i need some inspiration

bless the blood dripping on the side of your forearm

counter culture

all we have left is what lives in our mind

a crow followed me yestarday for half an hour, should i be worried you think?

Every year when summer comes and when the vacation plans are all in order comes as well the time when i have to choose what books to take with me. It is a very crucial decision, indeed, for my books will be the ones that will save me from boredom or from any kind of annoyance that may come my unlucky way. They are my guardians and my safehouses, the only thing that reminds me to actually use my brain from time to time in a period sacredly devoted to laziness and idleness.

 This year, i chose to take a literary vacation, leaving heartbroken "The Balkans" by M. Mazower (not an easy book, suprisingly not boring at all however, about the socioeconomic history of the Balkans from the rule of the Ottoman Empire until this day) and the "Lake Views" by S. Weinberg (two words; theoretic physics) behind and taking with "The Marriage Plot" by Jeffrey Eugenidis and "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac as well as some good ol' Sherlcok Holmes stories.

 About "The Marriage Plot". I have never read J. Eugenidis before, I have only watched several times the "Virgin Suicides" by S. Copola and loved it, and always wandered about the origins of the story and what kind of a writer would write about something like this. I never thought i would stumble upon such a jewel. Honestly, I chose "The Marriage Plot", because I myself, as well as one of the protagonists of this story, Madeleine, was at the time looking to reaffirm my faith in love and all those romantic notions that Jane Austen made us girls believe in since we were little. Well, together with the Walt Disney studios and their princesses and princes. Going through the first pages I realised that what i had on my hands was not just another typical dry american novel, i was in disbelief. I could not have chosen a more refreshingly witty and inspiring book for this summer. It is set in the 1980's in Brown College and through the years wherever the three main characters, Madeleine, Leonard and Mitch would take it. The critics celebrated the book, saying more than once that it would remind the readers what it felt like to be young, in college, and in love. I am younger and soon going to university so this was just a flash forward, opening my eyes to all that my own life could be. It is not just another love triangle story, it is deeper, it is much smarter than that. From the religious and sacred explorations of Mitch to the reality of manic depression with which Madeleine and Leonard are burdened together. Eugenidis proves that there is so much that makes up the life of someone, so much that shapes them into who they are and guides them to or even away from who they wanted to be.

 Before I knew who Jack Kerouac was I knew Allen Ginsberg, one of the Beat Generation's most known poets, and used to give "Howl and other Poems" as a gift to people I thought were cool enough to understand it. After watching "Howl", a frank and unique on its own right movie about the life of the notorious poem “Howl”, where James Franco is Allen Ginsberg and being somewhat bedazzled by it, baffled as well though, I thought I would look into the Beatniks a little more and in a hurry bought "On the Road" as I wanted to read it before the movie irreparably destroyed it for me. I enjoy thoroughly automatic writing and Kerouac is more than just brilliant at it, obviously, his narrative is pungent and liquid at the same time. His whole story is tangled in a crazy and loud whirlwind of trance, joy induced trance, drug induced trance. Lives impulsive, driven by holy visions, by desire for love, life and for finding a revelatory meaning to all of these. A lot of jazz, a lot of girls, and literally what the title suggests, a life on the road. In buses, half dilapidated cars, stolen cars, hitchhiker rides and along the apparitions of white blazing horses, across the northern America, from East to West, West to East and back again, always through Denver, ending up in New York, or in San Francisco, on expeditions to Mexico City with the hand of their God pushing them along the way towards the edges of the world, towards everything. Never alone, Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac) stumbles upon everyone, and they all always stay with him in the remembrance of the city in which he met them, and the stories that they shared, the parts of their lives they gifted each other. Sadly, Dean Moriarty ( inspired my Neal Cassady) near the end of the book, grows somewhat tiring and his angelic madness, as Sal sees it, becomes more of a drooling insanity than anything angelic. Reading about Dean during the end felt like his own brain was slowly dissipating before my eyes, tired from the intensities it was put through, overwhelmed by the hedonistic hormones; the announcement of the approaching end, of the story, of the glory days, of the lives of men and of the chances to be truly and unconditionally free.On the Road is not morally correct and that is one of the things that makes it great. Funny how, the week I decided to read it an anti-Kerouac campaign of feminists took over the internet, bringing certain literary values and criteria, so to say, into question that do not even belong in the same page with Kerouac’s name. Yes, the women of “On the Road”, and mostly of all the Beat writings, come second and the “real” characters, the ones that actually “live” through the books and poems are the men. It is not a matter of gender inferiority complexes though; it is simply the reality of self-centered lives that had to be shaped thus in order to indulge themselves in the way their generation dictated them to.

Anyway,

summer is over, these thoughts came to me a long time ago, and now I am reading Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, and I am leaving behind my recklessness and I am ready to give myself back to lethargy.

obsessions

i want to wipe out all the sad ideas that come to me when i am holding you

my books have finally grown lonely and afraid of me.
and it is just sad that the idea of all i have ever had cannot even begin to alter in accordance to my sad sad expectations. of how my glorious life is going to spiral its way down to nothingness as all others do, great and pathetic alike. i will grow older every second and i will never understand it, i will never trully believe it, and i suppose as everyone else does, i will deny the scars and tears in my skin because i only have to look at myself a few minutes everyday. my eyeshadow goes to my eyelids, and i know their crevices, i know where they curve. my lipstick goes along the peculiar lines that shape the lips and then colour up the bitten pieces of flesh. and i still never look at my face. how long can you sit infront of a mirror and really, really, look at yourself? not focusing on the charecteristics, that's just distracting, just looking at your expression.
how long can you look without flinching in disgust and turning your back and walking away?

if i stay alone, no one will be there to forgive my mistakes.

i have sincerely gotten bored of my own self.


what i am thinking;
humidity, green, beheading, toothpaste, cramp, you.



γιατί δεν μπορούσες να με σκοτώσεις και μετά να πεθάνεις και εσύ;

via, veritas, vita

the new sociological imagination

" so, basically there was this guy, an american politician who said, em, that rape sometimes cannot be consider as you know, rape rape. cause a woman can actually, just by thinking about it, will away the consequences of rape, like a pregnancy. so you see, this is american politics, and tha's just in the last month."

at this point i was thinking how is it possible for an american, a fairly fair skinned and ginger american, god knows where he is from, to think like that. like a thinking person. in all my amazement at how he had stuck with a girl from cambridge and the tallest guy i have ever seen form glasgow and at how he kept his fingers so discreetly glued to his smartphone i didn't quite process quickly enough the "don't get me started on the Republicans" comment at the beginning of this admittedly liquid conversation. before that, we had actually just talked about Israel.

"ah, there was this, uh, greek Orthodox society i think last week-"
"yeah yeah, they were next to the Jews, or was it next to the Catholics?". the tall guy cut through the californian girl, right when i was thinking to myself, what on earth are they doing here? i mean, california. she wasn't even tan. i was more tan than her, and even the stones know how much i hate sun. all eyes were on me, the greek.
"are you orthodox?" the not so american american guy again. the girl from cambridge had totally abandoned me by now, even though she genuinly looked regretful about putting me through this. i guess at that point, after an hour and a half of kind small talk i would have started to look like a lost child that has peed its pants but tries to hide it by smiling.
"supposed to be". and yes, that felt really good to say, but, i don't really know what their thing here is. if you even mention the word "atheist" in greece, especially if you are lucky enough to do it in the presence of a senior or generally an older person, forties and over, you get a stare down as if you had just chanted a prayer to Lucifer and said "amen" backwards.
"is everyone in greece like that, orthodox?"
"um, yeah, they have this thing with religion, is weird. like, weird, yeah". i couldn't really think what else to say for it.
as easily as anything, conversation proceeded, about the drunken out of her mind bulgarian Maria that was hitting on both the guys last night at the tall guy's birthday party.
"oh she's really kind actually, i mean, i thought she was really brilliant when i first met her, but um she kind of turns into a maneater when she drinks", and now, well the idea of it only was hilarious, plus the english girl had started talking again.

in ten minutes i have met H., the english girl, i was invited to her house for coffee, she had bought me print units, had me in her house and made me tea.  thirty minutes in i knew two of her roomates, in one hour i met two other people living there, sixty minutes later the tea was positively chilling and i was trying to find a polite way to get out of there. as much exciting as all of it really was. but, hey, excitement expires within an hour. that's all you've got. i mean, what kind of super social people are they? i am significantly amused by the turn this day took, it was supposed to be a day devoted to my pajamas, such a pity. or not?

ballistic

all flesh is grass

i can hear the seagulls from my flat.
and it always, literally always rains here. not really rain, just enough so that you know that the sky is reacting.
i bought a plant and i called it Steven. its a he now.
and i have to return everyday to a room that is not mine, to a bed that isn't mine, to a building full of strangers and all my people elsewhere, where is not of importance, as long as it is not here.
packing up all my things back in my huge suitcases is way too easy an option to not even consider it.
i really, really want to be home. not go home. just feel at home. i want to stop feeling so alone.
i have friends here. before i even stepped foot on this island i had a friend, now i have two, i have many more acquintances and i have a great number of people at my disposal who seem more than happy to help me. i want none of them.
i always listen to my music and i hide behind the antisocial message my earphones suggest but, to my dissapointment really, i want people. i thought i would never, i thought i was the queen of loneliness and antisocialism, and rightfully so ,so far at least.
point is, i don't know yet if i don't want to be that. i mean, now, i do. it seems easier to be the first one to reject others, than others rejecting you first.  being antisocial just keeps you away from harm's way. it keeps you away form social let down. you know it, people are scum, involving yourself of course, but they are. social relationships is no sport to take up. it is not recommended in any case.
i guess it will fade away, and i will be as happy as ever to be alone.
it is just painfully ironic, of all the people that i have ever met, i dispised company the most. and now i am the one panicking at its absence.
 i have too many books to read.
human mind is so stupid. if you like doing something, the moment it becomes an obligation you will hate the crap out of it.
that's not looking good.
i haven't been this dispirited for a long long time. i need my psychologists back or my valium. or something. no, not someone, i am not falling for that again.

Romney is mentally akward and i hear Michelle is better than Obama

i have never been this scared before

γεννιόμαστε με την ικανότητα να τραγουδάμε στα πουλιά, να διαβάζουμε τα αστέρια και να νιώθουμε κάθε φύλλο στο γρασίδι ξεχωριστά να χαιδεύει τα δαχτυλά μας.

η ζωή μου υπήρξε θαυμάσια εως τώρα. αντικειμενικά.

το μυαλό μου έχει ματώσει απο τα μαθηματικά ολοκληρώματα
δεν μπορώ να πάω στο δάσος.

if you feel the need to shout, shout.

this is what they call closure.
from what i can say, it is a one person job and everone will get in your way while you struggle for it, following a kind of sick cosmic joke.
so yes, the way it works is that you pretty much wake up one day and have a revelation, or maybe just something less heavy, a thought maybe, that makes you feel more agreeable with how things are.
'it is okay'.
some days i wake up and even when i know that everything is a very unpleasant shade of shit i say 'fine'.
maybe is just exhaustion, and suddenly it dawns on me how weary i have grown overanalyzing my problems and every little detail that goes wrong and i just give up. but i guess that is the best anyone can hope for, that 'fine' , the shrugg of the shoulders and the ease with which you can then turn your head around and continue doing whatever else meaningless thing you were doing before.
no one is going to hold your hand and help you cross to the other side, because really no one can guide your heart and your mind better than yourself. it will only baffle you if too many voices get in your head. the only voices that belong in there are your own and your demon's and ghosts. yes, you consult them too. the ghosts i mean.

i have proven to myself once more that it is actually much harder than i thought to find what you want, and to find yourself inspite of everyone else's hold in your life. because before the 'revelation' of the closure comes the day when you wake up and realize that not only you do not know your own insides, but that your insides are all over the place and they don't obey you.

for from what i know, no ammount of therapy and no psychanalyst, no matter how talented, can erase certain things and memories. certain feelings that even forty years later will stab you as poignantly as they did the very first time. and that is 'fine'. i think.. 

ξερω οτι εισαι εδω.

"why are you here?"
"what do you mean? i am here with you." she laughed intentionally foolishly and resolved to hide behind the lense of her camera.
" you know what i am asking. why did you come here to be with me? more importantly, why did you ask me to come here with you in the first place?". He was asking questions not so much being interested in the replies to come but only testing if there were going to be any replies at all.
"i am trying to close a vicious cycle. i am making sure that we will never have any reason left to be with each other, to look at each other." . The truth of this statement was not as mean as it was meant to sound. It was meant to save them both.

goodbyes are filthy and dearly overestimated

is there only one?
He knew my name for 6 years and i knew what kind of music he liked. We have been together once and twice and at times we have shared silently our seperation. He liked old movies, like i did, and he was almost the only one with whom i could find common ground on art. Well, not art, music and films. He didn't know art. He will never. He is too self involved for it. He was always impossible to hug, the unfortunate combination of too short a woman and too tall a man, and the day we agreed to greet each other for the last time he had to go down two stairs so that i could put my arms around him without fearing that my head will fall off from behind. If i ever had the guts i'd ask him to dance with me on metal, but the extent of my inspired promiscuity could only attain dates on the Parthenon and in the sole park of Athens. Trying to be alternative we always ended up being dissapointed and too comfortable with each other than our social standards would allow. I would prefer never to hear of him again, but then again, i am indifferent.

He, the other one, was all that a girl listening to metal would ever want. He had three facial piercings, three streching earings, and three body piercings. When i met him he was there to have his left nipple pierced and i my right eyebrow. He had a sleeve lenght tattoo in progress black and red, with the face of a devilish figure surrounded by black flowers and such. He was somewhat freckled and had dark ginger hair, he was not that tall, he was kind and he always swayed along to the songs he liked when they played. He was the potential perfect incarnation of a good year or two, or a good week maybe. Of course i met him from the friend of my friend and i have ever had the chance to study him for three hours. I am fairly certain i will never hear of him again.

Him.another than the other one. He was all I ever wanted. brother, friend, lover, husband, child. there is not much that can be said about him. right now i am on a wager with myself to see if i will ever be able to forget him and will ever be able to let the idea of him go. he is the only person i could ever touch comfortably and i think i was born to fit into his arms. this all of course is silly. I trully fear i will never see him again and even if i will he won't be mine.

blood and honour