Punished for thinking watching clouds is boring.

April is strangely becoming one of my favourite times of the year with this mild temperature and very sudden (many times inappropriate) strong and fresh showers. Everything is in bloom after an extremely cold and rainy Winter; new leaves and how fast they grow.

My blog needs a makeover. Or a different format. It might even turn into a tumblr.

sing along with me

Give a little time for the child within you,
dont be afraid to be young and free.
Undo the locks and throw away the keys
and take off your shoes and socks, and run you.
La, la, la...

Give a little time for the child within you,
dont be afraid to be young and free.
Undo the locks and throw away the keys
and take off your shoes and socks, and run you.
La, la, la...

Run through the meadow and scare up the milking cows
Run down the beach kicking clouds of sand
Walk a windy weather day, feel your face blow away
Stop and listen: Love you.

Roll like a circus clown, put away your circus frown
Ride on a roller coaster upside down
Waltzing Matilda, Carey loves a kinkatchoo
Joey catch a kangaroo, hug you.

Dandylion, milkweed, silky on a sunny sky
Reach out and hitch a ride and float on by
Balloons down below catching colors of the rainbow
red, blue and yellow-green: I love you.

Bicycles, tricycles, ice cream candy
Lollypops, popsicles, licorice sticks
Solomon Grundy, Raggedy Andy
Tweedledum and Tweedledee, home free.

Cowboys and Indians, puppydogs and sandpails
Beachballs and baseballs and basketballs, too.
I love forget-me-nots, fluffernutters, sugarpops
I'll hug you and kiss you and love you
La, la, la... Love you.

arrancarte de mis adentro

NOCHES DE BOHEMIA EN OT
Enviado por lareinafergo.

Have I mentioned how much I love flamenco?

First of all there's the guitar, which in itself is enough - see Paco de Lucia, or listen, in this case. Then there's the attitude, the furled brow, the chest tapping, the clothing. And, of course, the voices that seem to fly away in the heated plains of Andalucia with that fenomenal accent that eats all the consonants so every word is baby-talk (in this particular, there is a song included in the Morir de Amor CD called Cai which actually refers to the city of Cadiz, except people over there eat so many sounds it ends up Cai).

This song has been playing in my head on and on. Even though it was performed in a tv singing contest it was one of the best performances I've ever heard.

the return of the unprodigal blogger

This or that way? Where did it go?

Here she comes with large steps, boots smeared with mud, no, not really, just your casual home wear to keep the feet warm in this cold Winter. 

Does she bring heaps of inspiration? No.

Does she have loads of blog posts just wanting to be written? Nope.

Does she have some answers for her strange behaviour of late? Yes.

Does she miss blogging? Yeaaaaah.

(I recommend this third-person dialogue, it's so liberating when you need to address yourself, try it!)

I haven't been able to blog much but I have been writing a lot. I wrote a fair bit for myself and then I wrote an even bigger chunck for educational reasons - because I had a big english exam to prepare to and I would write everyday. I can hear your cries of interrogation. "Ah english? Why would you need to study that? You write english perfectly." Well, ah, that's where you're wrong. I did have to study and I'm glad I did because every day that I wrote and did exercises I realised more and more how little I knew of english and how limited my blogging vocabulary was. I have no doubt in my mind that blogging has really helped me to practice these last few years, but it doesn't teach you how to write proposals, or complaints, or ...

I could have still used the blog to practice even further, that's true, but this obligatory writing drained me. And what is more, I've been a lot less imaginative as of late, maybe because I had to channel all the imagination to these writing tasks, but I'll tell you now - not having imagination sucks. I need to get mine back. What to do? What to do?

I appreciate that many of you still haven't given up on me, even when I used pretend-Winter posts with stuff that was written in the Summer or when I posted videos with only a quick hello. And now I'm off to enjoy my solar return and hopefully the return of my imagination as well. One can only hope.

again and again

Just posting a video and leaving is not my idea of blogging, I promise you. But then you'd be deprived of The Bird and the Bee and you wouldn't know this is what's been playing on my (brand spanking new) stereo. So now we're all happy. And we listen to the song again and again and again and again...

Maybe in a couple of weeks I'll have renewed inspiration for blogging. Fingers crossed.

just do it

(if you have trouble getting the player to start, try to "pop-up player")

From time to time, a random song comes to my head completely out of the blue. I haven't been listening to it, or come across it anywhere, it simply blooms out of nothingness. I suspect it's triggered by something I thought, but I'm not sure. Yes, I realise it sounds completely crazy and that's because it is.

Yesterday, I was minding my own business, as much as possible, and this song came into my head. Since my mother owns the CD "Nothing like the sun" I went to get it and listened. And it made so much sense to me.

Be still my beating heart

It would be better to be cool

It's not time to be open just yet

A lesson once learned is so hard to forget

Be still my beating heart

Or I'll be taken for a fool

It's not healthy to run at this pace

The blood runs so red to my face

I've been to every single book I know

To soothe the thoughts that plague me so

Sting writes amazing lyrics - I didn't have much chance to appreciate them when I was doing the Venus in Virgo post because there was so much to go through, but they are wonderful.

I think anyone that is emotional has stopped at least once to try to hush their beating heart. My logic has drowned in a sea of emotion. But the song has a point, it's not all about trying not to get very red in the cheeks or control the trembling of your hands.

Never to be wrong

Never to make promises that break

It's like singing in the wind

Or writing on the surface of a lake

fact

There aren't many odours I like better than the smell of Summer nights. Even when I'm inside I go to the windows and put my nose outside and inhale.

But some days there is an extra bonus: the smell of the soil after a good bit of rain. Ahhh that is pure bliss! And it takes me back to many northern Summers ages ago.

Summer nights

This weekend I went to a Moroccan-themed fair.

It was a small do but people like to go out on Summer nights.

Mint tea was the main attraction.

But there was also music and a belly dancer.

These are stone statues by the sides of the stage that they decorated with belly-dancing equipment.

Belly dancer and statue - who's imitating who?

Later on I went to a bar by the sea, where you can sit in sofas in the beach and listen to the waves. Unfortunately the photos didn't come out very well.

I realised flash photography doesn't work when you're facing the sea in the middle of the night. Go figure! (it works a little better if you enlarge it). Anyway, there were playing Jamie Cullum's It Ain't Necessarily So and I was pleased.

current obsession

No, it's not a person, nor something edible.

It's construction. Don't worry, I don't want to become a builder all of a sudden. I mean literary construction.

Whilst before I was interested in the million stories there were to be told, now the focus is on the million ways one story can be told. This, of course, takes a lot of time to plan. Not only does one need the ideas, but we need to imagine the best way for them to unfold: what comes first? should we start in the beginning, the middle or the end? is it okay to count on suspense the whole time or should we give the facts straight away? who tells the story?...

I'm especially fond of, when dealing with various main characters, let the story of Miss X be told by Miss Y. It may lose the subjectivity of Miss X's experience but it gains Miss Y.'s perspective, more context and so many more aspects of the relationship between the two characters. I know this may sound trivial if one doesn't write, but for me it's extremely entertaining, as cuckoo as it sounds.

This great interest in the construction appeared fairly recently to me. Until then most of my stories were told in the first person and following a past-present-future order. And, believe me, when the story is good it can worked magnificiently when told the simple way! But with this new awareness (that comes from reading a lot, I think), I feel like I found the real freedom of writing. I think that I might have more control over what I write, rather than having the story control me (which always happened). And perhaps one day I can come up with those fine novels that critics describe as "pieces of a puzzle", "Russian dolls", "various stories that lead up to same ending", etc, etc, perhaps I can become a master of construction. I'm working on that.

iko iko

Enjoy! This so retro and modern at the same time...Let's go tribal today.

LISTP - News bulletin

In case you're distracted, LISTP are the innitials of devil mood's blog.

Sunday lunch - light salad.

A bulletin to let you know what's going on.

Lettuce vertigo.

devil mood has taken a liking to beer. Except it's non-alcoholic and lemon-flavoured so she thinks it doesn't count. She's in it for sugar-free bubbles.

Reading glasses.

devil mood bought huge brown sunglasses. They're good for reading, when in the sun, of course. She's currently devouring this book. It seems that devouring is the correct term for when books are this good.

Finally, devil mood has learnt how to crochet and she realised it's much more fun than knitting. She found that she could do anything in crochet, it's no wonder people have their toilet seats covered in it, as disgusting as it might be. Crochet is cool.

Note: devil mood's a little concerned that people might think fame has gone to her head and now she's speaking of herself in the third person but she's asked us to assure you that it's nothing like that.

Get this widget Track details eSnips Social DNA

I'm listening to this song in my headphones and I think I might have entered cloud 9 without noticing. I'm completely entranced. So I had to post it because it's too good not to share. It's a tribute to George Harrison by Tori Amos "Something". This is just what I needed right now!

angel wing

It looks celestial, doesn't it?

Speaking of which, Celeste is such a nice name...

I made two different neckpieces with this yarn but I'm keeping one for myself because I love it so much. It's funny because I made dozens of scarves in the last two years and yet I always wear ones bought in stores and given to me as gifts. There's an adage in portuguese that says: em casa de ferreiro, espeto de pau.

The pictured neckpiece is on my Etsy story. I think I can part with it, but only just ;)...

what to do with an empty cage...

Remember all the birds, I mean, the Zoo I had inside my head? Well, the other day they flew away. Like birds should. And I was left with an empty cage. It wasn't easy. I kept looking at the empty cage and it made absolutely no sense. Having colourful birds inside was so much nicer, they made my days much brighter, the birds sang to me when I was bored. So I fed them every day...

But then someone came (let's say he was called Saturn) and opened the window for the cage and the birds flew. He told me: "You don't need this right now!" and the part of me that loved the birds (let's call it Progressed Moon in Pisces, the dreamer) replied: "What? You can't be serious!" and started crying. Oversensitive, you see? But Saturn, who these days lives in Virgo and loves things that are real, didn't even give the Moon a second look. The Moon is sulking right now. Every time I look at her I see sadness in her eyes but I know she'll get better because Saturn is only fair and he knows what's good for me.

I've been trying to find another use for the cage, maybe decorate it with other things. I don't think it'd be very nice to put something living inside it again, do you? Maybe I can recycle it. Funnily enough, while you were reading my previous post (certainly a work of birds), I was here worrying about the empty cage.

*the photo is from last year's RedBull AirRace here in Porto.

monday ponderings

Get this widget Track details eSnips Social DNA

I've always wanted to post music in my blog but I never knew how to do it, until I found e-snips. I could always post youtube videos and that's what I've been doing so far, but my favourite songs often don't have videos, at least not official ones.

This is one of my current favourites and I suspect it's also a candidate to an all time Hall of Fame. It starts with a beautiful piano piece by Chopin and then there's that cello. This melody makes my heart sing, I can actually picture my little heart dancing when I listen to this.

As time goes by and my blogger personality develops (as well as my general personality) I'm amazed at how accurate my choice of nickname was. In that odd June day (2005) when I decided to start a blog, I had to come up with a nickname, I did it impulsively and without giving it much thought. I forgot all about past nicknames because I wanted something new and I remembered this song that I really liked. I typed devil mood and, by God, I never imagined it would I would be so associated to it, both by other bloggers and by myself. In time I started reacting to the nickname, just like pets learn to pay attention when you call them. Believe me it's awkward that when someone writes "devil", your attention is gripped. lol

But it's the other section of the name that I'm most identifying with. I don't think I was conscious of being so moody back in 2005. Perhaps I wasn't (neither conscious nor moody). Perhaps instead of the nickname becoming me, it was me who turned into my name (that's a crazy idea!). Anyway, it couldn't have been a better choice because if there's someone that's moody and prone to living the highs and lows of moodiness that's me (but I'm not bipolar, fyi).

And now I'm leaving you with a small Bjork quote that endeared me:

Love is a two way dream

Springtime!

Can you feel it? I hope you can, especially if you've had a freezing grey Winter.
This is a busy time in terms of events: the Vernal Equinox today (aka Spring), tomorrow it's the Full Moon and Good Friday and then Easter. But today is a new beginning with the Equinox, we're entering Aries and that means the beginning of a new astrological year. I have a clear sense of deja-vu saying this, so I probably wrote exactly the same thing last year. It feels like yesterday but let's not go into that.

I wanted to post something colourful and I remembered this video, which Niall will certainly enjoy. It's one of my favourite Nineties pop videos.

"Confide in me" - are you that kind of person that people confide on? Do you find yourself constantly being told other people's secrets? To tell you the truth I'm not sure whether or not others confide in me! That must mean they don't. At least I don't remember anyone coming to me saying: "I HAVE to tell you something!!" or... "I've never told anyone about this before...". I believe it's a question of building trust and making other people feel comfortable, but there are some people who seem like secret-magnets. The kind of people you tell things to when you least expect, they seem to inspire some fundamental safety that makes us blurt out truths without thinking twice. Has this happened to you?

I don't know why, but suddenly I feel like asking questions. I'm enjoying the interactivity.

and then they were 600...

600 posts! Yes. Unbelievable, huh? Especially considering most of them came with a few words included, which is remarkable when I find myself with so little to say at times.

So what's the secret for keeping a blog for almost 3 years with 600 posts? There's no secret, but a lack of anything better to do. My blog is like a living room that's all mine. Most of the times it's a quiet place, other times some great music is played. The decoration is to my taste but I've had friends giving me some pieces (e.g. the banner that Chloe made me, it's like a painting in the wall). As you can see the floor is wooden, I really like the colour.

In my living room, I want to make people comfortable. I tell them stories and try to be creative, especially when the weekend comes and there is a prompt in the air. I try to make this room all about me, it's mine after all, but I appreciate my visitors a lot too, so I try to give them a little something to take with them.

I created a connection with the people that come into my living room. There were times when they left and never came back and I was left in the sofa sulking a little. These visitors are just like real friends (they are real friends, that's not what I mean)...so as real friendships go, some of these relationships fade when they're not taken care of. I realized recently that I can't be sad about it anymore, I have to make the most of the present. It's still odd to me how some people would disappear and never come back again after sitting next to me on my living room for so long. We talked, we laughed and we shared things. It's not about the fact that people have other things to do (everybody does), it's a certain carelessness too. But that's how it goes, people!

I'm sitting here in my non-virtual living room watching the horizon. There a few clouds of all shapes and colours peeking at me and I'm watching planes lifting off in the distance. My head has been in the clouds so much these days, perhaps the airplanes have taken my mind with them. I can't stop associating it with that song I mentioned the other day: Pajaros en la cabeza. There's a funny line in the song that says: "The mother continued serving the soup: when will you settle your head? One day we'll open it and bunches of parrots will escape from inside."

If they open my head one day, a Zoo will come out.

Dreams Galore

The Sun has moved to Pisces, so it's time to get a little dreamy (not me, I'm dreamy enough as it is). It's a nice occasion to stare at the clouds and be miles away, write poems and sigh. Anyway, nothing like a Piscean lyric from a Piscean singer to trigger dreams galore.

Pájaros en la cabeza y soñar

que aún contaré relámpagos contigo,

aunque el tiempo y la arena escondan el camino hasta ti.

(song by Ismael Serrano, lyrics by I. & P. Serrano)

My best-I-can-do-right-now translation from Spanish:

"Birds in the head and dreaming

that I'll still count lightnings with you

even if time and the sand hide the path towards you."

Right now I can't think of anything more romantic than counting lightnings with someone. Can you?

**waves to my Piscean friends** It's interesting that many of my recent blog-friends are Pisces: Phish, Missalister and Violet, whose birthday is this week. There is a vibe going on.

south european syndrome

I have a crystal by my window and today it made this crazy comet form.

We've had a Spring week with 20º C and lots of sunshine and it's been unproductive like you wouldn't believe.

I've been sitting in the sun (carefully protected with sun-block and a hat) reading, doing the cross-words or simply listening to the birds singing or the cats that have been going wild in the neighbourhood.

There's an intense peaceful, blissful feeling when the sun is warming you, maybe it's the Vitamin D kicking in. It's not difficult to understand why north european workers are more productive than south europeans. I mean, can anyone really think and work when it's so warm and there's so much light and your soul just drifts in the breeze? No.

So writing has been put off, thinking has been put off, real life doesn't really exist when one is in the Sun.

tribute to me

I'm reaching a certain age when you start to call yourself a twenty-something, simply because the numbers aren't so exciting all of a sudden.
The years start accumulating and suddenly you have a lot of birthdays to remember. I remember my 6th birthday most of all. I fell on the floor in the playground and shred my stockings. I played Barbies with a friend all afternoon and got a really cool yellow recorder with a microphone. It was my favourite toy for years to come. Then I remember little bits of other celebrations. I never liked to do much fuss about it but there was always a certain magic in the air on birthdays that made me feel that anything was possible. Maybe it was just a load of Sagittarius...

Most of the birthdays I remember were sunny days, lucky me! The forecast is sunny for tomorrow too and to brighten up my day even more I'm posting Jamie Cullum's Twentysomething because it's the best description of this age that I've ever come across.

The video is excellent because it helps illustrate the song, instead of trying to distract us from it (like many do these days).

If you want to sing along, here's the words:

After years of expensive education,
a car full of books and anticipation,
I’m an expert on Shakespeare and that’s a hell of a lot
but the World don't need scholars as much as I thought.

Maybe I'll go travelling for a year,
finding myself or start a career.
I could work for the poor though I’m hungry for fame
we all seem so different but we're just the same.

Maybe I'll go to the gym, so I don't get fat,
aren't things more easy with a tight six pack?
Who knows the answers? Who do you trust?
I can't even separate love from lust.

Maybe I’ll move back home and pay off my loans,
working nine to five answering phones.
Don't make me live for my friday nights,
drinking eight pints and getting in fights.

I don't want to get up, just let me lie in,
leave me alone, I'm a twenty something.

Maybe I'll just fall in love that could solve it all,
philosophers say that that’s enough,
there surely must be more.

Love ain’t the answer nor is work,
the truth eludes me so much it hurts.
But I’m still having fun and I guess that's the key,
I'm a twenty something and I'll keep being me.