Sometimes life is so beautiful it hurts

And then you go and say there are some men like you

but not many women like me.

How can you say that when you’re the most

beautiful person inside I ever met?

I just answered my question.

I thank you are not big enough words.

My favorite Fargo scene (ever&ever)

Master Work

The transcript, very useful depending on where you come from:

OUTSIDE

        Gary slams his door shut and the other man plants his shovel

        in the snow.

                                MAN

               How ya doin'?

                                GARY

               Mr. Mohra?

                                MAN

               Yah.

                                GARY

               Officer Olson.

                                MAN

               Yah, right-o.

        The two men caucus the driveway without shaking hands and

        without standing particularly close.  They stand stiffly,

        arms down at their sides and breath streaming out of their

        parka hoods.  Each has an awkward leaning-away posture, head

        drawn slightly back and chin tucked in, to keep his face

        from protruding into the cold.

                                MAN

               ...  So, I'm tendin' bar there at

               Ecklund && Swedlin's last Tuesday

               and this little guy's drinkin'

               and he says, 'So where can a guy

               find some action - I'm goin' crazy

               down there at the lake.'  And I

               says, 'What kinda action?' and he

               says, 'Woman action, what do I

               look like,'  And I says 'Well,

               what do I look like, I don't

               arrange that kinda thing,' and he

               says, 'I'm goin' crazy out there

               at the lake' and I says, 'Well,

               this ain't that kinda place.'

                                GARY

               Uh-huh.

                                MAN

               So he says, 'So I get it, so you

               think I'm some kinda jerk for

               askin',' only he doesn't use the

               word jerk.

                                GARY

               I unnerstand.

                               MAN

               And then he calls me a jerk and

               says the last guy who thought he

               was a jerk was dead now.  So I

               don't say nothin' and he says, 'What

               do ya think about that?'  So I

               says, 'Well, that don't sound like

               too good a deal for him then.'

                               GARY

               Ya got that right.

                                MAN

               And he says, 'Yah, that guy's dead

               and I don't mean a old age.'  And

               then he says, 'Geez, I'm goin'

               crazy out there at the lake.'

                                GARY

               White Bear Lake?

                                MAN

               Well, Ecklund && Swedlin's, that's

               closer ta Moose Lake, so I made

               that assumption.

                                GARY

               Oh sure.

                                MAN

               So, ya know, he's drinkin', so I

               don't think a whole great deal of

               it, but Mrs. Mohra heard about the

               homicides out here and she thought

               I should call it in, so I called

               it in.  End a story.

                                GARY

               What'd this guy look like anyways?

                               MAN

               Oh, he was a little guy, kinda

               funny-lookin'.

                               GARY

               Uh-huh - in what way?

                               MAN

               Just a general way.

                               GARY

               Okay, well, thanks a bunch, Mr.

               Mohra.  You're right, it's probably

               nothin', but thanks for callin'

               her in.

                                MAN

               Oh sure.  They say she's gonna

               turn cold tomorrow.

                                GARY

               Yah, got a front movin' in.

                                MAN

               Ya got that right.

More than ever

I'm on my own.

It's not good

It's not bad

It's just a fact.

How reading helps

LONG TIME AGO

I feel depressed at night. It’s been like that for a while. I cannot sleep sometimes. And I am re-reading a Vonnegut novel (Fates worse than Death), where the character says the words that later on I learn they use at AA meetings:

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference”.

My mind reflects and quiets upon reading this and other Vonnegut quotes, quotes whose pessimistic view I share and feel and I specially like the idea of the “Suicide Parlor”, also shared by the Spanish band Ilegales and their “Plataforma de suicidio colectivo”, with the added twist of the roofs, the color of a well-known cheap hotel chain:

[…] he hypothecated an America in which almost all of the work was done by machines, and the only people who could get work had three or more Ph D's. There was a serious overpopulation problem, too.

[…] the government […] set up a purple-roofed Ethical Suicide Parlor at every major intersection.

AND that’s the only way I get some comfort and can go to sleep finally–well, that and half a sleeping pill.

ONE DAY NO WORDS

I haven't spoken a word all day -
I'd like to make that a weekend
or a couple of days - woudn't it be nice?

I really bothers me when people mother me

I just wrote that in an email and I had to leave it here. I had noticed a while ago, but it's coming stronger right now. I guess I'm having this going back to who I am, and who I am as an adult started in the U.S. Stuff from the past is emerging. But only the stuff that can help me be stronger and remind me of who I am and what I have accomplished.

End of story (Fargo, some people know exactly where and who).

--------

And I come back.

The sentence came when talking about friends that treat you like parents (or the way you let them treat you that way). Sometimes you have to block their calls (sometimes you have to block them altogether).

But today, not only this sentence came about, but also a series of mild coincidences.
I had looked for a Seinfeld video on Youtube last night (being as I am back to life in the nineties). I sent it to a friend. He puts it up on Facebook and that gets another exfriend's attention, someone from RI who wanted to hear from me. This woman I had had a few dreams about in the recent months, although I haven't seen her in over ten years. Another woman, a co-worker from that time back had just contacted me a month before.

This morning, one of my favorite journalists-commentators on TV was talking about answering machines or voicemail, call ID, blocked ID, etc. and how they’ve helped us avoid unwanted calls. Something that touches me, since I've had to use the screening / identifying mechanisms to avoid long conversations or rather interrogations lately -though I still need to perfect my system a little more with telemarketers (why don't I hang up when I hear that two seconds' delay yet?).

Anyhow, I go back to Youtube to look for that Seinfeld video, and there I have the one about George's answering machine...

(believe it or not, I’m not home) that cracks me up.
 

I'm literally bent over with laughter, not only 'cause that character has always been my "equivalent/bizarro” in Seinfeld (I used to say I am in between Elaine and George, but I guess I tend to be more of a georgieboy). I’m laughing because the words in that song and the music make me laugh, and because George’s behavior reminds me of my own behavior when nobody's looking. 'Cause screening for one person probably gets him into more trouble than he would be in if he just picked up the phone and said whatever he wanted to say to the woman he is screening against. Also, I like the fact that Jerry knows what George is doing and that's what I want from a friend. Please do get me, if you call yourself a friend.

Then I write to another friend of mine who was with me yesterday and he said I was sad, and I probably was, but today I wrote to him thanking him for his time with me and informing him that by the time I went to bed I had a big smile on my face. So he sends me another Youtube video as a gift. A video about the power of smiles. And he asks me last night if I was writing and I did start writing, or kept writing. I've been smiling, laughing, crying (just a bit) and writing.

So you’ll say, really nothing new here. And you'll be right, my friend.

The day I was compared to Dudley Moore (2002 or 2003)

It’s 3 a.m. and I wake up in a sweat, thinking I woke up at 3 p.m. once again, since the jet lag seems to have had an impact on me this time. Or maybe it’s just that in my secluded bedroom I can never know what the day or the time is if I don't make an effort.

It is getting warmer and brighter outside and tons of men on bicycles are springing in the streets. My grandma died last Monday, an hour after I called her from my friend Carmen’s. That would explain why my brother was not as talkative as usual that day. And I was fooling around in a frenzy at the other side of the pond. I feel guilty, almost.

What a bitch, that Air France hostess at the airport; she made me check an extra suitcase, with the corresponding extra $100, and on top she had me transfer clothes from one suitcase to another, as if that was going to change the total weight of my luggage, so I had to expose my underwear and uncanny thingies in the middle of the airport, as well as dragging my black pants on the floor prior to starting my transatlantic flight. Not to mention having to carry my new laptop as a purse. I finally managed to force it into the squarish plush handbag (exactly the same color and texture than my brother's stuffed bear) to kind of protect it during the flight. And everything that was in that bag, I transferred to the bag containing the blanket in the airplane. Such was my carry on luggage’ incongruence, that placed me in a strange class between the bag-lady and the executive.

At the airport I still made an attempt, plush shoulder bag crossing my chest and my arm grabbing the laptop, to buy a carrying case for the laptop. But all I got to buy was an eyeliner brush that cost 16 dollars (Had I gone mad?). And the inhabitants of the little make up store were weird beings. A man, which is the last thing you expect to see in a Body Shop, much less in a more sophisticated store at Logan Airpot. A woman that resembled the blonde in Absolutely Fabulous (British accent included) assisted me at the cashier. Another shorter older woman, who resembled George Constanza's mother, but closer to his fiancée’s doll and with eyebrows like the ones Elaine draw on Uncle Leo. She approaches and tells me with a strange accent:
—Excuse me, lady, have you ever been told that you look just like Dudley Moore?
—What? —I said to myself, but I guess my face translated right away.
—Dudley Moore, the Hollywood actor, couldn’t she be his sister? —she asks the other woman, who totally agrees.
I don’t have the faintest idea who the guy is, but I suspect he is not one of my favorites, and he's kind of weird (but very funny, according to them). It piques my curiosity and the tall blonde writes his name down on a business card. The brush I bought I am completely satisfied with, though—top quality. I do an internet search and here is the guy. I recognize him immediately.

—How could they tell you something like that? —says my best friend.
—Well girl, I can see the resemblance. When I’ve had a bad night and I'm looking gaunt, I can see it.

I tell the story to some coworkers at the job I had in the summer and they are rolling with laughter. They definitely knew the actor. They see more commercial films, apparently.
—¿Did you have this same haircut?
—More or less.
—That’s why.
—Well, sure that’s why.