Closure

Even though there's less than a lip in between,
I can clearly see where you end, I begin
to wait for symbols but the fibres are thin,
and I measure more than I'd like to have seen
in the distance in between

your words, laundry-pinned to dry in my sun,
hanging from the moment ago they were spun
in drenching new-birth, concatenating with mine
to form the meaning I'd been meaning to sign
in the distance in between

us, and what has happened, what could never be,
there was nothing woven where nothing's to see
and I crane my neck, reading in front of me
the results of what I asked for, honesty
in the distance in between

the self that I aligned myself with, and you
expelling the code that puzzles me through
the silences when we meet, our rendez-vous
from a language I speak to get to what's true
in the distance in between

the vocal chambers that reside in bodies
picking up signals from closer melodies
that sound out help from minds not at ease
like mine, a poet ambling in memories
in the distance in between

where I've done too much searching for your smile,
ghosts have passed a lonelier road in denial
of their release, who I'd joined up with, all the while
talking, yelling, mouthing verbs and nouns, guile
in the distance in between

that I'm trying to overlook even here,
sounding out various prayers to an ear
I imagine is yours, wherever you hear
the fibres telling you that I am near
in the distance in between

where really there's a bridge you laid the instant
when the strings I tugged began their descent
into my sun-deprived consciousness, sent
from the warmth I recalled as an infant
in the distance in between.

The Time After Sleep

Thoughts belong to memory, yesterdays kept
Safe in the minds of those who dreamed while they slept,
Preserved by empty lines, wanting substance. Except,
When truth saw morning, they looked away and wept,
Having spilled ink on their clouds, unable to accept
Their folly. Nowhere fear fogged. In, the mists crept.

With that haze, terror down the storm drain crept.
It spilled ferociousness, flooded tunnels that kept
The calm intact, yet not for eyes to accept
That burdened the wanderer while they slept
Unsoundly in a twisting sopor. Any wept,
Windswept, subservient to villainy, except

Hanging by a thread exempt from torture, except
That buoyant rain-defying ring. A curtain crept
Across the window, yet while the welkin wept
Was there left enough tranquility, kempt kept
For an advent. Among the musing of the slept,
Lived beyond reminders, that which they would accept.

It happened when the sun eagered to accept
The yonder's invitation. What was except
Before first light, was undone afore minds slept
And outside life's palms did they believe they crept.
They but forgot who them had begot and kept
In joy. For that remembrance they wept.

In a symbolic gest, had the firmament wept
To imitate the gloom of refusing to accept
Responsibility for the fanged pets minds kept
Out of sight. So the world was poured misery, except
Its cup had a chip through which suffering crept,
Leaking into estuaries while minds slept.

Poison diluted, life did not die. They slept
Beside each other, sharing spare hope, and wept
For their mistakes, until a glance of light crept
Into their eyes, forgiveness, yearning to accept
Their tempest as a passed zephyr. Except
This memory, only verity was kept.

Minds have ere slept and in waking, taught to accept
The traces of tears they wept. There was no loss except
Of the channels in which hollowness crept. Such thoughts, only memory kept.

The June Silhouette

June has been the most eye-opening, emotional and insightful month of the year so far. It is because of conversations that I have had, both with others and with myself. I have begun to see my fears for what they are, and in this quest for inner peace I have had to realise how much baggage I carry wherever I go, how doubtful I am of what I do and why I do it, how self-limiting my mental dialogue is and how ashamed I am of it all. As "Bohemian Rhapsody" sings, when I look at myself, I see a silhouette of a man. A shadow. There is a light behind me of course, which is why I can see through the darkness to make out an outline. And self-consciousness begins, and self-discovery continues as the silhouette disappears to reveal the truth. Will I like what I see? Will I be joyful, as I have been promised?

I wish to recapitulate some of the conversations, from memory, focusing on their impact upon my perception.

At the start of the month, university courses were ending. Exams were on the horizon so it was time to prepare for them. I was able to concentrate as much as I needed and I am thankful for that. I was to discover things about myself I never realised. I was to face fears and uncover a silent vulnerability that had been building up in me like a balloon, empty inside but occupying my space, my consciousness. "A Course In Miracles" had informed me of the truth that I would need to come face to face with my past, to let it go. I had not expected the difficulty this would bring. I had been much more attached to my fears and grievances than I had realised. I was in search of peace, as we all are on any level. And to find peace, I must accept the moment. I seemed unable to do that. I was lost in my own thoughts, and as I shone the light of consciousness upon my 'problems' so had they intensified and curled within my person, as if in fear. The emotions of course came along with that and turned the whole ordeal into difficulty. Nonetheless, I went on in my quest.

I had begun talking to a friend, a good friend to whom I had not talked much before, about my plight. He decided to make the connection with another friend to whom I wasn't very close yet, and we began a three-way conversation that would last hours a few times a week. It is here that I opened up my wound. I had begun taking off my plaster, and the metaphorical blood started siphoning out. It was difficult to express myself how I had. I told them about a couple of moments in childhood from which I retained my emotional scars. Moments that I hadn't let go of. Baggage. Pain. But finally I was placing them in the light to be cleansed.

On the 8th, I had what I might call the most emotional conversation I had ever had. That night I had two conversations, one with the twosome mentioned above, and one with a dear friend who I was trying to understand, and in doing so trying to understand myself as well. What began as a simple conversation about how he was doing, turned into emotional release, of pain that I held with me. I don't know how he took it, but my despair blew out its dam and out flowed out my hurt. I felt myself vibrate within at how ashamed I was of what I was expressing and I was very conscious of how it might make him feel to know how I felt, about him but more so about me. I wondered about it for days afterwards, if it was really the right choice to share things with them. They are there for me, and I love that. I appreciate it deeply. Gradually I shed my skin and tried to understand what was hurting me so much.

I went from being "easy", two of the three calling me that although I not really understanding why, to a point where I felt "overemotional". If one were to judge by the content of this blog, one may discern that I am quite sensitive. I have been empathetic in the past so that may have evolved with it. I discovered that I had problems of my own, that I had believed in sacrifice of me for the other. I had not really known happiness for what it was but instead as a dependency on other things, things that 'brought' happiness. That's difficult to understand, I imagine. I realised my focus had become split among what my mind wanted to what God wanted to what I wanted to what others 'may' have wanted... Only one of those is true... God, what the hell have I been through?

Courage. Doubt. The first one is what I want and what is growing in me. The second is what I do not want and is decreasing. Through my conversations with the three, they correctly picked out how much I doubt myself. How much I limit what I do by how I feel. I have this filter that I send everything through and it comes out très sanitised and devoid. Empty, and I didn't like that. No one could, it's not who I am. How could I have been making this excuse? Because it was easier to than to be brave, to not let all my childish fears barrage the fun and joy of life. I am so glad they talked to me. I am glad I am learning to become more courageous, to choose love over fear.

Moreover, the conversations continued as June went on. I found myself consciously internalising my reactions and they would render me 'damaged' for hours at a time. I had been uplifted on a few days by my friends, but mostly I left myself in my own corner of the world to suffer because I felt I deserved that for lying to myself, for denying my past, for not allowing me to move on. I realised I wasn't on top of the world and that I never really wanted to be. All I want is love. Love. And all I can really have is love. I do not yet believe this, though I wish I did. It would solve all my problems. But I had also learned that my problems had already been solved ("A Course In Miracles"). I had stopped trusting it at one point but I returned my faith once I realised I was not putting my faith in it before but in my own perceived weaknesses. God, I confused myself, tied myself in knots then undoing them trying to sort out my life, my problems, how I was going to come through. I know I will, I have faith in that. I have undying faith. And faith has me.

I held myself as a person who knew who they were, but while I knew deep down, I kept forgetting. But the time to be authentic and remember is now. Now I am. I wanted to be the best, the hero, the one that receives the attention, the one that is loved, the one that has all the answers. None of those came true. I know that none of those is real. Love is reciprocal. So, its light guides to where I must go, where we must all go eventually. Home. I don't want to spend any more time in hell. I was as lost as everyone else was. Finally, love is coming and washing away my hurt and the sun within is rising. God... I may look like a silhouette now, but I am whole, and as the light grows so shall the truth become more apparent. I hope all my secrets will be exposed, not that there's many of them, but that the few that remain will be known to me and if it be willed, to others. But I want honesty to be my breathing and I want life to live in reality not in an excuse for it. I deserve the best, the only, the all there is. It is not too much to ask, because I already have it. And it's bizarre to say that because I don't understand how I can have something, but I only have it because I am it. Nothing else belongs to me but what I already have. Paradox, whatever.

Love is here.

Child's Play

I remember when we were children. I remember it because that time has not ended. We are all walking around as if we had only learned how to a few short days ago and are discovering the world for the first time. Everything is amazing, even though we've seen it so many times before. Everything is just fantastic and fascinating, the tops of trees, the shine on windows, the clouds, the faces of the other children. Oh joy, childhood lasts a lifetime. We don't grow up, we just decide to abandon our innocence for irresponsibility. Mate, that decision is not practical or plausible. We are children, we walk the Earth hand in hand and we play together in so many locales and ways. It's so much fun to be. Adults don't exist, so don't fool yourself into thinking that we are old or that we are somehow mature inhabitants. Insecurity doesn't make you mature, but it makes you feel like a scared child who has let go of our hands. Don't worry though, you'll eventually stop crying and open your eyes. You are going to smile then because you'll realise we were always here for you, with open arms, ready to laugh with you once more. The disorientation will just serve as a joke for a while, and we'll get much entertainment out of it. Come on, we can laugh at anything.

Let's play with our building blocks. We can make so many things. If we put them one way we can make a pyramid, or another way and we can make a wall. We can fort ourselves around the bench and protect the doll on her throne. From the elements? I don't know from who? But psychology might be able to tell us what she is afraid of. Yes, I know she's a doll. We are playing pretend aren't we? Like when we used to play pretend when we pretended to be bus drivers. Oh, how fun that was. I had so many pencils, pens and felt tip pens. Excellent markers for roads; an experience that allowed me to visualise cityscapes. And back then, I did. And I didn't have a bus, so I used a toy car. Not Hot Wheels, but some tiny ones that probably broke very easily because the plastic was cheap. You could find them with the cheap cheap cheap gum. What a treat, ephemeral, but that was part of the deal. Cheap doesn't last long. But it lasted enough time, or else I would have lost my appetite and would have wanted to try my mum's or grandma's food afterward. But back to the vehicle sandbox, remember when I put my thumb and finger onto the car and drove it around the roads I had made? I'm smiling. I pressed a bit too much sometimes to the point that the small wheels either snapped or stopped working properly. That's okay. They were buses anyway, and when I went from room to room through those roads that led me to interesting and unlikely intersections in differently congested areas (traffic-wise), I could always stop by gas stations/repair stores/anything else I wanted them to be. What a simple time that was. I'm not quite as naive as I was back then. I don't believe in it anymore. I don't find roads as fascinating anymore. Sometimes traffic lights make me anxious.

But, as I was saying. This is all child's play. No one's really very grown up. We fight over things because we think that what we are fighting over matters. Politics, a toy car. Democracy, a rubber chicken. The sexualisation of young girls, flowers picked from the field. Homosexuality, the broken lead of a pencil. Choice, innocence. Close-minded people, honesty. Lies, telling the truth as the most natural thing. Loneliness, love. Fighting, smiling. Hell, heaven.

I want to make sure I get this. Salvation is here. The only reason I would be confused about salvation being here is if I was told that salvation was elsewhere, which I believed before but now realise I trusted someone who didn't trust themselves. But I know now. I am a child, a son.

Rhythm In Rhyme

Elsewhere, in crevices unweathered
There's a box of hope stashed away
Awaiting the touch of your hand.
Open it.
In between your fingers, feathered
Light may shine, show you the way
Through 'ere hallway of darkness.
Face it.
Hold out your hand, receive,
Be whole in what you are to give
Never ask for it back, for you do have
What you give, always in your hand.

Looking for myself in empty places,
Broken paths I must uncover.
Yet the silence and the lack of faces
Yell the truth I need discover.
Trodden journeys nowhere, blind with dread,
Mirror perfectly my mind.
They show the wayward image, turned to shred,
And a blessed son behind.

The world we're given, we push away,
Desiring one made by hands with which we pray;
Hands not wounded by counted battles for control
For a say in who we are, our role, our soul.

Rhyming
Several spaces
Lyrical inspiration
No frustration
But memories
Memories

Any meaning?
Anyone?
Any certainty
Jump the gun
Sit still
Listen
Stop hearing
Listen
Stop seeing
Listen

The Note Of Joy

Afternoon rain, blanketing somewhere
Those somewhere, rather nowhere
Sitting down, caught by surprise,
Reveling in someone's troubled eyes
Seeing passion, seeking free,
No end to their destiny
Intertwined and permeated
Such dreams dilapidated.

Pathos granted, motions set
Upon the desire to be let,
Answering the questions
Staring into the oppression
Opening the jaws of synergy
Into fascinating formations of energy,
The door is answered, the said said
And the repressed memories are shed.

If there's really to be happiness, there must be a note of joy left somewhere among the remains of our altercations with ourselves. I am fortunate and blessed to have others read that note from themselves to me when I forget where I put mine. I'd hold it in my hand but I could easily crumple it because I'd hold onto it too much. The solution is thus to keep it close and to form the habit of reading it often.

Let the story thus be told
In a manner that shines true gold
And let no obstacle stand in its way
So it can be heard by ears far away
Or those that are close, that wish to listen
To a word unspoken, unwritten, unhindered
Of faith.

Operation Cwal

Do we increase the rate of unit production like the cheat above? 'Coz you can't wait any longer... is that why you have to rush? Cheater... I'm guessing you weren't taught to play fair before? Anyway, now that the Starcraft reference has been disposed of, I present you with a more light-hearted post. I've had enough of the worrying et al. My conclusion, which I have written on this piece of paper in front of my keyboard, says "When you are led to think that things you do and that happen to you mean more than nothing, all you can do is trust." I shall gladly take my advice, because I can't wait any longer. Nope. To be driven crazy is unhelpful and time-consuming. So I press Enter and type this in.

operation cwal

And now it's enabled. This is not a Starcraft game but we can agree that it works because the subject now changes. To a memory that is related to Starcraft. Stay tuned.

Imagine me, a young boy of seven or eight or nine years, lying on my mother's side of my parents' bed. There's a small notebook in front of me, nearly untouched save for some pages ripped out of it - previous attempts at giving the book a use. My head with that brown-blonde hair is focused ahead and a bit to the left, at the computer screen. This Pentium 2/3 (I forget which) hosts the afternoon's entertainment. My brother's there, playing the game of the month, and on the screen I can see hordes of Zerglings massing across the plain into a Terran base defended only by a few feeble Marines. My brother played Terran - he liked the tanks because they dealt splash damage. I hated them because they dealt splash damage. I preferred Protoss, thanks - more yellow, happier, more interesting. From my perch I got excited at what was happening on the screen - it was only later on that I learned that excitement expressed through erratic movement was considered mental for older people. Once I reached that, I stopped doing it publicly.

Each of the three races of Starcraft had a particular technology tree, each unit having a particular name and significance in the game. The balance of this has provided many people the chance to enjoy the strategy game... which is why it is still played today, in Korea especially. Those trees... they were the ones I liked to fool around with. I was so fascinated by them that I decided to make my own race and the tree to boot. Where to start? The beginning of course - with the main command building that each game started off with. It needed a fantastic name, so it received that honour. My not being able to remember any of the specific names can suggest to you that this honour was ephemeral. I make no apologies for that, bigger and better things appeared so I must have seized them. Or lost interest. Either, or. I would spend quite a few minutes thinking up these names... which were most important to me because they introduced to the reader how cool they were (the made-up buildings, not the reader - it was never read by anyone else besides me). After the first building was named, soon followed the worker unit, then the first fighter unit, then the other buildings and then upgrades. This process lasted me hours.

I don't remember having gone past a whole page. The next time I would come to do it, my interest in my current tree would have waned and I would rip the page out and begin again with a 'better' idea. At some point I collected the big (big) grey English-Romanian dictionary and looked up a plethora of words to sophisticate my trees with. Magical. I also translated some words of buildings from the game itself. I taught some of these to my mother because she wanted to learn English and me being helpful, I endeavored to assist her. I taught her the meaning of Barracks, Hatchery, Lair and Hive. The first is the first attack unit-producing building from the Terrans, the other three, in that order, are the upgrades of the main and only unit-producing Zerg building. I chose these because the words fascinated me - I had never heard them used in spoken English, not that I was exposed to much at that early stage of my learning/absorbing the language. Suffice to say, these words did not help much with her personal language acquisition. Maybe it helped in pronunciation, just a little. She still remembers two of them, although likely not the meanings. I don't blame her.

So... fast forward, and I stopped my tree invention/creative expression; at least in that specific way. It had taken many other forms, some similar, some quite different, later on during my teenage years. Possibly, this unearths the origin of my impatience, this operation cwal. I've noted in my first job interview, when asked for my weakness, that I was impatient at times. When asked how I would improve on that - as generic as the question sounded - I may have said that I would try be more patient. Maybe I should have retyped that cheat, or just quit out of the game - that would have put things back to normal speed. This journey through time thus has been brought to you by a cheat code. Now, back to the present. I press Enter.

operation cwal

Loss Sung By Somebody

Singing a song like this makes me smile
For I know you're smiling beneath as well.
In the morning light we lie there a while
Your hand in mine, you break through your shell.

Oh, we are waves
Meeting at the seams
Crossing in complete formation
The love that sees
Us come together as one.

Oh, we float above
The shores of sentiment
Hearts untied and bold and true
I can let go
Knowing I won't lose you.

Words are spoken like the past smoke
And the mirrors go along with them.
What truth is there, near our own oak
By our campfire, roasting love again?

Oh, carry on without
The burdens of my memory,
It may lead you to a brighter day
One without
Choruses and bridges over what we say.

Oh, catch the stars
In their wishful magnificence
For they may grant life to your dreams
That you dream
On a night where nothing's what it seems.

Stir within the confines of this scorned jail cell
Betray no secret that has dawned on you to keep,
Unfold the corners of the letter written to tell
Me of your truth, your decision made to made me weep.

Oh, how do cards
Arrange themselves in such a hand
That any move will split the heart twofold
And blood will drain
Leaking into rivers, into seas of love and gold?

Oh, why do hearts
Guide us into memories together
Where we are denied a new chapter to our story
Because it is done,
This irreversible undoing I had never wanted you to see?

Nightingale Street

Growing up, I lived in an apartment building on Nightingale Street. I was on the second storey, excluding the road/ground level which was considered as a storey in itself but not actually called a storey. My young body was small, and through it I saw a world much bigger. The road was much larger than it appears to me now, at least in photographs. I had to take many steps to get to the other side where there was a small store that served as our dairy. It was quite a mission, not in the difficulty, but in the responsibility of it being assigned to me, to take the 50,000 lei note from my mother's hand and go downstairs, across the asphalt street into the store to buy a Coca-Cola and a Mirinda. Then I made my return journey with the change. It took less than five minutes, but I had completed my errand.

Nightingale Street was small. It connected two other streets and ran parallel to a larger, longer, more traveled road. The sidewalks held ample room for two people to walk side-by-side. More recently, they (whoever that may be) installed parking spaces in front of the buildings, which our family used when we got a car. This left only room for one car to actually travel through the street at one time. I imagine it would have been even more difficult in the winter with the snow. The street looked different in summer compared to winter. In summer, you could see the shoddy repairwork that was hastily or improperly done on the roads. Bitumen spots covered random places, somehow like mosquito bites, together with a myriad of cracks and other potholes, from wee to big. As a child, these features are part of the landscape - I saw nothing wrong with them, they were just there - irrelevant and included. Come winter, a blanket of snow would just about cover the whole street, which is why they had to send in snowploughs and a roster for locals to do manual shoveling of snow. Generally, the street itself would be clear enough for cars to pass through. By that I mean there was a layer of muddy stamped down snow that coated the way for vehicles to travel to work, that is, if their engines weren't frostbitten at 7am in the morning. The sidewalks were also snowed on, as one would expect, but they were also manually cleared by the shovels of middle-aged men with warm coats and fur hats. If the snow got too wet and mushy, footprints of gumboots and thick shoes were visible. At times, when the conditions were right, sheets of ice would form, which would provide good entertainment for children like me to skate on with the neighbour or with some friends I had made at the playground two streets away. Older people at times fell and scattered their groceries here on the ice. The few trees that interrupted the sidewalk to the right of the entrance to our set of apartments were covered in a white mantle all winter. They simply lay there, warmed by the cold, an odd oxymoron, because they were preserved until spring when they would bloom in their natural magnificence. The grassy garden areas between the sidewalk and the apartment building itself, while naturally green and alive in summer, now was tucked away in hibernation, perfectly white except for spots of yellow which neighbourhood strays decided to paint on the landscape. Then there was the occasional sign from heaven that winged children delivered in the snow.

During the warmer part of the year, the aforementioned trees would bear fantastically green leaves, an assortment which would change to warmer colors during autumn when they would carpet the ground, no one to clean them up but the children who kicked them away and awed at their slow dance with gravity. The farthest tree along gave us chestnuts, free to pick. If I were to get one, it would be off the ground because it would have fallen. I wasn't tall enough to climb, but my brother and his friend from the apartment vis-a-vis ours were. They climbed up, exploring the crevices, the spaces between the branches and the view from close to the summit. At one point they may have shaken the tree, resulting in chestnut rain. They're supposed to taste nice. I think I tried them once but I can't recall the taste so likely it didn't make a very good impression on me. At least not a lasting one, and I'm usually one to remember smell and taste.

Going the other way towards the end of the street we didn't live on were more apartment blocks. One of them held a dentist which I went to once or twice, probably just before I moved to New Zealand. In between the two apartment blocks on our side of the street, each four storeys high, lay a rubbish dump where stray dogs used to rummage through. I didn't like going past there, out of fear. There were also some tramps and/or gypsies who did the same thing (rummaging), and I was scared of them too, but they may also have repelled other people with their stench. The lack of hygiene puts people off. By the rubbish dump there was also a concrete space which now probably is a car park. But it used to simply be a space where friends, brothers and sisters played catch or ran around deceptively aimlessly. The other side of the road also held a four-storey apartment block, and then in front of our block lay a much taller ten-storey block, which had, understandably, its own elevator. Generic would be one way to put it, but the whole street from memory had an entrenched quality, almost fixed in concrete, as if those buildings would always remain there, even though they looked unappealing and impersonal from the outside.

I never quite got the significance of why the street was named after a Nightingale. If we were to be correct in translating from the Romanian, literally the street belongs to the Nightingale, and I don't remember any nocturnal songs being sung outside. Maybe it was named after a person. Maybe not. The place, though, has evolved over time, and just as my own vision has changed with age, so has that place. The cracks that I did not notice before, I do see now, and the amount of them, metaphoric and otherwise, leave me with a sentiment of sadness - that my childhood home isn't really being cared for. I still have my memories though and while I don't hold on to them, I am aware that changes happen. Nothing lasts forever and that's the way it is.

Twistedspoon

Kadabra carries one, Alakazam's got two. Abra, has none. He doesn't quite need them because if you equip Exp. Share then you can train him, and if he DOES happen to get into a battle with a wild Pokémon, then he can always teleport out of there. Then all you need to do, young trainer, is to get out of the tall grass, or out of the cave, or use an Escape Rope or Fly to your nearest Pokémon Center to revive the other members of your party.

Yes, I'm a fan. Cool wee games there (my bias expressed - there we go, this is no longer objective). Well, when I was younger I had the Gameboy Advance and I played Sapphire and I enjoyed training my little team of Mudkip (and its evolutions) and the other ones, all 'lesser' until Kyogre which I found helped me wipe the Elite Four, especially Drake, because Kyogre knew Ice Beam and against Dragon Pokémon, it was super effective :D

Twistedspoon is an interesting item that was carried by the Psychic Pokémon I mentioned at the start. For some reason, I suspect one of which may be the limited character spacing in the games, it is written as one word. A nice combination, because when I look at it now I am pleasantly reminded of my 'adventures'. You know what, the Pokémon phenomenon was a phenomenon! Back in my home country (Romania), at our school, shortly after the cartoons started, the local store started selling branded croissants which had two stickers, each being one of the 151 original Pokémon. To get the album itself, you had to buy six or seven croissants. After persuading my parents to give me money for that much, I bought the batch and got it! Of course, that meant 14 stickers too! And no duplicates, if I remember correctly. And, to top it off, I got #25 Pikachu, first, or among the first one in the class. I showed my friends, we were childishly excited. Woop! I was on my way to collecting 'em all!

The croissants seem to have been mass produced in retrospect, because I remember them tasting cheap and stale. The chocolate in the middle was too little reward for chewing through all the (unhealthy) pastry, so they went from okay to crap as more were consumed. Someone say Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility. But I had to finish my collection.

Time passed, I finished it while I was still at school. Squirtle was the last one I needed. #7 had been elusive... but I managed to trade my duplicate(s) with someone to finish my collection. After that, I must've felt pretty cool finishing my sticker album! I had all 151 stickers, as well as the stickers at the back of Ash, Misty, Brock, James, Jessie, Prof. Oak, Nurse Joy, Officer Jenny...

After that achievement, which maybe lasted a day, focus shifted to something else. I still like Pokémon though. When I was at my grandmother's one year during this early fad, my friends and I got a notebook and we decided to sit down and design our own Pokémon, each with their own name (my favourite part was giving them names). We made about ten? Artistically speaking, they were not Leonardo Da Vinci's, nor any other painter's displayed at the Louvre. But they were cool, by our standards, or maybe without any standards and just mere observation. I apply the label 'cool' to them now because of my current feelings about the past. Back then though, how would I have felt? Creative :D

I played the GBA games after I arrived in New Zealand. New games are still coming out, as well as remakes of the old ones. I'll have a look at those ones too and if I want to play, I shall. It's exciting, feeling like a kid again.

It is possible to bend spoons. But Twistedspoons belong to Kadabras and Alakazams. To get the latter, you had to trade with a friend. I had no trade buddies, so I never got to Alakazam on the games. But I saw the pictures online and in the cartoons. Holding two spoons, he used psychic abilities like telekinesis during battles. The spoons acted like the focal points of his energy. My point? It is possible to bend spoons. And as the Matrix tells us, "There is no spoon."