Beautiful Cynicism III

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Neige, neige, toujours la neige

Wednesday, 10 January 2007 | 11:44

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Les vases ont des fleurs de givre,
Sous la charmille aux blancs réseaux;
Et sur la neige on voit se suivre
Les pas étoilés des oiseaux.
(Théophile Gautier)

Il neigeait quand je me suis levée ce matin. Des toutes petites flocons qui tourbillonnaient dans le vent. J’ai marché à mon autobus avec les larmes qui coulaient sur mes joues comme des rivières – le vent froid brûlait mes yeux. Bien qu’il faisait froid, je voulais crier, chanter de joie: car vous savez que j’adore la neige. :) L’hiver s’est retourné, si seulement pour un moment…

On Friday, my Baba was transferred from the hospital to a personal care home. The move was sudden and unanticipated – a call came in the morning, giving us about 3 hours notice. My mum, aunt, uncle and I cancelled all or part of our workdays to help my Dzizi gather up Baba’s things, accompany her to the home, and get her settled there. It’s been a difficult few days; while the move is a good thing, my Baba has had a hard time seeing it that way. She was too well for the hospital, and didn’t belong there anymore, and she will get more rehab in the home. But she saw it as a “last stop”, a place where people go and never leave. She’s been at this home many times before the accident: as part of her church choir, singing for residents; bringing Ukrainian dinners to the many Ukrainian residents; accompanying my Dzizi when he ministered to the sick there. Now the tables are turned, and she is a resident – that’s been hard for her. She has, however, become even more determined to get herself home – when my mum and I arrived to visit her yesterday, she had somehow managed to shift herself around in bed to the point where she had her legs hanging over the side, as if she was about to stand up. That was the most movement she’s made since the accident. While her increased dexterity and strength, and determination, are wonderful, it’s also dangerous, as she is unable to stand unassisted and could seriously injure herself. So now that she’s attempting these things on her own, there’s a new level of concern for the family. Hopefully we can use her will (and stubbornness) to her advantage and have her up and moving around sooner than expected. Oddly enough, the strangest thing has been giving up the hospital visits; it could be such a depressing place, but after 24 weeks, touching three seasons of the year, it’s hard to switch gears.

A part de cela, je vous avoue quelque chose: ma déclaration que je n’irai pas en France en mars n’était pas une décision prise légèrement. Je voudrais bien voir mes ami(e)s, voir le pays, sans oublier le concert de Michel. Il faut savoir que si je ne suis pas là en mars, ça ne veut pas dire que je ne serais jamais là-bas. Je vous dis franchement qu’il faudra un miracle pour garder ma place à le concert en deux mois. J’ai dû accepter que le voyage est une possibilité pas très réaliste, et dès que j’ai accepté ce fait, je me sens plus détendue. Le voyage me stressait, et un voyage comme ceci devrait me rendre très heureuse. Pas que je ne voulais pas faire le voyage, mais faire les préparations, dans mes circonstances à present, était très difficile. Je ne pense pas que c’est le bon moment pour tout ça. Bref, je veux toujours faire ce voyage, mais peut-être à un temps plus convenable à mon compte d’épargne et à mon état émotionel. On verra… Sache seulement que je ne veux pas décevoir n’importe qui.

11h38, l’heure du déjeuner: je ferai du soupe aux asperges pour me réchauffer avant de marcher avec peine dans la neige profond encore une fois, pour retourner au boulot.

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Modesty is overrated

Tuesday, 9 January 2007 | 15:15

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Photo: xerto.free.fr

“I’m a winner!”

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À vous

Tuesday, 9 January 2007 | 0:06

silence.jpg

Pour agir avec prudence, il faut savoir écouter. (Sophocle)

Savoir écouter. Écouter ses amis, son amoureux, sa famille, ses collègues, surtout soi-même… L’ange dans l’image fait shhhh…. Je voudrais faire le même. Réduire au silence la voix inquiète qui me suit; renfermer mes soucis dans une boîte, oublier mes peines. Bah, la vie ce n’est pas si mal que ça, mais il y a quand même toujours une timidité, une sentiment de prudence… Je ne peux pas l’expliquer.

J’ai reçu quelques messages après avoir dit que je n’irai probablement pas en France en mars; je remercie ceux et celles qui m’ont écrit. Je m’excuse de n’avoir pas répondu à votre encouragement, vos propositions d’hébergement, vos mots gentils. Le coeur y est, mais je n’ai pas l’énergie d’écrire, je suis désolée. Un jour… Il y a eu beaucoup d’évènements pendant ces derniers jours, des moments d’inquiétude extrème; également des moments de joie. Cela m’a épuisée tout court. Je vous demande un peu de patience, mes amis. Bonne soirée/journée. Je vous souhaite des beaux jours.

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Living with war

Monday, 8 January 2007 | 23:47

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Photo: images.usatoday.com

One of my favourite tracks from Neil Young’s newest album, Living With War. The best part is undoubtedly the bridge, where various contradictory Bush soundbites are played while Neil and a gospel choir chant “flip-flop”. (Who said the hippies went out with the seventies? ;) )

Let’s impeach the president for lying
And leading our country into war
Abusing all the power that we gave him
And shipping all our money out the door

He’s the man who hired all the criminals
The White House shadows who hide behind closed doors
And bend the facts to fit with their new stories
Of why we have to send our men to war

Let’s impeach the president for spying
On citizens inside their own homes
Breaking every law in the country
Tapping our computers and telephones

What if al-Qaeda blew up the levees -
Would New Orleans have been safer that way?
Sheltered by our government’s protection
Or was someone just not home that day?

Flip…

“All I can tell you is, is Osama bin Laden is a prime suspect.”

Flop…

“I don’t know where he is – you know, I just don’t spend that much time thinking about it.”

Flip…

“I want him – I want, I want justice, dead or alive.”

Flop…

“Saddam Hussein protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaeda.”

Flip…

“I know I didn’t say there was a direct connection between September the eleventh and Saddam Hussein.”

Flop…

“War is my last choice.”

Flip…

“We’re gonna smoke ‘em out – bring ‘em on.”

Flop…

“In the Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place.”

Flip…

“A wiretap requires a court order.”

Flop…

“Saddam Hussein’s got weapons of mass destruction.”

Flip…

“Although we have not found weapons of mass destruction, and it is true that most of the intelligence turned out to be wrong…”

Flop…

“…no one can now doubt the word of America.”

Let’s impeach the president for hijacking
our religion and using it to get elected
Dividing our country into colours
And still leaving black people neglected

Thank God he’s cracking down on steroids
Since he sold his old baseball team
There’s a lot of people looking at big trouble
But of course our president is clean

Thank God…

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Voeu du matin

Monday, 8 January 2007 | 9:13

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Chaque jour il faut danser, fût-ce seulement par la pensée.

Nahman de Braslaw

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Hello, Julian…

Sunday, 7 January 2007 | 19:50

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Photo: uaoc.org

Khrystos Razhdaietsia!

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Pantouflard

Sunday, 7 January 2007 | 10:33

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C’est dimanche. Le jour où tout est tranquille, où les foules disparaissent, où les rues sont vides.
Le jour consacré à des prières, à l’introspection, à les pensées interdites.
Le jour où on lit le journal dans son lit, sous les couvertures veloutées, les nombrils rempli de l’odeur du café qui brasse dans la cuisine.
Normalement je le trouve un jour morne, un peu ennuyant… Mais aujourd’hui, avec le vent qui hurle si fort qu’il m’a réveillé, et le paysage tout blanc après encore une autre chute de neige hier soir, mon humeur est plutôt bonne. J’ai eu une fin de semaine stressant, et j’ai envie de retrouver mon “équilibre mentale” avant de retourner au boulot demain matin.
C’est dimanche, jour sombre; mais aujourd’hui je veux que ce sera un jour riant, un jour calme, un jour confortable, un jour de câlins, un jour d’embrassades. Le petit déjeuner au lit. Un promenade dans la neige. Un film le soir. Simplement, un jour tout simple.

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Innocence lost

Friday, 5 January 2007 | 11:42

babychoco.jpg

Minor breakdown. Je pleure sans cesse. Feel like an abject failure. Un inquiétude sans nom. Wish I could return to simpler times, when smearing chocolate pudding all over my face resulted in pure joy (actually, it probably still would). En la recherche d’un peu de réconfort. Timechocolate heals all wounds? Si seulement…

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Le soir au bord de la mer

Thursday, 4 January 2007 | 12:24

snowlake.jpg

Les bois épais, les sirtes mornes, nues,
Mêlent leurs bords dans les ombres chenues.
En scintillant dans le zénith d’azur,
On voit percer l’étoile solitaire:
A l’occident, séparé de la terre,
L’écueil blanchit sous un horizon pur,
Tandis qu’au nord, sur les mers cristallines,
Flotte la nue en vapeurs purpurines.
D’un carmin vif les monts sont dessinés;
Du vent du soir se meurt la voix plaintive;
Et mollement l’un à l’autre enchaînés,
Les flots calmés expirent sur la rive.
Tout est grandeur, pompe, mystère, amour:
Et la nature, aux derniers feux du jour,
Avec ses monts, ses forêts magnifiques,
Son plan sublime et son ordre éternel,
S’élève ainsi qu’un temple solennel,
Resplendissant de ses beautés antiques.
Le sanctuaire où le Dieu s’introduit
Semble voilé par une sainte nuit;
Mais dans les airs la coupole hardie,
Des arts divins, gracieuse harmonie,
Offre un contour peint des fraîches couleurs
De l’arc-en-ciel, de l’aurore et des fleurs.

François-René de Chateaubriand

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Bonne année?

Monday, 1 January 2007 | 21:53

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Réalisons nos rêves les plus fous!

2006 was a difficult year for me. There seemed to be a higher-than-usual number of bad things happening – injuries, accidents, job losses, financial troubles – not just to me, but to others I know and love. It was a year where I see that without those minor catastrophes, I could have actually done rather well for myself. And yet a pervasive feeling of helplessness and despair fills me. Over the past several months, it seemed that one bad thing after another happened, to the point where a pile of negativity landed at my feet and I now have to try to dig myself out from underneath it – and I’m lacking energy. I don’t think it’s laziness, so much as hopelessness. Or maybe I just say that to try and let myself off the hook?
My biggest problem is financial: the on-again, off-again nature of my job, and my apparently infinite inability to procure other work, has wrought havoc on my finances. I am currently in no place to be able to go to France in 2 months. At this juncture, the trip seems literally impossible to me. I need more work, and fast. In this regard, I admire my boyfriend: he sees what needs to be done and just does it. I, on the other hand, get caught up in principles and moral arguments, or just become depressed and unwilling to attempt anything. I have applied for many jobs over the past few months, more than anyone knows – I don’t tell people about all the applications I’ve filled out and all the resumes I’ve sent, for fear that I won’t get called for any interviews, and then will have to feel foolish when they ask why I haven’t gotten any more work. I have had a few interviews, but nothing came of them. My boyfriend (rightfully) argues I should take whatever kind of job I can get to be able to do what I want to do – in this case, to travel. But, as you know, after facing frequent, continual rejection, it’s difficult to get one’s mojo up and running again. :? I know I won’t get another job unless I try. I also know that I’ve tried and tried and tried and nothing has changed. I often wonder if I’m just lazy; but I think I’ve just grown tired of trying. And not succeeding.
But it’s a new year. And while our calendar years are merely societal constructs that have no meaning in and of themselves, it’s as good a time as any to “start fresh”. I don’t belive in new year’s resolutions, but flipping open a new calendar and seeing that page full of empty squares is in itself an act of clearing the conscience, seeing that blank slate waiting to be filled. We may not choose which events fill those squares, but we do choose how we react to them and how we deal with them. It is my hope that 2007 will mirror 2006, in that the bad things that happened last year will be healed and undone this year. Where I lost work, I will gain work; where my Baba lost abilities, she will regain them; where people were injured, they will heal; balance will be restored. 2006 was not all bad; far from it. It certainly contained lessons, for me and many people I love. I’d like to say: lessons learned.

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Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Monday, 1 January 2007 | 21:09

misssunshine.jpg

“Do what you love, and fuck the rest.”

A dark comedy-drama, dry humour mixed with several poignant scenes. Ride along on a road trip from hell with a fabulously dysfunctional family: Motivational-speaker and nauseatingly upbeat Dad who’s nearly bankrupt; suicidal, Proust-scholar, homosexual uncle; heroin-snorting, raunchy and rude Grandpa; flight-school-obsessed teenager who’s taken a vow of silence and hasn’t spoken in 9 months; KFC-toting Mum, trying to hide her smoking habit; and a chubby but adorable girl who’s determined to win the crown at the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. When they all pile into their yellow VW van to drive the 800 miles to the pageant, all manner of problems ensue, from car trouble, to a striptease routine, to the snatching of a dead body. Highly recommended viewing. :)

Visit the film’s official website here.

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Curiosity killed the cat, you know…

La cynique est... Végétarienne. Activist. Socialiste. Perfectionistic. Stubborn. Attentive. Curvy. Quiet. Rebelle. Feminine. Sensible. Opinionated. Généralement anxieuse. A closeted idealist.

Cet espace est... Un lieu bilingue, libre et ouvert, without censorship (unless you're an evil spammer, in which case I will happily drive a stake through your heart and proudly display your head on a pike), plein de poésie et de beauté (espérons). Now put on your reading glasses and get busy.

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