I have been tagged!

I have been tagged by Amma! And now I am tagging my buddies!

[RULES - Once you've been tagged, you have to write a blog with 8 facts/things/habits about yourself, saying who tagged you. In the end you need to choose the 6 people to be tagged and list their names. No tag backs.]

1) Being in evidence is just irresistible to me!

2) I love the taste of fresh wild berries

3) I am probably the best kisser I've ever met

4) My dream musical instrument is the Celtic Harp (Welsh Triple, if I am coragerous enough to admit it!)

5) I was a loner at school and the first time I was part of a group was at University

6) I hate the places I was born and raised in

7) I hate 80% of my childhood memories

8) My plan is to be a professional artist someday soon.

I am tagging Sue Silverstream, Khrysso, Wil, Kman/Katranon, Dieter/Indian the Machine and Clay!

[RULES - Once you've been tagged, you have to write a blog with 8 facts/things/habits about yourself, saying who tagged you. In the end you need to choose the 6 people to be tagged and list their names. No tag backs.]

Don't break the chain guys, join the game!!

The Fiddle!!

I bought it!! I got my fiddle!!

On the photo you can see my fiddle, but mine came in a different case. The rest is exactely the same, an Eagle student model. Now I need to take it to the luthier to put new strings and get it ready to play!

I am SO happy!! I'm closer now to my goal of becoming a professional performing artist!!

Proof of my coolness

I have just created a Wikipaedia page. Please help me edit it:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Attraction

Though I am hip, I'm only a beginner in the Wikipaedia world and due to my legendary brazenness, I started just a stub without reading the instructions or researching enough. But that's all pioneers are meant to do really. I opened the door.

Add more stuff in there, please.

Nothing new, but we need repetition

[broken Google Video link]

Bookmark to watch it often till your brain is washed clean. Yeah: brainwash is sometimes called for.

Replenishment

I am just returning from an absolutely fabulous weekend. Clubbing, Magic, Poetry, Theatre, Community. Just what I needed.

On Friday night, my old friend Dolphin gave a birthday party in a slick nightclub with lots of hard rock, gothic, EBM, New Wave and metal. Superb, with great people to meet and pineapple juice.

On Saturday, I took two workshops at the Goddess Spirituality Conference, one about Spellcasting with Deborah Lip, who came all the way from NYC, and the other about Life Energy, breathing, exercise and all that jazz. No novelty, but it was great to see the gang together again, and exchange some hugs, jokes, mutual prayers and, of course, gossip. Ha!

I left the conference before the lecture on Traditional Gardnerianism Ms. Lip flew over to give, because my friends from Casa das Rosas were releasing a collective anthology of Poetry. Then there I met everybody again, and had more hugs, jokes,and, yeah you guessed it, gossip. But no prayers this time! Boo.

From there, I went to see Gerald Thomas' new plays, and felt really blown away by Luiz Damasceno's performance and Thomas' ability to reinvent the Theatre every year or so, over and over.

Then I went home to bed, alone.

On Sunday I went back to the conference and took a workshop on the Wild Woman archetype. It was cool because in the middle of all the cheap talking and old-school pathworking, we actually screamed. I mean, we SCREAMED, physically. Not in the Astral plane, but in downtown São Paulo, in the meeting room of a hotel, together with some other fourty people with a Wild Woman raving inside. Everybody should try it at least once. Once a week, I mean.

Then we watched a video of an exclusive interview with Patricia Crowther, and after that I sneaked out to a cybercafé to date my prince. Then back to the conference again, we had a beautiful, beautiful open ritual with drama and poetry Claudiney's group performed for us. An elder bard with staff and hooded cape, a warrior with spear and a maiden with cookies summoned God Her Self for offerings and God spoke. Spiritually enlivening. It all made me so proud of my religion and I wished really bad everyone I knew in my life were there to watch it and share the marvel of the moment with me.

Now, circle round, I'm back to the office. Can't wait for next weekend!

Destitution

I hate to be here. I hate to sit nine hours a day facing a stupid computer and behind the computer a stupid wall, surrounded by morons and more stupid computers and stupid walls. This just KILLS me.

Last night I had the insight that I am feeling emotionally and socially destitute. I'm hungry for affection. I know I have some wonderful friends out there, not just in the Internet, but in Meatspace too, and there's my Spaniard prince. And of course, my family of origin back in Rio, who has become increasingly (and surprisingly) supportive over the past year. But I cannot afford time to spend quality time with them. I cannot afford time to take care of the flat I share with my roommate, and now she's angry with me. Last Monday, she left me a note with a switched off lightbulb, saying 'naughty people end up living alone'. I left another message (we speak through messages, because I am never in the house), asking what she meant. And didn't get a reply up to this morning.

It's easy to say Time's the villain again. But it's not. What is actually going on is another form of need, much more basic and concrete than just being busy. I am very committed to my MPs and taking my regular Artist Dates, as well as Weekly Walks, and all of that is marvellous to me, fixing me really good. But it's been ages since I last spent good time chatting with my friends, and it's been over six months since I last touched my boyfriend. And that breaks my heart. I need my people.

Last Friday, my office colleague invited me to a party at USP, where I met a pretty cute lad. We had six hours of mindblowing, replenishing sex in his dorm, with cute words and tender, cuddly eye-to-eye breaks. Then it was over, just as all one-night stands usually are, but that fact only made me more anxious and unable to concentrate at work. I just had too much expectation. And there, in the middle of the self-inflicted torture came the insight: I need my people!!

It's all cool to be a working artist, and saving time for your Creativity, but we also need tenderness, attention and community. Live, in the flesh!!

Roving Report

Sorry for being away for so long, but I've really been on fire. Here's the latest news with me:

1) We're having an international storytelling event here in Sampa, 'Boca do Céu'. I'm not having the opportunity to actually participate in workshops or lectures, but the performances are a real sensation. On Tuesday night, I watched three ladies performing, the Peruvian Cucha del Áquila, the Italian-Brazilian Gilka Girardello and the brilliant Marcela Romero from Mexico. It was great to practice my Spanish, and Marcela was probably the greatest surprise I had in a few months. On Wednesday night I saw Dan Yashinsky and Jamie Olivero from Canada and Inno Sorsy from Ghana. It was a beautiful, magical night, where I had my story CD and the beautiful poem about storytelling on a poster autographed by Dan Yashinsky stolen :( But Dan gave me the title 'Storm Fool' that night, which made it all worth it. 'Storm Fool' is how Canadian Indians called their storytellers long ago, when the tellers had to face harsh snowstorms and freezing winds to travel and share their tales with other people in the Dead of Winter. And I definetely have to face storms to share my tales...

2) I wasn't able to get my fiddle this month yet. Brazil is just paranoid with the Asian Chicken disease, and everything that comes from China (which currently includes the best non-handmade fiddles in the world), are blocked in Customs for indefinite time. Oh, how I hate this country!

3) I'm planning to have a shamanic drumming workshop next weekend. And with the workshop, we'll get an actual shamanic drum with a Guiding Spirit for it. Pretty exciting, huh? We arranged a group with four people, but usually people give up these things, so I'm calling Marcos Reis (the workshop leader) and confirm it with him later on today.

4) My life's totally upside-down, trying to catch up with so many interesting things going on. Next weekend (not tomorrow), we're having 'Virada Cultural', when Sampa will stay awake for 24 hours, with concerts, recitals, films, plays, exhibitions, events, gatherings, workshops and all sort of artistic activities everywhere. This city's driving me crazy, but I don't want to give up not even a drop of it. Then, in the first week of June, we're having a witchcraft conference, put together by my lovely friend and pagan leader Claudiney Prietto. We're talking about a whole weekend with rituals, workshops and panels. I can't wait!!

5) And then, there's the dish-washing, laundry, cooking, grocery, sweeping, and (oh Gods, deliver me!!) day job. And the saturday morning course I'm taking for this day job. And trying to squeeze my beloved singing lessons somewhere in the mess!

Plans for the next semester include: Studying a foreign language (either improving my Italian or taking on German), become professional as storyteller, return to the piano, and visit Buenos Aires with my sweetheart José. And keeping at least 50% of my current ventures.

Piece of cake.

The Unlikely Lad

Here I am, working in a beautiful day-time job that gives me enough money to afford living in one the best districts in São Paulo, exercising creativity everyday, getting compliments from the boss and the manager at least twice a day, and coming to the office in sandals, unshaved and wearing my tell-off, torn t-shirt, with the face of a cartoon character printed on it (Namely, Pinky, the Brain's partner). Best of all, listening in my discman the current most scorching band, the London-based Libertines. Most precisely track 14 of their CD, 'What Became of the Likely Lads', a question I keep asking myself everytime I remember the out-of-tune queerboy singled out in the schoolchoir, who was the only composition left out of the contest, the stutterer who was only good for laughing at and a big headache for the sunday school teacher, precisely the same who ended up presenting a radioshow, writing ads, stories and websites for a living, a brilliant blogger (when he has time, of course), a shining star; and remember too all the sassies, bullies and teacher-favourites who are still there, hidden in some world's end, going nowhere as slowly as possible.

Right now, I am on the top of my Universe and I want to dedicate this moment to all of us, unlikely lads who made it, who got there. Cheers!!

Here are the lyrics to the Libertines' song. Now imagine them sung in authentic British accent with a slight cockney touch, fat bass, wicked drums and irreverent guitars:

Please don't get me wrong
See I forgive you in a song
We'll call the Likely Lads
But if it's left to you
I know exactly what you'd do
With all the dreams we had

'Coz blood runs thicker, oh
We're thick as thieves, you know
If that's important to you
It's important to me
I tried to make you see
But you don't wanna know
You don't want to know!

If you pipe all summer long
Then get forgiven in a song
Well that's a touch, my lad

They sold the rights to all the wrongs
And when they knew you'd give me songs
Welcome back, I sang

The blood runs thicker, oh
We're thick as thieves, you know
If that's important to you
It's important to me
I tried to make you see
But you don't wanna know
You don't want to know!

Oh what became of the Likely Lads?
What became of the dreams we had?
Oh what became of forever?
Oh what became of forever?
Though, we'll never know

Please don't get me wrong
See I forgive you in a song
We'll call the Likely Lads

We all bought the ones
We taught 'em all we wrote the songs
That's filled with dreams we have

But blood runs thicker, oh
We're thick as thieves, you know
If that's important to you
It's important to me
I tried to make you see
But you don't wanna know
You don't want to know!

Oh what became of the Likely Lads?
What became of the dreams we had?
Oh what became of forever?
Oh what became of forever?
We'll never know!

But blood run thicker oh
we're as thick as theives you know
and that important to you
yes it important to me
I tried to make you see
but you dont want to know.

Oh what became of the Likely Lads?
What became of the dreams we had?
Oh what became of forever?
Oh what became of forever?
We'll never know!