Up the Wall

25 November 2011 at 11:45 pm (Education, Insight, People, Plinky Prompts, Rants, Relationships, Self, Wellbeing)
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I'm generally a laid-back girl, usually opting for the path of least resistance. That is the reason that the few things that drive me crazy really push me to the border of certifiability.

Stupidity 2

Actually, come to think about it, there are only two real things that drive me crazy – two major things that branch out into smaller instances, but we're looking at the big picture here.

The first is a lack of personal space and time. I need a corner, if that's all I can get, to build my book fortress and call it mine, with nobody messing with it. Sharing everything really makes me suffer. My old workstation, which I couldn't customise because someone else would be sitting there next shift, made me twitchy. Now I'm putting up with dodgy chairs instead of the comfy sofas, all for the bliss of having my computer desk as my exclusive territory.

Personal time may or may not be associated with my personal space. I really need some time alone each day, away from any kind of responsibility, to read or listen to music and decompress. That's either a half-hour sprawled on the bed with a book after the young one is tucked in, or a bimble to the supermarket with my mp3 player on, or, if I'm really lucky, a wander about town while shortstuff is at school. I become cranky and snappish if I don't get it, particularly long-term, as it tends to happen when we're visiting with my mother, who doesn't understand 'doing nothing time'.

The other thing, which makes me see red and gives me opportunities to exercise my self-control (not always successfully) is human stupidity. I used to spend considerable lengths on time on Yahoo Answers, and the sheer amounts of ignorance and idiocy spouted there were staggering. From the 'Catholic vs Christian' dichotomy to the father who was worried that his newborn daughter would become a lesbian if she breastfed, I would invariably end up debating ways to give that gene pool a good bleaching.

Now I'm on other debating communities, and some of the opinions I hear expressed there make me nearly foam at the mouth. I want to give some of the consistently WTF? authors a good shake (until their teeth rattle) and find out which planet they fell out of and if they maintain any link at all with reality. Just like the claim that public school-quality pizza is a full balanced meal. The stupid… it burns!

And then there's also the cunning stupid, when people attempt to pull a fast one and then wonder why I call them out on it. Like Jerry Springer guests. The bigger the jackass, the louder the bray.

I'll be looking for the latest edition of the Darwin Awards soon. And if I ever find any evidence that the stupid is contagious, watch me go all Ellen Ripley on the morons unfortunate enough to be within range. Really.

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Attempts at Countrification

23 November 2011 at 10:16 pm (Britain, Greece, Nature, Places, Plinky Prompts, Self, Wellbeing)
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I was born and raised in Athens. A sprawling metropolis of about four million souls, spectacularly magnificent in places and spectacularly repellent in others. I guess it spoiled me for any smaller place.

Athens

I used to say that, as a dedicated city girl, I couldn't see myself living in a smaller place. Well, I'd jump at half a chance to live in Edinburgh, despite it being about 1/10 the size of Athens, but beyond that, I'd only leave for an even bigger place, like London, Paris or New York. I couldn't even imagine then that I would end up in semi-rural Essex, coping with life out in the fringes of a modestly sized town. And really, coping is the word.

You see, I'm definitely not cut out for life in the wild. Even if that means a housing estate a short bus ride from town, as wild as a domesticated mouse. I miss being able to pop out to the shops at a moment's notice, or finding myself among people with a few minutes' walking. We're on a dorm estate, where I can go for half a mile or so without meeting a soul on the street, and I resent having to plan a bloody journey on the bus to get into town. The local lifestyle is heavily skewed in favour of drivers; walking is a desolate experience and public transport combines extortionate fares with unreliable timetables. If we didn't have a huge supermarket, that allows lots of browsing, close by, I wouldn't have anywhere at all to go, outside town limits. I'm still wondering at a retail estate with several furniture, furnishings and DIY stores, but no bookstore.

I've spent long periods of time in the real countryside, in a house without hot water or an indoor bathroom, where we still gathered our dinner ingredients from the garden. I know I'd make a lousy farmer's wife; I've even lost the feeble interest in gardening I used to have, much as I would like a chance to grow some of our own food. But I'm no good even in the faux countryside of the boonies. I just miss people too much. It's bad enough that there is absolutely nothing to do in town once the shops close. (By 6pm. Which, in high summer, means long hours of empty streets in broad daylight. Creepy.)

I know now that I could live in an even smaller town. I'd just have to be smack in the middle of it all.

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Daily Haunts

22 November 2011 at 9:18 pm (Education, Entertainment, Internet, Journal, Multilingual, Music, Plinky Prompts, Roleplaying, Sex, Writing)
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The internet is my home as much as the brick-and-mortar construct is, and the time I spend in either proves the fact. So here are the places where you're most likely to bump into me (without creeping me out and making me cry stalker, that is).

Funny Picture of Nun Religion

1. Elliquiy (http://elliquiy.com/forums/). If sites were places where we could actually live, upload our consciousness or whatever, that would be my home. An adult roleplaying site and wonderful community, which has been my largest gathering of friends, information and support network, and purveyor of creative fun times for over three years. I wouldn't get hung up on the 'adult' part of it all, if I were you; I get my kicks out of writing elaborate storylines which happen to include adult themes, not mindless smut. There are also countless books I wouldn't have read, movies I wouldn't have watched, sites I wouldn't have visited, without recommendations from there. I've raked up over a year's worth of online time there, and I'm not leaving any time soon.

2. World Enough and Time (http://worldenoughandtime.net/forums/). The 'little sister' of Elliquiy. Smaller, quieter, more literary. It was created by a magnificent, inspirational woman who, sadly, passed away about half a year later. Me and a handful of others are doing our best to keep the place alive in her memory. RIP, Nightbird.

3. WordPress (http://.wordpress.com/). I've been blogging since 2006, first on Yahoo360, then on LiveJournal, Multiply, Blogger, and finally WordPress. Blogging, as a form of writing, is a compulsion – I've posted a few thousand entries, both composed by myself and reproducing material by others that I find inspiring. I'd find it extremely hard to live without a platform to put thought into words, as longhand doesn't quite do the trick for me. Especially during the month of November, with its big writing projects.

4. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/). Yes, it's an open resource that anyone can edit, and therefore as open to spreading misinformation as can be. On the other hand, there's a staggering amount of information there, not to mention endless links to more credible resources. A wikisearch is always my first step in any kind of research. If anything, it allows me to get my terminology right; as a non-native English speaker, I can be wildly off the mark when I try to translate something I know in Greek, but even the most approximative initial search has led me to what I really wanted to know, in very few steps.

5. Last.fm (http://last.fm/). On top of all sorts of radio stations by user or genre, it allows me to create my own radio station, mixing actual preferences and suggestions and synchronising my Winamp with my music library, so that everything I listen to, online or offline, is logged and added for never-ending refinement. What more could I ask for, especially when I want to stream music I enjoy for hours without having to choose albums all the time or when I can't use the external drive where I store my mp3s?

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Deck the Halls

20 November 2011 at 9:42 pm (Entertainment, Family, Food, Greece, Plinky Prompts, Relationships, Religion, Seasons, Special Days, Travel)
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Not our own hall, though. Not if I can avoid it. Not this time.

You see, I plan to be in Athens for the holidays this year. Last time was in 2009, and I've missed the atmosphere so much.

We haven't booked tickets yet, so I don't know exactly when we will be away – any time between 17 December and 2 January. I want to be there as long as possible, and not only because I desperately need seven workdays to bring my paperwork up to date, failing which would create no end of trouble.

You see, we say 'holidays' there, instead of just 'Christmas', because Christmas is only the beginning of the festive season. During most of the 12 days, the party goes on non-stop. There are so many name days to be celebrated, and a good few of them involve such popular names, that an overdose of treats is very likely, if one really keeps in touch.

The week between Christmas and the New Year also hosts more parties than any other time in the year: one long revel to celebrate the birth of the Son and chase the old year away. Add to it the fact that presents are exchanged on New Year's Day, rather than Christmas, and you can understand we could never be satisfied with a day or two of celebrating. Oh no. That's just a warm-up.

So I'm going to do everything in my power to be down early, to enjoy the build-up of activity. To decorate the tree in my mother's living room, which I haven't done since 2006, together with my little one. To welcome carol singers on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. To go to church at dawn and hear liturgy in Greek again. To have the pork and leek casserole that is traditional Christmas Day fare in my part of the country, and my mother's incomparable melomakarona. To visit with uncles and aunts and cousins and old friends, who haven't seen my son since he was just crawling. To see old friends, walk along crowded decorated streets, and welcome the New Year with fireworks at midnight and clinking glasses of bubbly with the family that made me and the one that I made, all together.

Despite the bleak economic climate in Greece right now, all I can think of is spending time with the people I care for. Nothing else matters. We've faced the spectre of poverty here as well, and we're just beginning to raise our heads above water, but I'd do anything to never have to spend another holiday season separated again.

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Knowing Me, Knowing You

14 November 2011 at 11:49 pm (Family, Insight, People, Plinky Prompts, Relationships, Self, Sex)
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I bet that a lot of people would take it for granted that their mothers know them best. Well, no.

Masks 9

To be brutally honest, my mother stopped knowing me around the time I moved from my teens into full adulthood, and I'm not sure she was the one who knew me best even before that. I suspect my father understood me better, although he was a man of few (and to the point) words. He died when I was 17, and my mother was sucked into her own crumbling world and missed me actually growing up. I don't think she fully understands, even now, how the child she raised became the woman I am. It wasn't overnight, but one still needs to look.

No, the ones who really know me best are the men who have partnered me, for relatively short periods, considering, but got to depths of connection that my family never reached with adult me.

I have only been in two relationships in my life. The first lasted nearly five years, and even after calling the couple thing off, we remain best friends. We are in different countries now, so we don't have nearly as much contact as we would like to, but a lot of the old companionship remains. The second started as an internet friendship, grew into a long-distance affair and finally marriage and family. Seven years into it, neither of us is seeing the partnership ending any time soon.

I think the key is that I've been real friends with both my partners. We've connected beyond dating – with long walks and talks, gaming, sharing social and personal landmarks. They've both seen me at my most unglamorous – ill, distressed, angry, crying, dishevelled first thing in the morning, the lot. My ex supported me after a bout of mono, went along with me as I was tested for lymphatic malignancy, shouldered my fear, let me vent over being laid off, over making do with a crappy job and crappier people to make ends meet. My husband held my hand as I gave birth, took me to A&E writhing in agony, was by my side when I had surgery, held me at night when all my fears surfaced, during our long months of unemployment hell. It's not like my mother hasn't nursed or comforted me, but neither the worries nor the ailments of my childhood got anything on those I've been facing as an adult, away from family.

Yes, sex is a big part in getting to know someone, and the one thing one can't share with family, but you'd be surprised how minor it can be, compared to all the other ways two real partners can connect and understand each other.

Or perhaps you wouldn't.

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