even the most unlikely event still has a probability of happening.

• Breakfast is my most favorite and perhaps important meal of the day, and i always wake up looking forward to it. Even if it ends up being orange juice and a plain bagel. It hasn't been that long since i started appreciating the joy of something as simple as breakfast, having spent the most part of my “adult” life in self-induced semi-starvation and neglecting such basic needs as food.

• In no particular order: I like apples, peanut butter (and peanuts), bran muffins, cinnamon, crepes, dark chocolate (very dark chocolate, like 85% dark chocolate) and coffee - good coffee, only good coffee, and always freash, preferably brewed and not filtered, the coffee that i make, although occasionally I’ll opt out for starbucks, which leads to…

• I’m a starbucks junky – not because I’m all that crazy about their different kinds of coffees with names that are a foreign language – it's more about the feeling of gratification and self-pampering that every one of their cardboard togo cups holds. i also like the idea of coffee shop culture - long afternoons spent outside some coffee shop (most likely the nearest starbucks) with a good book or a notebook, random encounters and bonding over a cup of coffee between complete strangers... I like the sense of familiarity of seeing the people who frequent that one particular store that i go to and the realization that i'm one of the regulars, especially when i get a free refill or a whole muffin for that matter. This leads to...

• Coffee shops are one of the best places to watch people. People watching is one of the most amusing activities - the better you get at it, the better the stories that you make up to match every face you see, the better the chances in predicting their behavior at any random social situation. I draw comfort from the fact that as random and bizarree human character is, there are certain patterns that can be foreseen, certain behavioural codes, unwritten rules that you intuitively know - and how much in common we all have. Bars are another good place to people watch, although a completely different world with its own, completely different rules - it's amazing to realize that i've learned more about life and people during a year of barhopping when i was in Yerevan, than in the previous five years taken together.
  

• I love cities – or rather the idea of a city, any city. More specifically, downtown. Something about tall buildings and streams of roaring traffic and crowd that makes me feel small, anonymous, almost invisible. I love the feeling of being small next to something so vast and big, I like feeling the weight of those building on my shoulders, i feel safe and hidden in the crowd. i like the noise, smells, sounds - the pace of the city. i wish i worked downtown, since at present moment I ‘m fascinated with downtown Richmond. Funny thing is, although people keep telling me that i will really like Boston, i never had a desire to see it. And still dont. But I'll be moving there in a few months, so we'll see... Cities I’d like to check out in the near and maybe not so near future while I’m in the States - Baltimore, Philadelphia, Charleston, Nawlins at some point, and maybe San Francisco. At some point SF was the top of my list, but lately I'm more drawn to working class, crime-ridden, decaying neighborhoods, which leads to…

• I have a strange and dark fascination with urban decay – as much as i'd like to elaborate on this one, i can't quite explain what it is about things old and rustic that i find attractive, genuine and real...

• Sometimes during my evening walks (and I walk all over the place), when the lights in the windows start coming out, I like looking at the houses and trying picture the people who live there, wondering what their life, or a random moment of their day is like – what they do when they wake up in the morning, how they spend their evenings after they've finished dinner and settled quietly for the night – musings that give me an almost whistful, nostalgic longing, although I know that I’m longing for something I have never had…

• I also like to picture myself in most random and improbable situations and places, trying to imagine different lives that i could have had - trying them on like one would try an outfit... knowing that this one life that i have is way too short for me to experience everything that i wish i could...
  

• Other places that I’d like to see and maybe live in at some point of my life or another: Istanbul (I can’t believe I didn’t go there when I was so close and had a chance); Beirut (for me the symbol of Orient); Tehran, Prague, Budapest and maybe Samarqand… or take that random holiday to Spain and while i'm at it, stop at Lisbon and Morocco on my way...

• I’m still trying to decipher the true and full meaning of decadence…

Last night, for the first time in a while, I was falling asleep without any unresolved and disturbing issues pressing on my mind, and as tired as I was, I felt peaceful, happy, somewhat accomplished... I am not sure whether it was the nice weather, the run we went for earlier, great dinner of steak and roasted potatoes, or the overall quiet and relaxing evening, but I felt happy and grateful and was soon fast asleep, as I thought about the coming day and realized that I’m actually looking forward to it.

It's all about possibilities...
I'm a sucker for possibilities. I have left countries, marriage, changed places, turned my life upside down in the name of these possibilities. Without them life turns pale, mundane, it's safe, secure, perhaps even comforting in some ways, but it's limited, predictable...

I always said that any given choice that's limited in its options is not a choice at all, but rather a forced decision. I need to know that at any given situation there will always be more than a limited number of choices. I need a life of possibilities that go beyond a career, income, security. Possibilities that allow me to be at any place at any given time, even if my decisions are driven by whims and do not necessarily follow logic. Even if after making any given choice, however random and whimsical, i'll be eliminating all the rest of the options, at least i will know that my i was making a free choice, instead of being forced to choose between black or white.

I'm restless again. Impatient. Part of me wants time to pass quickly, since i cannot wait to find out what's going to happen next. And yet another part of me is stalling, wishing that i had more time, a little more time, although i know that even if i had all the time in the world, it wouldn't be enough. It would never be enough...

And i'm running again. Running in hope to find answers, to chase away frustration and uncertainties, running for distraction, when it becomes too unbearable to sit still for another minute, to think for another minute. when it becomes impossible to wait, and wait and wait, losing count in hours, days... to suddenly realize in panic that another month is over... and wishing i had more time...

Once i was told that as long as I knew whether i was running away from or towards to, i would be fine. And once again, i have no clue, and i have too little time to try and figure that one out. so i run, and run in hopes to tire myself out, because at least then i can give myself some rest - something that i'm starting to lose - I'm becoming restless...

ambivalence

Perhaps it's only a moment and this time will pass.
all i can really do is wait and let things balance out themselves.

Perhaps it is perfectly ok to be languid and idle and not want to do anything for a while.

After all, inspiration can not be forced. can't wish for a change for the sake of change. can't force myself into decisions i'm still not ready to make. it will all happen in its own time. all the fret and worries simply taint what otherwise could be calm and spotless happiness. and undisturbed peace.

i could be happy. if only i let it be. and cherish this moment for what it really is.
no more and no less.
a moment to be still and quiet. and grateful.

after all it's only a moment. and it will pass, like everything else.

I keep telling myself that all I want is some sense of normality and a little peace of mind. But I stop right there without further questioning of what this normality entails. What exactly does it mean, normality, to me- this one, seemingly simple, and yet the most relative, subjective and changeable concept of all? Where do I draw the line, my own personal line, between what’s normal and acceptable and what’s not? How do I make my own definitions of uniform ordinariness? And why, why is it that this sense of normality is so important to me now?

Once I used to find comfort in a newfound realization of how similar we, as humans, are. And how much there is that we share in common. Made it easier for me to accept and understand myself and relate to someone outside of my skin; gave me compassion and tolerance towards others for merely being human... And being connected to every other human and not alone in our behavior patters, thoughts and emotions. It made me happy – just thinking about it. Somewhat relieved of unnecessary pressure of trying to be different, special in some way. Even remotely distinguished by something other than being just another human being...

But then, i can't help but question whether this is a cryptic way of justifying my complete lack of ambition or any kind of aspiration for not wanting something that would make me more distinguished than the person next to me. And whether this lack of desire is as humble as it may appear at first glance or simply a sign of laziness, as if by accepting my averagness I’m giving up the effort to be something more, something better – at least a better version of myself, if not distinguished.... but then, again, i ask whether there is even half as much comfort in this sense of distinguishness as there is in the ordinariness of someone who's humble in his own humanity…

What I want is simple. Ordinary. Uncomplicated. Real. Tangible. And not abstract. I need a sense of security, stability, a sense of being protected… some kind of confidence of being able to deal with whatever future may hold for me. A need for companionship, of knowing that I’m not alone, and not in some generalized abstract sense, but in the most immediate sense of having someone physically present with you and interacting with you on the most immediate physical levels. Having the comfort of knowing that that presence is lasting, will be lasting. Wanting a place that you can call your own, a place that will give you the protection you need and partially the sense of security. A need for a home… your own home- these are all simple and ordinary things, yet very concrete things to want and need… it’s natural for someone to want to have it, is it not? It’s normal, human… basic - is it not?

If it is so, then why is it that a certain part of me feels guilty, somewhat guilty, that by wanting and choosing those things I’m forgetting and leaving out something that might be just as important? Perhaps not as common and ordinary, but as equally important?

*** interlude

i'm depressed beyond all acceptable limits. I'm also bored, tired and unmotivated as i haven't been in quite a long time. It's quite sad to realize that what once used to inspire and motivate me has ceased to create as much as a tiny spark of interest. These days there's hardly one single thing that can hold my attention, let alone interest, for longer than five minutes. The daily routine is overbearing in its monotony. Work is dull and without challenges- and it keeps reminding me day after day how trivial everything is- and most of all- how trivial i am with everything that i once believed in.

i find myself hour after hour inside four walls of a very small room- yet there really isn't anywhere else that i can go. Except to work. and then back. to the same confined space- my temporary dwellings. and i fail to find a way out. i fail to find challenges to inspire me to keep going a day at a time- an hour at a time. and without challenges i wither- thus the depression- the thought of impending stagnation- and so discomforting it feels.

The fact that i'm here for only temporarily doesn't make it any better... Makes my stay appear as a long and meaningless wait. Until it's time to move on. To yet another stage. Temporary again. And that's what's most unsettling of all - the uncertainty, the lack of anything finite. Definite. After all, as it turns out, i do need definitions- i need definitions for the peace of mind and the sake of that sense of normality that now i need more than anything else. i need those definitions so that i can reconcile myself with my surroundings and accept them as something known, familiar, welcomed.

i dont have any of it now.
neither the acceptance, nor the certainties, nor the familiarity of a place that could feel like home. or almost like home.

i'm quietly going insane.
and home is years away from now...

[...]

but then, there are moments when i'm happy, like i've never been before and the dark, desolate place of sadness appears far, far away and it seems that i've never been alone, helpless, sick and depressed... and i hold on to those moments as closely as i can, because without them there will be nothing left, and nothing is a terrible thing to be holding on to...

"My best days don't look especially different to the rest of the world than my very worst ones do. In my own head, though, I feel just a little bit better, a little more hopeful, a little more like it may not always hurt so much, like it may not always be such hard work to get through a day without doing things I wish I didn't do or thinking things I wish I didn't think. "

T.S.T

Patience

"What do you wish you had more of in life?"

"Optimism..."

"Falling up like silent paper,
holding on to what may be...

It's a funny time of year,
there'll be no blossoms on the trees..."

It's become changeable like weather. My mood. Gradually getting worse, as days get darker and colder. It's interesting to realize that there is a clinical term for this- fading daylight anxiety syndrome- or even seasonal affective disorder. To realize that moodiness is caused by simply not getting enough daylight and that all the sadness is simply because of some part of the brain not producing enough of one kind of hormone or another. Or fails to connect one kind of neurotransmitter to another. Nothing but biochemistry. Sounds complicated, but not more than trying to get to the core of what really saddens me at this time of the year... Cause i will get lost before i reach the core anyway. That's what antidepressants are for. Although these days i merely sedate myself with advil, David Gray and sleep, and the other day i caught myself saying "i almost wish it was over..."

The smells of fall, late fall, bitter sweet and tart, of wet leaves and soil, of chestnuts…. And I’m craving cider and cooked apples, cinnamon and nutmeg and roasted almonds, hot steam, wet soil again, and leaves and trees and rain…

Charlottesville...

It's amazing how selective memory can be. Certain events come in smallest detail, when entire months are vague and completely blurred. when i try to remember, i get a splitting headache, and then, it comes back, a scene, a detail, like a shooting pain- and i recall names, faces, random events... i have to wonder whether i really was here once... that it really did happen. that i spent an entire summer and part of fall here, once, six years ago. But then i have to remind myself that if it didn't happen, i would not be where i am today in the first place. I dare not call it fate- but then what do you make out of this random play of circumstances? A self-fulfilling prophecy that brought itself into life? Or maybe gods trying to tell me that you cannot run away from your past- it comes back to you when you lease expect it- the reminders of those months, six years ago, right next to me, now, as i look back, watching the city disappear in twilight.

And five summers back i wrote:

"I feel like I’m tied to a rope and am constantly testing the limits of my reach. I am standing at the crossroad, in an endless wait for the right tick, right tock, the right moment in time... All i have is a speck of hope, that of a fool, and the fool is me.

And yet, deep inside me i know that I am happy— so i go on holding on to this hope...

It may sound pathetic, but I am not desperate, not even whistful. Perhaps somewhat inadequate. Scattered and split. A little bit cynical, and that is starting to scare me. But no longer desparate. It went away when August was over.
Now it's everything after. And I am happy.
That changes a lot of things.
And I find this almost reassuring."

Indolence

Propinquity

blow the eyelash off your finger.
make a wish. turn it into a dream. draw it, like you'd draw a picture.
paint it with bright colors and whistful longing.

make a snapshot of the dream to capture it in its smallest detail.

that's your dream. it's pretty. implausible yet almost real.

now fold it up, tuck it away and put it in the farthest corner of your mind. to never think about it again.

then one day, years from now, take it out, whipe the dust off of its yellowed surface, colors faded, outlines dimmed, thinking to yourself "i once dreamed about this. i made the pretty picture- i must have been really happy then..." to suddenly realize that you made the dream come true by simply letting it be, and letting it linger and that you're living that very dream in quiet everydayness...

You are where you are and there's no way of going back. not only because it's not possible, but also because you no longer want to- and yet, at moments you see a glimpse of your future, still vague and undefined projected by your past, reflecting everything that brought you where you are now and where you will be at whatever random point in time.

i'm here. i'm real.
i'm breathing. i can see and hear.

i'm happy...

i'm happy to be here. happy to see you. happy because it's a nice day and it didnt rain and that i found a new song and that starbucks has come up with a pumpkin spice latte. i'm happy that the summer's over.
it's quiet.
and peaceful.

i'm in love.
with life.
with this city,
with you.
there, i said it.
can i go home now?

Richmond. Downtown.

the heat will start breaking after the storm-
the summer is almost over...
it's the end of august
and everything after...

It's raining and rain brings relief. I can feel the tension in my neck and my back slowly go away-it seems like i've been hodling my breath for way too long... I seem to have won yet another battle with myself- i wonder if there's ever an end to this seemingly neverending struggle- and once again i have to remind myself that acceptance is the key to understanding, and if i have to learn the hardest way, at least i can be happy for having gotten out of this alive for yet another time.

it's raining and rain brings acceptance
it washes away all doubts and fears.

i can see it clearly now. i seem to know the end with an almost astounding clarity, as if it's happening now... A picture of a moment in the future frozen in the eye of the mind, like a snapshot- and yet this time i can no longer put myself ahead of time and try to live in dual vantage points- for what's between now and the end is what i do not know, cannot see and cannot foretell. i dont even try to. Cause what's between now and the end is an interval of time that's infinite in itself, filled with moments like the present-too bright and too intense for me to want to look beyond it.

Waking to a gray morning of milky light and thinning shadows, to step outside, still warm from sleep, to watch the start of the day... And somewhere close by a train gives a long whistle; the day is slowly unfolding as I watch the sky change color and the rays of sun touch the tops of the trees.

And somehow, in my frenzied and wistful search for “real” life I let myself forget that after all, it’s the simple everydayness of ordinary things that make life as real as it is- and life, as it feels now is truly amazing.

Lately i have been running into people who seem to be carrying some cryptic message for me. Lately i've been running into strangers that make me stop and think whether this is merely a coincidence or there really is a reason for me to stumble upon them. It seems like everywhere i go these days i meet someone who's ready to reveal a snippet of their life to me, all so disturbing and drastically different from my own, and yet each with its own catch, a connective point- makes me wonder what i can possibly have in common with them all when trying to imagine what it's like to be each one of these people the lonely people, strange people, happy people, sick and disturbed people, young and reckless people. To ask myself whether it's them i see or only their stories, making them as grotesques, and i wonder if by trying to, for a moment, be them i am merely relating to that one side, that one aspect that i can relate to and can find in myself as well- and once again i have to ask myself how adequate i am in my perception and maybe it's just me, all in my head, perhaps it's time to once again reset the configurations of my own perception and make it better tuned to the reality so that i can truly connect with what's around me...

This day-of all days

just like the song foretells
it's almost like a desease-being free and being happy
if only it didn't come out of so much ugliness, misery and so many mistakes...
if i could take away all the pain that has been on the way of the becoming.

cause i'm slowly becoming,
and it's happening...

Over the lies, you'll be strong
You'll be rich in love and you will carry on...

[but no- what's not bound to happen, wont happen,
i never asked for more- only what is mine...]

-matchbox 20

...i wonder whether the reality as it is, stipped off of all its illusions and fantasies may appear more unbearably surreal than a delusion itself...

reAl v. suRreal v. unreal

sense of normality, if it ever exists.
the neverending issue of adequacy. how close can you get to objectivity?

do i have to give up the subjectivity of individual perception to be able to learn what normal is like?

Thinking of all the places and faces and things i remember, and those i can't forget and where i am now and where i will be in a month, a year, two years...

It's Richmond today.
At moments it's still hard for me to grasp that of all places in the world this is where i ended up, and that i'm actually here, at this very moment, when i might just as well be say... in Gainesville, or Jacksonville, Minneapolis, Boston or Yerevan for that matter. Or i could have done as I was advised-put my finger randomly on a map and go to a place where i do not know a single soul, like a vagabond in search of real life... perhaps i will do that at some point- i was still too scared to do it this time- and today I'm in Richmond-and i still have to wonder whether this was a choice or an inevitable consequence of the past years that brought me here...

The tale of the cities that never ends...

A whole new city and a new tale of red brick and magnificent trees, an old house in a quiet neighborhood and me suddenly at home in this still unfamiliar place... and i remember how it felt when i first got here- sitting at the VCU campus, struck by the realization of how much freedom i had at that very moment and how scary but at the same time intoxicating it felt... and how i asked for a day to turn into a week, but it wasn't until several weeks later when things started falling into their places... i wonder what could have happened in those few weeks and how things actually did end up turning out, how easily, after weeks of strain, they found their resolutions and quietly settled down...

it's been exactly three months and i can finally breathe... I am at peace and truly happy and even though the currenlt life may feel nothing but temporary, it IS happening, right now and right here, life- the life in slow motion and all i can do is live it, moment by moment, each in its [simple complexity].
before it all dissolves in the air...

and yet, on a brighter note:

It takes some silence to make sound
And it takes a loss before you found it
And it takes a road to go nowhere
It takes a toll to make you care
It takes a hole to make a mountain

since i still find the lyrics somewhat touching


-jason mraz, life is wonderful

It takes a crane to build a crane
It takes two floors to make a story...


and endless story
sounds like too much of an effort, at this point

time to reconsider...
and this time, no more twists and tricks, cause i should know better what that can get me into...

well... perhaps i am

am i?

what's on your mind-cause i can't read it...

search in vain for the right lyrics and the right tunes- and still you wont find a song that fits the current mood
make a riddle out of what's obvious- and spend the rest of your days trying to decipher it.
how fucking ironic, like it always is
ain't no love and you know it
dont judge, dont scoff, dont turn away
say it, say it out loudly- it's right there, staring at your face...
no need to wonder, and yet i do...

As painful as it is, it's become equally painfully easy to deal with it now. At some point i decided that it should no longer be so complcated anymore. It needn't be. The effort always turns out to be a waste anyway. You're right, laugh it off or shrug it off- move on, walk on- there's always a turn and a bend, and who knows what's around the bend. Something better or something worse- if there's such a thing as better, and not what goes best with the given circumstances. You always believed in circumstances anyway- the queen of randomness, a convert to chaos, no longer looking for cryptic reasons and cosmic causes- there's too much randomness in the universe for your little mind to figure out- how arrogant for you to assume that you could, even for a moment, get a glimpse of what lies there, beneath the thick layer of what you have finally come to call reality.

And yet, there was a time when i tried to see a pattern out of chaos, there was a time when i believed in reasons and meanings and pretty ideals. I laugh at myself now. I shrug it off. Turn away and leave. Since i no longer want to stand there watching the last hero walk away.

and so it is...

Just like [you thought] it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time

The shorter story
No [fuss], no glory
No hero in [the] sky...

*

life in slow motion somehow it dont feel real...

reality overlap

" i see things that happened. i encounter images of myself in various places, but only at distance, as though i were watching someone else... it's out there, beyond what i can feel or touch, beyond anything that has to do with me..."

Paul Auster
Urban/modern nothingness

Laugh it off, shrug it off, joke it off, sleep it off- it will pass, like everything else... and yet, who am i kidding? it's not the clouds moving in the sky, it's my mind shifting, back and forth, from uncertainties of the day to firm determination to complete lack of orientation to sudden awareness and realization... and back again, always the same circle that gets me trapped inside my own mind.

I'm too old to be delusional. Too tired for this sort of thing. I should have been thicker skinned instead of crying over something so elusive that i cannot even grasp.
Shrug it or fake it, or better ignore it- it's something you blacklisted yourself and shunned it away. you say you dont want it. You're not cut for these sort of things. Not for this lifetime, anyway. So shrug it off or cry it out... and move on. You will be gone- soon.

uncertainty

the already way too familar eerie feeling that stems out of the unsureness with the reality. Sleepwalking through some kind of black and white world to switch back to sunlight and color again... yet the creepy feeling persists and it makes me shiver...

a part of me wants time to pass more quickly. I want to see what's going to happen, impatient to find out how the events will unfold themselves and where i will end up after i take another breath to stop and look back.

for right now, i'm clueless...

and yet, sometimes i have to stop and ask myself whether it is really necessary to twist everything around and put myself in the most absurd and least expected situations in order to be able to achieve that sense of normality that i've been looking for. I wonder whether there is a safer way of staying in touch with my own sanity and not break my back without having to fold over backwards, in a vain attempt to brings lose ends together...

Let me find my own definition

even if i myself wish to stay undefined...

Perhaps a lack of definition is in some way a definition of its own...

Give me a day,
Make it a week,
Everything will fall into their right places.


Give me a day,
Make it a week,
There an entire summer yet to be lived...

Spective. Reoccuring-rephrased

You think it’s easy
Sometimes it’s easy
But it’s not easy- you’re gonna break down and cry
You’re not important
You should be grateful
And if you’re wondering why…


There are questions you do not ask….
Because you no longer want to know the answers. You don’t need them, just like the questions themselves, they’re pointless…So you push these questions far back to the corner of your mind, keeping them quiet and still, locked.

And there are questions you do not ask no matter how badly you want to know the answers. You try to ignore them, hoping that these questions will outlive themselves and disappear completely from your event horizon…
It’s not important,
It does not matter- you keep saying to yourself… cause you know that deep down you already know the answers to even the unborn questions and the only thing you can do is accept them each in its own time.

And you live day by day in self inflicted bliss of denial and ignorance, choosing it as your only mode to exist, knowing that the only thing you can ask and hope for is that you wake up the next morning…

* I no longer question. I merely accept. And I’m no longer afraid of pain- you don’t question pain just like you don’t question your own happiness…

I’m no longer afraid of getting hurt- and by having realized this I seem to have somehow eliminated all the possible pain I may have to endure at whatever point in the future.

Still, I wonder whether this is yet another sign of being jaded or another step towards “self-liberation” (and I laugh at myself for having to use the “term”)

Gone. Disappeared. Vanished without a trace. Dissolved in the air. As if i never existed. Shifted realms, entered a new paradigm and in my dream I'm dreaming about a dream that is the future long lost to the past only to wake up and find it in my reality.

[perhaps this should have been posted under paranormal]