approaching 30 doesn't make you wiser

i'm at home, at my desk, with some red wine and music I hadn't been listening to in the last 2 years and suddenly now is the "perfect" music!
today just passed by, like when you're for few hours on the train and you don't really start anything because you need to get off in a while and you keep thinking of the things you would like to do but you get continuously distracted by the panorama out of the windows..
so, i decided that today is the day i think about turning 30.

i really don't mind about the fact now is 30 and two years ago was 28 and in three years will be 33.. i don't care about the all "passing from being in my 20s to entering in my 30s".. or do i? ..uhm.. nope!
but today my parents cared about it, they told me stories like "30 years ago we were at home 'relaxed' because we knew we had an appointment tomorrow at 9 with the doctor".. why didn't they say it when i turned something like 26?? dunno, but i guess it's part of the game.. so i find it really sweet! i also found out in this way that it's not very strange i'm always late at appointments still now, in fact i was born some days late and my parents arrived 1hour and a half late at the appointment with the doctor on the 18th of February 1978, the day i was going to be born..!! okay i know it doesn't make any sense but at least it makes a good excuse for next time i need to apologise for being late at an appointment!
[gosh, i'm continuously too cold and then too warm that not even if i were in menopause!]

anyway, approaching 30 doesn't make you wiser, in fact:
- it's days i'm listening to trashy classic italian songs from the 70s and 80s!
- today i'm all emotional and weepy (maybe also 'cos i'm getting my period though!)
- i rescued my cds with "political" italian bands like 99posse, onda rossa posse, etc.. plus italian raggamuffin! and i'm even enjoying it to bits!
- i'm not working and i should, and i'm blogging instead
- i'm thinking a lot! [which is notoriously not a wise thing to do] thus entering in some kind of nostalgia for the past or for (im)possible futures [which at the end of the day is the same: languid sadness = shit]
- i didn't go out even if there was a beautiful sun
- etc.. (you can add..)

finally, some impressively enlightening phrases which very smart friends of mine actually uttered in the last weeks:
"Oh, come on, 30 is not that old!"; "I’m looking forward to have my first grey hair, lucky you that you have many"; "I’ve always liked getting older. Every new number sounds more respectable"; "Take it easy, girl..! after 30 you're definitely a 'woman' so... just take that as it comes!"; and so forth…
pleeeeaaase! it's not that you cannot say this stuff, but such sentences may be annoying since they, strangely, seem to connect the simple fact of turning 30 with the fact of getting older.. which, clearly, doesn’t make any sense!

anyhow, tomorrow i turn 30!!! :)
happy birthday to me! :))

thoughts around the autopsy project

since i've been linked to the blog of someone who actually updates her blog kinda cleverly and regularly, now i feel the pressure of writing something intelligent, which i would have written anyway but maybe in 100 months time, so:
a couple of weeks ago i went to see this a m a z i n g performance, in melkweg in a'dam, called "The Autopsy Project", by André Gingras, Korzo Theater.
it was just great! and talking with others there we agreed this is something that, at least, all women's studies people/people who believe to be the updated wave of academic feminism should go and see, to refresh their brain and, for once, really know what art can do!
cannot really describe it. just look at this to have a bare minimum of an idea:


we had some drinks after the performance, in the bar of the theatre, and i finally grasped something i've been feeling other times in similar occasions.. something cool happens in that kind of situations: you feel like you know the people around you, even if it's the first time you see them, 'cos there's something intangible that in that very moment connects you.. you saw the same thing, you were part of the same experience, you partook together to make that performance what it was.. i see it as having done something intimate together, like an orgasm or so.. i mean, wouldn't you feel kinda connected with someone you had an orgasm with? and also kinda grateful, no?
ja, well, that's how i feel sometimes in this situations.. maybe that's just me though.. but maybe not.. i guess it works the same for me also in concerts, or demonstrations, street marches or riots, maybe even in cinemas with good films..
uhm.. just now i realised that maybe i wrote a paper, ages ago, about something similar happening in concerts.. uhm.. bohf! i find it cool though!

a day off

someone might laugh at the idea that today i'm taking a day off, but i'm am!
i can already hear some of you saying one of the following: "it's thursday, why don't you take a day off in the weekend as normal people do?" or, "another day off?? as if you've been working any hard lately!", or "come on you have a phd to write and money to do it, so stop lazying around", etc..
or maybe this is just the voice of my conscience.. or maybe not!

the fact of the matter is that i've a cold (raffreddore).. yesterday i think i also had some temperature.. but i was out and doing stuff all day, drinking beers in the afternoon and it was freezing cold (the day, not the beer)! so I decided it would have been better to take a day off today rather then stay sick for many days.. well, that's the idea, let's see if it actually works..
but this is a "mental day off", meaning that okay, i'm not really working, but i'm anyway replying some emails, copying notes and various vaguely work-related stuff; but mentally i'm taking a day off, meaning, I'm not worried about work, i don't do things i don't feel like doing, i rest if i want to and i simply don't think too much..
and that's how it should be!
the difference is that, you know, sometimes i/you/we have a day off in the sense i don't work very much or very hard, but then i'm very very concerned about not working.. it's called guilt, i guess..so it doesn't really count! that's not a real day off!
so, see...?

the problem is that being in the univ. (as a student or whatever) you almost always think of what you're not doing when you're doing something else than working/studying, that is, when you're having fun.. (or not? i do, and i know many other people who do the same..)
and that's stupid, and that's because you don't have real 'working hours' and every moment of the day becomes a potential good moment to work, and because of the sense of guilt academia always manage to instigate in you..! on top of the all guilt-thing that catholicism instil in people from birth (if you're so lucky as to be born in a place like italy for example).. anyhow, that's another story i guess..
now, back to my day off..

my new year starts now

What would you do if on the 1st of January you would have the feeling nothing is really new, nothing is really going to change? Or better, what if you don't even have time to think what do you want to do in 'the new year' 'cos you're just way too busy with deadlines and stuff you've been dragging around for months and you just need to to conclude them?
I believe in rituals. I need the symbolic moment of closure and renewing.
If the official new year/capodanno doesn't work as a rite of passage, then I need another one: my 2008 starts on the 1st of February (today).

Why the need of having 'a new year'? a beginning of the week, a Monday? a 1st of the month? Why the need to go in cycles, in periods?
[And I'm not talking about that kind of stuff like "women do things/think in a circular/periodical way because they have menstruations and men have a straight logic and think in a linear way because I-don't-know-what"!!]
I'm just asking, how come calendars are one of the first thing humans-in-group think about? [And don't start mumbling around about seasons, stars, agriculture, etc.. I studied anthropology, okay?!! I know that..! I'm just wondering around my thoughts for the fun of it.. no answers needed!]
Finally, how come we/me/you are so attached to the idea of beginnings? To have new chances again? Do get rid of leftovers and start 'clean' a brand new day/life?

Anyway, I like to (re)start, and I believe in rituals.

I spare you the boredom of reading the list of my good propositions for the new year..
It's windy here, and cold; I didn't take a shower yet, I feel like I just woke up now.. and it's not exactly the case.
Sometimes this is nice.. indulging in the in-between of sleep and wake.. the liminal state is proper of all rituals.. "The liminal state is characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy. One's sense of identity dissolves to some extent, bringing about disorientation. Liminality is a period of transition where normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed - a situation which can lead to new perspectives" (as easy as wikipedia)

It make me feel lazy though..!
Okay, I'm gonna start my day, now, and my year, now, and my ritual is almost completed..