Ana Todor Blog Journey

Hug-a-snowman

Today is my last chance to post December’s hug of the month. Sorry it took so long, but I had to wait for enough snow to fall before I could build this month’s huggable friend. So, bring on the drums, it’s time for you to meet my ultimate hug victim. Tha’ 1.80 m snowman. You know I usually post a short bio of my featured friends. I could try and do the same thing for my snowman too. I think he had a short and happy life, this one.Probably about one day, before it melted to smithereens. Why is this snowman better than all the snowmen out there? Nothing special, it just happened to be the one I built for the purpose of hugging. It’s enough to shape an object with a thought in your mind for it to come to life and be unique. It’s what you think when you look at it that makes it special. So this is my frozen, lonely hug of the month. Me hugging an object, me hugging my own thoughts. Me melting myself in a squeeze between my soul and reality.

Happy holidays! And a happy freezing New Year!

Sirius

This hug of the month was posted on request. I wanted to linger a little longer with it, until the person it is dedicated to could actually get to see it with his own Internet connection, not from an impersonal PC at school. But it seems it was not to be, dear old friend. The show must go on. People want you. You see, there is this thing. I feel shattered most of the time, but I have people around me to teach me how to go on, how to get back into my senses and get a grip of myself. Surprisingly, Sirius here was one of those people. You might not believe it. I despised him myself once for his slow way of acting, for his sumptuous way of outliving life. Sirius is something of Emily Dickinson probably (and no, I don’t mean he’s gay). He has few friends, but his life is rich with thoughts and senses. He can love an idea till the very end. As I was saying, I despised him for that at the beginning. Because I have a fanatical way of pursuing my dreams and I can’t imagine what waiting can be like. If any of you out there have read “The Perfume” (by Patrick Suskind), then note that Sirius was a kind of Grenouille - quietly waiting for his dreams to lay out for himself, crawling in an indefinite mass of art and good taste. Even his family name reminded somehow of his destiny. Margineanu, which can only be translated like a sort of (Marginal-ickinson or McLeftAside, i guess). He never intruded, although he had the right to. He was too smart for most of this city, and yet, he never burst out with discontent. He only had one dream: to take on playing the guitar. After he graduated high-school, he stayed at home for one year to pursue this dream of his, to my huge surprise. I almost burnt him on a stake at that time, thinking of his ultimate waste. But it was not so. Sirius is studying music in London now. Trying to play out Scar Tissue, by Red Hot Chilli Peppers. He doesn’t have any musical background (he was most into science in high-school), but he seems to be doing a fine job at least. I hope to request an autograph from him once. And yeah, I goddam think he looks Norse.

One hug is worth a thousand words, and a thousand stories.

Me hugging Georgi

I AM a little late, I have to admit. It’s already the second of October, and all my Hug of the month posts are usually scheduled to appear on the first day of the month. None the matter, you’ll have to excuse me, because I’ve been rather busy (yes, this is a teaser for the next post). To cut things short, this hug of the month goes to Georgi (my only female “mami” that is). I’d like to describe Georgi to you. But I truly think there’s only one person that knows how Georgi is. And no, it’s not Georgi herself, it’s God. Truly speaking, I’ve been around Georgi for at least 5 years, and I’ve quietly wached her searching for her true self, her true nature. She found booze, she then passed on to “interesting guys” with big hair and weird passions, and then she discovered music and praised Pink Floyd for a while. She stopped talking to some people and she built her own universe. She used to hide behind a huge scarf, her wall between the outer world and her inner emotions. What I always admired in her was her attention for details. She did not remember events by their flow of people and ideas, but rather by the music she mumbled in her head that mingled well with the outer atmosphere. She remembered pictures because of a lock of hair and probably that’s why she even went into photography for a while. I think Georgi had a knack for old things, ancient cameras (she never used a digital one at the beginning, it just didn’t have the same appeal), gramophones (she loved listening to eternal rock bands on old records) and old noble ideas. Like being a dreamer. That’s an old noble idea too.

So why is this hug of the month her hug of the month? Because she’s special :)). No, kidding. Because she’s far away. And I miss her. You see, I did not finish the story. The passion that stuck to Georgi most was, and is, probably, architecture. She used to wander around town all day, just to find the perfect picture to depict in her sketches. I may have laughed at first, as her first drawings lacked perspective. But I had a lot of fun watching her grow into a passionate art person. This made me love her in many ways. There’s a big something I admire in all her wandering, in her journey to find herself. And this time she’s really far off, studying at an Arts College in Edinburgh. Luckily, I managed to convince her to write her thoughts down, mentioning that it might actually help her feel less lonely. So I encourage you to visit her blog. You’ll find out what actually lies behind a Starbucks coffee. What makes tree-bark special. And of course, why you should not sit or some benches.

Once again, hug ’till the end!

Me hugging the last dinosaur

Now that the blog is settled and I sense clear skies ahead, it is time to round up my categories. The hug of the month is meant to be the supreme delight for my inner child. It is highly probable that I was inspired by Free Hugs on YouTube but I still feel original in my soul. This is because I am a wee bit shyer than the guy in the movie. So I decided not to go around begging for hugs with my big humid eyes, but rather go hug a person or object (aka idea) I admire very much. Each month. At first I wanted to do this on a weekly basis, but I realized I would exhaust my list of subjects too soon, although they kept flowing quite generously. And to slowly slip off to the core of the idea, my first hug, the priority hug, is dedicated to Mihai, that sweet hunk honey-punch that dropped into my life over an year ago. Thinking dinosaurs are extinct? Well, he’s the last of the species, so drop the scientific facts you watch on Discovery Channel. What they don’t teach you in schools is that dinosaurs are gentle, warm-blooded, enviroment-friendly creatures. They make you understand how to love, they help you find your place in the world and their very quiet awe is a still example for all the no-brainers out there. Dinosaurs make you fit back into context. And if that is not enough, they can pull a straight face and teach you accounting, web design or how NOT to swim like a rock. I wish I could share my rare, vicious mega-reptile with the whole world. Or better yet, we should revive dinosaurs, so anyone can have one, and see what I mean. Draining post, enough for today…