one Sunday morning...

9:32pm on a Sunday morning... the sun has started to shyly shine making his appearance through the morning mist and guaranteeing a beautiful day that's starting. I am standing in front of my building, dressed up in my leggings, fleece (with a jacket on top) and Nike's trainers, all ready to start my walk. I set up the Nike+iPod with my favourite genius list starting with "Are you gonna go my way" which gives me the best tempo for my workout and, city, here I come :)

I promised myself that this year I will not stop walking outside during the winter. Though I am not brave enough to go out in the pouring rain, I made a deal with me that in the weekends, when it is not raining, I will go for my usual route of 8Km to burn calories and give my heart the health boost it needs. And so far so good. Admittedly, the winter is not here yet, but I guess what is important is not to stop the habit, right? So last Sunday, though rather chilly I was there, me and the road, no worries, no stress, just pure fun, meeting the Sunday morning people (church goers and runners usually), savouring the morning smells of the trees, feeling the sun on my face... Ah, bliss!!

I have written before how much I like walking, how much "better than shoes" it is for me... On a Sunday morning, with the promise of a big brunch to follow (and without a lot of guilt for the waffles I might be consuming...), knowing that I can spend the rest of the day resting with a good film (or two or three...) and hopefully good company on the sofa, taking a nap in between, on those days my walking is a pleasure I cannot match with many other pleasures in life! Needless to say I highly recommend it! ...and who knows, we might meet each other if you happen to be walking around The Hague :)

virtual insanity!

I am a nerd... I believe I have written it before... I was the type of student who would get the top grades in high school (though I had to take the exams for the uni twice before I managed to get in... hmmm...) and have been called a nerd many a time in my life. Moreover, I do like high tech stuff and gadgets, even if I do not quite understand them, I do love sci fi movies and though I cannot speak Klingon, I do know how to greet you like Dr Spock... ah, and recently I put on spectacles...

So, with all my fixation with Louboutin shoes and Balenciaga bags, I still consider myself more of geek than a fashionista... but though I do get excited waiting for the new iPhone (yes, I know, a bit of a disappointment, not quite what we expected was introduced last week...) and I did even try google circles (I wonder who else did??)  there are many aspects of my fellow human beings' cybertality (cyber+mentality... I just made the word up... feel free to use it...) that I do not comprehend...

Like for example, this mania for having as many friends in facebook as possible.... nope, I do not get it... for starters, I am not in the least interested in calling "friends" people I haven't spoken to since more than 20 years just to have them added up to my -ever longer- fb "friends" list... I understand that for some people fb is their means of PR, like artists for example... fine. Numbers do have a different importance for them. But, as a very regular human being,  I really don't get the attitude of competing with one's real friends (the ones in the flesh...) about who has the most virtual friends in fb!

Another thing I don't get, and as always am open to suggestions, is why people feel the need to publish the most intimated details of their personal life in there (yep, fb I mean...) such as sexual relationships, for the whole world to know! WTF?? Yeah, really show that bitch who rejected you in the third grade that now you have lost all the extra weight and scored a hot girlfriend, hum??!! Get over it, people! And keep something to yourselves... Private life should be exactly that: private! And shared with only a few close friends, the type you actually meet in person and have coffee with, not virtual ones... if you actually find that you have more of the latter, the two-dimensional computer screen type,  re-examine your life, please! Avoid the virtual insanity... go out for a drink with just one friend instead of staying home to fb with 344 of them... it will do you good... "better than shoes" good ;)

a few words of sorrow...

I didn't think that Steve Jobs' passing would affect me this way... I mean, I never knew the guy personally and I only got to buy a Mac when I moved here,  as my finances before I got my current job would not allow me to even buy a magazine where I could read about Macs... But, it only takes to get your hands on one "apple" to want more ;) For 8 years now I'm hooked, a genuine fan! And though I cannot tell for sure whether it is for their being so easy and reliable to use even when you do not know the last thing about computers and electronics in general or because they look so damn good, the fact remains: I love them!

So, when the news of his death hit me yesterday morning, at first I thought "that's really sad" and then I kinda moved on... but a few hours later, as the day progressed and I was reading more and more peoples' messages over his death and articles about him I got far more sad... it is sad for a great visionary to pass so early and though he has said that "death is the destination we all share" I just think that it 'd been great if he have reached the destination many years later... it is sad for a man who has been following his dreams for all his life to be stopped from this pursuit only at the age of 56... it is sad to lose a man who has inspired with his achievements so many people, knowing that most probably he had so much more to give...

Why am I writing this here? What's "better than shoes" in all this? You could say that leaving a life of pursuing our dreams, the way he did,  is better than shoes... mmm... no objection, in fact go browse my older posts and you will find my thoughts on the matter there... But the moral of today's story for me is a bit different... It's accepting the sadness, that's what's better than shoes... there come days when the only thing we feel is sorrow, when life hits us with bad news, with loss and death... we need to learn to accept the bad feelings too, don't discriminate against them, don't hide them under the rag and just wait to show only the good ones... do not feel embarrassed to just express those feelings... yes, I got sad the man died, didn't know him, was no friend of mine but I think his life had touched my life in a way and for this reason I felt the need to put in my fb status "RIP Steve Jobs..."