00:00

Neither today nor tomorrow. Opened my restless eyes. The four round numbers transported me nowhere. Beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful emptiness. Away from the battlefield. I didn’t move. The field disappeared. And so did the crossroad. The million pointless thoughts. No elation. No desperation. Beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful silence.

And so this is Christmas

A bit of a cliche', don't you think?
The Christmas album, the Christmas Dr Who special, the Christmas tree, Christmas presents, Christmas cards, Christmas puddings.. the Christmas post.
Let's skip it, shall we?

Sangre caliente - Part 2

I now get it why hordes of beautiful tourists fall for some improbable meat loafs on the Italian and Spanish beaches. It has nothing to do with the tan, the muscles (if any), the dark eyes. It is the innate ability of Latin men to make you feel important, their gallantry and chivalry. Sad? Possibly. But also true.

I spent three days with a group of men from a wide array of countries. I don't want to plummet in a bag of clichés, but, after a couple of hours, the Spanish was adjusting my seat at the table, the Italian was pouring my wine, the French was complementing my smile, the English was ordering me drinks, the Danish was cracking odd jokes, the Australian was being coy, the German was blanking me, the Yorkshireman was telling me off. And this was a work meeting, no second intentions involved. Just their normal way to relate to a woman.

There is no need whatsoever to remind me about gender equality, because what I am about to say applies to both sexes. Is it really that difficult to be nice to a fellow human being? Can't we pay some attention to the person next to us, attend to their needs (even if it is just a bread roll), ask them how they are and mean it, get out of our selfishness and self-awareness and be considerate? Why do we always have to expect the worst from people, second-guess, judge, ignore emails, screen calls, criticise? Who do we think we are?

And I am fairly sure that care and attention would get us a long way. I want to try it. Is there a business model explaining how a dumb playboy can get into pretty girls' knickers just by listening to them and offering the illusion of a good time? I would be most certainly interested.

Sangre caliente

Single Friend #1 often jokes about the fact that I abandoned a land of hot Italian men to prefer the fair-skinned Anglo-Saxons. Somehow this may be coincidental. I left home too young to really know what I was missing. (And I won't take any rubbish about Italian men: my dad was one, and I will always be daddy's little girl)
However, here in Madrid I started thinking: what gives a man what we end up being attracted to? What he wears, how he speaks, how he loves. Geography? Genes? Early or late environment? Cultural background? Previous girlfriends?
And what are we attracted to? Familiarity? Differences? The unknown? The same man again and again, or a new one every time?

As I get older I find that certain characteristics are non-negotiable. One and for all: good shirts. Short sleeves, polyester (or any other plastic), hideous patterns (or any patterns, but stripes and teeny tiny checks), too small or too big collars, novelty cuff links.. So many ways one can go wrong. Not to mention, of course, being a bad kisser. If the kissing is just about passable, the sex will be soporific for sure.
It is not just me to be a repeat offender. Single Friend #1 would never date a man with glasses (which is one of the reasons why she is still single). SF#2 has a fixation for broad shoulders and big thighs. By her own admission, Best Friend used to always end up with psychopaths (with some key exceptions). Moving to guys, Male Friend #3 goes out with photocopy-women: all absolutely identical. The Man doesn't fancy tall girls with big hair and big teeth. The Jerk only dates models (even if for some obscure catalogues).

But I digress. Back to geography, does it really matter? Are they mainly generalisations?

BTW, a Spanish man just called me 'chica'. That's it, ditch the shirt-thing. Making you feel young (and preferably beautiful) has got to score a lot of points!