The world is kept at balance by our throughts, by our goals, dreams and wishes. Each individual is adding to the scales, be it for good or for evil. Do not complain that you’re too small, that you cannot make a difference, that you cannot change the world. Each little thought, each idea can be the one thing that tips the balance. No effort is in vain.
And despite everything, I think believe in people.
My Friend Andee brought up a very valuable question in her (fabulous) Blog:
She asks THE question:
It brings up this question: In a day and age with no Little Yellow Birds and no Expectations of behavior, do I continue to try and instill these old-fashioned values in my kids, or do I throw in the towel and give them a fighting chance amongst peers who have no respect for others, much less, themselves?
And this brings me to a topic that is eating at me since some time now (since it happened, actually). Here is the story [rant on]:
I have the same problem. Here is our personal conundrum:
We have 5 sets of direct neighbors (as we are in the middle of a settling). One family has one kid, Mark, who is 4. The other family has two kids. Their smallest, Alice, 5, plays with Mark. Their older boy, Peter, 8, plays, well, not with many kids, it seems. (Btw, I changed the names. They’re not their real names).
I cannot say I initially disliked them. They are very different than we are, rather uptight and closed. But I remained friendly and did all the necessary neighbor stuff: Invited them to garden parties, wrote them Christmas cards, gave them an Easter basket and so on (although none of this was ever reciprocated, but these are things I do not measure, so I don’t care).
The kids are EXTREMELY well behaved. As far as mute counts as well behaved. You seldom hear them talk at all, and surely not in the presence of adults. But. I am continuously finding out they are… mean. Just evil. I mean it. (more…)
So 2008 is drawing to an end. I remember the last New Year’s Eves clearly. All of them sweet, surrounded by friends and loved ones. But all of them summing up a year that was nothing less than difficult.
I remember how my husband and I toasted each other, praying: “May the next year be better than the last. May it finally be better.”
It never was, not really. And I came to the conclusion that this, probably, is life. That there is no such thing as unfettered love and happiness. Who am I to know? (more…)
Winter has been coming. Christmas rushed passed, an old year died, a New Year came.
I did not blog.
And I hereby apologize. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. As a reconsiliation, you get the latest family picture. The three of us at Christmas. Aren’t we sweet? Yeah, the li’ll one makes faces, he always does that for the camera. *rolleyes*
So what happened? Well, I took another job. Or the job took me. It was more or less a coincidence. I went out with a friend, and while we were chatting over a beer, she mentioned how desperately they look for people in their office. People to do customer liaison and support. I was big-mouthed as ever and said “Nothing I couldn’t do”. And she said: “OK, see you on Monday”. (It was on a Saturday).
Since then, I’m there. It started as three times a week for 2 hours, now it’s daily from 8 to noon. And I gotta say I like it.
The drawback is – I already had a job. You might recall I was working for a private English school, giving lessons to children, a job I thoroughly enjoy and love. Right now, I am working double: Office in the mornings, school in the afternoon, preparing lessons and doing the conceptual planning for the school.
It’s just too much. Joshua is not taking it easily, he’s throwing tantrums at least five times a day. And I am exhausting myself. I gotta decide. Deadline I set myself is March.
So this is the news. I promise I’ll try to update more often again, but time is sparse these days, really. I just barely find time for producing art, and art is as important as breathing for me.
So I’ll hang in there, and you guys will, too, until I’ve got more time for you again, ok? 
I knew something was wrong the moment Claude walked into the room. Something MUST be wrong, because I knew Claude was dead. I had sliced the extremities from his dead body yesterday, there was not much room for doubt.
Despite my notoriously bad habit of regaling myself with killing, none of my victims had ever walked in on me in the middle of the night. It added a nippy spice to the late hour, and tangible arousal stirred in the air.
The sallow light of the moon illuminated Claude’s slender form. I smiled. He had been worthy. His exsanguination had been a true masterpiece. Of all the lives I had quelled, none had been more delicious and inspiring. (more…)
Sometimes, I feel sore and desperate? from the children’s? pain and sorrow.
Yes, it’s that topic again; it is touching my life from every possible angle right now, and I don’t really know how to cope, yet.
I talked to a kid some days ago. A teenage kid, an intelligent, talented, nice kid, who had to spill out his heart to someone, and that someone happened to be me. He told me that in a quarrel, his mother had told him she wished she had never had him. (more…)
I called the police today.
I was visiting a friend yesterday, and she told me some stuff about her neighbors. They are both alcoholics and junkies, and they’re got 2 kids: A boy aged 2, and a little baby, 6 months old.
They do not care about the kids at all. Every second or so night, the guy demolates the whole flat, kicks in doors and such, and they both beat up each other. They use the baby buggy for transporting beer bottles rather than their baby. And by the middle of the month, they’re totally out of money (which is social welfare money anyways).
My friend called the youth care dep. twice, but they didn’t do anything, obviously. And she won’t call again: The guy is threatening her. Being a single mom, she has to protect her kids, she sais.
So I went to the police. (more…)
This is really fun to do.? Click on the pics on the right, and you’ll learn things about me you probably did not know.? Click on “Read my visual DNA”, and you’ll know it all.
Here is an original Blackout Poem just for you Blog readers out there.
This was done for a Worth Contest, but never made it, because I wasn’t able to shrink the scan to the necessary maximum size without making it unreadable.
Click the thumbnail for 355kb poetic goodness.
The final poem reads:
God?
I walked alone
and shadows struck me
I greeted faces,
reached for people
?
but God had turned his back.
Beneath consciousness,
the deeper waters,
appears a cold warrior,
powerful, transforming
we have arrived at a critical mass.
irrevocable change
in a world of exploration
yet, the heart understood
the death of God
filled with hubris and danger.
wholeness may be
rooted in heresy
its victory cost dearly
and defeat is in the air.
death by transformation
I walked away,
surrendering to
the vast oceans of myth
and the masks of God.
the courage to let go.