An ode to infidelity

Listening to La Roux's exceptional song (and Skream's exceptional drum&bass remix) I realized that I hadn't fully understood what the song was about, since I was mishearing the lyrics... Take a look at an extract from this inspired song:

We can fight our desires, but when we start making fires
We get ever so hot, whether we like it or not

They say we can love who we trust - but what is love without lust?
Two hearts with accurate devotions and what are feelings without emotions?

I'm going in for the kill, I'm doing it for a thrill
Oh I'm hoping you'll understand, and not let go of my hand...

In the refrain, I thought she was saying 'and now let go of my hand' but I was wrong.

Thinking about the song I think it is the desperate plead of a person to another to let them be free. In the excellent line 'they say we love who we trust - but what is love without lust?', I think La Roux gives a fatal blow to boring, convenient, sexually dead relationships. She says, love is cool and all, but sex and lust are underrated. And I agree, people seem to be happy to disregard sex as unimportant, but as a friend once said, whatever a couple fights about during the day, they can deal with it in the evening when they go to bed. If they don't sleep together though, or if when they sleep together, they don't like it, then they can solve nothing, I think. So, long live lust (and who cares about trust?)!

The defining moment

What are the defining moments of our lives?

Is it when you submit your PhD, holding it in your hands, giving it away to some administrative officer, and getting congratulations in return, and a receipt?

Is it when you sign for your first job, going up to a funny looking HR department, 'signing your life away' and finally feeling like a normal adult?

Is it when you present a good paper at a conference and feel the respect of your peers?

Is it when you teach and you make your students understand something, something they wouldn't have understood otherwise and you look at their eyes and see crystal and sincere interest?

Or perhaps it's not it, not it at all. Perhaps defining moments are of a different sort alltogether.

Is it when you meet friends you haven't seen in a while and just sit there and be comfortable and be reminded how wonderful people can be?

Is it when you go to concert and feel elated by the music, you feel like waves crashing in your heart, filling it with happiness and emotion?

Is it when you hear of an amazing song, and just sit there and marvel in the beauty of the simplicity of pop ("they say we love the ones we trust, but what is love without lust?" -la roux)?

Or is it when you look into someone's eyes and know you love them and they love you back? Is it this moment that you feel that the heart is the only organ in your body working? Is it when you feel this absolute acceptance, serenity and excitement, all at the same time?

Perhaps the questions is wrong alltogether, perhaps there are no defining moments, or at least not just one anyway. Perhaps a bit a of everything defines us, each in a different way.

The inspiration

Long before the time of blogs and on-line diaries, I used to write by hand: a diary, some notes, childish poems, texts etc... Back then I used to read and re-read my writings all the time. This gave me a sense of thread, a sense of a direction. My diaries looked like series in formation. Often I started writing when something happened and finished when that thing ended. Then I stopped writing for some time, only to start at a later time, promising myself not to stop writing again, because it is good for me. Back then, my inspiration was my life and the benign details of it.

Blogging is different. Tedious details of your life make no sense on an electronic page, a post is not for splashing your heart in public. Blogging is often for me an exercise in concealing: writing something personal without revealing too much about it. It looks a bit distasteful if I did that, I think.

But recently I am very much consumed in myself, my life and my things. So my inspiration for posts is a bit dried out. I was thinking the other day that perhaps the blogging craze has passed. I have been so sad to see neglected blogs on the net, blogs that lasted a couple of years and are still there now, like relics, frozen in time somewhere in cyberspace. I don't want Lady V to be one of them. I think if I even stop writing, I will delete the blog, I don't want it to stay there, out of time, for the world to see.

But worry not, devoted reader, I am not stopping right now. It's just that in the general reevaluating times that I am going through, I need to find time for inspiration and reevaluate writing. Sunday mornings, with coffee and music are the best times for blogging, I find, so I'll just start from there.

I'd love to change the world

For my other anniversary post (200 and counting), I got inspired by a song again. Can blogs save the world? Quoting the 'ten years after' classic (covered amazingly by Matt Turk), people tend to leave that to others:

I'd love to change the world
... but I don't know what to do,
... so I leave it up to you...

Perhaps we don't need to do much, perhaps we just need to write a good blog, an inspiring post, a small comment, a snippet of reality and perhaps that changes the world somehow... Or perhaps I'm just lazy and I think I'm doing something meaningful by indulging myself and writing my stupid (and often shallow) thoughts. I don't know... So I leave it up to you...

The summer continues...
I'm off for a second round of holidays with d/a!
Youkali deserves congratulations (Congratulations Youkaliiiiiiiiiiiii!!!)
All is good.

People I know

It always amazes me when I get profoundly surprised by people I know, or think I know anyway. You have this idea of someone, you think you know who they are, how they would behave, how they would react to certain situations and then, they behave totally differently to what you thought.

Sometimes people surprise you pleasantly. They show you you've underestimated them. You think they might not live up to what the circumstances demand of them, but they do. You think they might fuck up, but they don't. You think they might get scared and walk away when the goings get tough, but they don't. And then you have to take a step back, reassess and revaluate.

Some other times though, people surprise you negatively. They show you you've overestimated them. You think they're cool, and they're not. You think they are gracious and polite and they're not. You think they are strong and honest, and they're not. And then you have to take a step back, reassess and revaluate.

How do you distance yourself from people that have been your friends for years, but have let you down. Not let you down because of something they did to you, but because of who they are, or who they've let themselves become. How do you tell someone, sorry I don't like you anymore. I thought you were better, I thought you were cool.

I find it extremely difficult to do that, because at the end of the day, it's not even the other person's fault if you misjudged them. If you thought they were someone they're not. If you, at the end of the day, possibly superimposed a different character on them, a character different on who they really were.

Or even worse, it's not their fault if they just changed into something you no longer like.

The circle

It's funny how the mind works.

I get this thing sometimes, especially when I am among people I don't feel like being around with, when I close my eyes and I get a flash of another life, a flash of being somewhere completely different and this makes me feel in my own little world. This makes me feel secluded, it makes me feel myself. But it is also a bit scary, I think what if they knew what I was thinking, what if all these people knew where I really am in my mind when they think I am with them... My thoughts make a small circle around me, and I feel safe and alone. It often happens when I'm back in Greece and I get fed up with family and social obligations. Then I just sit in my corner, and I close my mind and I let everyone else think that I am there with them, while I am miles away, thinking of what I want. Thinking in English helps: a different language makes me even more secluded.

Long live my second tongue then that makes me feel free!

Nirvana

Just a quick post from the heat to note the surrealism of Greek summer: as I was driving to come to the internet café of my village (which is enough of a surreal thing to do) I heard Nirvana on the radio. Nirvana? Who plays them anymore? Greek stations, it seems. Brought back excellent memories of a past life, teenage angst, first cigarettes and immature fifteen year old boyfriends. Memories of a life that is long gone, a life that could be mine, could also be someone else's.

Have a good summer y'all and listen to Nirvana again. It's good for the soul. Especially in the Greek heat, driving, with the windows rolled down.