Bad hair year

It's been a long time, bla bla.

It's the first day of what was supposed to be a four-day holiday, and I'm in the process of getting ready to go to bed, because some people have to work while others don't, and it's clear which team I was picked to. And the thing I like the most about my personality is the feeling of antecipation I have anytime something bad is about to happen. So the cold rainy Thursday May 1 sucked big time.

The good thing about cold rainy days off is that you can veg in front of TV and eat all the crap you want. The bad is, if you live in Brazil, TV sucks unbe-fucking-lievably. And, mind you, I'm not even talking about the open TV, cable TV sucks too. When not those stupid reality show stuff, or the crappy Rio-based "this is Brazil" bullshit. Sometimes, I own up to it, I managed to catch Family Guy or The Office.

What other things suck? Working. The hell with it!


So, on that crappy note, this has been the first post after a long pause.

At the Pearly Gates

Tonight's post's been sponsored by one of my best friends, who also happens to be a smoke buddy and the owner of one of the funniest and wittiest kind of humour I've ever heard of.
Anyway, we foresaw that the day we die and get ourselves to the Pearly Gates, Saint Peter will be there waiting for us. He'll show us our way to our land (everybody gets its piece of land in heaven, right? At least that's what evangelical people save their monthly wages for) and our property will be overlooking the most breathtaking view of the whole Paradise, reserved for special people... those who have saved their lives from sin.

He'll read our files: "My son, on behalf of our Lord, I hereby proclaim this property yours, in recognition of a lifetime without indulgences, an arduous abdication of sin, a austere crusade against lust and the carnal desires which endured... HOLY SHIT!"

2007's first weirdo

He's 32, from Toronto, Canada.

Roy: Hello from big horny bi hung stud in Toronto Canada.
me: I'm busy dude.
Roy: ok sorry dude.

(oh, i was too harsh? who the hell uses 5 adjectives to introduce himself?)

me(after like 5 min.): sorry about that, so what's up?
Roy: well i was checking your profile and you sounded hot. you're from brazil right?
me: well thanks dude. yeah i'm from brazil.
Roy: i've got pics of mine here, do you want me to send them?

(I had to think fast... but I couldn't come up with anything.)

me: well, if you must. but I don't have many pics. (ahem...lier)
Roy: it's all right so, can i send mine?
me: sure, what do you look like?
Roy: you'll see in the pics
me: i know that... but, are you tall, short?
Roy: yes ...(and he went on describing himself)
me: all right then, you send them to my e-mail...

(...yada yada yada...after about five pictures of his dick )

me: hey, you know what... i guess i've kinda figured out how your dick looks like thanks
Roy: oops, sorry. what about you now?
me: what about me?
Roy: can you send me some pics of you?


(needless to say the pics he'd sent weren't his. and he'd even provided me with a picture of his team mates naked... which is, come on, everybody's got pictures of their friends naked, don't we?)

me: yeah right. well, you can check that link... it's a face pic i have... i'm afriad i don't have any pictures as "hot" as yours.
Roy: well you can't figure out what a guy looks like by just one picture...

(he'd got me completely with that one... i'd have to say that i didn't believe the pictures he'd sent me were real.. that i wasn't the slightest interested in that chat... and that he'd have to totally rethink his chat up techniques. and that'd have caused those really unnecessary internet arguments, it would've been long, painful and not funny... but there wasn't anything i could do. that was when he added...)

Roy: well you can't figure out what a guy looks like by just one picture...AND I'M NOT WASTING MY TIME TRAVELLING ALL THE WAY DOWN THERE TO VISIT YOU.

(silence)

me/Monica: WHAT? wait a sec, did you just say you were travelling to Brazil to visit me?
Roy: well I like travelling and Brazil sounds like a nice place and I thought you sounded hot
me: That's really sweet of you but... don't you have, like, friends in Toronto?
Roy: that's none of your business.
me: pretty much so.
Roy: so, enjoy your life without a camera.
me: yeah, enjoy your camera without a life.

it didn't end here of course... he kept babbling things about foreigners... and that all the swear words... I had to tell him I wasn't familiar with his 9th grade language... but that was enough... first weirdo of the year. 32 year old, from Toronto, Canada.

This is one thing I don't get.. why do Europeans and Anglo-Saxan Americans always say: "I'm from Paris, France."
If I were from Paris, Texas... well... I would feel kind of impelled to say Paris, Texas. For the obvious reason of this city's not being the world famous French capital. I really think I didn't, but what I feel whenever I read that is "Well, in case this guy haven't had elementary geography classes...I'll help him out"

It's different from what I sometimes do ... "I'm from São Paulo (Brazil)"... I own up to the fact that my city isn't as famous as it should be (arguably or not but that's just not the point now). The brackets work like "São Paulo is in Brazil, in case you might wonder where it is"

It DOES sound like the same thing but it's not. If you live in Toronto, Canada, chances are, people are way more likely to know your city than if you lived, say, in São Paulo. The reader has to agree that recognizing São Paulo requires a lot more general geography knowledge than Toronto.

Well the moral of the story is: if you don't know São Paulo, it's your loss.

The best of my recollection and all the other things

OCT 14, 2006

Officially sick

Last night I was supposed to go out with a couple of guys I know. Oh, they're friends. I'd actually told them I'd surely go... and then I came back home, took a shower and watched TV. By the time they're supposed to pick me up at the subway station I was about to go to sleep. I don't know if I underestimated their willingness to go out with me, but what happens is, they actually called me to check where I was. I had turned off my cell phone. I felt that'd be something really immature and kind of rude to do but then I started thinking of all the explanations and all the nagging I'd have to cope with. That's why I did it. Later on I was thinking about it and it dawned on me I hadn't done anything THAT bad. I mean, knowing those two as I do, we'd spend 2h making up our minds on where to go; then it'd take us another hour to drive back to the place where they give flyers of the place (talk about cheap). We'd get there, 2h in the line, one more hour for the hostess to spell my name correctly (Brazilians don't seem to be that 'globally aware')

JAN 01 2007

Why no post?
...and that's basically the last time I tried posting here. But then, instead of erasing this post and starting a NYE's new one from scratch, it kind of dawned on me that from that October day on things hadn't changed that much, going-out-wise. The best friend of mine called from London telling how much she missed me and at the end she said "I love you". Damn, it just feels right when she says that. I mean, "I love you" makes sense to me when it comes from her. I'm home for the holidays, I've grown a 10-day beard. Definetly looking like one of those Alaska crab catchers. And since I haven't had reason to leave the house but some brief "promenades" to the bakery and the daily dog-walk, there hasn't been reason/time for the cigarette smoking thing. (Just for the record and the sake of not sounding such a loser, I don't smoke at home, but the folks DO know I do) I'm not chewing my knuckles, biting nails to the bone, tearing my hair out... nothing like that. Now THAT's scary! If I were a regular smoker I would've been hitting my own head on the wall by now. So it turns out I'm not really a smoker. So, I smoke for the fun of it? Can it sound any more pathetic?

Resolutions suck
Resolutions aren't something I'm good at making, let alone keeping. I promise I'll be a good person. I promise I'll keep voting for the left, knowing why. I promise I'll make sure the addressees of my dearest feelings get properly posted. I promise sarcasm and irony will only be resorted to when strictly necessary. There has to be something done about the living with the parents thing and the days of the not driving thing are definetly over. (let's see to it)

The job thing
I can't really say what's been worthy of mentioning in 2006. Apart from the loving having gotten the new job thing, the going mental with the job thing, the missing the friends thing. A hell of a change, this has been. A major step, career-wise. It's like driving a C30 VOLVO: once you've done it, you just can't go back to your regular German car. (Sorry, Audi, this is my blog and Volvos ARE way classier).

30
I turned 30 this year...(yeah, I know)...I've been trying, unsuccessfully, to convince myself that I've got absolutely no problem with the ageing part of it, but instead, that what bothers me is the sense of having left so many things undone, that my accomplishement rate is in the red. And, no matter what goddamn trip you've done, no matter god-knows-who person you've met/talked to/made out with... it just doesn't seem enough to fulfill your ego: you want that AND the things they sell on TV.

2006
It's been the year that I turned 30, got a new job, did NOT go to The Cardigans' concert and bought a hideous fake-Sony bootleg Chinese MP3 player. Fact to which there hasn't been a day I don't regret having done it. I've completely given up on ICQ. As part of the growing-up thing, I realized I really like watching "serious" TV programmes and The Nanny (not the one with Fran Drescher, which is still pretty cool; but the one with the British nanny chick - I've somehow found it might come in handy when dealing with students, ha ha fat chance!)

2007
Apart from the unworkable resolutions, there are some intangibles I think would be really worthy of aiming for. Examples abound: unconditional friendship, impartial self-awareness and, above all, UNOSTENTATIOUS PANACHE

Vicious circle

I don't feel like going out, so I stay home and watch TV or I face the computer screen for hours trying to find something interesting to see/do. Obviously it never happens. Then I feign interest or amusement to one or two people on the internet. On MSN, mostly. I've totally given up ICQ. There're only two or three people there worthy of notice. The rest is a bunch of mid-aged Canadian gay** men or teenage Chinese girls.

Sometimes I think I should do something about my ruined social life and call someone. But then it's like a 50 seconds chat: "Hi so, are you okay?" "Cool, so what are you up to?" "Nah, I'm staying in" "Yeah, definetly, let's do something" "Well, you know, I'm not the kind of person who calls" "OK take care".

Sometimes I even get to ask a friend what he's doing for the night and get myself invited. Sometimes I keep my promises and actually go out. Most of the times I wish I hadn't.

Going out with friends has become an arduous thing to do. For me, that is. Firstly, I've got to convince myself that going out is what it takes to get me in a good mood. Secondly, I have to convince others that going out with me is fun. And, more often than not, I think I do it very well indeed. I'm always considerate and polite: I ask whether this person is doing for the night (considerate: I ask what he or she wants to do other than just blabbing what it'd be so much fun if we did) and I make it sound as though I had absolutely no intention to bring this person round to inviting me to join her. (that's the being polite part, or evil?). This having been done, the next step is making sure I am fully aware of the consequences of going out when I could perfectly stay in and sleep longer. Then I start the memory erasing procedure: I'll wipe away from my memory all the things I'd said about not going out with this or that person, not going to this or that place, not wearing this or that piece of clothing, not feigning I'm this or that happy.

Then I get to the place, as arranged, on time. And I get to wait. ALWAYS. It's okay because I have time for a cigarette, or two. And then the person comes and asks whether I'd been waiting for too long and I say no, that I'd just got there, like 5 minutes ago. These things aren't a problem at all. I can deal with people being late or stuff like that. Cause it's all covered by the "SO YOU'RE GOING OUT TONIGHT AND HAVE FUN, OK MISTER?" weird act in front of the mirror.

I've been recently asked to show this-guy-I-know-from-MSN's boyfriend around. I was literally brought round to do it. For not wanting to be rude or seem a freak (You never deny your phone number to someone who's being nice on MSN chat, do you?*) I might have given the impression that I'd be thrilled to take this person out. And even after two 50 second phone talks, it hasn't dawned on him that I didn't really say I was taking him out, and that 'COOL', 'IS HE REALLY?' and 'GOOD FOR HIM' don't exactly mean 'YES, I'D LOVE GOING OUT WITH HIM'. That's the price you pay for not being straight forward and wanting to be a normal Brazilian.

note to reader: if you have to resort to the follwoing notes, then you need to recycle sarcasm skills as well as the sarcastic gist grasping.

* if you do it (deny giving your phone bla bla bla...): don't worry, you're normal. I mean, unless you're hooking up with this person, whyever would you giving your phone number in the first chat?

* if you don't: and by that you accept that giving your phone number to someone you've just "met" on MSN isn't something worthy of pondering; well then you're fine. You're just the kind of person who loves going out and meeting new people and you love to ask personal questions right away in the first meeting and probably you're the one who asks a/s/l questions matter-of-factly

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I agree that this topic might raise some intriguing questions about the reader's being or not included in the above-mentioned categories. If there's something you might know about your status: please ask me. (Your getting to read this up to the end and actually caring enough to ask me is a clear sign of your not being in any of the categories.)

** mid-aged Canadian gay men or mid-aged gay Canadian men? The order of adjectives is (correct me if I'm wrong): opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose, the noun itself; and others.
Mid-aged, ok: age. Canadian, ok: origin. What is 'gay' then? Material, as in DNA structures? Purpose, like: ... hmm... good question, what's the point of being gay anyway? Or should I say gay men is a compound noun, a redundant term which only emphasizes the gayness of the individual being describe?

Last but not least; I hereby give notice of my awareness of there being some terms posted in today's topic that may cause some to find them a bit too rude towards nationalities. It was absolutely not my intention to defame any particular group regardless of its nationality, age, creed or whatever weird stuff they do in bed. It just happens to be the same goddamn 70 year old guys from the same place. I'm sorry. Statistical data are available upon request.