Ptitchitza u niskom letu

srijeda, 19.03.2008.

Novo vrijeme, isto s*anje

Moje bogato iskustvo u pakiranju i selidbama (ovo ce biti trideset i neka po redu) ne pomaze u jednom triku na kojeg uvijek iznova padam.

Svaki puta kad spakiram gomilu CD-ova, knjiga i raznoraznih traka dobijem osjecaj dostignuca i dojam da je najveci dio spremljen. How wrong!!! Te gomiletine broje tek desetak kutija, a od tog trena do kraja obicno se izbroji jos 40tak kutija raznog smeca kojega se jos ne mogu rijesiti, papira, drangulija, sto li. Za popizdit. Ja sam ona prelazna generacija, koja kuzi obecanja elektronskih medija za pohranu i slicno, ali ima previse prtljage iz proslog, analognog milenija.

Barem nemam namjestaja, to je u ovim okolnostima prednost...

Ma nema do elektronike. Tu i tamo neki virus unisti sve, ukradu vam laptop ili slicno, al onda fakat putujete "lagano"...

- 19:36 - Komentari (3) - Isprintaj - #

četvrtak, 13.03.2008.

Sunday

Other than that unpleasant incident (a fight) in Thirsty Garry's later in the evening, Sunday was great.

I started packing the night before, and was invigorated with having a clear idea of what I have to do and doing it. In the evening I've decided I've deserved to let go a little so I've exceeded my daily budget, visited my regular "watering holes" and had a dinner.

Just in front of Ciao Pirandello, an Italian restaurant close to Thirsty Garry's which I frequently visit, I met Nikita, for the second time. It was about 6 or 7 pm, she wasn't selling anything this time (the first time I've met her she had a coffee thermo-bottle and was selling coffee for some change).

Instead she just assumed her "cutesy" pose and put on her most charming smile. She had a different woolen cap on, but same style like the old one: entirely covering her hair, it extends a bit longer, over ears. Looks funny.

- "Nikitaaa!", I just eed, happy to see her again.

Big smile - she recognised me, I think. Before she even said anything I've emptied the change from my pocket into her hand. I guess that was enough for what she needed it, because she just turned around with a happy expression on her face and ran off in some bouncy, childish, happy-go-lucky steps. It was pleasure seeing her in such a good bood.

- "Heey! You hungry, Nikita? Wanna join me for dinner?"

She just signalled "No" with her hand in the air, like waiving a winner flag or something.
What's her story? I hope to find out some time, I find her intriguing.

- 14:12 - Komentari (1) - Isprintaj - #

srijeda, 12.03.2008.

Something strange

I mean, really strange happened today.

Marcel, "Maria's brother" as he referred to himself, a guy that was helping his father roll joints when he was age eight, to sell on a , and who's on Metadon (as a former heroine junkie, from what I understood) appeared in Thirsty Garry's tonight, when I was there, but the same, always very, very friendly and special guy told him to go away. And he did.

Previously, I saw him fall asleep (under the influence of who knows what) at the bar and nothing.

In recent times, I made it known that I'd like to try the smallest Metadone pill. The same guy (M.) told me it's like heroine. I'm scared of heroine and I never tried anything more serious than canabis but since metadone comes in 'state-regulated' pills and "it's like heroine" and heroine is "like sex times 1,000 times" (as I heard in some memorable, british, film)... well, that's it.

I also met Nikita today, for the 3rd time.

When I'm happy, I'm ultramegahappy. When I'm unhappy, I'm fucking miserable.

Let's not chat about Despair, said Diamanda Galas.
Let's not.

Let's all be Sweetness & Light.
"Happiness is a warm gun".
"War is over if you want it. I want it."

Or "give me sodomy or give me death": again Diamanda. Well, yes: Diamanda is one tough woman, like "my" Maria.

I'm one sensitive guy, hahaha.

It's all about friction, baby, eigenlijk. Ying & yang: a man in you, mi amor, is the woman in me. Sachem once said: Let them never meet.

But I want them to meet and be the best friends, and good lovers. Because they can. Sachem is an alpha-female. I'm not an alpha-male, I'm not even interested in being one. Sachem is a bully, really, because her father was one toward her. My father was kind to me. My mother was busy being a Diva.

So much on amateur psychology for the day.
Over & out. I go sleep now. And dream some pleasant: that's a new phenomenon, since they've fired me (I don't have to worry about work anymore: I know I'm fucked in the Netherlands, for the time being.)

- 22:24 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

The Woods Are Lovely, Dark and Deep

but it was windy in Rotterdam today, very windy. De Maas was not its usual green, maar helemaal bruin.

I have to go to the Hague tomorrow, the city (what city? "Populated place!") so full of disappointments for me that it fills me with... unhappy feelings.

I wrote, like always when I feel fine, pages of shit, but I'll spare you for the day. Usually, tomorrow is another day, and usually I'm not and cannot feel as happy as the day before (if indeed I felt happy, like I have today). But, the 2nd letter to Maria, I wrote it twice, first in draft, then in a "proper" letter for her. The next day I think of the day before and the hapinness always seems so far away that I doubt my thoughts could not possibly be any good. I am wrong, more times than I'm not.

So, buenas noches & I write again tomorrow. I only have to go to the Hague to give my application for a new passport as a replacement for the one I've damaged in one of my irrational moods. And pay 110 euros. They are kind and professional in our Embassy.

Before that, I have to have new passport photos.

I haven't shaved since I haven't killed myself (almost a month ago), and vice versa: I haven't killed myself since I haven't shaved. I want to look on my new passport photo as unrecognisable in beard as I looked on the previous passport photo, from... when? 1994? Such a young fellow on that photo -- it's not me, for a long time now.

If you look like your passport photo it's usually said that you don't look well. I want to look much better than in my passport photo. I am a middle aged guy, after all.

Dear dr. Dorothy, thanks for e-mail(s). I didn't dare read them today, but will this week.

Not only don't I have a phone these days ('cause when it doesn't ring, I know it's Maria), but I don't even have a working clock at home.

What need do I have for one since I've become a professional bum?

Tot morgen. Ah, the terrible suspense... I know. "Instant gratification just takes too long!" (Carrie Fisher / Meryl Streep: Postcards from the Edge).

- 21:52 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

The One Before The Last One: the penultimate letter to Maria

R'dam Zuid, 05 March 2008
(in black pen, dying out and changing its mind all the time)

Dearest Maria,

This is a new pen -- fuck it, it's the only one I have near me.

I miss your friendship terribly. My heart has never healed after you but it's OK -- I don't want it to.

You have saved my life again -- I came close to ending it a few days ago.

I realized two things:

1) My life here is ruined,
2) I give up.

I have decided to accept an "early retirement"-- I cannot stand the thought of working for United Nations again and they don't want me back anyway.

It's not a bad offer -- x,xxx euros per month until I live?

I also hate my apartment -- it's beautiful but I"m too weak to make it my home on my own. I'm not giving up on it, nor am I giving up on Netherlands.

I am going back to Croatia, in April to see if I can learn to love life again, like I used to (well before our shadows have ever met). I also need to find some work I will enjoy doing, hopefully something with languages (will also see if I can be of any help to Croatian diplomacy).

Would it be possible to see you again before I leave? It would so much to me. Please consider it.

I'm again without a phone, but the address is the same.

It makes me happier (or better said: less miserable) to hear from Thorman that you are doing fine, that you don't have to leave NL, and that you are happy with your old boyfriend.

Always your friend,

S.

(scribbled upside down, on the back:)
Very tired. Should go home. Where is home? Home is where the heart is? Heart is in Rotterdam. Because. You are. AREN'T YOU?

P.S. Please meet me. For five minutes or five hours. We don't have to do anything, we don't even need to talk. I just want my soul to take a swim in your deep eyes. There won't be dramas, there won't be tears. I promise. It'll be dry. Dry & sunny weather from now onwards.

If nothing else, meet me and tell me you don't want to see me ever again. Just look at my eyes when you do -- that's all that I ask.

- 13:59 - Komentari (2) - Isprintaj - #

THE PACK UP & GO THOUGHTS

(P.S. to the 2nd and last letter that I will try and give to Maria through Thorman. He's not my postman, and I feel uncomfortable asking him to mediate in something that is entirely not his problem. It seems it's not Maria's problem also, which is good. This makes it exclusively my problem. Two more letters, I'll copy them here tomorrow or later today, and then I continue writing to her or about her on my flog, the fucking blog.)

In Finland or Venezuela, in Croatia, Italy or Netherlands or anywhere else -- we cannot leave our past behind. It follows us wherever we go. We can choose to forget it, burn all the bridges and run, but it stays with us until we deal with and have dealt with it once and for all. Use the bridges you've built, don't burn them down, we may need them once we start building our future, our lives and stop ruining it punishing ourselves for the sins, real or imagined, of our former selves.

I am one of your bridges. Save me for later. There's little if anything I wouldn't do for you. You are one of my bridges, you connect my dark past with my brighter future, now that I've decided my past (and present) is dark enough, and that there is brighter future I need to tend to. Please be there when I need you. I would like you to save yourself, so that I can count on you for those grim moments when I feel like I have really given up. On life. I really am selfish, like you once told me.

* * *

Life is all about containers. We have to arrange it in little neat compartments or it comes as a fucking tsunami wave in which we'll get very involved drowning. If we're (un)lucky, we'll survive, but we'll swallow a lot of dirty, salty water if we've waited for so long.

* * *

I found meters of 16 mm film in my apartment, I left it lying about. That's my life, too: all black, underexposed or overexposed. I'm a beautiful giraffe with five legs, learning to walk gracefully. I dumped the film today, it makes me fell like an artist that I am not.

* * *

I'm sick of all these things and ideas about them I never followed. I'm sick of myself, sick of it all.

* * *

I'm a nervous wreck. I keep waiting for someone of something to push me over the edge and finally it happened. The UN excommunicated me from the Tribunal, from my home in the Hague and I've pushed them to finish the job and they have. I'm leaving NL. But I'll come back. Like my brother told me in his inscription to the beautiful, new Croatian edition of the Art of War that he gave me for Xmas -- only after you've lost everything can you become a winner. It's not easy, choosing to be a looser is much easier, more convenient, pushing people to making decisions for you and then complain about them. Or cry.

* * *

Why haven't I browsed through my 40,000 photographs to find 400 to send to ECM to expect them to find 40 worth considering for their record covers and eventually publish 4? Because I'm scared they'll find even the four to be shit. I know they're good, I'm just scared of the other 396. I pushed for my laptop to be stolen & now I have to find another one like it, second hand.

* * *

This is my "bum uniform" I'm wearing today, "army" trousers with stains of my own blood and torn at the right knee from when I last twisted my (left) ankle and fell. "Weaker sex and everything, always twisting their knee at critical moment." (Frank Zappa, intro on "Cheapness") "... and cheapness of the movie has nothing to do with the budget, although it (the low budget) helps." (FZ, Roxy and Elsewhere). The UN made me a professional bum last July and I have always worn my uniforms with pride. That's why I have a number of medals. The number? Two: JNA (1985-6) and the UN ICTY (2007).

* * *

Come and see mi, mi amor. I haven't shaven since I've killed myself and I haven't killed myself since I have shaven!

* * *

I'm so fucking tired of all the meanings I read, understand and find in this city, this beautiful country and scared of all the others I do not understand. I need peace in my mind, I can't find it here, not like this, not until every fucking sad song sings about Maria & me, or rather: about me and Maria. Ths guy with a computer and a gadget in the cafe, he's not calibrating the gambling machines, how do I know he's not checking whether I"m killing myself or something in my apartment? How do I know for sure that the rubber chicken next to me was really thrown for Kodi, Jollie's dog and not for me, to remind me what a chicken I am. (Am U chicken? I am. Of rubber. You can chew me and tear me apart, but I still remain a chicken. And did you know cock tastes like chicken? You can try if you wash your teeth!)

So many people in whom I placed the last atoms of my trust in humanity have betrayed me last year. Only one never did. Maria never betrayed me. Never ever. I was willing to bet my life on her and I did. I still live.

* * *

Killing me softly, on the radio now. You're not killing me with this song, you're killing me with them all. And there's nothing soft about it, it's hard-core. Cmulja.

* * *

Lomni glasovi R&B pjevacica su nasljedstvo njihova africkog porijekla i izlozenost arapskom svijetu. Kao sto je u neku ruku i swahili jezik. Pjevaci(ce) virtuozi, kao Lauryn Hill, oni to vec nose u genima, it's a sublimated pain. Arapski svijet je jos uvijek toliko sjeban da nema prilike da ta bol prijedje u nesto manje ocito. Osim u turbo-folk formi kojeg i oni imaju.

* * *

Natas, HELP!!! I wanna be your dog. Mornings are critical for me, evenings are for you. You're a hermit, I'm unemployed and lazy. You take your pills and drink yourself to oblivion, then at 10 am you let your dog lick your face for two hours before you take him out for a walk and wake up drowsy for the rest of the day. Please be with me at my apartment for an hour or two before 13 h every day to "interrogate me" or just tolerate me talking to myself into throwing as much shit away as I can. I blew up my best chance for it, when Maria said I CAN HELP YOU and I just replied, No. (Nobody can help, I thought to myself not daring to say it aloud.) Such a fucking idiot I was. Help me Natas, help me Satan, I've let my Angel go.

And yet it was always Maria that was saying that her life is ruined and that she's given up, never me. I was a hypocrite, trying to be (our) leader.

* * *

On the radio now: THERE'S FREEDOM WITHIN. THERE'S FREEDOM WITHOUT! HEY NOW, HEY NOW!

* * *

I don't want to understand any words, any languages around me. Stop it all! DRZTE ME DA GA NE UBIJEM! Hold me before I kill that motherfucker who was making all the trouble in Thirsty Garry's on Sunday evening. No one had to, they took care of him, there was eventually a little bit of blood. They all stood up, one by one.

I stood up later, in disbelief. I thought it a direct provocation against me. I must have been in TG a hundred times by now and never a problem. How could anyone dare to make problems at Maria's domicile, where I live, at my home? I went home and couldn't sleep until 5 am, I felt violated. You violated my home, stupid motherfucker with a white UMBRO shirt. Even Thorman stood up. You, UMBRO, you "hombre", almost knocked down the loudspeaker I always dance with to Carl's house/techno music, pretending it's Maria. "You should have been a boxer", someone said commenting on my dance. Ah yes? But I've never hit her, the loudspeaker or Maria. I only fight with her without touching, then I lean my shoulder to it, or my head, or embrace it with my arm, playing piano on her hip or waste, carressing it, feeling the bass at my stomack and taking in all the mid-range sounds that are at the hight of my ears. I am the fire, don't play with me. Don't play with us.

Maria and myself we are NATURAL BORN KILLERS, because we're just too polite, too respectful to be fighters until you've pushed the wrong button and then it's too late.

- 13:18 - Komentari (2) - Isprintaj - #

utorak, 11.03.2008.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust

I've moved about thirty time in my life so far, mostly in my own hometown of Zagreb, Croatia. I was eager to move out from my mother's place as soon as I could.

It was even fun in the beginning, when I wasn't bringing along all my stuff, but it soon became rather tireing exercise. It became a disgusting thing to do for me some years ago, because it would force me to re-inventorise my life, and because I could never really "expand" and customise (somebody else's rented) space to me, I had to customise my life in some aspects to the space available and its inherent restrictions.

We change. We carry memories, and there's always that poison called Nostalgia. We -- my generation(s) -- have even more things to be nostalgic about, because of all the shit the war brought.

I have a home in Rotterdam (however I feel about it now, battered and weakened and alone, it is a home), and I still can count on the one in Zagreb. How I started packing without getting physically sick of it is that I made it a challenge to get rid of, to throw away or give away as much stuff as I can.

I'm separating things into two groups: the ones I will tow to Zagreb because I may need them or I may want to need them, and the other ones that I will keep here. I have about two minute attention span in dealing with any one group of things, be it books, records, documentation, printed matter, etc etc, but I move from one heap of shit to another so some progress is being made...

- 10:45 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

Pljunuo sam istini u oci

I've spit the Truth in its eyes, this weekend.

I know where I stand now and what I have to do. I have to survive, I've always been good at it. Just make over this big hurdle and my prospects are really rather positive. I didn't loose a home, but am gaining another one -- I feel it now that I am getting ready to leave Rotterdam and the Netherlands for some time before I come back and start from a clean slate.

- 10:24 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

Magic Ball

Maria had a little ball.

- "What sort of a ball is that?", Sinisa asked her.

- "It's a magic ball."

- "What makes it a magic ball? It looks like an ordinary marble."

- "It's magical because it rolls down the hill all by itself."

- "But all balls roll down the hill by themselves."

- "It means they are all magical", Maria said.

- "But, Maria, for something to be magical, it has to behave differently from what we expect it to behave."

- "Well, I expect this ball to roll uphills all the time, but it keeps rolling downhill."

- "Why is it that you expect it to roll uphills, when you know all balls roll downhills?", Sinisa asked her.

- "Because it's magical", Maria answered.

- 10:17 - Komentari (3) - Isprintaj - #

nedjelja, 09.03.2008.

Osobna poruka jednoj od mojih drazih terapeutkinja

Dr. Dorothy, s obzirom da sam opet bez telefona a nismo nikad razmijenili e-mailove, bi li, molim te, pitala buraza da ti javi moj e-mail (ili, ako nemas njegov telefon), nazvala moju mamu i pitala je da posreduje.

Htio bih od tebe cuti malo o drugom tvojem sinu i sto njega zanima da znam izabrat sto njemu da donesem iz NL. Dva su sina (polu)braca, pa niti mislim da je moguce, niti bih zelio diskriminirati jednog na racun drugog.

Muchas gracias!

- 18:44 - Komentari (1) - Isprintaj - #

Somewhere in this city

Maria is. Happy. Or should be.

I am so sorry I have failed her. I failed myself. She seeked a menthor, a teacher, a leader. I tried, but I can not lead. She helped me much more than I have helped her (and I have!). She helps me every day.

She should not be ashamed or remorseful of any she has done or hasn't but wanted to. She should be proud of herself, for saving my life. Every day.

They say if you save a life, you have saved a humanity, and they are right.

I would just like to see her, once in a while, and see for myself that she is happy, or at least happier. Then I have reasons only to cry for myself, and not for both of us. And when I do cry, feeling sorry for myself, I laugh afterwards at myself, for crying over the spilled milk.

She is a wonder of God's creation that I'd like the world to share. That's why I so much mention her. Everybody sees a beauty and strenght in her, except her. And when I cry over her, I really cry over myself, because the same is true of myself.

We could be so good for each other, I will never be able to forget that. "She's not perfect, but she's perfect for me." I will keep "using" the Vision of us, to perfect me, because I do not need a "normal" girl, I need Maria. I am normal (or used to be and will be again) for both of us.

- 13:29 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

Every day

"Every day I spend in this room, I become softer and the Charlie becomes stronger.", said Martin Sheen, in his leading role in the one of the best films and most relevant to me, The Apocalypse Now.

"Everybody gets what he wants", Capt. Willard said. "I wanted a mission. And for my sins, they gave me one. It came delivered, like a room service."

In a documentary about making of Apocalypse Now, a huge production riddled with problems of every kind, the most trialing time in the carriere of Francis Ford Coppola, "Hearts of Darkness - A filmmaker's Apocalypse", after he replaced Harvey Keitel (and effectively banned him from Hollywood for decades, renegating him to B production and European movies) with Charlie Sheen, his new leading role cast -- well in the production -- suffered a heart-attack. "I was 36, very troubled, smoking three packs of cigarettes every day... Basically, not a healthy guy." Like myself, only five years older. "It became clear to me, after the heart-attack" (when he managed to crawl to the road and be picked up by a public transport in the Phillipines and eventually made it to hospital) "that it was my choice: if I wanted to die, I would die, if I wanted to live, I'd survive." He seems to have done rather well since then, since 1976.

"There's no way of telling a story of Col. Curtz without telling my own.", capt. Willard said before being briefed about his mission to "terminate the Colonel", a brilliant military officer and a humanitarian, "whose methods have become... unsound.", who went "insane". An officer who realised the entire perversity of the war and it's necessity, not unlike me realising but not accepting the truth about the U.N.

Capt. Willard: "They were going to make me a major after this one." The U.N. made me a major, too. I should accept it with gratitude, because I have not earned my mission(s) with sins, on the contrary.

- 13:03 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

This blog is shit

Because my life is shit, because I am the Shit Of God.

My religion is Reason, but my mind is tired and troubled and I loose the Faith so often.

Sono lo feci dal Signore, I said that to Maria once and she was shocked and asked me (her being fluent in Italian as well) if I knew what I have said. Yes, I do, I was quoting Diamanda Galas from her song, Sono l'Antichristo. She is religious, and for her these words carried extra punch, like her words, "My life is ruined", and "I gave up" were a shock for me to hear, because... Because. I felt that to be true of my life and me, but I did not dare to admit it to myself, because the reason would then propell me to do something to end it.

I don't have a telephone again, and I haven't checked my e-mail in weeks (until yesterday). This is how I press the crack in my glass. I know I am lonely and that most of my friends are not in Rotterdam but elsewhere. They have normal lives and I am sick and disgusted of myself to being so much needy of them, that I rather push it to the extreme.

And then I come here, on my blog, to Cry Out. The more I cry out, the less reason I have to cry. So, this is my therapy.

I have no life and my world is empty. I hate my apartment because the remnants of my former life are everywhere for me to remind me how much my life is full of promise and how little of that promise it has delivered. I run away from it all the time, spend my money and time in bars, seeking a temporary relief from my loneliness. And then... I have to come back to my "home" and witness the scorched land of the life I once liked.

I need Maria or somebody to give me a real or metaphorical slap in the face every day, as a reality check to keep myself focused on the future (because the prospects are very good!) and not dwell on all the shit that came my way in recent year or two.

I am going back to Croatia, to recover, to surround myself with my neglected friends and family, to get to know my son and try to make amends of him growing up without ever meeting his real father. From what I hear of him from his mother, I already know he is really my son.

"You're life is going to be difficult", said my father to me after my first day in Croatian school, "because you are too good and trusting" (something to that effect). I remember the words even though I have not understood the meaning then. I will never repeat them to my son, I should try to teach him what I have never learned, that you do not need to always to give or prove the goodness (because it is evident) before you receive some. To teach him to be selfish enough.

Really, I only need to find the strenght to tie the loose ends here, to let out (rent out) my apartment. With that, I keep more or less my present income even though my salary is cut to half next month. We have good foreign languages schools in Croatia, I will busy myself polishing my Dutch and learning Turkish, then come back and start from a clean slate. Start again, get a job -- then my income is going to be even higher. With such prospects, with such a self-unacknowledged priviledged life that I have really had, I need a slap in the face to bring back a painful but well-intended stimulus to keep the little faith I have.

My life IS ruined here. I have given up. Everyday, a Devil in my proposes a rational but ill-intended solution to it. Yesterday, a heartfelt letter in an e-mail my brother sent me in February brought tears to my eyes. That's why I don't check my e-mail and have no phone. I know, I am aware that I CANNOT do anything to hurt myself without hurting so many people that care about me, and I do not want to hurt anyone.

Please forgive my moments of weakness. My new blog may be called De Zuider Ster, A star of the South.

Odbrana i posljednji dani, prije konacne konsolidacije i uvjerljive pobjede. I am one tough motherfucker, really. Wait and see for yourself.

- 12:27 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

Lover, Friend... My Sister

P.S. Girlie, I love you

You're the hello in a welcome,
And the answer to a prayer,
You're a passage of Beethoven,
like a precious stone you're rare,

You're that little touch of sadness,
But you're overwhelming joy,
You're a never ending mystery,
In the mind of every boy.

You're the most expensive parfume,
With the scent of morning air
You're a wonder of God's creation,
That I'd like the world to share,
Girlie...

You're the beauty of a poem
By Walter de la Mare,
You're the hope behind a promise,
You're the dream beyond a prayer

When the mind is so tormented,
You're a soothing, healing hand,
You're a gift of wide awakening
In this tired and troubled land.

You're the sunlight,
You're the shadows,
You're an excellent time of year
You're the smile that brings contentment,
You're the hurt behind a tear

Maria... I love you, girlie

- 12:19 - Komentari (2) - Isprintaj - #

subota, 08.03.2008.

Stupid dog

I feel ashamed by my yesterday's post ("Personal Maria-Magdalena") about the self-sabotaging patterns that I feel Maria may be following in her life as a consequence of her having been abused as a child, and have just deleted it.

It was probably accurate, but my righteous tone and a far too personal detail about her that I have revealed were wrong.

The simple fact is that Maria is more honest about herself than I am. When she got in her crisis she seeked help. I seek excuses. I think about things, analyze them, find possible solutions and then do very little to follow up on it.

She tried many times to help me and did her best. For me it was enough just to be with her but I have not changed my own self-sabotaging patterns and a part of me having become so wrapped up about Maria is the sad fact that her own problems were subconsciously an excuse for me not to deal with my own but trying (however well-intended) to help her. She didn't need another therapist (in me).

If I had been more responsible and active in dealing with my problems we would probably still be together. There were so many of them, I just folded under their weight. Nobody can help me, I felt. But it's only true until I decide to help myself.

It's an irony that it's her that says "My life is ruined. I gave up." when actually she tries to do what she can to change it. On the other hand I would never have admitted that myself, but am actually behaving like it.

What hurts most is her not wanting to remain in contact, as friends. But she must have her own reasons for it, perhaps she has mixed emotions about me, perhaps she just cannot stand watching me sink further... who knows.

I am like a dog trying to catch his own tail.

- 12:48 - Komentari (2) - Isprintaj - #

petak, 07.03.2008.

Odbrana i posljednji dan

Wednesday, the day before a positive resolution of my crisis (described in the previous post) I've reached another resolution, in a moment of weakness.

I decided there's no way I will move out of my apartment. Not while I live. Empty of all emotions, but resigned with lack of perspective, I've decided to finish it all and was thinking about how best to write my last will and testament. This gave me a sense of purpose again and I've spent the day walking about and laughing and crying at the same time. My last will was becoming an art project infused with humor, but then I realised how many people will I hurt with this early and cowardly check-out and was disappointed to realise humor in that last piece of writing would be somewhat improper (or maybe not, if I managed to convince people that I have reached a peace of mind).

Later that day, I realised that moving back to Croatia, to live with my mother until I get a hold of things would not, or should not, be making me feel like a looser. I should think of it as a strategic retreat and to use the opportunity to establish a relationship with my mother that would finally (hopefully) be more resembling a relationship between two friends, then a narcissistic mother and and her son who can not stand being mothered...

Odbrana i posljednji dan ("Defence and the last day"), has thus became more a one-man's Masada, where defense simply meant taking control of the innevitable.

All this brainstorming and newly find sense of resolve and perspective must have been reflected on my appearance, because women were reacting to me in a way (and number) that was until now completely new to me. One woman (whom I do not remember ever seeing before) was all over me, so much so that I had to leave the bar early, not being able to establish what's on her mind, and avoid a fight if she was using me to make her boyfriend jealous or something. Another one (at some other place) clearly hinted she would like to see me again. I've played pool with her (and won!), perhaps something that I may have done not more than 15 times in my life. I really suck at pool, but had a beginner's luck. I've comforted another, elderly woman, who has (like me) just lost her job and was very saddened. I was good at showing empathy and providing support, she cheared up. This was happening in front of the woman I beat in pool (a Polish woman with a wickedly kinky smile and an appetizing figure), and for the second time I realised how what I was doing with one woman looks like a social proof to another, who reacts to it. I was flirting innocently with that same elderly (South-African) woman some months ago, and while leaving the bar to help her take her shopping to the apartment, another bar-tender handed me her phone number, out of the blue! Funny, how things work.

Walking about around Scheveningen in the Hague, I paid a compliment to some stylish middle-aged Latina, entered into conversing with her and set a date with her on Monday. She's from Aruba. I have a soft spot for "exotic" women...

I am always happy to notice how effective an "open book" I've become, where I communicate and so effectively with no words.

- 13:00 - Komentari (0) - Isprintaj - #

Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead!

As life would have it, yesterday, on the 11th anniversary of my arrival in the Netherlands (it was Thursday that day in 1997, too) two of the most troubling issues that were fueling my crisis were resolved, once and forever. I now have a clear idea where do I stand and what do I need to do to leave these grueling, awful 20 months of the most serious, the deepest personal crisis in my life behind me and re-establish that old (but better!) fun-oriented, life-loving Ptitchitza that some of you (still) remember.

One issue was work, the other was Maria.

I had a meeting at the Tribunal and was told clearly that they do not want me back so I can forget about working there again. They are moving to dismiss me on medical grounds, which means that I will, later in this year, be officially retired (age 41) and enjoy (pretty much) half of my salary every month until I live. If I live until the age 95 (not a likely prospect if I continue smoking as much as I do) that actually makes me a millionaire! Half of my salary equals an average salary in the Netherlands. With another job, that means I will more-or-less be able to count on my current (rather high) income. And so I have become free at last. Like the Prince, after he was wearing that "SLAVE" word on his cheak to mark the nature of his contract with his then record company, I have emancipated myself.

Unfortunately, I will have to move out of my apartment and pack all that shit lying about again. I will use this disgusting exercise to get rid of some of that shit, so that I can "travel" and live lighter in future. I will let out the apartment and move back to Croatia, where I will recover and forget this crisis in peace and establish the fundaments of my future life. I plan to polish up my Dutch, while in "exile" (in my own country) and learn elementary Turkish, then come back to the Netherlands and start again, with a clean slate and a possibility of making myself a normal part of this (very socialist and organised) society.

This blog is coming to an end. I will be starting a new one soon, where -- hopefully -- many of the already mentioned episodes (and new ones) will be able to be described not in a factographic, linear way but (if my talent will be sufficient) as more interesting stories, with some literary value and a clearer sense of narration and drama.

- 12:42 - Komentari (3) - Isprintaj - #

srijeda, 05.03.2008.

Them There Eyes

At the end of January, I was working as a volunteer at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam. Every day on the way to the Service Center at the third floor I passed through the lobby plastered with posters of films featured at the festival, one of which was for the Spanish film, "En la ciudad de Silvia".

It's a simple poster, features a girl who looks somewhat like a younger Maria (my Femme Fatale), but what is even more striking about it are her eyes. There is so much resigned sadness in that hurt but hopeful look, utterly vulnerable and yet open and sincere. You can see the child in the eyes of that young woman, betrayed but still trusting. People like that, their look gains depth every day; their eyes are two unfathomable oceans of emotions. They are tough, they must be: who else could sustain their belief in the Good despite all the pain and hurt their ever lasting innocence brings them in life? That is Maria on the poster, in the moments when she is resigned with her fate.

The woman on the poster holds the palm of her hand open in the gesture of greeting. When Maria greets people she likes, she makes one or two circles with the open palm of her hand, to include everyone but perhaps also to show she made the full circle, more than once: she's been to Hell and back.

It took me two days before I was able to pass by that poster without teary eyes. "Hello, Maria, my love", I would great her every day.

On the last day of the Festival, I took the poster with me; it was my most valued possesion. There is something in those eyes that splits me in half every time I see or think about them.

I was carrying the poster with me everywhere for days, showing it to everybody: see, this is Maria, do you understand now? Many people would see the sadness but would fail to understand all the immense strength of character, all the tragic beauty they were witnessing.

- 14:00 - Komentari (2) - Isprintaj - #

In the City of Maria: Screams from the Balcony

In all these months since Maria left me, "my" Rotterdam has increased only marginally compared to the Rotterdam I knew from before or to which Maria introduced me; Maria is everywhere, at every place there are memories of the moments we have shared. My routine all these months was to revisit these places and be with her in my thoughts, hoping also that somewhere on the way I would accidentally meet her. Fearing, also, that I would: if she would again avoid contact with me I would again be terribly hurt. But, I couldn't help it. I would pass by a supermarket where she would go to buy Heinz Delicatesse mayonese she loves, and go in. She must have been there recently: I wasn't able to find any Heinz mayonese left on the shelf the other day...

I had an intense week some two weeks ago. It was full moon, I didn't need to sleep much and was going out every night seeking to abandon all the worries whose weight keeps me down, to lose myself in defiant, irrational flights of hapiness. I've met some new -- as I call them -- Angels of the Night: Swavek, a Polish guy, extraordinarily accomplished musician, a guitar player, playing his electric guitar on the street through a small, portable amplifier. (I was convinced it is actually I., Maria's ex-boyfriend -- Swavek sounds like a derivative of the spanish word "suave", meaning "softly, gently", I believe.) I've met Nikita, a dark, charismatic and charming woman seeking money on the streets from passer-bys by selling them coffee from a thermo-bottle she was carrying with her. "Nikita", now there's a nom de guerre if I ever heard one! "You can get sugar and cream in the bar at the corner", she told me. "It's OK -- I'm going right accross the street, to Thirsty Garry's, I'll get it there. My ex-girlfriend, Maria, was working there for six years, maybe you know her?", I asked, to which she just replied with a quizical "Mmmm!" and a significant look. I met Marcel again, I didn't see him from December, another Beautiful Looser, always wearing his spiky, punk "uniform" of a leather jacket and red, carre, trousers. He was in prison, but it appears to have done him some good: he looks very fresh and healthy! I also met some ex-junkies, all colourful characters, in Bouman, an organisation that provides them with free food during the day and work, for 7,50 euros a day. It's in that shop on the corner, opposite the building where I live, where once I've dreamt I saw Maria sad and depressed, pretending not to have seen me passing by, but instead straigthening herself proudly in the chair. I met Fred, a beautiful, graceful, androgynous man -- looks like a Thin, White Duke -- in his mid or late 40s, tall and very thin. I've offered him a drink in my messy apartment and asked him to choose some record to play. He made a very considerate choise: he picked two LPs, Nick Cave's From Her To Eternity (which was prominently exposed, he must have realised it has some special significance for me) and Roxy Music's Manifesto. I felt he chose Nick Cave to please me and went for the Roxy Music: he says he particularly enjoys the "Angel Eyes" song. Such grace. Somehow I feel all these "fallen angels" know Maria (Marcel does, I know that for a fact.) and "watch over us", the two kindred, tormented, lost souls.

But all these experiences, after days of nothingness were getting to me. I was exhausted by the end of the week, there was so much excitement, so much happiness all at once and all of a sudden that it started to feel like escapism; always the sure sign of the crash of the newly found optimism that may follow soon. The extremes are never the polar opposites: the closer you get to one, the closer you are to the other extreme.

Finally, one morning, after a sleepless night It came. I felt terribly lonely and tired of everything. I tried to exorcise the pain with some cruel and tormented music from my proved heroine, Diamanda Galas. She wasn't enough, I put on K. Penderecki on full blast afterwards... I've opened the window and stared down. I let a precious book fall the four floors down to the ground, then watched a vase smash in hundreds of splinters. And then... I took the Poster, the one in which I see Maria, the one I was carrying with me for days, showing it to the people, writing on it; by now it was all wrinkled and torn but Her eyes still piercing my soul from it... and I threw it out. I watched Her fall. I stared down. A couple of tears parted my face and went to join Her, join the angel I finally let go of. I stared... it was so tempting... a moment of free fall and then peace for ever. Instead, I ran down the stairs, picked her up and brought her back. Went to the balcony and screamed, my screams drowned in all the noise coming out of the apartment.

Totally emptied of all the feelings, I went to the bed and spent the next two weeks in bed, up to 15 hours a day. The rest of the time I was walking around the city like a zombi. Empty and unable to find a sense of purpose in anything.

And so I laid my Maria to rest. I see her now as my estranged sister, I still hope to see her but no longer count on it. I still think about her, she gives me an excuse to cast away the worries of all the turmoil that may come my way next month, when my salary will be halfed unless they ask me to return to work. I may have to move out of my apartment even before it ever become my true home, but the prospects of it haunt me every night in sleep...

- 13:54 - Komentari (1) - Isprintaj - #

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