Things people say

People are funny. I mean, everyone says rhetorical things, commonplace expressions that carry no real meaning whatsoever, but some things are simply wrong. Take my longtime favourite (often uttered in despair by a Greek aunt or uncle, or even worse my mum):

"Have you put on weight recently?"

What do you respond to that? "No, this is just an illusion" or "Yes, I've been sort of eating like a pig lately"? Nothing just seems right…

There is no right answer, possibly because this question should not exist. Rude, intrusive, a truism, and just unacceptable, questions like this make my blood boil.

Other gems include:

"Don't you think this is not the way to do this?"

WTF? If I did, don't you think I would be doing it differently? I mean, seriously people, get a grip.

In general, I guess my point is that sometimes people really, really don't speak to offer any new information to the conversation, or the world. Sometimes people are just self indulgent idiots who speak only to make themselves sound clever or simply be a bit judgemental, for the fun of it.

One day, I will find a good way to respond to all of that, a way that summarises today's post in a way, but I guess until then a "fuck you" would just have to do.

Short

With Alice Munro winning the Nobel Prize for literature this year, I thought I should go back to her, and try to read more of her formidable short stories. I was first introduced to her work by my Canadian friend who recommended her wholeheartedly when I asked him for a compatriot of his to read, apart from my steady longtime favourite, Margaret Atwood.

I bought Munro's "Selected stories" and started reading it. I enjoyed it, some of the stories I even found to be really brilliant, but I never finished the book. Now that I came back to it, with determination and gusto, I read one more story and stopped again. (It didn't help that Donna Tartt's "The Goldfinch" just came out at that particular time but that's another story). But the problem, of course does not lie with Munro, she is brilliant. The problem lies with me, or more accurately with my inability to connect to short stories. I never understood why, and of course Munro is not the only victim of my constraint: Tolstoy, Chechov (both of them so often compared to Munro herself), I have never managed to read and enjoy. In short, short is not sweet for me and today, I really forced to ask myself why, and I think I discovered where the problem lies.

Short stories (and poems to a certain extent, another guilty non-pleasure of mine) are extremely minimalist and apospasmatic: they offer really just a glimpse of their subject matter, like a beautiful photo of a fantastic small detail of a giant artefact. All works of art do require work on the part of the beholder: films and books often have open endings, details of the past of the characters are left out and are only implied for, but in short stories there is simply too many blanks to fill. In order to be gripped by a story, I need to get into it, deeply into it, stay there for a while and get properly involved. The fleeting character of the short story really doesn't allow me to do that, and that's why I simply can't get into them.

I guess this means that I am just too lazy for it all. 

An ex-pat's life

Never thought I'd be defining myself as such, but this is what I am, innit? A Greek living abroad, for 12 years no less. Sounds freaky, if you ask me. In my head I'm still 19 years-old for God's sake. I can't be living so many years away from Greece...

Anyway, it gets to you though, doesn't it? I often wonder, do I even still count as Greek? I mean, I'm Greek and all, but not really. For once I can't vote: I am not allowed to vote at an embassy, and I can't afford to travel back to Greece whenever there are elections. The nasty thing about this is: should I even have the right to? I vote for a Greek government from the comfort of my Belfast home and other people pay the taxes... Anyway, I digress and that's a separate issue.

Then, I often forget my language: I think in English, I write in English, I dream in English often. I read books in English, and I always litter my Greek with English words. I also don't feel too close to my Greek roots: I don't understand Greek people sometimes, they feel alien to me. I definitely don't like hanging out with them abroad: most of them seem to me to be moany, annoying brats that complain about the weather and the lack of frapé in coffee shops. Boring. Then there's the food: how can you cook proper Greek food without the fresh ingredients. I think I am making a good imam baildi but when I make it for my dad he complains it's too light, too this, too that, definitely not like how my grandmother made it.

So, the question of identity remains. I sure as hell am not English or Northern Irish, even if I've lived in England for 5 years and here for the rest. Even if I adore the Great British bake off (how very British, no?) and I think the Guardian is a national institution. But more and more I feel I'm this weird hybrid, this different person, this in-between character.

Now is this good or bad, I don't know... 

The same but different

I've always been partly scared of changes in life. I guess this is why I became an academic: I just prolonged my student experience as much as I could, until I was the ultimate student, living in the University and reading books and writing essays for a living. Genius.

Now, when important things happened to me, like for example my husband asking me to marry him, I did have a feeling of panic for a bit. Along with the feeling of immense love and being emotional, and relief (finally someone wants to marry me), I also felt a mild panic: and now what? Does this mean I'm an adult? Does this mean, we are different? Does this mean our relationship is different, or needs to feel different?

The nicest thing about getting engaged and married was not feeling different: I loved him the same and our relationship was a bit different after all that, but really the same.

So, as life goes on, and things change and panic occasionally ensues, I like to remember what Youkali always tells me: you're still yourself, in any new, scary, unchartered situation you find yourself in, you're still yourself. Life goes in cycles and things change, but the fact of the matter is that you're still yourself: young or old, married or single, alone or with friends, with children or without, you're still yourself.

The same but different. 

The man with the white shirt

When the man with the white shirt came onto the stage last night, my heart skipped. I was again 16, in my room, listening to his songs and learning his lyrics by heart. Yesterday, he was handsome but plain: a white shirt, black trousers, his hair not as long. But he was still Brett, he was still the one.

When I first moved to the UK, back in 2001, I thought I had missed the train of seeing Suede live. And then I sort of forgot them for a while, their angst and melancholy didn't seem to fit my newfound life. But they were always there, in the background, singing my dark star, she's not dead, still life and the asphalt world to my deaf ears.

And then last night I saw them live for the first time. It's exhilarating to see the band that you felt defined you for years, there, in front of you, some few meters aware from you. And when Brett came down to the crowd, I felt like running to him, like an infatuated groupie. I got embarrassed and stayed where I was.

When the played Trash last night, followed magnanimously by Animal Nitrate (my God that riff still sounds good), I was back. Back to my room, back to my 16 year old self, back to this feeling of discovering the world, of discovering myself. Discovering oneself through others, isn't this what adolescence is all about? And I felt this happy nostalgia, seeing my old self from afar, I nodded and she nodded back, we said hallow and parted ways again. What a feeling to see your youth, albeit briefly, and like what you see.

Love always, Brett, Suede. Let's chase the dragon from our home, indeed. 

Summer thoughts (take I)

Summer came and went, without a post, without a trace, really. Easily the fastest summer in a while. What happened? Why did it go so fast? Why am I back, my tan fading fast, trying to fight off the rain?But anyway...

This year it dawned on me that I live a double life: most of the year in Belfast, my second home, and in the summer and Christmas holidays, back in my first home, in Greece. This October it will be 12 years that I am away from Greece (a scary thought that I cannot really process most of the time), which means that the people I have back home are diminishing rapidly: my family, my cousins, my new nephews and nieces and old, trusty friends. When I go to Greece, I want to see them, but even more I want to have the illusion that I actually have a life there. A life where I can have someone to go out for a coffee with, or go for a drink with, or go to the beach with, or go shopping with, or go to an island with. I expect to have these people because I always did in the past: I am Greek, I have greek friends, right? Thing is, I am not there for these people, not in their everyday life. At best I am at the other end of a line, a fuzzy picture on Skype, and that when we manage to co-ordinate. But I'm not there there, am I? And still I expect to have these people on stand by when I decide to grace them with my presence for a month in the summer. And most of the time they indulge me, and they make me feel normal. As if they put their life on hold and just half-live when I'm not there and then when I come, we resume our life together. Sometimes though this doesn't really work. People are not available when I want to go on holiday. Or they have other things to do when I want to go shopping. Or they bring other people (OTHER friends) when we go to the beach. And then I get annoyed, or even worse sad. Because I know deep down that this double life is just a bunch of bullshit. I am a nomad, I always used to say, and I used to like this thought.

But this also means I don't have two homes.

It simply means I have none. 

Soundtrack to a Belfast summer

Since I haven't written a lot recently, I might as well post a couple of songs I've been obsessing with recently:



La la, la la la la la la la la la (Sam Smith is killing it this year, what a voice. Boy George anyone?)



These people are seriously funny (just keep looking at Pharell's face.... Priceless)



Another amazing summer tune -  and what a line for a tattoo: The ceiling can't hold us...

And finally, THE summer tune of 2013 (and it's only June)



Welcome back Daft Punk. And Pharell. And bonus another tatoo-worthy line: I'm up all night to get lucky...

Happy summer everyone! 

Survivor's guilt

These days I am suffering from extensive survivor's guilt.

I am Greek, I live abroad, and I live well. I have a house, a good job (that I love), a husband (who also has a good job that he loves). I am thinking of promotion (which I can get at some point).

I am travelling to Greece at least twice a year, I go on holidays.

I can afford nice things, for myself and for my friends. I buy beautiful clothes, my husband has an expensive bike.

On one hand, I deserve these things. I studied for 8 years, and I work hard.

On the other hand though, so do my friends in Greece. They studied too. They work hard too. And yet, they cannot afford half the things I do.

Suicides are up in Greece, drug use is up, HIV is up, violent, racist, hate crime is up. Violence against women is up.

But the story in the media is always the same: lazy Greeks start paying taxes and shut up.

I only have two words for anyone who thinks that: FUCK OFF. 

Sci-fi

I love sci-fi movies, I really do.

From the unbearably classic Blade Runner, to the dark Minority Report, from the Alien quadrilogy (or at least the first two) to Alice in wonderland in fancy leather coats, sorry I meant the Matrix, sic-fi movies make me cringe. Perhaps it's this archetypical fear of the unknown, the worry that death will come from above, from outside and not from within. Perhaps it's the dystopian future, that I adore in literature too (1984, brave new world, never let me go etc), I don't know what it is, just sci-fi fascinates me.

So, even Oblivion, which is not great, and whose script, as correctly pointed out in this Guardian video review, is a massive mishmash of other sic-fi references (a little bit of Matrix meets Mad Max meets Alien meets Ghost in the Shell meets a bit of Lost meets the Truman show meets of course a bit of Oedipus Rex -- every movie needs a bit of Greek tragedy, no?), I actually enjoyed. Tom Cruise is as stereotypical as it gets, and the storyline did have to get explained to me, but the questions the movie poses have been and will always be important: what makes us human? What makes a being a man, and not a machine (alien, clone or whatever)? Is it our subtle love for literature -- as it also happened in the "humanisation" of the Stasi operative in the lives of others? Is it just our inquisitive nature -- you know that when Vicky says "I don't want to know" that she is lost for ever? Is it simply our ability to love?

Oblivion does not pose any new questions, all the above, we've heard it all before. But isn't it worth it hearing it again, especially with such a beautiful set as a backdrop? 

The Godfather

Welcome to the world, you might tell me, but I watched the Godfather movies this week, for the first time ever. I know, crazy, right? But there is something to be said about leaving gems to be enjoyed later in life when you have a bit more brain to enjoy them. Or at least that's my excuse.

Every time I watch (listen to/read) a masterpiece, I think of my time wasted reading/listening to/watching utter and absolute shite. Truly a waste through and through. People tend to think (me included) that "light" movies/literature etc are good for one's tired mind, they take no effort and they are essentially harmless, a good time-passing device. But they give you nothing, NOTHING in return, that's the problem. Just wasted hours and a nagging feeling of annoyance.

Movies like the Godfather, now that's another story alltogether. The story, the subtlety of the "take home message", the acting, Pacino, my god Pacino is amazing. His face doesn't move. And yet he resonates pain.

I think I've heard somewhere that Michael Corleone reluctant ascent to the top of the Corleone family, in the first movie is akin to Hamlet's indecision to do what is expected of him in Shakespeare's classic. Two anti-heroes, one fate. To me though, the second movie, Michael's paranoia, total ruthlessness and utter descent to hell is really what turns this story into a masterpiece. Ah, and of course Robert de Niro's amazing performance in the parallel narrative of the, much less conflicted, Vito Colreone.

I don't have a lot more to write, besides what is there more to say about the Godfather. Only take home message from me (mostly to myself if to anyone) would be just to stop watching trash and focus on the masterpieces of this world. And there are plenty.

A good week

I am having a good week.

Like a really good week.

I wake up happy.

I am not stressed.

I feel normal.

Rare but nice and as such it needed to be commemorated through this banal post. 

Goodbye

I like to think that I avoid too personal posts, but then again isn't everything we write personal? And who knows me out here on the wild wild web anyway?

But I just feel the need to write it today: my grandma died this afternoon. She was 93, and had a happy life. I never really really loved here, but today I cry. I cry because my father is upset and because she suffered when she died. I cry because we saw her over Christmas and she looked so so old.

Apparently, she had everything ready for her funeral, in the chest at home she had her clothes ready, and everything she wanted us to put with her. We had never opened the chest until now and today I asked my mother what was in there. She had a little dress she wanted to wear; my grandfathers two sets of glasses, and her wedding crowns.

That's a blessing - choosing what to take with you in the other life, no?

She didn't come to my wedding this summer and she got so upset. In Christmas we gave her a picture of our wedding day, and she said "my children, you look grown up".

People say funny things, in poignant moments. Movies want us to believe that people actually manage to rise up to life's big occasions, but in end, sometimes, people just say funny things.

Cheers to the dead, then, today. To my grandmother and my cousins, wherever they are, if they are anywhere anyway.  

The Forest (instead of something else)

Today I woke up and I realised that I've missed listening to the Cure - random or what? And not Friday I'm in love and other overplayed pop anthems, but the moody, atmospheric dark gem that is A Forest.



When I was young, I think I was listening to the Cure when I was 16 - 17, I used to dream that I would make a video for that song, with the camera close to my face and me trying to go through a crazy rain forest (and not managing).

Anyway, I wanted to write about the linguistic brilliance of Lance Armstrong's "confession" to Oprah (truly an exercise in indirectness, I need to give it to my students), but that will have to wait. It was definitely much easier to reminisce about the Cure this morning: I'm lost in a forest, all alone... 

Lucky 2013

No end-of-year posts. No best-of lists. No favourite movies, or books, or music. I tried to think, but I couldn't even think of something I really liked this year. Sad or what?

Now that I think of it, I did like Coriolanus by Ralph Fiennes, but I can't remember to write anything about it. And I liked Cararcho with my new favourite Ricardo Darin. And I liked Rust and Bone, with the gorgeous Marion Cotillard.

But of course this is not what posts are about, posts are not lists with links to youtube clips. I read my old posts and they have something to say (hopefully; sometimes) lists don't.

I don't know why I have grown out of it, writing posts that is. Perhaps I am busy, perhaps I don't have a lot of time to indulge on useless blogging anymore. I waste my time on Twitter and Instagram instead.

The biggest problem though is that I am not too inspired anymore. I don't have any interesting thoughts about things, or if I do (when I am lying on my bed at night, finally thinking of something) I can't be bothered to get up and write it. I am severely worried about my lack of quiet time, where I am not glued on my iPhone, browsing something utterly useless on the internet. I want to stop it, I don't want to be that person, but I just can't get around to it.

I don't know what 2013 will bring to me. I have no New Year resolutions. I would like to be more frugal, more stoic, less consumed by things and useless internet surfing. I would like to be this thoughtful, clever person that writes interesting posts, not the person that takes narcissistic pictures of herself and posts them in Instagram (that might sell my pictures without asking for permission...).

Can I be that person? Have been trying for a while, but definitely haven't managed yet.

But here's to another year; here's to another try.