A blogoversary

Does this merging of words get on your nerves? Just checking.

So it came to my knowledge that it was my blog's anniversary. I might have remembered it briefly (even in the midst of all the June birthdays of people I know), but if it wasn't for Miss Alister remembering it too I doubt I'd be doing something about that. I was touched by her sharp memory and thought the blog deserved some kind of celebration.

I'm not sure this post will have any continuity because blogging suddenly turned into an alien thing for me. I still want to do it but I find that I can't. I wonder why I took up blogging in the first place, it's so unlike me - I don't usually think people are interested in what I have to say and it's puzzling how I managed to write assiduously for such a long time. I strongly suspect it was all about the people that were in the blogging journey with me.

I'm still basically the same person - give or take - and my life is fairly similar - yet poorer, without sufficient blogging interactions. You could say I substituted blogging for twitter for a while, but it's not entirely true since I only use twitter to contact with other football fans, so it's a very limited segment of my identity that I'm using there. (Funny the way I choose to segment these parts of my identity, need to look into that probably.) I didn't join Facebook even though people look at me like I'm a social pariah. I'm not against Facebook per se (and I've had profiles in other social networks), I'm more against the fact that it's become so widespread that people forgot there are other ways of communicating and even other social networks. When people tell me: but then you could get updates on my life when I'm living wherever-they're-living-in, I say: well, don't you have email or phone or can't you tell me about those things face to face? It's one of those trends that I hope will go away (though I don't think it will...), like that strange woman that thinks she's Madonna's reincarnation (even though Madonna isn't dead yet) or that Canadian kid with the mushroom hair that my cousins scream about. I'm not giving away any names! ;)

This is the post that I really didn't want to be about why I'm not blogging but couldn't really be about anything else. So apologies all round (to the 2 or 3 people reading this) and let's celebrate this 6th year, without pretending that I haven't blogged for a year. I know a cheater when I see one. Have a drink of your choice. I'm having tea because it's the middle of the afternoon.

pairs vs trios

Absolutely delicious song. And because I like things to go in pairs, here's another one I'm rediscovering.

I was reading something about how often things come in trios. It was suggested that it was something in the composition of our brains that made it easier for us to remember things in three parts. But surely it can't be any harder in pairs? :)

enlightenment

Forgive the bluntness of this short post but:

One would think that consciousness was incompatible with immaturity. You would think that, once you've gathered some experience, read, talked, thought about things a lot, that a certain wisdom would come of that. But then comes a time when you are clearly picturing yourself having the most immature set of reactions and behaviour and you feel incapable of acting any differently, no matter how wrong you know you are, no matter how much you wish you reacted distinctly but you seem to be unable to curb, ugh hate saying this, 'your nature'. So much for enlightenment...

the trail

The trail to the beach is the dreamiest place of all. If only there was anything like this in my 'real world'. The horizon is infinite, the landscape changes from desert to forest, sometimes it has water, sometimes it's dry, there are crabs in the mud and birds fishing. But the best of all is the smell of the dunes that fills the air, the combination of those special plants with the sea breeze. Please someone put that in a bottle.

To make this lack of blogging continuity worse, I'll be taking a short break next week. I'm finding out that you pack as much stuff for one week as you would for two or three. I'm not really one to take my whole wardrobe with me but it still feels like I need a lot of little things on my day-to-day. Oh well...

Please accept cheesy sunset as a token of my affection

Somehow it's easier to talk about the books I've read in the past year than to talk about the year itself. Maybe because I lost touch of blogging about myself, probably because it takes less effort, of the mind and of the heart. Right now, it's simpler to focus on the present.

But anyway, the last book I read was really juicy. It was set on Canada and I usually have good experiences with books if their action happens there (The Blind Assassin was one of the finest books I read last year). The author wasn't Canadian but lived in Canada for most of her life. I wasn't familiar with Carol Shields but I'll be reading more from her. This book was called The Republic of Love and I was intrigued at to what the title referred to, until I reached this explanation (it won't ruin the book for you, rest assured):

Almost everyone gets a chance to say it - I love you. And to hear it said to them. Love is, after all, a republic, not a kingdom.

Now, isn't that neat? How do we never run out of clever metaphors? I promise the book isn't mushy, it's really good.

I was thinking that I could never not love books, as they rarely disappoint me. I do research their subject and the author before I buy them, so it's not down to lucky guesses, but about 95% of the time I am not disappointed. In those 5% unhappy cases I sometimes want to throw the book away from me. I'm reading them and shaking my head in disbelief - it's either: I could write better than this, or, plainly, this is shit...and I want to stretch my arm and throw the book far far away, but I never do and always obediently read the book until the last word, perhaps in hope that something good can come out of it in the end, even if it is 'never buy this author again'. I did leave a book unfinished earlier this year, you can guess it was pretty bad for me to just give up. Or maybe I just wasn't in the mood for sacrifices at that point.

Also, would you like to gender analyse your blog (or someone else's)? Go here http://genderanalyzer.com/ - it uses artificial intelligence having studied a ton of blogs.

We think http://devilmood.blogspot.com is written by a woman (62%).

And for some reason I was suddenly reminded of the smell of soap bubbles.

Mantra - sunday scribblings

Still trying to get the hang of this, says girl with over 700 posts.

The word 'mantra' is close to the portuguese word to describe a light blanket 'manta', and it seems fitting to think of a mantra as something that you can use to wrap around yourself, to make you feel secure and protected from the outside world, something that comforts you.

Instead of a mantra I seem to have songs on loop in my head. My brain appears to be hypersensitive to musical patterns and even words - sometimes I hear a word somewhere and that immediately reminds me of a song with that word included and my brain starts reproducing it. Hey, I don't need an i-pod, what can I say? ;)

According to the Wikipedia the mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that are considered capable of "creating transformation" - the songs on a loop in my head certainly don't contribute to such thing, unless getting irritable is a transformation, but you also have to lookout for the negative mantra. What is it? It's that voice inside your head that keeps repeating things that are not positive for you - self-defeatist, pessimistic and many times involuntary comments we hear inside our heads. We would probably benefit from replacing these with a good mantra. A nice, soft and summery blanket.

still adjusting to my old blogging shoes...

*completely forgot where I got that photo from but it's not mine.

Desperately seeking Blogging

For a long time I've wanted to get back to blogging, right now I feel like I need to get back too.

I feel like most of the things I do online these days are fruitless and not productive and nearly not as fulfilling as blogging can be.

The truth is while before blogging came naturally, these days it will take more of an effort. I don't even mean an effort of inspiration or commitment to blogging, I mean an effort of attention. Have you found that the Internet is ruining your ability to focus on one thing at the time, even your ability to think and write something from beginning to end? Well, I feel this way and I'd like to have my concentration back, please.

But that's not the reason I want to be back - though the number of times I've stopped writing this post to go and check other browser windows is quite unnerving - it's mostly because it's an old habit that is a lot more interesting than most of my current habits and I miss all the interactiveness and camaraderie in blogging.

I don't know what I'll be blogging about, to tell you the truth. After being almost away for so long(I was neither here nor away, it was a strange combination) it became very awkward to be talking about my life in a blog - I don't mean to the friends I made here - but to the random reader, the stranger that might pop round and visit. In all honesty, I was never one to share too much and I never really believed I owned a blogged - it more like 'I write in a blog'. But I'm sure I'll find something to share.

The reason I mentioned thinking about joining Tumblr is that it's a much more obvious way to share contents - be they texts, videos, visuals - and less of a diary format. But Tumblr has the very annoying thing of not allowing comments in the way Blogger does, it allows people to comment but only if they have a Tumblr and reproduce what you posted in their own page, which I dislike***. So for now I'm here and this is probably the most boring post I've ever written.

[*** Vesper de Vil has told me a way of allowing comments on Tumblr from other social network sites, it is possible, but right now I'm enjoying this old format again.]

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.

insert image

- before the blog expires or blogger kicks me out for inactivity;

- because i figured an image like this would probably be better for the top of the page;

- because i'm trying to focus on beautiful things.