Living home

I have an italian neighbour who also happens to be a cook. On friday evening I was reading and somebody knocked on my door. Then I saw him, sitting on the stairs, looking kinda sad.
"Do you happen to have a gas bottle?" he ventured.
"I don't, sorry, we have city gas"
"Well, you know, I was cooking, and suddenly ran out of gas. I have this pots full of almost cooked food. May I use your kitchen?"
"Sure, come on in"
One minute and he appears with a big casserole with plenty of vegetables inside, and on the other hand a pan with fried onion and liver. They are already boiling in my kitchen, I look at him, we talk, he let's me try.
"We're gonna make this together. Come on, help me, try it and tell me whether it's any good"
I try it, it's excellent. He turns off the fire. Mixes the liver and the vegetables together. Says "thanks Pere" and walks away with the casserole and the pan.
I continue reading. Some hours later landiman (my flatmate) comes back. He comes with: (i) an american punky that speaks mexican; (ii) an abc from san francisco, california; and (iii) a swedish male vegan. We prepare and have dinner. The punky keeps on making fun of our Spanish. "You can't scare me with those ridiculous words you use in Spain: "joder, mierda, cabrón"... so ridiculous" And then she goes on to recite a list of scary mexican insults. Or maybe she's the one that's scary. She is, actually.
While we are having dinner somebody knocks on the door. It's my italian neighbour, he comes with a tupper-ware full of vegetables with liver: "You have it". He says hi to the people, he leaves.
I offer the liver, the swedish vegan tells me he's vegan, the punky is sort of vegetarian too, of course the abc from sf, california, is vegetarian too, and landiman, well, he tries some until I tell him it's liver and he decides he does not like it. I eat the fucking liver with vegetables myself. It's excellent.
Anyway, that was friday, and now it's sunday night. I have to work tomorrow. Somebody just knocked on my door. I didn't want to stand up and go see who was knocking, but I finally did. It's him: he's holding landiman's jambe.
"You can have it, landiman's not coming back for some days"
"No, have it back, Pere, if I play it for too long the neighbours are going to protest."
"Landiman's away"
"You can come on in to my home if you feel lonely, Pere"
"It's ok, I have to go to bed, I wake up at 7"
"Work?"
"Yeah"
We understand each other. I close the door. I go back to the computer. I write.

I miss it too

Yes, I also miss blogging, but it's being impossible lately. I'm moving out, haven't figured out how to connect to the net home, plus g.o.l. collapsed before I could sell it. So I still have it, broken. G.o.l. does not want to be sold.
So, anyway, I write briefly from the office, just to recommend you the movie "Darwin's nightmare". You shouldn't miss it.

First and last

First post I write from my rented apartment. Today I brought in the bed (still didn't build it though) and I felt so tired I just decided to stay.
Last, well, it might be the last post I write... with my good old laptop. I didn't want to write about it, because I knew I would feel nostalgic if I did. But I guess g.o.l. deserves it. It's been two years since we met. I was about to leave to London. G.o.l. was such a good company there. It played Friends and Southpark for me on the nights I was feeling tired. It played Bowling for colombine the day I took my last masters' exam. I wrote my dissertation. I started this blog, and for two years I've been writing it almost entirely from this very same keyboard.
But only now, when I am about to sell it, I write about g.o.l. The laptop that never had a name, until it was sold. Maybe I shouldn't sell it: but you know, they pay quite a good money for it, and next year nobody will even want to get it for free. Yes, I am giving g.o.l. the last chance to cost some money. That should make it feel young, one last time.

The day after

I came back from Hong Kong on tuesday, and fell asleep around 2am. At 6am, I woke up, and I saw this:




And so I decided to keep on looking.



Somehow, I still felt on holidays. Being on holidays means seeing different things, and to me, well, I think it was the first time I looked carefully at a sunrise from my room.

However, the sun was waking up, and the cranes against a stronger light reminded me I had to go to work. They looked so beatiful, though.

Leaving

One more year, one more time, I leave. Once more, I hate it so much. I cried this morning, while I was packing and waiting for her to come back from work. She'll get half day off, which means we get to share a few more hours. We'll have the final countdown together.
How much I hate it... back to routine, back to her absence, back to work, back to nobody to hug, back to waking up early, back to her voice over the phone only, back to eat the same old food with the same old people... no more of her cutest face while she holds the chopsticks and looks at food with such a true passion :) ...
Back to enjoy the time with my friends, back to get used to not to have her, back to think maybe we are ok far apart for a few more months, back to the same old fears...
I have to lives. Each at one different side of the world. Sometimes I wish I could just take the underground and appear home, and then take it back.