The Job.

So. I got the job. Yeah, yeah, I know.  That romantic unemployed moment became, well, just a moment. It's funny how everyone come to London to try and make dreams come true, and it rarely happens. Not that it doesn't happen. It's just that it takes so bloody long, and that is simply because London, on top of being everyone's promised land, it also happens to be the second most expensive city in the world, just behind that other crazeee metropolis, Tokyo. You want to do your shit? Pay the price, mothafuckah. You can do whatever the hell you want in London, be in the most talked about , courses and events and places around the world in London, see and maybe meet some of the most important and watched people in the world in London, and who knows, YOU may become one of those people that make London be one of the most juicy and yummy capitals in the world, but before that happens, you've got to pay your bills. No, that's an understatement. You've got to have money not just to pay the bills, but also be able to attend the events/places/courses where the so-called important people are. Because it doesn't matter if you want to be a writer or a cabaret dancer, a chef or a fluffer, you have to know the right people and be in the right places to get there. It's all too well wanting to be Charles Bukowski, penniless and worse for wear and using that as inspiration for writing poems and novels, or being George Orwell, giving up all comfort and wealth to write a book about homelessness in Paris and London, but these days that's rarer than Victoria Beckham's smiling. Without connexions, my darling, I'm afraid you won't get past the kebab shop on the corner, unless you happen to be very lucky and meet your personal messiah right there, gobbling down one giant chicken shish. 

So, that brings me to the job. 

And this one is proper. With proper contract, health insurance, pension contributions, and even travel and clothing allowance. Clo-thing A-llo-wan-ce .  The works. I couldn't say no. As I said before, and I will keep on saying forever and ever and ever: if someone throws an opportunity in your hands, even if it is not at the right time, JUST TAKE IT. Go on , have a look, try it for a bit, if it doesn't work for you, you can always say "sorry, it doesn't work for me."  Just don't sign anything. And if you do sign, then, oh well, try to be responsible, for a change. It's quite an OK experience. You can always use that as inspiration afterwards.

Eu só podia dizer isso em português.

Eu nunca quis conhecer o fundo do poço que você escolheu. Eu queria conhecer o fundo do MEU poço. MEU POÇO. O fundo do poço que eu havia escolhido podia ser fedorento, gosmento, emporcalhado, cheio de lodo e musgo e insetos flutuando na superfície da água escura e podre, mas era o MEU poço. Ter chegado no fundo do poço que você escolheu não valeu a pena. Foi uma perda de tempo. Do MEU tempo.

Pulling the brakes, part 3,189,287,642

You see, when I said earlier "fuck the plans", I knew I had a reason. I knew that when I make plans, they never work. Not the way I want them to anyway. At some point on the way, there's always a hole or a stone or a cow in the middle of the road that needs diversion. And after diversions I never go back to the road again. Or maybe I do, but never with the same enthusiasm and energy, and I reduce speed until I stop and forget that there's a road in front of me and a destination to reach. I just sit there and watch people pass me by, thinking "How interesting, they're going to that place I wanted to... It'd be nice to be there."

So, here it is. I said some posts before that I was proudly unemployed, looking forward to book a flight to that remote country called Brazil, and then enjoy my free time to push forward some ideas that I had in the back of my mind such as le book and le vintage fashion shop, and then, and THEN! I get a call, no, a text message, from a friend asking me if I want to go for a job interview in this really fucken' cool members club. Shite. I was NOT looking for a job, damnit. I wanted a proper job for so long, since I started university, or since I left Brazil, and no one wanted to give me. Now that I don't want it, they do. It's always like that. When you're single, no one bats an eyelid when you walk by. Then you find a mate, and you're suddenly the hottest dish on the menu. Not that I am at the moment (pfff, hell no), but it happened before.

Anyway. I had to pull the brakes and do the famous diversion, once again. You can't say no when opportunities come knocking on your door. You go there, check it out, and if it works for you, then you go for it.

I'll never reach my final destination, will I?

So many people, and not one able to read my mind.

It's been nearly 18 months since I last left the UK. Pretty long, considering I wouldn't stay with my feet planted anywhere longer than 8 months. Always on the road, since I left that immense country down south, my home. What it used to be my home. Now I'm here, free to go, and I don't really want to go anywhere. Can't think of a place better than right here, right now, in this city I've been loathing for most of the time I've been residing within its chaotic districts. Always hating the grey sky, the toxic air, the coldness of its inhabitants, the trains always late, always packed full of sweaty, sick, frustrated people, most of them dispirited immigrants trying to make ends meet and fuck off back home asap. Thinking, "this is not it. This is not where I should be." And then, 18 months later, the city has finally pushed me on my knees. "Here is the truth, so now you can hate me": I surrender.

I've cried so many times in so many places, in pubs, in buses, on the street, in my bed until I fell asleep with exhaustion, that I can't bear to leave a place that has so many pieces of me scattered around it. The only other place that holds most of my scars in custody is Balneario Camboriu, my darling little beach town, BC. Everything I'm scared to do these days I did it in BC. I was a ballsy little girl back then. All my first-times happened in BC. The drinks, the drugs, the boys, the men, the sex, the tattoos and piercings, the fights, the passions. The going-back-home-stoned-and-barefoot-on-the-beach-early-mornings, the driving-high-on-a-acid-from-one-town-to-another, the blow-job-in-the-car-at-night-on-one-of-my-friends'-brother, the shutting-myself-in-my-room-crying-and-listening-to-TheDoors.

Then after all that, I grew out of my skin, too big to stay in that little town, so I run away. First to Curitiba, then to New York City, then to London. But the bigger the city, the smaller I became. Too many people, and none of them able to read my mind. None of them interested in looking at me, or more to the point, see through me. I was like Alice in Wonderland, when she takes that magic potion and diminishes until she is as tiny as an insignificant insect. That's me. A little insignificant bug in the middle of the jungle, afraid to die smashed under the giant paw of an elephant. 

It was never supposed to be like that.

Now, all I can think of is how to be unafraid, how to make my point come across. How to grab people's ear and say "Oi! listen to me!" Because I don't know how to do that, I don't know how to be visible without worrying about being irrelevant. I don't want to waste anyone's time. No, that's not it. I DON'T WANT TO CARE IF I'M WASTING ANYONE'S TIME. Don't want to listen? Fuck off back home then. 

So, that's why I'm now unable to go anywhere else. Because right now I need to find my place in this spectacularly grand city. 

++

ps: can't stop listening to radiohead's new album "In Rainbows." Must be one of the most beautiful albums ever made. No excuses not to buy it: you can give as little as $0.01 for it. But I were you, would give more, because it's JUST SO WORTH IT.  

Starting from Scratch

I simply haven't had time. Or wasn't clear-headed enough to be able to write a word properly (meaning "hangover-to-the-point-of-not-having-any-brain-cells-left"). But that's because I was too happy. Yes, I know, that's a first. Being happy and drinking my arse off just because I could is something so rare in my life that it felt like it wasn't really me. Only that it is the real me, for the first time, in ages. Not afraid to fuck up anymore.

I'll tell you. Last week was one of those weeks when everything suddenly falls into place through a mix of luck, instinct and, well, balls. It started on Sunday, when I dragged my friends to see Lee Miller's exhibition at the V&A. The first time I heard, well, read about Lee Miller was in this novel by a Brazilian lady that I was slightly obsessed with when I was about 12. It happens to me all the time. Every now and then I get obsessed about some woman that represents part of what I am or want to be in life. Women like Tracey Emin, Virginia Woolf, Juliette Lewis, and more recently Amy Winehouse. All dramatic, emotionally intense, slightly crazy women with a drug or drink problem, but so, SO talented. Fearless women who pour their hearts out in their art, who don't draw a line between their work and their lives. In the novel, the heroine goes through shitloads of surgery to look like Lee Miller - the ultimate beauty with brains - just so she can catch the eye of this famous photographer. I read the novel way before I got access to the Internet, and back in my little Brazilian town it was as easy to find books about 1930s' photographers as it is to elect a Brazilian politician that is not corrupt, so I never really found out much about her work until a few years later - probably until I left Brazil. Then last Sunday I went to see her work at the museum. And it's not that her pictures were amazing themselves, or the fact that she, along with Man Ray, invented a technique to invert highlights in a picture, or that she was the first female war photographer during WWII. No. It was because she was FEARLESS. And passionate, and unstoppable, and audacious, and very, very ballsy.

The first Go For It muse.

Now, think: how brave a woman had to be in the 1930s to demonstrate she possessed  balls? She was a bloody genius, and on top of that, she was sex-ee.

So, after I went back home, I run a bath and while sitting there, like a boiling egg, I decided. This bloody stuckness has to stop. No more waiting for my life to start. Obviously I knew I was still powerless to deal with some aspects, but I could simply, you know, adopt the attitude. And make some phone calls.

So the next day I called my current job in that bar and told them I needed a few weeks off - with no intention to come back.

Then my landlord told us our rent was going to go up and we needed to decide if we wanted to stay and pay more or get out. I said we're leaving. 

Then I've checked my savings and made a few calculations and started to draw a plan to see how long I could be proudly unemployed, while also starting my little fashion business (more on that later) and write my book, the little bloody fucken' tormenting book. In the end I didn't really draw a plan, because plans scare me more than actually help me, so I simply threw caution to the wind.  Fuck the plans. I'm just gonna dive into the unknown for a while and see what happens. Carpe Diem for real.

Then my passport came back after endless, long months at the hands of the British authorities, holding my permission to come and go for years to come.

And so it is that now I've got no job, no home, little money and colossal (but limited) freedom. All in the tiny space of a week. 

I haven't been this excited in a looong, long time. 

Michael Jackson is my guru.

It might sound, like, whatever to you, but I always knew I would go back to my roots. The first album I ever bought was Michael Jackson's Dangerous, and all the following ones were from His Majesty King of Pop as well. I was a Jacko's Hardcore Fan at the tender age of 10, with curly fringe, fingers bandaged, manic poster collecting, all that shit. I even mimicked the guy at a school play, singing "Heal the World" dressed up as in the "Black and White" video, to my mortification years later. I think I actually learned my first English words by translating the lyrics of his songs, which I would not have a clue what they meant afterwards.

Anyway.

Last week I just heard 'Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" playing in the background at a bar and it reminded me of my pre-teen obsession, so I decided to buy (yes, b-u-y, not steal) the song on Itunes, and PLIM! I had an epiphany. Michael Jackson knew it. He always knew. The lyrics of that song, well, they were written for me. It's just the most ironic slap in the face I've ever got, and now I think HE is a bloody genius to have written those lyrics (not to say the beats, which are pure dance music genius too).

Anyway. Pay attention:

I Said You Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
You Got To Be Startin' Somethin'
I Said You Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
You Got To Be Startin' Somethin'

(--> that's me there, always trying to, er, start something. But...)

It's Too High To Get Over (Yeah, Yeah)
Too Low To Get Under (Yeah, Yeah)
You're Stuck In The Middle (Yeah, Yeah)
And The Pain Is Thunder (Yeah, Yeah

(-->see. He knows. I'm doing everything wrong, that's why I'm stuck, and suffering the consequences).

You Love To Pretend That You're Good
When You're Always Up To No Good
You Really Can't Make Him Hate Her
So Your Tongue Became A Razor


(--> well, that's just him telling me the truth. I don't know who is "Him", but it doesn't matter. I'm up to NO Good).

You're A Vegetable, You're A Vegetable
Still They Hate You, You're A Vegetable
You're Just A Buffet, You're A Vegetable
They Eat Off Of You, You're A Vegetable

(--> That's my favourite part. I actually sing that to myself in the mirror every morning.)

If You Cant Feed Your Baby (Yeah, Yeah)
Then Don't Have A Baby (Yeah, Yeah)
And Don't Think Maybe (Yeah, Yeah)
If You Can't Feed Your Baby (Yeah, Yeah)

(--->that's just self-explanatory. Like, "stop that biological clock now.")

Lift Your Head Up High
And Scream Out To The World
I Know I Am Someone
And Let The Truth Unfurl
No One Can Hurt You Now
Because You Know What's True
Yes, I Believe In Me
So You Believe In You

(---> but then, THEN, he finally says "Thais, it's alright. I know you're good, you just have to believe yourself").

That's it. Who needs horoscope when there's Michael Jackson.

Life Is What Happens When You're Busy Making Other Plans

Everything has a price. Tudo tem um preço. That's what I've thinking today - and for the past 4 years, to be more precise. Two days ago I've completed 4 years living in London, and I've just suddenly realised that this idea has always been part of everything I do since I arrived here. I have always had choices - too many of them, I must say. But looking back, I see that for every choice I've made, I've paid a price, sometimes high, sometimes low, that would not necessarily be the same had I chosen something else. In 2003, I arrived at a determinate crossing, and I had to choose a route, a direction to keep moving forward. I only realised that I kept choosing wrong paths 3 years down the road, and from there I've trying desperately not to think about all the possibilities/opportunities/different pathways that I left behind, and just follow my instinct. 

(pause to breathe). 

I still have choices. Still, plenty of them. And sometimes I think that this is some kind of double-faced entity, a curse and a blessing at the same time. I see a lot of people that don't have many choices, or no choices at all, and they can't spend their time writing pros and cons lists. They need to give their best shot, because it might be the only one. I'm terrified of this idea. Because as much as I want to make things work, I don't want to think that it is my only chance. I simply hate being stuck inside a pressure cooker.

But maybe that is the reason I can't make anything work. I have ideas, one after another, and nothing ever leaves my head or the paper. If I'm not stuck inside the pressure cooker, I'm stuck outside anyway... just drifting aimlessly. 

The truth is I've arrived at another crossing and I've been there for over a year, afraid of screwing up again.

I need to make contact with my inner Major Tom again. 

The Worst Party

So, my weekend has been extraordinaire. To the ordinary observer, however, nothing has happened much that deserves special remembrance. But it does to me. To the normal listener, i would describe my saturday night as being defined by the worst party I have ever been in recent years, if not THE WORST PARTY I have ever been since I moved to London.  But that's just my humble opinion, of course. The fact that I don't enjoy, or simply DON'T FIT IN, in a tacky warehouse club full of sweaty, stinking, tasteless people stomping and clapping like monkeys to cheesy and idiotically loud music, is obviously my problem too. Nothing against people who like this kind of shit. Well, not true. I have everything against people over 20 who think it's absolutely normal to dance like a super-thirsty epileptic moron to music as interesting as a malfunctioning washing machine. 

I just feel like saying, "c'mon, darlin', take a look at yourself in the mirror. Silly, isn't it?" Maybe the government should make some kind of law obliging super-clubs and warehouse parties to hang huge mirrors all over their walls, so senior clubbers (those cretins who got stuck in the 90's) who spend their nights out rolling their eyes with a dimwit smile glued to their faces should realise the extent of their stupidity in public.

Or maybe not. People like this would probably think it's funny and say they never had such a good time.

Do I sound like an old snobbish and disdainful granny? Oh well, maybe I am. Or maybe I'm just immensely relieved that I've been through this phase while I was still young enough to look cute while behaving like the silly teenager I was. Not like the silly teenager I wish I was. Sometimes it's good to grow-up.

++++

The other thing I've concluded after 3 very long hours inside that club was that I should, indeed, be immensely proud of who I am. Instead of constantly biting my nails because no one wants to hang out with me because I'm neurotic and obsessed (that's my head working 24/7), I've actually realised that it's ME WHO DOESN'T WANT TO HANG OUT WITH THEM. How can I, when most people around me (and by that I mean the shitloads of Brazilians who populate this enormous city - excluding a tiny smart percentage, which I'm proud to be friends with) are such ignorants in... how can I say... everything? The only way I can have fun around them is by sitting in a corner with a drink observing the ridiculousness of their gatherings - which I actually enjoy, because it provides material for my whinings. I definitely need a new crowd, new surroundings.

Anyone?

Dark Night of the Soul

The Guardian is publishing daily interviews with legendary public figures, from Marilyn Monroe to Hitler, and today Mr F Scott Fitzgerald features. He, who knows everything about writing to keep one's head above water when things are spiraling downwards, explained to perfection what happens regularly to those stupid manic-depressive aspiring writers most of the time when they are thinking about the future:

"Now the standard cure for one who is sunk is to consider those in actual destitution or physical suffering - this is an all-weather beatitude for gloom in general and fairly salutory daytime advice for every one. But at three o'clock in the morning ... the cure doesn't work - and in a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day. At that hour the tendency is to refuse to face things as long as possible by retiring into an infantile dream - but one is continually startled out of this by various contacts with the world."

Now, I'm not feeling particularly pessimistic today, quite the opposite. But I couldn't ignore the fact that the my routine has been extraordinarily described for everyone to see at the newspaper, by someone I absolutely respect. Thank you.

The sum of all things - so far.

So, what on earth has happened within the little boundaries of my universe in the past months? More than I thought it could have happened, since the beginning of 2007. In no particular order:

- I've studied art and found out that I am capable (obviously not impeccably - if there is such thing as "impeccable" in arts these days) to think visually and make my hands produce stuff other than writing. 

- I have, consequently, learned to appreciate the work of artists in a way I have never, ever really done. Once you put yourself in the artists' shoes, you realise the extension of their geniuses. Museums and galleries' trips have never been more captivating.

- I've nervously toyed with the idea of plastic surgery, nurturing and subsequently sending to hibernation a slimmer and prettier image of myself. 

- I have, as Richard Dawkins puts it, come out of the closet as an atheist, to the horror of my weirdly spiritual but not religious family. 

- I've cut relations with all the people that made me feel bad about myself, thus reducing even more my already reduced social circle. Not that these people noticed my absence anyway.

- I have indulged in my on-off relationship with music, and decided to not let it define the person I am. Music can be the answer to all your problems one day, and the most annoying form of art the next. Who the f*** invented nu-rave, anyway? 

- I have postponed indefinitely the pursuit of a journalistic career. Apart from the reading and writing, there isn't any aspect of this profession that appeals to the person I am. I am not extroverted or nosy, I have immense difficulty to verbalize my ideas in a coherent way, I'm anxious, insecure, with a self-esteem more unstable than the Brazilian economy, and I definitely, definitely HATE to shoot questions to people who have no wish or intention of answering them. Going out there chasing stories that are of no particular interest to me is one of my ideas of hell. And living in hell for a salary that can barely feed my cats is like ... fishing in the Dead Sea? You know what I mean. 

- As a consequence of the previous decision, I have inevitably come across people from all sections of society asking me the legendary question: "So what the hell are you going to do with your life?" Variations are: "So what is your plan for the future?", followed by "Are you going to throw away all you've done so far?" If there is a thing all parents should teach their children, taking a leaf from the French book of habits, is to not ask these kind of questions to people. It's rude, period. People are never genuinely interested in your future achievements. All they really want to know is what are the chances of you screwing up badly, so they can continue to indulge in their judgmental tradition, thinking "thank god, at least someone is worse off than me." So, whenever this question pops out, I simply say "well, I don't know. What about you?"

- I've started to hear the tic-tac of my biological clock. Loudly. 

- I've slapped myself in the face and hired a personal trainer, gave up (at least temporarily) alcohol, and started eating and sleeping better. Without any false modesty, I can't remember the last time I've felt this energetic and fit. Oh, yes, I do. That was 1998.   

(to be continued...)

PS: By the way: "thank god, at least someone is worse off than I am"

The Incessant Return

And so, as it could have been obviously foreseen, I am back to the world of blogging. For there is no reason why an aspiring writer would not attempt to publish her own misleading, irrelevant thoughts in a web page lost in the internetic (internetical?) ocean. Writing a public diary, even if there are no readers with lots of time and boredom in their hands left to accidentally bump into this modest journal, can still be seen as practice - not only as in language experimentation, but also in demonstrating the results of a so-called experimentation for a potentially limitless (and scaring) audience.

Which brings us to the age-old but still firmly rooted decision that this scriba has made a little more than a decade ago. I still haven't given up on the romantic idea that I will write a book. Eventually, it will happen. It is simply implausible to think that I've spent nearly half of a quarter of century yearning to do something and spend the three other quarters without seeing it happening. Now, why would you give a rat's ass about my seemingly selfish desire to see my words bound nicely in a square stack of paper, then it's another story. Because, honestly, I don'y give a rat's ass anymore about wether anyone thinks I should or not go for it. What I've found, after all these years muttering to myself the oh-so-cliché idea "I've got a book inside me", is that I've been wanting it for the wrong reasons. Which was simply to expose my self. Get attention. Show off the amazing personality that I think i've got and no one really knows about. Yadda yadda yadda.

Now, does that sound slightly... how should I say this... fuckin' self-absorbed and immature? That's what I've come to conclude as well.

So, after long reflecting about this matter, which now counts over 12 months during which I've tried my best (well, not really) to clean up, if not all, most of my emotional and practical rubbish, I have arrived at the following conclusion: I want to write because IT JUST GIVES ME PLEASURE. Because I JUST FEEL GOOD WHEN I'M ABLE TO ARTICULATE MY THOUGHTS. Because if I'm doing it for myself and taking my own time IT'S undeniably FUN.

Well, the last part is a load of rubbish which will probably not take me anywhere, because writing, as a profession, as a career, is DEFINITELY NOT FUN. I know what it is to spend days agonizing over a blank screen trying to find the right words to express ideas. It is time-consuming, hair-pulling, jumping-up-and-down-screaming-in-agony stressful. And it is also sad. But in a strangely soothing way, when you find those stupid little words, these seemingly small and foolish concoctions of alphabetical characters heavily charged with the meanings of everything you are, it is also deeply rewarding.

So, I'm back.

The End / O Fim

There is no point in keeping this blog any longer. For a long time, this has been a discreet diary, filled with irrelevant posts about things reported by newspapers, and as the quote by this guy called Henry Channon says: "What is more dull than a discreet diary? One might as well have a discreet soul."

There is a lot going on in my life, much of it I would rather not discuss in public because, unfortunately, I'm not mature enough not to care about what other people think. At this moment, and for the past few years, I don't have the courage to describe openly my daily bureocratic problems and even less my emotional issues, which is obviously my main source of interest - rather than what is going on with every one else (unless they have similar stories to mine).

Last night, I've realised I have a lot of issues that I need to deal with, and from a young age I've dealt with them by writing journals. Since I stopped keeping this routine of analysing my own problems, I have developed many others that have gotten worse with age.

I still don't want to go to therapy, so, this is the end of blogging as I know it. From now on, I'm back to paper+pen journals, and whatever fact I want people to know about me, it will make its way thinly disguised in my creative work - be it writings or visual art.

Thanks for coming, and see you around.

--------------

Não há mais motivo pra manter esse blog. Por muito tempo, esse tem sido um "diário discreto", cheio de posts sobre coisas irrelevantes publicadas por outros, e como disse um cara chamado Henry Channon: "Não há nada mais chato do que um diário discreto. É o mesmo que ter uma alma discreta".

Muita coisa tem acontecido na minha vida que eu prefiro não discutir em público porque, infelizmente, eu não sou madura o suficiente ainda pra não me importar com o que os outros pensam. Nesse momento, assim como nos últimos anos, eu não tenho tido coragem pra descrever abertamente meus problemas burocráticos e muito menos emocionais, o que e' obviamente meu maior motivo de interesse - aon invés de saber o que está acontecendo na vida dos outros (a não ser que eles tenham histórias parecidas).

Ontem a noite eu me dei conta de que eu tenho vários problemas que precisam ser resolvidos, e desde muito nova eu sempre tenho lidado com problemas através de diários. Desde que eu parei de manter essa rotina de analisar minhas dificuldades, eu tenho desenvolvido outras que só parecem ter piorado com a idade.

Eu ainda não estou pronta pra fazer terapia, então, isso e' o fim do blog como eu o conheço. De agora em diante, estou voltando pros diários de papel e caneta, e qualquer fato que eu queira que as pessoas saibam sobre mim, será incluído disfarçadamente em meu trabalho, seja ele em escrita ou artes visuais.

Obrigada por ter vindo, e nos vemos por aí.

Uglification of England

I've got a confusing love affair with cigarettes. For 13 years I've been smoking them, but never obssessively - almost only when i'm socialising, almost always accompanying a drink. However, since I was 12 i have had quite an eventful social life, which means I have smoked quite a lot during many, many weekends of more than half of my life. But i never became a proper smoker due to two main reasons: cigarettes out of context (social scenarios/following alcoholic drinks/night time) make my stomach turn, and also in excess make me literaly sick. I've got chronic bronquites since I was a child, which in times of crisis makes me stay FAR away from cigarettes.

But I've been thinking about cigarettes quite a lot for the past few weeks. Well, since my big stint at hospital last month, when I had a full-on ashma attack and boyfriend J. prohibited me to even look a cigarette - or he would leave me to die in hospital alone. I thought I would be alright, but then something changed: for once in my life i started craving Vogue cigarettes, the little menthol polish stick wonders. Then, I started going out again, having alcohol in quite big quantities, and the craving got worse - specially after J. decided to stop me by force if needed.

Then, the smoking ban is coming to the country in less then 2 months. I thought this was going to put a stop at my craving, but then every time I go out I think "how this is going to be without smoke"?

Now the Guardian, my favourite paper, publishes a special report on cigarretes - and most of the articles are PRO-smoking! There's all these smart people saying how they've always loved tobacco and how they will keep smoking till the bitter end. Even my hero of the moment, David Hockney, wrote today a piece on how he smokes for his mental health and how "the uglification of England is under way by people with no vision."

Am I being weak here? With all these forces pushing me in the opposite direction, I don't think my confusing love affair with cigarettes will end anytime soon.

Beth Ditto as Agony Aunt

The Coolest Rock Chic today, the overweight, outspoken, and in-your-face feminist lead-singer of the Gossip Beth Ditto, now has an advice column in the Guardian. I think it's great, although in her first column she sounds too mature and coherent, like any agony aunt in any women's mag. I was expecting a little bit of her the colorful, spontaneous irony, but i guess she is just testing the grounds. Still, It could only be someone with her confidence to give people advice - she probably needed one whenever she wanted to do something.

Club Land - The Return

Now, The Good News: London is going through a clubbing renascence. "What you mean?", you ask me, "it has never died, in the first place." I say, you could be right, but for me, in the last 4 or 5 years, the club scene was as boring and predictable as my grandma's daily routine. 'Same old, same old' became the motto of most dance floors not only around the world, but also in London's vast clubland. Until, that is, the indie rock sphere infiltrated into the tired rave bubble. Say what you want, but since that colourful trio called the Klaxons decided to go on stage wearing fluor jumpers and playing rock tunes tinted with acid house flavours, I caught a glimpse of an enlightened future. Since then, fashion has gone through an amazing reinvention of the classic 80s/90s club gear, and every proud East London club kid made the decision to have the most absurd fun with their wardrobes, and consequently, with their nights out. Now, clubbers dance to indie rock, old pop, post-punk, dirty electro, funk carioca, justin timberlake, whatever makes you laugh and shake that size zero arse. Shoreditch, thank god, is home to some of the most exciting (and exclusive - tell me about it) parties in the whole of the city: BoomBox, Trailer Trash, Modular, are just some of the tons of small but unperfectly formed parties that together compose the so called "New Rave" scene. It's all about dressing up and showing off the eccentricity and idisincrasy inside us all. Call it what you like, I'm just glad the fun is back.

R.I.P. Isabella Blow

I know, it's a bit of a drag to come back to this blog with sad news. But I was quite shocked to find out today that Isabella Blow has died at the tender age of 48. How come? Cancer, some sources say. For fashion insiders, or simply fans like myself, this is an awful surprise. Two months ago I was still in awe of her stylishness, after reading what must have been her last article for British Vogue about our dependency of technology today.

I think what shocks me most it's the fact that life is so fragile. It might sound like a cliche', but this is another reminder that our clock is always ticking like a time-bomb, and we should make the most of this very moment. That said, what's the point of devoting an entire life to fabulous hats and frocks if they won't go anywhere with you after your last breath?

God. I'm sick and tired of this weight on shoulders. Time sucks.

A bit of a Fright

Well, well. As it turns out, that awfully cheerful mood could not last long, could it? Life has its funny little tricks to throw at you whenever you are at your most distracted. Or should I say, blissfully happy? So it happens that at the end of that beautiful day, which was suppose to have finished after a nicely cozy dinner cooked by our flatmate A. to celebrate the Jewish Passover - don't ask, I still don't really understand what it means - I suddenly had an Ashma Attack. Yes, that calamitous A.A. I never gave much importance to it, since the last time it happened was well 4 years ago, but this time the boyfriend even got scared at the possibility of my stop breathing. I, then, had no choice but to end in the A&E section of the Big Royal Hospital in Whitechapel.

Rubbing shoulders with drunks, stabbed gangsters, and old people with low blood pressure, I arrived around 11pm, not expecting to stay long or even be attended to. HOWEVER, I was very mistaken, as occurred. Amazingly, I ended up staying nearly 4 long hours, having being seen by 4 nurses, done two nebulazations, a blood test and a X-Ray. Why, I have no idea. In the end, the coolest doctor in the world appeared to give his final verdict, and the way he spoke to me, I felt like a little girl in a pediatrician's practice. I almost asked for my lollipop.

I went home a bit confused, but the whole episode was not too upsetting. I guess I have to thank London's Public Health system for that.

Mrs Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself

This must be the most beautiful monday of 2007, so far. After many, many dreadful and gloomy beginnings of weeks, in which I would not see a reason to wake-up earlier than 11am, dragging myself upstairs to put the kettle on, and cursing my fate in this cheerless island, suddenly everything seemed to have taken a different colour. Today I woke up at 8:30, full of energy, and went out to buy supplies for a very non-brazilian breakfast (eggs, bacon and orange juice). The air was so light and the sun so radiant, that on the way I decided to buy flowers to brighten up the house. The only misfortune is that the flower stalls around Woolwich's high street are not award winning types, to say the least, and in the end I had to resort to M&S for a small bunch of orange roses, modest but cheerful. When I came back home, it was nearly 10am, and I made a pot of the most fragrant Brazilian coffee I found the other day in this little shop off Oxford Street (Pilão), woke the boyfriend, and he cooked us brunch (already to late for breakfast). He left half-hour later to his weekly golf class (on a monday - not many people can afford this), and I sat down on my little desk in front of the window, watching the sun lighten the old warehouse buidlings and the Thames, to write this short but jolly account of my morning.

This moment, right now, is my favourite. Life seems suddenly full of possibilities.

Obviously it's a combination of several elements that made this day, of all days, to become what it is. Spring has arrived and I've got an entire week off work for myself and for everything that really matters - the act of creation. Life is only worth living if it's shared with others through creativity.

It was today, walking the ugly streets of Woolwich, that I realised: it's been nearly ten years that I've got this thought under my skin. That I can only die in peace once I've created something that can be passed on to others, a glimpse of my own understanding of life. A piece of myself, transformed into something solid and visible.

And so it is that today, of all days, I've decided once again to record fragments of my existence in this modest online journal.

Becoming an Atheist and other big decisions, part II

Then, the other day, i had to make another big decision. It was - don’t laugh - to get a gym membership. Alright, you can say “that’s not even a big one, it’s the most obvious of all, you fell for the NY-Resolution trap as all the other, blah blah blah”, but no. Once again, it’s a consequence of another of those extreme episodes. The other day I hurt my back. Which is not such big news, because I’ve got scoliosis for ages now, and since my years as a ballet and jazz dancer (that’s almost ten years ago), I’ve lived with constant back pain. I used to happily jump around wearing those thin, no-impact-protection ballet slippers, and completely ignore the shuddering pang on the small of my back. Well, it turns out that years later I can’t count all the things that I stopped enjoying because of what became a stupid condition: shopping, dancing, going to clubs and raves, travelling - it all became a little more difficult than it probably is for the average person with a healthy back.

Not that I’m not able to do those things, it’s not that serious. It’s just that I can’t do them for more than a few hours or I get the prestigious arrival of THE PAIN. It sucks. So the past week I started feeling THE PAIN once again during work hours. You know, high heels, standing up, making abrupt movements, all of this doesn’t help. But even with THE PAIN growing steadily every day, I kept on working, telling myself she would eventually disappear, as she always does. By the end of the week I couldn’t move or sleep anymore without painkillers. The muscles around my spine got strained to the point that I had to take a week off.

So I was lying in bed the other day, cursing my bad luck, and thought about how this is going to get worse in the future. How I would need to lay in bed for months whenever I get pregnant because of the pain, and how, afterwards I wouldn’t be able to carry my kids around like a normal mother. Or how I wouldn’t be able to get any proper job, with normal work hours, because I’d need to throw a sickie every week. The way things were going, in a near future, I’d be claiming disability benefits.

But hey, I’m no Frida Kahlo. I decided that I simply don’t need to be disabled, this is not a condition imposed on me, it's my own fault. So I decided to slap myself in the face and drag my sedentary ass to the small gym on the reception of my condominium. Exactly: I've got a gym 1 minute away from my front door and I never made the effort to step inside before. Two small but well-equipped rooms set up for the residents, with a flat screen and sound system available. What else could I ask for? No more resting or painkillers. All I’ve needed is exercise.

I've been there twice since the big decision, and it might sound like a cliche', but I feel great already. But no, I won't become one of those Brazilian gym addicts "bombados", who make their lives revolve around their fat-free muscle-toned slender bodies, which they show every morning at the beach. I don't even have a beach to show anything. It's snowing outside. This is a purely health-based decision. It’s definitely more carefully considered than the red meat one, but it’s a consequence of an unplanned episode.

(to be continued....)

Becoming an Atheist and other big decisions

I’ve made some big decisions this year. This year, of all the years, has started like this: my first decision would be not to make any New Year Resolutions. I would not fall for this trap over and over again. Even hamsters, the symbols of repetitive routines, are less prone to make the same mistakes, in the manner that human beings are used to. When something goes wrong, their instinct tells them not to go there again. “Don’t delude yourself, if you try the same strategy, it won’t work.” And it’s always the same resolutions: lose weight, get a gym membership, stop smoking, and so on. So, for me, I just decided not to give a single thought to it. I would simply not make plans.

Ironically, though, since the year began, three weeks ago, my life has taken directions that I would not specifically choose to initiate, you know, in the beginning of a new year. Or for that matter, decisions that I would not haven taken prior to serious and careful consideration over a number of months, or maybe years. For instance, take the first one: giving up red meat.

I’ve always loved red meat in its numerous forms. Be it barbecue, hamburguer, sausage, salami, or beef – if it’s bleeding I’m eating. Or was. Until one night I got really drunk on JD and Coke and after getting home, my boyfriend cooked half a kilo of steak. Sounds surreal, but we were very hungry, the kind of hunger that comes when you’ve drunk like a pig for 5 hours, and all you want to slide down your throat is the greasiest and heaviest food available. So he took this big chunky piece of ‘contra-filé’ out of the friezer, and sliced it, and fried so we could eat it with ‘bacon farofa’. Half a kilo. That’s 500 grams of cholesterol, fat, and blood down your throat. I don’t know if it was the alcohol or the meat or the two of them combined in my stomach, but I felt REALLY sick right after I chewed the last piece of animal flesh. It was a classic scene: me running to the bathroom and regurgitating everything back down the toilet.

Well, it turns out that after that I can’t even think about looking at a steak. I was actually hoping that the alcohol would blurry my memory and I would forget the episode the day after, but in the end all I got was a robust hangover and an irreversible repulsion to bloody red meat.

I didn’t think my aversion would extend itself towards other kinds of red meat such as ham and chourizo – and in fact, it hasn’t so much as become an uneasiness when faced with them. I get sick so easily this days since that episode that I just decided not to risk throwing up on the station’s platform or onto a customer in the bar. I even took a pregnancy test to check if that was the reason behind my sickness, but no, I’m not expecting. I guess I’ll have to live with it for a while until I find out why – meanwhile, no more red meat pour moi.

(to be continued…)