Home

Home is not home anymore. People say home is where the heart is and I finally get it. Home is not a place anymore. Home has become someone, not somewhere. But it´s strange. The place where, just some time ago, was your safe place, your hidden corner of the world it´s not yours anymore. Not just because one of the sisters literally seized up your old bedroom but because it feels empty...the place you´d happily go to be alone and step aside of the world (and how damn good it felt sometimes) now seems lonely...such irony.

Although there will always be saudade and nostalgia. The jokes with the sisters, the football chat with dad, the political and tech chats with the uncle, hearing your grandma tell that story of the scare you gave her when you were little for the thousand time (and you will never ever get tired of hearing her told such stories)...

My conclusion of this, and in case it happens to you too dear reader, is: you must have chosen right. If you felt good alone and now don´t...if it feels something is missing, even for a day, maybe that´s the universe saying that, at least one decision in your life you took right. And yes, it´s not easy leave behind the ones who you grew up with and the ones who raised you but sure they will feel they did it right...one has to grow up and fly on your own, I guess.



P.S. Yup, I do know the latest blog post was 1 year ago...and I wish I was disciplined and had documented most of the thing here but...there´s some stuff you don´t even know what to write about it. For the good, but mostly for the bad.

Long-one-year-story-short, I´m in the right place with the right person.

One

Would be silly of me not to mention such an important date in one of the places that won me her over...

One year (and one week) with best person in the world.

It's amazing how I wished for this for so long and now, after one year, I still have a surreal feeling about it. Don't know if it's because the way we met, the distance that we made sure it wouldn't be a problem or...how I'm about to move in with her when my (professional) future still leaves my head every single day wondering if everything will go well.

But one thing I'm sure...through good or bad times I wanna be with her forever. I love her like crazy.

Little Snippet of Love

11 months ago I met someone.

Someone special.

Someone I will love forever.

How I met you mother - pilot epi.

To Josefina and Vicente

I keep recreating the story in my mind. Not knowing why. Perfecting the details, polishing it. Not like I'm going around telling it to everyone...as much as I wouldn't mind do that...as much as I wish I would do that...as much as I hope someone asks me to tell them. The long version, not the long-story-short one.
Sure everyone has their story and it feels special for them but how many can say it all started with...a Youtube comment? Yes, you've read it well. A XXI century love story. Such a random thing to do this days... Who would have guessed you would find love that way?
I also wonder about the amount of details that, not having gone my - our - way, our paths would never cross. Perhaps not a good mind exercise to do but it helps me realize how lucky I was. 21 and 22. We never found love. So many people crossed our lives. She living near the largest city of the country and studying there...what were the odds? So many chances to be presented to a friend of a friend and ensue love as most stories go and yet we find each other...350km away. You could tell...you could easily tell she was special.
Our minds worked on how it could work... And not spoiling the next episodes, we made it work. She made it work. Not moving mountains as people say but moving cities, to make it happen. And I will forever thank her for that. And tell everyone who has some time to spare how click on "send comment" can change your life.

So...

It´s the same old start...I said I would keep this more updated and it´s even worse than the year before... Oh well, let´s throw the blame to the microblogging shenanigans aka Twitter and Instagram. Ok, I´m to blame...I use those things quite often... But who reads blogs nowadays anyway? Silly people like those ones who still write them probably.

Long story short: Graduated. I´m at the same "Summer job" I got last year. And, about the girlfriend, only one thing changed...I love her even more as I spend more and more time with her.

Not-so-short-story/future plans: The plan is go to Porto, find a job there and stay with the one I love every single day. Nothing would make me more happy than to walk around Porto holding hands with her and going to lots of cool events in the city. I´ll never grow tired of that. Never thought I would come back to that Summer job I mentioned but the guy called again and I´m seeing it as an excellent opportunity to save some money to keep me going for a good while if something goes wrong or the search for a job at Porto goes on for a while. I´d honestly work at whatever place to go home to her every day. I fear so much something can go wrong as money plays a big part in this plans and I don´t have what you can call a skill or a talent (or money saved...), but I guess that´s quite natural...the uni-to-grown-up-get-a-job part of life must be frightening for many. And if it would be like that if I was the old forever-alone-Andre one year ago, imagine how it is now that I found the one I´ve been looking for all my life. It´s silly but she´s my first ever girlfriend and it´s...I don´t know...it just feels so good. It´s that kind of stuff you read like "oh you know, it´s love" but you dismiss it or think it´s lame but then it happens to you and all the it´s the most powerful feeling in the world kind of lame shenanigans make total sense. I try to show her, and tell her, and write her how I feel but it´s just so immense. So overwhelming. You always fear to lose your loved ones but this kind of fear is different. It makes you be a better person, improve, grow up, love better. And that´s what I need to do. Throw all the fears and doubts away and fight for everything go as I (or should I start writing "we"??) planned.

Muuuuuch more could have be said about this last [awesome] months that I would have liked to share in detail. There have been so many days with her that should have been replicated here in detail... They are all in my heart, and in some way I like that some are just between me and her, but you feel like telling the whole world how awesome this feeling is. I know it can sound lame and boring...I was the one thinking that not long ago...but you will see if you haven´t already.

Keep stopping by for this kind of messy-update posts...I think I´m good at them!

Pause it Play it

Through a web of cables and wires
Where everything can be found
We came across
At a point of convergence
So far away
So close
Fast forward
To tiny streets wanderings
To balconies of wonderful landscapes
Sunsets, there, with you
So simple
So meaningful
Fast forward
To clicks of memorable places
That were just ours for a period of time
To be shared
Lights showing us the way
Alleys guiding us
To unique art
Fast forward
To the riverside
To the top of a bridge
To a lost place
To a discovery
Waiting for us
Fast forward
To intertwined hands
And arms around the waist
To lips connecting
To your house
You and me

The Little Things

Many say love is in the little things. Little [seemingly unimportant] gestures that mean more than the gesture itself. Gestures done not to impress but show that you care. I enjoy watching movies. Far from being a movie addict. Unfortunately I rarely go to the cinema and I have an awful memory cinema-wise...names of actors and directors escape me often and even to remind myself if I have or not watched certain movie can sometimes be a struggle... But for these last years, late at night, when everyone is sleeping, I enjoy get a movie a movie ready, get the blankets ready, get the late night snacks ready and lose myself for, at least, 90 minutes in someone´s story. For the past weeks I´ve had, yet again, all the time in the world between reasonable-spaced-in-time uni exams to continue this hobby...and yet I didn´t. Something changed. Can said experience be better if you share it with someone? How could it be? How dare someone invade my late night aloneness that I cherished so much? Does holding hands with someone make the experience better?...maintaining you immersed in the story? Maybe it is better. And that´s why I´m saving the movies I so eager to watch to watch them with her. Because...for some reason...she makes them better. It´s the little things.

2014

New year. Resolutions? Let me tell you what and where the 2004 me saw the 2014 me: I would have a job, not at any time knowing what I would do exactly, but something economic and/or financial related looked interesting, so I followed that path since someone decided that at the age of 14 we should make a big life decision affecting our future. I would probably work at a bank but, as stated before, had no idea what people in banks do but it seemed interesting every time I pictured it. On that path there was a thing called Mathematics that would be a good help in getting to an open office on a high-rise building floor where I would have a desk doing a job I would like to do. I failed and I only have myself to blame. Coincidentally it happened at a time where economy and finance took one of the biggest hits in its history. And I was in a country particularly hit by it and living in a small town. I hate myself for blaming something or someone other than myself for the 2004 vision not being a reality. Thing is, I´m lucky. I´ve always had food in my plate, a roof over my head and, as grandma always says, as long as you´re healthy it´s all good....and yet the only thing I got as a real job lasted 5 months. In the end it was a fun experience that somehow (although with big help of co-workers) I managed to do it successfully despite its big responsibility. But I feel like at my age I should give more to my family and not feel like a burden to them. They never told me I was a burden and I don´t even know if they think that but I feel like I let them down being someone who had had good grades growing up and I´m now taking a degree - International Relations - at university that [let´s still hope not] will take me nowhere with just a bachelors degree, when the 2004 kid thought that at the end of it he would have someone calling him for a job. Welcome to the real world you [still] naive kid...

Leaving all the doubt and fear behind and onto good things, that same naive boy, met someone who made all that fear and doubt disappear on these first days of the new year and for the best part of the last 3 months. Being shy, not having a huge group of friends and preferring to stay at home instead of partying were never good when it came to meet a special girl but I always told myself I wouldn´t mind the wait. I knew I would find a beautiful, both inside and out girl, with whom I would share all the silly stories and a new year´s eve kiss. And I did. And love feels so good! All I want is to see a smile on her face when I´m with her. It´s sort of funny and ironic though that being in love grows another fears...of letting her down...of disappointing her...of losing her... But, those are the good kind of fears. They make you work for what you got. And that´s my resolution...as generic as it could be: become a better person. Have the will and motivation that is lacking for the past years. And be with her as many times as possible.
_ _ _ _

This post is slightly confusing and I´m sure I could find better words and make it longer and prettier but I´m already hugely procrastinating (there go my resolutions...) for this exam I have tomorrow. Also i´m not particularly talented when it comes to put fear, doubt and love into words...

If procrastination doesn´t get in the way too many times I will try to write more here. Hope you have a wonderful 2014!

Up. To. Date.

No. This is not the depressing post of a twenty-something years old boy I´ve been promising to write. Sorry to disappoint you blog dweller that somehow ended up on this blog and post. I guess I´ve hoped for time to pass and for things to get better so I didn´t have to write it. There´s still many twenty-something years to go though...
2013 did not start well. From the death of the dog I grew up with, on the very first days of the new year, to a forced gap year from university and a difficult job search in such country and small city I live in, life was not what a not-long-ago teenager, imagined it to be like. Time passed. And so did life. Things got better. Got a job. One that started exactly on the early morning after Muse´s stadium concert that I was so looking forward in order to take my mind from a semester of emptiness. Coffee would help. As it did all Summer. Promises of a better 2013 arose. It was a good Summer. Tiring, but productive. University seemed possible again. Romance too, of all the things, seemed possible. Summer ended, university started. Jump to another concert; Au Revoir Simone. Again. Hello stranger. First meetings (dates?) in concerts don´t seem as scary as in any other place. Show, autographs, taxi, home. Pleasure to meet you. We shall meet again. And again. And again. Love ensues. Distance is a detail. Depth over distance every time my dear. No idea what the future holds for me. But I´m happy again. And I have someone to make happy. Sunsets, parks, walks, bed. Whenever I´m with her is good. Good times are back. And I hope not to disappoint.

Delusions

As always, plenty of ideas for posts came to my head but lazy me failed to actually post them here. I have a good excuse this time. Got a job that keeps my hands (and head) very, very busy. And truth is I´m building up a post on my head for more than a month already…and when posted (it´s not this one) it will look like a mess despite all of that time in the oven…if you are a 20-something kid on that university > work + not being a kid anymore > grown up limbo you will understand it.

When I was young, around 7/8 years old, the circle of life was easy to understand to my very naïve mind. 1) You live 2) You die 3) when 2) happens you are immediately born again in some random part of the world with no memory of a past life but yet it was still, somehow, you.
Naïve, I know. Still…I´m quite sure you can´t tell me exactly what happens when we die so who knows if it isn´t this that *actually* happens? AH! Who´s naïve now?? (Still me, I know)
But…how awesome would it be? Sure you could end up in crappy places with a crappy life (although my greedy mind always thinks I would be born in middle-class households) but one of my earliest and favorites impossible fantasies I remember having is to be born and grow up in a different country of the world every time your life (lives) would come to an end. Trying to explain it: I was born in Portugal and grew up here. I was raised and act according to costumes/habits that are associated with the place I was born, the city, the region, the country, etc. Happens that, as all of us, I imagine, I´ve always felt attracted to other parts of the world. In my case the Nordic countries and Australia/New Zealand are on top. And I would like to be born in those places (having always the memories of a past life with me) and see if what attracts me in them lives up to the expectations. Also, having the memories of past lives I could compare which place would be better.

You might argue that “Well, you can, on the one and only life you have, move to those places and see all you mentioned above” but my idea is that you would be raised and grow up on those places acquiring the costumes that very own place has and thus have an identity you don´t get when you are born in another place.
Another example: You, as well as me (if you are a 90s/millennium person that watched lots of tv), were and are flooded with American culture references. Movies, shows, news, etc etc. Tell me you never wondered how it would be like to go to *the high school*. Go to those home comings, balls, parties and all those shenanigans the word high school + America brings you to mind. Those huge university campus. The drive ins. The house in the suburbs. The NBA, NFL, NHL games. Get my idea? And, obviously being USA a big place, in my fantasy you would born more than once in the States, in different parts of the country!
It´s sort of silly, I´m aware…and I also had too much free time going up to think in silly fantasies… But that´s what blogs are for, right? Silly thoughts and opinions.

In the Kingdom of Classics?

Can´t really tell what pretentious/hipster feeling had me attracted to this movie for a long time. For some reason since it premiered in the cinemas on the shopping where I used to go for lunch between classes that sepia-toned poster caught my attention.
Unfortunately my cinema-budget was over by that time and, like every other time, I had no one to convince me I really should go watch it or to go watch it with someone...much like Suzy I may be a very troubled child...
Finally it was uploaded on the corner of the Internet where I watch movies.

Another thing was the cast...Bruce Willis, Ed Norton, Bill [F*cking] Murray. And they aren´t even the main characters. Speaking of which...man, this kids are talented nowadays!
I believe one of the reasons this movie clicks with many people (that IMDB rating is looking good) is, besides all the good direction/filmography/photography, the story happening in a simple time - 1965. I think everyone who happened to live in an era pre-Internet can easily get the appeal - and nostalgia - of such times. And if to that you add a first love romance I believe you get a winning formula. More if you do it in a quirky, different, funny way.
Of course you will have some moments during the movie where we will wonder that such thing will never happen in real life. But, unless you were 13 around the 1960s, bury those thoughts and enjoy. You will ever know what Scouts and troubled children did back then... There weren´t any forums or pages full of memes and lolcats to spend your free time like nowadays.

Concluding, since I´m rubbish at reviewing movies, consider this post as a recommendation. You won´t regret. Or you will call me a hipster...but then I ask...what kind of bird are you?

BONUS:



This video might also have helped in building expectations for this movie. At 2:30 Lisa Hannigan does a lovely cover of the song in the trailer. And I´ve listened to it countless times because the story Lisa Hannigan tells during those two and a half minutes is hilarious!

Late night wondering

Ugh, look at this blog...so abandoned *sad emoticon*

I blame Tumblr. Mostly because I´ve got one . Press Reblog on a image you like is way easier than get out of bed when you´re trying to fall asleep to write the awesome (or just weird) ideas that came up to your head.

Anyway blog, I haven´t forgotten you and here´s an update. One of the weird ones.


Was wondering through Wikipedia´s entry for Iceland...it´s just like a short fairy tale. Look:

- Volcanically and geologically active. Plenty of glaciers and lava fields. And fjords.

- 14th most developed country.

- Despite its extreme latitude it´s not as cold as some countries in a similar latitude.

- The only native land mammal when humans arrived there was the Arctic Fox. They look like this .

- Their biggest city - and capital - Reykjavík has as many people as my hometown...and I´m a small town boy.

- Portugal is the 10th country with more foreign people living in Iceland. We are everywhere. And in good number.

- Highest number of bookstores per capita in the world.

- 10% of the population will publish a book. This is 10% of...319,575 people.

- Music from Iceland: Björk, Sigur Rós, Of Monsters and Men...and Emilíana Torrini (whoa, she isn´t Italian?! I was wrong all this time!)

- For its size, football (women) and handball (both) are quite good.

- Rather than using family names, Icelanders use patronymics and matronymics. e.g. Elísabet Jóndottir ("Elisabet, Jon´s daughter") / Ólafur Katrínarson (Ólafur, Katrín´s son")

Late night stories

4:35am right now. About an hour ago I was just relaxing and watching a NBA game between the Thunder and the Spurs (you will get the irony of this in a few moments...) after a day of classes under a 35ºC temperature and some beautiful blue skies followed by one of the most pleasant nights of the year so far and then BAM!!...one of the most unexpected, and quite scary, I must say, thunderstorms (got the irony?) I´ve ever witness happened!! One of the lightnings stroke really close judging by the quick and super intense thunder that followed it...
I´m used to the weather forecast to be wrong but how come between a 35ºC day and a 33ºC (tomorrow) appears such thunderstorm? Is this Portugal´s new way to get out of the financial crisis...being a tropical country? How about a warning before that happens? Would save some scary unexpected moments....geez!

About the NBA game...Oklahoma City Thunder won...

I LOVE this club!

Manchester City vs Sporting (3-2) Highlights and Goals - Europa League

I almost died on this very last play of the match



My H(e)art skipped a bit...

The Love Thief

Walking down the avenue

Blooming with style

You can see it´s her

You can see by the smile

It´s the hair, it´s the eyes

It´s the face, it´s the look

It´s the one you could stare

Like she was your favourite book

It´s words and emotions

That pop out from her face

Those kind of feelings

That you would love to embrace

But she hides everything

Deep underneath

She´s just another...

Another love thief.

Title inspired by this wonderful book:

Poem´s appreciation. Press one of the buttons.

Like or Dislike = So Sorry , HATE IT ,

Laaaaaame

Lame is my huge crush on Marit Larsen...that´s lame...

Re-post

First: Since I have a follower that don´t understand portuguese I´ll try post some things in English, even if it´s not perfect...specially grammar...like what to use..."in";"on";"at"...

Well this one is a re-post...just because I look back at 2009 and I liked this:

I will

Here we go

Like pieces of paper

Trust me

I´ll love you later

Here we are

Having fun

Watching together

The goodbye of sun

Now we´re under

Magic twilight

Hold my hand

Hold it tight

At your side

And in your heart

Watching lines

Fall apart

In the end

I´ll hug you

And if you love me

I´ll love you

Autumn Leaves

Leaves are falling
Benches are slowly empting
I threw a question
You looked so tempting

Warm colours are here
Red, orange and yellow
The answer was positive
The answer was hello

Incapacity

You are the brightest star
I have ever met
The one that shines the most
The one I will never forget

You are the inspiration
You are the muse
I will keep you protected
From conspiracy and abuse

Despite my protection
Despite my affection
Your heart just closed
And i just did nothing
I just froze

- - - -

P.S.: I promise to improve my writing.

I will

Here we go
Like pieces of paper
Trust me
I´ll love you later

Here we are
Having fun
Watching together
The goodbye of sun

Now we´re under
Magic twilight
Hold my hand
Hold it tight

At your side
And in your heart
Watching lines
Fall apart

In the end
I´ll hug you
And if you love me
I´ll love you

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I´ll know.
Tomorrow I´ll found.
Tomorrow I´ll discover.
Tomorrow is the day.
Tomorrow I´ll wake up without the alarm clock ringing.
Tomorrow I´ll shake like hell in the morning bath.
Tomorrow I´ll have the exactly same feeling I had one year ago.
Tomorrow I´ll leave home anxious.
Tomorrow I´ll look to the future.
Tomorrow can be one of the happiest days of my life.
Tomorrow can be a sad day.
Tomorrow I can have the biggest smile on my face.
Tomorrow I can sing out loud my favorite songs.
Tomorrow I can dance and jump to the sound of that songs.
Tomorrow I can cry.
Tomorrow I can cry a lot.
Tomorrow I can cry like I never cried before.
Tomorrow I´ll end the wait and I´ll see.
Tomorrow will be the first day of my life.
Tomorrow.