solo days and a happy mess.

May has come. May of all nighter's, May of working at about 120%.

May weekend was something I have really enjoyed. Yes, yes, I have. Even though at first we had some big plans of travelling together, in the end we did not leave my apartment for longer than a quick shopping spree and a brunch. Then I was left alone again, to experience what I call a perfect solo day. 

In about one month, my older sister is getting married. Scary. Will I ever grow to do the same? For now I still feel like a child, it feels alright to have some obligations, but in the end it's just me I take care of. Oh okay, apart from moments like last Wednesday, when I was found oddly useful. So yup, I'm capable of being there for another person. And I'm not as cold as I might seem to you all. 

In about one month, this blog is turning one year old. I'm still shooting, hooray. Though the reality is different, as well as my perception of life. I used to be the person who believed that everything goes right after the big kiss, but now it's all clear that life's a pile of good and bad things mixed together. And I honestly trust the idea that happiness ain't a continuous stream of love and freedom and balance. Happiness is about moments. Moments that gradually fill my happy jar of 2014. Life is also about bad stuff and quite often 'losing it' or having a tear falling down your face and absolutely no will or strength to hide it. It's about bad Wednesdays and fantastic Fridays.

A perfect solo day consists of.

Waking up with the whole bed for yourself, completely wrapped up in sheets.

Making your own breakfast exactly at the time you want it, and if you don't feel like doing breakfast, going for some breakfast outside. Or not having it all, yolo.

Doing some perfect housewife stuff, but not too much, since there is no one to judge you for your mess.

Reading a new book, with excitement in the air, and controversy on the pages.

Writing a new blog post, trying out whatever might work this time around.

Looking for cheap hostel deals and planning your perfect solo trip.

And at last, realising that you'd rather be awaken by someone leaving kisses on your forearm, be robbed of the sheets, make someone a breakfast of scrambled eggs, have them say you look gorgeous with no makeup, give up on your afternoon nap and watch a silly tv show together. Share your dinner, give multiple cider refills and have your favourite tea critisized. Have your hand squeezed lovingly.

It's great how we need the solo days to fully appreciate days when we have company (and conversely). Knowing that it's the balance that sets things right both with your bond with your person and yourself. Hugs and kisses, I'll talk to you soon! :)

this world-with-a-question-mark.

A little bit of early Saturday laziness is all I can afford right now. Rolling under Ikea duvet, sipping coffee, enjoying my fresh restocked film supplies and mischievously planning my next move in the game called year two.

At this point in my life, I'm pretty sure that in the past few months I had to go through a boundary between this and another reality. Something like Murakami's 1Q84. Or I'm in Wonderland. Maybe I'm Alice, on the other side of the mirror. If only I would have ever finished reading any of these books, maybe now I'd know what to expect. It's unique to see that you think I have everything figured out. I'm not even close! If you're going through hell, keep going. That's what they say. It's hard to come up with a more clever solution. Keep your eyes on the goal, too. It's Friday as I'm writing that post. I feel my brain is semi fried after this week, eyelids heavier than they should be, even if it's 2am. Maybe if I'm in this alternative universe, maybe, just maybe, I can be another person too?

Nothing is happening nowadays, I just keep fighting off the nonsense, which every day brings about. It's such a curious case. Suddenly, people who don't know me, think that I am, in fact, cool. All the attendants at uni refuse to cooperate. And one thing, which is actually the most odd of them all, suddenly, knowing me has become an actual pick up line. Wow, as if I was that solid point of reference that you're a decent person. Don't even make me explain, it's totally weird. Welcome to the inner workings of my world though. Enjoy the ride while it lasts.

Ugh, how much I hate you for wearing all that plaid. Don't you have anything else to wear?

“I'm afraid I can't explain myself, sir.

Because  I  a m  n o t  m y s e l f, you see?

triangles are my favorite shape ♫

The fault in our stars.

Alright, I have no idea how to spend money when I'm abroad.

Things to be happy about.

When buying preowned books I always look for the previous owner's comments somewhere on margins of the pages. 14,000 things to be happy about, which I bought few years ago for like 5$ on ebay, is no exception. Overall, I bought it in a pretty good condition , but some of the things mentioned in the book were underlined, some even a few times, but then thoroughly, angrily perhaps, covered with pen. I did my best to read them anyway. The one bearing most marks is "Avoiding people who make you feel guilty." Double underlined, then crossed out, multiple times.

It's been laying on my shelf for quite a long time, but I still have a soft spot for that book. I thought I would take a brief look into it again and tell you some of my faves among those 14,000 things one should be happy about.

the feel of rug under bare feet, tall people, chew face or smash mouth (kiss), eating all your snacks before the movie even starts, seeing old people holding hands, food that means love, that vacation feeling, taking a walk when the world is too much, looking back on the past with as much pleasure as you get from looking forward to the future, carrying cups of coffee out to the porch to enjoy the morning sunshine, just one day of looking terrific, showing a child how much fun life can be, a whisper impossible to resist (underlined two times), reading outside on a blanket wearing a big sweater in the autumn sun, nocturnal drinking expeditions, remembering people's names long after they've forgotten yours, making colored chalk drawings on the pavement, our lives being what our thoughts make them, lessening the impact of a horror movie by filtering it through one's fingers, getting what you want and what you need at the same time, carrying 10 books home from the library, being taken to the zoo, ancient ruins, surviving a summer job, shooting a whole roll of film in one day, controlling the largest empire on the Monopoly board, writing poetry that no one will see, blouses with Peter Pan collars, sitting down and really thinking out an attitude of yours that you are not sure of, talking to yourself, the Greek alphabet: alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, iota, kappa, lambda, mu, nu, xi, omicron, pi, rho, sigma, tau, upsilon, phi, chi, psi, omega, and my favourite (you know I could go on the whole day) the sound of sneakers squeaking against the floor during basketball games.

Why is that my fave? Probably because of how silly it even sounds, no one would ever think that this is something worth being happy about, but now I know. I love that sound, I really do. It reminds me of the times when I used to play, it reminds me of some teenage drama series, of achieving something like the best player of the game title, of being wild and a fighter. Never before had I though that hearing that sound made me happy, but now it truly does and I often hear it in my head.

These are just a few examples. Honestly, it's impossible to read the whole book at once, I come back to it from time to time, pick a random page and even more random line and see what's hiding there for me. Some of the things listed are pretty doable, or shall I say, easy to get to experience, others pose more symbolical associations. You can find a bunch of meals, cities, sayings, slogans, song or movie titles among the pages. Some are personal, some universal. Wouldn't it be amazing to try to capture some of those "things" on film?

"Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have."

Thank you so much for all the beautiful words you've said under the previous post, using that new Helios lens is a real blast, it really makes magic happen and I am so so glad you share this opinion! Thanks for all that positive feedback! ♥

Little things are important, Mr. Wind-Up Bird.

Surround yourself with people who are intellectually stimulating. Vada Sultenfuss of My Girl, rings a bell? Anna Chlumsky? Jack Crawford's protege in Hannibal? The arm girl? Nothing? Okay, I'm done trying. To the point now. Today, I'm going to talk about something I find particularly intellectually stimulating. What is going on with me and Mondays anyway? The posts have been that irregularly regular because of the fact that developing film takes time, getting a full film used does too. I've moved onto the 24 frames film, so maybe that will speed things up a little bit.

It's Friday as I'm starting to write this post, but I already know it's not going to be up until Monday when I get my current roll of film developed. Oh schedules. I'm being really weird recently and I am deeply, deeply sorry about that, guys. I know it's the time I put my shit together. My excuse is, I, myself, know best when I need a couple of days off alone and if I decide to be a freak who spends her days under a blanket, with a book and/or coffee in her hand or Orange is the New Black (9 episodes in and I'm already starting to talk like a stereotypical black person on that show does) playing on her laptop, then be it. And origami, lots of origami! I noticed paper cranes while stalking Erin's blog and since I really dig them as a room decoration [and I'm already in the phase of decorating my new room in my mind] (switching rooms again) - I decided to give it a try before I order some fancy origami paper off ebay. If you're a beginner like me or, oh, you just suck at anything manual - see for youself - how to fold a paper crane in 25 steps, easy peasy! I'm going through some serious withdrawal, but I finally have time to do things I love the most. Eating, sleep and reading Murakami.

He's a contemporary Japanese writer, you might or might not have heard about. Even my dad has read a book of his, or two, but on the other hand, my best friend truly despises him. I don't judge. I understand that some people might find the complexity of Murakami slightly hard to approach. For me, stuff he writes is extremely inspiring. So far, I've read 4 books of his and I am currently reading the fifth one, 1Q84, which I received as a birthday present. Someone once told me that you should not trust people who don't read books. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some kind of a bookworm. Not as big as my flatmate anyway :) Aren't people who don't read much, or basically never read much, slightly less sensitive about the world? There are certainly various ways of expressing yourself or taking the world in - sensitivity is definitely not defined by the number of pages one's read, but I can't help feeling that books and lives we live with the characters, that carry inside of us later on, help us shape what kind of people we are, almost as significantly as our own actions. If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. One of my favourite Murakami quotes. Norwegian Wood - named by the name of one of the Beatles' songs. So I started a year ago, with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and let me just tell you, it brough so much joy, acceptance and understanding into my life. Also, I finally found a perfect tune for cooking pasta, because apparently, that's what The Thieving Magpie is.

I never buy books, because I can never find anything for myself in a bookstore. They are so poorly stocked! Only one shelf of books in foreign languages​​? Really? For some time, most of the books that I managed to buy was in English. I always thought it would help me to develop the language, because I feel that my progress in that field stopped a long time ago, but now slowly cease to do so, going back to my native Polish, mainly because the importance of the plots I deal with is hard to grasp not knowing half the words. I hate PDFs though! I own an iPad mini and sometimes it's definitely more comfortable to just "wave" my finger like a wand, turning pages, but guess what, there is completely no magic in that. I love books in their original form, with pages so sharp that they're cutting fingers and the wonderful, irreplaceable smell!

(favourite reading spot in my garden)

Spend your money on the things money can buy. Spend your time on the things money can't buy. I bought a new Helios lens and then I purchased a Praktica MTL3 body. I cannot wait for those to arrive and I hope my new babies will get along together.

Just a quick selection of my favourite Haruki Murakami quotes;

▲ “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
▲ “If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there's salvation in life. Even if you can't get together with that person.” 1Q84
▲ “As time goes on, you'll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn't, doesn't. Time solves most things. And what time can't solve, you have to solve yourself.” Dance Dance Dance
▲ “Find me now. Before someone else does.” 1Q84

▲ “And it came to me then. That we were wonderful traveling companions but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they're nothing more than prisons, where each of us is locked up alone, going nowhere. When the orbits of these two satellites of ours happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest moment. In the next instant we'd be in absolute solitude. Until we burned up and became nothing.” Sputnik Sweetheart
▲ “Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.” Kafka on the Shore
▲ “Have you ever had that feeling—that you’d like to go to a whole different place and become a whole different self?” The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
▲ “A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else.” 1Q84

▲ “The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up when you're supposed to go up and down when you're supposed to go down. When you're supposed to go up, find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you're supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom. When there's no flow, stay still. If you resist the flow, everything dries up. If everything dries up, the world is darkness.” The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
▲ “Maybe she thought the garbage and rocks in your head were interesting. But finally, garbage is garbage and rocks are rocks.” The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
▲ “Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star. It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything.” South of the Border, West of the Sun


▲ “Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form you're expecting.” Kafka on the Shore