things are coming to an end in the kitchen sink. yes. that is the affectionate term that i have found to relate to this pied-à-terre right smack in the middle of the swiss capital.
i call it a pied-à-terre only because although i spend a lot of time here and it is a rented, not an owned place, i do not consider this home. i am here often, this has been my office for the last few years, and i have rented the place from a very nice art gallery owner for almost eight years. this is the longest that i have ever rented a place. otherwise the family owns plenty of property, and what i call my beach apartment has been in family hands for almost twenty years, we (i.e. they, the family) still own the house where i was born. now you know, i was born at home and i never went to kindergarden. in a way, it explains a lot about me, although it does not explain why i am so poor and struggling to make ends meet.
i was in italy for a few days at the end of last week. one of my long standing fantasies has turned into reality, or at least the reality of last friday fairly closely approximated one of my fantasies. there is a man in my life, i call him a representation of paradise, and last friday my paradise had a few meetings in town - milano - and i had a few hours to spend in said town. you know the scala, and the galleria, the duomo, and all those things, that is milano.
he dropped me off by a metro station and i headed to the center in search of the american bookshop because there was a book that i was looking for. paradise, himself an english speaking gentleman, did warm me that it was unlikely that i would find that book there, but i had to check it out. forget armani, forget prada, i head for the bookshops and the cafés. i did the lunch thing at peck and then wondered around towards the castello sforzesco. indeed, the book, the said book, which i do not feel at liberty to mention here, was not available. just a couple of weeks i had met the author of said book at a conference, and i ended up publicly disagreeing with the fellow. now to my own embarrassment i realize that i do not have a clue of what i was talking about and i ought to read his freaking book, if i am to get into an argument with him. being much too something-or-other to simply order it from amazon, i prefer to either buy it at the bookstore or yes order it online, but from my local bookshop. simply i have not gotten around to it - it reminds me that i am supposed to be packing my other thousand or so books - thus the wild goose chase for the book in milano, a most unlikely place to go book hunting for a book by an american author. this author is well known, however not that well known that his most recent book would be stocked in the american bookshop in milano.
eventually, i had taken enough of the city for one day, and it was time to sit down, that is, reading and making notes. i gravitated towards the galleria, and walked by the hyatt park hotel. i was more in the mood for a chaotic and down to earth drinking hole, but after poking my nose in a few, i did not find that one that i had wanted to find. for want of anything else, i went into the hyatt's bar. it was empty. i ordered a coffee and a mineral water, sent back the complimentary biscuits with a smile and after being reassured that they were home made - at the hyatt - again i smiled and explained that i was allergic to the stuff. got lots of sympathy from a young and handsome italian man, the waiter. there i spent a couple of hours until some american television presenter or something like that came in with two friends and their conversation got much too interesting to allow for any of my own spin. eavesdropping on americans abroad remains one of those perversions of mine. that is not what made my day.
after his meetings we met again at the same metro station, and we quickly decided to go out of the city for our evening. he took me to one of this favorite places on the lago di como, and there we contemplated the sights and exchanged impressions on the events of the day and the past weeks, a conversation that we had already started on our drive out of the city. the usual friday evening thing that two middle aged adults do, an aperitif and the dinner, some conversation, some laughter, a few glasses of wine and grappa. still, the whole day was as close as i have come to a very old fantasy of mine: spending the day doing autonomous activities and coming together in the evening with no expectations. it sounds so absolutely banal, and what made it precious to me was the intent of the day... it was a day without much of a purpose for me other than to just be there, to be with him. to be with him even when i was minding my own exploration of milano. trivial, simple, pleasurable, and marked by a sense of freedom that i do not always taste. it meant not thinking about the kitchen sink, forgetting blogging, ignoring the internet, and yet doing what i like doing: watching people and places, and being with another unromantic soul who loves to just unwind on the lake' shore.
still here.
Tuesday, 21 February 2006
Saturday, 11 February 2006
today
went to bed sometime around 2 this morning. that was after i had returned home before midnight after our stammtisch or old boys club meeting near the university.
after training yesterday i was exhausted and with bloody knees that were hurting. i did not think that my knees were so soft, but the kind of suwari waza that we did yesterday was fast and furious and i ended up sliding on my knees more than what my skin could take. the whole training had a lot of irmi - or get into their face with your center - techniques in response to chudan and jodan tsuki attacks and ... i love it. i love it and did get carried away, in a moment of distraction, i got my elbow on my sensei's throat which is something to avoid in aikido. aikido is not about hurting the other, and if you did not know an elbow on the throat can do rather serious damage.
my bernese friday nights have really evolved into my evenings with the boys during the past years. first aikido, and then geeking physics. come to think of it, aikido is also much of a geek thing to do. aikido is technically demanding and unlike computing it requires long periods of practice without much visible progress until the next learning breakthrough manifests itself. in this respect it has been aikido that has taught me to deal with my impatience.
last night when i returned home it was not just the knees that were hurting, something else inside me was unsettled. i opened up the PowerBook and did the usual thing of checking email, looking at what had happened in the blogosphere by looking into my rss aggregator 's headlines and the statistics of my blogs. about the counter on the blog: i am seriously considering deleting it. it is a distraction for the attention whore that i am, but then it teaches my ego a valuable lesson each time that i look at it and discover that i am not yet famous and that there is just a hand-full of people that either intentionally or unintentionally err onto these pages.
i was unsettled and i wanted to write, what was on my mind besides the present story-in-draft or what i sometimes refer to as "schemata" were the few lines that i had written on what became the previous post. so i sat down, read parts 1 and 2 and tried to give form to those vagrant thoughts. the story is not yet finished and i feel it emerging. i like how this feels. oh yes, my fucking feelings and all!
being saturday and the karate dojo still not yet operational after the floods in august, i have no kata training, and thus i also did not set the alarm, and gave myself a treat of letting the motor run free. i woke past one in the afternoon!
after training yesterday i was exhausted and with bloody knees that were hurting. i did not think that my knees were so soft, but the kind of suwari waza that we did yesterday was fast and furious and i ended up sliding on my knees more than what my skin could take. the whole training had a lot of irmi - or get into their face with your center - techniques in response to chudan and jodan tsuki attacks and ... i love it. i love it and did get carried away, in a moment of distraction, i got my elbow on my sensei's throat which is something to avoid in aikido. aikido is not about hurting the other, and if you did not know an elbow on the throat can do rather serious damage.
my bernese friday nights have really evolved into my evenings with the boys during the past years. first aikido, and then geeking physics. come to think of it, aikido is also much of a geek thing to do. aikido is technically demanding and unlike computing it requires long periods of practice without much visible progress until the next learning breakthrough manifests itself. in this respect it has been aikido that has taught me to deal with my impatience.
last night when i returned home it was not just the knees that were hurting, something else inside me was unsettled. i opened up the PowerBook and did the usual thing of checking email, looking at what had happened in the blogosphere by looking into my rss aggregator 's headlines and the statistics of my blogs. about the counter on the blog: i am seriously considering deleting it. it is a distraction for the attention whore that i am, but then it teaches my ego a valuable lesson each time that i look at it and discover that i am not yet famous and that there is just a hand-full of people that either intentionally or unintentionally err onto these pages.
i was unsettled and i wanted to write, what was on my mind besides the present story-in-draft or what i sometimes refer to as "schemata" were the few lines that i had written on what became the previous post. so i sat down, read parts 1 and 2 and tried to give form to those vagrant thoughts. the story is not yet finished and i feel it emerging. i like how this feels. oh yes, my fucking feelings and all!
being saturday and the karate dojo still not yet operational after the floods in august, i have no kata training, and thus i also did not set the alarm, and gave myself a treat of letting the motor run free. i woke past one in the afternoon!
Technorati Tags: aikido, attention whore, berne, ecto, ego, falling pray, fame, feelings, geek, irimi, karate, stammtisch, stammtisch physik
bent, not curled (part 3)
continued from part 2
i - lower case me - does not have a thing to hide, yet shyness is but a mild approximation of my nature. yes, bent, not curled, but shy? yes shy. meek is what one of my professors used to call it.
you have seen me in public, you have seen me challenge big men with either strong muscles or unruly egos, and you do not want to believe a word of what i say. fine, you do not believe, that is your problem. my problem is another, if it is a problem what i have. shy and very competitive i am. one of those is enough to paralyzer you, both is like fucked-up-big-time-now. i like the kind of insanity that i can create!
last sunday i stumbled on an aspect of my nature that totally startled me: i am so very competitive and impatient that games, especially online games bore the living daylights out of me. at least i can not find any other explanation for this fact. my son has tried on many occasions to explain to me his games, and literally has held my hand while he shows me how the games work. still, i got bored or at least i found no interest in the online games. this fact has also led me to conclude that as far as a geek, i am not a real one. all fallacy! i am a geek and as geeky as they come, but what is true is that my geekiness is not in coding these days. i had my days of high on code, but those are gone long ago. if you visit the definition, like most modern days definitions, they are not black and white and the dictionary will only give you an historical accounting of the meaning of the word. it is a good word for me, it is complex, it is descriptive, it is an abstraction of the imagined. last week i was called both geek and visionary. i know it to be right, and i have one hell of a time just being with it. although i parody myself in claiming limited imagination, deep down i know that i do not lack either imagination or the ability to project and explore that which seems unexplored. i repeat that which seems unexplored.
knowledge is a beast with seven heads, fifty three hearts and a looping conscientiousness. an impossible phrase to define knowledge is only to reflect my own frustration with humankind's inability to either use it or grasp it.
where does this shyness come from? i say that the shyness is the expression of a deep seated shame. shame. shame is the painful emotion arising from the conscientiousness of something dishonouring, ridiculous, or indecorous in one's own conduct or circumstances. all right, that is what the freaking and beloved oxford english dictionary says about it. what does it mean?
you tell me, but to me this makes no sense and it feels true. i have this deep shame for all the mental abilities that i have been graced with. i have wanted to write ever since i could, and i have tried. publishing has frightened me. publishing under pseudonym affords me a level of experimentation in plain sight - it is the very opposite of hiding - that i could not reach otherwise. the bottom line is that every single word here is all a probing into just being me. so far i have discovered that not only am i shy, but i also have no qualms about challenging and questioning ideas only because i do want to understand, i want to grasp it, and i am impatient. playing an online game that renders the visuals for me is much too slow compared to reading a book - or writing a story - and letting my mind render a virtual reality far richer and more brilliant in detail than any glorious high tech digital reality. i want to be there leading the front edge of what i see, i do not want anybody else telling me what i see. i do not understand what drives me to want to create images never before seen with just plain words, i just know that that is exactly what drives me.
i wish that i knew so much more. i think of the man's bent toe and i am reminded that he is pure inspiration, and all of that is inspiration is represented in that bent, not curled toe. from his imperfections i derive the power to unfurl my mind and being and make those dreams of story telling a reality. one bent toe.
when last week i spoke up at a conference and contributed a tiny little bit of my thinking, Cairo Otaibi was not in the room, and i stood there with the experience of being that just one and same person surrendering to that inner self that i have come to know a lot better.
"There are three basic rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately nobody knows what they are."
i - lower case me - does not have a thing to hide, yet shyness is but a mild approximation of my nature. yes, bent, not curled, but shy? yes shy. meek is what one of my professors used to call it.
you have seen me in public, you have seen me challenge big men with either strong muscles or unruly egos, and you do not want to believe a word of what i say. fine, you do not believe, that is your problem. my problem is another, if it is a problem what i have. shy and very competitive i am. one of those is enough to paralyzer you, both is like fucked-up-big-time-now. i like the kind of insanity that i can create!
last sunday i stumbled on an aspect of my nature that totally startled me: i am so very competitive and impatient that games, especially online games bore the living daylights out of me. at least i can not find any other explanation for this fact. my son has tried on many occasions to explain to me his games, and literally has held my hand while he shows me how the games work. still, i got bored or at least i found no interest in the online games. this fact has also led me to conclude that as far as a geek, i am not a real one. all fallacy! i am a geek and as geeky as they come, but what is true is that my geekiness is not in coding these days. i had my days of high on code, but those are gone long ago. if you visit the definition, like most modern days definitions, they are not black and white and the dictionary will only give you an historical accounting of the meaning of the word. it is a good word for me, it is complex, it is descriptive, it is an abstraction of the imagined. last week i was called both geek and visionary. i know it to be right, and i have one hell of a time just being with it. although i parody myself in claiming limited imagination, deep down i know that i do not lack either imagination or the ability to project and explore that which seems unexplored. i repeat that which seems unexplored.
knowledge is a beast with seven heads, fifty three hearts and a looping conscientiousness. an impossible phrase to define knowledge is only to reflect my own frustration with humankind's inability to either use it or grasp it.
where does this shyness come from? i say that the shyness is the expression of a deep seated shame. shame. shame is the painful emotion arising from the conscientiousness of something dishonouring, ridiculous, or indecorous in one's own conduct or circumstances. all right, that is what the freaking and beloved oxford english dictionary says about it. what does it mean?
you tell me, but to me this makes no sense and it feels true. i have this deep shame for all the mental abilities that i have been graced with. i have wanted to write ever since i could, and i have tried. publishing has frightened me. publishing under pseudonym affords me a level of experimentation in plain sight - it is the very opposite of hiding - that i could not reach otherwise. the bottom line is that every single word here is all a probing into just being me. so far i have discovered that not only am i shy, but i also have no qualms about challenging and questioning ideas only because i do want to understand, i want to grasp it, and i am impatient. playing an online game that renders the visuals for me is much too slow compared to reading a book - or writing a story - and letting my mind render a virtual reality far richer and more brilliant in detail than any glorious high tech digital reality. i want to be there leading the front edge of what i see, i do not want anybody else telling me what i see. i do not understand what drives me to want to create images never before seen with just plain words, i just know that that is exactly what drives me.
i wish that i knew so much more. i think of the man's bent toe and i am reminded that he is pure inspiration, and all of that is inspiration is represented in that bent, not curled toe. from his imperfections i derive the power to unfurl my mind and being and make those dreams of story telling a reality. one bent toe.
when last week i spoke up at a conference and contributed a tiny little bit of my thinking, Cairo Otaibi was not in the room, and i stood there with the experience of being that just one and same person surrendering to that inner self that i have come to know a lot better.
"There are three basic rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately nobody knows what they are."
William Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965)
Technorati Tags: authenticity, fear, fluage, geek, integrity, pseudonym, shame
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