Terry Pratchett

‘Ah, well, life goes on,’ people say when someone dies. But from the point of view of the person who has just died, it doesn't. It's the universe that goes on. Just as the deceased was getting the hang of everything it's all whisked away, by illness or accident or, in one case, a cucumber. Why this has to be is one of the imponderables of life, in the face of which people either start to pray… or become really, really angry.

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I still think the fact that my first crush was buried under the metres of snow has some bearing on the current state of my personal life.

Today I had to write about a new wave of young Russian actors as a part of my Spanish homework. The first face that came to my mind was one of Masha Shalaeva. Then, I checked her bio and was deeply surprised by her age. Well, I really shouldn't have been, taking into account that it's the film I've been showing to all my crushes since high school. Why the hell would you present a story of a weird one-sided love (?) to a person you like? And sure, yes, even better, the protagonist dies at the end. Successful wooing – check.

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My enormous draughty house. The feeling of both freedom and anxiety. I come inside and start checking my cats. I find K. His fur is ruffled and eyes still sleepy, as if after a long nap. I go into another room. There is a cat there. For a moment, it looks like K. But I've just seen him. The cat starts changing subtly (or do I just get a better look?), and I realise that that's L. She turns her head towards me, her blind eyes are shining like green marbles. But it's impossible. She died a while ago. Unless I've been dreaming—no. Everything's so real. It's my life, I feel, and touch, and smell, and—
I wake up. I feel this creeping terror you usually have after a nightmare.

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Sometimes I'm wondering how it is possible that we don't just run around shouting in panic and despair. How we manage to rein them all in. I've had this urge lately. I want to stop walking, right there in the middle of the street, and start shouting and never stop. I've noticed that now it's not love lyrics that make me listen more closely to the song, what's the point if we could talk about our treacherous short-living bodies instead. I want to scratch myself open, I want to scratch the past open and weed myself out. I start typing "painless" and I stop myself, because it's stupid.
I hate it that the things that scare us the most are the things that are going to happen. I hate that the things I've always resented and ignored are the things that make me pay attention to them. I get sick just thinking about them, and I'm forced to touch, and treat, and hurt, and care, and feel them.

@темы: I can't, diary therapy

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The train rushing through the night makes the cup in my hand faintly hum. The delicate sound reminds me of many things from the past. Dear things embellished by the imperfection of memory.

When I'm looking at a painting, sometimes I find it hard to focus. My mind drifts off, mulling over the time span dividing this moment from the moment the painting was being made. I think about the pencil lines visible under the oil, the moment when they stretched under the pencil. I think about the strokes of the brush, boldly applied; the new blob of paint mixing with the still-wet one. I think about the time that was "now" instead of "then".
When I'm reading a book, sometimes I can't get past the shallow layer of words. I think about the humour of it, the joy of it, the vivid pulse of it, how alive and relevant it feels despite the hard and painful death its author died.
Life is monstous in many ways, and I don't know what I could do to make it better.

@темы: ranting

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IAMX

The scales of me are peeling off. Everything I consider myself to be is falling away. It reveals the needy pulsing core that wants simple things: the press of others against it, the movement, the colours, the sound. Most of the time it's very hard to remember that there is that need inside me. The body seems to be something I have to endure and control. It rarely works as a means to express myself. Still, that hour when I forget about superficial things is special. It's not perfect. Every recent experience is almost equally black and white, but it helps me to discover something. I know myself a bit better now.

@темы: I am terrified I think too much

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Her dog had died at night, but no one told Zoe. Her parents didn't want to spoil her day. They decided to wait till she came back from school. In the morning, Zoe was too sleepy to notice that Buddy wasn't there to see her off. She got on the school bus, chatted with her friends, endured the classes, had lunch in the canteen, and played baseball. Everything was the same. Then, she slung the backpack over her shoulder and went home.

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Bleak

Сегодня был плохой день. Корпоратив длился три часа в маленькой комнате. Я подозревала, что будет непросто, но надежда опрометчиво теплилась. Теперь пришло время мучительно вспоминать каждый жест и каждое слово, которые выдавали, насколько мне было неловко. Новый репертуар для размышлений перед сном.
Методист говорила о будущем школы, международных сертификатах, онлайн-курсах по ОГЭ/ЕГЭ. Я при осторожном прощупывании не смогла найти в себе энтузиазм. Постоянно сталкиваюсь с "потолком двух лет". За это время я постигаю основы новой профессии, а затем теряю интерес. Потихоньку начинает всё раздражать — смотрю на книжки вроде "веб-дизайн для чайников"/"токарное дело для начинающих"/"бухгалтерия с нуля" и думаю, а вдруг это то самое.

Вероятно, к Новому году окончательно разболеюсь. Горло засаднило вчера и, я знаю, просто так оно в покое не оставит. Если голос пропадёт к четвергу, придётся отменить консультацию, которую я ждала больше месяца.

Приятное: украсила комнату множеством огоньков. Хорошо получается лежать и безучастно наблюдать за их мерцанием.

@темы: diary therapy

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Sylvia Plath

For the first time in my life, sitting there in the sound-proof heart of the UN building between Constantin who could play tennis as well as simultaneously interpret and the Russian girl who knew so many idioms, I felt dreadfully inadequate. The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn't thought about it.

The one thing I was good at was winning scholarships and prizes, and that era was coming to an end.

I felt like a racehorse in a world without race-tracks or a champion college footballer suddenly confronted by Wall Street and a business suit, his days of glory shrunk to a little gold cup on his mantel with a date engraved on it like the date on a tombstone.

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig-tree in the story.

From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and off-beat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig-tree, starving to death just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

@темы: notes

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There are some versions of my life that I can easily imagine in detail. It's not something I could really want for myself. I guess these are just vivid images from films or series.

The first one is a Russian long-distance truck driver. I spend days on the road, dining in cheap cafes and sleeping in my truck. I'm sitting up there, looking down at the cars around. My old t-shirt has ridden up, exposing my pot belly. Everyone calls me Stepanych or something like that. Good, down-to-earth type. This fantasy is bewildering, because I'm afraid of the idea of me driving.
Another one is of me living in a trailer park in a warm US state. I work either in a video rental shop or in a supermarket, scanning items. Sometimes I sit outside my trailer and watch people. I'm probably called Jo. I could be male or female. It won't matter much.
Also, there is an intern in a British company. Sleek-named and skinny. I make lots of copies and incompetently transfer phone calls. I have a dog, which I walk in the park in the evening (in the morning I'm too lazy to go that far). I might be learning a foreign language in free time.

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