Andrea

So, there was this Italian guy who.. oh, snap. There still is this Italian guy who is hell of a cute and his name is.. wait for it! WAIT FOR IT! Andrea. I KNOW, right? Andrea? Who would name their son a girl's name?
But, as it happens Andrea is a male name in Italy, who knew?

So there's this cute hot tanned toned and dreamy Italian guy. And there's also this slightest problem. I know like three words in Italian and he knows right about one word in English. And so we can communicate through this only language we both know and it's body language. I know that he's slightly younger than me but who cares. After all, he's the cute hot tanned toned and dreamy and Italian guy. Don't we all just have this thing for Italian guys? and drummers.

We used to come to the beach at the same time as the day before, so that we don't lose track of each other I guess. And we always would go to the same beach, to the same spot day after day.
And we would just lie in the sun a few feet away from each other and occasionally shoot glances to see if the other one was looking. Sometimes he would come with his friends and show off a lot. He would dive into the waves and look at me after emerging from the sea, they would play football on the beach. Well, he got me at diving already, so..

There was one time when he came with this long-haired skinny friend. And I got all jealous. She was so tiny and all. He could've grabbed her, put her on his shoulder and taken anywhere at all. And I was really really jealous. I wouldn't even look in their direction when they were diving. Lol. But this one time there was a huge wave, and they both dived and then as the wave rolled back.. Well, this long-haired skinny chick appeared on the surface of the water and I could clearly see that she was a he. Literally, it was a guy friend all along. And Andrea didn't appear for a while. And then this friend of his started to panic: he would just madly look around and shout: Andrea.

And a second later I could see Andrea's smiling face right behind this friend of his. And we both laughed so hard, it was like a bonding moment for the two of us. And this friend looked at me and turned around and decided to drown Andrea in a boyish manner, you know. And I still laughed and laughed, as I was sooo relieved at that. But as I'm recollecting it all now, I come to think that maybe.. oh well, of course not, Andrea was not. I mean, he is not a gay. Right?

This one time they were playing football. There were like four or five of them, and I guess they were not actually playing football, they were just passing the ball around. And I was going for a dip. And my path went right through this circle of boys fooling around with a football. And then Andrea said the sweetest thing that a guy ever said in my presence. He said: Aspetta, aspetta! (Which means: Wait, wait!) And he addressed it to his fellow ball-kickers. Which means, he was concerned that this strange girl could be hit with a ball and he didn't want this girl (i.e. me) to get injured. How sweet is that?!

I could have dropped a casual: Scusate. (I'm sorry) For interrupting the game of course, but that thought only occurred to me when I was far in the sea, lying on my back and squinting my eyes against the bright blue sky.

I'm not a very fast thinker after all. Yes, I am still quick-witted.
But not fast at responding, I guess.

P.S. I wish I had pictures of him. Ugh.
P.P.S. I named my blue turtle Andrea after this Italian boy. Though I got him from the Isle of Wight, England.

Eat. Pray. Love and sunrise.

So, as I was finishing this book by Elizabeth Gilbert it was already well past midnight. And I wanted to watch the movie after reading the book.

Then I was watching and liveblogging on my twitter account. The dawn was near and I decided to go on a bicycle ride so that I could watch the sun rise and meditate a bit. I paused the movie and while I was getting ready to go it suddenly occurred to me that it's been raining for almost a week now and I couldn't possibly see the sun rise as the whole sky would be covered with clouds the colour of Abdel Kerim's beard (it's #cdcdcd folks! I can't believe you didn't know.) But I went there anyways. I took the longest way but it also was more comfortable.

At one point I was passing by stray dogs, there were four or five of them. I hate passing by these dogs because there's this one chance out of 100 that they won't chase you, bark at you loudly and try to bite you by the ankle. As you can guess, this wasn't that one chance. I got really scared and shouted aloud. Out of fear or out of desire to scare the dogs off, I can't really tell. But I guess I have woken up the whole neighbourhood with that. The only thing you can really do to avoid dog bites is speed up and try not to be frightened to stay concentrated.

After that there was one encounter with an amiable plump man. He had this bright orange vest of a railroad worker on and he wore a huge moustache. He smiled at me as he was getting in his car and said: "The best means of transportation". All I had to do was smile and say: "Indeed". And then I thought, maybe it's quite a good morning after all. I had a box of chocolate and my hot-pink nails, right?

Then I had to walk a lot in damp grass because I'm short-sighted and perspective can play tricks on people like me and my light sneakers became all wet from the dew (or the raindrops, I'm not sure). =)

I reached this high towers (I have visited them last year, in September), locked the bike and got up the stairs rather quickly. The towers are almost 20 meters high. At first I just sat there watching the eastern part of the sky but it was not any different from any other part. I had a couple of chocolates and some water and lay back, watching the clouds. That was so boring, I almost fell asleep. After quite a while I was so bored I needed something, anything, to do. I got up and warmed up and stretched up a bit. Then I noticed (oh, wow! where have my eyes been all this time?) this long pipe that is sort of connecting the two towers. I'll show some pics from 2009.

These are the towers and the staircase is between them. You can see the pipe right up there, in the middle.

Here's the pipe as seen from the top of the right-hand tower.

And here's the same pipe as seen from the left-hand tower.

You can also see that there's this narrow staircase landing right under the pipe. So basically, this pipe is about 20 meters high above the ground and there are a lot of metal details right under it. And I had this dumbest idea of walking on the pipe, from one tower to the other. And I did. Halfway across the distance I lost my balance and.. oops. no, I didn't fall all the way down. I clumsily sat on the pipe and held on to it. And I could see the pink plastic bag fly down from the top of the tower, caught in the wind. I carried my chocolate and water in it and now it was gone.

I was so scared again! Scared as I was I tried to cross the distance one more time. Successfully this time. And as I reached the other tower I just grabbed the railings and stood there for a while, with my legs shaking. I collected my belongings and descended the stairs and rode home.

So the results are as follows:

a) my stomach is aching, because basically it's not the very best idea to have chocolate and water for breakfast.
b) my back aches because I didn't have enough clothes on to prevent it from freezing on that rooftop after getting all sweaty after riding.
c) my butt aches. 'Nuff said.
d) I could've stayed in my room with the blinds shut and I would've seen exactly as much of a sunrise as I saw sitting on that rooftop and freezing my butt off.
But all in all, I came to overcoming (no pun intended) some of my fear and that's pretty cool, I guess.

my tribute to Andy Warhole

I was never very much interested in Andy Warhol and his work. But his pop-art works always caught my eye. I mean, how can this NOT catch your eye?

So yesterday I googled a photoshop tutorial for creating this Andy-Warhol-effect pictures. I used this one, as its first step is observing and analyzing Andy's works. And I had to work hard on learning how to use Pen Tool. I've never used it before and I didn't like it, it wouldn't obey me. This time it actually was mighty hard, but I did my best. So..

Here's what I got as a result.

Now as I compare my picture to Marilyn Monroe's I see that I could've hushed the colours. Anyways.
Let's say I'll do it better next time. I like the result as it is.

Strangest day

My grandpa's brother died today. He's in Armenia. This news found me at work and I was headed for our HR office with the new girl and stopped half-way along the corridor and started weeping, while talking on the mobile with a relative who thought it appropriate to deliver such news at the beginning of my work day.

I really love this grandfather of mine. He somehow always appeared more caring to me than my own grandpa, his brother. I never really was very close to him. We visited him occasionally during summer trips to Armenia. And I last saw him a year and a month ago. He always looked the same to me. Perhaps I just noticed that he moved and reacted slower and he looked really old. But since I've always considered him old I never fully realized that he was old and was getting even older.

My very first memory of him (which can't be really a memory because I only know this thanks to my mom) is that once we have been at my grandpa's and grandpa was doing some work in the front yard. And then this late grandfather was there, sitting in the shadow of vine. And I ran out of the house straight to grandpa, and asked something or said something. And then grandfather made a comment. And I swung around and stared at him and asked: Who is this grandfather?

And that has become a family joke. Everyone uses this formula to ask about things and mock me.

And now this grandfather has passed on. And I hope he is in a better world now. In his own personal heaven.

So this new girl at my work (who witnessed my tears) is to take my place because I am quitting. And I asked her to come and have an interview with my boss. After I had talked to him yesterday and said that I needed to leave the job, it made me too tired. And he had agreed to talk to this girl.

I have talked to her on the phone for a couple of times. And she has the sweetest of voices. And today while I was waiting for her to arrive for the interview (she came 20 minutes earlier!) I was hoping beyond hope that's she'd be pretty at least. When she entered my office, I knew she was the perfect thing for this position. She's really cute, very good-looking, young and fresh. And besides that, she has special training for the job, unlike me. I am trained to teach and that's what I'll be doing for these couple of days. Showing her around and making her familiar with the peculiarities of the position.

After that I was just goofing around, surfing the interntes. I read this whole journal thing called 100 days of Harry Potter. Then I got links to The Harry Potter Companion and this essay on Fred and George in particular, which is called Not just Fredandgeorge. And in the comments to the essay I got the name of a really good fanfic about the Weasley twins - Long-Distance Extendable Ears. (google it and read it).

I was reading Elizabeth Gilbert's 'Eat. Pray. Love' for a couple of days now but I only got to liking it today and couldn't put the book down. I enjoy it a lot. And for her fans information, Elizabeth needs a better website than this (I googled her to see what she looks like and came to that bright yellow-orange web-page, my eyes still burn =) )

When I came home tonight, I needed to go buy some personal stuff and as it was raining (and it still is) I literally made myself go out - with my rainbow umbrella ofc. I also bought 3 Ikea candles in lowball tumbler glasses. The scents are vanilla, caramel and chocolate. I love them all! They are like the three of us girls. Me being the caramel scent, and the two of my best friends being opposites of each other: sweet and light vanilla and dense and deep chocolate.

On my way home I was reading and then suddenly I looked up and saw a beautiful double rainbow. I just stepped into a water puddle and froze. The sight was mesmerizing. I couldn't make a picture on my cameraphone. It just wouldn't respond to the button-pressing. And I didn't get back outside with my dslr because I had to make food.

This ends this strange day.
I hope I'll be able to wake up early tomorrow. I plan on waking up at 6am when I quit my job finally later this week.

Memories

Memories by asatrian featuring umbrellas