6 Degrees of Separation

I come home after a long day at work. I am about to start cooking dinner (i.e. turn into a fridge looter and eat anything that is left over) when I get a phone call from a number I don't know.

“Hello, can I speak to Dana, please?”

“Speaking.”

“It's XY from the blabla newspaper. I heard you won a prize and I would like to have an interview with you. We could do it now if you feel like it.”

My wet dream about food was interrupted so abruptly that it took me about 15 seconds to reply. I had won a prize and I was obviously flattered that people found out about it but...hang on! Who was this guy? And, most importantly, how did he get my mobile phone number? Slovene people in Trieste all know each other. If they don't know someone personally, they surely know his mother or his mother's friend or the friend's uncle who knows someone who knows the person we are talking about. Does this make sense? It doesn't to me...Anyway, this is how things work in the place where I grew up (and this is also why I ran away). Because of this “6 degrees of separation” mentality, which permeates our little world, it is almost normal to get calls from strangers. I obviously wasn't ready for an interview straight away. Thanks to interpreting I have become quite good at improvising, I have to say, but there's only so much I can do after a whole day at work. So I told the guy (who was by now talking to me like to an old friend) to call me the day after. When he did, I just couldn't believe my own ears! He knew where I studied before going to uni, he knew where I graduated, he knew I had translated a long and important document last autumn (I am not going to tell you what it was seeing as it's apparently not that difficult to find out!). He knew everything, probably even the colour of my knickers! And (listen to this!) when I asked him if he needed a photo of me (I have learned that journalists like adding visual material to their articles), he replied: “Oh no, I'll use the picture you have on Twitter if that's ok with you.” WTF?!

The sad thing is that it's all my fault. Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter...and me being a social butterfly and giving my number to (almost) random good looking guys! I dread to think how many pictures of me are out there. Pictures I have forgotten about or pictures I never even knew existed! Let alone all the random comments on Facebook...God knows how many things people can find out about me without me knowing. I'm sure some of you just went: “And keeping a blog certainly doesn't help, you numpty!” :) Scary stuff!

So here I am, ready to spend the Easter holidays with a lovely wee lassie and mountains of chocolate. No internet, no photos, no traces in cyber space. Instead, I'll make sure I hug you all properly when I see you again! ENJOY! :)

Ice age

This morning I woke up and I was slightly confused...

 

Winter...

or just frozen spring?

                                         

Like in a film?

I don't get to see my parents that often these days. In fact, they keep telling me they miss me more now than when I was abroad. So when we do get together we have to make sure we tell each other as many things as we can about our lives. Today was one of those catching-up days. After 20 minutes of me talking, my dad just went: “You know what? Your life is like a film: you are young, you have a nice job and lovely friends (may I add I am also incredibly sexy, rich and successful). Not to mention all the people you know who are falling in love/falling out of love/planning to get married/divorce/have babies/move to the other end of the world.”

I have never thought of myself as a film star. I actually often think other people lead lives that get very close to a film plot, not me. Also, I am not a gossiper so I don't know how my dad knows about all these “scandals”. As for the number of friends, I have always thought it's good to know a lot of people (the more people you know, the more you learn), but have just a few good friends (“pochi ma boni”, as you say in Trieste). There is also one other reason why I wouldn't classify as a film star: I am not madly in love with a hot guy (yet :). In any case there are good films and bad films, the happy and the sad ones. If “living like in a film” = spending a whole day in the sun (the first one this year! Welcome back, spring!) catching up with nice people, then I have no problem with being compared to a VIP.

Life, oh life!

It's been a long time since my last blog entry...It's scary to see how the number of posts per month decreased compared to when I first started writing! The truth is I've been crazily busy. Working (and trying to recover after work!) and socialising. I realised I go crazy if all I do is go to work, come home, eat and go to bed. Luckily I am surrounded by people who are always up for a chat/a drink. I really think we should never take friendships for granted (whether it be new ones or old ones).

Although most of the people who will read these lines are also those I am closer too (and therefore probably don't need an update through this blog), I'll still tell you what the highlights of these past two weeks have been. Some of them are funny, others make me confused. So here I am, trying to organise my thoughts before the weekend starts. People often say that those who are messy “on the outside” are very organised “inside”. I can definitely say this holds true for me: I am a really untidy person, but I know where I am going (kind of) and I know what I want (more or less).

- Interpreting at a conference: adrenalin overdose

- Working for two since my colleague was ill: more adrenalin

- Realising that I can go from stage 3 to stage 2 and back to stage 3 in a couple of days: confusion

- Noticing that, often, people who call themselves anarchists/environmentalists/revolutionaries... don't like taking showers. Yuk!

- Being a passenger in my colleague's new car: fun!

- Being involved in a car accident while getting home by taxi: scary shit (more due to the drivers' reactions than to the accident in itself).

- Planning a reunion with old friends: excitement!

- Playing with my friend's baby: cuteness

- Playing rugby: lactic acid

- Discovering there are people who are just as fond of strawberry and rhubarb crumbles as T. and I are 

(and realising that rhubarb grows in a drier climate too – wohooo!): amazement!

- Getting a message from my parents telling me there are home-grown strawberries in the freezer.   Coincidence or a sign? It's definitely crumble time!

- Realising you've got friends who put up with you even when you are so tired you are not able to behave “normally”. Relief (and luck!)

- Waiting to see someone nice: fingers crossed ;)

- Ending the week with a chocolate mousse and coffee liqueur. Bliss!

Laughing gas

I don't know if it's a physical reaction or a mental one, but once I get past the "I am soooo knackered I want to go to bed NOW" stage, I always get to the "I am hungry but there's no way I can eat" stage. And then it's over. I reach the point of no return. I can turn anything, absolutely anything into a joke.

I invent new puns and plays on words, I giggle like a madwoman, my brain works at fool speed!

I honestly think tiredness is a dangerous thing! It's like being high on laughing gas! It makes you lose all inhibitions and treat anyone like an old friend. I am not sure this is a good thing for someone like me, who's already such a chatterbox. My colleague has just asked me for my pusher's address, saying she needs some stuff too. In her case, I know she's just as crazy as me and I am happy if I can make her laugh. I am more worried about my neighbours who will hear me giggle by myself...And, most of all, I am worried about making a bad impression on people guys a guy I don't know that well. Serious people are always better off because they can control what comes out of their mouth (well, interpreters should be able to do it too...ehm ehm). There's a thin line between being funny and being foolish. Intriguing people are almost always mysterious and being funny and mysterious at the same time is almost impossible, don't you think?

A silly post for a silly evening. On a more serious note...Have you noticed that spring has finally arrived?? The first crocuses are out in our garden and it's just wonderful to know that this long and cold winter is coming to an end!

Sushi and butterflies

I have always been against takeaway food. I really enjoy cooking and I don't like using too much plastic. But when you come home on a Friday night and you realise that two nice elves changed your stove and your oven while you were at work (and you have no idea how to use new this induction thingy!) there's only one option left: ready-made food! My friends always act in a very motherly/fatherly way when they are with me: "Aw, but you must eat, sweetie or you will lose weight (I wish it happened! It never does!). Result: hungry Dana goes to a Japanese with a friend and gets a   14-euro menu (miso soup + 6 maki + 2 meat skewers + one cheese skewer + plain rice + coleslaw - since when is coleslaw a Japanese dish?). The food is gone in 20 minutes (I should really stop calling myself vegetarian!). I am now ready to roll onto the sofa and let the weekend start. My stomach feels like a pit full of stones...The good news is that there still some room left. A tiny wee space...for butterflies :)