saturday mornings

It feels so great to wake up and sleeply drag yourself to the dinning table and open up the newspaper. Of course being a saturday morning I'll be spared from all the killing, raping, and robbing and guilt-free-ly go through the Vitrine section. Shallow as it may, reading about how green fingernails are the new thing and how to pick the appropriate trench coat (eventhough Brazilian winter will never be cold enough) is somewhat comforting. As long as you avoid the price tags, that is.
You know what I've been thinking about? Hopelessness. And not just the sort that keeps you from using your democratic rights and fight for free meds, but the sort that I feel. Not some kind of life depression either. It's the one that makes me look at cloning and healing, at politicians and journalists, at peace and justice, and say "It's not gonna work". It's not gonna happen. It's gonna stay as shitty as it always has been. And I was just wondering where the hell did that come from. Because honestly, we already live in a world built by people who saw past hopelessness and did something! We got democracy, they ruled out the kings and queens and right of birth given by God. Who ever saw that one coming?? We elect people. They may be shit, but we are the ones who chose them. I would think that was going to be enough to convince us that many, many things are indeed possible. But just for the sake of arguementation, in the social part: we don't have slavery! A minority got their earned freedom. Sure, they then suffered from lack of employment and persistent prejudice and are still fighting against the latter, but a minority did it! How's that for freaking hope? Then we've got again right of birth, you can be respected without being fortuned enough as to be borned a nobel, you can earn that by being filthy rich. Sure, now the battle is to be respected (out of the paper) plainly for being human, but that's progress. And then finally we've got Medicine. How can I not have hope in cancer research, in AIDS research, when - well, not so - long ago people died of sifilis? Flu? Cholera? When treatment was bleeding, piercing holes in your skull, or just plain praying? There was great improvement, which means there probably will be great improvement. So where the hell did all the hopelessness come from?
And somehow the whole internal monologue matches so nicely with green nail polish. I love Saturdays.

É o fim das séries??

Eu lembro de uma época distante em que eu ligava a tv no meio da tarde e assistia um Everwood velho, um The OC repetido, um Gilmore Girls... Bons tempos. Agora resolveram que investir em meia meia dúzia de séries e depois passar um moonte de filmes. Ruins ou não, eu não ligo a tv para ver filme, sinto muito.
Agora eu vou ter que arranjar um hobbie de verdade. Shit.

Carnaval

Se existe uma época do ano que eu me sinto realmente estrangeira é o carnaval. Parece que, como o calor, a praia, o sol e o samba, todo brasileiro ama o carnaval. Mas fale honestamente, o que tem para gostar? As propagandas da Globo parecem ser sempre da mesma música. As roupas são sempre cheias de brilho, parecem desconfortáveis. As moças, sempre siliconadas, deixam pouco à imaginação. Os carros alegóricos balançam perigosamente. Os gringos invadem as praias cariocas e vão embora com a idéia de que brasileira e roupa não combinam. Superb.

A few drops of rain never killed anyone

My mum is very preoccupied with everything, always has, always will. My dad worries about safety in virtually every situation imaginable. Thus, my parents are overprotective of me. I can´t not eat a lot in every meal, I can´t step on the cold stone floor at home barefoot without someone ordering me to put some shoes on, I can´t go on our backyard – fully circled with high walls and an alarm system – at night otherwise I “would get a bad cold”, I can´t get out of the house without a jacket in the slightest sign of a colder day, I can´t generally go to places other than malls, I can´t stay up too late – too late being after ten – or my mum will start screaming about the “night rituals she has to proceed in order to get me to sleep” and sometimes mention my total lack of responsability. My dad will only tell me that´s not a smart thing to do and I´m a smart girl, which works better because it makes me feel bad specially when he speaks calmly and low – it takes a bit to make him mad, but once you do you either look at him with the same wide-eyed expression, like I do, or you tell him some utterly juvenile comment and a complaint on how much you´ve been doing, like my mum.

Every time I have seen the rain it was through a shut window or under an umbrella. Usually I´m with my mum, and she always manages to find some kind of umbrella to get us safely in the car, perfectly dry. Always. Problem is, sometimes I want to get soaked from the rain. The first time I got to do that I was in a school field trip and we were getting out of the bus when the rain started to pour, three years ago. We were dripping wet by the time we got to the museum. It was bloody fantastic.

Truth is, it wouldn´t kill me to dance in the rain, walk barefoot, go out in the cold, eat just enough to supply my nutritional needs. It might even make me happier. But I have found it is of no use to discuss the matter with them – I will always be their little girl –, even if I´ve proven to be responsible enough to take care of myself since I spent five days away from home in the Graduation trip, being outside in the rain and in the beach as much as I could, and did not come back sick or traumatised in any way people expected me to be. Another major issue with being overprotected is that people – including your parents – trust you to be a total idiot with no sense of self-preservation. They don´t think I can survive on my own, even if I am surrounded by employees, restaurants, and medical help. And I can fend for myself, thank you. I am well aware that people will not treat me like my parents do (read: spoil) and therefore am not surprised by whatever unfamiliar situation I face. I´m polite, I smile and say all the right things and usually manage to work things out.

Though I love my parents more than anything in the world, being this protected makes me want to live on my own, to get an appartment next to the university I get into and stay there, do things my way for a change – use see-through breakable glasses and white plain ceramic plates! I would come back for family dinners on weekends anyway. And that future is two years away. I take some comfort in that, eventhough mum is full of stories of how she suffered when she moved to a bigger city in a little sorority or something much like that, how she was always nervous and how Grandma had spoiled her. I guess I will suffer too, but I trust it won´t be so bad – I am less naïve than she was.

Dec 21^st, 2008

“Seus problemas acabaram!”

Sabe aquelas propagandas de produtos virtualmente inúteis, que sempre incluem a mais popular frase ´marketeira´: “Seus problemas acabaram!”?

Outro dia, após uma dessas hipnotizantes séries de vantagens sobre um equipamento de cozinha qualquer, fiquei me perguntando o que eu faria se pudesse comprar um produto que fizesse todos os meus problemas acabarem. Confesso que não tenho lá grandes dilemas – uma briguinha aqui, um acesso de raiva ali -, mas as preocupações me matam. Talvez eu seja perfeccionista e não tenha assumido. Mas a questão é, se eu tivesse comprado o fim de todos os meus problemas e preocupações, o que eu faria? Não consegui me lembrar de nenhum momento em que estivesse completamente sem preocupações. Nenhum. O que, para uma pessoa de poucos problemas, é ligeiramente assustador.

Será que eu sairia cantarolando porta afora? Será que eu diria ´ois´ entusiasmados para o mundo? Será que eu não mais ligaria para comentários inadequados e petulantes? Para olhadelas de desprezo? Será que eu poderia viver a minha vida, sem nem considerar o que os outros à minha volta pensam de mim? Será que eu poderia fazer tudo isso e ainda não ser do contra??

Um mundo de possibilidades se estendeu à minha frente. Eu poderia fazer o que bem entendesse, desde que prioritizasse o importante (o que no caso seria estudo consciente). Levaria minha vida como marés oscilantes de emoções aleatórias de personalidades escondidas. Leria tudo o que quisesse - daria tempo-, dormiria tempo suficiente para regenerar os meus neurônios, iria ao cinema com amigos, daria risada, dançaria como quisesse todas as musiquinhas anos setenta que eu adoro, sairia com meus pais, comentaria sobre assuntos correntes, assuntos polêmicos, assuntos felizes, assuntos de conversa de elevador, viveria livre, leve, e solta.

Ah, se houvesse o fim dos meus problemas...

-Caulfield