Up until now I’ve had a great time home. Tiring but great. I don’t feel that I’ve missed much by not keeping in touch with many people. Yes, I miss some of my classmates but I’m not as sociable as I used to be, I’m not that open. I hate it when people don’t mix, when there are awkward pauses in the conversation and I feel good only with people I’ve know for years and whom I can rely on. The night I went out with Steve and M. was fantastic from my point of view. We had something to drink, the conversation was great and I felt that we were going to meet for many more years to come. I think one of my resolutions will be to let go of people who don’t mean that much to me and stick to the ones who deserve it. There are things I can get over and there are things that are a deal breaker. And for my peace of mind I’m not going to accept any deal breakers.

Spending time with my extended family was okish except that the kids become tiring the third morning and at one point the grown-ups surrounded me with stupid questions: ‘When are you getting married?’ ‘Why hasn’t he joined you here?’ ‘Are you still with him?’ ‘Do you still have feelings for him?’ etc. etc. etc. I know that they always do that and I know that I can’t stop them (that much I’ve learned by going to therapy) but sometimes I wish I could put them on mute and explain that I never ask them about their personal business and that I hate it when they’re trying to be funny by asking me such idiotic questions but I’m pretty sure that next time they would ask the same questions all over again. So I just took a deep breath, told them I’m not getting married and changed the subject. But it bothers me that they still don’t know me/understand me and that they think that I’ll change my mind and do what’s expected of me.

I can’t believe I’m the oldest one among my cousins and other relatives! That I’m an aunt who brings them presents for Christmas and who has a fancy phone and who got a cool haircut and colours her hair! I remember vividly the times when I looked up to my cousins and now it’s scary that there are others who look up to me. Even tough we are so different we are still bound together by this thing called ‘family’. This concept still puzzles me and 50% of time I want to be as far as possible from it (family) and the other half I’d give anything to be closer… I can only hope that one day I’ll know what I actually want.

*Bon Iver – Blood Bank

This is my third day in Baia Mare and I still can’t sleep properly. I used to love the bed here and whenever I got home I just put my head on the pillow and I was asleep. And now I toss and turn and nothing. Not even the two duvets and the overheated room don’t make things easier for me.

But it’s good to be back home, I have to admit that. I have already met some of my dear friends from here and I still have many more to meet. I haven’t had time for myself but I managed to have my hair cut (yes, A., now you won’t have to see the ugly cut from the back of my head anymore ), buy some winter shoes and spend quality time with Mum. Oh, it’s soooo good to eat cooked food again! I’m sick and tired of falafel and pizza! At the top of my list with resolution I should put ‘cook more’. But who actually keeps track of those silly resolutions? I think they sound nice, they give you the impression that the year that’s just starting is going to be different, better and then you end up doing the same stupid things all over again.

I’m eating tangerines like there’s no tomorrow. I envy that my father has a green thumb. Yeah, their apartment gets more sunlight than ours, but still… They have so many plants and flowers and so few casualties. All the plants that I buy wither either because I water them too much or too less or because they don’t have enough light. I want to bright up the place and I can’t. I such a loser in so many ways…

This snow is such a bitch! When I woke up there was a thin layer of snow everywhere and it was snowing beautifully with big fat flakes and now it’s gone I really can’t picture Christmas without it and the city looks so sad and muddy and ugly. But there are still some days left and I still have hope.

I want to go back to bed and read all day but I don’t know if I have the patience to do that. I’m really mad at myself for not reading as much as I used to. I have to change that but how? Reading is something so personal, so mood-dependent. I can’t force myself to read if I’m not in the right mood and because I have other activities in the evenings I don’t have much time to read. It’s a horrible vicious circle!

*DeYarmond Edison - As long as I can go

The only problem is my laziness and the fact that I don’t know anyone there. I talked to some people and we helped each other but it’s still not the same as going there with a friend or with someone you know. I’ve realised that I hate being alone, apart, outside. The people there all know one another, they all help each other out, they’re like one big family. I don’t want to make new friends, I just want to feel less awkward. But I should probably give it more time.

These last weeks all I did was work, work, work and then work some more. Honestly, I’m sick and tired of it, I need a long holiday, which I intent to have for Christmas. I’m less depressed and sad, now I’m simply overworked. I always feel tired in the morning, I hate going to work everyday and I hate the fact that everything is urgent, that everybody wants everything NOW!

But like A., my therapist, said, I am very good at spotting the bad parts. I have to focus my attention on the good ones, so here’s a list with good things which I’m looking forward to:

• going climbing
• snow
• going to Baia Mare
• Christmas
• editing another book
• going to the Radiohead concert in Berlin next July!!!
• writing my dissertation (should be fun)
• my Tuesday therapy sessions
• going to Sibiu at the end of the year (who’s coming out for a beer with us except Béranger and Yuki?)
• meeting friends I haven’t seen in more than a year!
• giving presents

*Radiohead – Climbing up the walls

The book fair is just around the corner and there’s so much work to do! We’re all so tired and I’m daydreaming about Christmas and going home and, like always, doing nothing! My far-away friends will also come this Christmas back home and I can hardly wait to spend hours talking and drinking tea with them. And I’m already thinking about Christmas presents and I have some ideas but not enough and I don’t know if I have enough money for all I want to give. Well, I can be generous at least once a year!

Since I’ve been working with books I’ve started to lose respect for their physical appearance. Not that ugly cover designs don’t make me shudder, but I’m more negligent with their pages: I don’t mind treating books like objects and not like gods. And I read so much at work and then I read some more when I get back home but I don’t want to stop, I just want to go back to read for my own pleasure and venerating books. I used to think that the coolest job ever would be to read books and get paid for that, now I’m having second doubts…

I dont know how you can carry around as much love as I’ve given you – (March 1919)

And so you see, Scott, I’ll never be able to do anything because I’m much too lazy to care whether it’s done or not – and I don’t want to be famous and fêted – all I want is to very young always and very irresponsible and to feel that my life is my own – to live and be happy and die in my own way – to please myself. (Fall 1919)

Was it fun in Paris? Who did you see there and was the Madeleine pink at five o’clock and did the fountains fall with hollow delicacy into the framing of space in the Palace de la Concorde and did the blue creep out from behind the colonades of the rue de Rivoli through the grill of the Tuileries and was the Louvre gray and metallic in the sun and did the trees hang brooding over the cafés and were there lights at night and the click of saucers and the auto horns that play Debussy. I love Paris. How was it? (Summer1930)

Do you still smell of pencils and sometimes of tweed? (Fall 1930)

It’s fun thinking of Christmas and the night you will get home and how you’ll look as you come out the gate. I will be surprised at your mondanity and very amazed that you are concice and powerful and I will be happy that you are so handsome and when I see how handsome you are my stomach will fall with many unpleasant emotions like a cake with too many raisins and I will want to shut you up in a closet like a dress too beautiful to wear. (November 26, 1931)

Dearest – I suppose I will spend the rest of my life torn between the desire to master life and the feeling that it is, au fond, a contemptuous enemy. (Februrary/March 1932)

Happily, happily foreverafterwards – the best we could. (August 1936)

Dearest: I am always grateful for all the royalties you gave me, and I am always loyal to the concepts that held us to-gether so long: the belief that life is tragic, that a mans spiritual reward is the keeping of his faith: that we shouldn’t hurt each other. And I love, always your fine writing, your tolerance and generosity; and all your happy endowments. Nothing could have survived our life. (March 1939)

Dear Scott, Dearest Zela, Bloomsbury, 2003

I put the groceries in the fridge and proceeded to wash the blueberries. When I tried one I was shocked to find it had a core. Wtf? I tried another one: didn’t taste like a blueberry and it still had a core! I was getting angrier and angrier. I called Mum, told her about the core, about how they look like blueberries but they’re not, how that woman lied to my face and sold me something else! She laughed and told me that what I had bought are some cheap good for nothing berries. FUCK!

So I grabbed the bag and stormed out of the house. The anger had now reached its peak, I was literally fuming! I got to the lady who sold me the blueberries and we had a surrealistic talk:

- Hello, can you tell me what berries are these?
- Yes, they are ???berries.
- But I specifically asked you if they were blueberries and you said yes.
- You can make jam out of them or liquor!
- That’s not the point! I wanted blueberries and these are not blueberries!
- No, they’re not.
- Then why did you tell me they were blueberries?
- Have you tasted them? They are good! You can make jam out of them or liquor!
- I WANTED BLUEBERRIES!

In the end she agreed to give me back my money and I gave her back her fucking berries. On the way back I calmed a bit but I still can’t get over the fact that people would do anything for money. Or maybe she was just deranged and thought that I just wanted berries, no matter if they were blue or not… And again, I am so pissed that people think they can fool me. They look at me and probably see a teenager and they think that I don’t have anything to say, that my opinions don’t count, that they can fool me and I won’t do anything against it… I should lock myself inside cause I hate what’s going on outside!

My life is a big ‘I don’t know’. I’ve always been moody and indecisive but I feel that I’m losing control. Nothing is good enough for me, nothing makes me happy, nothing motivates me. Shit. Shit. Shit. I’m not depressed, I’m just dissatisfied, with a pinch of unhappiness. And talking with my older and wiser friends doesn’t really help cause they’re going through the same thing and they can’t do anything against it. And no, I can’t just let it go, move on, stop complaining, just do it, whatever, cause it’s not a mood, it’s a way of being and you can’t just shake it off.

At least I read a lot. I feel good every time I finish a book and start another one. I feel like I accomplish something. If so, it’s the only thing I accomplish. Well, OK, I’ve started doing some cardio exercises and contrary to what I had thought about these things, I enjoy doing them. Now I’ll be even fitter to do nothing.

*MIA – Hungriges Herz

Talking about free days, since I’ve been working at my new job I’ve been taking days off every month! I either had to go to Germany or go home or I simply wanted one day off from work. As(s) my boss doesn’t really like me, he doesn’t allow me to work from home like the rest of my colleagues. I know that most companies don’t let you work from home (only when they make you work in the weekend) but if this company allows it, why the fuck can’t I do it? My colleagues are really nice, some of them are awesome people to have around, but this thing with my boss really drives me crazy. And no, I can’t talk to him about it because he’s not that type of person. Anyway, enough about him.

I am such a couch potato! I said I wanted to explore the part of Bucharest where I work but every day when it’s time to go home that’s exactly what I do: go home. No walking around, no looking at beautiful houses, no nothing: I jump on my bike, then take the tube home. I stop to buy (water)melons and when I get home I eat big portions of them and afterwards I feel sick. I can’t pull myself together and make the best out of my free time. I think I need some pills that kill laziness.

I don’t think I am a loner, I think I just don’t know how to hold on to people. And why should I? I mean everyone is free to come and leave how they please, why should you hold on to them? You get to tell people so much about yourself and then you never see them again so what’s the point of going through that phase anyway? I went from going out with many people to being all by myself and it wasn’t that pleasant. Now I’m mostly by myself and it’s fine. Acquaintances are nice, friends I’m skeptical about.

I want to smash the phone when the alarm rings every morning at 7.
I want to sue the heating company for providing water that’s colder than my body temperature instead of hot water.
I want to attack with my book the people who get too close to me on the tube.
I want my skirts and dresses not to go up when I bike.

I want this weather to bloody decide already if it wants to be summer or autumn so I can dress accordingly.
I want rain boots not to be so expensive, it’s just plastic anyway!
I want to be able to save money.
I want to be able to speak German. And to learn Spanish.
I want to actually do something (with my life). (But I don’t know what.)

Inertia, baby, it’s all about inertia!