I found this text one day in my flat and remembered I wrote it once when I was, let's say - a little bit tipsy:
Kooperatif bar was a small bar on a narrow, snaky street on the European side of Istanbul. It was the only bar in Istanbul where you wasted no energy on rational conversation and tipped the waiters to be treated badly. How and why it came to existence, nobody knew for sure - a lack of knowledge magnified by the fact that there was nobody literally nobody and nothing inside this place that a rational observer would describe as "sense".
The real reason why the bar existed, against all odds, was because this spot in space was nothing but a figment of a certain cat's flawed imagination. The bar was a fictive place with fictive people as the regulars. Sometime ago Husnu, the notorious street cat, as a part of his new project "Get yourself a home", started thinking about this place, thus breathing life and chaos into it but before long he had gotten distracted by far more important projects - street fights, eye-catching felines and the new kebab place on the corner. Amid these hectic times he had eventually forgotten this dingy hole in Istanbul, the existance of which he was solely responsible for.
As a seed planted to the ground Kooperatif developed a life of its own and under the weight of musical events attracted strangers of dubious existance. Husnu, on the other hand, found it very convenient after a set of unfortunate events that included loss of testicals, to stumble upon his very own creation that fortunately included water, food and occasional shamans.
Ever since then, the customers and waiters in Kooperatif bar, a small bar on a narrow snaky street on the European side of Istanbul, had been struggling with a sense of nonsense, digging away at disconsolate future scenarios, grimacing over teacup plates served as ashtrays, waiting for a purpose in some highbrow drama wherein they would play the leading role.
Still, every now and then, someone new to the place or in need of drawing attention would come forward with another theory and for the ephemeral lull the other customers would believe him, toying with the new theory, until they got bored and sunk back to their marches of relative existance.
Among all the theories on the genesis of this bar, this explanation was the most plausible.
Happy birthday Husnu!
Disclaimer:
It was based on some other text but I forgot which one. But it could be something from Elif Safak.
Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible. I think it’s in my basement, let me go upstairs and check.
I was walking down the street and I saw It. Stephen King's It, not a guy wearing a clown costume but the very It. So I yelled: "Hey, man, how are you? Haven't seen you since we worked together! I am going to the Folk the floods concert for Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia tonight, why don't you come along?" It responded: "No, people will stare at me, I am a clown." Me: "Nooooo, this is Berlin, you can be whatever you want to be, nobody gives a shit!" It: "OK, maybe you're right, see you tonight!" And It left and I was thinking: "Wow, he is quite tall, I wonder how he looks like under the mask..."
Unfortunately, It never came to the concert and I didn't have a chance to check It under the mask. When I explained the dream to my friend, she said I should never use drugs. And maybe should go to a psychiatrist. I remember my dreams almost every day and most of them are insane. I don't need to go to a psychiatrist though. A random fact - if you ever wanted to google your crazy dreams to check if there is maybe something wrong with you, don't. In the end of the session, you will have cancer or brain tumour. The same goes for Cramp in my left arm. Or A red spot on my face. Anyway, apart from the brain tumour, there is nothing wrong with me. It's you. It's not "It's not you, it's me." It's "It's you, it's not me." You just can't remember. As I cannot remember things that happen in reality. But I have Aleksandra (a non-drunk that parties like one) and Lana (a drunk that remembers like non-one). And you don't get anyone in your dreams. Ha-ha! So here is a (not so) short list of popular themes, almost but not particularly in that order of preference but No. 1 is definitely No.1.
10. Body and Mind
I have a few separate entities that drive my dreams and they are all on drugs. There is Body and there is Mind. Body usually appears as a voice telling me to eat fruit, or drink water, or eat spinach, or "Marijana, you have malaria!" (and I wake up with 30 bites). On the other hand, Mind is a problem-solver that tends to be obsessed with my fears and puts me into situations where I am completely freaked out like walking down a broken rope bridge thousands of meters up in the air or jumping of a cliff or doing a speech in front of hundreds of people or touching a spider. And while it is happening, it is telling me to calm down and that everything will be fine. Fucker.
9. Conscience
And then you get Conscience. Like this week. First I dreamt
that it is important to sleep as less as possible cause every moment will be
shorter in time and there will be much more of them and their importance will
be much greater cause they all act as pieces of an infinite puzzle in the future and
the more pieces you fill in, the more...I don't know what happens but it was
important to fill in the puzzle as much as possible. And then a few days later I got a better explanation. Very simple. If you sleep a lot it means that you consider your dreams better than your reality. In that case, your reality will definitely be worse than your dreams. But if you start to sleep less making your mind believe that reality is great, the reality will turn out great. And all that elaboration because I felt guilty for sleeping too much. And I wasn't even stoned.
8. Nothing but trouble
Troublesome dreams occur when I am not as happy as I usually am (duh!), just to make things extra worse so not only that I am looking for a job and not finding it in reality but I am also looking for a job and not finding it in my dreams. You can also get tear gassed by Turkish police during the day and then some more during the night, with extra police brutality sequences in the dream. Or was it in reality? :D Trying to escape from talking walls that are trying to crush me, that was fun. Although someone explained to me in the dream that you have to treat them nicely and they will go away. Talking walls.
If walls could talk: Xena and the blond girl clips with Celine Dion in the background. Never knew!
7. Apocalypse I am Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis and Will Smith, all in one. Different versions of apocalypse are reoccurring, so I punched zombies in the face many times, went to Norway to watch a timed tsunami that will make human race extinct, stole chicken legs in a supermarket after the floods that killed 90% of humanity (they would go bad soon), fought in war many times (on different sides, never Croatian) and lived in post-apocalyptic scenarios without water, electricity and sewer. Ah no, wait, that was in India.
And this is not India. Or apocalypse. This is Brighton.
6. Travelling
Travelling and hitch hiking are the most common dreams when I am stuck in one place. So I travelled all around the world, lived in hippy communes in Italy, had babies in Brazil, lived in a tree house, went on a sailing vacation with 10 transvestites and took numerous one way tickets. And even in my dreams I have that moment "Shit, I am doing it again. Poor mum. My dad will kill me." Guilt imposed by parents runs deep down.
5. Elaborate sex dreams
A small digression - I once read in a Yoga book that for every affair we have, we will be reborn to satisfy that person throughout a marital life. Scary, ha? I found it really funny (and disconcerting) so for a couple of weeks I was saying this to every yoga person I met (it was in India, so I must have said it hundreds of times) but nobody got particularly upset. But I guess it was a wrong kind of crowd. Worrisome as it is, add to it all the people and...stuff you had "affairs" with in your dreams. Ha! Now, that's unpleasant. So yes, sex dreams. Usually unwanted. Just imagine my dreams you have read about so far and add a pinch of sex in it. Very disturbing is what you get. With a few exciting exceptions. A small advice: Don't google "Weird sex dreams, am I normal?" You will get pregnancy in results. And cancer, of course.
4. WTF Marijana But the ones that I love the most are the most absurd ones, the ones that make me think - WTF. Some of them the best experience I have ever had. Like when I was time. This is written correctly, I was time. Or fighting Voldemort: I yelled all the spells properly (I actually do know them!) and nothing worked and Voldemort laughed and said: Don't you know little girl that the spells have to be in Turkish? Or getting a TV from a three eyed Gypsy woman where I could watch my life and future and it even had options on the remote control like The happiest moments,The saddest moments, Most important people in your life and so on...And then an Australian girl stole my TV.
3. Lucid Dreaming
And then you get the lucid dreaming (or don't). Oh. For those who don't know, in lucid dreams you are aware that you are dreaming and YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO DO. Yaaay! Like the best date ever (I'm talking about flying, visiting hundreds of places and kissing on top of Himalaya that I found a bit too cold and turned it into spring time. And I also got to choose how the guy looks like). Beat that. And flying in general. Although sometimes it can get a bit inconvenient if you are in the middle of it and forget that it is a dream and you think "What is happening here, I am not supposed to fly..." and you start falling. And jump of the bed in shock. Or you dream you are a squirrel. And forget you dream and realise you have no idea how to be one. It is not easy being a squirrel. There is a lot of things that eat squirrels. And there are other squirrels. And it is all fun and games till someone gets raped.
2. Animals Animals are a big part of my dreams in general, I am cuddling with spiders, riding dragons, taking care of talking cats, swimming with polar bears and my dog Aslan usually takes on human characteristics like doing hostel shifts in stead of me (and I just switch of the alarm and oversleep) or following me in a shape of a midget jester. Once I dreamt that I died and came back as a cat. My mother knew it was me but my father put her into a nuthouse. So I went to my friend Darija. She loves animals so she would take me. One day I saw that the computer was on and Word was open. So I started typing with my paw and managed to write Marijana Mustra. And I wrote some more. And I started answering her questions. And long story short, everybody knew it was me, my mum was out of the hospital and would visit me from time to time (it was still a bit hard for her for obvious reasons), everybody was bringing me cat food and I was on TV. And I didn't have to be raped by other cats. It wasn't so bad after all.
1. God And if you ever wondered what God thinks, imagine a vast green field and a cliff among the clouds and you are watching the whole world down. And now imagine God is sitting next to you:
God: World is a cruel place. Me: Why do you think so? God: Cause David Bowie never got an Oscar.
And for the end, a small piece of advice: Do google "I am talking to God, am I normal?" Cause you'll get THIS.
And cancer, of course. Sweet dreams, good night and don't let the bed bugs bite. Or penises for that matter.
♪ ♪ ♪When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother: 'MUM CAN I BE A BALLERINA?' and she said: 'NO, HONEY YOU'RE TOO FAT!' ♪ ♪ ♪Que sera sera...
I was a weird kid. My imagination was constantly interfering with the reality and it was very hard for me to decipher which is which. I also believed in magic, princes on white horses, talking animals, witches, dolls being alive (one of them trying to kill me), Jesus listening to my prayers and a happy grown up world where one day everything will make sense. Once I painted all the walls of the living room and yelled: Mum, look, chickens!' I also said to her many times that I discovered the meaning of life and once I told her that I ate some of my small toys. They took me to hospital to figure out I hadn't. The problem was I wasn't lying. I was completely sure I did.
Now I am 30 and things haven't changed much. Except the Jesus part.
At some point of my childhood, I asked the ultimate question: 'Mum, where do babies come from?' Mum being a very rational mathematics professor answered: 'When two people fall in love, babies come.' There was no storks in her story. I gave it a thought (I very often dwell upon strange things people say to me and it can last for hours until I proofread it to suit my view on the world: 'Could that be true? If not, do I want it to be true? If yes, what's in it for me?') and I realized - Shit (or whatever equivalent was at that time), the baby is coming!
You see, I was terribly in love with a boy from my kinder garden and Mum said when there is love, there are babies. Of course, I completely ignored the fact that I didn't know if he is in love with me. I wasn't ready to be a Mum so I cried in my room the whole day: 'I am too young, I am a child, how can I raise one, there was supposed to be this whole life ahead of me before babies and above all - MY FATHER WİLL KİLL ME!' In the evening, I came to another conclusion: 'It is over now and I will do it. And if my parents love me, they will accept it. It wasn't my fault, you can't stop yourself from falling in love. And if they don't accept it, I still have my little red suitcase and I will put a towel and soap (it is important to have some basic hygiene) and my favourite doll and I will go away. There must be some work out there that I can do...I WAS 4 YEARS OLD.
When I told my mother, she cried. Nothing much has changed. She still does from time to time, for different 'What the hell is she doing now?' reasons. I still make my decisions in 'Well, what's done, it's done' and 'MY FATHER WİLL KİLL ME' fashion. I am always ready to pack my little red suitcase although I am not that eager on hygiene any more. I still ignore the fact that I don't know if people love me, as long as I love them it's all good (I'm OK. You're OK.). Definitely I am still not ready to raise a child and I strongly believe that there is this whole not so adult life ahead of me without children but I also know now that babies are not that eager to come by (or at least I take care of their non-arrival) and that love comes and goes very nonchalantly.
I also don't fit in any of these categories. Yet.
The world was very confusing when I was a child. Many things puzzled me like how can there be iron in lettuce, why refugee kids have flees, why all the women in Bible end up badly, why Jesus doesn't want to talk back to me, why kids can't drink beer, why every adult I know drinks it, why Tooth fairy doesn't exist in Croatia, why old men have pregnant bellies and so much more. I also imagined that one day when I will be 30, I will be a mathematics teacher happily married to a handsome boy and have two kids and a dog. I wasn't supposed to have short hair cause girls don't have short hair, or live outside Croatia cause Croatia is the best country in the world, or travel for no apparent reason cause Croatia is yes, the best country in the world.The only worthwhile travel was if you are something like Indiana Jones, that's acceptable. There was only one Love of your life. And you should always be a lady. HA! My father still strongly believes that I will change and become normal again. But he also blames Turkey that I became a vegetarian. Exactly. Sometimes I think making no sense is in my genes. But then I take a look at my friends and they don't make any sense either.
When I became teenager, it got even worse. A completely different set of questions rose up to the surface, my personal favourite being 'Why and how are some people cool and some bullied and how to avoid being in the latter category?'. A nice quote on how: 'I’m talking about the people throwing the stones. They were sure all right. They were sure it wasn’t them in the pit. You could see it in their faces. So glad it wasn’t them that they were throwing just as hard as they could'. Same rule applies to burning at the stake, guillotine and classroom. Furthermore, why you are not allowed to have same shirt like somebody else, why Adidas is always cool and Nike is cool only if they are black, why cool people don't have pimples (life, you must be joking me), how to stalk somebody, why is everybody so deformed all of a sudden and what deformations are cool. Boobs are cool but you get harassed by boys a lot. Moustache is not cool. You won't get stalked by girls.
You get self conscious and nothing on your body is as it should be. I was as tall as now, weighed 20kg less and covered myself as much as possible cause I thought I was fat. And nobody ever could persuade me different. Social structures and group dynamics were really giving me a hard time, I never understood why everybody is so horrible but on the other side, I became as horrible as them. Better than being bullied. And when it all got mixed with a healthy doze of hormones it became THE WORST PART OF MY LİFE THAT I WOULD NEVER EVER EVER REPEAT. All that hormonal confusion and puberty and world is a bad place (yes, I had that phase as well) and not knowing what you are and what you belong to and searching yourself in different music, clothing and groups of equally confused people that pretend they are not confused and blaming your parents and all the I'm in love nonsense on top of it...Wow. Never again. Thank god. Hallelujah! No wonder teenagers drink so much, it's impossible to deal sober with all this. No wonder adults drink so much either.
In early 20s I discovered LOVE, proper full on Love of my life kind of love and that dreamy girl from the beginning of the story was the happiest person in the world. A bit later on, I discovered that love goes away and that there is not one Love of your life, there is Many of them. If you're not unlucky.
I discovered travelling which also gave me this amazing feeling of being the happiest person in the world. Travelling then turned into hitch hiking which turned into not following peoples' expectations which turned into not following career which turned into not having any money which turned into not caring about your looks which turned into not acting 'normal' which tuned into having damn good life all along (until someone tries to touch you, that's not so damn good).
Of course, there are always bad times. There will always be bad times no matter what you do. For example I am worried today the whole day (apart from the latest When the hell will I get a job) that I might have adopted some bigger creatures in my stomach while I was in India and I have this feeling in my guts that they are on a nuclear fission level of civilisation now. (Not so) funny stuff happen sometimes.
Trucks, love and parasites. Not necessarily in that order and hopefully not correlated.
So que sera, sera, the future developed quite expectantly unexpected. When I think about all these crazy things I was asking and thinking when I was a child and teenager, the only thing I can say to my parents: 'You should have seen it coming. You should have seen right there all the trucks and crazy people and faraway countries and wasted nights and non-approvable boys and fake marriages and deportations and uncertain clothes and adopting dogs and quitting jobs and riding a horse down the cliff on Caucasus with a toothless cross-eyed old man tried to kidnap me or whatever else I considered magic in that very moment. And you should have seen how much happiness, joy and love I will feel and will be surrounded with.
On the other hand, maybe I will also be broke, sick and lonely when I am 40. So ask me then again.
Que sera, sera.
As a reminder, these are advice for brokenhearted people based on 10 commandments, from a 30yo silly woman that definitely shouldn't be giving advice. And if you ever wondered how I got this amazing opportunity to be the Visionary for the Man in the sky, this is how:
(so I beleıeved Him and we shared manythg)
6. You shall not murder. Yes, please don't.
7. You shall not commit adultery. Well, it's too late for that, isn't it? :D Anyway, let's put it like this You shall not commit adultery against your heart. I am now taking a ciggy brake to laugh my ass off on what I just wrote....OK, let me go further. You might want to now find a new guy as soon as possible to substitute for the last one or find as many guys as possible to replenish your ego. Well, if you are sure it will make you feel better, sure, go ahead but most likely you will make some bad choices and wake up next to a person you really don't want to wake up next to. And then you will have to do the morning after small talk thinking how stupid this now feels and what were you thinking (or what was tequila thinking). Try finding somebody you actually like, not some drunk asshole just to have a one night stand as soon as possible and make yourself feel better. And trust me, been there, done that, it doesn't work.
8. You shall not stalk. Erase his number, erase him from facebook, erase all the messages, phone calls and emails. It will keep you away from drunk texting or god forbid sexting. If you have this silly deal that you stay friends, well, don't. At least for a while. Remove him from your life. Explain that to the guy. If he ever loved you, he will understand. If he didn't, well, than you should erase him anyway. It would be great if we had (in a deep villain's voice) this magic button that we press and a person disappears so you don't have to think what is he doing now and what gorgeous girl he is sleeping with and how great his life is now because he doesn't exist any more. But then there would be probably no one left out here. (And the earth would flourish and all the plants and animals would live happily ever after). Anyway, you can't do that because we already went through the 6th commandment but what you can do is to throw out everything that he gave you and that reminds you of him. It's just stuff anyway. You have your memories. Of course, don't throw useful stuff. For example I just threw away a towel, some bracelets, erased the photos, the music that we listened to (there is anyway so much more great music) and well, some other more...let's say...private stuff I got. But I kept the USB stick.
9.You shall not bear false thoughts against reason. So you are brokenhearted? Feel free to join our club! It is called EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THIS PLANET (that doesn't have more important things to worry about) club. And you get to drink more beer with a good excuse. Every single person no matter how perfect it is will at some point for one or the other reason be brokenhearted. OK, let me paraphrase it - every single person that has a heart. I know a lot of Germans that don't. (Sorry. It's funny.) And for every person there will be somebody who doesn't love them. We can't make people love us. There is nothing you can say or do to make somebody love you. If you think, I should have been more like this and this...nope, wouldn't help. And first you have to realise: HE DOESN'T LOVE YOU. And don't wait for him cause HE NEVER WILL. But somebody else will. Remember that. And keep on walking (Johnny)
10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s. I don't know what to say on this but yes, please don't. The guy is not worth coveting your neighbour's donkey. Or male servant. I don't know what covet means and I don't want to check because it sounds in my head very sexual (that's new...) and by this really funny. You see, nonsense humour always helped me. And black humour also. You can always laugh at your situation, if you have some kind of humour. I know a a lot of Germans that...OK no, I am not doing it again. Just laugh how fucked up you are and how meaningless it is. And you must have heard it a million times, but yes, it could be much worse. It was a tradition in my home that my father always says if I can't finish my food - what about all the hungry kids in Africa. I always found it very absurd - OK dad, give them my food. But the fact is this is all first world girl's problems. And you should be grateful how great life you have. (I also always wanted to bomb the house of every person that said this to me when I was bad but it is a fact).
...you could have been a sheep during bayram
So this is it then. It is difficult, difficult lemon difficult and nobody can help you. And nobody ever will. You can see thousands of motivational movies and hear thousands of times how amazing you are and how everything will be all right from your friends but I can guarantee you, it won't be all right. Not until you make yourself all right. Or time makes you all right. So just laugh yourself through and it will be over in a second. P.S. By reading this post, you agreed that you will not hold me responsible for any misfortune you had based on my advice.
Since I wrote my heartbreaking earthshaking post how utterly sad I was and how everything turned out all right in the end and the fluffy creatures came back, I got a lot of messages how it made people laugh but it also made them cry. I had no idea that there actually was so many brokenhearted people in the virtual reality of my facebook and especially that they read all this nonsense that I am writing. As I wrote in the post I have this magic ability to attract sad people looking for advice although I am completely incompetent on giving one and most likely very bad for their health. But also a lot of you asked me what do I do to make myself feel so much better so soon and move on happy go lucky bullshitting along the yellow brick road so I decided to write down (yaaay I can write something again yaaay) my useless advice and save it for future reference. Next time someone asks me, I am sending the link. And I really want to see if I can pull this off.
So let's start. I chose 10 commandments for this since it already has a tradition of generating complete bullshit. And because I find it funny. Religions always are.
1. You shall have no other gods before yourself. Nobody is better than you. And you are not better than anybody else. We are all just monkeys that eat and piss and walk around acting absurd and saying nonsense. And at some point in their lives these monkeys look around and see that another monkey has something else that they don't. And they feel less of a monkey. And they think another monkey is better than them. Life is so much nicer when you stop comparing monkeys. You are your own god and gods get the power from belief in them. Nobody is going to believe in you, they might say they are but they are just monkeys, what do they know. So don't go around feeling small and worthless. You are small and worthless but you are not any smaller and more worthless than anybody else so why feel like this. No matter how many times you got dumped.
2. You shall not make idols. No, there was never a holy spark of light above his head and he is not handsome even when he is shitting and he is definitely not the smartest/funniest/most capable person out there (what else do women want?) oh and his penis is definitely not the best and it wasn't the best sex you have ever had and you never will with anybody else. If you have a functional body, you probably have at least 50% sorted out (it is a physical reaction after all) and there are people out there that you will have a mental connection with as well. You are not special. Or you are but just like everybody else. He is not the best person in the world. (If he was, he wouldn't be with you in the first place.) There is plenty of fish in the sea. And sharks and whales. And octopuses for that matter. I had a discussion once with one drunk guy in the hostel at 5am (it was my night shift so didn't have much choice) about how many times you can fall in love. He said Once. I said More! And I promised that the next time I fall in love I will send him an email. (Later he attacked me in the storage room but that's a completely different story). I still have his contact so I invite all of you to spam his brains out every next time we fall in love. Maybe "my heart has more rooms than a whore house" but I am sure everybody has, you just have to keep the door open.
3. You shall not take the name of the PROBLEM in vain. So you wake up and think about how horrible your life is and you go to sleep thinking it is even worse. You are constantly talking about it. You keep repeating to yourself that you feel so miserable that it is absolutely impossible that you will ever feel better. You have dialogues in your head saying to yourself or others how useless and dark your situation is. You are making your problem grow every single second that you give your attention to it. And it is hard to shake it off once you are in this circle. So let's play a game. Imagine you are a ping pong ball. (once they told me on a stage fright therapy that I should just imagine I am a tree. I wanted to bomb the school.) Imagine everybody is some kind of flying object. So you have light and flexible objects and heavy ones. Every object will hit the ground eventually, ping pong balls will just bounce off and massive rocks will crush the ground even deeper. What defines which object you are is what you have in your head. I mean how much heavyness there is. So now, go on, think about your problems and crash the ground. It's your own fault.
4. Remember the nice days, to keep it holy. I heard many times I wish I never met him and so on. No, you don't. In this bad moments everybody concentrates on all the shit that happened in the end and pain they feel at that moment and forget about all that absolutely wonderful, amazing, mind-blowing moments you had before that you would definitely re-live, even if it means you have to re-live the end as well.. There was no happiness in my life that i wouldn't repeat again even with the cost of extreme sadness later on. And this amazing moments will always be with you, like the best travel you had or the tastiest food you tried, you had a great moment with a person. Now, leave it and have some more other travels and food...and people. This is turning into a self-help blog.
5. Honor distractions. It's all about time and not thinking about the pink elephant. With time any elephant will leave no matter how pink it is. In the mean time, distract yourself. If you can, go travelling. Travelling will heal any tortured soul, it is just too much input and there is no space left for the elephant. Go dancing, go partying. Don't drink too much in bars that are not fun for you, you will just end up crying on some guy's shoulder that might think you want to have a rebound sex with him (or as I once said drunk - a rebounce sex). Surround yourself with people, as many people possible. Call friends you discarded - Remember me? I was your friend when I didn't have a boyfriend. Meet new people, go to courses, events, join online dating (don't if you live in Turkey. Or Balkan countries)...Every person can teach you something you didn't know before and so on. And look great! If you don't like yourself in the mirror (more than usual), you won't like yourself anytime soon.
...to be continued...
P.S. By reading this post, you agreed that you will not hold me responsible for any misfortune you had based on my advice. P.P.S. I can't check does it make sense or how many millions of mistakes I made cause I can't see shit anymore. I think it is time for glasses.
And then if it all works out, you can end up on a picture like this.
And your whole life will all of a sudden make sense.
...million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten
Life by google search:
*the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death So basically what we do is GROW (eat), FUNCTION (some by the power of mere ignorance, some by the lack of it), CHANGE (pimples don't switch to wrinkles, they coexist) and LOOK FOR THAT SPECIAL SOMEONE WHO IS WILLING TO TAKE HIS/HER PANTS OFF. Have you ever thought about meaning of life, like is this really all to it? I sure have. Many, many, many nights going home, walking drunk on Istiklal, trying to avoid men grabbing my ass while still maintaining the focus on my feet to go one in front of the other, I thought "Is this really it?" Or in those high moments when everything seems so clear, we are all one and all we need is love and one damn big sandwich. Accompanied with chocolate milk. I thought about it many times and the closest I got is that there is something in the fact (which is not actually a fact) that the guy who wrote Don't worry be happy committed suicide (which he didn't). There was just something so meaningful in it (which there wasn't cause it is not true) that I figured out it must have to do something with the meaning of life (which..yeah...) And out of the blue, on 27th of April, Sunday (OF COURSE) around 5pm, in Berlin, I found out the truth. It was in Tempelhof park reading a book in the sunshine. There is nothing better than reading a book by yourself while people around you are playing music, frisbee, other strange devices that I haven't seen before, frying dead animals, drinking beer and just being jolly "Sonnenschein" German. And it is not a "forever alone" thing. I mean it. I enjoy it so much that I am incapable of reading a book when I am not around people being jolly...around me...reading a book. And of course, I was having my beer, ciggy and Terry Pratchett. And it was such a damn lovely day. I was just in the middle of this chapter on philosophers, “What's a philosopher?' said Brutha. "Someone who's bright enough to find a job with no heavy lifting", said a voice in his head. "An inventor of fallacies. This cursed city attracts them like a dung heap attracts the flies." "Actually, it's the climate. Think about it, if you are inclined to leap out of your bath and run down the street every time you think you've got a bright idea, you don't want to do it somewhere cold. It's known here for its philosophers. It's better than the street theatre." when I heard somebody talking to me in German. So I said like I do dozens of times a day, "Sorry, I don't understand". He started talking in English. He was speaking fluent English, but the sentences didn't make any sense whatsoever. I understood words meaning of life, essence, grass, fluid, earth, grass, nothing, sun and everything but in what context, god knows. Or doesn't. So I repeated "Sorry, I don't understand." And (Ooops♫) he did it again with a lot of waving, pointing at the sky, sniffing the grass and smiling. Pratchett is right, it was better than street theatre. I guess after a while he just gave up, sighed and said in a more comprehensive way: "I will explain to you the meaning of life (smile). For 50cents (smile). 1EUR if you are rich (smile)." So I gave him 1Eur, laid down with my beer and ciggy and listened. He talked for about 5 minutes. Guess what, I didn't understand (I think we had more of a transmitter than a receiver problem) so he was nice enough to write down the punchline. And since I am nice enough, I will share it with you: "But" "Outside, of the attempts!!, Between the hands And feet!!, Of my days!, Without - essences!, I lay down!!, For a survival - lenght!!, Outside"!!
And his phone number on the other side if I need clarification. And he went away. As Pratchett continued: "“The trouble was that he was talking in philosophy but they were listening in gibberish.” So ladies and gentlemen, I hope everything is clear now and you can continue with your now meaningful lives. What are the odds anyway?
“Just because you can explain it doesn't mean it's not still a miracle.”
Grandma: Which day is it? Mum: The worst one. Grandma: I knew it was Sunday! - Hatred for Sunday runs in my family for generations.
Have you ever had a feeling that you completely hit the bottom, but not only hit it but you made a crater in the earth how hard the impact was? That there is no silver lining, no rainbows in the sky, no fluffy creatures and unicorns and no blue sky and roses and blessings and the god does not actually work in mysterious ways but works out vicious monstrous series of unfortunate events that definitely are not any good for you?
I am sure you had. Everybody does. For small things that sometimes seem the most important for whatever stupid reason you had at the time and life changing matters. And this is the best explanation I could give you about what happened today. A disclaimer for all my friends that are reading this: It's all back to normal now. Or abnormal in my normal way. I find it a very funny story that I wanted to share with you and I thank once again to whoever put this thing in my mind that I know that life is just a bunch of meaningless nonsense and the only thing we have to do is 1. To go on with it 2. Be nice to others that go on with it 3. Not take it seriously.
So what happened? Well - NOTHING, that's the problem. I just moved to Berlin, left my job and flat in Istanbul, I don't have a home, I have no money, I sent hundred of CVs and got just a few replies, I can't find a job, it doesn't seem I will find one in the near future, I don't speak German, I don't have a work permit, I am not even sure what I am capable of doing anymore, I keep having nightmares, my home (a bar) that I spent three amazing years in Istanbul closed yesterday and I couldn't even be there cause I have two interviews in a few days that I know already are not going to work out and I just got a Dear John letter. What happened today is just an accumulation of all these factors, I had a pretty shitty day yesterday as well (until the evening when I had a blast) but this message of today was one drop too much or as we would literally say in Croatia "A drop that tipped the glass over". And turned into a fucking waterfall for what it matters. And I am sure PMS, hangover and Sunday don't help either.
The job search and all that jazz (or blues at the moment) is pretty simple. I was counting on hostels but they get millions of enquiries every day, require fluent German (and I am on a level Ruf mich an neun hundert neunzig achtzig achtzig achtzig) and yeah...well...the work permit. It is after all Germany not Balkans. Or as my friend said a German is a German, you can't do anything about it. So I can work either as a seasonal worker in hotels, hostels, restaurants and so on, they have to register me and it can't be a mini job or I can work in my profession that I haven't worked in for let's see...5 years! so that is also a hard one. The only prospect at the moment is to work in a sex club that might open soon. Which I find really funny. My friend introduced me yesterday to a friend and said out of the blue : "She wants to work in a sex club. But she doesn't want to get involved. Is that possible?" And he said of course and took my number. HA! How funny would that be? I can imagine my friends now WTF Marijana. But I really find it very amusing. I just have to erase this notion from the back of my head - Poor Mum. But I did many times before so it should be fine. This friend also said to her friend that offered me a job as a nanny for her kids: "No, she hates kids!" I love my friends. Anyway, so imagine my state of mind or even better the state of my beloved ego in the last few days. This job hunting is definitely the worst job I had so far. And it is a lot of work when you want to do it properly, trying to write kick ass cover letters and reviewing your cv for hundreds of times and explaining why exactly in the last 5 years you quit every job after a few months and left travelling. So bit by bit all this "Nobody wants to take me" was poking my ego and today it cracked. Having nightmares also didn't help. Being chased by talking walls that want to crush you and then waking up to a constant refusal or ignoring. Nope, it doesn't help.
So we come to Sunday and the Dear John letter. My, let's call him Boy (not my boyfriend but I did spend 24h with him for 3-4 months...due to strange circumstances but still, you do kind of get attached, whether you want it or not. And in the end, Ego is Ego. It doesn't reason out things when it gets picked on) went to Turkey and came back with a new girl. FML. And you can't even blame the guy. That's the problem with dating normal guys. You can't even blame them when they leave you. I can't even say Men are assholes. Because he is not and he didn't do anything wrong. We weren't in love and we weren't together. Mental note - date assholes. But always keep in mind they are assholes. Then everything should be normal. In my abnormal way. With assholes you know where you stand, you can blame them later on and they are also much more fun anyway. For all the girls reading this, don't follow my advice. I don't want to be responsible for outcryings based on dating assholes. I have already been involved in way too many of them. It seems I have a magnet for crazy people on the street and heartbroken people that need comfort. And I am equally bad in dealing with both of them. Anyway, my friend said What did you expect? You said he was normal. You are not. That doesn't work. Wow, thanks friend. That feels better. I knew the whole time there is nothing to it...actually I didn't really think at all, just kind of went with the flow but it doesn't mean my ego won't scream like a baby when it happens. And my god, did it. All this together drew out a thunderstorm, I mean the one that makes the earth shake. So I went out to smoke a cigarette and cry. And I mean CRY. For all the jobs that I don't have, for all the money that I don't have and for all the men...no, this doesn't fit in very well, but you know what I mean. Of course, I had an immediate INTERVENTION from my dearest friends on skype that tried to talk sense into me. It didn't work. It never does. Nobody can talk sense into you in these kind of situations or tell you something you don't know anyway. It just has to go away on its own accord. Which doesn't mean you should stop trying or just be there. For me humour always works. My friend showed me her boobs for whatever reason and another one said Well, anyway you are not normal so why do you expect normality. And you realise what a nonsense it is. And you are happy again.
So I wanted to share with you this horrible two hours I had that I now find really funny. People are funny. Egos are funny too. As for living in Berlin, I made the decision and as my friend said yesterday Once you made the decision, don't look back or you will turn into a pillar of salt. (I always thought this story was one of many in the Bible that just treats female caracters horribly because they are not listening to men or god but this is much nicer and makes more sense). So I am not looking back. I am looking forward...to something...whatever it is. The good and the bad and the ugly. With hopefully a bit of Tall Good looking men in it. Today I am not going to look for a job. It is Sunday. Nothing good ever happens on Sunday. I am not going to worry anymore either. Something will work out, where there is a will, there is a way blah blah blah. Even if it doesn't, worrying doesn't do any good anyway. I can always go somewhere else. And I am surrounded by amazing people. They are all batshit crazy but they are amazing. And I am in the best city ever not to worry and enjoy it. And there is so many many many many Tall Good looking Men around. I bet I can even find some assholes... ;)
...and all the fluffy creatures pop out again, they were just away cause they didn't want to get wet...
A completely useless picture of me with sheep. Just because I can.
And because they are fluffy.
And if you do feel shitty as I did today, watch this video. It can even cure a Sunday.
.jpg)
