I think I know why I never pursued a career of a photojournalist (a job I was born for)...

Can't think of a single good one who'd lived happy.

New stuff on Etsy

"Gem session" :D

Sooo tired

It's remarkable, this sensation of being thoroughly and utterly exhausted. In a good way. I mean, I wasn't exhausted yesterday, just needy, because I was at home alone and yearning; and tomorrow it isn't going to be a strenuous day. I may even allow for my cold to develop and deal with itself. I took five pills today - three for stomach acid and two for inflammation. 

    My hands hurt so much, now that the adrenaline has simmered down, it's almost like a burning tickling. From larger cuts to microscopic plethoras of pricks from chestnut cupules I fell onto. I fell twice - and I was only wearing one glove, clever me -  once onto rocks and roots and another time trying to slide down onto a road, managing to pinch my thumb on a broken branch. Twice is not unusual. twice is almost nothing, considering the terrain I took.

     I have a thing for walking on the extreme end of a rake, also because I enjoy getting lost, but mostly because I then allow for animals to escape the enclosure. Problem is, the furthermost ends of a line are usually the least pleasant to walk - either the forest is ending and the growth is all over, or there's a stream at the end, and the slope is muddy, rotten and viciously steep. Those are my favorite terrains. You really have to know what you're doing. You should also really wear gloves. In the beginning, I was the only one to sport them and I must have looked dumb, but now most people do. 

      We've slept in the afternoon and I took a shower and the evening was really calm, and still, at nine, I can barely keep my head from bobbing into the keyboard. Every part of me hurts, my ass hurts from falling, I have thorn pricks everywhere, places you never want to have thorn pricks, and my hands are itchy burning, tiny cuts all the way up to the elbows. They look like I've been savagely whipped by a ladybug. 

Sign for life, in green

And today, because I was there, all but that rifleman I mention, missed or simply failed. Thirty hunters raking though a valley, nine dogs chasing through, and a single kill. And when I tell you twice I walked onto a trail so fresh the muddy leaves were still unbending, I assure you, until the moment it began, there were plenty of animals in those woods.  But Lesnik and Herne saw the sign on my chest and agreed, fuck 'em. It's the day spent in nature that counts, not the roast after. I did approach the rifleman about getting me the atlas bone, so perhaps at least there's a crown in the story. That man likes me as if I were a little kid. I wonder if the idea that I may like him as if I were an adult has ever occurred to him, or is the very concept of considering a friend's wife so unrealistic for the pragmatists this people all are, all they ever think about is just hunting, fishing, hound dogs, their work, strikes, occasional sports grandchildren and once in a while a leisureful vacation. 

       There is another half-deaf man in the group, we just started communicating today. It feels good to compare how we hear sounds when a room of people is all talking one over another. It's strenuous if you are actually trying to make out conversations, but kind of a pleasant rolling mess if you just accept it. Problem is almost all of these men whose company I enjoy have mustaches and although they try to tell me things, I can only assume what they were. Probably on the subjects of hunting, fishing, hound dogs, their work, strikes, occasional sports grandchildren and once in a while a leisureful vacation

Found a gray hair!

... I kid you not, I found a grey hair on my peanut. I thought I saw it the other day, but not G confirms it. my first gray hair. He says it's 158.000 : 1 now, since he's turned almost entirely grey in the years he's been with me. I do have that effect on people. 

let's try to find the reason, shall we? besides me not being quite the spring chicken. I suppose my most vehement and distasteful thought of the past few days has been about a kiss that would sink a few ships. Contemplating it, I believe that if you desire to, a kiss can be almost as damaging as a bullet. Namely, if I kissed a person - proper kiss, not some half-arse sisterly affair - a very particular person, and they kissed back - just once, just one kiss - their marriage would be over, my marriage would be over, the solid friendship between g and them would be for ever done and G would never trust another human being again, or even socialize, for that matter; their entire family would feel confused, betrayed, the foundation of their lives, calm and soft and trusting, shattered, unforgivable, and my own in-laws, and my family members, too, would all stop speaking to me for ruining something as magnificent as G and I have.

Because, really, it makes you wonder - and only a kiss can do this - if it was a shitty relationship, nobody would notice and nothing would fall to pieces, but because it is a tremendous relationship, something as simple as a kiss would explode it. Such is the potential energy of a steady relationship. 

No wonder I have a gray hair, thinking about such dangerous things. Destroying twenty or so lives with just one act of sweet attraction. Really makes you wanna go there, just to see the carnage :D 

Okay, stop. This is juggling loaded handguns. And we are talking about hunters, too. 

Although, on a funny note, I asked a pal about distracting a capable rifleman, who seems immune to my jinx, and she said to flash him my tits. I remarked, clearly you've never been on a winter hunt - each f us wears around nineteen layers of clothing. It would take half an hour to get there. kind of defeats the purpose of a flash.

Devastating hunt today, because I was not allowed to come along. Big old boys club. But I am coming with tomorrow, so Herne and Lesnik, quit chasing booze and broads, get your shit together and let's hold his. 

Instinct

There is not all that much I believe in, but I do believe there is A LOT we don't know or, because we are not able to quantify with our machines or senses, unable to name insofar. I suppose for this reason some sensations can easily be ignored or attributed to something trivial. 

        But I am a great fan of what we otherwise call instinct. The part of our brain that is able to piece together hints otherwise unrecognizable to conscious effort, and put up flags. That part of our survival sense that makes you notice something that, for all intents and purposes, shouldn't matter, because it could just as well be imagination or paranoia.

        Not sure who, but someone did this study that you can make people afraid of photos of snakes - more exactly snakes on photos - a lot faster than you can convince people that they should find photos of stuff like light switches or coffee mugs frightful. I am not afraid of snakes, in fact I find all small things equally annoying and wish they went somewhere else, but I will switch to a very prudent stance regardless of what my education tells me is a threat or is not a treat. I don't like small things because I worry that if I try to remove them or help them out of horrible situations they have found themselves in, I will do more damage than good. Trying to help a mouse from a cat playing with it usually results in me accidentally breaking something. usually in the mouse. So, fuck that.

       The time General and I both saw a woman in rural Croatia walking a dog that simply was not a dog, both of us reacted intuitively, looking at one another and then staring back. Not because the animal was larger than most dogs or seemed aggressive in any way. But simply, because that was not a dog. One may act carefully if meeting a large stray dog out in the open, you never know and do not want to get rabies, but to encounter a wolf in any circumstance, the instinct comes on like a flare. 

       When you encounter any kind of a predator in the woods, larger than a hare, even if you do not see them or hear them, you will know, and your senses will sharpen up so amazingly, it's almost like a trip. Not because of fear. I am not scared of them. I don't run away screaming and pee myself if I meet a boar. but I am very very careful and try to make it very clear I wish to have nothing to do with its daily stroll in the woods. Which may be mildly hypocritical, since that usually happens when we are hunting, but okay. I am not a hunter. I am an admirer. I carry nothing on my person that would effectively defend me from a physical confrontation. If anything, I carry a small sleigh bell to make animals understand I am absolute of no threat to them whatsoever and they can hear me a mile away. so, I walk upon a lot of wildlife often. I can't see them and can't really smell them with what I have for a nose (doesn't work, mine), but I can often tell they are very close by the way nothing moves, nothing sounds, nothing breathes, nothing matters other than a relationship between us that may end in a fatality, if it ever develops out of the standstill. 

Shopping frenzy

Coincidentally, this year two holidays fall right in front of the weekend, so all in all, most people are work-free for four days and a lot of stores are closed for four days, while all were closed for two - Thursday and Friday.  For this reason, an enormous amount of people frenzy-shopped, because if the stores are closed for 48 hours, you need to get at least 26-days supplies. On the last day.
        I remember when the war started when I was a kid, I knew it was serious, because mum allowed me to buy not regular two chocolate banana foams, but twenty. I was certain the nuclear winter is imminent. That said, ost of the people who have been in a war before, mainly the second big one, and most of the farm folk, tend to keep quite a bit of food stored regardless. G's family keeps enough food for at least a few weeks, I should think, without considering all the corn and animals that could be consumed, or would provide eggs and milk for at least a while. My grandma kept an entire stack of sugar, flour, oil and a brick of yeast in the fridge. You can keep yeast like a pet, ongoing for ever, really, if you know what you're doing. She also kept powdered milk, but these days milk seems to be everlasting, so now she'd probably keep carts.
         It got me thinking, if the world DID close down for a month - provided people wouldn't go insane and start looting and fighting and making violent shopping decisions - what WOULD one store? A month, especially in winter, isn't really that long. But it's 25 days longer than most people can survive without grocery shopping.
         Water would be either/or - either it would stay fully available on tap, or we would have to find a source or a large enough container to store it. A person needs, comfortably, about five liters per day for eating, drinking and bathing, so that's about 500 liters tank for three people.
         Heating - either/or, either it stays on or we need to move to a housing where wood is the source of comfort. Both our parents use firewood to get warmth.
         Medicine. A month worth of medicine for our elders and maybe some antibiotics just in case, even though I think from what we have in the medicine cabinet now would be okay.
         Salt, sugar, oil, flour. We don't really use sugar in the house and not all that much salt, so perhaps one kilo of each, and maybe two bottles of oil. Flour ... If there is no provision of bread, and we are still talking three adults, then perhaps a loaf per two days, which is cca 15 loaves, so around 20 kilos of flour, also for noodles, pancakes and sauce thickening. All the other spices we already have would easily last a month.
         Meat is problematic, because you need to keep it cool, less so in winter when you can easily keep it outside, but let's say for normal consumption, about ten kilos of meat. Perhaps two kilos of cheese. Some butter.
         Ten kilos of potatoes, ten kilos of rice, ten kilos of apples and ten liters of milk. Because we are sweet teeth here, a bunch of biscuits, chocolate, and candy.
         Twenty yogurts, coffee, potato sauce, compote fruit in cans, some cans of beans and peas, some lasting vegetable, like pumpkins, cabbage, peppers and tomatoes. Oat flakes, some nuts and cranberries, honey, some apples, pears, dry figs and so on.
         And so on. really, like going on a remote vacation. Not difficult at all. A month is nothing. Three months, in winter, now that would be more interesting. But I can calculate for three months as well. I think a year would be a challenge. A year of food for, say, both our families, living at the farm ... Twenty people. And it's winter, nothing will grow in that all year. And the cows and chickens and pigs will run out of food, also. Tricky, tricky. Still totally doable with what you can buy at a store. But storing it ... and keeping it safe. That's the stuff of apocalypse movies.
          Depends how many unresourceful people would remain roaming about, I suppose.