YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT LOVE IS...

“You don’t know what love is

Until you’ve learned the meaning of the blues

Until you’ve loved a love you’ve had to lose

You don’t know what love is”

Chet Baker

Sarajevo is...

By Aleksander Hemon

The taxi driver who drove me from the airport and, when I observed that the leaves were already beginning to fall, replied: “Why, yes, first watermelons, then lessons,” which, on close analysis, I understood as representing a magic formula to describe the gradual approach of autumn. The moment when, from Jekovac, after the Ramadan cannon fires to indicate sunset, you see the lights on all the minarets of Sarajevo simultaneously ignite. The clatter of the first morning tram, echoing through the empty streets of the city.The coldness of the buildings from the Austro-Hungarian era and the staircases inside them, with their treads worn by the soles that have climbed them for more than a century.Somun—soft, white bread—(scattered with seeds) from the baker’s in Kovači.Children’s balls, rolling in the shallow eddies of the Miljacka river. The beauty of Sarajevo women, who always bear in them the imprint of their own past and their own future; the history of past and future changes: their faces reveal both skinny little girls and mature women, both minxes and careworn matrons. The sfumato of a cold Sarajevo morning, before the sun steals up behind the mountains, and mist drifts up the slopes. Škembići—tripe—at Hadžibajrić’s. The fruit that grows on bushes throughout Sarajevo, known as “white berries.” The slender cat, a striped market stray, that rolls on the pile of Persian carpets in Morić-han. The round tray that rotates on the tip of a waiter’s forefinger. The pigeons’ rally on Sebilje. The aroma of cheese, cream, meat, and marble in the market. The peal of church bells at six o’clock in the morning. The way the Sarajevo accent bursts the speaker’s lips, because of the rumbling consonants and swallowed vowels, which looks particularly good on women with full lips. Autumn leaves, ankle-deep, in Wilson’s Walk, and the sound of ripe chestnuts breaking off, hurtling through the branches, then hitting the soft carpet of leaves. A white-wine spritzer at Ramiz’s. The scent of old cellars: coal, dust, tubs for souring cabbage,mildew. The lights that glint on the hills around Sarajevo at night, like stars that fall slowly, the way snowflakes do. The sound of a deflated ball kicked around by children in theopen spaces of New Sarajevo. The hissing of rain on streets under the wheels of cars. Carved cartridge cases in the Kujundžiluk. The chirping of radio stations in taxis. The rheumatic hands of old men behind their backs as they watch a game of chess with giant pieces in front of the ghostly Department Store.Ice cream with the flavor of “Egyptian vanilla” (whatever that is) at the Egypt pastry shop. The green turf of Željo’s Stadium. Asphalt full of hollows, holes, puddles, and the “roses” of shell craters, never perfect, always spattered. The brief jerk of the head to one side that accompanies the response “Okay…” to the question, “How’re things?” The intense colors of autumn fruit and vegetables softened by the shade of the beams at the Markale Market. Meatballs—ćevapi—anywhere in town. Sorrel that goes to seed in less than fifteen minutes. The hardness of the stone you touch when you bend to drink a mouthful of water at the Gazi Husref-Beg Mosque. The hum of Sarajevo heard from Hrid or Trebević—all the sounds of the city merged into one. The silence that accompanies the first snowfall, as though everything and everyone were hushed with wistful excitement. The long shadows of the trees in the Big Park on a September afternoon. The collection of stuffed animals in the National Museum. The statues in front of the National Bank, eternal guards of the Čeka, holding helmet-lights above their heads. The rhythm of the tread of the elderly in Ferhadija, harmonizing with the rhythm of their conversation—a syntax of footsteps. A cheap football shirt with the name Zinedine Zidane on the back of a grimy boy. Tito’s portrait in the goldsmith’s in Ćaršija. Underpants and stockings in the passage beside The Imperial. The aroma clothes carry in them after a stay in Sarajevo: a mixture of sweat, cigarette smoke, ćevapi, washing in Sarajevo water, and drying in the open air. The people of Sarajevo: the clever and the churlish, the greedy and the handsome, the weary and the young, youthful and crazy, rich and wretched, sturdy and sick, tall and rundown, the angry and the underhanded, the tricksters and the brilliant, the Diaspora and locals, children and adults, the faithful and infidels, the powerful and the pious—all in all, nearly four-hundred-thousandurban atoms. And let us be honest, there’s no end. You either love Sarajevo or you don’t.

13 LÍNEAS PARA VIVIR.

1. Te quiero no por quien eres, sino por quien soy cuando estoy contigo.
2. Ninguna persona merece tus lágrimas, y quien se las merezca no te hará llorar.
3. Sólo porque alguien no te ame como tú quieres, no significa que no te ame con todo su ser.
4. Un verdadero amigo es quien te toma de la mano y te toca el corazón.
5. La peor forma de extrañar a alguien es estar sentado a su lado y saber que nunca lo podrás tener.
6. Nunca dejes de sonreír, ni siquiera cuando estés triste, porque nunca sabes quién se puede enamorar de tu sonrisa.
7. Puedes ser solamente una persona para el mundo, pero para una persona tú eres el mundo.
8. No pases el tiempo con alguien que no esté dispuesto a pasarlo contigo.
9. Quizá Dios quiera que conozcas mucha gente equivocada antes de que conozcas a la persona adecuada, para que cuando al fin la conozcas sepas estar agradecido.
10. No llores porque ya se terminó, sonríe porque sucedió.
11. Siempre habrá gente que te lastime, así que lo que tienes que hacer es seguir confiando y sólo ser más cuidadoso en quien confías dos veces.
12. Conviértete en una mejor persona y asegúrate de saber quién eres antes de conocer a alguien más y esperar que esa persona sepa quién eres.
13. No te esfuerces tanto, las mejores cosas suceden cuando menos te las esperas.

Recuerda:"TODO LO QUE SUCEDE, SUCEDE POR UNA RAZÓN" ~G.G.Marquez

ronnie.

I'm laying here next to you with my hand on your chest and I feel your heartbeat...... the heartbeat that's only a signature away from stopping. I feel like I failed you. There is no rationalizing it. There is noone who can make me feel better or make me feel like this was the right decision. I know I should think I am doing the right thing, I just can't convince myself of it.
I hear your breathing... you're restless too. I think you know... and you look at me with those big sad eyes like you're asking me what in the world did you do to me to make me give up on you.
You didn't. I was given no choice...

Volim te.

Potrebno mi je, duso...

Potrebno mi je, s vremena na vrijeme, da vjerujem kako nekoga volim, na cesti neku blagu zenu po hodu prepoznajem, i trpim kao, zbog nje. Pa kada legne noc u moju sobu, na sto i postelju - zamisljam: ona ce ujutru stici, meko kljuc u tuznoj bravi okrenuti, nad postelju mi se nadnijeti, kao majka - cist oprez u briznom kretu, cednost u zivoj ruci, pod kojom oci otvaram, i dodirujem je, govoreci: "Potrebno mi je, duso, s vremena na vrijeme, da vjerujem kako nekog volim, i ljubim, u jutrima ovim, punim strave, a pustim..." ~Abdulah Sidran

1395 days...

It looks like Serbia got away with the genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It's been a week since Hague's International Court of Justice (what an oxymoron, huh?!) ruled that Serbian government is not to blame for what happened in Bosnia in the early to mid '90s, and the only thing they are guilty of is not stopping what was going on. Yes, shame on them!
"Republika Srpska" (Serbian entity within Bosnia) is to blame, they are the ones that organized the aggression and committed the crimes, yet they didn't officially exist until the Dayton Peace Treaty, in November 1995... and the war started in April 1992.
Let me try to wrap my brain around this: Serbia didn't do it. Serbian Republic wasn't around to do it. Uhmmm... so if A=B and B=C then A=C??? Ooooh... so we DID do it to ourselves?!

MY FIRST REACTION: [facebook entry]1:44am Tuesday, Feb 27

I feel terribly sad and disappointed that, once again, the good didn't win over the evil...
We didn't plan it. We didn't ask for it. We didn't "imagine" these things happening to us and we sure didn't do this to ourselves! Our population literally got halved within three years (mortality+emigration)... and after all this suffering we needed some kind of closure. I needed some kind of closure, and for everyone to stop calling what happened a freakin' civil war.
There was nothing civil about it. GENOCIDE!
Sarajevo was under siege. The longest siege in the history of human kind and 1395 longest days of my life.
1395 days I was hungry.
1395 days I was cold.
1395 days I was scared.
1395 sunsets and sunrises that I thought might be my last.
1395 times a sniper shot at me and missed.
1395 kids that weren't so lucky...
And today... today I got nothing to feel better about!

... but, I was there, I lived it, I KNOW THE TRUTH and I will never forget!

One Last Goodbye...

IN MEMORIAMZGEMBO

(2004-2007)

I am saddened to announce that Zgembo, my furry friend of 3 years, passed away last night. He will be greatly missed by his family and, more than anyone else, his best friend Polly.

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A stroll down the memory lane...

Love at First Sight

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Sharing everything... or NOT?

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Playing "hide and seek"

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... or just chillin'

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Requiem for a Love

Ancient lovers are unearthed in Italy
By ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writer Wed Feb 7, 2:54 PM ET

ROME - It could be humanity's oldest story of doomed love. Archaeologists have unearthed two skeletons from the Neolithic period locked in a tender embrace and buried outside Mantua, just 25 miles south of Verona, the romantic city where Shakespeare set the star-crossed tale of "Romeo and Juliet."
Buried between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago, the prehistoric pair are believed to have been a man and a woman and are thought to have died young, as their teeth were found intact, said Elena Menotti, the archaeologist who led the dig.
"As far as we know, it's unique," Menotti told The Associated Press by telephone from Milan. "Double burials from the Neolithic are unheard of, and these are even hugging."
The burial site was located Monday during construction work for a factory building in the outskirts of Mantua. Alongside the couple, archaeologists found flint tools, including arrowheads and a knife, Menotti said.
Experts will now study the artifacts and the skeletons to determine the burial site's age and how old the two were when they died, she said.
Luca Bondioli, an anthropologist at Rome's National Prehistoric and Ethnographic Museum, said double prehistoric burials are rare — especially in such a pose — but some have been found holding hands or having other contact.
The find has "more of an emotional than a scientific value." But it does highlight how the relationship people have with each other and with death has not changed much from the period in which humanity first settled in villages and learning to farm and tame animals, he said.
"The Neolithic is a very formative period for our society," he said. "It was when the roots of our religious sentiment were formed."
The two bodies, which cuddle closely while facing each other on their sides, were probably buried at the same time, possibly an indication of sudden and tragic death, Bondioli said.
"It's rare for two young people to die at the same time, and that makes us want to know why and who they were, but it will be very difficult to find out."
He said DNA testing could determine whether the two were related, "but that still leaves other hypotheses; the 'Romeo and Juliet' possibility is just one of many."

Screw McDreamy! I WANT McDARCY!

::single-handedly bringing back the 1700s::

... there is nothing that beats a day at work like lounging in PJs... watching McDarcy deliver my favorite line* for the 12th time... swaying to Beethoven's "Pathetique" while making breakfast amidst which furtively glancing out the window to watch the snow... taking hot bubble baths and drinking wine...

Once I've accomplished doing everything that I wish for on a regular day in the life of the GrownUpMe, I stop... and endulge in the Silence Therapy.
Allow me to redefine "silence": noise < 85dB [85dB being the equivalent of the noise produced by a 17 year old screaming: "Miiiiiiss!", also known as the level of noise that causes irreversible hearing loss and chronic moodiness].

Before you know it, I will be back in > 85 dB noise, endurance of which funds all these little luxuries.

* "My affections and wishes have not changed, but one word from you will silence me forever. If, however, your feelings have changed, I will have to tell you, you have bewitched me body and soul, and I love...I love...I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day forth." (Pride and Prejudice)

THIS, I believe...

According to the Belief-O-Matic I am, apparently, an apple that fell very far from the tree*
Here are my beliefs broken into percentages. How much do I really fit into the molds of the big religions?

*check out the #6 and #7

1.Secular Humanism (83%)
2. Buddhism (77%)
3. Baha'i (66%)
4. Judaism (52%)
5. Hinduism (29%)
6. Islam (18%)
7. Roman Catholic (9%)

Et tu, filia?!
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I refuse to be called an atheist. That, I know I am not. I'd rather call myself a notheist. I believe, I truly believe there is a Superior Being (the rebel in me refuses to call it God), that our mind is incapable of wrapping around the concept of its existence. It's the one thing in the universe that is undefinable, unmeasurable, invisible... and it definitelly doesn't care to be worshipped and prioritized before the ones that are dearest to you in this world, to have temples built or blood shed in its name.
And then there is fear... the best motivator known to man, one that for many people turns the idea of God into an external conscience to keep the morals in check.
My beliefs set no boudaries, deny no experiences, suppress no desires, and offer no salvation. I don't look up to this Superior Being as an insurance policy in case I lose a battle against the nature.
I am not afraid to doubt. The doubt does not weigh me down, it liberates me.
I don't have that need to belong or the longing for the realization of the ultimate meaning. Other people's opinions are often intriguing but absolutely of no essential consequence to my own.
So what if most people believe in this Jesus, Allah, Yahweh, Brahman, Jupiter or Zeus? Truth is not democratic!