HEAVENLY BIRTHDAY

 

Presuntos Implicados - Como Hemos Cambiado

Hi, Ruthy.

Today would have been your 50th birthday. I can't believe it. Somehow, it's far more shocking that you'd be turning fifty than the fact that I'm on my way to sixty. I was so shocked when I realised it that I had to check the maths twice. After all, your body clock — and your story — stopped at nineteen.

Fifty. Goddammit.

You were just a kid when I met you. I was a kid too, although those three years difference made me feel like your mum. What a pile of bollocks... The truth is, you were a million times more mature than I was at your tender age of thirteen.

I can't help wondering what it would have been like if you hadn't decided to ride that bike into town that day. Would you still be here?  Would you have children of your own?  Would you have forgiven me? Maybe having you around would have changed my own path. Maybe I would have chosen to come back then. 

Something tells me that fuck-up was the first really wrong turn I ever took. And that's the thing about wrong turns: once you make a big one, the next comes more easily, and then the next easier still, until living a "normal" life somehow becomes the harder choice.

I have so much to tell you, but you don't visit my dreams anymore. Maybe the internet has reached wherever you are? There are stories about ghosts sending emails and making phone calls. 😉 I know... bollocks too. But don't pretend you don't miss them.

God... I have so much to tell you, rubita.

Besides, it was you, after all, who proved there really is something beyond, just as you promised you would if you left first. You were true to your word until the very end.

Anyway, happy birthday, wherever you are.

I'll see you soon enough, I am sure.

P.S. Do you remember that song? We used to sing it at the top of our lungs back when its words meant absolutely nothing to our little girls' hearts. And now that we could finally sing it understanding its meaning.. you're no longer here.

Anyway.

I love you. I miss you. I miss singing, dancing and causing havoc with you.

Happy birthday, rubita.

LOS REBELDES

"Hi, this is XXX from Los Rebeldes, a rock & roll band. I'm calling because we stayed at your hotel..."

And just like that began the phone call during which I had to exercise more self-control than in any other call of my working life.

I had to remain perfectly professional, pretending either that I had no idea who Los Rebeldes were, or that, if I did, they didn't make my pulse race.

The truth?

My heart was pounding.

I wanted so badly to thank him for giving me such a wonderful youth with his glorious 1950s rock & roll. I was one of those girls: can-can petticoats, eyeliner stretching halfway to my ears, and their records blasting from my bedroom until the early hours of the morning.

In fact, dear reader, let me tell you a little secret.

I've only ever stolen one thing in my entire life.

A cassette.

Can you guess whose?

Yep... you got it.

I never imagined I'd one day hear his speaking voice over the phone. By now, the can-can skirts are long gone... along with half the eyeliner.

The only regret I have now is not confessing my little crime to him.

Then again... perhaps that wouldn't have been the brightest idea. For more than one reason.

Much love, Rebeldes.

Please keep playing.

Luxx

CATS

 

Wow! quiet day in the jungle, and Blogger knows what my life looks like this week end! O_o 

Let me go and feed them all again. 

Besos earthlings! stay hydrated goddammit ! beer beer or iced latteeeeeeeeeeeee, meow!

A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR

 

the happiness hack? a spoonful of sugar, really. Try and find enjoyment in every little task. And dedicate your all to that moment, however hard that is for some of us it really works. Give it your all, and then move on to the next spoonful of sugar and the next flow. 

Besos, sweet-tooth!

xxLu

SICK

Even the rooster next door (yes... we have a cock next door, the feathered kind. I told you I'm staying with my parents in the countryside! I haven't moved to the city yet) sounds hoarse. I wonder if he's been overdoing the iced drinks too in an attempt to cool down. I wish I hadn't, damn it.

At least the temperature has dropped a little up here, which is a relief.

I hope you're all doing well. From what I've heard, the latest weekly catastrophe has landed in Venezuela. Horrific :´(

On a happier note, it's almost Friday. 

My parents are hitting the road. I'll have the house all to myself for a month.

Hehe.

Hehehe.

((diabolical laughter ))

...and there's this cutie working at my favourite café...

bats eyelashes, looking utterly innocent and pretty

PS _Besos, keep smiling, even if it hurts. It works, our brains are easy to manipulate ;)

PSS _ and if it doesn´t hurt... LAUGH OUT LOUD PEOPLE!!! laugh so much it does hurt in a different way!! 

Luxx

SEX AND JOKES

I am reading Fluent Forever. Its author, Gabriel Wyner, suggests using mnemonic images for complicated aspects of a new language, such as a noun's gender.

Mnemonic images are basically pictures used to help us remember things. He prefers to use action verbs to represent genders and mentions that "sexual verbs are classic choices." Apparently, we humans remember two things particularly well: sex and jokes.

Now... I must be a weird human, or indeed an alien, as I have long suspected. In the 53 years I have been sitting (mostly) on this planet, I have remembered only one joke. Just one. My favorite joke. One that seems to make only me laugh, but I adore.

Perhaps the reason for my lack of comedic memory was the strength of my other memory. Sexuality occupied a rather large portion of my grey matter when I was young. Had I been born in the Middle Ages, I would probably have had 16 children.

Luckily... I wasn't.

How are things?

Wonderful. The sun is shining, my Korean and French are still catastrophic, but work is good. Mini Me is in love... and I am living a nearly-normal life at long last, back at home.

I wish I could make this sense of peace reach all of you. I have enough for an army at the moment!

Besos,

Lu xx

GEISHA SPIRIT

 

For years I have aimed at becoming a modern Geisha. I have aloooong way to go still but my aim in life is making the existence of all who come in contact with me a pleasure. It's not always easy, but the more one practices — like with everything else — the easier it gets. Give it a go. 

The more who join the Geisha Spirit movement the easiest all our lives will become. 

And if you don't want to ... it's OK. You'll have to endure my sweetness nevertheless. 

PS _ I will leave the dancing for now though, as I said I would like to make it pleasurable ;)

love xx

lu

HALF-LIFE

 

Yes.... I knew of its existance a looong time ago : the half -alive are the call-center employees !!

on that note, I no longer belong to the queue of the unemployment gang. *sighs*

Time to moan about the opposite now! 

Love

Lu

WE ARE ALL TRYING HERE

 

I have a feeling this one might end badly—and I might have to shoot myself if it does. Netflix has a weakness for K-dramas with trauma-inducing endings.

That said, for now I’m loving it. Not just because the male lead is an incredible actor, and not even because I find myself at a similar crossroads as his character, or because the title (We Are All Trying here) is something I often repeat to "my little pea” when she’s in a dark place. I love it for its substance.

Let me share a nugget with you, my darling reader:

“Why do you find Director Hwang so hard to deal with?”

[...]

“To put it simply, he’s incompetent. Being incompetent is fine—but people who try to cover that up by talking nonstop are the absolute worst.”

“What do you mean by incompetent?”

“You’re a chef who can’t cook. A teacher who can’t teach. Should I go on?”

“You’re human, but not humane. Isn’t that peak incompetence?”

Woah. Savage. God bless good K-dramas.

And lovely people in real life, too. I’ve had the pleasure of spending this weekend in wonderful company—in both worlds. I hope you’ve all been just as lucky.

With lots of love. There’s nothing else. <3

WELCOMED THREAT

 

Good morning.

I hope you all had a good January. I was going to say a brilliant January, a magical, mysterious January—until I remembered all the weirdness going on in the world since New Year’s Day and had to pull back from that idea.

I’ve been well, enjoying being around family like crazy after thirty years away. Also suffering being around family, of course—it’s part of the deal. But they’ve all been brilliant with us, and I know this is an opportunity most lower-end migrants don’t get in life, so I’m using it to the full.

I’m beginning to feel my English leaving me, which is bad news considering it was never that good to begin with. That, too, is part of the deal.

With the exception of two bad mornings—A lightning strike hit our house.(the longest seconds of my life; I thought it was an earthquake), another beginning with the screams of my mother upstairs… or so I thought. It turned out to be a crazy dog somewhere in the valley, really—both events got me out of bed in a complete state, unable to, even, find my socks—

I’m a lot calmer now. I went for walks… the one day it didn’t rain a whole year’s worth of water in a few hours. I 've done yoga every day—I’ve advanced more in three months than in thirty years. I meditated daily too, and I think I’m finally getting the hang of it. I remained semi-civilised. My hair looks a lot better now, and that, trust me, is a very good sign. First real step towards securing a new job.

What else? What else?

I found this old draft of a post abandoned in the Blogger loft and thought it was appropriate now catastrophe did indeed hit, with everything that’s going on. Pieces of land collapsing everywhere due to horrendous rainfalls; madmen running the most powerful countries in the world; a horrid historical déjà vu of one of the worst times in history; a continuous typhoon everywhere (we’re running out of names for storms lately—we should just call them F**er 16th of Jan, F**er 18th of Jan, and so on, me says).

Anyway—gosh, I’ve got verbal diarrhea today. To the old post we go.

Back when I wrote that, not even a year ago, I was getting so very ill on my days off that we thought I might be seriously sick. As soon as I left the job, I left the sickness behind. It went as if it had never been here. That should remind me how good a decision it was not to stay.

Little did I know, though, when I wrote it, that my life was about to do a dramatic U-turn a couple of months later.

I leave you with it.

Happy February, earthlings. Remember—life’s short. Don’t waste it.

---

Yes, still alive… barely. Feeling wonderful today after another day literally sicker than I ever was during pregnancy. The best thing about feeling that sick? How wonderful life looks the next day, even when at work.

Keeping upbeat thanks to lines like the following, read in between calls:

“What can be better,” said Max, “than the threat of catastrophe?”
“Peace, you imbecile, peace.”
“I didn’t say catastrophe, but the threat of catastrophe. Perhaps politics can ultimately be reduced to aesthetics, just like science. Perhaps the ultimate criterion in the world isn’t truth, but beauty.”  Mulisch's  The Discovery of Heaven

How I would love to read the book Mr Mulisch would write in these times of ours, with lines like that one coming at us from the 90s…

BEATLE

 

This darned beetle sounds like a blooming hellicopter, I am terrified it might come near me or worse even... into my coffee! it's 08:00 and my full time job of recycling myself to find a job has started in my father's cave (now my turf until I have funds to invest in my own little place near them). 

I know one day soon I will miss these days bitterly, that helps coping with them.

Happy rest of the week, earthlings

DATED

 

yep, a lot has changed since the first time I took the driving licence. A lot on the road, and away from it. 

One thing is for sure, all of you away from Galicia, are going to be very lucky not to cross my path ;)

안녕 <3 <3

SIMPLE HARVARD EXERCISE TO FIND YOUR PERFECT CAREER

 by @maxklymenko

Yep, yep, spending this sunny Sunday morning in the north of Spain preparing to go back to the modern-chains system. which reminds me of another interesting speech I watched only yesterday, totally unrelated. Well, maybe not totally... 

It was BYUNG-CHUL HAN's speech on receiving the Princesa de Asturias award. Unfortunately I haven't found it fully translated yet, but if you can (it lasts around 20 mins, anything under has been edited), it's well worth everybody's ears. 

Happy Sunday earthlings <3 <3

U TURN

 

Yep yep indeedy. Even those not one bit interested in driving, should pay close attention to some driver-wisdom for life ((management))

IN GOOD COMPANY

 

I might be homeless (...once more, I've lost count of how many times I have started from scratch... literally) but at least I am in very good and varied company! 

Miss my peeps though, and the country that welcomed me and helped me out for so long. 

Godspeed everybody

LAST

12th July - last fish and chips

13th of July - last Peking Crispy Duck

???? ?? ???? - last cup of tea

13th of August - last visit to the pub

???? ?? ???? - last real milk !! :'( horror... 

???? ?? ???? - last real pudding. <sighs> 

the countdown has begun.

And yes... yes ... of course I know I can find all these things pretty much anywhere else in the world, but lets face it...

And I am sure I am forgetting many other things I did love about this country since setting foot here for the first time in 89. 

But so far this is what I can think of. 

Strange times indeed. 

안녛 <3!!

TIME IN RECENT TIMES

 

Since Covid, time has ceased to pass, now it disappears. 

I need to go home before everything else disappears with it. 

Godspeed, earthlings <3

Lovey Dovey ... Chinese elevator love

 

- 7 DAYS LEFT IN THIS OFFICE AND 2 MONTHS APROX LEFT IN THIS COUNTRY after13 years in this company and 30 years in this country

<3   time to go home   <3

And what do I do in between (my last) calls these days, other than gossip the state of affairs with my soon-to-be ex-colleagues?  either some studying, reading or... 

Mentalese Express uploaded by JH3 FILMS

yep, this one is Chinese with a Japanese actor. My new favorite love story. Love doesn't need fireworks nor violins, nor men in lipstick. 

Happy Monday, earthlings 

PS _ I guess this will mark also the end of Lulu Nearlythere, as she is getting back there at last :) 

MONEY

 

Once I visited the famous "Casa de Papel" (from the series), I was at school. Of all the trips we did at school that's the only one I don't remember anything about, not a thing, seriously. That comes to show how very little  I  have ever cared for money.

In days like today I wonder if  that is a strength ... or a very costly handicap, no pun intended.

Wish me luck, earthlings, very unfortunately, I have been proven right with catastrophic consequences once again.

안녕 <3 <3 

Zzzzzzzz and a stranger at the shop.

 Nothing like falling in bed

After a day like today.  

Ps- strange things are happening . Smiling