a life of saturdays.

[alifeofsaturdays]

HOW TO STOP CARING SO MUCH: Start off by caring a lot. Put a great deal of time and energy into your appearance. Change outfits five times just to go to the deli. Second guess every statement you make and take back an opinion if someone disagrees with it. Put all of your self-worth into others. Give your self-esteem to your significant other and pray they don’t destroy it. They will. They did. You felt like you didn’t have a choice. Get stressed out about the pile of dishes, if someone doesn’t text you back or respond to your message on Facebook. See everything as an opportunity for being disappointed or rejected. Spend most of your time thinking about how others will perceive your actions. Aren’t you exhausted? The war you’re in to love yourself is a war you cannot win. Then one day, as if by magic, just stop. Stop caring. Something inside of you has snapped. Caring that much about everything sucked you dry and left you for dead. You’re ready to feel alive again. Dump your significant other on the telephone and watch them try to manipulate you and dangle your self-worth in front of your face. “Look what I still have of yours? You can’t leave me. I have everything.” No sir, you’re sadly mistaken. You don’t have crap. Leave your apartment looking terrible. Walk to the deli and see your usual deli guy’s eyes start to widen at your disheveled appearance. This would’ve horrified you yesterday but today it makes you smile. You’ve decided that everything that made you worry will now make you smile. Walk with better posture. Order two helpings of dessert. Ask someone to take you to a doctor’s appointment and refuse to feel guilty about it. You would do the same for them so why should you feel like you’re putting anyone out? Stand by your opinion that The Shins are a good band even when you’re friends give you hell over it. This is thrilling. Openly loving The Shins has never felt so liberating. Tell your father he’s a jerk because he is. Tell your mother that you love her because you do. Don’t tell anyone that you love them if it’s not true, if they don’t deserve it. It’s a privilege to be loved by you. Your emotional slutty days are effectively over. Think about all the clothes you lent out to friends and never got back. Think about all the times you put in extra for lunch because everyone knew they could get away with paying less. No one’s getting away with anything anymore. You’ll see to that. Of course this is never quite how it happens. Change doesn’t necessarily happen overnight. The boy doesn’t go to sleep worrying and then wake up not giving a crap. It would be convenient if all of our major growth occurred in our sleep though. But there are ways to care less and to just be who you are. Being who you are doesn’t mean suddenly becoming a giant jerk to everyone you know but it does mean surrounding yourself with people who love you and weeding out the parasites. Caring about things that ultimately don’t matter feels like eating ten servings of pasta at a buffet. It weighs you down. Eventually your body will start to reject it and you’ll vomit it back up, feeling so free and relieved afterwards. Yes, I just compared having self-esteem to bulimia. I don’t care. Get it?! Got it.

Ryan O'Connell for Thought Catalog

[alifeofsaturdays]

The people here are so insanely psyched to be from Naples, and why shouldn't they be? This is a city that gave the word pizza and ice cream. The Neapolitan women in particular are such a gang of tough-voiced, loud-mouthed, generous, nosy dames, all bossy and annoyed and right up in your face and just trying to friggin' help you for chrissake, you dope - why they gotta do everything around here? The accent in Naples is like a friendly cuff on the ear. It's like walking through a city of short-order cooks, everybody hollering at the same time. They still have their own dialect here, and an ever-changing liquid dictionary of local slang, but somehow I find that the Neapolitans are the easiest people for me to understand in Italy. Why? Because they want you to understand, damn it. They talk loud and emphatically, and if you can't understand what they're actually saying out of their mouths, you can usually pick up the inference from the gesture. Like that punk little grammar-school girl on the back of her older cousin's motorbike, who flipped me the finger and a charming smile as she drove by, just to make me understand, "Hey, no hard feelings, lady. But I'm only seven, and I can already tell you're a complete moron, but that's cool - I think you're halfway OK despite yourself and I kinda like your dumb-ass face. We both know you would love to be me, but sorry - you can't. Anyhow, here's my middle finger, enjoy your stay in Naples, and ciao!".

Eat, Pray, Love

[alifeofsaturdays]

Truthfully, I'm not the best traveler in the world. I know this because I've traveled a lot and I've met people who are great at it. Real naturals. I've met travelers who are so physically sturdy they could drink a shoebox of water from a Calcutta gutter and never get sick. People who can pick up new languages where others of us might only pick up infectious diseases. People who know how to stand down a threatening border guard or cajole an uncooperative bureaucrat at the visa office. People who are the right height and complexion that they kind of look halfway normal wherever they go - in Turkey they just might be Turks, in Mexico they are suddenly Mexican, in Spain they could be mistaken for a Basque, in Northern Africa they can sometimes pass for Arab... I don't have these qualities. First off, I don't blend. Tall and blond and pink-complexioned, I am less a chameleon than a flamingo. Everywhere I go but Dusseldorf, I stand out garishly. When I was in China, women used to come up to me on the street and point me out to their children as though I were some escaped zoo animal. And their children - who had never seen anything quite like this pink-faced yellow-headed phantom person - would often burst into tears at the sight of me. I really hated that about China. I'm bad (or, rather, lazy) at researching a place before I travel, tending just to show up and see what happens. When you travel this way, what typically "happens" is that you end up spending a lot of your time standing in the middle of the train station feeling confused, or dropping way too much money on hotels because you don't know better. My shaky sense pf direction and geography means I have explored six continents in my life with only the vaguest idea of where I am at any given time. Aside from my cockeyed internal compass, I also have a shortage of personal coolness, which can be a liability in travel. I have never learned how to arrange my face into that blank expression of competent invisibility that is so useful when traveling in dangerous, foreign places. You know - that super-relaxed, totally-in-charge expression which makes you look like you belong there, anywhere, everywhere, even in the middle of a riot in Jakarta. Oh, no. When I don't know what I'm doing, I look like I don't know what I'm doing. When I'm excited or nervous, I look excited or nervous. And when I am lost, which is frequently, I look lost. My face is a transparent transmitter of my every thought. As David once put it, "You have the opposite of poker face. You have, like... miniature golf face." And, oh, the woes that traveling has inflicted on my digestive tract! I don't really want to open that (forgive the expression) can of worms, but suffice it to say I've experience every extreme of digestive emergency. In Lebanon I became so explosively ill one night that I could only imagine I'd somehow contracted a Middle Eastern version of the Ebola virus. In Hungary, I suffered from an entirely different kind of bowel affliction, which changed forever the way I feel about the term "Soviet Bloc". But I have other bodily weaknesses, too. My back gave out on my first day traveling in Africa, I was the only member of my party to emerge from the jungles of Venezuela with infected spider bites, and I ask you - I beg of you! - who gets sunburned in Stockholm?

Eat, Pray, Love

[alifeofsaturdays]

Άμα μεγαλώσω, θα γίνω ταξιθέτρια!

Πριν καμιά βδομάδα, πήγα στο θέατρο, στο Κολοσσαίον συγκεκριμένα, για να δω το Σλουθ (πολύ ωραίο ήταν, όσοι δεν το είδατε χάσατε, ήταν τελευταίες παραστάσεις το προηγούμενο Σαββατοκύριακο).

Εκεί τα πράγματα ήταν όπως είναι πάντα στο θέατρο - τίποτα διαφορετικό ή αξιοπερίεργο. Με το που πατήσαμε το πόδι μας κάτω από το κατώφλι της πόρτας της αίθουσας, μας άρπαξε μία κοπέλα τα εισιτήρια για να μας καθοδηγήσει στη θέση μας. Μας πήγε ως εκεί που κι εμείς ξέραμε ότι καθόμασταν, μας υπέδειξε να κάτσουμε και μετά περίμενε χαμογελώντας - και απλώνοντας το χέρι. Ο μπαμπάς μου που ήταν μαζί της έδωσε κάτι (νομίζω 1,5 ευρώ - άπειρο ποσό κατά τη γνώμη μου σε συνάρτηση με το πόση κούραση και φαιά ουσία απαιτούσε αυτό το μισό λεπτό που μας εξυπηρέτησε).

Εγώ αμέσως - ως γνωστή εκνευριστικιά που είμαι και τα σκέφτομαι όλα μέχρι αηδίας - αντέδρασα και άρχισα να αναπτύσσω στον μπαμπά μου τις θεωρίες μου και ότι δεν έπρεπε να συμβιβαστεί με αυτό που τον αναγκάζουν να κάνει και τα λοιπά. Ισχυρίστηκα μάλιστα ότι εγώ αν ήμουν και καθόταν η ταξιθέτρια από πάνω μου και μου χαμογελούσε με την παλάμη να κοιτάει το ταβάνι, θα έκανα πως δεν καταλάβαινα. Για να αποφύγω μέχρι και αυτήν την άβολη στιγμή, θα έλεγα στην κοπέλα που θα πήγαινε να μου αρπάξει το εισητήριο ότι ξέρω πού κάθομαι και ότι έχω ήδη καταλάβει την μαθηματική ακολουθία στις σειρές και στα καθίσματα του θεάτρου, έτσι ώστε να είμαι σε θέση να προσδιορίσω με ακρίβεια τη θέση μου.

Στη συνέχεια, όμως, άρχισα να παρατηρώ τον κόσμο. Απ' ότι φάνηκε, πολλοί είχαν την ίδια αυτοπεποίθηση και τσαμπουκά με εμένα. Παρατήρησα κόσμο να μπαίνει μέσα με φόρα και να λέει "ξέρω, ξέρω που κάθομαι" στην ταξιθέτρια που πασχίζει να τον προλάβει και αυτή να τον σταματάει και να λέει "αφήστε με να δω ένα λεπτό, μη γίνει κανένα λάθος". Είδα επίσης κόσμο να κάνει την πάπια μόλις κάθεται και να κοιτάει από την άλλη, αγνοώντας επιδεικτικά την κοπελιά που περιμένει, και άκουσα αυτή να του λέει "κάτι για την ταξιθέτρια; εμείς ξέρετε δεν πληρωνόμαστε"..

Μα, λογικό να μην πληρώνεσαι. Αφού δεν κάνεις κάτι, δεν προσφέρεις κάποιο έργο. Ναι, βοηθάς, αλλά δε σου ζήτησε κανείς τη βοήθειά σου! Αν το θέατρο θέλει να παρέχει αυτήν την πολυτέλεια στους θεατές και σε πληρώνει, τότε μπράβο του, δικαίωμά του. Αλλά σε διαφορετική περίπτωση, πώς μπορείς να ζητάς χρήματα για κάτι που όλοι ξέρουμε πώς να κάνουμε και μάλιστα το κάνεις αντί για εμάς με το ζόρι; Και το τραγικό είναι ότι όντως βγάζεις χρήματα, γιατί όντως όλοι λένε "ε δε βαριέσαι" και σου δίνουν κάτι.

Με αφορμή λοιπόν αυτήν την εμπειρία επαγγελματικού προσανατολισμού, βρήκα άλλες καριέρες που μπορώ να ακολουθήσω, οι οποίες μάλιστα δεν έχουν ανακαλυφθεί ακόμη κι έτσι θα έχω όλους τους πελάτες για πάρτη μου:

Καριέρα Νο 1: Κάθομαι σε ένα πολυσύχναστο δρόμο - κατά προτίμηση στο κέντρο και με παρκόμετρο, καθώς σε αυτήν την περίπτωση και εναλλάσσεται ο κόσμος συχνά και είναι τσίμα τσίμα οι θέσεις πάρκινγκ. Εκεί λοιπόν, μόλις βλέπω κάποιον να πηγαίνει να παρκάρει, πηγαίνω δίπλα του και του λέω "έλα έλα έλα έλα, κόψ' το όλο δεξιά, έλα έλα έλα έλα έλα, ίσωσέ το, έλα έλα έλα, ώπα, λίγο αριστερά, έλα έλα, εντάξει είσαι" και μόλις ο άνθρωπος βγει γεμάτος ευγνωμοσύνη για την καλή μου διάθεση, του ζητάω και κάτι, λέγοντάς του μάλιστα ότι εγώ κάνω αυτή τη δουλειά εδώ πέρα χωρίς να πληρώνομαι από το Δήμο.

Καριέρα Νο 2: Κάθομαι σε ένα δρόμο με γρήγορη κυκλοφορία αυτοκινήτων και τουλάχιστον δύο ρεύματα, χωρίς φανάρι (διάβαση ας έχει, κανείς δεν της δίνει σημασία έτσι κι αλλιώς). Απαραίτητο να έχει στη μία από τις δύο πλευρές του πεζοδρομίου ΚΑΠΗ ή καφενείο με μέσο όρο ηλικίας πάνω από 70 και στην άλλη μεριά προαιρετικά εφημεριδοπώλη ή μπαρμπέρη - αν έχει και τα δύο ακόμα καλύτερα. Μόλις βλέπω ένα γεροντάκι να πηγαίνει να περάσει από τον μπαρμπέρη ξυρισμένος ξυρισμένος στον καφενέ για τον πρωινό του καφέ, τον πιάνω αλαμπρατσέτα και τον σέρνω απέναντι, αποφεύγοντας τα αυτοκίνητα όσο γίνεται, γιατί αλλιώς χάνουμε πελατεία. Μόλις φτάσουμε του ζητάω την αμοιβή μου με τον ίδιο τρόπο που τη ζήτησα από τον κύριο στην καριέρα Νο 1, μόνο που εδώ μπορώ να είμαι πιο καλόκαρδη και να δεχτώ να του κουβαλάω και τα ψώνια με μόνο μισό ευρώ παραπάνω. Τζάμπα πράμα.

Τέτοια πράγματα σκέφτομαι λοιπόν, ειδικά τώρα που έρχεται η εξεταστική μου και έχει ήδη έρθει η μεγάλη κρίση (σε όλους τους τομείς) και δεν τα βλέπω καθόλου καλά τα πράγματα. Αν όλα αποτύχουν, μπορείτε να έρθετε να δουλέψετε μαζί μου. Δεν υπάρχει πρόβλημα, τη μοιρασιά στους δρόμους θα την κάνουμε, θα τα βολέψουμε. :)

[alifeofsaturdays]

one more time.

When I am being introduced to new people,

I get so stressed about saying my name right

that I don’t listen to their names,

and afterwards I realise

I don’t remember any of the names I just heard,

but I find it too embarassing to ask them to repeat them so soon after we just introduced,

so I never really get to know the names of the new people I meet

- until they add me on facebook.

:P

[alifeofsaturdays]

η αγάπη είναι μεγάλο πακέτο.

πρώτα σε πιάνει στη φάκα, μετά σ' αφήνει μαλάκα και σου λέει "άντε γεια".

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Love is a bitch.

That's a sure thing.

It manages to trick you into falling for the same stuff again and again. It is really successful in this, and even the smartest people, the most experienced, can't beat this capability.

There has been a time in everyone's life when they thought that it is far better to live without love. That love creates mostly problems and the world would be a better place and everybody would be much more joyful if this feeling didn't exist.

But then the bitch starts coming towards you again, you see her but you can't recognize her, because she is disguised as an extraordinarily cute little fairy; you can't help yourself but fancy her. She does tell you she is love, but you are about to believe in a miracle: this time love looks really comfortable to be around, really lovely and harmless.

She is asking about you, she is understanding, she is caring, but all she really does is make sure you are ready to fall once more. Once she realizes that you are almost baited, almost caught like a little fish in the net, once you make the mistake of not resisting and fighting back, once you accidentally lose your self-control in front of her, it's the beginning of the end.

She starts telling you to follow your heart, to not be afraid, to let yourself free.. And you decide to do it, and you actually see there's nothing bad about it. This time everything goes right, and you are feeling happy. You are feeling complete.

You let yourself fall deeper into this shit. But you don't care. You feel you can fall and hit the bottom, it's okay. Because nothing can go wrong.

You are getting mad at yourself for not trusting in love in the first place, and at the same time you are feeling so lucky that love has proven it's splendor just at the time you were giving up!

You almost think you found the meaning of life. What else could you possibly ask for? Your life is finally like it's meant to be, everything makes sense, everything feels right.

And it's exactly then - when you least expect it, when everything seems so certain - that the bitch makes her strong reappearance. She comes from your back to your ear, an annoying little fly, and distracts you. She tells you little words that hurt, little lies, she yells in your ear and you get upset. But you are so happy that this is simply annoying, so you move your head right and left, up and down, move your arms around, send the fly away. You assume that this was just a random fact, and you continue with your happy life.

Then, one night that you are not feeling so well, she timidly approaches again, a little bee in your house. You try to open the window for her to go away, but instead more bees are coming in. They start whispering in your ears, telling you that things are not like you think, perhaps you should reconsider, creating problems, turning day into night and white into black. You are trying not to listen to them, but they get frustrated and start stinging you, first gently, but as time passes by, they are stinging more and more, all over your body. It is turning into a torture, and you don't know what to do. You are trying to find a way out of this, because this is really wrong, there should be a solution, there must be something you can do. The bees leave you stung and alone in your dark house.

One of the following days, while you are sitting alone, drinking your morning coffee and thinking that things may not be as bad as they seem, here she comes again, dressed like a girl your age, like a friend. Her head is turned to the floor. She can't even look you in the eye. When you ask what's wrong, she tells you that she made a horrible mistake. This was not the right one for you, she must have gotten confused with so many pairs. You can't believe it, you are saying that this can't be true, you felt it, everything was so right. With tears in her eyes, she holds your hand and says she is sorry once more, but she can't be wrong. She is asking what she can do for you.

You yell and stand up and tell her to never come near you again. You've had enough of her stupid little games! You have decided - for real this time - that you will have nothing to do with these stuff anymore. You can live without her, and life can indeed be better like that..

..and the story repeats itself.

[alifeofsaturdays]

ένα ελληνικό ποστ.

ΣΑΝ ΧΑΖΟΙ όλοι εμείς - σαφέστατα συγκαταλέγω και τον εαυτό μου - οι δήθεν ιντερνάσιοναλ τύποι, δε θέλουμε να περιορίσουμε το αναγνωστικό μας κοινό, λες και ποιος θα μας διαβάσει πια, δεν είμαστε και Περέζ Χίλτον (δεν έχω διαβάζει ποτέ παρεμπιπτόντως, αλλά αφού γράψω αυτό το ποστ θα το κάνω), γράφουμε στα αγγλικά - παγκοσμίως αποδεκτή γλώσσα καθώς - και ανάθεμα αν καταλαβαίνουμε κι εμείς οι ίδιοι τι θέλαμε να πούμε, τι είπαμε και τι εννοούσαμε - και αν κατάλαβε και τίποτα κανείς από τους υπόλοιπους ιντερνάσιοναλ-αναγνώστες μας.

Προσωπικά, είμαι ένα από τα θύματα αυτού του ιντερνασιοναλισμού, καθώς κοντεύω να ξεχάσω την ίδια μου τη γλώσσα, ενώ μένω στην ίδια μου τη χώρα.

Ο λόγος;

Κακά τα ψέμματα, διάψευσέ με αν τολμάς, αλλά όποιος γράφει κάτι οπουδήποτε έχει στην άκρη του μυαλού του ποιος ή ποιοι θέλει να το διαβάσουν. Μη σου πω στο κέντρο του μυαλού του, για να μην υπερβάλω και πω ότι όλα όσα γράφει -ακόμα και το ότι κάθησε να γράψει κάτι - περιστρέφονται γύρω από αυτό.

Έτσι κι εγώ. Δε θα πω ότι το μοναδικό άτομο που θέλω να διαβάζει αυτά που γράφω δε μιλάει ελληνικά. Απλώς τα άτομα που έχω στο μυαλό μου - και εδώ που τα λέμε πάνω κάτω όλοι - ξέρουν και αγγλικά.

Αποφάσισα όμως ότι σαν την πανέμορφη γλωσσίτσα μου δεν έχει - ω ναι! - και τέτοια άνεση στην έκφραση όσα χρόνια κι αν περάσουν καμία άλλη γλώσσα δε θα μου τη δώσει.

Αγαπάω ελληνικά και θα το δείχνω με τα ποστς μου!

* ε και κανένα αγγλικό αν πετάξω μη βαράτε κιόλας.

[alifeofsaturdays]

From where I'm looking

- and I'm looking towards the future, but the near one -

there seems to be no more Saturdays left.

[alifeofsaturdays]

[sir-bro-deactivated20180411]

[alifeofsaturdays]

why don't you people understand this? :)

[sir-bro-deactivated20180411]

[alifeofsaturdays]

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥΓΕΝΝΑ, ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥΓΕΝΝΑ ΕΥΤΥΧΙΣΜΕΝΑ.

μ

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μακάρ

ονα.κουρ

αμπιέδες.έλ

ατα.γκι.ου.δώρ

α.άγιοιΒΑΣΙΛΗΔΕς

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ωτικά.κάρτες.ψώνια.κό

σμος.αργίες.αγορά

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ωλητές.ταβέρνες.γαλοπού

λες.κρέαςΣΤΟφούρνο.τραπέζι

α.μεσημεριανά.βραδινά.καφέδες.μ

πότες.κασκόλ.σκουφιά.γάντια.φωτάκ

ια.αγγελούδια.φάτνες.γαϊδουράκια.Χριστ

οί.Παναγίες.Ιωσήφιδες.μάγοι.πρόβατα.κάλαν

τα.τρίγωνα.έξοδοι.θέατρα.σινεμά.πρω

τοχρονιά.βασιλόπιτες.φλουριά.κρασιά.σαμπ

άνιες.μπύρες.τύχη.γούρι.2009.2010.12τοΒΡΑΔΥ.

ξενύχτια.ξημερώματα.ξύπνημαΑΡΓΑ.ταινίες.εκπομπές.

μαραθώνιοι.φιλανθρωπίες.καλέςΠΡΑΞΕΙς.ταξίδια.αεροπλάν

α.τρένα.λεωφορεία.αυτοκίνητα.κίνηση.τροχονόμοι.ΣΚΟΥΦΑΚΙΑα

ηΒΑΣΙΛΗ.κερατάκιαΤΑΡΑΝΔΟΥ.μουσική.χορός.χαρά.μελαγχολία.καιΤ

ΟΥχρόνου.

[alifeofsaturdays]

Saturday, wait.

and Sunday always comes too late..

but Friday never hesitate!

[likeneelyohara]

[alifeofsaturdays]

true.:)

[likeneelyohara]

[alifeofsaturdays]

Christmas day to-do list:

0-2 years old: wake up, cry, drink milk, eat, sleep, wake up, cry, eat, drink milk, smile, laugh, cry, laugh, sleep, wake up, cry, drink milk, cry, drink more milk, cry, eat, cry, play, cry, put to sleep by force around 21:00.

3-6 years old: wake up, try to eat breakfast by self, fail, be fed breakfast, draw a Christmas tree, try to eat lunch by self, fail, be fed lunch, draw members of family with Santa, write letter to Santa, try to eat cereal by self, fail, be fed cereal, be read Christmas bedtime story to sleep, fall asleep around 23:00.

7-12 years old: wake up, eat breakfast with mom and dad, watch cartoons, play with new toys, eat turkey, eat chocolate cake, play with new toys, eat marshmallows, watch Home Alone I & II, get bored of new toys, ask for new ones, be yelled at and sent to bedroom, drink milk, sleep around 01:00.

13-20 years old: wake up, stay in bed and think of crush, get up, go to kitchen, fight with parents for the time of last night's arriving home, be yelled at because of eating breakfast just before lunch time, sit on the table where others eat turkey, find opportunity to at least drink a little wine during lunch, go to bedroom, speak on the phone, listen to Christmas songs to get in the mood, log in facebook, write a smart and melancholic Christmas status, post some emo Christmas pictures, get hungry, go to find something to eat in the fridge, fight with parents because of not doing anything all day, go back to bedroom to eat while watching American series on the computer, listen to music, lie on bed and read magazines, listen to more music, watch a couple movies, dream of next Christmas being better, sleep around 03:00.

21 years old: wake up around 13:00, make a toast for breakfast, eat it while drinking coffee, study Spanish, drink more coffee, study physics, think that it's so unfair that exams are so close to Christmas while drinking coffee, watch Greek series on TV while drinking more coffee, eat fast-food for dinner, write on blog, chat online, write more on blog, chat more online, watch Christmas movie, watch another Christmas movie, study a bit more, chat a bit more online, watch a bit more crap on TV, sleep around 05:00.