dear mr. anderson

[open letter to ian anderson of jethro tull]

if you should ever read this letter i will be a bit embarrassed, but it will mean i got somewhere.
i love summer. quite a random and commonplace thought to share, but bear with me. the realm of summer is one of terrifying unhingement from routine that forces me into all manner of epiphanies. so it is that i have been overflowing with hopeful and ardent creativity lately. i've felt my brain expand into accepting the idea that i can come to read musical notes and wield the classical guitar to places uncharted.
i called my boyfriend the other day, to speak of my numberless new ideas, of how i want to write a song structured like a catholic psalm, of how i'd like to play with classical pieces even though jethro tull's done it before. he let out a chuckle that conveyed matter-of-fact amusemet at a recollection he seemed to take for granted. at your 2007 sibiu gig, he told me, you referred to those works as porno jazz. yay, funny. since i've made a vow to keep the levels of drama-queening and self-deprecation down for this blog, i'll just say at the time, by my own bloody hand, i was pining away penniless, pressed, and without serotonin, in the desolate arms of my life's very worst summer ever. and thus missed said gig. the memory, or lack thereof, since i wasn't there, hit me so hard i cried. especially as i realized that back then i wasn't even fully aware of your music's boundless gracefulness, complexity, effervescence... nah, bleedin' coolness best describes it, i believe.
so here i am, searching my musical soul and finding that if i had to choose one and only one musician in this world i'd want to be like, it would be you, mr. anderson.
please swear to me you will stay in shape, stick with the band and come back to romania so i can attend your gig, meet you and perform with you. [yeah, swear to me!]

thank you for your time.
your schizophrenic disciple,
leechu

hello goodbye

i'm back from the seaside. i got more than the mind cleansing lolling i'd bargained for, yet i don't have much to say. even typing feels strange. i'm like a little alien dropped here accidentally. bucharest, my neighbourhood, my room - all that makes up this manhole that has kept me boxed for a bitter long year now looks different, new, beautiful. it's a matter of time till my compulsions resume chewing me up. i've already abused my mp3 player and the swinger and i'm blogging. but tonight i'm off to my bf's for some sandless fun and tomorrow i'm leaving town again. you know, i shun fancy things like electricity.

upon the jagged shore
beneath the burning sun
we spend ourselves intending many puns

academia blues

i've finally, finally, finally put together a number of songs i'll start recording soon, if that bitch self-love gives me some of that good ol' you-can-do-it. i might even make a self-released first record that will one day become a sought-after fan item - kitchenware instrumentation, hand painted cardboard sleeves, you know the drill. and for the heck of it, i've made a small folkish intro song to the bunch, called folktales.

which playfully disclaims the truth value of my songs in relation to my experience. whence i developed a theory. god, i miss school so much. i miss forcing myself to read a required minimum of literature and then teeming with ideas for essays i'll never write. i miss my theories. my kooky, rewarding, way-too-beautiful-to-be-disproved theories. my literary, linguistic, cultural revelations. i miss being radiant from the light of them. asking questions and giving answers in class. i kick and curse at the thought of you, but academia - we're not done, so sweetly not done. ok, that's not the theory.

theory: songwriting as the eventual printing of folktales - stories of past experience, orally transmitted from one former self to the next and thus altered inestimably before they're recorded. [woot, schizophrenia!]

no problem, you can write a song right in the middle of the life-changing hangover, fight, sex, epiphany, whatnot. but where i come from, that'll be a bad song.

i must show gratitude beyond my beloved words to mr. [not that] james brown the teacher, coolest foreign man ever to call romania home, for the course on english and scottish ballads that has:

• opened my eyes to folklore [of other countries and my own];
• narrowed down the meaning of folk;
  
• bettered my understanding of song;
• acquainted me with inspiring stories only rivalled by the bible and shakespeare;
• thus strengthened my belief in metaphor [and showed me the metaphoric potential of a narrative];
  
• expanded the horizons of my songwriting, creativity and intellect altogether;
• made sense [a rare commodity in undergrad education];
  
• been lots of fun.
  

hey, where was i when they were filling in those evaluation sheets?!

oh, academia...

graphorrhea

i've conceded a so-called opening week of rampant blogging to my graphorrhea. i've little reason to believe it's been appeased, but the time has come to channel it for the greater good, knuckle down and start doing those chores i've been so funny and witty about shirking. i'm drawing dangerously close to a spell of unfunny and witless depression. self-love is one moody high maintenance bitch. i put her needs above mine or she walks.

fun and games

why do we take it for granted that these two go together?

today, my guy had some friends over to play d&d. a geeky good time i had to decline in favour of chores i also then declined. at some point i called him. seeing as i could barely operate the new phone i'd just got, i found myself uhm-ing and erm-ing at a bunch of giggling people. then i found myself poking fairly witty fun at them and myself. i got out of it unruffled and well pleased that i was quick enough. but ultimately, it evoked the terror i used to feel towards games as a child.

i watched jeux d'enfants the other night [strange coincidence]. the narrator lists a few staple games in the beginning. none of which i played much in my junior years. i did have a penchant for snakes and ladders - you roll the dice and move the pawn accordingly, yup. and scrabble [for the love of words, indulge me a little non-lameness]. but that's it. card games? i'll never learn the rules to whist. computer games? mortal kombat, baby: kick, kick, more of that kick. sports? love swimming.

come adolescence and young adulthood, this translated into painfully bad flirting and poor people skills. which, to salvage whatever pride i had left, i chalked up to a "no games philosophy on life". hitting on someone, for instance, requires a kind of doublethink i despise [and causes adrenaline rushes i can't bear]. i just wanna tell it like it is [except that too causes adrenaline rushes i can't bear]. yet today, with the remembrance of terror came another memory - one i'd fed, like many others, naughty or nice, to my ogreish subconscious lest it swallow the whole of me. a memory now half-digested in its unrelinquishing bowels: when i actually bothered to try playing a game, sometimes i got it right. delightfully so. some ten years back, at a seaside bowling club, my baby bro and i finished a simpsons console game, with the aid of a one-time friend we'd co-opted for the specific purpose of giving it to mr. burns and his evil balloon. hell yeah. but this dirty old cliché "game of life"... i just don't know.

so ok. children play games to develop skills they'll need as adults. adults use those skills to compete for sexual, social, and professional gratification, all while exchanging sarcastic lines; and call it a game. that much i follow. still i need solid proof, other than my own constant stage fright, that games are indispensable to human existence. and then i will try. please.

...

minutes later, on that very same new phone i can barely operate, i'm lost in a frenzy of snake ex2, level 7, extreme mode. quick enough and well pleased. i mean, any day now i might need to know how to slither my way fast to some darned elusive eggs. ow, that sounded wrong.

sailor chibi-dork

i promise i tried to help it for obvious reasons.

• this blog is for pretending i have a life and looking cool.
• one day people will be reading this stuff. one day i will have fans.
  
• if i write too much at first it'll be depressing when the posting grows sparser.
  
• i'm mature enough to be comfortable with my love for sailor moon [not anime in general], but there are limits.
• deluded bag of nonsense, sprinkle with futility and serve hot.

so here. me in future japan gig outfit. i said gig outfit. exquisitely tailored too, not all poofy and grotesque. let this much be clear: i loathe anime cosplay. they have it all wrong. as a kid, i used to cry at night because i had no place in the fleshless, tantalizing, excruciatingly beautiful visual realm of sailor moon. dressing up as a sailor senshi doesn't make you one. nor does it make you 2d. i realized that early on. i realized the best i could do was hone my manga drawing skills ['cause bad fan art is blasphemy], learn japanese ['cause the way we all sang along to those intros in a made-up language cracks me up to this day], and grow up to be an anime creator myself. got the first two down cold. waiting to grow up.

disclaimer: haven't used paint since i was 12 and started feeling too old for it.

i tried not to be redundant with the hairstyle and colours, while staying true to the concept - as i've embraced it: the demure sparingness of the first series, not the baroque shit they contrived later on to sell more. tango shoes, slick. could've made a magic wand of that mic, though.

• my transformation: lovers' quarrel power, make up!
• my attack: self-indulgent princess music p.m.s. wail!
• upgrade i gain in my own special episode: boosting the attack with tobacco-induced hoarseness and bad breath

no introductions

i'm socially awkward and not good with names. especially my own. choosing one of three based on what kind of thing my first impression of you tells me we're likely to develop, saying it out loud without stuttering, and explaining its origin and/or pronunciation. why this, interesting that. repeating it. without stuttering. takes too long. and for picking the wrong name for a cherished-to-be autograph i'd almost end up not getting because of name-choice related cold feet, i may live to witness myself telling a couple of tired and embarrassed klaxons how it's actually a nickname. no wait, a stage name. better yet, how i'll be opening for them in say 2 years. oh also, that i write songs - how many really good ones have i? around 10 - and being looked at [by humblingly stern jamie - a tough pill he'd be to swallow without james' sugar *retarded screams of adoration*], rightfully too, like i'm a deluded bag of nonsense. and wishing i'd just said one instead. or none. or "i wanna have your babies". or "meow". or that i were dead. so i'd rather we did no introductions. but don't get me wrong. i do want to be friends.