I’m blogging while a nice lady is cleaning the apartment. I should feel guilty for not doing it myself but we’ve come to the conclusion that our free time is more important than having a tidy place. In Baia Mare we’ve had a cleaning lady since I was 13. I’ve always been a bit of a hoarder, clinging to things I didn’t use and not being able to throw them away, so it was good that there was someone who made me give up lots of useless things. I’ve recently opened my desk drawer and it’s so full that I can’t put anything inside anymore. I have to take it out, empty it and throw away everything that I don’t need. I’ll probably open it 50 more times until I’ll manage to clean it. I don’t know why I’m so attached to stupid useless things, why I can’t get rid of them.

I don’t know how long it takes to start climbing as if you know the technique but I’m definitely not there yet. I’m going there for fun and for the exercise and I don’t focus on how to get up, I just do. Sometimes when I’m at the middle of the panel I realise that I don’t know what to do next and I laugh and lose my balance. On the other hand, it feels so good when I reach the top and I’m out of breath and out of strength. I love each and every bruise I get from climbing and every callosity (is this the right term?) on my palms. I think that physical activity is very rewarding but the real challenge is to find an activity that suits you.

Lately it’s all been about me, me, me. Three days a week I go climbing and one evening I go and talk to A., my therapist. And it feels great to have such things to fill my time with. I’m very active and I wouldn’t miss one of those session for anything in the world. I finally realise how important it is to put myself first. I’m really pampering myself and it shows. *And they can’t take that away from me

The only thing that bothers me is that I can’t find the right settings for my camera. I’ve played a bit with the contrast and the white balance and everything and I still haven’t found the perfect combination. The colours are not bright enough and the pics look as if they were taken in the ’70s or something. I don’t have the patience to read miles and miles of articles about how to set your white balance but I think I’ll have to resort to that in the end…

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!

I can’t believe that I have three more days here and then I’m off to Baia Mare! These next days will simply fly by and then I’ll have six well-deserved days of doing nothing. Well, not exactly nothing as I have many and great plans. We’re celebrating Mum’s birthday next weekend, I want us (me and Mum) to go out a lot (drink coffee/tea, walk around, shop, just be together as much as possible), I want to take my parents to a fish farm/restaurant (I had the best bread in the world there!) and, of course, I’ll meet all my friends. I am very excited about this holiday.

I have so many things to pack! I haven’t decided if I take the huge suitcase or the normal one and I’m afraid that I’ll forget something at home (I already had a nightmare about that). Right now my couch if full of books, cables, presents and I keep adding things to the pile. But it doesn’t matter – I’ll take everything that I think I’ll want/need ’cause I want this holiday to be perfect!

On other days I am at peace with this city. No, I don’t love it anymore, it’s more like a medicine I know I have to take in order to stay alive but that doesn’t mean that I enjoy taking it. It’s sour and it makes me feel bad but on the long run it keeps me alive.  It’s a necessary evil.

I am so used to second hand clothes and buying new stuff from sales that I think it’s preposterous to pay 10-20-30 lei more for something I really like. If it doesn’t have ‘on sale’ written on it or if it’s not 50-60 lei, I won’t buy it. And I don’t think it’s because I value money, I think it’s because I’m cheap. I don’t even let Mum buy expansivish things for me. I’d like to be more impulsive, to like myself more and thus allow myself more nice things.

When it comes to good food, I think I enjoy both the taste and the people I share it with. Now that I’m a full-time working class hero, I really appreciate the weekend, especially Friday evening. There’s nothing better than to have an unfiltered beer (or two, three), talk about silly things and make plans (which probably won’t come true, but who cares?) for the next two days.

And sometimes unpredictable things happen, like your key breaking in your bike lock and having to leave your bike overnight at the restaurant. I was so relived when we got there today and found our bikes safe and sound! Talking about bikes, I want to sell my new bike. Yup, so soon. I only rode it twice but I don’t feel good on it. It’s very comfy, it’s pretty but I don’t feel good on it. With my old bike it was love at first ride. I know it sounds cheesy, but I was one with it. Even now, when I bike to work every morning I feel so good, it’s what I need, it’s the perfect bike for me. So, if you know anyone who’s interested in buying a bike, maybe you could tell them about my bike.

It’s the second time this summer we’ve been to the park and I don’t want to make promises that I can’t keep, but I’d love to be less lazy and less moody and go there more often. It’s so quiet and nice and green! I read and we played badminton and ate junk food and it was one of the most relaxing afternoons in a very long time.

Also 11 more days till I’m going home! I can hardly wait!

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