Men that make me happy:

Mr Ferrero!

Aimee Mann @ Casa da musica

There she was.... In shorts (not her best look) but still pretty cool.... 2 guitars, one piano, one bass and the room guillermina suggia nearly full!

She didn't bring the forgotten arm, very few !$&!@! Smilers but played plenty of oldies (4th July, lost in space included), and many of her new album and her new band project "the both"

Finished with red vines and deathly as she had done in Lisbon some years ago... And after clapping,  composing myself from the intensity of the songs, I stood up and ... walked home!
Making it all seem so simple...

A wonderful concert and a walk home.

Over 10 years have gone by...

Em Outubro de 2003 licenciei-me. Defendi a tese, esperei pela nota no corredor do pre-fabricado e ouvi com satisfacao o resultado - correu-me bem! Nesse dia, cheguei a casa e aterrei com febre, faltando por isso ao curso de "trabalho em chocolate" que me lembrei de tirar na altura.

Passaram dez anos.... Em dez anos:

Tive um estagio, sete empregos, oito chefes; morei em sitios diversos, tres paise e oito sitios  chamei de casa; fui a concertos e a filmes sozinha e acompanhada; fiz muitas viagens (algumas delas foram a sitios beyond my wildest dreams) e aprendi a viajar sozinha; experimentei comidas que nem sabia que existiam; comecei a correr e ja corri em sitios tao diferentes como em francelos, debaixo da torre eiffel, numa encosta em Yaounde, em frente a casa branca, junto ao Thames, na muralha da china, num telhado em Taipei ou nas escadas do Rocky; aprendi a remar e remei em Franca e em philly; comecei a tocar piano; aprendi frances e fiquei fluente em Ingles; comprei um carro; fiz o mestrado; perdi alguns amigos mas ganhei outros; fui a muitos casamentos, alguns baptizados e um funeral; apaixonei-me tantas vezes quantas o meu cerebro deixou; estive em festas em genebra, pavullo, Baden-Baden, Oslo, New Delhi, Davos, Bangkok, Beijing, Puerto Vallarta, Cape Town, NYC, Kingston, Praia, Aman e Kananaskis; tomei vacinas estranhas e fiquei doente em quartos de hotel; fiz apresentacoes e entrevistas em portugues, ingles e frances; fui a maior feira de agricultura de Paris e acabei a comer bolinhos de bacalhau e a beber Compal; aprendi a esquiar e desisti ao quinto Inverno; voltei a andar de patins em linha e passei algumas horas a fazer snowshoeing; fui parar a dormitorios, partilhei o meu quarto e ate a minha cama; descobri a big bang theory; perdi apostas; vi o f c Porto ganhar algumas vezes; passei alguns S. Joao no Porto mas outros nao...; falhei aniversarios da matilde; aprendi a cozinhar (ainda que raramente o faca); fiz pilates, spinning, step, cardio-boxe, zumba, yoga e ate umas aulas de classico - aceitei que nao sou a mesma e por isso o prazer retirado tambem nao; descobri o mundo dos spas, das termas, das massagens e das manicures; descobri o martini bianco e depois o rum (ou Tera sido primeiro o rum?)...

Enchi-me de memorias.... Algumas boas, outras muito boas e outras verdadeiramente miseraveis... Foram dez anos cheios de tudo... Real life has truly exceeded my expectations!

The "by the way generation"

Last week in a dinner with friends the consensus was we were the "BTW generation... "

"By the way I am moving to another country, by the way we are separated, by the way they got married, by the way she is pregnant, by the way i am at home with a broken bone, by the way i have already moved to another country," etc...

Guilty as charged, we all smiled and toasted to the comfortable us!

On living abroad and being an ex-pat by Chelsea Fagan

"It’s hard to deny that the act of living in another country, in another language, fundamentally changes you. 

(...)
But there are the fears. And yes, life has gone on without you. And the longer you stay in your new home, the more profound those changes will become. Holidays, birthdays, weddings — every event that you miss suddenly becomes a tick mark on an endless ream of paper. One day, you simply look back and realize that so much has happened in your absence, that so much has changed. You find it harder and harder to start conversations with people who used to be some of your best friends, and in-jokes become increasingly foreign — you have become an outsider.
(...)

So you look at your life, and the two countries that hold it, and realize that you are now two distinct people. As much as your countries represent and fulfill different parts of you and what you enjoy about life, as much as you have formed unbreakable bonds with people you love in both places, as much as you feel truly at home in either one, so you are divided in two. For the rest of your life, or at least it feels this way, you will spend your time in one naggingly longing for the other, and waiting until you can get back for at least a few weeks and dive back into the person you were back there.
(...)

When you live abroad, you realize that, no matter where you are, you will always be an ex-pat. There will always be a part of you that is far away from its home and is lying dormant until it can breathe and live in full color back in the country where it belongs. To live in a new place is a beautiful, thrilling thing, and it can show you that you can be whoever you want — on your own terms. It can give you the gift of freedom, of new beginnings, of curiosity and excitement. But to start over, to get on that plane, doesn’t come without a price. You cannot be in two places at once, and from now on, you will always lay awake on certain nights and think of all the things you’re missing out on back home."

Cdgabinete: living abroad since 2004!
(yeap, that year in Lisbon counts like living abroad)

I'm longing for holidays....

photo by: cdgabinete, Pavullo, July 2011

Staple music

Ando seriamente a precisar de encontrar nova staple music!
A Aimmee, os cake, pearl jam/eddie, e mais uma mao cheia deles terao sempre um lugar central na minha biblioteca, mas quero encontrar algo novo... que eu queira ouvir no matter what, cujas letras sejam brilhantemente escritas, e cuja musica me active as partes certas do cerebro...
e nao!
Nem a adele, nem a lana d'el rei são a solução...