Heading to Rio de Janeiro in a few hours... Summer!!! Wait for me!!

Feels like a resigned, calm afternoon, doesn't it?

GOD.

God with the lights out.

Do you believe in the devil?

It's easier to believe in hell than heaven in this world of ours, isn't it? I have never been very sure about neither, although in some part of my brain there must be still traces of my catholic education - after all, 10 years of nuns and priests teaching you about Jesus should leave some evidence....

But even as a child I had too many questions nobody could answer. I mean, if today someone decided to go around claiming a "hotline" with God, who would doubt mental ilness? Just because a bunch of people wrote a book about the guy, after 2 milleniums there are still billions who think he was extra special. Except I never understood why, if we are all "God's children", being the son of God made him different. Is it a lineage thing?

Anyways, no offense to christians; I'm not saying Jesus didn't exist. All I'm saying is that all religions have some gaps that don't make any sense and can't be explained. So faith is really a matter of being used to believe, or choosing to believe, rather than knowing the truth.

Mankind has had a great number of gods over the centuries. It only proves that we need to believe in something, but no one is certain of what that is. Nietzche would say that it's about time to kill this christian God already and come up with a new one... A 20.11 version of God. One you don't need to pray for: you can e-mail.

The other side of it is that we always believed in evil, too. Every culture in every moment of History has had its own demons, hell, evil and etc. Wether it was christian's eternal fire of damnation, tibetan's frozen hell, or even vengeful spirits, the malefic has always been threatening somewhere near. And the power of fear can be stronger than the promise of salvation...

If you read the paper, evil makes a lot more sense, actually.

I'll tell you what I do believe. I think everything we can imagine is real in some dimension of our existence. I believe in the power of the mind; if we can think of it, we can make it happen. So if so many minds have been building these concepts of angels, demons, heaven and hell, I'm pretty sure it all exists somewhere, somehow.

(Yes, that includes Santa Claus).

Almost a haiku

A red umbrella

moves silently through the crowd;

solitude in motion.

Editing and blood

I want to open an editorial. I mean, how hard can it be? Everybody thinks is a writer, nowadays, so the amount of people wanting to publish would be huge.

Besides, all I'd have to do to get readers buying the books would be selling about vampires or similarities. It seems only by saying "bloodsucker" you already have a few thousands of fans. I've read quite a few vampire books myself (yes, shame on me), so I know what I'm talking about: most of them have very bad writing. I could do a lot better if I wrote myself, and that's saying a lot on how bad the writing is. How can I see the holes and mistakes on those texts and their editors can't? Isn't that their job or something? Sometimes I even get mad when I see the s#%&@ that gets to be published and sold. I understand someone has an idea and wants to write a book about it, but I don't understand how it gets edited and is still crap. It actually bothers me. I know it's stupid, but I can't help it.

So, yes, I'm seriously thinking about an editorial of my own. Or maybe, even easier, I'll just write a vampires book. And not in my native language, no: in English, because apparently you don't need much of a vocabulary to sell that. Hell, make it vampires and teenagers, and then I'll have a best seller for sure...

Social being

So, I always think about why it is so hard for me to bond with people.

In a way I don't care, most of the time. It keeps me safe from mediocrity. Everybody knows I'm a little "special", strange, hard to approach. So before people try to get to know me, they just give up. I repel them.

I used to think I'm shy. When I'm in the middle of people I don't know, it's extremely difficult for me to act normal. But then I realized it happens also when it's people I've known for a while, depending on who those people are. I admit sometimes I don't even try; I mean, not everybody is really worth talking to. In those cases I put on my "don't even bother" face and ignore whoever is there. It's not nice, I know... But I don't really feel guilty.

The problem begins when I do want to talk. Or when everybody is being social and saying those things people say to keep a nice and empty conversation, and I simply can't do it. I try, it's just I end up saying stuff that in my head sound normal, but only get these "what the hell is she saying?" looks from everyone. I usually don't understand why it happens and decide to shut up. There are also times when I stay in the room so absent minded I don't catch half of the sentences that are said to me. In my denfense I'll say it's not always voluntary...

Bottomline is:

• I don't like most people (but I'm sure they are capable of being nice even when they dislike each other...);
• whenever I try to mingle I seem even weirder than I already do;
• I find it really hard to pretend being interested in a conversation when I'm not and say the "right things" everybody says so easily.

No, I'm not shy... not really. The more I think about it, the more I understand it: I just lack social skills. Somehow my learning in that matter wasn't complete.

Now what?