(no subject)

I'm going to be very, very lazy today. And not feel guilty for staying inside when the sun is shining and whatnot.

[Maybe I'll take a walk in the evening, but not just yet.]


Finish Eva Menasse's Vienna, which I enjoy a lot.

Maybe finish a couple of the the half-written journal entries cluttering up notepad.

Watch some DVDs, not sure yet what I'm in the mood for.



Public holidays have no business falling on Sundays.


Also (note to self), new NIN tomorrow. Don't forget.

Angel S5 later this month which is A Good Thing, because I picked up too many spoilers already, even trying to avoid them.

Hmm, Mac OSX Tiger... maybe this would be a good time to consider finally replacing my computer? Not that I don't love it, but it would be nice just to plug my camera in, and to have some decent tools for viewing and editing my pictures... Not to mention all the other nifty features. Problem (well, sorta kinda, not really a problem as such, more of a minor, yet not quite so minor, irritation...), I don't really like the current iMac generation design-wise. I loved the last one, but this... eh. Not enthusiastic. But weitergfretten further dawdling in Computer Middle Ages until the next model, which I might not find ::cough:: aesthetically pleasing ::cough:: after all? Not enthusiastic about that either.


I think I'll have another cup of coffee now.

(no subject)

Finished Eva Menasse's Vienna, & love this book a lot - I would recommend it, but as far as I'm aware of there is no English translation (yet?) and even if there were, I'm not so sure how well it would do in translation. Judging from the reviews at amazon.de, where words like light and charming are used in an earnest or faintly derogatory way, apparently it doesn't even translate all that well to German readers; perhaps one needs to live in this place to fully get the tone, to read between the lines.

It's a fast read, no doubt, and often enough it is, for lack of a better word, amusing, but despite the anecdotal style and the colourful characters it's not a light book: it has that particular Viennese black humour, a deadpan understated irony that is perfectly aware of the despair and horrors that lurk underneath, and is only half a step away from tragedy. Germans (and other foreigners) apparently somehow cherish this idea of a typical Viennese charm; Viennese people might, too, but ultimately they know better. (And as far as I'm qualified to say, I don't think she treats the holocaust with any inappropriate lightness, either, as one reviewer accused her of doing. It's in her grandparent's silence, in what isn't said just as much as in what she does say, in a bitter, sharp sarcasm...)

It's a cleverly constructed novel, too, the way she builds this world, introduces the characters, follows their fates, only to have the family break apart in the chapter before the last, because this novel is maybe above all about the quiet tragedies of the family members, the silences between the anecdotes that are embellished with each telling, the silence that breaks all the women, the grandmother, the mother, the sister.

And then, in the last chapter, she brings all the characters back to life, taking the reader back in time again to the grandfather's funeral, back to the beginning, into the questionable (and questioned), but still somehow real, comfort of the world of anecdotes. Such a Viennese thing.


On a personal level so much of this book feels so terribly familiar. Menasse's family is very different from mine in just about every way possible, but she's only two years older than I am, and there's something about her (fictionalised) description of her childhood, the atmosphere, that ring very true to me...

(no subject)

Well, thank god for not-so-crappy tv shows, because apparently somewhere in the process of analysing a character you may actually get some insight into yourself. Then again, could be this is projecting my own issues onto the character in question, but as far as the results are concerned it doesn't make any difference...


I've come to the conclusion that what I've been doing for some time now (with barely any exception at all) is keep people at a distance, emotionally as well as physically, making it impossible for them to hurt me, to reject me; to have power over me in any that matters.

I can keep up a level of good-will towards the universe in general, but as far as individual people are concerned... either they just don't matter very much, or in the rare case when it seems they may begin to do, at one point some kind of defense mechanism kicks in that makes me pull away, even break off contact entirely.

I'm guessing the mostly-asexual thing is also part of this problem.

So of course I don't, can't, really appreciate affection (love?) either, because I can never entirely believe it's real, and even while I occasionally whine about being lonely, most of the time I - probably unconsciously, at this point - choose safety over the risk of emotions.

When did this happen?

More importantly, how do you even begin to try to change something like that? How do you consciously try to let yourself get close to anyone again, maybe in the end let yourself love anyone? Seven easy steps, or twelve, or whatever it is?

So, so fucked up.