A poetry- Zucchero Chocabeck

My father came to visit me after my surgery.
Unexpectedly, I had a very good time talking to him. I can't allow myself to believe that people may change and that he may have started to care about me. The disappointment if this wouldn't be the case would hurt me too much. I have learned something about him in my life till now. But I have to admit that I was happy to have him here, that he was nice to me, and that he behaved like a "normal" caring father I guess should behave. So, it was nice.

Yesterday, I went out in the car with him and he was playing the new CD of Zucchero, an Italian singer that I really like. I read that this last album of Zucchero was really good and different in comparison to the previous ones. I read that it was a very intimate album.

At the first track of the album, I got goose bumps on my arms. The music was so melodic and the song so intense, that I felt like I was reading a wonderful poetry, and even more. My father this morning, before to leave to come back to Italy, left me the CD, so that I could listen to it all. I am listening to it now. I don't like all the songs in the same way (e.g., I am not crazy about "E' un peccato morir", even if it is more Zucchero old style), but I suggest the CD anyway or at least to get some of the songs, because they are marvelous. I am amazed that Zucchero is not better known outside Italy. He is one the contemporary Italian singers that I like most. Of this album, "Oltre le rive" touches me to the core.

Another important thing. I saw on the CD that Zucchero supports the Associazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla, another good reason to get this CD: enjoy the good music and also do something good for others (in this case people with sclerosis).

Let me know if you like Chocabeck too.

Dancing routine

France, morning

I love the week end. I especially love it because I can indulge in doing absolutely only what I feel like according to my own time.
This includes, almost every saturday and sunday, a bit of dancing/jumping around. I am 100% sure that the old guy who lives in front of me finds this habit very amusing, considering that from his windows he can easily watch into my apartment and that I am jumping around looking totally crazy and shaking my butt as much as I can. I am not sure that it works well as a workout, but for sure it makes my heart going like crazy and it makes my mood, whatever it is, improving a lot.

Lately my jumping/dancing play list includes:

- B. Spears- womanizer 3:44 minutes
- Madonna- celebration 3:35 minutes
- Ke$ha- Tik Tok 3:20 minutes
- Shakira- La Tortura 3:12 minutes
- Dr. Dre & Snoop- still D. R. E. 4:35 minutes
- Editors- Papillon 5:24 minutes

after that shower and I am ready to go out and face the world! Try it, there are no rules, just move and shake well. If you know any other good tune that would work well, let me know!

Cheer up mood

Italy, evening

When I am not in my best mood there are two things that work perfectly to cheer me up. One is "doing a bit of boarding", which means standing trying to keep the balance on a wood board, like you would do if you were surfing. This is so challenging that makes me forgetting for a minute about my worries or anything that made me sad.

The other thing of course, as I wrote it hundred of times probably (if not more), is dancing like crazy. What I am doing is not actually a real dance, it is more of a mixture of jumping around with the music pumping in my hears like crazy (no worries for the neighbors, I normally use my IPod, maybe worry for my hears...) with here and there some dance moves. I dance so fast and so much in a crazy way, that again, I have no time to think.....

I suggest one of these two therapies to anyone who is a bit down.

And even if I don't like Britney Spears, Womanizer is great for shaking my butt like crazy....

slowing down

France, afternoon

I don't think I got the job in Germany.

I am a workaholic lately. I am consuming myself working all the time, till my eyes are burning, till I don't even have the smallest energy left to think. I have these phases sometimes, when I don't want to deal with things that are not going the way I want or when thinking would only make me worried.

Since the beginning of August, I already wrote two diaries...if I would use better my imagination and my need and desire of writing, I could do something a bit more productive than just writing diaries. But I guess the good thing about writing diaries is that they are just for me. I write for myself. Like a therapy. And I have to say that it works.

I have been feeling very lonely lately. But I am also avoiding to see people or do random things with someone else. I am trying to do only the things I really want to do and if I have to do them alone, it is fine. But, I am feeling lonely and I guess I need it now. It is not necessarily pleasant. But it is necessary, I feel. I am living a bit in a limbo lately. And it is ok. Not good, not bad, just ok. Just how it should be now, probably.

Do you ever have this feeling of being suspended? of walking in the air? of being out of time and space? This is how I feel lately. Of course, conciliating this with a working life that requires to show up at a certain precise time for a meeting, it is not always easy. But fortunately in my work I am pretty much my own boss.

Week ends are anyway mine! They are just mine. My time, my space, my needs. It is all about me and fortunately, it can be, since I have none else next to me to have to take into account. So, today I just walked around, with my head totally up in the air. I sat for a juice at the English book store and wrote a bit. I finished a book and enjoyed it and took the time to let the story sinking in me. I wrote a bit more. I ate of course, a couple of times already. I let my thoughts go. I let myself feeling down and sad and hurt, without needing to push these feelings away, because I have to smile, because I have to interact. And I found a melancholic music that goes with my current mood. I wanted to download the album, but first, I wanted to listen to it a couple of times. And here I am. I think I like it. Not danceable, very melancholic. To listen to it, I guess.

optimism

France, evening

I had lunch at 4.30 pm today (I guess my internal clock got confused due to the jet-lag) at the same place than yesterday with a chicken sandwich (a very good one). While eating I was reading a magazine and there was an interesting article about being optimist.

First, doing the relative test I found out that I am not as negative as I thought (meaning that probably out there, there are people who are even more negative and pessimistic than me...wow, poor them)...

Second, beside the things that I already know, such as that stress, depression, negativity decrease the capacity of your immune system to fight infections and diseases and so people who think negative have also higher tendency to get sick more often and die earlier (poor them/us twice, not only you live your life in a negative way, but you also have to read that probably you will die earlier than if you live your life in a more optimist way...suffer twice....), it was also written that depress/negative people attract more depress/negative people around them and that 50% of your being depress/negative depends on your parents (so it is inherited) and on the environment were you grow up. Basically, what it happens is that growing in an environment with people who always or often anyway think that tomorrow will not better than today and things will not be ok, transmits fear of the future and a general negative view of what it will happen tomorrow.

The positive point of the article was that we can learn to be more optimist. Now, I actually would like to see an experiment on seriously depressed people to see how willing they are to learn to be optimist if they don't believe in optimism in the first place. So, maybe we can learn or re-learn to be optimist if we are not really at the bottom of negativity and depression, otherwise I think it would be very hard.
In any way, apparently the first trick to became more optimist is to think about enjoying what we have now instead of projecting our expectations and desire in the future (I am a disaster in this, I actually live much more for the future than in the present). So "carpe diem". Which doesn't mean to not build things for the future, but to enjoy the present while planning the future.
Second trick is to build up a confidence than in one way or the other everything will be ok. And this is easier to say or to write than to do. I challenge any negative thinker to get to think from the hole of his negativity that "hey, everything will be ok, so don't be silly, stop worrying"...it doesn't work that well with me at least. When I am in my very negative mood, that's all what I see and I am concern about (mmmm I guess my thinking in a rather pessimistic way is already obvious from this post....).
Third trick watch funny movies that make you laugh, spend time with funny people, do things that you use to like.

Because I think I am mastering more and more the art of pessimism and negativity (but only for myself, I am really positive about other's people life and I always manage to cheer them up), I decided that every time I think of something in a negative way, I should try to find also a positive way to look at it and I should start to dance again in my apartment, since that normally cheers me up quickly.
This evening for example, I danced on some song of the last album of Madonna. And it worked! Let's see how it goes my learning process to the way of optimism....

a bit of truth in music

France, lunch time

I was just listening to this song. I love the words of this song....so cool! sorry, it is in Italian....If I am not wrong, some of the songs of the movie Gomorra (which I haven't seen) were from Frankie Hi NRG. The words of his songs are great!

Let me get what I want

France, lunch time

The lyrics of a song of the Smiths I like and that fits well with my mood now...I have been to a concert of Morrissey. I went there with Scott, because he is a big fan of him. I went there just to keep Scott company and instead I loved the concert and I loved the songs! so good. I would love to see another concert soon. I just saw that he will play in France in two places. I wish I could go to the concert with Scott again.


Good times for a change
See, the luck I've had
Can make a good man
Turn bad

So please please please
Let me, let me, let me
Let me get what I want
This time

Haven't had a dream in a long time
See, the life I've had
Can make a good man bad

So for once in my life
Let me get what I want
Lord knows, it would be the first time
Lord knows, it would be the first time

women and cats

France, morning almost lunch time

This morning while walking to get a baguette, I got to think about the fact that it would be nice to have a cat with me. And one second after this thought, I realized, what is going on between single women and cats? especially single or lonely women who feel hurt and cats?

If you think about it, a lot of girls and women of whatever age who live alone have one or more cat and they are really attached to it, like a family member. If you think about old lonely women get described in books etc, the image is always of this woman with lot and lot of cats sharing with her the apartment. If you think of the fear of a lot of women is to end up alone with their cats. Even Miranda from Sex and the City in one of the episodes thinks of herself ending up alone with her cat feeding on her.

Why cats? why not a dog? dogs requires actually more attentions and they are more dependent than cats and so if you feel alone, a dog should make you feel more "useful" than a cat. I am certainly a cat person because a dog would depend too much on me, while a cat is more like me...looking for attentions when it wants them and mind its own things when it wants to be let alone. But what about all these other women?

In any case, my apartment is too small and I travel too much to have a cat. If I would have an animal, I want to be able to give it the best I can. But I can't wait for the day in which I will have a bit more stability and then I will be able to have not only a cat, but also terraria with tortoises, geckos and any other animal I would like to have. I miss my froggies, the one I had to leave in the USA. They are so cute...not really the smartest animals in the world, but so cute.

I decided that to cheer me up the music of today should be Cindy Lauper. I am a fan of the '80. Starting from Flashdance, ending to the legs warmer, which I still wear and love to wear.

Last night I am not sure if I liked the movie "Che-The Argentin". It was cool because being in the original language, I practiced my Spanish, listening to the movie in Spanish for 2 hours. But I don't know enough about the Cuban revolution to really follow it well. But Benicio del Toro is fantastic as a Che.

If you haven't seen it yet, I suggest you to watch "The motorcycle diaries". It is one of my favorite movies. First, because it is played in South America and I love South America and the scenarios are wonderful. Second, because the story is really nice, third because the actor interpreting Che Guevara is really good looking.