Happy New Year!

Differently from recent past years, I've had to work a full day today (12/31) and I will have to work tomorrow as well. It hasn't been a pleasant thing to agree to, but as these days came closer (as late as at the end of last week), I've tried to give it a twist for the better, at least as far as my mood goes.

So as it is, the passing of one year into the other will not be much more special than the passing of one day to the next. But all is well, I have a few heartening plans for 2008, and that gives me something to look forward to.

In 2008 I will be turning 30 (March 8th), my relationship with Eze will be turning 4, my sister Chichi will be turning 21, my brother Kiwi will be 26 (over the 20s peak, huh!).

In 2008 I intend to turn a new leaf in my life (more on that as it develops), and I'd like to also start turning my home into truly mine (my nesting instinct manifests through color, just as Eze's manifests through space management).

In 2008 I hope to be able to travel (there is at least one concrete plan in the horizon), and most of all, I will keep working on my own psyche, so I can finally realize how free I really am. I need to know that, my sanity depends on it.

I hope 2008 brings more blue and sunny afternoons, more sunsets at home, more breezy feelings.

I have no resolutions for 2008 ... it's more like I have resolutions for the rest of my life.

So, as I'm writing this, my pup Caprica is sitting on my lap, being all restless, trying to input some of HER stuff through the track pad. I think I'll just log off now and bid you guys a happy new year celebration.
Thanks for reading! :D

El Perfume

No sé cómo es que uno se olvida de los olores con el tiempo y sin embargo eventualmente el elemento más aleatorio lo resucita como si estuviese pasando de nuevo. Hace muchos años, cuando todavía mi papá era completamente infeliz y tenía dinero, él usaba perfumes como si fueran calzoncillos: no sólo los cambiaba con frecuencia, sino que los usaba el día entero, y al final ya apestaba.

Aparentemente, la fricción continua del shampoo de miel de abeja (fricción absolutamente necesaria, porque bañar a una cachorrita de 3 meses de edad y 15 libras de peso no es tarea fácil si ella así se lo propone), al cabo de un rato termina oliendo a Drakkar Noir ... o alguna otra de esas pestilencias que usaba mi papá. También es increíble cómo uno le puede tomar cariño a un olor que en cualquier otro caso terminaría provocando una migraña.

Al oler eso, la memoria viajó a una parte que hacía tiempo no visitaba. Era una época problemática, de consternación y confusión. Todos esos años en los que mi papá no fue feliz y en los que no sintió la necesidad de ocultarlo sirvieron para conocer un lado de él que prefiero no repetir. Era algo gris, opaco, oculto, oscuro. Los regaños provocaban más terror del que pueda tenerle uno a mi papá en estos días, y los momentos felices frecuentemente tenían la sensación de un chocolate hueco.

Mis hermanos y yo creo que nos acostumbramos a ese tormento interno de nuestro papá, creo que por eso nos rebelamos tan asquerosamente cuando al fin conoció a alguien que lo hizo sonreír desde adentro nuevamente. En ese momento, mi papá dejó de usar perfumes. Creo que finalmente ya no le hacía falta la máscara.

Realization

Realization sometimes dawns in multiple steps and phases. Most of times the first phase is already 'too late'. For example, realizing two weeks before graduating with a BA in Commerce/Computer Systems is 'a bit too late' ... or so you think, until you start committing to a house, a car, a way of life that only a professional career will pay for. THEN it's too late, for real.

A few false starts later, feeble attempts to bleed my anxieties, looking for ways to feel less like part of the corporate flock ... it proves that yes, you were late in realizing, and the longer you wait, the more difficult it will be to effectively remove yourself from the huge March of the Android Sheep. All the what if's have piled up in your brain to form a burning scar that throbs each time you fail at excelling at something you don't even care about.

So, it's about time I did something. It might not be the easiest way "out", but it will be a relief not to stay put just because it feels like a societal mandate to keep the one career you chose when you were merely 18 and thinking with your twat.

Writing has been in my blood since birth, I suppose. Nothing else explains that as soon as I learned to put my ABCs on paper, I immediately proceeded to compose poetry and draw accompanying illustrations. Nothing else explains that I've been keeping journals since my hormones started creating havoc on my psyche. Nothing else explains that the only activity that feels like second-nature to me is putting words to the music my soul sings. I may not be an excellent writer, and to some (I know), I lack whatever talent would deem me brilliant to their eyes. Little do they know that it's not so much about wooing them into helpless admiration, it's much much more about relieving myself, doing what my innermost being craves time and again. I cannot help it: I write, therefore I am. Can't be one without the other.

So for the first time in my life I'm seriously contemplating following what my instinct has been since I've been a wee child. I won't give more details than that, I tend to be superstitious "just in case", so I don't tell so as not to jinx it. But it will take time. In the end, I hope I have something to show for it. For the while being, I don't plan to stop writing here, it's all that's keeping me sane, away from high ledges and nefarious pills. In the way there, you might figure out what it is. As always, my problems and my blisses bleed into my words.

Want!

These past few days have been a bit of a Self Crisis. If I were turning 45 in the next March 8th, I'd say I was having a bit of a mid-life crisis. What I refuse to admit, though, is that I'm having a Turning 30 Crisis, 'cuz that is just plain stupid, and I will have none of that in this house (my body is a temple!).

I've been feeling the strongest of urges: to go out drinking, to get a tattoo, to cut my hair, to dye it blue-black (again), to get my nails done, to do a total overhaul of what "Diana" has come to mean in the past few years. I had never felt so strongly about these things, and I'm a bit scared of going near any shopping mall, in fear that I might get drawn into it and shop myself a new self-image, leaving my credit card maxed out and my economy whimpering on a thin line.


Unfortunately, Ebay exists, and I've already succumbed to the purchase of 2 pairs of spiral taper plugs (earrings, for those not familiar with bod-mod lingo): one pair black, the other red. And I'm on the lookout for Hermes sandals, which are not that easy to find (good quality, i mean. The rip-offs abound and will give you a blister you will not soon forget). What else lies in store for this phase of compulsive buying and tendency to make myself over? I dunno. I bought a henna conditioner treatment yesterday, but that is just a lame pacifier for the forces that usually cause my transformations. It's like stopping a hurricane with a butterfly net.

*sigh* The itch for ink has just begun. Whip out your tattoo guns, boys. It's just a matter of time before I enter a door asking for mayhem on my skin.

In Pain

I'm feeling like shit (emotionally), my back hurts (for real) and the day didn't get off to a good start since yesterday.

Thankfully, I decided to take my car for repair work on the A/C later in the month, 'cuz my plans would have been shot to hell anyways. Both options I had for a lift (Mom & Eze) had to leave their cars (Eze's car won't turn on, and Mom noticed her car making a weird noise).

The day looks bleak, gray .... just like the future. Bleak. Gray.
I need a shot of adrenaline, maybe some alcohol, maybe a good talk. I dunno. Or maybe I just need to shut up and go back into myself like I've been expected to, like I've tried doing all this time.

I loooooove my perfume

Wish you had smell-a-vision. Then you'd be able to smell this...

I know, it's classified as "WTF" if it's coming from me, tooting Puff Daddy's horn for designing such a delicious fragrance (or tooting P. Diddy's horn at all). It was unintentional and the associations to the perfume made the purchase so much easier (and impulsive).














A few months ago I started reading the Sandman comic series by Neil Gaiman, and about time, given the whole lot I had heard before about the comic. I loved it, and I immediately connected with Delirium.

Thing is, one day I'm walking around a mall, and I picked up a small paper card sprayed with this perfume that I pretty much liked. I stowed the paper away, and took it home, used it as a bookmark for Brief Lives. The perfume permeated the whole book, accompanied me in the Delirium-ridden story, got into my nostrils and my senses until the smell of it was forever associated with Dream and Delirium.

This past weekend, Mom insisted on taking me shopping, and I budged. There were more than a few things I was wanting/needing. I decided to go snooping around Macy's perfume department, and I really don't understand how I recalled the name of the perfume so clearly. What I didn't remember so well was why I was remembering a perfume named Unforgiven.

As soon as I whiffed at it again, the decision was made, I had to have it. This perfume IS Delirium, this perfume IS Dream. It wasn't until I was drawing out the credit card to pay for it that I noticed what the signature on the back stood for.

Puff-fucking-Daddy, aka Sean John. Jeez!

But then again, he's got a better nose for fragrances BY FAR than all the little Hollywood bitches designing stenches for the gullible masses.