Category: by Barbie-dull

Posts originally in Dullicious, where I blogged as Barbie-dull between 2005 and 2008.

Flying

[This post originally appeared in Dullicious, where I blogged as Barbie-dull for several years.]

I love to fly. I am a boy. Harry Potter, I think, because he’s the only flying hero I can identify to.

I fly in all kinds of marvelous places but essentially above imaginary mountains that erupt at the top of a lush forest that I don’t have much interest in when I fly.

The mountains are tall peaks and are cinnamon coloured. There is a monastery at the top and a very long, narrow and winding path with stairs between the forest and the monastery. I am so glad I fly. I seldom follow the path because I don’t need to. I soar right up instead. And I’m taken by the view. I usually find myself gradually flying down and it’s not my destination. I catch myself and fly to the monastery, beyond the monastery and I circle it, slowly, quietly, still going up. There isn’t much activity that I can see happening down there. For instance, I have never seen any monk.

At the bottom of the forest there is a plain and farther away, in three directions, there is an ocean. This place can’t be bothered with the noise, smells and commotion of a city. This is what I like about it. I follow sea gulls, or not. I follow the winds, or not.

Today I entered the property of a wealthy neighbour near dusk. I often treat myself viewing the sunset from there. There are many people on the grounds, in the dependencies, near the stables. I could take off anywhere and fly above them unnoticed but I can’t resist. Maybe I am transparent, or very clever, or they are not easily surprised; I have never been noticed. Plus there is this perfect spot for take-off just in a little clearing they have between a wood and a lake.

I am not yet quite proficient and I brush the top of the trees in the wood every time I take the direction of the valley. I think I like it, in fact. Scratching myself a little in flexible branches doesn’t matter; I can fly!

The sunset was dazzling and it quickly turned to a captivating twilight. In the valley there are fields of crops and farms, a broad, shallow and lazy river, more fields and farms and there are cliffs and below them the ocean for a short while. In the bay there is an island. It’s like an oversized tortoise. A very green one. I think it used to be a volcano many many centuries ago.

I glided happily, drawing forms or letters idly. It was becoming dark and I was getting tired. I landed in a clearing and then I walked. How mundane and slow and unexciting.

Could I fly a little more? I would need to choose a proper spot to take-off lest I crash and get caught in the woods this time. I would need to pump my legs to rise higher because when I’m tired, thinking is not enough fuel. There is an orange and reddish light from further down in the valley, I must see that. I know where to take off. I arrange my bags so that they don’t hinder me and secure my scarf around my neck.

I barely scratch my feet, pump my legs and soon the spectacle of the valley reveals itself to me. The crops are glowing, some a deep pumpkin orange, others a luminous creamy colour, some cherry red and others velvety burgundy and crimson, the fields boundaries are illuminated too, a succession of flickering stars, it seems. I have never seen such a festival. Maybe they are celebrating autumn.

I have a camera and I awkwardly fish it from my bag. I had never thought of taking photos, I wonder why. I select the proper setting and press the button. I’m not flying steadily enough for taking a clear photo. That’s a shame because my legs are now too sore from pumping and I must proceed to an emergency landing.

I fly around a little wood, hover over some ruins where I hear two men having an intense and very foreign conversation. I will not be able to fly much longer and I hope their only focus will be on their heated argument. I land, much less noisily than I expected. I make a quick escape from the grounds, the sound from the important conversation fading rapidly.

then ignore the .css!

[This post originally appeared in Dullicious, where I blogged as Barbie-dull for several years.]

I’ve been having strange dreams lately; here’s the latest.

I was a foreign student in the US and the teacher had given us an essay to write as an assignment.

He was unhappy with mine.

teacher: Your assignment deserves nothing but a bad mark, Miss. It’s text I wanted, not decoration.
me: Then use the .html and ignore the .css!

switchboard operators too have fun

[This post originally appeared in Dullicious, where I blogged as Barbie-dull for several years.]

When I was 20 I worked as a switchboard operator in a hospital during the summer vacations. One day as I was done with my shift, I stayed a while longer with the girl who was doing the next shift.

She asked if I would dare take the next call and goof around; I gladly took up the challenge!

I spoke with a fake foreign accent and pretended they were not at all at the hospital.

me: “The rehabilitation centre? no, Sir, not at all.”
them: “Ah. Oh, well, I’m sorry!”

They were about to hang up!

me: “But I’m so glad you called. I don’t have much company, you see…”

My friend was so worried she would get into trouble, that she started to giggle and gesture nervously, and that was contagious.

I became anxious to dispose of that potentially embarrassing call. I don’t recall what the caller next said or how I hung up.

My friend was eager to get back to serious work, and I was not eager to find out whether the caller would redial and speak with her; I was done for the day and darted out back home.

Book: On love (Alain de Botton) (continued)

[This post originally appeared in Dullicious, where I blogged as Barbie-dull for several years.]

I have finished the excellent novel “on love” by Alain de Botton. I will read the last three chapters again in a little while. Maybe then will I get the author’s philosophical message and or life advice.

Intermittences of the heart:

[[Language flatters our indecisions with its stability. It allows us to hide under an illusory permanence and fixity while the world changes minute by minute.]]

[[However happy we may be with our partner, our love for them necessarily prevents us [unless we live in a polygamous society] from starting other romantic liaisons. But why should this constrain us if we truly loved them? Why should we feel this as a loss unless our love for them has already begun to wane? The answer perhaps lies in the uncomfortable thought that in resolving our need to love, we may not always succeed in resolving our need to long.]]

[[Romantic nostalgia descends when we are faced with those who might have been our lovers, but whome chance has decreed we will never know. The possibility of an alternative love life is a reminder that the life we are leading is only one of a myria of possible lives, and it is perhaps the impossibiliity of leading them all that plunges us into sadness.]]

[[The unknown carries with it a mirror of all our deepest, most inexpressible wishes.]]

[[Longing cannot indefinitely direct itself at those we know, for their qualities are charted and therefore lack the mystery longing demands.]]

The fear of happiness:

[[Though the pursuit of happiness was an avowed central goal, it was accompanied by an implicit belief that the realization of this Aristotelianism lay somewhere in the very distant future.]]

Romantic terrorism:

[[And so at this point, desperate to woo the partner back at any cost, the lover turns to romantic terrorism, the product of irredeemable situations, a gamut of tricks [sulking, jealousy, guilt] that attempts to force the partner to return love, by blowing up [in fits of tears, rage, or otherwise] in front of the loved one. The terroristic partner knows he or she cannot realistically hope to see his or her love reciprocated, but the futility of something is not always [in love or in politics] a sufficient argument against it. Certain things are said not because they will be heard, but because it is important to speak.]]

[[The sulker is a complicated creature, giving off messages of deep ambivalence, crying out for help and attention while at the same time rejecting it should it be offered, wanting to be understood without needing to speak.]]

[[Romantic terrorism is a demand that negates itself in the process of its resolution, it brings the terrorist up against an uncomfortable reality –that love’s death cannot be arrested.]]