The Illy Funpack

I need an addiction. Something along the lines of an obsession with Unreal Tournament. Or an all-consuming job, like journalism or advertising. Or Marxism. Or Catholicism.
You see, the trouble with being Agnostic and not living in a structured environment (at least for the moment) is that one has a lot of time to lie in bed with the blinds drawn and think. And that is guaranteed to not bring one inner peace and animal happiness. If, on the other hand, I did have an addiction, I would not have time or intellectual resources to think. My addiction would impose its own structures and rhythms, and organize my life so I wouldn't have to. As a consequence, I would be animal happy. Fuck the dissatisfied Socrates, bring in the satisfied pig!
In all honesty now, I am happy. Not Happy, for that is both a fallacy and an unrealistic ambition (I'm not a Buddhist priest). But I am not depressive, except for a few inevitable lapses every year during which I let my dishes grow fungi in the kitchen and I run out of clean clothes. I am not at peace with the here and now, but if I were I wouldn't be writing this now. I tend to spend more than I earn, but my rent is not late and my panties do not have holes (although sometimes you'd like them to, wouldn't you?). I like myself a lot. Addy likes me a lot. Things are good.
At times, though, like this evening, my body's chemicals race and convince me that I have less faith in the world than I normally do. And I can't really blame my body: releasing a cute little egg into a squeaky clean and semen-free uterus, practically tossing a cute little egg out the window, must be pretty upsetting.

Hee. I am sick and slow: I have just managed to come across as a) cheap and b) sarcastic, to perfectly innocent citizens, within the space of 2 minutes.
On the ground floor of my parents' building, where I am at right now, there is a nice a pizzeria that delivers. Hungry, I descended from the 9th floor and ordered a pizza. When the guy that took my order asked if I would pay on the spot or upon delivery, I said I'd pay on the spot. When he asked "are you sure?", I said "yes". It was only as I was leaving the pizzeria that I realized that my paying on the spot equalled my unwillingness to tip the delivery guy. Sorry, dude.
Then, as I was entering the building, a neighbor was getting out of the elevator. Being slow and used to people holding doors for each other, I said "thank you" exactly as the elevator door was slamming. Darn.
:)

Is there a particular name for a drug allergy whose symptom is an intensely burning and itching sensation on a two-inch patch of skin on one's left bum cheek? Because I have it. To cotrimoxazolum (sulfamethoxazolum +trimethoprim), a mild antibiotic.

Have I mentioned that I love Mario Vargas Llosa? Well I do.
He is a writer after my own taste: quirky, funny and charming, with an aura of timelessness about his work.
I would marry him, too, except that he seems to prefer the older women of his own family.

The reason I love Manu Chao is that he anihilates the very notion that life can be anything other than scrumptious ("there's existentialism, and there's Cachao", a friend would say; well, it applies perfectly to Manu Chao. even their names sound alike!). The extensive use of pot notwithstanding, his music is the essence of vitality and energy.
He *is* thoughtful, vulnerable, in love, melancholy, tender, rootless and, um, concerned about the fate of the planet, but, unlike many others of similar denominations, he has humor. Tons of it. Which allows him the relaxation necessary to put things into perspective.
He genuinely adores music ("si no fuera la musica, no nos salva ni Tarzan"), which shows and makes a huge difference. If I were an authoritarian music police force, which I do not wish to be, but think about sometimes, I would make that a sine qua non condition of activity in the music business.
He is from everywhere in Latin and Central America and France. He sings in five languages, mostly about immigrants ("I wanna go to San Diego, I wanna go y no puedo"), pot, the state of the Earth and love -- and what is more particular, yet universal to our world than these?
He also seems to have the same understanding of the radio as a beacon in the storm and a candle in the window of the prairie home of the soul's widowed mother.
But most importantly, he finds awesome beauty in everything that he writes about. For Manu Chao, l'enchantement du monde (to paraphrase a prominent French thinker whose name I always forget ... ah yes, Marcel Gauchet) is a reality.
If he were cuter and I knew Spanish, I would marry Manu Chao!

I am sick. Not as sick as Addy (who pretty much signalled his presence at the end of the line by coughing over the past couple days), but sick nonetheless. Head hurts monstrously, eyes want to close and throat feels paved with shards of glass. Tis not good.
Funny medical observation. I got the results of my vaginal secretion test yesterday. The report sheet cutely included lactobacilli in the "germs" category; I, of course, freaked out and did a search for lactobacilli, only to find that they are the *good* bacteria that reside in the vagina and ward off bad bacteria. Heh. But I am proud: my pussy is extremely clean.
One more sociological observation (excuse me while I sneeze... ok). I am in the computer room of the Central University Library, which only allows access based on the presentation of a library card. At a computer opposite mine sat two young men and did internet things. A few minutes after they had sat down, the administrator of the computer room came and asked them to show their liberary cards. They said they didn't have any. The administrator asked them how they had entered the library. They said they had just walked in. Of course, the question that needs to be asked is "what the hell was the security guy doing"? But aside from this, I want to point to the following: when asked -- politely -- to leave, the two young men refused. They said they needed the computer. The administrator explained they could not use a computer unless they had a library card. "Oh, don't worry about that, we'll pay you!" they said. And I thought "starving apes finding a fruit in the jungle". That's what it is. These people *are* animals, pure and simple. They live through and for their senses only. They cannot be reasoned with -- except with force. Eventually, the two young men vacated the premises at the intervention of the security officer. They wouldn't have otherwise.

I spent a couple of hours today watching the Romanian National Gymnastics Championships on television. I love watching sports!
According to an old family tale, I very nearly missed my chance to become a gymnast. My mother and I were on the train, going to the seaside; I must have been 5 or 6. A gymnastics coach, who happened to have a seat next to ours, looked at me, examined my wrists and ankles and pronounced me excellent professional gymnastics material. My mum, however, politely declined his offer to whisk me away from home and commit me to the room and board of a sports school. I think I would have liked being a gymnast, though -- I would have enjoyed the competition. When I was in (non-college) school, the academic contests (called "olympiads"; imagine the Spelling Bee adapted to every subject) were always what I was looking forward to most. I loved waking up early on weekends to go to a strange school and take a challenging test, I loved the sense of trepidation before the tests were brought in, the anticipation before the results were announced... That's probably what I miss most about my first 12 years of school.