name change

No more Eskimo Girl, she was too cute and stupid. Welcome, Limax Maximus - disgusting and stupid, yet beautiful.

on writing, reading and writing

When I started this blog I was going to write as often as I could (could I, really?), then I abandoned it for some time, then I started posting weird-looking "notes to self" in it, then I made myself (or was it an urge?) write something more or less coherent, and since then I have been posting a blog approximately once a month without even noticing, until now, that there is a certain consistency in my rare urges to write something in English that would be longer than a tweet.

This means that I can stop scolding myself for being a flake when it comes to blogging in English and let Eskimo Girl be, which is good news.

Another good news is that I have read about 15 books this year, and though this is not many, the number is rather impressive considering that last year there were only 7 books on my list, and that this year is not over yet.

The thing is I have been a bookworm since I learned to read and until maybe I was 19 or 20. That was the age when I suddenly felt disappointed in contemporary authors and too bored by classical literature to feel any enthusiasm about reading books.

So I read blogs most of the time or reread books that I almost knew by heart because I did not want to be let down by soppy endings, cheap metaphors and trivial ideas, not to mention awkward translations.

There were some exceptions though - some books that fascinated me and made me feel like I was discovering something. Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides and - and this is pretty much it.

So I went on reading blogs and occasionally picking up some of the English classics I was supposed to read being an English major. Classics are so much more reliable than contemporary works - they can give you headaches, but they won't make you feel like you are being fed out of a trash bin.

So I went on chewing on classics until I decided to finally start reading Chaucer, mostly because I needed to prove to myself I was not an idiot and that the history of the English language - all those great vowel shifts and all - was not such a mystery to me as I thought it was.

It took me about 20 minutes to read the first page, where footnotes took about as much space as Chaucer's own text. I most surely felt like an idiot, but for the first time in many months I was an idiot who was eager to learn. Medieval English poetry was to me a world of its own on so many levels that I felt like I was learning to read again.

So now I am reading avidly again. I have become more critical and a bit academical, and I can read a single sentence several times to make sure I see how it is structured before I read the next one. I pick my books more carefully, and when attempting to put into words why I liked or hated a book I don't feel myself lost and restricted to associative thinking only. Instead, I start remembering literary devices I took notice of and things like structure, wording and punctuation - this may sound dull, but it's not. I trust my imagination and I know it won't suffer if I make a little dissection to find out what exactly it was that has stirred it.

stuff to do this month (minus all the boring stuff)

1. Fucking get a haircut!

2. Buy 2 or 4 pretty cardboard boxes from Tiimari for storing underwear in them

3. Have sushi with Alice

4. Invite the following people to housewarm my new place (no housewarming parties for everyone at once, thank you):

1. Julia
2. Yana
3. Dasha
4. Xenia
5. Natasha "Asha" Dozhdyeva
6. Katya "Paprika" Bumbiere
   

5. Meet up with Yana "Doku Neko" Dudenitch and give her a bag from my collection

6. Write to Olga "Oliva" Seredyuk an email on the same issue.

7. Have cafe' glaze' (coffee with Yelena Glazova)

8. Collect books to give away, make a list, post it on Live Journal

9. Have pizza with Alice

10. Get some new underwear

11. Get some new shirts to wear with skirts

12. Checkout the English bookstore in Old Riga I've been told about.

pms post

Things I find stupid: fat talk, diet sweets and trying to be proud of your body when you really feel insecure about it. Especially if it involves trashing skinny women.

I would rather be referred to as "plump" than "curvy" or "big". Salma Hayek is curvy. I'm plump. I can't say that i'm big either because I am only 5'4'' tall. My weight is within healthy limits, I can fit into M size skirts and dresses, so saying that I'm fat would be an exaggeration. Referring to my body as healthy-looking, though, would be another polite exaggeration, as I don't do sports. I don't like sports - I'm not proud of it, but I don't understand why I should make excuses why I don't jog or why I don't go to gym instead of just saying "I hate sports".

Sometimes (when the light is right or when I'm wearing tights) I find my body beautiful, sometimes not. I'm not proud of it because I can't say I put much effort in it, and I'm trying not to make a big deal out of it.

I can't say I have a strong position about the body image imposed on people by the media (I like looking at pictures of beautiful photoshopped girls, only if they aren't overphotoshopped - come on, who doesn't?), but I have a pretty strong position about the people who are angry at the media for "imposing" something on them. Admit it, people - you are angry at yourselves because you have troubles with independent thinking. Just like I am angry at myself now.

my new favorite band

Looks like I've got a new favorite band. The Killers make me breath go away. Almost literally.

Their vocalist has got a painfully sexy voice. Their lyrics are painfully sexy. Hell, Rufus Wainwright wrote a song about their vocalist, and Rufus is painfully, painfully sexy.

One Thing I Oddly Miss

Meeting a stranger at a party and talking my brains out with her/him.

I don't think it actually has ever happened to me. Except for a couple of birthday parties that I've been to when I was about 10 or so.

To Quote Sponge Bob Squarepants...

I am ugly and damn proud of it!

don't breathe that shit in

I am sitting here listening to Kimya Dawson. I so-o envy her right now.

I would be ridiculously happy if I could express my emotions just the way i want to at least in one single poem.

gee, look what i've found in my other blog

Here's a draft from last year that i found in my other blog:

"I guess it was about five years ago when I thought for the first time that February was the hardest month of the year.

Last year's February wasn't that bad because it was the first snowy month of the year and my inner Eskimo finally felt relieved after a most depressing December.

This year's February is true to its nature - tiresome, depressing, r e a l h e a v y.

I can't say I'm waiting for spring to come. I'm waiting for summer. I'm waiting for my city to turn green, for the cafes to open their balconies and for my sleeveless t-shirt to snug around me."

At least I can stop wondering about being so moody these days - February is coming.

Except that this year I don't want to wear any snug t-shirts. So far the summer i'm picturing is all about being boyish: loose jeans and shirts, hoodies, no fancy necklaces. Of course when the thermometer hits +25 C, i'll have to wear skirts and dresses anyway, but until then i'm looking to shopping for hoodies and t-shirts without ribbons or flowery patterns.

By the way, I have to lose about 13 pounds to feel comfortable, especially in boyish clothes. And metric system sucks because it makes losing weight in baby steps twice as hard.

xxx

One of the things my friend Lena enjoys doing on weekends is taking pictures of her girlfriends. She usually arrives at my place between noon and two p.m. with her camera and her big round foldable light-reflecting thing, drinks tea with me and eats something. Then we search for chairs and brooms to build a construction to support the big round foldable light-reflecting thing, I remove the big plant from between the sofa, the wall and the cupboard and place Lena instead of the plant. Then Lena places me between the sofa and the windowsill and orders me around.

This procedure usually results in about 5 photos, at least one of which is always great.

Our last photo shoot was very promising. I had my hair in a ponytail because I hadn’t washed for a couple of days, I was feeling ugly because I had at least three zits on my face, and we dropped one of the plants from the windowsill.

Anyway, this photo shoot turned out to be the best one so far. I look kind of thoughtful (concerned about my zits, which, of course, were magically healed by the power of Photoshop, and my dirty hair), and I love the dramatic parched lip.

Like here: