Bad Day...

Daniel Powter - Bad Day @ Yahoo! Video

Where is the moment we needed the most
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
They tell me your blue skies fade to gray
They tell me your passion's gone away
And I don't need no carryin' on

You stand in the line just to hit a new low
You're faking a smile with the coffee you go
You tell me your life's been way off line
You're falling to pieces every time
And I don't need no carryin' on

Because you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don't lie
You're coming back down and you really don't mind
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

Will you need a blue sky holiday?
The point is they laugh at what you say
And I don't need no carryin' on

You had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don't lie
You're coming back down and you really don't mind
You had a bad day

(Oooh.. a holiday..)

Sometimes the system goes on the blink
And the whole thing turns out wrong
You might not make it back and you know
That you could be well oh that strong
And I'm not wrong

(yeah...)

So where is the passion when you need it the most
Oh you and I
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost

Cause you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
You've seen what you like
And how does it feel for one more time
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

Lecciones de Vida

Escrito por Regina Brett, 90 años, de "The Plain Dealer", Cleveland, Ohio

Para celebrar la llegada a mi edad avanzada escribí unas lecciones que me ha enseñado la vida:

1. La vida no es justa, pero aún así es buena.
2. La vida es demasiada corta para perder el tiempo odiando a alguien.
3. Tu trabajo no te cuidará cuando estés enfermo. Tus amigos y familia sí. Mantente en contacto.
4. No tienes que ganar cada discusión. Debes estar de acuerdo en no estar de acuerdo.
5. Llora con alguien. Alivia más que llorar solo.
6. Cuando se trata de chocolate, la resistencia es inútil.
7. Haz las paces con tu pasado para que no arruine el presente.
8. No compares tu vida con la de otros. No tienes ni idea de cómo es su travesía.
9. Si una relación tiene que ser secreta, mejor no tenerla.
10. Respira profundamente. Eso calma la mente.
11. Elimina todo lo que no sea útil, hermoso o alegre.
12. Lo que no te mata, en realidad te hace más fuerte.
13. Nunca es demasiado tarde para tener una niñez feliz. Pero la segunda sólo depende de ti.
14. Cuando se trata de perseguir aquello que amas en la vida, no aceptes un "no" por respuesta.
15. Enciende las velas, utiliza las sábanas bonitas, ponte la lencería cara. No la guardes para una ocasión especial. Hoy es especial.
16. Sé excéntrico ahora. No esperes a ser viejo para serlo.
17. El órgano sexual más importante es el cerebro.
18. Nadie es responsable de tu felicidad, sólo tú.
19. Enmarca todo supuesto "desastre" con estas palabras: "En cinco años, ¿esto importará?"
20. Perdónales todo a todos.
21. Lo que las otras personas piensen de ti, no te incumbe.
22. El tiempo sana casi todo. Dale tiempo al tiempo.
23. Por más buena o mala que sea una situación, algún día cambiará.
24. No te tomes tan en serio. Nadie más lo hace.
25. No cuestiones la vida. Sólo vívela y aprovéchala al máximo hoy.
26. Llegar a viejo es mejor que la alternativa.....morir joven.
27. Todo lo que verdaderamente importa al final es que hayas amado.
28. Sal todos los días. Los milagros están esperando en todas partes.
29. Si juntáramos nuestros problemas y viéramos los montones de los demás, querríamos los nuestros.
30. La envidia es una pérdida de tiempo. Tú ya tienes todo lo que necesitas.
31. Lo mejor está aún por llegar.
32. No importa cómo te sientas... arréglate y preséntate.
33. Cede.
34. La vida no está envuelta con un lazo pero sigue siendo un regalo.


Los Amigos son la Familia que nosotros mismos escogemos
* Me he levantado en plan profundo y a muchos kilómetros mi madre lo ha entendido. Cuando he abierto mi correo electrónico esta mañana, me he encontrado con esto.

En plan profundo...

Te recuerdo como eras en el último otoño.
Eras la boina gris y el corazón en calma.
En tus ojos peleaban las llamas del crepúsculo
Y las hojas caían en el agua de tu alma.
Apegada a mis brazos como una enredadera
las hojas recogían tu voz lenta y en calma.
Hoguera de estupor en que mi sed ardía.
Dulce jacinto azul torcido sobre mi alma.
Siento viajar tus ojos y es distante el otoño:
boina gris, voz de pájaro y corazón de casa hacia donde emigraban mis profundos anhelos y caían mis besos alegres como brasas.
Cielo desde un navío.
Campo desde los cerros.
Tu recuerdo es de luz, de humo, de estanque en calma!
Más allá de tus ojos ardían los crepúsculos.
Hojas secas de otoño giraban en tu alma.

20 poemas de amor y una canción desesperada

*Siempre he pensado que la poesía era una género que se escapaba a mi entender literario, pese a ser deboradora contumaz de todo tipo de prosa. Y de repente, encontré a Neruda.

Los buscadores de conchas...

-Adiós, señor Tillingham, -se estrecharon la mano- . Ha sido usted muy amable.- Él sonrió, con una sonrisa inesperadamente encantadora y calurosa.

De hecho no se había reído antes, pero en esos momentos sus rasgos ya familiares
se transformaron de tal forma que Olivia dejó de pensar en él como en un cura y por consiguiente le resultó bastante fácil expresar algo que había estado barruntando desde el momento en que él había entrado en la casa-.

A decir verdad no comprendo porqué es usted tan atento y servicial. Al fin y al cabo ambos sabemos que mi madre no era una practicante regular. Ni siquiera era muy
religiosa. Y le resultaba muy difícil tragarse la idea de la Resurrección y el más allá.
-Lo sé. En una ocasión discutimos sobre ello sin ponernos de acuerdo.
-Tampoco estoy muy segura de que creyese en Dios.
El señor Tillingham, todavía sonriendo, sacudió la cabeza y alargó una mano para coger la manilla de la puerta de su coche.
-Yo no me preocuparía mucho por esto. Es posible que ella no creyese en Dios, pero estoy casi seguro de que Dios creía en ella.

-...-

El otoño ya está aquí...y no sé si te echo de menos

Un verano dorado ha dado paso a un otoño lleno de luz, luz que se cuela por cada rendija entreabierta de mi ventana...Es como si Bruselas me quisiera decir que a fuerza de vivir aquí, he pasado a ser una urbanita más.

Miro hacia atrás y pierdo la cuenta de cuántas veces nos hemos visto, tocado, besado, y pienso que cada una de esas veces ha tenido sentido para mi. Pero la distancia lo relativiza todo, lo enfría, lo aleja....será que aletargo mis propios impulsos para no sufrir conscientemente?

El mundo sigue girando, rodando, avasallando y la vóragine me absorbe una y otra vez...una suerte de remolino incesante de reuniones, fiestas, cerveza, power points, publicaciones y música. Curiosa mezcla, el otoño, a pesar de la distancia, se perfila interesante.

He decidido que sí, que te echo de menos, pero también he decidido que puedo vivir con ello...y seguir adelante, hasta donde tenga que llegar.

The end of the summer...

Tras las doradas vacaciones toca la dura vuelta a los 11 meses de estrés laboral. Es cierto que aunque septiembre acaba de comenzar, y técnicamente por estas tierras comience a hacer un frío que pela, los días siguen siendo luminosos (evitando comentar los chaparrones ocasionales, que no emocionales).

Siento que este mes de agosto ha sido como los de antes. A riesgo de querer parecer vieja, he de argumentar a mi favor que tras varios veranos luchando por labrarme una carrera, exiliándome voluntariamente para mejorar mis aptitudes o simplemente demasiado agobiada como para disfrutar de la vida y sus alicientes, he tenido un verano dorado. O al menos un mes de verano dorado. Y creo que en los tiempos que corren eso es mucho!

Un gran viaje conociendo sitios milenarios, bodas de amigos, risas, confidencias, reencuentros. Un agosto perfecto...

Sabiduría interesante a compartir...

WELCOME TO YOUE QUARTERLIFE CRISIS!
BY Kate Carraway April 01, 2009 21:04

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Imagine a day in the life of a couple you probably know. He’s 27 years old, and she’s 26. They wake up beside each other in his downtown bachelor apartment and have sex that neither of them particularly enjoys. They’ve been sort-of dating for a while now, but they’re not willing to commit to each other: he likes her, but doesn’t know if he always will. She can’t decide if she likes him more or less than the other two guys she’s sleeping with. He bikes to work at an advertising agency, where he uses his master’s in English to proofread ad copy, and spends several hours reading music blogs and watching movie trailers, periodically Twittering updates about his workday to his 74 followers. He doesn’t really hate his job, but feels as if his skin is crawling with vermin most of the time that he’s there, so he has a plan to move to Thailand, or to maybe write a book. Or go to law school. At her government job, she instant messages her friends and mostly ignores the report she’s drafting because she’s planning on quitting anyway — and has been planning to quit for about a year now. She spends her lunch hour buying boots that cost slightly more than her rent, then immediately regrets it. He listlessly works through lunch, then goes to the bar after work to meet up with some university friends, where they talk about their jobs and make ironic jokes about other people. Back at home, he wonders why he feels so gross and empty after spending time with them, but it’s mostly better than being alone. She walks to the house that she shares with three friends and spends a few more hours on celebrity gossip websites, then clicking through the Facebook photos of girls she knew in high school posing with their husbands and babies, simultaneously judging them and feeling a deep pit of jealousy, and a strange kind of loss. “When did this happen for them?” she wonders. They both eventually fall asleep, late and alone, each of them wondering what it is that’s wrong with them that they can’t quite seem to understand.

This phenomenon, known as the “Quarterlife Crisis,” is as ubiquitous as it is intangible. Unrelenting indecision, isolation, confusion and anxiety about working, relationships and direction is reported by people in their mid-twenties to early thirties who are usually urban, middle class and well-educated; those who should be able to capitalize on their youth, unparalleled freedom and free-for-all individuation. They can’t make any decisions, because they don’t know what they want, and they don’t know what they want because they don’t know who they are, and they don’t know who they are because they’re allowed to be anyone they want.When a contemporary 25-year-old’s parents were 25, they weren’t concerned with keeping their options open: they were purposefully buying houses, making babies and making partner. Now, who we are and what we do is up to us, unbound to existing communities, families and class structures that offer leisure and self-determination to just a few. Boomer and post-boom parents with more money and autonomy than their predecessors has resulted in benignly self-indulgent children who were sold on their own uniqueness, place in the world and right to fulfillment in a way no previous generation has felt entitled to, and an increasingly entrepreneurial, self-driven creation myth based on personal branding, social networking and untethered lifestyle spending is now responsible for our identities.

IDENTIFIED FOR THE first time in 2001, the Quarterlife Crisis has been written about most notably by Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner in the New York Times best seller Quarterlife Crisis: The Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties. The themes of twentysomething ennui are everywhere in pop culture (Garden State; Lost in Translation) but it’s also been explicitly addressed: on Gossip Girl, Blair Waldorf explains some bad behaviour with “I was such an overachiever, I was headed for a Quarterlife Crisis at 18”; in the John Mayer song “Why Georgia” (“I rent a room and I fill the spaces with wood in places to make it feel like home but all I feel’s alone / It might be a Quarterlife Crisis or just the stirring in my soul”); Quarterlife was a successful web series about seven twentysomethings with creative tendencies. There’s also a terrible metal band from Long Island called Quarterlife Crisis who look like an apathetic version of Insane Clown Posse. Says Michael Kimmel, a sociologist and author of Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men, “The Quarterlife Crisis is a kind of anticipatory crisis: ‘How is my life going to turn out? I don’t have a clue; I don’t have a map; I don’t have a vision for it.’ The mid-life crisis is a kind of ‘Is this it? I had a big plan, I had big ideas. Now I’m 48 and I guess I won’t get to do those things.’ The mid-life crisis is understood as one of resignation. A Quarterlife Crisis will resolve itself by hooking itself into a plan.” What that plan could be, though, might be vague, or feel altogether impossible to create.Attempts to manage the Quarterlife Crisis might be as banal as drinking a lot, doing a bunch of drugs, sleeping with idiots and myriad other kinds of self-flagellation, but broader attempts are made to find some sense of purpose. An obvious choice for panicking twentysomethings with a post-undergraduate sense of displacement and for the ones that aren’t fulfilled by their jobs is grad school. James, a 28-year-old student, says “Quarterlife crises are the reason that so many universities have turned lower-level graduate programs into a cash cow.” Graduate and professional school can provide a direction and delay other choices about career and stability. And, while it’s true that higher education can “help students improve their personal and professional competency,” it can also “leave students feeling insecure about their abilities and their job prospects,” says Marc Scheer, who is a career counsellor and educational consultant, the author of No Sucker Left Behind: Avoiding the Great College Rip-Off and an advocate for considering options beyond formal education. (He also has a Ph.D.) Scheer emphasizes making an informed choice. “Whether graduate school is a wise move depends on each individual student and what they want to study. Law school can be helpful, but mostly if a student can gain acceptance to a top-tier school. Getting a Ph.D. could be dangerous for some students, especially since Ph.D. graduation rates are obscenely low these days, and few tenure-track jobs are available. So it really depends.”

Among the implicit promises made to this generation of twentysomethings was that they would have work that was engaging and creatively fulfilling. A 27-year-old freelance graphic designer with a graduate degree who is struggling to find work, Prescott says “You could always say the whole premise of education is that if you study, get good grades, acquire skills, you will have more options in a ‘career and life’ point of view. If you get a degree, you don’t have to work in a factory or have to work in a farm. That’s proving to be a huge lie, because you have people coming out of school and there are just no jobs, especially in ‘middle-class’ fields.” The dissonance between a twentysomething’s pre-career expectations and the dissatisfaction they feel as part of the working world can be hugely defeating. As Kimmel says, “They don’t have much of a life plan about how to move from Point A to Point B. What happens very often is they have very big ambitions, [but] there is a mismatch between their planning for their lives and their ambitions.” He also says that the conflict is made more difficult because 25-year-olds are living “in an economic environment which is the most inhospitable in our history.” David J. Rosen, the author of What’s that Job and How the Hell Do I Get It, a career guide based on interviews with young professionals with “cool” jobs across a variety of professions, says “Generally, being happy at work is huge part of having a happy life, and a cool and interesting job is one that leaves you fulfilled, not bitter, or not with that existential career angst that you were meant for ‘more than this.’”

SPENDING MONEY IS as fraught as making it. Multiple degrees, trips to Peru, and keeping up appearances on Saturday night all communicate values and desires, and having no consistent sense of “want” can reinforce the problem, often with trail of debt. Anya Kamenetz, who is a 29-year-old staff writer at Fast Company magazine and the author of the book Generation Debt: Why Now is a Terrible Time to be Young, says “As recently as the early 1990s, Americans had less than $10,000 of student loans on average. Now the average is over $20,000. As of about 2006, young people had $4,000 of credit-card debt on average, and those with debt were spending a quarter of their income on debt payments.” Kamenetz says “Debt and lower income can affect your choice of jobs. It can take longer to move out of your parents’ house or stop accepting those cheques and become fully independent. And many young people find themselves asking the question: ‘Why haven’t I made more progress?’ It makes people feel like failures when really there are larger trends at work.” This is also, in part, what has led to the “Boomerang” trend, where adult children move back in with their parents after leaving for school or work. Scheer identifies another, more insidious problem with grad school, and with delaying career choices generally: “Graduate school presents some ‘opportunity costs’ in that students can’t work while they go to school. So, for example, someone who goes to medical school and doesn’t finish residency until their late 20s or early 30s won’t financially catch up to their friends until they are in their late 30s or early 40s or later. These are all important factors to consider and not be unrealistically optimistic about.”The Quarterlife Crisis remains largely a middle-class, Stuff White People Like kind of problem, and usually manifests itself where certain problematic social norms used to exist, like who had access to education and interesting work, and who was allowed adventure and self-determination. The twentysomething void is, in large part, due to the important evolution of sexual equality, and when sex, relationships, and family-building changes, everything does. Kimmel says, of men in particular, “Part of the Quarterlife Crisis is a kind of malaise that the end of your youth is really the end of fun. And that you’re never going to have any fun again, because you have to work. You’re never going to have sex again because you’re going to get married. Your life is over.” So why bother? Literal and figurative fucking around is infinitely more appealing to men who are still sorting out what they want their lives to look like.“Grown-ups understand that the choices we make also involve choices we don’t make,” Kimmel says. “We have some regrets and we carry [those] with us. Guys don’t get a lot of help in this from each other or from our culture. Culturally we have got to show guys that the other side of this is actually terrific.” He points out that, statistically, married men are happier and have more sex, and that fathers experience lower levels of depression. Still, Kimmel points out that very young marriage has the highest rate of divorce, and that men would do well to spend their unmarried years focused on their own growth, rather than Halo 3.

WOMEN ALSO FIND themselves conflicted, usually more than men, about the trajectory of their twenties as they relate to relationships. Sarah, who is 27 and works at a non-profit, wants to travel and get a master’s degree, but feels conflicted about doing either. “I want to have kids, and every day that goes by, I have this number in my head. It’s 32. It used to be 30. That’s only a few years from now. I’m thinking, if I don’t do some of this stuff now, before I have kids, am I going to be able to do it?” Women are roundly considered to be in biologically ideal form for baby-making in their twenties and early thirties, which are also prime fun-having and career-building years. For women who want all of the things promised by (theoretically) equal education, work and sex lives, the conflict of desires can be catastrophic. Leah, who is a 26-year-old with a demanding corporate job, says “I feel tied down because of my job, but at the same time feel that while I am single and young I should travel because I don’t have any obligations to other people, and it’s only going to get harder as I get older.” Sarah says, “Am I going to have regrets? Once you have kids, your opportunities are over. That’s probably not true. But everyone seems to change. All of the women who I work with who have kids, they change. Their priorities shift.” Sarah’s boyfriend doesn’t feel the same pressure. “He doesn’t have that kind of timeframe. He says ‘I don’t even think about that.’ Of course you don’t think about it.... [Men] really don’t think about it.” In 1973, the average age for women to get married was 23, and for men, 25. By 2003, the average age for both rose about five years, a significant change that reflects both marriage-free cohabitation and purposefully delaying serious commitment. It also means that twentysomethings are increasingly going it alone in their financial lives, where they would historically be building assets and houses and portfolios alongside their partner. Women, especially, are buying homes on their own. It also means that loneliness and isolation are far more likely, particularly when being separated from the close friendships that make up university life happens without a family or back-up community in place.

THE EMOTIONAL TUMULT reported during, or remembered after, a Quarterlife Crisis has a scarily ineffable quality. This isolation and its private anxiety are pervasive, as is a longing for the way things were in the predictably structured eras of high school and college or university. The directionlessness and resulting immobility is made worse when twentysomethings going through the Crisis compare themselves to their peers, past and present, further convincing someone in the throes of it that they’re not only alone, but the worst kind of failure. Says Leah, “A lot of [my friends] are settling down and getting ready to take the next steps towards marriage and families and it makes me question why I am not doing the same, and I realize that the amount of effort they put into finding a partner and getting married I put into my career. So how could I possibly have time for both?”Twentysomethings are also inundated with constant but mostly empty communication, as the increasingly primary social sphere exists online instead of real life. Nothing could be more alienating to someone in the midst of a crisis than a tool like Facebook. Says James, “All sorts of half-forgotten acquaintances and abandoned friendships reappear in this spreadsheet of potential reasons to feel terrible about yourself. If you’re as petty as I am, you spend a lot of Facebook time gauging your own feelings of inadequacy in direct relation to other people’s success. All these people you couldn’t give a shit about a couple of years ago are now these omnipresent benchmarks and counterpoints to measure against whatever you have or haven’t got going on in your life.” Adair, who is 30, found herself mired in a Quarterlife Crisis and sought professional help. She says, “I worked with a life coach, and he helped me a lot to realize that I was creating a vicious cycle in my life.... It was a cycle with four different phases, and I’ve followed it basically throughout my life. The steps were: I would get really excited about something, something new something different, something stellar, big. I went off to school totally excited and ready for an awesome experience. Stage two would be like ‘Oh, this is it? This is kind of boring now.’ After one-and-a-half exciting and non-stop years, I realized that I wasn’t excited about being there anymore. Stage three would be ‘What am I doing, why am I choosing to do this?’ In that third stage I would inevitably have some type of breakdown, [which] usually consisted of crying and talking through the feelings of emptiness and boredom with a friend or family member. Then I would have kind of breakthrough in that experience and get myself back up. At that point, I went abroad to Seville, Spain.... Now every time I’m faced with a change or new situation or find myself bored, I ask myself if this is a part of the cycle, or is this genuinely how I’m feeling.”Having so much — youth, ability, independence — can feel like the worst possible scenario. What remains, though, is the potential for the years with anxiety and without direction to be reclaimed. Scheer sees real opportunity here. “If you feel you’re in crisis, this is a great opportunity to draft a five-year plan with steady concrete goals to help you get to where you want to be. Anyone can transform their life in just a few years.” Michael Kimmel says “There is life on the other side of this, and it’s actually a pretty good one. Growing up may be hard to do, but in the end, the gains outweigh the losses.” In other words: it might just be time to grow the fuck up.

Corazón anestesiado...

Hoy es un día de esos de la cama infinita y el café oxidado de ayer
Restos de una cena una botella vacía y una nota en el mantel
Como siempre inolvidable
Otra noche tan bonita como tú
Lleno la bañera de mentiras y halagos y sumerjo mi ansiedad
Siento el cosquilleo de la espuma en mis brazos y sonrío hasta llorar
Como siempre inolvidable
Otra noche tan bonita como tú
Dormiré entre diamantes para desayunar
Siempre sola tan sola que el silencio es ahora un buen amante para
escuchar
Dos vueltas de llave me separan del mundo pero no sé a qué lado girar
Abro la ventana que me invita al silencio mi paisaje emocional
Como siempre inolvidable
Otra noche tan bonita como tú
Dormiré entre diamantes para desayunar
Siempre sola tan sola que el silencio es ahora un buen amante para
escuchar
Mi sonrisa era inmensa y mi mirada sincera
Y ahora ya no sé quién soy tengo el corazón anestesiado
Dormiré entre diamantes para desayunar
Siempre sola tan sola que el silencio es ahora un buen amante para
escuchar
Gotas de agua tristeza y un poquito de sal para mis penas de princesa
Cuando lloran las flores brillan de un modo especial
Como siempre inolvidable
Otra noche tan bonita y tan triste como yo...Ven, acércate

A veces una canción, un poema...llegan un poquito más lejos que simples palabras

El sitio de recreo de la chica de ayer

Hoy se ha ido uno de los mejores letristas españoles, y por ende, poeta. No son los letristas actuales los poetas de antaño? Descubrí sus canciones a través de otra persona muy querida que también se fue, así que hoy vuelve a ser un día triste... Tras el pequeño homenaje en facebook con el link del vídeo de "La Chica de Ayer", toca aquí "El sitio de mi recreo"....

Donde nos llevó la imaginación, donde con los ojos cerrados se divisan infinitos campos.

Donde se creó la primera luz, germinó la semilla del cielo azul
volveré a ese lugar donde nací

De sol, espiga y deseo, son sus manos en mi pelo
De nieve, huracán y abismos el sitio de mi recreo

Viento que en su murmullo parece hablar mueve el mundo y con gracia le ves bailar y con él el escenario de mi hogar.

Mar bandeja de plata, mar infernal es un temperamento natural poco o
nada cuesta ser uno más.

De sol, espiga y deseo son sus manos en mi pelo

De nieve huracán y abismos el sitio de mi recreo,

Silencio, brisa y cordura dan aliento a mi locura

Hay nieve, hay fuego, hay deseos allí donde me recreo

Va de pastelones...

A veces las comedias románticas, concebidas como meros instrumentos de entretenimiento, encierran ideas más profundas de lo que en principio cabría esperar de filmes de este género.

Una de ellas, "The Wedding Date", basada en un libro del chick-lit, que en español lleva el título de "Solamente Amigos" de Elizabeth Young ("Asking for Trouble") que curiosamente también tengo, y no guarda mucho parecido con la película, dicho sea de paso (de hecho me enteré de lo del guión adaptado en los créditos de la peli), e interpretada por Dermot Mulroney ( muy sexy) y Debra Messing (la de "Will & Grace"), comenta en varias escenas y por personajes diferentes, una frase que vendría a decir: cada mujer tiene la vida sentimental que desea.

Aplicándolo a la vida real, la verdad que el enunciado es cierto. Veo a amigas con relaciones plenamente asentadas y las envidio, otras que se dedican a picar de flor en flor y también las envidio, otras que sencillamente no quieren saber nada de hombresy por increíble que parezca, también las envidio, y entre todo esto, me encuentro en numerosas ocasiones pensando que sí, que yo también quiero un novio, pero es que resulta que quizá en el fondo no lo quiera, ¿o quizá sí?

El caso es que esa ansia de encontrar a la pareja perfecta sería la guinda perfecta, es cierto, pero también, y por experiencias pasadas, me encuentro en un período en el que estoy más o menos conforme con mi situación. Es necesario aprender a estar sola para poder construir un nosotros.

Domingo de abril...walking away

Realmente esto de escribir me cuesta a veces tanto como afrontar la cotidianiedad de mi vida en Bruselas...y no creo que sea necesariamente malo, ninguna de las dos cosas. Como seres humanos que tendemos a ser, la rutina se convierte en parte de nuestras vidas, y a algunos, más que a otros, nos cuesta abandonar hábitos ya adquiridos.

En mi particular caso, es el domingueo, vaguear por casa sin hacer nada de provecho, con la cama todavía deshecha, una pila de platos por lavar, lavadora por poner y a pesar que la tarde ya esté menguada, todo sigue como estaba ayer. Algunos lo considerarían una pérdida de domingo, y claro opiniones las hay para todos los gustos y deben respetarse, pero estos domingos me pertenecen, son míos y aunque en ciertos momentos (pocos y puntuales) me entran remordimientos por malgastar el día, por no estar ahí fuera viviendo la vida, comprendo que mi vida también se nutre de estos momentos, es como hacer una back up semanal, más o menos.

Eh! y no vayáis a pensar que no me preocupa desplegar más actividad dominical, pero realmente es mi domingo....

Dejando estas interesantes reflexiones, por ser domingo, voy a postear un video de un cantante bastante conocido por todo el mundo y que empieza a escuchar en la so called "madre patria" ahora, Jason Mraz. Tuve la oportunidad de asistir a su concierto hace un par de semanas aquí en Bruselas ( una suerte de auto-proclamado regalo de cumpleaños), porque desde hacía meses su música me tenía encadilada, y me lo pasé genial...nunca había ido sola a un concierto, y eso que soy un animal social bastante activo (domingos aparte). Me vino bien para limpiar fantasmitas y telarañas...últimamente soy de la opinión de " si quiero hacer algo y no consigo respaldo, tendré que hacerlo yo misma", que se ha convertido en mi know-how desde que me mudé a esta parte de Bruselas. Y es que planear una mudanza toda sola fomenta sanamente el crecimiento interior!

Lo dicho..."I'm yours", sencillamente vale la pena escucharlo:

Jason Mraz - I'm Yours
Cargado por jasonmrazworld

Saludos poptimísticos :)

Save tonight

Practising experimental English, 'cause this is the very first time I try to write something wich has nothing to be with work stuff, I dare to say that this sentence and mostly, what of it represents, reminds me of my early teenageing memories. It was in 1998, it was in summer, and it was not far from Frankfurt. It was my very first love....

He is still young, he had travel around the world, and for that very first time, he made me feel alive...so here's my tribute....

Einstein on the beach

Albert's always sincere, he's a sensitive type
His intentions are clear, he wanna be well-liked
Better think of nothing, then are we anything?
Is it better to be better than to be anything?
And Albert's vision is blooming uncontrolled
All his wings are slowly sinking
The world begins to disappear
The worst things come from inside here
All the king's men reappear
For an eggman, on and off the wall
Who'll never be together again
Einstein's down on the beach staring into the sand
Cause everything he believes in is shattered
What you fear in the night in the day comes to call anyway-ay
We all get burned as:
One more sun comes sliding down the sky
One more shadow leans against the wall
The world begins to disappear
The worst things come from inside here
And all the king's men reappear
For an eggman, on and off the wall
Who'll never be together again
Albert's waiting in the sun
On a field American
For the cause of some inflated form of hit and run
One more sun comes sliding down the sky
One more shadow leans against the wall
The world begins to disappear
The worst things come from inside here
And all the king's men reappear
For an eggman, on and off the wall
Who'll never be together again
Albert's fallen on the sun
Cracked his head wide open
The world begins to disappear
The worst things come from inside here
And all the king's men reappear
For an eggman, fallin, fallin
The world begins to disappear
The worst things come from inside here
And all the king's men reappear
For an eggman, on and off the wall
Who'll never be together again
No never be together again
No no never never never again, uh huh
What you fear in the night in the day comes to call anyway


La literatura no tiene porqué ser solo escrita, y en el caso de canciones, puede adquirir un significado diferente según la persona que la escucha...

Step a little closer each day??

Still a little bit of your taste in my mouth
Still a little bit of you laced with my doubt
Still a little hard to say what's going on

Still a little bit of your ghost your witness
Still a little BIT of your face I haven't kissed
You step a little closer EACH DAY
Still I can't SAY what's going on

Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to lie
Life taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
When you float like a cannonball

Still a little bit of your song in my ear
Still a little bit of your words I long to hear
You step a little closer TO ME
So close that I can't see what's going on

Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to lie
Life taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
When you float like a cannon

Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to cry
So come on courage!
Teach me to be shy
'Cause it's not hard to fall
And I don't WANNA scare her
It's not hard to fall
And I don't wanna lose
It's not hard to grow
When you know that you just don't know

Damien Rice - Cannonball

Algo con lo que últimamente me siento identificada....

new year, new home, new life...

O al menos eso espero, feliz año a todo aquel que lo lea, por mucho que el mes de enero esté algo más que menguado. Pensando hace días en el tema de mi siguiente post, me sorprendí a mi misma haciendo reflexiones sobre la lotería...el caso es que me tocó esperar en Barajas el enlace de mi avión, tanto a la ida como a la vuelta (menos mal que no tuve retrasos especialmente largos, visto el caos de estas últimas semanas) y llegué a la conclusión de que la lotería es un premio sumamente democrático...con una pequeña aportación puede tocarle a pobres y a ricos...en estos meses de crisis económica global, daba gusto ver que había caído entre gente sometida a EREs, paro forzoso o con recursos limitados por la crisis, más afectados que de costumbre.

Imagino que la cuesta de enero se dejará notar más este año...en mi caso es verdad, pero así me permite realizar un ejercicio de autocontrol y no me voy de rebajas a lo loco...he sido responsable y mi gran compra de estos días ha sido una lavadora!! Electrodoméstico habitual en los hogares españoles, pero no tan común por estos lares belgas...para mí, un lujo necesario..qué ganas de que me la instalen!

Bruselas viste de colores invernales, grises y blancos, y mucho mucho frío, no recuerdo haber estado nunca a 15 bajo cero!

......Para alimentar corazones positivos y de buen rollo, recomiendo la canción "strawberry swing", del último disco de Coldplay "Viva la Vida or death and all her friends"...cada disco que sacan, se superan....

saludos poptimísticos

....y llegó otra vez la Navidad

La verdad que estos últimos tiempos he dedicado cero a este blog, y mal que me pese, estos días de paréntesis vacacional, lo seguiré teniendo un tanto abandonado. Es cierto que durante las últimas semanas he estado ocupada cambiando algo de mi vida, aunque sigo en Bruselas y seguiré igualmente el año que viene.

La ciudad respira un halo mágico en los días previos a la Navidad, todo el mundo anda por la calle, haciendo compras (valiente crisis!), visitando los mercadillos, patinando sobre hielo y quedando una y mil veces para despedirse de los amigos que reencontrarán de nuevo en unos cuantos días.

Todo esto me produce una reflexión un tanto extraña; si bien no veo mal aplicar en estos días un poco de terapia consumista (como decía cierto personaje televisivo, "shopping is my cardio"), creo que cualquier tipo de exceso es malo. Y justo después de estos frenéticos días, comienzan las rebajas, que aquí en Bruselas, son de órdago, con lo que más de lo mismo. Se llenan periódicos enteros augurando el mal de la economía mundial, anunciando despidos masivos, ruina de empresas, familias abocadas a la pobreza. Es cierto, todo esto está pasando y lo veo en gente cercana a mí, pero al mismo tiempo la gente intenta actuar como si no pasara nada...me pregunto si esta opción es la más acertada....

En bref, joyeux nöel a todos, qué paséis buenos días y...nos vemos el año que viene :). Os dejo con una versión del "Noche de Paz", cantada por Six pence non the richer (sí, tienen más canciones que la archi-radiada "Kiss me")

Veinte poemas y una historia de amor

Me enamoré de ti buscando el cielo, y desperté agarrada a una ilusión,
ahora eres cenizas de mis sueños, porque al final los sueños sueños son.

Quiero esconderme en ti, ver que todo pasó, quiero decirte adiós, fuiste mi amor. Dime tu nombre, tu fuiste un sueño sin cumplir. Veinte poemas y una historia de amor que ya tiene canción.

Pero dime el color de un momento que te haga feliz, para
mezclar tu alegria, tus lagrimas y mías, y ver que el amor es así, colores que
pintan los nombres de amores y a tí. Tu fuiste un beso eterno en otra vida,
también una poesia sin firmar, te fuiste de mis sueños tan deprisa, que mi
consuelo vuelve joya al mar.

Todo es mejor así, quiero abrigarme más, no iré a buscarte allí, tu ya no estás. Dime tu nombre, tu fuiste un sueño sin cumplir.

Veinte poemas y una historia de amor que ya tiene canción. Pero dime el color de
un momento que te haga feliz, para mezclar tu alegria, tus lagrimas y mías, y
ver que el amor es así, colores que pintan los nombres de amores y a tí.

Esta vez sí, puse tu nombre en la pared, pude dormir, y así sabrás que ya estuviste
aquí. te marcharás, te olvidaré, no volverás, no lloraré.

Va de estadísticas belgas...

Hoy por la mañana, viniendo en metro y leyendo "Metro", me he topado con la siguiente noticia:

L’amour au boulot

En Belgique, près de 60% des célibataires croient qu’il est possible de construire une
véritable relation amoureuse avec un(e)collègue, selon un sondage du site de rencontres en ligne Parship.
Toutefois, les Belges sont également les premiers à s’opposer à une relation sur
le lieu du travail. Au niveau européen, les célibataires sont 64% à penser qu’un
véritable amour peut éclore au travail. Les femmes suisses (70%) et espagnoles (70%) sont les plus nombreuses à croire que l’amour au travail est possible, talonnées par les célibataires néerlandaises (67%).
Près de 56% des célibataires belges interrogées pensent également qu’un collègue
pourrait devenir le partenaire de vie idéal. Du côté masculin, c’est aux Pays-Bas que l’on trouve le plus d’hommes estimant possible une relation sérieuse au travail
(68%). En Allemagne, en Autriche et en Belgique, les célibataires sont également nombreux(respectivement 63%, 63% et 60%) à affirmer qu’ils n’hésiteraient pas à entamer une relation avec une personne travaillant au sein de la même entreprise.
Quant aux petits flirts entre collègues, 13% des célibataires européens n’ont rien contre. Quelque 12% des Belges interrogés pensent également qu’un flirt innocent au travail est possible. Bien que la majorité des Européens(64%) croient qu’une relation
amoureuse sur le lieu de travail est possible, 22% s’y opposent. Les Belges arrivent en tête, avec 31% des célibataires déclarant vouloir maintenir une séparation entre leurs vies professionnelle et privée.

La noticia ha captado mi interés porque por primera vez define el tipo de relaciones de los propios belgas con los extranjeros que venimos a vivir a este país. La experiencia pesa, debo decir, y el sentimiento de cierta "invasión" que parte de ellos sienten, queda plenamente justificado en estas líneas.

He broke your heart

He took your soul

You're hurt inside

'Cause there's a hole

You need some time to be alone

then you will find what you've always known

I'm the one who really loves ya, baby

I've been knockin' at your door and as long as I'm livin'

I'll be waitin' as long as I'm breathin'

I'll be there whenever you call me

I'll be waitin' whenever you need me I

'll be there I've seen ya cry into the night

I feel your pain can I make it right?

I realize there's no end in sight yet still

I wait for you to see the light

I'm the one who really loves ya, baby

I can't take it anymore and as long as I'm livin' I'll be waitin'

as long as I'm breathin' I'll be there

whenever you call me I'll be waitin'

whenever you need me I'll be there

You are the only one I've ever known that makes me feel this way,

couldn't on my own I wanna be with you until we're old

you've got the love you need right in front of you, please come home

as long as I'm livin' I'll be waitin'

as long as I'm breathin' I'll be there

whenever you call me I'll be waitin'

whenever you need me I'll be there

as long as I'm livin' I'll be waitin'

as long as I'm breathin' I'll be there

whenever you call me I'll be waitin'

whenever you need me I'll be there

La verdad que cuando Lenny se pone a escribir y le salen canciones como ésta, hace que mis cimientos/convicciones se tambaleen. Es cierto que el otoño ha llegado a Bruselas, y quizá sea por esto que ando sin ganas de nada, de casa al trabajo y viceversa...me estoy dando cuenta de que cada vez que escribo aquí, resulta que estoy nostálgica o melancólica, lo que algunos definirían como un bajón al uso...Todo puede ser...Momentos de soledad autoprovocada en la mayoría de los casos, en los que desemboco sin saber muy bien cómo ni cuándo. Y siempre está el claro tema recurrente del amor, del ansia por encontrar uno que realmente salga bien, de suspirar viendo películas chorra y de llevarme porrazos al leer libros muchos más crueles que los dvds a los que me engancho. ¿Realmente estoy como una regadera? La verdad que muchas veces me pregunto el tipo de contradicción andante que soy...Equilibrada a ratos, desesperada en otros, esperanzada, agotada, iluminada, dormida....

Older chests reveal themselves

Like a crack in a wall

Starting small,

and grow in time

And we all seem to need the help

Of someone else

To mend that shelf

of too many books

Read me your favourite line

Papa went to other lands

And he found someone who understands

The ticking, and the western man's need to cry

He came back the other day, yeah you know

Some things in life may change

And some things

They stay the same

Like time, there's always time

On my mind

So pass me by, I'll be fine

Just give me time

Older gents sit on the fence

With their cap in hand

Looking grand

They watch their city change

Children scream, or so it seems,

Louder than before

Out of doors, into stores with bigger names

Mama tried to wash their faces

But these kids they lost their graces

And daddy lost at the races too many times

She broke down the other day,

yeah you know

Some things in life may change

And some things they stay the same

Like time, time, there's always time

On my mind

So pass me by, I'll be fine

Just give me time,

Time, there's always time

On my mind

Pass me by, I'll be fine

Just give me time