Ah, page, we meet again. Hello. Today I decided to write. Express myself, as it were. I fought the distractions… Avoided starting Battlestar Galactica Season 4, despite the fact that Season 3 ended with a bang, it did; I decided not to play Planescape Torment, even though I’ve just started getting into it (and for this kind of games it means playing 10 hours or so). In typical qb style, I even fought off work! I had a nice, warm shower, lay in my warm bed (it’s winter… still hard to wrap my head around it), put some music on that phone that still hasn’t taken full control—I chose Vangelis’ Cosmos—and now I’m here in this right place. The phone proved its supposed smartness by reminding me not to put the volume too high so as to avoid damaging my hearing. As tonight’s token act of proving to myself I’m an adult, I heeded its advice. Maybe the machines aren’t out for us. Pah, who am I kidding.
OK, let’s go. Today I fucked up.
Or, rather, I should say yesterday. But only today did I realise, so it counts as today. Once again I let my overconfidence that everything will be alright cloud my judgement—that sounds suspiciously like a “write 100 times on blackboard” punishment at Jedi school. Sigh… It is one of my greatest weaknesses, and many have noticed, especially those that know me well enough to have pierced at my essence that is invisible to me, similar to a bird who’s only ever known flight can never imagine what it means not to fly, or what sort of happiness a snail might know. Tell a bird it might be flying a bit too much and it’s gonna cock its head inquisitively at you like birds tend to do.
I just aren’t careful. I either want to move fast to be getting to the next task or activity, or, in the face of what we’d call danger in this case, I take that annoying, solipsistic view: “it won’t happen to me, no need to worry!” This is personhood’s very own little facepalm—no, that’s not a good translation of αυτομούτζωμα. I like to take pride in my care-free attitude, or at least the appearance thereof; don’t I know I’m constantly anxious about an entire small museum’s collection of “must-dos”. But that’s another story. I like to say that people don’t really have “positive and negative aspects of their personality.” They only have a single hunk of personality, and according to what side you look at it from, you see different things and judge to whim. Hey, that’s almost exactly like saying that people have personalities and those personalities have positive and negative aspects.
But let met put it this way. Take for example myself. I’m careless and carefree, right? Yes. But these two aspects of me aren’t separate; they’re one. It’s like those digestive biscuits that have chocolate on top. The chocolate is the carefreeness and the underside the carelessness. The whole thing is part of my personality, and the whole box of carelessfreeness, quielation, friendiculousness or abstrant, openular mind is me. I’m this box of biscuits that look the same, because I look the same no matter which biscuit of mine you’re eating. You smell me and taste me the same, and you either love me or hate me… or you might also not particularly care about me. Do you like chocolate digestives?
When I began writing about boxes of biscuits a few lines ago, the point to which I wanted to conclude was that we all are assorted boxes of still different biscuits down a supermarket aisle. Then, however, I chose to pursue the realisation that came to me while writing that yes! People are like food.
Some are so sweet you get sick of them after just a few bites. Others are simple but fulfilling. Others yet are only to be had at parties or thrice-a-year family dinners. You can find each type of person at the supermarket, but there almost always exist the same kind of foodstuff produced locally and tasting better, like that amazing Greek artisanal Nutella that’s not only better, it’s also cheaper.
Some are fancy, others to be enjoyed as part of a familiar routine, some are fresh and organic, many are rotten and/or appear fresh solely because they’ve been peppered with preservatives. We have changing tastes in people and so do we in food. Maturing tastes, perhaps? Some are hot, some are bland. But! The too-bland ones can always spice themselves up; the hotter ones will probably just leave you in tears and gasping for air. But so do onions, at least the crying part. Similarly, there’s a whole lot you have fond nostalgic memories of, but regret every trying them again 20 years later to see if they taste the same. Others are like heaven consistently forever… I presume, I wouldn’t know.
There are hard people, soft people, sweet, bitter, sour and… salty people. Many, sadly, are just plain meat but, although a selective omnivore I may be, it’s sadder when they’re vegetables instead. This is starting to have a Dr. Seuss rhythm to it.
Finally, you would never, ever consider that it’s the broccoli’s fault that Roberto (that’s my Italian coordinator here), with all his exquisite and discerning palate, hates it. I can’t get my head around it: how is it normal for us to think that a person has anything to do with whether others like them or not? Anyway, broccoli can rest easy: I hated it, HATED it when I was a child, you know, it was the archetypical go-to yuck food. Nooow, however, I sometimes even eat it raw. I love it. Broccoli just used to be too sophisticated for my untrained taste buds. There.
One of Terrence McKenna’s famous quotes goes: “”. qb’s version: “the cost of being sophisticated in this society is being the person-equivalent of broccoli.” Or, while we’re at it: sushi. Lentils with yoghurt. NOT eggs: they could crawl back into the chicken’s ass whence they came and I wouldn’t spill water for the dead. Beans. I was damn near allergic to the things most of my life. Now I can eat them no problem due to my insistence to eat them no matter my stomach’s complaints. I can imagine it quietly giving in after all this time: “okay dude, I get it, you took that little song about beans and the heart a bit too seriously, I don’t agree but I can’t stop you… you should know though that this IS going to put a strain on our relationship.”
Wow. This really worked. Remember? Near the top of this text it says I wrote “I fucked up”. It’s even the title of the post. But I’m better already. All day I’ve felt like shit because the bike I rode yesterday for 25km up and down Montevideo’s Rambla and took the following video,
that is, Laura’s bike she hadn’t rode in years and I paid 1000 pesos to have repaired and use it and got it 4 days ago… well, that bike was stolen. All I did was just leave it outside the Posada. Given, it was locked, but with a lock that cost less than 5€ and could probably only protect anything of any value up to that amount. Only today did I notice that all the locked bikes that had caught my eye on the pedestrian street Calle Pérez Castellano during the day, all those bikes I had subconsciously noticed to give my carefreelessness an excuse to run wild, were nowhere to be seen at night, and so was mine by next morning. I can just imagine it sitting there, alone, singing in the dark: “I’m old and rusty, though orange with some new parts e.g. pedals and handles, I’m safe from harm and theft ♪!”
The worst part is that this bike had sentimental value to Laura, so having to tell her that I almost presented the her old bike to thieves and having to deal with questions such as “really, did you leave it outside?” was less than fun. The second worst part is this makes it the, what, 3rd time I’ve had my bike stolen. Last time was in Denmark, where I idiotically left mt bike unlocked going to Danish class, forgot about it for hours after the lesson, went around town, only remembered about it that evening when I had to ride it back home and was all disappointed that the mere act of remembering about it hadn’t been enough to protect it from theft or bring it back.
And there was this other time somebody vandalised my bike parked at Sapfous in Mytilini. I was totally Anakin bringing back his mother from the sandpeople that evening. Only I didn’t slaughter anyone like an animal. I’m civilized. I only ever hold passive-aggressive grudges.
Anyway, back to today. I went to the police office to report the theft as it was suggested to me I do, because apparently Ciudad Vieja is monitored 24/7 by video surveillance; by checking in their records from last night, the police might be able to find the culprit and track them from camera to camera, if they did stay within the boundaries of the Old Town, that is. I can tell you that if my bike is indeed located by the use of video surveillance tech, I’ll be hit by a small-to-medium-sized train of cognitive dissonance. I hate to be that guy, I know how fashionable it is to hate on the police (I don’t like them myself), but ever since my mum’s handbag was robbed and after declaring the theft and the police guys actually CALLING us home to tell us that the bag had been found at a place where “a lot of τσαντάκηδες leave their discarded prey”, it’s been easier for me to feel a tinge of empathy for people who support the police and are disdainful of anarchy. I mean, suddenly when it happens to you, it doesn’t seem so oppressive, does it?
Anyway №13 or something. I fucked up and writing this relaxed me a lot. Its intent was to be a kind of Post-It for futurue qbs to be wary of carelessfreeness, no matter how many times things turn out to be OK in the end, and to remember that it fucking sucks to let people, friends and yourself down and destroy their trust.
But hey, at the end of the day, I’m a chocolate digestive. Some will like me, some will hate me, some will simply not care about me, forget that I exist until I appear before them (at which point they’ll either choose to munch on me absent-mindedly or ignore me) and some will eat the last part of me that’s left in the box all crumbly and melted, but still like me and recognise that not all chocolate digestives from then on out will be crumbly and melty and that if next time I’m in no condition to eat on my own, just throw me on some ice cream or oats, that would be yummy.
