Strangers that are smiling at each other on the subway are disturbing. I mean come on, it's supposed to be a grumpy, cranky experience. You're not meant to be pleasant to others. That freaks me out. Go get an effin' life!
Ex-es that are getting married in a few weeks writing "You've been on my mind a lot lately" are way too disturbing. What am I to do with this piece of information? Stick it in a pot and let it grow into a little coward tree?
Plastic bags are disturbing. Those should be outright outlawed. Especially in Eastern Europe, which has gone haywire with its plastic bag fetish.
Gimme Lean sausage that contains no meat, virtually no fat, no cholesterol, yet tastes wonderful is creepy. What sort of dark voodoo magic and sorcerism is that?!
Hardworking people. I don't understand them. I don't think they are human.
People that tear up when their old tractor dies ...(well, that is actually quite sweet).
Few hours later: I have a fresh addition to the list: Lies that turn into self-fulfilling prophecies freak me out, too. I got late to my boxing class, so I lied that I got a flat on my bike. It's conceivable. I bike everywhere. Well, two hours of torture later, when my shins felt like they were squeezed in the Spanish Boot (a nice medieval torturing equipment) for days and I couldn't even pedal without wanting to cry, I hear SSSSssssss - a FLAT! Gah. my good trusty gorgeous Univega was long overdue for a flat, last one I got about a year ago, but today?! I know gods were waiting for that moment and pinched the tire to get me back for all sorts of minor sins of this week. But still. Self-fulfilling lies are way too disturbing!
Currently listening: Pioneer By Auktyon Release date: By 06 June, 2006
Friday, June 16, 2006
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Back in the Ring
Today I have to resort to drawings. Brain smashed to pieces, arms limb. General happy and stupid feeling. That's how I like it.
The Ring is different. Different from Schwarzweiss Boxzentrum, that is. There are many more trainers, and someone is always after you when you work out. There are classes three times a week, which is nothing but an expensive fetish club really. I'm paying $129 a month for a monster of a man to yell at me, force me to crawl on the floor, squat for forever and suffer insufferable pain.
I can't possibly describe every way of torture I had to endure. One stuck in mind, though. We
lined up and watched the trainer, eyes wide with shock and horror, perform the routine we were about to mimic. He put himself into a pushup position, raised one arm one leg, and lounged forward, while going down into a pushup in this awkward twisted state. Then he lounged again, thrusting his other arm and leg forth. It was very impressive. He looked like a young Jackie Chan trying out one of his tricks. We were to do two rounds around the whole gym this way. Ha.
When we embarked on our epic journey around the gym, it looke
d, for some reason, different. I kept thinking of the Mystics in the Dark Crystal, how they moved slowly and in agony when they had to journey to re-unite with the Skeksis. Each time a Skeksi died, a Mystic would up and die, too. Poof! I sure felt like one, certainly one of those nearing death. My paws were in my way, butt too huge to hover above the ground for long. It's a good thing nobody I know saw me, although the doorman, who I call Ted, because he looks just like Ted the doorman from the Institute in Vienna, said that I did well and looked best in that 'flopping mess'.
I also have a confession to make. The Ring is an American boxing club. Men there are civilized, polite, PC, do not stare at you and ask "you..will you party with me?" suggestively. I miss the crazy Serbians, Albanians, Chechnyans. I miss (some of) the attention, smirks, winks, and smacks. I miss Magda and I bitching about the "White Sweater" and how he won't go away from his staring stool at the bar. Or teasing Gogi and Elephant Boy mercilessly. It is ridiculous, silly, vain, but it is so. What would happen to an American male if he let go every now and then? I would not sue, I swear!
The Ring is different. Different from Schwarzweiss Boxzentrum, that is. There are many more trainers, and someone is always after you when you work out. There are classes three times a week, which is nothing but an expensive fetish club really. I'm paying $129 a month for a monster of a man to yell at me, force me to crawl on the floor, squat for forever and suffer insufferable pain.
I can't possibly describe every way of torture I had to endure. One stuck in mind, though. We
lined up and watched the trainer, eyes wide with shock and horror, perform the routine we were about to mimic. He put himself into a pushup position, raised one arm one leg, and lounged forward, while going down into a pushup in this awkward twisted state. Then he lounged again, thrusting his other arm and leg forth. It was very impressive. He looked like a young Jackie Chan trying out one of his tricks. We were to do two rounds around the whole gym this way. Ha.When we embarked on our epic journey around the gym, it looke
d, for some reason, different. I kept thinking of the Mystics in the Dark Crystal, how they moved slowly and in agony when they had to journey to re-unite with the Skeksis. Each time a Skeksi died, a Mystic would up and die, too. Poof! I sure felt like one, certainly one of those nearing death. My paws were in my way, butt too huge to hover above the ground for long. It's a good thing nobody I know saw me, although the doorman, who I call Ted, because he looks just like Ted the doorman from the Institute in Vienna, said that I did well and looked best in that 'flopping mess'.I also have a confession to make. The Ring is an American boxing club. Men there are civilized, polite, PC, do not stare at you and ask "you..will you party with me?" suggestively. I miss the crazy Serbians, Albanians, Chechnyans. I miss (some of) the attention, smirks, winks, and smacks. I miss Magda and I bitching about the "White Sweater" and how he won't go away from his staring stool at the bar. Or teasing Gogi and Elephant Boy mercilessly. It is ridiculous, silly, vain, but it is so. What would happen to an American male if he let go every now and then? I would not sue, I swear!
Friday, June 09, 2006
Vanity leads to Insanity
Take it from me, children. Vanity leads to insanity. Not that insanity is necessarily a bad thing, but there are better things in the world. World peace, for example. Or a cranberry chicken salad.
"Ooooh, how jolly!", my inner ego, or Id (whichever of the buggers has these subjects in its job description) clapped its hands. They turn to ME, of all people! I am tickled pink. I squirm in the chair for a few seconds (cannot reply immediately, that is sooo below me), and then type hastily:
"I will be glad to re-write the chapter, it seems to be right up my alley" (read: I have not the first clue about the subject, don't even know where to begin looking...)
So I got myself into this mess. I have not read the draft before I blurted out my overjoyed agreement to be the co-author. I had to pack up my entire apartment next week and move, if only across the street (that would be a topic for a separate post). I had a newsletter to put together, edit, and mail out for work. No matter. I'm a superwoman, I can do everything. Right.
The moving took up, as it does, way more time than one plans. Deadline came and went, and I was still hauling boxes of books, Aztec statuettes, spices and single socks (you never know when the twin sock re-appears!) from the apartment on 54 to the one on 59. On Sunday I finally sat down to what I thought would be a day, maximum two, of editing. It became painfully obvious to me within an hour that I should have read - and declined- the job before I responded. The English was so horrendous I couldn't understand it even in Slovak syntax, considering all possible words and idioms that the author could have had in mind. Rest was a mumble-jumble of legal quotes (quoted in a wrong format). Then came this 'analysis' that made my eyes bulge out of my skull. Even the notorious nationalist Slota, who peed drunk out of a restaurant balcony not too far from my home in Bratislava, could not trump it.
Needless to say, editing was a Sisyphos' battle. I trudged through it for hours and hours, not sleeping on Sunday, sleeping only 2 hours on Monday....with still more to go. Hastily, I was adding sources so that the analysis has a head and a heel, as we clever Slovaks say. One of the sources that I found made my heart stop. It sounded so familiar, where have I come across it.... With suspicion I scroll through the chapter draft.... there it is. Translated word to word...no attribution. Holy smokes. I wonder where other "analyses" in the draft come from. I google a few sentences here and there.... all lifted, plagiarized, swiped, scrounged, pilfered, filched, mooched, cribbed, dipped...well, stolen (uh, sorry, got a little carried away with my WDICT32 Translator program here). It is Tuesday, my brain is fried, as are my eyes. At this point I am attacking the text randomly, ploughing through it to add sources, change wording, cite what can be cited. And ignoring calls and emails from work and home. Everybody's pissed off at me at this point. And I'm pissed off at me, the chapter sucks, as do I. Bitter, furious at the original author for her audacity to plagiarize worse than my freshmen, and at self for vanity and idiocy, tired to the point of having twitches and spasms in random parts of my body, where I didn't even know I had muscles, I finally send the sucker to the editor on Wednesday night (well, Thursday morning, to be frank), being able to read it over once, barely. I fall asleep, out in a coma. I sleep right through an important work meeting (standing the poor woman up in a coffee shop), and a few more phone calls. One colleague of mine is now convinced I dislike her and don't want to work with her any more. My mother believes she insulted me in some way and is now inquiring what has she done to deserve the dead silence from me. Editor writes back that he is 'generally happy' with the chapter, but has many comments and 'suggestions'. I will never catch up on emails. My reputation will be forever tarnished with this ogre of a chapter. They would probably fire me, if they could. All I can say, just as that raven did (well, him, and the international society after the Holocaust) is :"Never more!"
So, I picked myself up and dragged myself to The Ring. I took a free trial boxing session with a personal trainer, and all of my troubles floated away. Or were punched into the heavy bag. And the trainer....so handsome, so well sculpted, so funny, so....divine. Back to boxing. That is the world for Dasha. None of this academic crap. I'll leave that to the birds!
"Ooooh, how jolly!", my inner ego, or Id (whichever of the buggers has these subjects in its job description) clapped its hands. They turn to ME, of all people! I am tickled pink. I squirm in the chair for a few seconds (cannot reply immediately, that is sooo below me), and then type hastily:
"I will be glad to re-write the chapter, it seems to be right up my alley" (read: I have not the first clue about the subject, don't even know where to begin looking...)
So I got myself into this mess. I have not read the draft before I blurted out my overjoyed agreement to be the co-author. I had to pack up my entire apartment next week and move, if only across the street (that would be a topic for a separate post). I had a newsletter to put together, edit, and mail out for work. No matter. I'm a superwoman, I can do everything. Right.
The moving took up, as it does, way more time than one plans. Deadline came and went, and I was still hauling boxes of books, Aztec statuettes, spices and single socks (you never know when the twin sock re-appears!) from the apartment on 54 to the one on 59. On Sunday I finally sat down to what I thought would be a day, maximum two, of editing. It became painfully obvious to me within an hour that I should have read - and declined- the job before I responded. The English was so horrendous I couldn't understand it even in Slovak syntax, considering all possible words and idioms that the author could have had in mind. Rest was a mumble-jumble of legal quotes (quoted in a wrong format). Then came this 'analysis' that made my eyes bulge out of my skull. Even the notorious nationalist Slota, who peed drunk out of a restaurant balcony not too far from my home in Bratislava, could not trump it.
Needless to say, editing was a Sisyphos' battle. I trudged through it for hours and hours, not sleeping on Sunday, sleeping only 2 hours on Monday....with still more to go. Hastily, I was adding sources so that the analysis has a head and a heel, as we clever Slovaks say. One of the sources that I found made my heart stop. It sounded so familiar, where have I come across it.... With suspicion I scroll through the chapter draft.... there it is. Translated word to word...no attribution. Holy smokes. I wonder where other "analyses" in the draft come from. I google a few sentences here and there.... all lifted, plagiarized, swiped, scrounged, pilfered, filched, mooched, cribbed, dipped...well, stolen (uh, sorry, got a little carried away with my WDICT32 Translator program here). It is Tuesday, my brain is fried, as are my eyes. At this point I am attacking the text randomly, ploughing through it to add sources, change wording, cite what can be cited. And ignoring calls and emails from work and home. Everybody's pissed off at me at this point. And I'm pissed off at me, the chapter sucks, as do I. Bitter, furious at the original author for her audacity to plagiarize worse than my freshmen, and at self for vanity and idiocy, tired to the point of having twitches and spasms in random parts of my body, where I didn't even know I had muscles, I finally send the sucker to the editor on Wednesday night (well, Thursday morning, to be frank), being able to read it over once, barely. I fall asleep, out in a coma. I sleep right through an important work meeting (standing the poor woman up in a coffee shop), and a few more phone calls. One colleague of mine is now convinced I dislike her and don't want to work with her any more. My mother believes she insulted me in some way and is now inquiring what has she done to deserve the dead silence from me. Editor writes back that he is 'generally happy' with the chapter, but has many comments and 'suggestions'. I will never catch up on emails. My reputation will be forever tarnished with this ogre of a chapter. They would probably fire me, if they could. All I can say, just as that raven did (well, him, and the international society after the Holocaust) is :"Never more!"
So, I picked myself up and dragged myself to The Ring. I took a free trial boxing session with a personal trainer, and all of my troubles floated away. Or were punched into the heavy bag. And the trainer....so handsome, so well sculpted, so funny, so....divine. Back to boxing. That is the world for Dasha. None of this academic crap. I'll leave that to the birds!
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Quagmire
This is how conversations sometimes go on the very last date... not that I would know of course... Painful at the time, but highly entertaining in retrospect.
She: "Hmmm.... you computer boys..."
He: "What?"
She: [that didn't sound good, did it?...]Oh, it's just... you surprised me..
He: "Why?"
She: [Shit...couldn't I just have been quiet?]Well, you know, you sit behind a computer all day long, one would not expect a great performance... [I can't believe myself, I have gone obviously mad!]
He: "Oh."
She: [Rectify! Rectify!!!]It's imagination. Most nerds are endowed with abundance of it! [doh. sinking, sinking for good]
He: "It was just ten minutes."
She: "You were looking at the clock? [I do not like the direction this conversation is taking...]
He: "Oh no. I only did that once, to this girl that really truly sucked... She thought she was hot shit... [looking around somewhat nervously...]
She: Hmmm.
He: "I mean, I'm just guessing, it's a time estimate. I'm pretty good at that. [now pulling away, quite apparently out of his element]
-- silence--
She: "Yeah, absolutely [Yes, please! The sooner I get to shut up for good, the better!]
She: "Hmmm.... you computer boys..."
He: "What?"
She: [that didn't sound good, did it?...]
He: "Why?"
She: [Shit...couldn't I just have been quiet?]
He: "Oh."
She: [Rectify! Rectify!!!]
He: "It was just ten minutes."
She: "You were looking at the clock? [I do not like the direction this conversation is taking...]
He: "Oh no. I only did that once, to this girl that really truly sucked... She thought she was hot shit... [looking around somewhat nervously...]
She: Hmmm.
He: "I mean, I'm just guessing, it's a time estimate. I'm pretty good at that. [now pulling away, quite apparently out of his element]
-- silence--
She: "Yeah, absolutely [Yes, please! The sooner I get to shut up for good, the better!]
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