About fricken time

I'd say it was about time to drop a line.


I just got home after the whole day spent visiting relatives, meeting friends, closing my bank accounts, getting stocked up on contacts and some shirts and stuff. Three coffees and three semi-meals later, I still feel like someone forgot to defragment me.


My mates keep asking me how I feel, my mum keeps making me more and more paranoid, and everyone seems to be really stressed about the whole thing.


No one's considering the me part in the equation. Okay, I'm being asked a lot of questions, but I'm also being blamed for tons. All of a sudden it's a problem that I can't meet everyone at once, it's unbelievable that I'm taking off for a short weekend on the coast, and I'm to be blamed for everything that's going wrong.


Everyone would like to spend some time with me, but when it doesn't work out, it's my fault. So, people are away all the time (everyone should lead their own lives anyway), but somehow I've turned out to be the bad guy.


My mum would like to spend some time with me, meaning we'll probably watch CSI or talk about what my plans are when I get there (like I have a clue). My parents spend a lot of time (especially during the warmer months) at their weekend house. I go and visit them when I can, because I have my stuff and they have their own anyway. But when they're around, I'm miraculously expected to sit with them all day long.


That means rolling my eyes to tons of really weird questions (Will you have a fridge there?), but at the same time acting like it's all OK and I'm not annoyed at all. That will be followed by dozens of worn out advice, blessings and what not.


It's weird how it turns out it's all about them, and not about me.


So, I'm taking off, I'll live thirteen thousand kilometres from the place I grew up in, it's me who's going to live way too far away from his friends and (at times smothering) family, but it's them who're having a hard time.


Sounds legit.

Family lunch

Since I went to spend the weekend with my mates in Slovenia, I had my birthday lunch with the family today. That means ten people, thee of those kids and all the rest feeling like kids.


If there was a competition about who is less serious in my family, I think the jury would have a hard time. My folks are naturally the serious ones, but there are moments when they flip out a bit as well.


Today before lunch, dad went to our neighbours' who celebrate the orthodox Easter. Even though he said they only had a drink, we all had the feeling it was more than just the one. He kept repeating some jokes and even stuff other said. Then he'd just start laughing and telling a joke, but he couldn't manage, so he'd finish the story with another word game or a worn out proverb or simply with something like wordgame, shmordgame.


Mum is a bit more subtle and only risks a potential situation like that on Christmas eve. Half a glass of red wine (or the blackberry wine we keep getting her) and she's off. Nevertheless, it's still funny to see them confused and surprised at how silly they all become.


The kids were the usual - wanting the same thing at the same time. When they're not doing anything together, they're great on their own, but as soon as someone sees someone else, all hell can break loose.


My mum made a nice cake I like and I even had the leftover candles (since there's three family birthdays before mine) and we successfully managed to take some photos, blow out the candles and even get a couple of birthday kisses from all three nieces...

Multiblogging

I have kind of mistreated this blog by writing more and more on my Croatian one, but that might change.


I initially started writing in English during my travels and then somehow kept it going that way. Probably because of a lot of my friends who live abroad and who I speak English with, but also because (truth be told) most of the people speak it anyway.


Some are too shy to leave comments or take the step of writing their own thoughts, but it's an exercise for me, especially now when I have to focus on my English skills even more.


The reason I started writing a bit more in Croatian is that barely visible line, so thin between the language and yet fiording (I just made that up) a giant gap between expressions.


Sometimes I just miss the little phrases I'm used to. Naturally, some phrases are just untranslatable. The swear words can't be respectively mirrored. Sometimes fuck just doesn't cut it.


And being that I'm supposed to move to Australia within the next couple of months, I started thinking that I should probably keep a thorough blog about it. Who knows, someone might even use the information.


On the other hand, I don't want to make a boring blog that deals with the immigration process and initial resident issues. I'd like to keep it simple and, as much as possible, fun to read. Well, at least not boring.


Then there's the problem of the readership - again. Who'll read the English blog? My family certainly won't. (Now that I think of it, I probably don't want them to read it either.)


As you can see, I can't really seem to make up my mind, but it'll probably end up being one blog I'll try to update as regularly as I can, but I'll add links to the other ones, just for the possibility that someone maybe wants to go back in time and read what I've been ranting about.


So, there you go - another pointless post. 1:0 for me.

Moving out, moving on...

So, I've been kicked out of my flat. By my father. Yes.


It's (obviously) been too long since we first started irritating the hell out of each other. It's only been this little game we play, about who would flip out the first and ruin all the fun for the other one.


Had the situation permitted sooner, I would've been out of this place ten years ago. The plan to live in separate flats in the same house obviously didn't have any positive future aspirations.


Not it's funny and I'm not sure whether to be laughing or bumming out.


It's been ages since I've been a bad son, but it's been way longer since he's been a lousy father. I won't start with the stories of my life and the words I've heard come out of his mouth during it either. But for the observer, we're a nice little cozy happy family. Picket fences and all. Everyone knows it's not like that, but everyone believes it.


Being a good boy since I was a kid didn't bring much happiness to me, it seems. Always grounded, always having to apologize, always missing out on all the fun. Never happy.


And now, instead of being awarded, I'm doomed to suffer the rest of my life, choking on this invisible leash I've been remote-controlled by my whole life.


Almost thirty, no flat, no proper job. And now I manage to break my father's heart. Well, he broke mine, but that doesn't count, it seems.


What I know is I'm glad it's finally started rolling - it was obviously bound to happen and if it needed to be done in a not-so-nice way, so be it.


My side of the story will be looking for a flat and a shit job to pay for the rent, struggling at these hard times and trying to make it work without bank loans and all the crap that's making or lives even more miserable. The other side of the story will show me as a horrible, ungrateful son who left his parents when it was the hardest.


Well, yeah, people. Not bitching about stuff doesn't mean it's all peachy and bushy tails.


And we'll see how it goes. I've always wondered how it was not talking to dad. Like that's new.

Never

It seems to be a day like any other.

We're gathered in the living room, as so many times before. The whole house ― even though it's a house ― is cramped up and we usually have to waltz our way around it.

Dad is, as usual, sitting in one of the dining room chairs, turned towards the TV, with the remote in his hand. It's probably an image I'll always have in my head, but at least it's better than seeing the remote on top of the TV.

Who keeps the remote on the TV?!

All the furniture scattered around gives out a hint of a busy home. Chairs all around the room because the kids move them as they're playing in their blanketless blanket fort. The couch is usually packed with cushions, but they're all around the floor now, serving as a temporary safeguard for another just-about-to-start-walking kid.

It's a warm day, or at least it's so busy that I'm wearing short sleeves. I'm arched over a kind of a bowl of unknown origin and especially purpose. Next to it is a plastic bowl with soapy water and a little kitchen sponge which is supposed to help me clean the thing. I think of a couple of sarcastic remarks in my head and keep on wettening the little sponge and sliding it against the surface.

It looks like an overgrown cake cover, but it's made out of glass and it's way too heavy to serve its purpose. It's also got a slight bend down by the bottom, but on the inside ― as if something's supposed to get hooked up on it. Now that I think of it, it might as well been a chandelier or something. I'm clueless.

So I'm rubbing it spotless while there's kids worming around my legs, mum walking hastily around and dad still clutching his precious remote. A perfect family, I know.

So many things to worry about ― real or not ― one doesn't have to time to look around and care.

"Add me that thing...", dad says and points his remote in no direction in particular, as if not being sure (or not giving a crap) where the receiver (or anyone) even is.

I'm still cleaning the space dish with a lot of effort, most probably looking like one of the Housewives when they're washing three of their coffee mugs, wiping sweat of their faces. I look at him ― or rather the back of his head that's turned towards me ― and can't believe he's doing it again.

"Just a second, I'm right in the middle of this and my hands are wet and I th..."

He snaps, not even turning around and starts giving me a speech. I don't know what the words are, but I know the content. So I snap too.

"How am I able to do three things at the same time?! Did you ever turn around to see what I'm doing? Yeah, let me just get that for you while I have one kid super glued to each of my legs and I'm elbow deep in this thing."

Mum silently slides in from the kitchen, knowing it's going to be hell. I'm a nice guy all in all and even if I make sarcastic remarks from time to time and don't give people the answers they'd like to hear, I'm still a nice guy.

"I always have to tell you to do things", he yells, not even trying to turn around in his chair.

"Well, that's because you're bossy, not because I don't do them."

"I'm bossy?!", he inhales the words with such a shockingly hurtful expression on, well, the back of his head.

I cut him short and there's a downpour of the things I've been keeping inside all these years, not willing to bother really or simply helplessly aware of not being good enough. There's no point either, since there's no real communication after all. It's usually one talking and the other one trying to travel as far as possible in their thoughts.

I start my monologue and the sound on the TV is gone, the kids are instantly quiet, as if muted by a yet-to-be-invented remote control and mum is wiping her hands off her apron with a terrified look on her face. At least she knows what's coming up.

I yell. Not in a maniac way, not really meaning to hurt anyone, but with a rather determined look on my face. Somehow I always figured I'd break down and unleash the tsunami of emotions and memories drowned in tears, nasal secretion and saliva flying out of my mouth, but this was different.

It felt like giving a speech in front of a big assembly, finally being allowed to speak out and let everyone know how I feel without being interrupted, cut off or kicked out. As if reading aloud my list of demands, I start from as early as I can remember. How dad did this and that and how, when I was in primary school, he didn't bla bla... It seems like there's a gigantic PowerPoint presentation going on in front of everyone's eyes, but they're so caught up, thunderstruck and affected by it that no one says anything.

That tends to happen when one does not listen and when the dam gets blown off with a ton of dynamite. After what felt like hours, I started wrapping my monologue up, seeing that dad is slightly tilted away from the TV already, as if he turned around to face me but drooped back to his primary position.

Mum is still standing next to me, seemingly leaning on to a chair, but in fact leaving her hands hovering in mid air. Amazed, saddened and ― even with her eyes glued to the table cloth ― with that motherly look in her eyes.

"You never see what I do. You never care. You don't even care to look around to see what I'm doing."

I go on a bit more, blaming everyone and everything for the things that pass unnoticed. I don't need recognition or a task chart, but living like a shade of a maid can be so hopeless.

I'm almost out of examples to name and I've started the mandatory sibling comparison, although I hate it and it's super unproductive. I just try to make some sense of mentioning everything from milk bottles to blankets in the meadow and birthday cakes.

It's a mess in my head as well and I'm walking two steps left, then two steps right, frantically avoiding catching anyone's eyes.

Dad it totally bummed. Maybe it's the slideshow in his head, maybe it's all the memories swarming up or maybe he just doesn't give a crap, but he's staring at a single spot on the dining room table, only to tilt his head a bit further down when I inhale again after a full stop.

I start feeling bad. For him and for myself. For not being able to shut up already and stop hurting everyone. For doing this to him and to mum and to myself and to the silent kids and for any poor sod who might be walking down the street outside.

But I feel the urge to say it out loud. I hate psychology, but it somehow does help. It won't make things better and it won't fix them, but at least it's out there. For everyone to ponder upon and not just me.

Not being able to keep it all together anymore, I look towards anywhere.

"You were never satisfied. Never."

"Never", I hear slipping off my mum's lips.

And I wake up.

Rant #596, Stardate 1524.562.6

The mystery has been unveiled. It was the neighbour after all, hammering the whole flat down. The bathroom tiles, the living-room wooden floor, everything is gone. No wonder it’s taken him so long (he was still banging up until two hours ago or so). One would expect some serious sledge-hammer business for that kind of work, but I guess the nut cracker seemed more appropriate.

Getting that out of the way, I thought I might write about what happened yesterday at lunch and what got me so edgy in the first place. I was just telling someone about it and I reckon I’ve chilled enough to write it in peace. I don’t think I overreacted, but I think I could’ve handled it better. Or different. Or both.

So, what you need to know is that I’ve been at university for ages. Starting off with German and Linguistics and taking Swedish as a minor in the meantime, I ditched German (seriously creepy psycho professors) and took Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology. I like what I’m studying and I find most of it quite interesting.

Nevertheless, life takes its own toll and direction and sometimes one’s forced to press the pause button. Unfortunately, not everyone is always keen on asking what one’s been doing, but rather choose the path of blissful ignorance and with it, almost necessarily, a fair amount of prejudice. If I tell you I’m in my tenth year, I’m quite sure your first thought would be yikes! Yeah, I think the same, no worries about that.

Anyway, I won’t go an about why it’s taking me so long, but I’ll just say I’m two exams away, with my final thesis already approved and all. The problem is that not everyone in my family takes is the same way I do. I mean, I can’t blame them, since I really should’ve taken care of it ages ago, but I sure as hell can’t bite my hand off now, can I?

My older brother has finished business and is a director in a major firm. My sister finished languages and is working in a big construction firm. And me?

I suck:
- I don’t have a degree yet
- I’m not engaged or in an already serious relationship
- I don’t have a flat of my own (and a thirty-year-long loan from the bank)
- I don’t have a steady job yet (tutoring, writing, editing, translating and such doesn’t really count around here much)
- I’m a complete outcast since I don’t stare at the news and gossip around
- I like travelling (which makes me a complete lunatic not appreciative of his home land)
- I go out as much as I can and enjoy open-air parties, walking through the forest and just sitting in the grass (what a weirdo)
- I’m a pretty short-fuse type of person (and people tend to cope with that even harder than I can)
I suck.

The list goes on and on (I could really pull off BagLady’s Ten Things, haha), but I won’t prolong it any further. It just boils down to what’s important for yesterday’s event and it boils down to one fact. I suck.

When you suck, the problem is no one really gives a crap about what you say. Or what you think. This is in fact fine by me, since I still didn’t seem to manage the better-keep-your-mouth-shut routine quite yet. Discussions usually end up with someone – usually me – pissed off and annoyed.

But when it doesn’t even come to the discussion, I just feel like someone had just fast forwarded, seemingly clairvoyant and already presuming what I had to say. Well, this is what happens often when my brother is around. Geez, I so don’t want to turn this into a Dear-Oprah rant (I don’t even watch TV), but it might sound like one.

I’ll try to make it short:
- my brother is the oldest and therefore obviously the favourite
- my sister is the only girl, so that’s hear deal
- i’m the last and left out there, stranded and left alone without a life
- whatever my brother and sister do is fine
- whatever i do is a semi-revolution, rebellion against everything dear to them and a step away from a train wreck

In fact I’m not really that bad – it’s just that I’m interested in some things that they aren’t and I’m a bit off the mainstream, so I’m considered weird. Here comes the topic. It’s linguistics.

I don’t know why, but people get goose bumps when they start talking about the language. Maybe it’s the errors that we all make on the daily basis, I’m not sure. But it’s really not a really popular topic, believe me. My folks even appreciate the whole ethnology story, learning about cultures, preserving our old customs and stuff. But when it comes to language, everyone takes a step back.

It’s not that I bite. I’ve learned not to even think about starting the topic. It’s like talking to people who champ. You can train yourself to ignore it or leave the room. There’s no making it right. I suck at that and usually take a platter and go away. Actually, people find it very weird that I eat standing up. They say that’s why I’m so thin. Well, that’s what keeps me sane.

So, my whole family meets up for lunch on Sundays and it’s already started by the time I enter the dining room. I’m not late, but they just didn’t wait for me. Figures. I say hello to my nieces (8 and 6 years old and the nine-month-old munchkin) and play with the little one a bit. She’s walking around, so she needs to be watched over.

She stares at me with this look that you only see on small kids. She knows my face and she’s examining it like it’s a map. And she can’t seem to get used to my laugh. I have a really weird, loud, tractor-like laugh. She’s not scared; she just can’t seem to work out the whole machinery behind that sound coming out of my mouth.

So I sit down on the floor next to her and I talk to her. Under my breath. I’m not the type that goo-goo-gah-gahs kids, so I simply talk to her. She’s doing her own business, playing with a piggy bank, but carefully leaning on my bended knee. She isn’t so stabile yet and she knows it. Now, I’m in a pretty messed up state: I’m scared and edgy and tired and hopeless and no one is looking up from their plate.

As if she read my thoughts, the kiddo drops the piggy bank, catches my eye and gives me this peaceful but intense look, as if to tell me it will all be OK. I swear, sometimes I have the feeling like she can relate to what’s going on in my head. Now I regret storming out because I only spent two minutes with her in the end.

Now that this came back to my mind, I find the whole fuss so irrelevant. I don’t even see the point of writing further, but I might as well finish it since it’ll come back to my mind eventually.

After my first bite at the table (since I had my soup standing up in the kitchen) my sister-in-law asks me about something which is not only a bit, but completely into the language sphere. My family members lift their heads like gazelles at the water trough sensing danger. I'm a tiny colourful bird on top of a rhino, trying to get some minerals from the mud behind its ears. I know this is a dangerous ground, but fuck – I'm riding a rhino!

I don't know what bothers people so much about talking about errors in speech. I mean, there's so many different languages and there's so many people and so many rules, but everyone's so sensitive about it. Talking about the world order, war crimes, recent disasters or someone's placenta are no uncommon topics at the table, but mention grammar or spelling and everyone will instantly put up a force field.

So I do my best and try to envelop it in a really short and acceptable answer in order to wrap it up as soon as possible, but the avalanche has already started. I know I'll be the one thrown off the mountain, but there's no point in pushing someone in front of me either.

We talk about some common errors (something like your and you're in English) and by we I mean my sis-in-law and me. She’s the only one who talks to me normally, listens to me and is indeed interested in a topic she asks me about. My bother cringes, because if it's not business management or soccer, he's out. Like my dad. My sister is avoiding the whole story, because she knows she's as edgy as me, but at least she has a way out as soon as the lunch finishes. My mum is blissfully chewing her mouthful, acting like she doesn’t see the gigantic tsunami in front of us.

So my sis-in-law and me’re talking onwards and by the time I’m on my second bite, the whole bunch has already hijacked the whole conversation. Damn.

Don’t you dare tell us how to speak. We know our language and you can say what you want. We’re older and we know better. Where did you get the nerve...?

At this time I place an imaginary mouse trap over four of my fingers and hope there’s a meteorite coming our direction. Since it’s my profession, I try to point out (with the calmest voice ever) that it’s simply grammar and spelling and that I’m trying to lead a conversation here.

So, they’re yelling, I can’t get a word out of my mouth and my sis-in-law is slowly aware of the fact that she could’ve chosen a better timing – purely for her sake. In a family where offspring gets muffled down, she’s smart enough to know she doesn’t have a chance. Not with my whole family in one corner of the ring. Well, not my mum – she’s still blissfully chewing.

I’m not going into details of the football-field debate that followed (it’s just pointless), but before my third bite I just got up and left the table. My brother made what he obviously thought was a funny remark and I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I hope one day I win a Nobel Prize or marry the princess of Jordan or something – and then I’ll show him. Haha, I’m such a dork.

Anyway, I got up and left the room. He didn’t come by to say bye on the way downstairs. Nor did my sister. Nor my parents. I’m quite sure my sis-in-law would’ve, but I get why she didn’t completely.

I understand them. They think I’m too edgy, that I have a short fuse, that I’m impatient and that I can’t shut up. Umm, excuse me, but don’t they think I know that?! They’re quite much the same – or even worse; not willing to pay attention, let alone to listen. I’m aware of the fact that I’m fucked up and hard to deal with, but at least I don’t think I’m perfect. I guess they are.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure they just shook their heads, made another bad joke and finished their tasty lunch. It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s just going on in my head. My dad asked me why I got angry. He doesn’t have a clue. They don’t know me at all. If some of them ever read this, they might get to know me a bit better. Because we don’t talk about that. No one cares.

I’m a stranger in my own home.