Campaign Advocacy

Whoever said that a picture's worth a thousand words...



...definitely knew what they were talking about.

For non-Bulgarian speakers, the guy is wearing an election campaign tshirt for the DPS: Movement for Rights and Freedoms, i.e. the traditionally ethnic Turkish party in Bulgaria. The shirt says: DPS-Reason will prevail.

I was going to try and write a little blurb about why I find this picture so interesting, but instead I would like to ask you guys to do so. Political commentary is always encouraged at this blog.

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Photo by Borislav Chenkov.

Barack Obama and I

I predicted a glorious future for Barack Obama way back when in 2004 when he got elected to Senate. I have been a big fan of him ever since. Today I find myself liking him even more. Here's what Rebecca Mead wrote about him in The New Yorker:

"In his first book, “Dreams from My Father,” Barack Obama described the marijuana that he smoked as a young man as “something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory.”

Which, ironically, is EXACTLY how I felt this morning after celebrating my friend Stella's birthday last night. Being tired of making decisions at work ALL DAY LONG, I was indecisive about what would be the best drink for me and happily took recommendations. I drank dry martinis only to follow them up with mojitos, which, in turn, were topped off with martini biancos and sips of my husband's beer.

My landscape was indeed very much flattened this morning. And my memory was blurry as hell.

My dearest Barack Obama, I would totally vote for you if I could. I know you would represent me well.

My massage therapist loves my husband

Our company got us a massage therapist! She comes to the office twice a week and gives people full-body massages. She uses mandarin orange oil and works magic on our tired backs. As she was doing her thing last night:

Therapist: Do you exercise?
Me: Aha. My husband and I run in the park.
Therapist: See, I could tell. Your back is not stiff at all. What about your diet?
Me: Well, my husband's vegetarian and I am almost a vegetarian. I like кренвирши с кашкавал way too much to give up meat completely.
Therapist: I could tell you take care of your body. Do you like to cook?
Me: Actually, no. My husband is an excellent cook.
Therapist: You tell your husband I send him my greetings. He seems to be every woman's dream, takes great care of you.

She could tell I got a good man simply by looking at my back... Isn't it interesting how our mental health contributes to our physical well-being?

How to deal

In the last couple of weeks taxi drivers and sales people here in Sofia have:

1: Rolled their eyes at me
2: Tried to guilt-trip and asked me to apologize
3: Turned their back and walked away from me

Why? Because I could not provide them with exact change.

?!?!!?!

In response I apply old-school techniques I learned when I was in elementary school: look at them straight in the eye and don’t say anything. They huff and puff and eventually hand me my change.

As I walk out, I give them the finger. Fuckin’ assholes.

How do YOU deal?

Bulgarian and PROUD

Here's what President Bush (or, Жоро Бушов, as Kyle likes to call him) had to say to the Bulgarian people during his latest visit to Sofia:

These are big achievements for this country, and the people of Bulgaria ought to be proud of the achievements that they have achieved.

We are indeed very proud to have achieved all the achievements we have achieved.

via Slate

Love is...a kitten

Last week we moved to a new apartment. We love it for a variety of reasons but mostly because together with the apartment we inherited a brand new pack of kittens: fur, and silliness, and fake bravado and all.



See, we placed this cabinet drawer out on our balcony to air it out. Of course, we forgot it out overnight. And when we got up in the morning, we found a cat with her four baby-kittens sleeping in it.

They are shy and jumpy but they surely love that we feed them cheese. And every morning we wake up to find them sleeping just outside of our bedroom in their little drawer. We are not cat people, but we are completely in love with them.

Isn't this what love is, anyway? You find yourself completely incapable of recalling all that stuff you thought you knew when presented with a different option in the presence of your loved one...

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Photo by Prof. Grady. He found them first!

Searching for the Best

I was going to start this entry by making some general statement about how great it is to work for Netage. I was going to talk about my great colleagues, my awesome boss, about being able to learn and grow both professionally and as a person every day. I was probably going to mention something about the various perks of working here, the most recent of which is our company massage therapist.

But then I realized that actually I HAVE written about it all. Many times over!!!

So, instead, I will just cut right to chase and announce that we are looking for an experienced Graphic Designer for our Sofia Office. And if you ARE one or happen to know such a person, you should definitely check out the job posting on our careers website and follow the instructions.

If you have questions about the position or the company, I would be more than happy to talk to you about it. But you MUST know that I am one of the happiest Netage employees and I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE to talk about it. So, if you can't stand job-related enthusiasm you should probably talk to Var who will tell you pretty much the same.

He'll only use much fewer words.

Good things recently

Because I am super stressed out at work today and need to remind myself that it's all ok:

1. Going home to be met at the door by my husband. With a kiss. Cheesy, I know. But oh-so-amazingly wonderful!



2. Our new apartment on Oborishte. The kind of location that really makes you understand why people love this little city of ours.
3. Charlotte Gainsbourg's 5:55: dreamy and bittersweet and out of this world. My latest celebrity crush.
4. Social Jazz Club: the new club near the bookmarket. Totally overpriced but completely worth it.
5. Loving everyone at work: I've gotten completely used to the fact that I have pretty awesome co-workers. They are smart, and caring, and fun and a real pleasure to be around. It's good to be reminded of the fact that I should not take that for granted.

Share the good stuff that's been brightening YOUR days recently!

You asked: Part 6

Can you go back through your archives and count the things that you promised to tell us/write about, but never did?
Question by concerned

Obviously, I am not going back to my archives and counting anything. I have much better things to do. Like, you know, following how Prisoner 9818783 is holding up. However, I thought I would use this opportunity to bring up a more general question: why do people make promises that they inevitably break?

Because they want to be liked. And because we think we know what would make the other person happy, I think.

The reason why I feel I can speak to this now, is that it's been recently discussed in the Kirilova-Grady residence on the count of my constant being late for meeting up my husband after work. See, he's a really nice man who picks me up after work and then we go home, or eat out, or run in the park, or whatever. Most of the time, however, he ends up growing a beard while waiting for me as I am at least 20 minutes late. EVERY TIME. And, yes, I always have some legitimate excuse and I am NOT being sarcastic when I say it. I am getting ready to leave and then a client calls or I see an email in my inbox and I decide to shoot a quick reply or I touch up my make-up or go chat with my boss just because...you get it.

Kyle hates it, of course. I mean, who wouldn't. And I hate me, for being so consistently dumb. So we did talk about it and have figured out that the process that goes through my mind goes something like this:

1. I want to meet up with Kyle as early as possible.
2. I think that Kyle would want to see me as early as possible.
3. I am going to try to leave as early as possible.
4. I will tell him to meet me early.

Clearly, there's a missing step between points 3 and 4, which should say: MAKE SURE I CAN LEAVE THE OFFICE EARLIER or something.

My point is that there are two things going on here: my intentions and that which could realistically happen. But my desire to do whatever I THINK would make Kyle happy, causes me to completely ignore the connection between the two. It's not that I am being a bad person or horrible wife or whatever. It's obviously caused by my desire to make my husband happy. However, it ends up having the complete opposite effect. The road to hell is covered with good intentions, right.

The reason why I am going into so much details here, narrating pretty personal things, is that I believe our little issue above illustrates how people end up disappointing each other when all they ever wanted to do was be good to one another. We want to be liked. And we think we know what would make the other person happy. That's why we make promises. That's why we sometimes tell lies. That's why we are late for dates even though we never thought we could make it. That's why we agree to things we knew there was no way in hell we would enjoy or be able to do in the first place.

I am not making excuses here. And I am not asking for forgiveness. Nor am I advocating delusion and naivete. The reason I am writing about this in the first place is to actually advocate a simple thing that Kyle often asks of me: communication. That's all.

And yes, my dear concerned, I promise to write about the difference between "being outgoing", "being chatty" and "actually communicating" some other time, honest. ;)