Death, Moisturizer and the Elephants

Maybe it is the impending fall or the fact that I was sold an aptly named facial cream “near death” to “fight the first signs of aging”  that has gotten me thinking of death.

(Technically though, I have to admit, the cream is not called “near death”, but Primordiale (by Lancôme). The small scale linguistic in me made immediate jump from English primordial (which in my opinion is still a very, very strange name for an anti-aging moisturizer) to French prés mort. Now I don’t just apply a pre-wrinkle cream on my face, am also applying the small questions of life and death.)

Am not that concerned what happens to my immortal soul, as I am pretty sure that I do not possess one and that there is no afterlife (this to me is quite a comforting thought). My thoughts are more centered on what happens to my fleshy vessel after I have broken the proverbial cold wind, licked the spoon the last time, bowed out of the competition, moved to a different diocese etc.

I have always, always known being buried in a box is out of the question for me. (Pre-bout of apres mort claustrophobia?) Cremation has therefore been the natural choice. But lately the thought of fiery furnace has also started to feel, I don’t know, oppressing or somehow too invasive. After some serious subcontracting of the subconscious on the subject I have begun to feel that the best way to return my energies to this universe when the time comes would be by a method of drop and decompose.

(I would like to make it known though that I do not have any kind of death wish, nor there is any reason for me to expect to change state any time soon – to my knowledge at least. The later, the better is my stand on the matter.)

For reasons unbeknown to me the idea of just being left somewhere under open skies and letting nature take its due course is consoling and easy for the heart. Of course corpses lying here and there in various stages of decomposition would be unpleasing to the eye not to mention a hazard to general hygiene and safety.  I think I have a solution to this discomfort.

In the Tarzan lore, the elephants, when sensing their number was up, would make their way to lush pastures to die. These elephant cemeteries were described as mysterious, perhaps sacred places even – always the vista opening grandly to a brilliant sunshine, white bones glistening in an ivory El Dorado.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if there would be similar places for us humans to haul our full-serviced carcasses to? Big farewell parties being organized outside white gates. Music, dance, chocolate, confetti! When suitably high on life and champagne, one would free oneself from clothes, pass through the gates, find a suitable mossy shade (or perhaps a sandy dune – chacun à son gôut), keel over and die. And then let nature take care of the rest.

Of course, this would require a fine attuned understanding of ones bodily functions to time the departure so that one would not have to loiter behind the gates longer than necessary. That, or six sets of teeth. (Apparently elephants have six sets of teeth and after they have worn out the last set, they seek a grassy plain with soft grass and water supply and as these places might be hard to come by, they have tended to gather in the same place, thus creating elephant burial grounds. This is something that I learned here.)

So whilst waiting for the world to take to this wonderful concept am going to continue to fight the fine lines slowly making their way to my face. Although I think I am going to replace the cream with the Grim Reaper lurking inside with something that has a more positive outlook on life.

Suggestions, anyone?

Improper hauntings

This is  a story that was never meant to be published on my blog for a couple of reasons: a) I do believe that the story is much better told in person (as in the tradition of the genre) and b) the subject is of  an intimate sort (those of delicate minds consider yourself warned). But as my tale has recently gained unforeseen popularity by others telling it and circulating it forward (without naming any names, Jackson and Morales, you know what I am talking about), I want to claim authorship and give you, my dear reader, the original tale.

What you are about to read is a true story.  It happened to yours truly, truly. For the record, at the time the events took place I was not intoxicated nor by alcohol or drugs of any sort. Also, as a background information, let it be known, that in general I consider myself to be an atheist and I do not believe in any supernatural or paranormal things.  (I need evidence.) Having gotten all that out of my system it´s time to tell the story of how I was haunted by a self-pleasuring ghost.

This  happened a couple of years ago. The day must have been just an ordinary day as I have no recollection of it, what I do remember is what happened during the night.

I was sleeping on my belly, arms under pillow, other leg stretched, the other bended.  Suddenly I woke up to a feeling that somebody was sitting on my lower back and pressing me hard from the shoulder blades to the mattress. And I mean hard, I could hardly breathe. Needless to say, I was quite scared. I mean, how could anybody have broken into my apartment, gotten past the shoe traps in the vestibule without me hearing a thing and waking up.  I tried to turn my head and see who it was that was the cause of this distress, but I could not see anybody.

So there I was lying on the bed, afraid, not being able to move a muscle, feeling a weight of an invisible person on me, thinking frantically what the heck was going on, when suddenly I heard a sound. (The sound could perhaps be best described as a very soft and lazy “clacking” sound.)  A sound that sounded like a happy union of a man, his hand and his erm…overhang having a jolly good time.

At that point I started to get angry. It´s bad enough to have a ghost in one´s house, but to have a masturbating one is just insufferable.

I mustered  all the strength I could find, pushed my upper body from the mattress and told the unidentified male spirit with a stern voice and firm words that I did not approve of his doings and that I wanted him gone. (This is something that I had picked up from Sex and the City, apparently one has to acknowledge the ghost and then tell them to change scenery if one wants to get rid of them.) As soon as I had done that the sound stopped, the pressure eased and I could stand up.

I was quite shaken by all that. I turned on the lights and checked my apartment but I could not find anybody there. I went to the kitchen and started rummaging through my spices in hopes of finding some sage. (Another bit of “information” that I have learned from some TV-series, burning sage is supposed to cleanse the atmosphere.) I had run fresh out of it, so I had to settle for some pizza seasoning potpourri that I springled around my apartment. (Even the non-believers get scared and resort to extreme measures.)

For the rest of the night I kept the lights on (actually I slept with the lights on for a good couple of months, for some reason I though electric light to be a good spirit person repellent), but could not really sleep, not even dream. (The adrenalin rush took care of that.)

If that visit would have been the only instance I was harrassed by an unseen person, I could have written it off with a shrug, but the ghost game back. And the second time we “met” was even worse.

It happened not long after I had started to sleep with lights off again. This time I was laying on my back, arm over my eys, when I woke to a very moviesque sound. It was like there was a big book open on my floor with wind going through the pages. (Quiet flap flap flap flap flap.)

I opened my eyes, and then I felt it: a big hairy arm coming from under my bed. It went through my mouth into my throat and lungs and I got a distinctive feeling that it wanted to take my voice, maybe even my life.  It hurt, I was paralyzed,  it felt like I was being sucked inside the mattress. Also, once again I had to will myself to an upright position and told the the ghost very, very firmly to go away and leave me alone.  And as soon as I had done that, the pain eased.  Again I checked every possible nook and corner to see if somebody was indeed hiding in my tiny flat, but to no avail. I was alone.

After the last incident, the house has not been haunted again (to my knowledge at least, and I should know as I continue living there.) But I have been perplexed ever since: what happened? In both instances I was awake,  my consciousness was not altered by any chemical means etc. and the physical and auditive experiences were very real.

So the chances are that there might be some supernatural things after all and I actually was molested by a meat-beating phantom. It´s either that – or a case of  really bad heartburn.

“There was always drama on her footsteps”

Sometime ago I stumbled across a quotation by Jane Austen: “Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings” (or actually the form of the quotation was “her life became a succession of busy nothings”). The picture that Jane Austen paints of her heroines life with that little sentence is somewhat chilling in the emptiness it reveals but at the same time it is also wonderfully dramatic and strangely elating.

The line prompted me to a quest of making up a one-liner that would somehow describe me or my life as poetically as hers did. That is how I came up with “there was always drama on her footsteps”.

For sometime I reveled in the sentence, repeating it over and over like the name of a new lover. All in all, I was quite pleased with myself. I felt a new, more lyrical aura around myself had risen.

But as I am a person with some sort of  lite commitment issues (I could never make an all top something lists as I feel if you do those you need to stick by them  for ever and ever, and I need to be able to maintain my freedom to change my mind on stuff), and appetite for diversion so when I was faced (in these uncertain times I may add) with the choice of making the sensible decision or the not-so-sensible decision, I naturally opted for the latter.  And that is how I discovered (or rather came into realization of one aspect of my personality)  “she was never one to shy away from an adventure”.  (She being me.)

With a sense for drama and a taste for adventure on my side, I think am pretty well set on the tag line front. And life.

ps.

I do not I deliberately seek to create drama around me, and I  certainly  like my relationships with friends and family to be even-tempered and mellow (and for the most part and most of the time they really are) but perhaps I do tend to respond to things and situations (life) with somewhat of a poetic approach or an excessive zest.

I would also like to add, that am not about making irresponsible or poor choices. It is just that if an opportunity to see the world or live life knocks on my door am apt to say yes.

Where is Victor when you need him?

It seems that I have a knack of getting myself into awkward situations. (Situations that  perhaps would not be awkward to most people, except me.)

A while ago  I was lucky enough to be sent on a work trip to lovely city of Lisbon. (My work duties were over in a couple of days so I decided to take couple of days for myself and see the city as I had not been there before. ) While enjoying my days of freedom I had to participate in a work related teleconference call as I was to be headed to another work assignment to Damascus quite soon after I would come home from Lisbon, and some details of the project needed to be checked and decided on.

(Ah, Damascus, an intriguing city, full of history, with friendly inhabitants who treat lanes as mere suggestions, who have understood that horns on cars are not for decorative purposes only, who enjoy cheese on everything (the cheese is just delicious) and… the list could go on and on. Damascus and it´s people were a very pleasant surprise indeed.)

As the teleconference had been scheduled to take place during mid morning, I had already left my hotel and was happily traipsing around the neighborhood of Belem, famous for it´s cream pasties, in a pouring rain. When the time drew nearer for the aforementioned meeting I decided to find a cafe where I would enjoy a well deserved cup of coffee and a sweet delicacy, also well deserved.  Of course, my chosen cafe (the most famous cafe of the area thanks to their flans) was full of clattering of dishes and happily chatting tourists and locals. I managed to secure a table though and a steaming cup of coffee in front of me I dialed the number. (I was feeling slightly important with my pen and notebook and fancy telephone.)

After a while, our international team was on-line. My colleague called in from Rome, some called in from Finland and of course our customers from Middle East joined in.

Everything went as well as could be expected with somewhat bad connections, a bunch of non native English speakers and a noisy cafe in the background. Until I needed to check a very small detail concerning an abbreviation.

Our customer asked us to deliver the products (in this case videos) in two formats: MP4 and something else. It was only a question of one letter really, but it had to be solved. I could not quite make out was the format in question VLV, SLV or FLV. (The lines were really bad, the cafe was noisy and the pronunciation of all the parties involved was not perhaps quite up to par.) So after repeating all the options over several times I decided to resort to spelling using the phonetic alphabets.

I started:  “Is it V as in…” Then it hit me. Complete and utter blankness, it was as if all the words had left me.  I could not remember a single word in English that begun with a V. Appropriate words that is. All that came to mind was: Is it V as in…Venus? V as in…Vixen? Vulva? Vagina?

All very proper words in their own rights, but let´s face it, it was not a booty call or a call to my gynecologist that I was making.

As I was continuing to stutter V as in…V as in.. etc I felt like I was the only (and lonely) participant in a naughty Wheel of Fortune.

While I was mentally kicking myself for not bothering with properly learning the phonetic alphabets I was trying to will my colleague to read my mind to jump to my aide from other side of the southern Europe. Sadly telepathy seldom works, and as I was left to my own devices I finally managed to mutter a mumbled (and humbled) V as in the letter, followed by a slightly hysterical giggle.

Lessons learned (again): pride comes before a fall and V is for Victor.

Impossible missions: adventures in apothecaries abroad

Here I was thinking that having to mime constipation in a small Brazilian pharmacy up in the northeast a few years ago in order to make the apothecary understand that my friend was in pain and indeed in need of medical assistance to help her to pass her … product, would presumably be one of those “once in a lifetime” type of moments when I found myself in a similar situation in Jakarta.

(Why (and how to) mime constipation you may ask. Apparently our pronunciation of the portoguese word for it was not convincing enough. 15 minutes of performing a la Marcel Marceau did the trick to entertain the crowd (yes, there was a crowd ) and to get my friend the medicine. Which, by the way, is probably the most efficient drug I´ve ever encountered. The moment she touched the package, she had to go. To my knowledge it is still unopened.)

But back to Jakarta. A couple of weeks ago I had to leave for Jakarta quite unexpectedly on a business trip. The departure was so sudden that I did not have to time to check my calendar for my next expected visit from Aunt Flow. As luck would have it, of course I got my period (not to talk about the cramps) while in there. And of course I was not sufficiently equipped in the feminine hygiene products front. That is to say, I had not packed my mooncup with me.

(I have been using mooncup for a good three years now and I absolutely love it. It is hygienic, environmentally friendly (as it is reusable) and in the long run it saves you a lot of money. Ladies reading, if you have not heard of mooncup before google it now and try. Or if you have heard of it but are hesitant, google it and try. I warmly recommend.)

Even though I suspected that mooncup might be hard to come by in Jakarta I decided to try. After all, they have Dior, Chanel, Vuitton et al. in every self-respecting mall (obviously not a backwater joint then), so I thought there might be a small chance of acquiring one. (Mooncup that is. Although I did come across such a beautiful red leather bag by Dior that my heart skipped a beat. For a second or two I toyed with the idea of submitting myself into a imprisonment by a debt and buying the bag, but I came to my senses quite quickly.)

So I there I was, trying to explain a) what a mooncup is b) what it looks like and c) what are it´s benefits to a fascinated (or perhaps i was mixing politeness and slight embarrassment with interest?) crowd (yes, there was a crowd, again) of pharmacy workers dressed in pink uniforms while my colleague & friend (male) was laughing his arse off behind the shelves. (His moment of miming would come later when we tried to find a place that would cater for male waxage as well.)

After having to explain the principals of mooncupping for the umpteenth time both verbally & with sign language I decided to surrender to the circumstances and buy “regular” sanitary towels. But either they have not heard of the size zero pads that fill the stores in Europe or my choice of pharmacy in Jakarta was poor but the selection of the sanitary towels was slim whereas the towels themselves were not. (The thinnest things I could find were more reminiscent of a cushion that anything else. Why, tape one of those pads to  your neck and you´ll have a handy neck pillow that supports your head and doesn´t slip on long flights!)

Lessons learned: when traveling always, always pack for all kinds of leakage (or lack of it as was shown in the case of Porto de Galinhas) or be prepared to mime for your, or for your friends medication.

On the relations of Greek tragedies and cleaning

The ancient Greeks had a concept hamartia. Hamartia is a fatal flaw or error in the judgment of a person. Sometimes it could also be seen as a fatal flaw in the character of a person. Usually in the plays, for obvious dramatic reasons, it is of the hero´s. Hamartia is something that can not be avoided, it is so deeply linked in one´s personality and fate. Bear in mind though, that the flaw is not usually nor necessarily outright negative. It can be for example pride or love that leads to the hero´s downfall.

In Greek tragedies hamartia does not exist without peripeteia. A turn of events that is caused by the hero´s fatal flaw. And as we are talking about tragedies, this turn of events is never for the better. Just think of poor Oedipus.

In the light of recent events I have come into conclusion that my hamartia (or one of them, but this is the one that I can publicly write about) is quite clearly displayed in connection to cleaning or other household chores.

So, a few days ago a friend came over with a bottle, or two, of red wine. As he was obviously distressed, I decided to oblige him and enjoy a glass of ripe syrah with him whilst he and I poured our hearts out on various personal topics. It is not necessary to go deeper in details, let´s just say that the wine was consumed. (Also, it seems, am better at saying yes than am saying no.) Anyhow, sometime during the evening I noticed that there was some mysterious clear liquid on the shelf of my fridge. But as there was an interesting story going on, I decided to look into matter only the next morning. (After all, there is no time like tomorrow!)

Came next morning and I woke up early, about 6:30. I went to the refrigerator, opened the door and the floor of the fridge was filled with clear liquid that now I indentified as water. Apparently I had accidentally hit the unfreeze button previous night. The next 3 hours were spent frantically mopping, drying, breaking up the last pieces of ice stuck to the bottom of the freezer part of my fridge. (Some freezer, a teeny tiny box that freezes over.)

As I was scraping the railings and whatnot´s of the fridge I came across some mementos of the last time I unfroze it.

It was a last June and I was leaving city for six weeks the next morning. At about 07:00 pm I decided that now was the time to unfreeze fridge. After boiling and changing at least 30 litres of hot water in the dishes that I had placed inside the fridge, in hopes of that hot steam would accelerate the melting process, I called in the big guns: blow dryer, screwdriver that acted as a small scale chisel and wooden spatula that was used for leverage to try to remove the stubborn ice. Time must´ve been nearer to midnight.

Well, inspite the obvious obstacles and the excess time spent in the process, I decided to clean the fridge thoroughly. (After all, why go through so much trouble with only mediocre results.) I remembered seeing an episode of “How clean is your house?”, where a paste made out of baking soda was used to clean a fridge and give it a nice, fresh odour.

Happily I attacked the fridge with my paste. I do not know if I had gotten the ratio of water and soda wrong or what but the paste dispersed all over the fridge. It looked like a bag of cocaine had burst inside my fridge.

I wiped and I wiped and I wiped, but it seemed that the amount of the bloody paste did not diminish at all. Clock was nearing 04:00 am and I was nearing insanity and I was still wiping. (And of course there was still most of the packing to be done before leaving round noon.) At some point I had managed to get most of the stuff out. I decided to throw in the dish cloth and just try to be satisfied with the results which were not exactly the shiny, sparkly and fresh- as- mountain-air experience that I had imagined it would be. (Goes to show, do not believe everything that you see on TV. I can tell you right now, coca-cola is not as good a substance for cleaning your toilet seat as other detergents, specially meant for it, are.)

As I was still finding traces of dried baking soda a year later I came to the part in the plot what the aforementioned greeks called anagnorisis: recognition or realization about who I am and what my choices are really about.

My hamartia is my wish to avoid the mundane at all costs. (That and my curiosity and my passion for cleaning devices, tricks and detergents despite the fact that cleaning is propably the last thing on my list of things to do.)

I have a need to glitter (or pimp if you will) everyday chores to make them interesting or engaging enough. More often than once these little plans or spices backfire and I end up spending much more time and energy than a “normal” approach to things would require. In a way it is a terrible burden, this surrender to whims and “decoration”.

But on the other hand, isn´t it amazing how a small whirlpool fridge can contain not only food but also food for thought and ancient greek tragedies.

? (or on the relations of studying and cleaning)

Deadline is looming for an essay for the seminar am attending. So in theory I should spend all my free time glued to the computer, composing wonderfully wild theories and theses about my subject (related to aesthetics, hence the freedom of thought (?)).

Instead I find that some sort of domestic goddess (in the loosest possible meaning of the word) is trying to surface my personality. During last couple of weeks I have engaged in an insane amount of cleaning activities and usually anything is always more alluring than cleaning: even writing an essay. So: I have dusted almost all of my bookshelves. I have vacuumed, not once, but twice. (I can almost hear some of you draw in a deep breath. I know what you´re thinking: 2 times is excessive!) The dishes have been washed almost immediately after use, I have started to organize my cd´s into alphabetical order (now on letter M) and I have washed clothes and folded almost all of them. I have also started to organize a myriad of sheet music and other papers weighing my piano down… Oh, and nearly forgot: I have boiled a microfibrecloth (is that a word?) in a carefully monitored temperature of approx 95 degrees celcius to rejuvinate it´s cleaning powers. And, a n d, I have chosen to do these things rather than play online scrabble (which I´m totally hooked on and that has recently & until now been the number one distraction from my studies. When I should be studying that is. One can not study all the time. One must also schedule time for unwinding from the gruelling academic toil.).

What is happening to me? Am I under some evil spell? Or could it be that I am… domesticating? After all my academic mrs degree is coming together slowly but surely (and finally I may add). Could this be some kind of a terrible symptom of it?

Ok, enough with this madness. I must get back to my essay. I need to return it in a couple of days and many, many, many pages need to be written. I will do it as soon as I have posted this. And taken a restorative nap. No, wait, I see some dishes that need to be washed and my home could benefit from a touch of slight vacuuming…

Things that make an independent woman tick, and not in a good way.

I consider myself to be an able,stable, independent woman, who can tackle almost every curveball , big or small, that life throws on my path without greater difficulties. But why, oh why I sometimes find myself wanting to surrender to the role of “weaker vessel” and thinking that I really should not have to have certain skills. This will be a treatise on the subject that will be updated from time to time, namely when need to weep becomes irresistible & talking to yourself does not bring relief, I would think. Also, I will also most likely list things that irritate me, period. Given the right circumstances. In order to give perspective I have categorized levels of irritation as follows: mild, moderate, high, higher, ultrasonic.

I ask you, dear reader, to keep in mind that this is purely therapeutical and not judge me based on this alone. (Also I would like to point out that I actually never weep about such things. Weep just rhymes better with need. Nowadays I mainly weep = bawl my eyes out when watching Extreme Make-Over, the home edition. It is so overwhelmingly emotional! Also, I am not an easily irritable person on the whole. Just ask my friends, they´ll tell you I am as mild as a nice piece of brie on a plate.) Ok, without further ado, here it begins:

• When your computer crashes for the umpteenth time (mid blogging of course) and you´ve done every trick imaginable, there are only the dust balls & maddening queue tone to keep you company whilst waiting (hours, sometimes, I may add) to be connected to some anonymous support person. Irritation level: high to ultrasonic. There is no ground for moderate when it comes to computers & stuff. On the other hand when it is just you there is no one to nag about the dust. And if you´re lucky a friend comes over with a bottle of red and you can get annoyed together.
• You have to polish your own shoes. (Army, besides making boys into men (?) also teaches them to excel in shoe polishing, I have been led to believe.) Then again, while waiting for the polishing frenzy to take over you can buy new, mire-free shoes! Irritation level: mild to moderate & can quite easily be totally polished off with a new pair of shoes.
• revolving doors. a) they are scary (there is always the possibility that you somehow get caught from a scarf and strangle to death or somehow get squashed in the process) and pointless. Why is is thought that a door that revolves is a good or practical thing? b) “modern” semi-automatic revolving doors are so slow it makes you want to pull out your hairs one by one. Irritation level: high to higher. Irritation over almost as soon as you get pass the doors. But boy, while it lasts…