42nd parallel south

It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I am shaken to the bottom of my soul.

I got this book from my mom as a present, I cannot remember if it was last Christmas or for my birthday last year. In any case, when I got the book is not important. What it is important is that some of its pages touched me so much that I just had tears in my eyes. 

I have always dreamed since years to go traveling and wondering around in Patagonia. Without a schedule. Without a goal. Just to live the place and feel it. I still don't know why Patagonia. It is just that any time I read something about it, I feel like it is my place. Maybe I am becoming too much of an hermit. I don't know. I don't necessarily think so. But I dream of the solitude of walking around in a place like Patagonia. Of being in a place where nothing can be given for granted. I have to admit that I would be too scared to go there and spend months there alone....but I always hope to find the right company to share this dream with.

In any case, I enjoy travel books. Books about places in the world. This is why I probably like so much B. Bryson's book (together with the fact that he is an amazing writer!). But this book, this specific book I am reading is not only about Patagonia and traveling below the 42nd parallel south of the world. It is about encounters with people who love this place. It is about a hard land, a difficult solitary place where people still live in a simple way, without the pressure that we have in this kind of world instead. I just read a chapter of this book about a solitary 95 years old woman living in this solitary place, in her isolated little house, drinking mate. But she is not alone, she has her dog, her sheep, her garden. I was reading about it, but I could imagine the whole place, the old lady, everything like if I was standing in front of the scenario. And the book tells about the appeal of this land to people with a lot of money who cannot appreciate the wind, the steppe, the nothing and want to use this immense space to build something on it, to change it, to destroy what it has been until now, as it happens for many other once uncontaminated places on earth. And reading this and thinking that Patagonia too will face the advancement and progresses of our civilization and most likely lose all what I ideally love about this place, the isolation, the lack of the globalization pressures, the scattered living things surviving there, the natural environments, made me extremely sad.

I love starbucks and I always enjoy getting an ice soy latte when I am in the USA. But I also love the fact that it is a treat for me, that I cannot have it all the time, because here, in most of the places in Europe, we still have little coffee places, which are one of a kind. I am not against globalization, but it shouldn't be so widespread. I like characteristic, traditional things and there are places in the world that shouldn't be bought just because someone has the money, that shouldn't be destroyed in name of making more money and making a world that looks all the same, no matter where we are. I am definitively for diversity.

Please, let Patagonia be and stay as in my dreams!

so stinky

I may have finally found a deodorant that works. Maybe.
The thing is: I don't want to buy nor to use cosmetic products that contain animal products and are tested on animals. I am strongly STRONGLY against that. I even recently discovered that tooth paste is tested on animals. Is it really that necessary? I think that animal testing is such a cruel thing, especially when it is for cosmetic purposes. So, if I can find a product that has not been tested on animals, I will go for it. The problem with this is that I live in France, not in the USA. And in France, I don't even live in Paris or Bordeaux, where I guess you could find whatever you want. No, I am in the South of France, where things that in the USA you could easily find next door (at least to my experience), here would take you days of exploration just to maybe find only one brand of what you are looking for (therefore, you better like it or give up on your principles).

In any case, I love The Body Shops because one of their philosophies is to be against animal testing. And there is a Body Shop here. So, I got this deodorant there. The name was very promising. The nice smell too. I didn't read the review on it before buying....come on, it is just a deodorant. I even got two of them (very smart of me, I admit!). Basically, as soon as it started to be a bit hotter outside and I started to sweat a little on my way to work, by the time I started my working day, I was nicely stinking more than a skunk....of course, to my deepest embarrassment. I didn't think that it may have something to do with the deodorant. I mean, it smells so nice when you open it. I thought that it may have been because I switched the type of vitamins I am taking. Stopped that for a while and still my armpits were smelling like nothing you would like to be close too. I tried different options with no success.....till the other day, almost by chance, I read the review on this deodorant....apparently I am not the only one to have had the stinky experience.
So, yesterday I have visited a few shops here which have natural and bio-products hoping to find something with written on that the product was not tested on animals. I couldn't find anything. I love the vegan (and not tested on animals) brand yes to carrots ...why couldn't they make deodorants too??? I ended up at the Body Shop again and I got another one (this time before buying anything there I checked the review on the product).....I biked in the sun today and I didn't smell bad.....have I maybe found the one?????

PS. I am reading the Bill Bryson's book Down Under and I love it. But more than that, I am even learning a lot of new (meaning, unknown to me till now) English words.....but I can't find what "dozy" translated to in Italian or what it means.....I even have an American slang dictionary and I couldn't find it in there.....in the book it is written "what a dozy bugger you are". I found the meaning of bugger....but no idea about the meaning of the word dozy.

Au bon roman

I got this book from my mom. I read the theme of the book and it sounded new. It intrigued me.

Even if it quite a thick book, I finished very quickly last night, not being able to put it away. I don't know if it is already available in English or if it will be translate. In any case, if you come across this book, I suggest you to read it. The story is completely new. It is well developed, it is complex, it is well written. The characters are beautiful idealistic people. I got attached to them. I needed to get to the end of the book to know what it would happen to them and to the book store they created.

I have to thank my mom for picking this book out for me!

I also recently read "The handmaid's tail" from Margaret Atwood for the book club that I attend here.

It is the second depressing book I read for the book club :-(

For sure, this book makes you think. But it also made me scared, and feeling in pain while I was reading it. There is this idea of getting through the day in the best possible way, because tomorrow could be better. But for someone who praises freedom as one of the most important values in the world, this story was very, very difficult to digest. I don't want to give away the story, if someone wants to read it, but the idea of a place in which everything would depend on the capacity of giving birth to a healthy child, honestly freaks me out. I think that the power of this book for me is exactly in this contrast: on one side, the book is so well written and developed that I wanted to keep reading and I was kind of glued to it. On the other side, the story was making me depressed and feeling I had to puke.

Me talk pretty one day

France, morning

We changed the time here. It is sad, because it will get dark earlier. As every sunday, I am taking it easy. It is a beautiful day outside. Maybe later I will go to the botanical garden to read a book and check if there is any frog......I love the week end! I can do whatever I want at any time I want without the need of rushing anywhere!!!

Yesterday I was in the mood for book shopping (well, I am almost always in a mood for book shopping....I also ordered two books from Amazon yesterday...), so I went to the English book store and I bought the book from Sedaris "Me talk pretty one day". I was so excited about that book. I heard so much about it and everyone who told me something about the book was suggesting me to read it because it is great.....I don't see what it is funny in this book. I actually found it to be quite sad. I know that I have a weird sense of humor, but this book is not funny at all to me. I only read 3 chapters, so maybe it will get better in the next ones, but for now, it is sad....which is the opposite of what I heard from anyone else who read it...am I that weird???

Chie-chan and I

France, night

I am not sure of what it is the English title of the last book of Banana Yoshimoto (that I love since her book Kitchen). In Italian corresponds to the title of this blog entry.

The book is weird, but I love when I read something and I find one of my thoughts or the way I feel in there. It just makes me feel less lonely, like I am not the first to think that.

Of course, the original book is written in Japanese and I am reading it in Italian, so what I will write below may not be the perfect translation of a paragraph of the book.

"I thought that maybe, if I remained single [but it may also be alone; in Italian we use the same word and in this context they both fit well] for so long, it was because I hated the idea of becoming like this, because I feared to need someone so much to not be able to live if that person would have died............."

I feel and I felt in this way often. Being afraid of needing someone so much to not be able to even think of how my life could be without this person. I don't allow too many people to become an important part of my life, but the one they do or they did, they just remain part of my life, no matter how often we talk or we see each other or which way our lives have taken.