I just logged in to nag… so I ask you to bear with me… please?!!

My shoulder is a total mess right now… the pain woke me up just before dawn around 4am and didn’t let me fall asleep anymore… waking up in the below-zero degrees doesn’t really help the situation either… so I’m here now, on medication and thinking yoga is supposed to do good to your body and not leave you like a walking zombie, falling off your office chair!

I ask people frequently what, who and where makes them happy at a particular moment in time… almost without fail, they come up with clichés which bore me to death and make me wonder if they know anything else beside, oh you know, sand and sun, pockets full of $$$ and good friends… But hey, I guess that’s none of my business…

Bubbles – both in a glass and in my bathtub – plus a good rhythm in my ears would make me the happiest right now!

S

P.S. Spring, where the hell are you? please come and save me from this moment!

And this is the final one of the remarkable coffee-on-napkin drawings by Mr. Niemann…

“After a couple of blissful weeks though, things took an unfortunate turn. For some reason he started making the wrong coffee (half and half, two sugars). I knew that if I corrected him, our mystic bond would be forever tarnished. So I swallowed the coffee, instead of my pride.”

— By Christoph Niemann – The New York Times

“In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.”

— Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut

February is always the month of struggles for me… struggling with the weather at its most bitter; with my emotions and my tearful eyes; with my past due bills and the sense of guilt… so on and so forth… the month seldom hears me murmuring to myself… can’t you just be less cruel? can you be just a tiny bit warmer? you are bloody well killing us… dear lord, I can’t thank you enough that it’s over…

And now, here comes lovely March… The month that always brings me many cravings and desires which tend to change every single hour… cravings for the oddest things and for certain people… both real and fantasy ones… cravings for places that gives me a sense of nostalgia… Kelardasht, in the Northern part of Iran… Oh, I so crave that kind of green, dark and dense… the smell in the sky is indescribable… the smell of burnt wood mixed with humidity… so clear and refreshing… I crave Portobello Road, where I used to wander around aimlessly… smoking my hand-rolled cigarettes and trying my best to inhale it right while exhaling it in the most fashionable way… the market, the colors and the sexy British accents heard in those lively corner pubs… the streets which used to make me the happiest I have ever been… oh, the list can go on and on but I just can’t say them all… maybe I’m embarrassed or perhaps they are too private to go public…

I now look forward to the beginning of spring… to the arrivals… to Norooz, the Persian celebration of new year… so symbolic and pretty…

Ladies and gents, my countdown has just begun…

S

“Man, I wish smoking didn’t kill you, I’d be smoking right now. I miss it. The last cigarette I smoked was the day I found out I was pregnant with Apple. I had to sit down and smoke one final cigarette. It’s such a beautiful thing. I’m so pissed off it gives you cancer.”

— Gwyneth Paltrow (from Elle UK Magazine – March 2009 Issue)

And another one…

“In New York, I was always envious of people who could walk into a coffee place and the guy behind the counter would know them so well he would just start fixing their order, without any exchange of words. It took me more than 10 years to get to that stage, but at the very end of my tenure in New York I finally achieved it: I would enter my little spot on Eighth Avenue and, with nothing more than maybe a nod of acknowledgment, my buddy prepared my personal choice: drip coffee with steamed milk.”

— By Christoph Niemann – The New York Times

Oh, this is indeed KW’s year… Only after her big win last Sunday, Kate who is apparently obsessed with her first Oscar, appears on the cover of the current Time Magazine.

Click HERE to read the article, “Best Actress: Kate Winslet’s Moment” by Mark Harris.

S

“The dream may either repudiate the dreamer in a most painful way, or bolster him up morally. The first is likely to happen to people who have too good an opinion of themselves; the second to those who self-valuation is too low.”

— Carl Jung

… And this is when *coffee* becomes disgusting!

“Once, after a grueling all-day design conference at a university, I was invited to dinner on campus. To go with the various delicious pastas, salads and quiches, coffee was served. When you are craving a beer, coffee is the most disgusting drink in the universe.”

— By Christoph Niemann – The New York Times

“Good manners can replace morals. It may be years before anyone knows what you’re doing is right. But if what you are doing is nice, it will be immediately evident.”

— P. J. O’Rourke