the girls we followed home*

i remember all the girls i've followed home. and i also remember - perhaps even more clearly - the girls that have never followed me home. those who haven't tried to stop me when i was leaving. those who didn't closed the door before i crossed it never to return. those who didn't hold my hand and say i'm sorry when something as simple as that would have mended most wounds. those who never dared to follow me in the dark streets. i remember each of those moments, as i look back now - just as i looked back then, alone in the street at night, hoping for her to follow me and tell me how much i mattered. always in vain. they have never been worth it.

i would like to believe that one day, there might be someone who wouldn't simply let me leave. but i'd like to believe even more that i would never again follow any girl home. i am, however, unable to believe in that; first, because all my pessimism and disillusionment hides a little hope that i can't get rid of (and would i want to?); and because i know that, when the moment arrives, i'll follow her home. whoever she might be.

* title shamelessly stolen from here. i'm sorry, but i couldn't resist: it triggered way too many thoughts.

and before someone asks,

no, i've not died, and the previous post is pretty meaningless. let's say that world of warcraft has kept me busy during the last days - as did my job, of course. i'm a lazy bum, and that's undeniable. anyway. should probably write something about the oscars, but there's nothing much for me to write about it. well, there's something, and i can sum it all up in four topics:

1) sean penn was rewarded by an excellent performance in milk;

2) the fact that waltz with bashir didn't won was quite disappointing;

3) hugh jackman is way better than jon stewart when it comes to be leading the ceremony. no kiding. jackman was brilliant, and i don't even like musicals;

4) have no idea if the awards were fair or unfair, since i've seen only two of the nominated movies, both mentioned in the above topics.

and that's all. next week watchmen will come up, and concerning movies that's all that matters now.

the irony of death

this is going to sound morbid, i know, but i thought about it once, and found it odd: if i were to die now, most of the people that really matter to me wouldn't know it. there was no one to tell them that. the circles i belong to are pretty much isolated from each other, with few common people. my old inner circle would know it, of course, and through them, some random people might find out - if they remember to tell them, that is. but i believe that three of my best friends would not know it. one of them might never even know why on earth i would have vanished from the face of the earth. the funny thing is: my foreign friends would all know it, from spain to finland; but none of my ex-girlfriends would know it. not in time, anyway. how ironic.

the spoils of war

alternatively, it might happen that i will give everything i have into that battle and win it, only to see someone else picking up the spoils. unfair? perhaps. life is seldom fair though. i prefer it that way, to be honest - i would leave knowing that i would have done the right thing. i would have held my ground, and yours too. again. until the battle was over.

i will be happy if things go that way, really. once it is over, i'll get my stuff and leave. other battles must be fought elsewhere.

the battle itself

sometimes we lose and we don't care, because what matters is the battle itself, and not its outcome. if this was to be your last battle, i'd be the one standing on your side, sword drawn, shield up, waiting for the darkness to come. even knowing that we could not win, and that i'd live to see it all fall. i, and no one else. 

the ladder theory

this is worth reading exaustively: the ladder theory (discovered through the blog estado sentido).

i can already hear what some of my girl friends are going to say... or even call me. but hey, the theory surely has sove valid points. like,

the best way to never score with a woman is to show too much interest in her.

or

(...) we know that if someone improves themselves drastically they will move on to better people unless they feel a very acute sense of loyalty (fucking bingo, i might add).

that's why i shall never fuck any of my girl friends, even though i'd like to because most of them are hot as hell. also because i'm not really a handsome guy (*cough* euphemism *cough*), but that's another story. 

merciful lies

i wonder if i keep lying not to hurt her, or to whack her completely with the truth. i know that sometimes to lie might be an act of sheer mercy. and she's so convinced of her truth that it would break her in two if i was to be completely honest with her. and i could do it, i could do it easily enough, and she would have no way to strike back because i would make it all so obvious. meh. i'll go on lying. it's not nice. it might not be the right thing to do. but if she wants to believe in illusions, who the hell am i to deny her that?

no, but for you, sweetheart, i can be called whatever you like.

and i'm wondering, why on earth have i never arranged a blind date? take this girl, for example: she came over as she saw me and asked with a strong, foreign accent chamas-te marco?* (in english, is your name 'marco'? (thankfully not, i hate the name.) out of the blue, just like that. she couldn't really be described as "cute", but for all i know she could well be the most interesting girl. now imagine how thrilling it might be. a blind date. going out with someone we never saw before, not even in pictures (despite the internet and the social networking). an overdose of expectations, i guess. should try to pull out a stunt like that one of these days, just for the hell of it. however, i do have a feeling that it would definitely be like pushing the odds way too much. 

*marco shown up shortly after. lucky bastard. 

life makes it hard to pull the plug sometimes

not only hard, but impossible sometimes. even if i had done it before, i would have to connect myself back now. some things are unavoidable. can't pull back right now. as a matter of fact, i don't want to. might as well have time for me later.

in the meanwhile - and because there are several plugs to pull, and while some cannot be plugged, others must - i've learned how to kill my own expectations on the side that does not depend of me. classic: me and my big mouth. the funny thing is, that is studied and thorougly documented, if not in scientific essays, at least in those monthly women magazines that we read at least when we wait for our medical appointment in those uncomfortable chairs that every waiting room has. there are subjects that cannot, in any circumstances, come up. period. they are mood killers. you trigger them and bang bang, you might as well pack up your stuff and go home because it's then pointless to stay and wait for something. i should have known, but somehow it just came out, and it reached the point of no return so fast that i didn't even have time to think about it. perhaps it was meant to happen, and what now seems wrong to me was right after all. no matter: right or wrong, it was plain stupid. learn, john, learn. so you won't fall into that again if you hit the jackpot when pushing the odds.

valentine's day

radiohead, i might be wrong (amnesiac, 2001, #5)

nothing else to add. have a nice day. 

fix yourself

before taking any more reckless and stupid steps, mate, you should stop and think. and perhaps you could finally understand that the problem lies within you. you can trash around as much as you like, and you won't fix a damn thing. you have to fix yourself. and consider yourself lucky, you bastard: it's not too late for you yet.

heh. if it was me, i would have kick the bucked long ago.

innocence?

i believe it might be innocent, without any underlying intentions. everyone disagrees: there is a catch there, something written between the lines. probably. but since i don't know, i might believe that it is exactly what i was told it was, even though i won't be surprised if there's more to it. what shall i do then? i don't know. i guess it depends. it always depends, doesn't it?

untitled ('cause i can't think of anything else)

it's no secret for anyone who reads this blog now and then that my favourite music bands are radiohead and muse. okay, i love a good metal mosh pit (waiting for july the nineth....), and find the seventies/eighties rather appealing. but muse and radiohead are definitely my favourite bands: muse being the best live band i'v ever seen in my life and radiohead... well, they are beyond comparison when it comes to writing and making songs.

and there is a reason for that. of course, i'm older now, so i actually know how to listen to other kinds of music. favourite bands of the past included oasis, linkin park, system of a down and smashing pumpkins. not by this order, mind you. and i still like all of them, even though none has made its way to my mp3 player so far. these are special. the first radiohead song i've heard was creep, of course (from their first album, pablo honey). and of course i loved the song, it was a personal favourite for years and years. i was a teenager by the end of the nineties - you know, that somewhat melancholic and depressive age - and songs like creep and karma police simply felt so right. then i got to listen to dollars and cents (which i hated at first), i might be wrong (same; only today i've found out how amazing that song truly is), knives out (which is my favourite since the very moment i've heard it on the radio, even though only in july i've found out the song's title). i've fucked while listening to no surprises, which as weird (or depressive) as it might sound, has changed both my musical and my sexual lives. but all i could listen from them was the scattered songs i had in my computer. until july, that is, when a co-worker gave me the entire radiohead discography for me to rip and copy. hail to the thief! - literally. will make up for that one day and buy all their albums and eps and merchandising, but right now i want to enjoy. and no i can explain why i like them so much, more each day: i listen to all their albums and even though my knowledge about music is quite limited, even i can notice the evolution. pablo honey was a very good album for a start. the bends was better. ok computer was better. and so on, and so on, until in rainbows, which - musically speaking - it better than any other, even though my favourite is still amnesiac. 

you can tell the same about muse if you listen to their albums carefully, from showbiz to black holes and revelations. there is a clear evolution there. but my relationship, so to speak, with muse is different. i saw them live in 2004 in a music festival (i was there to see linkin park, mind you), and if i remember correctly, i've surrendered myself as soon as they started the gig by playing apocalypse please. and had a sort of orgasm - musically speaking - with time is running out and butterflies and hurricanes. now that was impressive - i believe half the linkin park fans at the gig - if not more - found muse infinitely better. back then i only knew two songs, but it was a matter of time until i got to know them all. in the meanwhile, i have seen them live two more times. always amazing. i don't think those guys could make a bad gig, even if they tried. 

well. let's not challenge them, all right?

another thing i find funny about muse and their live performances is, it seems that whenever they are making an album, they write a song especially to start the gigs, and another to finish them. showbiz had uno and showbiz; origin of symmetry had newborn and plug in baby; absolution had apocalypse please and stockholme syndrome; and finally, black holes and revelations has take a bow and knights of cydonia (they inverted this order in their latest gigs, and it worked out pretty well).

unfortunately, i have not seen radiohead yet. the last time they came to portugal i wasn't still living in lisbon, i believe; thus i'm still waiting. anyway, i keep listening to them and everyday i find out something new: some brilliant music that i had not paid attention to before, some detail that i had missed, some lyrics that reall touch me. everyday. really, the happiest moments my life delivers nowadays are the two daily hours i spend in public transportations listening to thom yorke. and matthew bellamy. god bless them both. 

the weakest link

it's sad to see the powerless being defeated just because they are the weakest link, and their defeat is the easiest outcome. in a struggle between one weak and one strong, seldom can the weak win on its own. the solution might be an alliance - with one stronger, or with many weak ones, until their combined might is enough to overpower the strong (a revolution, for example). the problem is, nowadays it's also hard to find enough weak ones willing to gamble the little they have for an apparently unlikely victory.

this is no secret. a crowd, due to its chaotic nature, can be controlled. if it is organized somehow, it can be defeated by merely removing its leaders.

about you

what i like about you - about having you as a friend - is the fact that we can stay so many time without seeing each other, even talking, and everything remains the same. six years have passed (roughly). you still apologize like mad when i give you a buzz after one month without knowing nothing from you. i still tell you that it doesn't matter (and i mean it). i guess this will happen until the end of both our lives, but that's what friendship is all about, i suppose. see, we get together again and everything comes back in a moment. i wish i had more friends like you. or perhaps i have (i might well have), but i'm too focused on avoiding everyone to notice it.

cooldown (II)

i just hope that all this shit i've put myself through (really, what was i thinking?) has not reset my cooldown. yours is more that over, i know. but mine wasn't (isn't), and to return to the starting point would really be a pain in the ass.

like the movies

you might be right, of course, but i believe you are mistaking the real reality and the reality created by my imagination - and that was the one we were talking about. of course, all that story-that-wasn't-quite-a-story-at-least-yet is cute. i know that. seems taken from one of those hollywood movies. we've seen it before, haven't we? if this was like one of those movies, it would be simple: me and her, we'd meet. probably she'd have someone, so she couldn't really fall for me (even though she was falling already). she'd leave the bastard, eventually, and i would give her the cold shoulder for some reason, but in the end, oh, in the end there would be redemption, an apology to bring out the tears, and we'd be happy forever after. i wished.

your alternative ending is more funny though: we'd not meet again until the last days, when we'd see each other while crossing the street. i'd stop to look at her, to muster the courage to tell her something smart, and would be hit by a car. she'd come in a rush to tell me that she had always loved me as i would die. this seems more morbid written than spoken, mind you. alternatively, i could as well recover and again, we'd be happy forever after.

still, life is not like the movies, no matter how hard the movies try to be like reality. neither of these endings is acceptable (and if one of them is, it will be the second, as lucky as i am...). we will simply not see each other again, just to make everything easier. and i shall never know whether i missed a great opportunity or not.

fuss

mate, you're making a fuss over nothing (a storm into a glass of water, as we say around here). and needlessly, i might add.

how to disappear completely

you won't even notice that i'll be gone. next time you look, i've vanished into the shadows already.

snuff out (II)

we were already inside the glass. only, we weren't aware of it. we could still see what was going on outside, and our senses were so numb that touching the glass - and our bodies - almost felt like touching reality itself. but there was no way out. or in, for that matter: we were locked inside. and eventually the fire burning within consumed all the oxygen inside the glass, and then consumed itself with a burst. that burst. now it's out, never to be lit again. the glass has been removed, but there is no more ignition to spark it back to life. there is no more wick to burn. there is no more wax to melt. it's all over.

and i can breathe again, at last.

snuff out (I)

the red wax rose, picture by rich johnson, taken from here.

cold hearted

if there is one thing i do believe is that no one is better or worse than anyone. and what i saw there was a sheer display of superiority, a rational attempt of stepping on someone. shame on you, my friend. shame on you. i thought you wiser than that. what's the point of unloading your arsenal against someone who is - intelectually speaking - no match for you? you're not better than her. you might be more intelligent, more educated, more brilliant - and you are - but that doesn't make you a better person. in that moment, it didn't make you a better person. on the contrary. all that you've shown was the little hyde within you - a cold hearted and ruthless abomination.

Longe de Mim

a movie made in my homeland. among the cast, teachers of my secondary school and other people i know. photography and original soundtrack by rodrigo lopo, the genius behind the project atlanthea. information taken from here; more information here and here.

questions, questions (II)

ask the right questions. i never ask the right questions. i was reading my moleskine today. found a lot of notes that have never been written here. found one that said something like this: my stronghold is not that strong after all. i've just found a breach on its foundations. it's a small one, but if it is discovered, it will be so easy to reduce it all to ruins and ashes. i don't think it was discovered, but it was accidentally exploited. and i was the one who allowed it, just by asking the wrong question.

on insistence

some people don't get it. they waste no time, no fucking little time, looking at themselves in a bloody mirror. thinking about their atitudes, and the reactions of everyone else. if you were to spend one minute doing it, you would realize how that bloody insistence pisses me off. how it gets annoying and intrusive. especially because it's not my business, but yours; therefore, i can't see why i have to be the one bothering myself with it. i hate to be rough to my friends, i hate lying to them, but sometimes i'm given no choice. and sometimes, some of them deserve it.

imported (II): of love and stars

taken from aurea mediocritas (a great blog i've discovered recently). can't resist: the picture below is too good not to be shared.

imported (I): inflammatory essays

taken from abrupto. worth reading more.

jenny holzer, inflammatory essays, 1979-82

three and half hours of hell, now exhumed.

you know what i'm talking about: when we have a long trip to do by bus, train or plane, the only decent alternative to a good company is... no company at all. a good book or a good music player are better to make us lose the track of time. however, we are not always that lucky - and sometimes, we are cornered by a bad company. it happened to me in that god damned sunday afternoon, when i was by the train station to catch the train that would take back from my little village to lisbon. i had a grand plan: spending those three and a half hours reading a nice book, but that plan was thorougly whacked by m..

and before the story goes on, allow me to digress a little for m.'s sake, for he must be introduced to you. m. is an unique character of my village - which itself is a wretched nest of "unique characters". m. was one of my classmates during the primary school years, and he remained as a classmate until the seventh grade (secondary school). then he decided to reapply himself for that year, while i naturally moved forward. we had a friendly relationship when we were kids, as i had with all the village's kids - so we played hide-and-seek, we stole fruit from the neighbours' yards, and stuff like that. we have never been buddies, but we've never waged war between ourselves either. of course, puberty changes a lot of things, and the teenage years are bound to create chaos. anyway. the best way to introduce you m. is by showing you how me and him were (and are) fighting the war of life in opposite sides. it happened when i was sixteen. i was in the local pub with m. and c. (c. is definitely the greatest asshole born in that village in the last 25 years), and eventually the conversation moved to a peculiar subject: girls. of course, i shut myself up at that point - i don't discuss my love affairs in public, and never ever talk about them with guys. mind you, this rule applies to me and to me alone - never to them. and then it all became rather interesting, when m. (who was seventeen) and c. (who was fifteen) started a frantic debate over their (imaginary) sexual feats. they chewed this for a while, until all of a sudden they remembered i was still there. and c. asked me the following from point-blank range:

by the way, john, you fucked s. already, didn't you? (s. was my girlfriend then, we were together for some months)

i was caught off guard and thought about a reply, but m. - my dear m. - gave me no time to fire back, by answering for me:

what a stupid question, c., of course he fucked her already! and they resumed the debate. i remained silent.

and now we resume the train trip i would do years after. after this not-so-brief introduction of m., is easy for you to understand that the idea of spending three hours in a smoke-free train with him was not exactly... thrilling. all right, we were no sixteen anymore, but still. you know how it is: we meet someone we know - even if remotely - at a train station and unless we're going to catch different trains, there is no escape. m.'s company would be inevitable. sigh. se sat near each other and started chewing the fat about our village, talking about the weather and stuff like that. for then minutes. then i reached my bagpack and took my book out, opened it and tried to make my intentions clear: i want to read, so shut the fuck up. i have a problem though: i'm a polite person. and a polite person like myself is subtle, and not openly rude. the thing is, idiots and subtlety simply do not match. and m., as a good idiot, didn't even allow me to reach the end the first paragraph, interrupting my moment with this glorious question:

hey, john, what about babes?

of course, after this point that first paragraph remained unread. for his question was not driven by curiosity about my emotional life: he was just breaking the ice to brag about himself, and for the next three hours i had to endure the description of his sexual conquests. ora rather, of his sexual bullshit (always subtle, hum?). indian girls, he said, are very good when it comes to the bed department. he tells me the story of that indian who has given him a blowjob (in dreams). then the chinese. crazy girls, the chinese, they do everything, he assures. but the black girls, he says, the black girls are pure fire. i sighed loudly: only one hour has passed. time to strike back: but m., i really thought you had a girlfriend. well, of course. of course he does. she lives far away though. i have no idea how they met. i don't think he does either. but she's his girlfriend, all right. of course she is. and he fucks her, oh yes he fucks her. when they get to see each other, that is. one and a half hour gone. back to the glories of old. murphy was right: five minutes can last one mine or one hour, depending of which side of the toilet's door you are. and of the company you have to endure for three long hours.

have not spoken with m. for quite some time, by the way. have met him in the village some months ago, but we just said hello to each other. i don't know if his far-away girlfriend is still with him. as i don't know if he keeps is astonishing record of indian, african and chinese girls. i just hope i find him on a train somewhere to find out.

originally written and published in my other blog, now translated.

hail to the king (the sky is falling in)

i leave the subway and the gray skies above hail me. literally. i started my morning at the sound of moonspell, and was welcomed outside by chunks of falling ice. perfect.

questions, questions (I)

who are you, after all? so many questions. so little answers. would like to ask them all to you. or rather, i'd like you to answer to each one of them without me asking. i would like you to tell me what was your favourite colour just because you were seeing in on that perfect rainbow drawn in the cloudy sky. your favourite song because it was aired on the radio in that moment, and you were suddenly quiet to listen to it (it gets me every time, you'd say, "no matter how many times i hear it"). your favourite movie, because something got that particular image back into your mind. your wildest dream, for no reason. your life's dream, for the sake of it. your impossible dream, because sometimes the impossible becomes possible, as long as we want it. 

this one is filtered, mind you.

(...) anyway, what are my chances in this story? if we can call this a story, that is. a story must have a beginning, an ending, and something in between, as dry as it might eventually be (not all stories are interesting, of course). and so far this... thing as nothing than a prologue, a lousy one of my own writing. i cannot turn it into a proper story. perhaps even she can't do it. 

pushing the odds

"i'm not chasing her", he told me. "i'm just pushing the odds a little." i laughed. keep pushing the odds, mate, and they'll send you into a police car where you'll hear "you're under arrest by harrassment. you have the right to remain silent, and evenrything you say might be used against you in court". good luck, anyway.

a five-minute countdown

missed the shot of a lifetime for five minutes. five minutes! so many things can be done in five minutes. grand things. five minutes can save a life. i prefer to spend them wasting mine. fair enough.

the aftershocks

if it had been a storm - a hurricane, for example - we could expect a quiet moment after everything came crashing down. but see, it was more like an earthquake. it came from within the earth. it consumed itself in a moment, and destroyed everything on its wake. and now it's time for the aftershocks, a restless time when we breathe with fear and when the only thing we can do is to mend some minor wounds and to find a shelter strong enough for us to carry on. and there we are now. there we are.

monday morning

and i'm already pissed. it's easy to piss me off if you push the right buttons, and some people seem to be practicing a lot lately. it's going to be a long week, it seems.