melancholy ok

30 september 2011 10:40 pm

on this, the anniversary of all my shit getting stolen, i filled myself with melancholy by putting photos from my first laptop, which was also stolen two years ago, on this, my current and never-to-be-stolen lifeline to the world. while i was in the US this past summer i found all my old backup DVDs, including those from that long-ago lost machine, taken from me in the wilds of Portland, OR, during the heat waves of 2009.  being windows-made back-up discs, they required a lot of time for digging through files and programs and applications that are now unnecessary in these heady days of linux, looking for any graven images from the past. i had put off doing that on my last laptop, which was stolen a year ago.  and then somehow i decided that today was the day to do that. there were just enough to make me feel … blah. blech. sad. ish.  about all the things and people that are not here.  about all the times that are over.

a year ago tonight i went to bed drunk and blissfully unaware that someone had pawed through my stuff and stolen anything that might have any value or importance to me, including the wallet i had made by hand.  i only discovered it all the next day, when i noticed my laptop bag gone.  everything else came in increments.

when i realized the anniversary, my melancholy deepened.

but, really, i should be happy. i had lunch with ania, and then she rushed home and i lingered around the center so i could look up some stuff on the internet. i had trouble finding a spot on the rynek that wasn’t blasted with sunlight, as i seem to be finally getting the summer weather i have been waiting all summer for. so i hunkered down on swidnicka, under the only buildings that were creating shade.  well, i was on a curb, but i might have been sitting on the street for all it looked like.

which is where kuba found me.

he approached me while pushing a bike with a flat tire, exclaiming, “don’t tell me you are homeless now! no, no!! anything but that!”

as has been mentioned here before, Poles usually don’t sit on the sidewalk with laptops.

i haven’t seen him since i’ve been back in town, so it was a wonderful surprise, and we walked north together and said incredibly deep things to each other while he pushed the bike that wasn’t his that had let him down shortly before he found me.

his humor and help had really pulled me through the nasty time that was last year around now, so it was like the world was telling me everything’s fine.

we parted with promises of me coming over for tea and talk. then i went home and made myself sad.

but sometimes it’s ok to feel a little sad for a little bit. tonight i sit in my kitchen and ponder old friends and newer friends and read zines in broken english and try to urge myself to write in my journal, which has been as neglected as this blog.

you guys don’t get to read that shit, though. ha ha.

you’re not missing anything.

still no internet in the new flat, as it has been discovered that the reason the landlord was so eager to rent and so flustered about everything is that he is getting married this weekend. so, with honeymoon factored into the mix, it will take about two more weeks before we get the home internet sorted out.

maybe that’s a blessing.

without it i can sit and focus, and that’s how i remember to tell about the dream i had the other night, where it was the end of the world so i threw away my phone. then i realized that it wasn’t quite the end of the world enough yet, and i had no other way to know what time it was. without a timepiece, i missed my class at the bank, which prompted a whiny, cringing reaction in me, where i insisted that it was everybody else’s fault but my own. then i went looking for my phone, while i waited for my boss to find me and yell at me.

that’s the most anxious work-anxiety dream i’ve ever had.

and kimya dawson sings in my ears about broken bicycles just as i’m writing about broken bicycles, and joy division puts more tears in my brain, and some jerk guy sings the saddest song ever.

phew.

11:02 pm

no … i really AM an adult

26 september 2011 4:45 pm

nothing makes you feel stupider than punching a hole in the access card you need to get into the international swiss bank where you spend most of your life teaching english, only to find out that anything piercing the card invalidates it. i walked into the revolving door, held my card up to the reader and … nothing. stupid. tried to explain to the security guard. in polish. sorta. (“nie działa” “dlaczego?” “bo ma … hole.”) then i had to go tell on myself so i could get a new card. idiot.

at least i started out with, “i have the stupidest thing ever to ask about …” which made everyone smile. but i was embarrassed enough to blame it on an imaginary brash young friend who seems to have very little grasp of how the world really works, but just enough life story to think her experiences are the same as everyone else’s.

sometimes my imagination gets carried away, especially when my pride is at stake.

but they all laughed and said it was fine, they could make a new card, what are you worried about?

well, originally i was worried about losing my damn card, since a friend of mine did that recently and her own imagination went wild with the possibilities of how they were going to torture her for her indiscretion. her wild imagination set mine ablaze, and not even the fact that her bag, and card, had been returned to her could quell the fire burning out of control in my head.  so i wanted to fix it to a lanyard. is that so wrong?  
heh.

whoah … redux … again

21 september 10:43 pm

here’s the truth of it.

i started seriously thinking about writing again when i was forced to start a business.

 

for reals.

in poland, as an english teacher, you can either be hired by a school as a foreigner working temporarily (and then the best schools will pay the amount it costs them to take your taxes out for you and the worst schools will pay you under the table and say they are taking taxes out when really they are doing nothing of the sort) or you can start your own freelance business. i was forced into the latter when it became apparent that my school will only do the former as long as you don’t make above a certain amount, which forces them to pay more to employ you. then they complain. and tell you different things every time you ask. and act conciliatory one minute and enraged the next. so you try to make less money so you don’t have to go through a bureaucratic nightmare nor be eviscerated by your employer, which is difficult when they keep giving you more and more and more hours. so you get yelled at in email form. so you wanna throw your computer at your boss.

not really. heh.

the end result is that i’m not allowed to work for the school again unless i become a freelance teacher. this means i take my own taxes out of my pay. it also means i can take deductions on my apartment and coffee and tram rides. it also means i need a goddamn accountant, because all of this is beyond me.

it freaks me out, the level of responsibility this brings upon me, the level of “adulthood” it reeks of. it also means i’m being tracked by a government, any government, for the first time in years.

but, whatever. it got me to start thinking about writing. to start writing.

when you register your business in poland, you have to have a main form of business, but then you can add up to ten other things that you are legally allowed to invoice people for, with no charge. my friend yovee told me about this when i let her know how much i was panicking at the very idea of this process. “it’s easy!” she said, “and you can put whatever you want on there! for free!”

hers said that she was an english teacher and translator, but also that she could book parties and work in radio. something else, too. i can’t remember.

so i thought long and hard about things i could possibly want to be paid for in the future. a friend edits a photo magazine, he may be able to pay me for photos, so … photographer. i want to become fluent enough to translate, but i also want to be able to hire people to help me translate, so … translator. and then what?

i’ve never been paid for my writing, which is something that springs more from my lack of competitiveness and ambition than from anything else. but, what the hell? might as well. it’s one of my new-school-year resolutions, writing for other publications. writing as much as possible. just … words. so i asked. “dziennikarz, może?” but no, journalist did not seem to be an option, just as it didn’t seem to describe what i do. so i shrugged and said, “writer? something?” the woman nodded and told me what code to write in the designated spot. and then i waited for her to hand me my papers.

she did. and under the list of things that i am now legally allowed to invoice people for in poland it says “ARTYSTYCZNA I LITERACKA DZIAŁNOŚĆ TWÓRCZA” that’s “artistic and literary creative activity” to you.

those are some lofty words to live up to. so, i thought, i better start living up to them.

give me a little time to get there.

10:59 pm

p.s. need to point out that in no way did i do all that alone. yovee gave me guidance and my mom gave me Polish and her stern promise that everything was going to be alright.

in other news, new flat = gorgeous, drinks tonight with kasia, for the first time since the US = fantastic, long day tomorrow but then three days off = best thing ever.

p.p.s. google translate comes up with something like “artistic and literary creative responsibility,” which is a little scary.