one, two, three, fuck up

no, i'm not happy for it. and i won't be when the shit hits the fan - yes, it's just a matter of time. it doesn't make me feel sad though. i understand that love dies. i know that sometimes people simply fuck up. and yes, sometimes we take a while to see the whole picture. but don't ask me for compassion when 1) you fuck up by merely doing nothing, 2) you realize that, and 3) you still do nothing. it's just like watching your house starting to burn and stay still in the couch with a beer in your hand thinking "it won't get here, someone will put it out". i'm sorry to be the herald of bad news, but yes, it will. and you'll feel the worst part. trust me.

life imitating art, imitating life*

she pointed it out: i hate valentine's day, and my work made me write a five-thousand character text about it. yesterday i got myself drunk with wine (i mean completely wasted: i couldn't even walk, and blanked out at some point), and today i'm writing about... wine. irony? as nomyia said - and she gave this post's title, thank you, dear - destiny sometimes plays tricks on us. shame it only works out in my work, and by irony. for example, i'd like to write here "i wanna win the jackpot" and bang!, win the lottery tomorrow. or rather "i'd like to meet emily browning" and have her knocking on my door tonight, before the party. well. dreaming is still tax-free, isn't it?

horcruxes

in the harry potter universe, a horcrux is an object of dark magic created by a powerful spell that must be cast during an act of murdering. by casting such spell, a dark wizard can split his soul in two pieces, and store one of them in the chosen object. that object becomes then extremely hard to destroy - only if damaged beyond any possible reparation can the horcrux be destroyed. and as long as it does exist, intact, the wizard who created it is, for all intents and purposes, imortal. in the story, the villain lord voldemort has created seven (eight if we count with the piece of his soul that remained within his body). one of them, however, was not intentionally created.

i crossed that door's threshold and all this comes back to my mind. why? because somehow i feel i've left pieces of my soul behind and, in a way, they make me imortal as well, since they contain memories of myself and faint traces of what i once was and what i once had. especially because each of those objects - like lord voldemort's chosen items - carry a deep significance to me. the first time i returned there, i spotted six of such objects scattered among the space. it has changed meanwhile, though, and now only two remain (probably the others were locked away, or were sent by some place to which i have no access to, thankfully). but those horcruxes are different than the ones from the book. they preserve my memory, my soul, but not for free: a tribute of pain and blood must be paid. and seeing them, touching them, always makes me bleed, always hurts inside. they remain, and shall remain, until the end of the world where they exist now. but their original world has fallen a long time ago, consumed by darkness and hatred. and they remain, the guardians of what has been lost never to be found again. i wish i had never seen them again. i wish you had locked them all away, far from my sight and my heart. i wish you wouldn't care and destroy them. or forget, until their meaning was lost in the sands of time and the piece of me that lies within them was long forgotten.

the wheat and the chaff

perhaps it's time to separate the wheat from the chaff, and search what's worth salvaging and what must be left forsaken among the ashes. right now i'm tired, too damned tired, and the burden cannot be carried much longer. it's a hard task: some important things will have to be discarded, along with the junk. it's unfair, i know. their loss will sadden me, that's for sure. but it must be done. it would be useless if i couldn't keep up because of the shards of a broken past, one that lies hopeless behind me. let it die there.

on tragedy

can't help agreeing with this. especially if it's black chocolate.

the abyss always gazes back

it would have been so easy. i would have bid you goodbye in that moment. you would have gone home - eventually sad for the early ending of the night - and i would have gone home in peace, with a broad smile drawn into my lips, thinking i've passed the test. alas, i couldn't do it though; and by not doing it i damned myself. i dared gazing into the abyss, confident enough that i could beat it; but it gaze back, and even before i realized, i was lost. of all things i regret, this is probably what i regret the most.

hideout (II)

there, right there, a snake woke from its winter slumber and sneaked out to hear us as we sat by the stones near her lair. there was a faint promise of love then; one never fulfulled, for life has driven us apart before we could even start to understand the feeling. and the promise still lies by the moss-covered stones, by the falling cold water. perhaps one day we might sit there again, by the same stone that has probably sheltered so many lovers throughout the ages. perhaps in that day the snake, the same snake, will come out again, and dance for us at the rhythm of the falling water. and perhaps then we will walk away from the fear that blinded us once, but we cannot say. how i long for those days, though. we had so much to give to each other; and as it seems, we have spent those gifts in unworthy endeavours. everything could have been so different. perhaps you would have been powerful enough to keep my own private hell locked beneath the earth. perhaps with you the blossoms would still welcome the winter sun. or perhaps the winter itself would have never come, and we would have remained oblivious to cold and rain in an endless spring. who can say it now, after so long? now, that the clouds have come never to leave? now, when all the memories of the places that were once ours are overwritten by by memories that shall bring us no joy or warmth again? even our hideout by the stones and the falling water reminds me of other moments, of other people; and even though our presence is still there, something else haunts the place. the trees are different. the water sometimes sounds almost like a lament. the light seems pale, and the mists from the mountain above remind me of spectres of ages long past. and the cold is no longer comfortable, inviting me to wrap you in my warm embrace; it carries a scent of decay. whether we are still able to heal that world remains yet to be seen, but these dark days are not meant for hope. they are not meant for anything, as a matter of fact.

hideout (I)

like alcohol

expecting me to question about that? small chance. one thing that i've learned at a somewhat early age was that alcohol stings like hell when poured over open wounds, and while what burns, heals, not everything that burns is good for healing purposes.

putting out the fires.

sometimes i feel like a fireman. helmet on, gas mask ready, axe in my hands, and i break through the doors of blazing homes to salvage whatever can be salvaged, putting out the fires left by the carelessness of others. burning a little within with every piece of life devoured by the flames. living in others' hell, as if that could save me of my very own fiery chasm. all in vain. the fire that consumes my own world cannot be doused by my skill or engine; and no one shall come to put it out. truth be told, i do not look for a way out in a hallway of locked doors, nor do i look for something - someone - to help me salvage my own little world. i'm just looking for death elsewhere.

the law of probable dispersion

it doesn't matter what hits the fan; it won't be equally redistributed.

and to move a little from radiohead...

...which have been taking too much space both in the music section of this blog and in my mp3 player. well, radiohead is never too much, but still, we (read "i") need to listen to other things as well. and a friend has just helped me getting something really nice named "one cell in the sea", the debut album of alison sudol, a.k.a. a fine frenzy (mentioned here and here before). is it just me, or the following lyrics are really something? (check her myspace page to listen the song)

help me out, said the minnow to the trout,
i was lost and found myself swimming in your mouth.
help me, chief,
i've got to plans for you and me.
i swear upon this riverbed
i'll help you feel young again.

not your every day circumstance,
hummingbird taking coffee with the ants.
and i said,

please, i know that we're different.
but we were one cell in the sea in the beginning.
and what we're made of was all the same once,
we're not that different after all.

help me out, said the eagle to the dove.
i've fallen from my nest so high above.
help me fly,
i am too afraid to try.
now saddled with a fear of heights,
i'm praying you can set me right.

not your everyday circumstance,
elephant sharing peanuts with the rats.
and i said,

please, i know that we're different.
we were one cell in the sea in the beginning.
and what we're made of was all the same once,
we're not that different after all.

we are tied in history,
connected like a family.

please, i know that we're different.
we were one cell in the sea in the beginning.
and what we're made of was all the same once,
all the same,
we're not that different after all.

a fine frenzy, the minnow and the trout (one cell in the sea, 2007, #2)

and two things about the post below:

1) i shall praise forever the person who can give me the link (youtube, something like that) for a live performance of bangers and mash with tv quality;

2) why on earth do people do waste their time in gigs recording the musics with a cellphone/camera? okay, i thank them for posting those recordings on youtube, of course, but... if i was there, watching idioteque or bangers and mash, the last thing i'd do was to film it. i'd rock so much that my bones would never forget the predicament, believe me. well, just a thought anyway.

bloodboil

am i the only one feeling my blood boiling with these songs?

see, it's like a booby trap

"it's not innocent. obviously. really, have you even considered it might be?" the question hits me like a punch in the stomach. of course i thought it could be innocent; deep inside, though, i considered it might well be some kind of booby trap. the spider is laying its web. i can see it, and i'm walking right into it. naiveness, perhaps. but somethings are like this: you know that the pitfall lies ahead, but you have to risk it all and walk towards it.

valentine's night(mare)

supreme irony: of all the things i could write about, it falls to me to write about... valentine's day. oh, the joy. five thousand characters about it. got two thousand so far, and i think it's too damn much already.

i suppose i deserve it.

quoth the raven (XLIV):

never confuse movement with action.

ernest hemingway

quoth the raven (XLIII):

hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.

karl marx

my puny life is far from being a "world-historical fact", as i am far from being somewhat important. but my life has gone beyond the tragedy, and it is definitely a farce now. how will it end remains yet to be seen.

the mirror

the shifting darkness outside turns the window into a mirror that only my eyes can see. a mirror that does not show what is, nor what will be, but what once was. and in its cold surface i can see a blue summer sky with white clouds drifting far above; a green forest, the wind scattering the sweet scent of pine-trees. and the deep blue waters of the star-shaped water. i remember being there once, almost a lifetime ago. i remember you there with me, the fire burning within us. back then there was no place for doubts, for fears - only for love. but, alas, all that has faded away, just like the darkness outside the mirror. and the mirror shifts again, to display a bright night sky, the stars fiercely shining on the slate-black skies. can you remember the full moon, and the shooting star that burst like a sun for a moment? can you remember the sound of crashing waves? and the wind, trying in vain to chill us down? in vain... for we owned that night, and above that cliff, we were part of the earth and the sea and sky. and now we are part of nothing, i am part of nothing, and i don't even try to belong somewhere. i look at this mirror and i feel like entering into the room of hidden things: a wide area covered with objects, with mementos of ages past left forgotten by their owners. only, in this case i'm the owner of every single item locked within the room, for each one of them is a memory, a piece of what once was that was broken and left to oblivion. also in vain. 

quoth the raven (XLII):

a fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim.

george santayana

thank you

it's funny when you don't know exactly how to deal with a situation, and someone happens to show up and fix it all for you. without realizing it.

checkmate

i can't quite remember the last time i played chess. it has been quite a long time, and i'm not sure i can remember all the rules. which is a shame. there is no way i can defeat that white little king with my black knights. i'm in checkmate anyway.

and fuck, what a cypher.

it's definitely *the* question

what force drives that tide?

the world has definitely gone nuts

and the funny part is, she's nowhere near ugly. she does have a point though: virginity is overrated these days. well, not for everyone it seems.

read here.

where i end and you begin

i believe i've just killed a dream merely by dreaming it. worse: even before it had any chance of unfolding into reality and becoming true. what a shame. it was a very good dream - good enough to warm me up in these cold days. and to make me wonder. it's funny how we get to know people without truly know them. they walk randomly by our life, with no rush but without stopping either; and they leave before we can acknowledge their presence. and then they return, often by pure chance. and we think, we do know so little about them. truly, i know so little about you. to my eyes, you are merely a known face, a friendly one, that i meet in the street now and then; one that i smile to, and one that is always ready to return me that enigmatic smile. but who lies behind that smile? who is hiding behind your freckled face? who is the person whose fire burns behind those ensnaring eyes? i would like to know you, you know? i would really like to see who is the person living behind those fiery eyes, behind the countless freckles. i feel curious now, and how weird can that be? why only now, when i've had - when we've had - more chances than i can count to get to know each other in the last... what, four, five years? quite a long time to know someone, with so little knowledge. a time when we've walked blindfolded by choice (perhaps?), oblivious to whatever happpened around us. too much time, i suppose. after all these years, what do you know? what do i know? you're a complete mistery to me - and most likely, the picture you have of me is the first one you've taken, along with everyone else. one that was never quite true, one that now is rather out of date. how funny would it be now, to sit together somewhere and compare the pictures we've taken with our minds' eyes? heh. to give odds a little push, i said. it might well be all that it takes - won't know it if i won't try it. me and lady luck, though, we aren't exactly friends: she comes and goes as it pleases her, sometimes too early, sometimes too late, but seldom when she's needed (perhaps that's why she's called "luck"). but was it luck that has set us in each other's tracks again? usually i prefer to believe that nothing is ever written, that destiny is merely what we call to the choices that will define our lives. but why you, among so many lost souls? why your smile, and no one else's? what on earth is that supposed to mean? hell, screw it. fate or luck, i'll push it nonetheless, as long as i'm given another shot at it. and even though i can already guess the outcome - it's too damn obvious - it's still worth a shot. sooner or later i'll hit the mark. i have to.

another twist

wondering if i shouldn't give it all another twist, just for the hell of it? it would be well deserved, i suppose.

a little push

what is the first logical step to get in touch with someone you know, but who has never been close to you? social networking. usually it tells you more than you need to know, and sometimes even more than you'd like to know. if that fails too - as it seems to be failing - then the next logical step is to wait for a random rendez-vous to happen... or to give the odds a little push.

scrying

the only thing i cannot guess is the lottery numbers. everything else is clear as water. 

[this is the panic office, section nine-seventeen may have been hit. activate the following procedure.]

fitter, happier, more productive, comfortable, not drinking too much, regular exercise at the gym (three days a week), getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries, at ease, eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats), a patient better driver, a safer car (baby smiling in back seat), sleeping well (no bad dreams), no paranoia, careful to all animals (never washing spiders down the plughole), keep in contact with old friends (enjoy a drink now and then), will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in the wall), favors for favors, fond but not in love, charity standing orders, on sundays ring road supermarket (no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants), car wash (also on sundays), no longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate, nothing so childish - at a better pace, slower and more calculated, no chance of escape, now self-employed, concerned (but powerless), an empowered and informed member of society pragmatism not idealism), will not cry in public, less chance of illness, tires that grip in the wet (shot of baby strapped in back seat), a good memory, still cries at a good film, still kisses with saliva, no longer empty and frantic like a cat tied to a stick, that's driven into frozen winter shit (the ability to laugh at weakness), calm, fitter, healthier and more productive, a pig in a cage on antibiotics.

fitter happier

hangover

and suddenly i've found myself into that moment, you know, just after throwing up when alcohol has finally taken its toll. fisrt you feel supersonic, everything turns into a laugh. then you feel dizzy, a rush makes your feet unstable and your vision is shadowed by invisible clouds. then the world shakes and jumps within you, and everything comes crashing down. out, even. and then you recover a little, enough for you to walk. your head feels heavy though, and you're not quite certain about your whereabouts, or about what you're doing. i'm at this stage right now: shaking like a leaf, unstable in my feet, heavy head, roaming without a clear purpose. soon i'll fall asleep, without notice; and the wake up will really make me feel like shit.

shame not all hangovers can be healed with pills, really.

on good ideas (forgive me the lack of modesty)

the best idea i've had in the last five years was to write this blog exclusively in english. some of my friends moaned about it -they would have to put more effort into reading me if they wanted to understand me. or they wouldn't understand shit of what i was talking about, and so they wouldn't waste their time paying me a visit. but it was a great idea. more than three years later, i can feel that my written english has improved quite a lot. of course, warcraft and my job have also played a decisive role, but this blog has been here for quite a long time, and quite unchangeable, now that i think of it.

and it was good for me to improve my written (and therefore, spoken) english, but also to improve my vocabulary. and my general knowledge. take last post as an example. i knew what i wanted to write (just don't ask me the true meaning of my words, for i shall not reveal it; business as usual) in portuguese, but i was missing some words. namely, the word scavenger. so i thought, how do i refer to an animal who feeds on dead bodies hunted by other predators? what's the damned word? then i thought, okay, vultures are among that kind of animals. so i logged into wikipedia, and searched for "vulture". bingo: 

"Vultures are scavenging birds, feeding mostly on the carcasses of dead animals."

so there's the word: scavenging. from scavenger. ten points for my vocabulary. then i kept reading the article on vultures - i could spend countless hours reading wikipedia, really - and i learned, for example, that the decline of vultures has led to hygiene issues on india. or that a group of vultures is called a kettle. see, learned something. could give countless examples to illustrate this theory. but i'll just add, my next blog must be in french.

like vultures

one must always remember that scavengers start circling their prey even before they are dead. the scent of blood, of fresh blood, is quite good for starters. and so, like a vulture, they circle, high in the air, catching the scent of death to come. so when the wounded has fallen, they can land and calmly feed on the corpses.

(not so) wild guesses

sadly enough, the lottery numbers in jackpot days are impossible to guess. but there are things easy enough to predict. some people are predictable - think i've written this before. i guessed it twice, without much reliable information. now that i have all the required information from the most trustworth source, how hard can it be to predict the outcome?

how to resume a life:

a heart that's full up like a landfill, 
a job that slowly kills you, 
bruises that won't heal. 
you look so tired-unhappy, 
bring down the government, 
they don't, they don't speak for us. 
i'll take a quiet life, 
a handshake of carbon monoxide, 

with no alarms and no surprises, 
no alarms and no surprises, 
no alarms and no surprises, 
silence, silence. 

this is my final fit, 
my final bellyache, 

with no alarms and no surprises, 
no alarms and no surprises, 
no alarms and no surprises please. 

such a pretty house 
and such a pretty garden. 

no alarms and no surprises (get me outta here), 
no alarms and no surprises (get me outta here), 
no alarms and no surprises, please.

radiohead, no surprises (ok computer, 1997, #10)

on loneliness

loneliness is about going to bed and being the only one who doesn't have anyone to talk to after the lights go out. 

suicide note

of all the human actions, suicide is by far the most coward. some might disagree. as every living being, we are given the opportunity of living one life, and one life only; therefore, putting an end to it requires a great deal of courage. pure misconception, of course; to face life every day takes courage, not running away in the most absolute way. but we run out of time. we always run out time. death is thorough and flawless - no one can escape its ruthlessness. to live is to play an uneven game, one that allows no victories - only delusions of victory, short-lived triumphs whose meaning is inevitably erased by the sands of time. as such, suicide remains as the only way to laugh at death. the end is unchangeable - death. but a suicide can chose the battlefield and the weapons for the combat. we can't defeat death. but we can bend it - she will take us, but it will take us in our own terms.

worthless effort

i don't know why do i still try. honestly. it's obvious that it's a futile exercise. time to give up. who said one should never give up of people? bollocks. some people are simply not worth the effort. i might feel kinda sorry for seeing such a friendship falling, but i've run out of patience. one never likes to endure storms, even though the task must be done every now and then; but to endure the storm when one's dragged to it, without much of a choice, now that's something plain stupid. 

heathen

"If it didn't exist [the new year's eve]... we should probably ignore the coming and going of time..." actually we wouldn't, my dear. as far as i know, the new year's eve is a somewhat recent celebration. heathen cultures of old celebrated the solstice of winter and summer, for example - back then, the passing of the seasons was enough for everyone to understand the coming and going of time, as you said. i don't know much about the subject, but it kinda makes sense to me that the new year's eve could only be celebrated after the western calendar was implemented - and as such, it's a moment for celebration as good as any other. 

and, as such, we drink and party as if there would gonna be no tomorrow. sounds fair to me. 

i believe i'd have felt more the fall of 2008 if i'd follow the original plan to stay at home alone with books, cigarrettes and alcohol. it was funny to see the look on everyone's faces at midnight, "is this it?" and they only got better in the morning, the question following the past tense: "was that it?"

yes, that was it. boom boom, fireworks that tried to pretend to be the stars missing under the cloudy sky. they failed, of course. and the surprised face of my companions summed it all up: the new year's eve is absolutely meaningless. nothing changes overnight. it's just an excuse - one as good as any other - to get high and drunk. we could all stop pretending that the day - the night, whatever - is anything special. for me, it was a good opportunity to spend some time with friends, and also to spend some time with myself. on that regard, it was quite cool, really.

so far, i've got no projects or decisions for this freshly-started year. the last one was so bad that i dare not plan anything. i'm tired of being disappointed. i'll just wait and see what it will bring me - and what i can make out of it.