Shiny creepy people / What is being oneself?

[paraphrasing R.E.M.'s song]

A few things happened in the weekend. Nothing really meaningful (I apologise in advance for updating the blog).

Latest news is that last night the creepy horny lady from Marco's apartment block. Again, just like last Monday, this creepy horny lady (undefined age, but she sounded quite desperate and Marco knows of no young girls was watching the building's CCTV and saw my friend going to open the door to let me out. She started whispering again at the intercom horny stuff, like those you would expect in erotic hotlines (not that I've ever called one)..."come up to my apartment", "give your number", "I'm waiting for you" and such. Exactly at that time came back from a trip to Cataratas del Iguazu Marco's tenant, a US-American girl from Washington, who was quite amused by the fact that such thing could take place! Thankfully, Marco's Brazilian girlfriend wasn't there to hear all this. We got her number without giving her Marco's, I think I'm going to do some sort of prank call because the curiosity is killing me.

Well, the other creepy (well, it's more like 'filthy', I'd say) thing that happened on the weekend went on on Saturday at dawn, as I was heading home from a night out. At about 4am I was a block away from home and I almost barge into an old, dowdy prostitute who happened to be just coming out of someone's house (actually, a hotel familiar, some sort of collective housing scheme organised with individual rooms around a patio and shared facilities such as kitchen and bathrooms). She approached me asking the hour; after I replied she literally asked: "do you want a little blowjob ('petecin') here, on the street?"; upon my denying of her services -on the base of the fact that I "prefer to conquer my girls"- she proceeded to insert her hand into my underwear. After a few seconds of booze-fuelled astonishment, I pulled it out (the hand!) and walked home after going around the block (extra safety - didn't want to let her see where I live; I've heard all sort of nasty stories about guys inviting over girls and getting drugged and robbed out of everything).

Just wow. Talk about a cheap whore! Not that I know her prices, but if that's how she finds clients...

On a completely different note (sorry about the whining, I swear that if I could avoid it I would be a much happier person), I'm still managing to go out and meet people, but I'm feeling emptier and emptier when I get back home, especially since when my therapist suggested I should consider whether I really am happy here. Apparently, not showing any interest in decorating my apartment (home?) IS a signal of something deeper. And well, I have never shown any interest in decorating any place I lived in. It also sucks balls the fact that I'm getting panick attacks again, especially now that I'm letting some thoughts about Sofía creep into my mind after a short period of complete denial (I haven't talked to her in almost two weeks); I can't focus on the reasons, but thinking about where the relationship is now scares me, distresses me and sends me into paranoia; though, I deeply understand that I need to get hold of it now, as in: no denying; facing things; accepting reality; eventually make a decision. But I need to talk to her because I feel I should ask her how she's doing anyway.    

Another Italian friend is also considering what the hell she is doing here, but basically because she feels that not everything that she left back in Italy is done and dusted. In my case, it is quite different, apart from the relationship with my parents, which are still the only people together with Sofia that can manage to get out of me all the anger which I normally don't feel. Especially when they go on about how I should primarily love myself, that I don't need to change to find someone else, blah blah blah, as if I were happy with who I am, as if I had ever been happy about who I am; and because I am not happy with who I am, I can't love myself, I can't care for myself too much, I don't treat myself. If it is true that one of the most important things in life is to learn how to love yourself, well: I'm doomed, then.

Every time I go to the therapist I feel as if part of my mental structures is being broken down. On one hand, I realise that being very rigid with certain things does not help being happy, on the other it feels very strange because I am supposed to deny or give up a 'way of life' (mental structure, kind of approach to life, etc.) which I almost always followed in these years. Although it is just sensible to assume that one person does not change in a day, week, month or year, I wonder whether following certain paths of change makes one lose oneself a bit; since we are what we did, what we thought, how we've always behaved.

Say: one finds out that a way one has always behaved may have hindered him from being happy. Should this prospected happiness be a sufficiently striking reason to change a behaviour, which one may define as typical of one's self?

What can be then rightly defined as a behaviour which is typical of one's personality?

I guess I'll have to leave all these questions open, be receptive (as both my therapist and my mom said, in a very nice and annoying way, respectively.)

Obstinada positividad

Me rompe soberanamente los quinotos la obstinada positividad de quienes quieren demonstrar al mundo que no se tiran para abajo. Cui prodest decirle al mundo entero que escuchás canciones buena onda, que posteás el discurso de Steve Jobs en Stanford, que tenés una foto de perfil con todo un decálogo del porqué la vida es maravillosa y de que no tenemos que perder tiempo no siendo nosotros mismos?

"Hey mundo, mirenme! Estoy de diez! La vida me sonríe!"

Quiero que quede claro: no pongas en tu vidriera tu optimismo y todas esas lindas palabras y los discursos tipo curso de autoayuda, sólo obtendrás que los pesimistas se sientan aún peor, porque nosotros estamos en otro estado mental, nos cega la envidia o nos entristece nuestro carácter de mierda. No podemos vivir sin esa melancolía, que tanto se parece a mi ojera crónica de todas las mañanas.

No les pido, o queridos optimistas, que sean tristes; sólo les pido que no nos vengan a gritar en la cara esos mensajes tan azucarados y empalagosos que al final solamente terminan dando asco. Esos discursos están para que se los crean ustedes mismos.

Pero la alegría es otra cosa. No sé bien qué es, un día lejano puede ser que la encuentre. Pero seguro que es otra cosa; no éso. La alegría no precisa de palabras.

Atte.
Charlie, el melancólico recurrente.

On nights like these

On nights like these I feel like I've given life my best shot. That patience is a virtue and not a given
That I don't know how much I have left to give. I'm tired of being like this, with a vein of sadness and melancholy underlining every day of my life.
Once again I got to the point where I'm sure I'll never be happy because I have never really been. Why just not give up then.

All this talk of getting old, is getting me down my love
Like a cat in a bag, waiting to drown
This time I'm coming down

My stubborness

My stubborness almost made my therapist lose her temper today.
But it was for a good cause.
My head hadn't hurt so much for a long while. But I know why, it's a struggle of breaking through that mind-closedness about certain things, which is a big issue. And trying to get that sorted out is painful.
I've got the luck that I can physically feel this psychological struggle of letting a different idea into my usual mental path. Having a headache is a good sign.

I need to keep it up now!
Keep that headache coming!! Hahahaha

Fucking hell I screwed it

As the title says, all the uncertaintes about work, life, relationship all came together mixed with some anger over a recurrent behaviour of my gf, and boom! There I went and broke up with her! Out of the blue! I did it! Nothing made sense to me last night, so I went there and told in her face I wasn't sure I'm still loving her.
I hate myself for this. I know there's so much more to say about what happened, the whys and hows, but all I can think now is how much I hate myself for being so fragile. Sure there are things the could be improved, but I sometimes I still see everything black.

What hasn't improved - After the storm

What hasn't improved so far is my mood dependence on my sentimental relationship...it takes too large a part in my life. To be fair, it does influence my life a lot, especially in terms of where I currently live and where I want to be in the near future, my career too.
I realised that it is important because I like what I do, I like being an engineer and I like this field, but I want to move on and learn new things, expand to other fields, especially into energy efficiency, renewables and such. Now, there are so many questions that spin from this initial point. I've partly listed them yesterday, however the news is that my boss wants more involvement from me, in the sense of expanding the company's expertise into the field of energy certifications in buildings (namely the LEED programme), for which the company will pay the training costs and such; he also proposed we go together at the ASHRAE Winter Meeting in Chicago...
Thus, we are talking about a bigger commitment, and lesser chances of being able to just walk off of this job; if someone is investing so much in me I realise it's good but I also feel the committment to give back what ultimately is great for my career and CV...all this goes with a long-term plan of being here. What happens if I break up (again) with Sofía? The chances of further my academical studies are also very slender, here. Actually studying again abroad has suddendly looked more appealing. But Sofía is very clear that she doesn't know what she wants to do (!). She says she doesn't want to leave the country but that everything could change in 2 years or so...

Anyway, yesterday I was hitting a tremendous low, I hadn't had such a depression/low esteem/suicidal bout in a long while. After a whole day long of being like this, I eventually picked myself up on my way back from the supermarket (10pm); just like last Saturday, when I stopped overthinking about general stuff, I realised that she also needs to be taken care of. Incidentally, as I arrived home, I found out she was in a good mood, which definitely helped, and although over the phone we had a quite serious communication problem, we're trying to move ahead. She'll be trying to be a bit more open, and I'll be more sensible and sensitive with my commentaries. Again, it's about understanding that what goes for me doesn't necessarily go for the other people. Oh, that hasn't improved either.

But whatever, I'll chat a bit with my parents and see what they have to say about this.

How to draw the wrong conclusions from the late Steve Jobs's speeches

How to draw the wrong conclusions from the late Steve Jobs's speeches?

Well, I manage.

First of all, he's dead.
Secondly, I hate optimist speeches. I don't get inspired by optimist speeches if I have a negative approach. Duh.
Thirdly, I hate people who are geniuses and are optimist.
Fourthly, when someone tells me that I should live my own life and be myself, I look back at all the time wasted and at the fact that presently I still get into depression and believe there's no way to get out of it forever. Like a chronic disease. Like cancer, you'll be sure it will come back at you at some point.

It's about wondering whether this feeling of always needing to leave, change, get back, restlessness, is about not being able to be happy at all or about not having found the right place, the right people, the right state of mind.
Should I just change everything and leave everyone for a new adventure? Will do it any good to me? I moved around and did different things and here I am now, pretty much in the same situation as years ago. Moving is not easy, either; it comes with all sorts of bureaucracy, paperwork, finding a job, basically make a living...would breaking up with my gf and changing job be enough?

How is a relationship supposed to be? Assuming there is a standard is not fair, too. We don't understand each other much. I don't know how to deal with her problems. Part of it is because I tend to be selfish and to consider that everything goes around me and if it doesn't then it is not my concern. How can I go through this without breaking up the relationship? When she points out that I don't care when she cries for stuff which is not related to the relationship, I say it's not true but we both know it's a lie. I hate that, but when someone has a problem, I relate it to me.
I am a selfish bastard.

Steve Jobs advocated for change, but changing so far hasn't solved much in my life, changing place and occupation has been just a way to escape for me, and I can't escape forever.

We shouldn't live someone else's life...but how do I live mine then?

And why shall we pay so much attention to what he says? Because he's been successful? These things don't apply to everyone...they apply to good people only.

Meltdown/nightmares

Terrible Saturday. I had an epic fight with my gf and well, I realised, I am a sort of selfish bastard. I managed to screw up a couple things and friendship/relationships by just telling straight what I think, and it turns out I think about myself only. Why is it so hard for me to realise what the other people's problems are and to actually care for them? Why is my overthinking leading me into a sea of doubt? I feel it's all about either keeping quiet in the wrong moment or saying the wrong things at the wrong time.
Although I had the mental sanity for in that brief second in which I decided to sleep over at my gf's, who was having it rough because of some stuff of her and because of me, instead of going to cry at mine's over my blind selfishness (in hindsight, that sounds sooooooooooo smart), why am I ACTUALLY not caring about other people? That's plain wrong. I hope I will change, that is my aim. I can't bear thinking about my gf having a major problem and not telling me because she doesn't feel to (although that is not so straightforward).
While I was sleeping over I had the worst nightmare I can remember in a while. Those who are so real, that relate so much to your surroundings, that you believe are true. And they went over and over. I woke up and went to sleep several times, and everytime I was on that bed, and she was kicking me out of her place, or leaving me, or breaking up.
I don't fucking know why I idealised her, in the sense that I thought she couldn't have problems, or that every tense or unpleasant moment we spent together was because of me. I don't know where the self-blame ends and where the selfishness starts.
I also backed down from going to a concert with a friend(?), and said literally "the ticket is a lot of money, and moreover it'd be just the two of us", which apparently is a quite mean thing to say to someone (he replied "I didn't know I was so boring to you"). It's just that because I wouldn't deem it to be mean if someone said that to me, I think that such a thing can't hurt others! That is my lack of "info filtering"...
I feel good about having had a long chat with my mom last afternoon..it went a bit deeper than normally.

On the other hand, Arabic characters sometimes look like pubic hair. Not that latin characters don't, but still, I see a closer resemblance.