November 2006

go to http://ansusberkana.zoto.com/galleries/ericabrazil

oh… and on a lighter and frankly unimportant matter… my brother michael is the smartest, funniest, most talented person ever. (yeah, i lost a bet thankyouverymuch)

oh… and mom, get on ichat sometime. and we need to know your flight number and the time it comes in, etc.

i guess i’m thinking about music today…

why is it perfectly normal to sing to yourself, but if you talk to yourself, you’re insane?

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you know how people are always saying that there is nothing new in the world anymore? well, i kind of have a hard time believing it. i mean, this earth is so young in the spectrum of time- do we really have to spend the next million, billion, trillion, ga-zillion years with the same old same old? if we really have come up with everything there is to come up with, there really wasn’t too much. maybe that’s what God meant when he said he created us in his own image: maybe we used to be able to create new things without having to copy from old things. and maybe that’s why we had to die when we lost this ability- because we would get waaay too bored, you know?

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so i had an interesting revelation: i ate pizza for dinner one night and my dream self ate it too. then she said, “wow, i dreamed i had pizza and now i’m really having it!” well, what if our dream people just think waking-life is a dream, and when they line up like that, it feels like they knew the future

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i don’t like being sick when i’m by myself. it really makes me realize i’m alone when i sneeze and have to bless myself. and it doesn’t help to have comptine d’un autre ete by yann tiersen playing (it’s like the sadest, most beautiful song ever)

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in normal life…

i’ve yet to find a suitable translation for “the bane of my existance”. i mean, i need something that really captures the soul of the phrase.

my aunt decided to celebrate thanksgiving this year with me and michael, so tomorrow i’m going over to her house to watch season 2 of lost and cook delicious food! yay!

i’m kind of turning into a psycho. i can’t refrain from killing any flying bug that comes near me! they just really, really, reeeaaally piss me off!

oh, and, yes i got fitted for my belt! we’ve been practicing a little every day for the baptism this december. i admit, i’m a tad nervous because i have to fight the mestre of my school and my mom will be there! i’ve fought him before (and almost knocked him to the ground with a well placed rasteira), but this is important. i’ve got to prove myself on that day.

today is a grape soda type of day. props to the guy who figured even healthy things could be made unhealthy. no props to him in about a decade or two, when my kids are giving me trouble about it. maybe i’ll invent octopus soda and make them drink it when they’re naughty. wuahahaha!

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let’s play a game! how many songs can you think of that have the word “sunday” in them. i have about three. ready? set? go!

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i keep a journal. it’s a difficult thing to do though… why, you ask? it’s difficult because i began to realize i don’t tell people things, i write them in my journal. i don’t tell people things because i don’t trust people. no, no i think i’ve got it all wrong. i did an experiment once, i told someone something i had written in my journal and they thought it was the stupidest thing ever! do you want to know what is was? i’m not going to tell you, thanks to her. for reals. alright fine i’ll tell you stop begging! i was thinking about how even awful things can have good come out of them, for example: all the african people who were sold into slavery back then. that was terrible! but now their descendants are saved from the famines and diseases and poverty of africa. they even have better lives. yeah, i know, “stupidest thing ever”

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my dreams of the united states are so real now, i’m actually frightened when i wake up still in brazil. hah, i still remember the way my heart froze when i opened my eyes and saw the rooftops of bahia out my window. i think i’m just waaaay too excited to go to L.A. in january (oh yeah, i’m going in january instead of may). i was even wearing the same thing in my dream! i spoke portuguese at first, but i know it was supposed to be spanish because i spoke it with my friend stephanie. you just know things in dreams… and we always used to speak spanish together, especially to annoy all the people who ranted and raved about being oh-so-hispanic, but really weren’t. we were pretty mean kids ;). so i was in a car, driving to mosaic (but all the thousand oaks people [yeah, y’all made it into my dreams] were there too), holding my favorite book (inkspell). do you know what i said to myself when i realized i’d left “o alquimista” by paulo coelho here? i said,”oh! but it’s ok because this is only a dream and i’ll still be there for a couple months!” (i must have been lucid dreaming) how strangely my friend looked at me! she looked at me the same way people in this dimension do when i say those types of weird things. so i walked on and found my friends- they asked if i wanted to go to disneyland with them, but i had no money. that’s when i woke up to the sound of law-breakers setting off firecrackers. “go back!” i told myself. “go back and tell them that you can pay because it’s only a dream!” but no matter how hard i tried, i couldn’t find my way back to them.

i’m getting better at this dreaming business though. i used to dream alone, then people were trying to get away from me, then i was trying to get away from people, then i couldn’t understand what people said, then i couldn’t remember what people said…

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i’m going to save the rest for later. don’t let me forget though! all you have to say is music, paul and old/new stuff and maybe ask (at your own risk) about my theory of aliens being artists and ufo’s being from the past when you want more, ok? hopefully i’ll know what the heck you’re talking about.

i don’t call it wednesday. no, i call it weirdnessday

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i passed myself in the mirror, but i forgot to wave hello. how rude of me… did i think it was me in the reflection? i looked so put together. i learned that we are not our bodies, we are our souls somewhere within. sometimes i’ll look into the mirror and ask myself, “where am i? am i in my eyes? my heart? my mind?” we just seem so connected to our bodies. i know when it’s hot, cold, sick, tired, hungry. i used to be angry at science because it told me everything my body does is because of electrical signals to and from my brain. electrical signals, that’s all. i wanted it to be something more… and sometimes i look at myself and say my name, “erica? erica. erica! erica?!” it makes me laugh! is that the name of my soul or my body? how does my name affect me? sometimes i’m afraid of things that i don’t know the name of. what if i had no name? would i be afraid of myself?

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i know it says eve was adams wife, but do you think they ever got married? do you ever wonder if cain and abel were twins? eve didn’t have any children before she ate the forbidden foodstuff, so did she even know what the heck God was talking about when he said giving birth would be painful? did they realize how cool it was that they were the first human beings on the planet? i mean, they were the first of a new species!

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actual conversation:

“do you play any instruments, erica?”

“why yes, yes i do! i play the piano, guitar and harp” (slight, but subtle emphesis)

“NO WAY!!! you can play the… piano?!?!

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my friend bought me a beautiful bracelett from an indian reserve. i was quite touched by this gift, especially because she said when she saw it she thought of me. she thought of me even when i wasn’t with her! how special!

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i like explaining english jokes to brazilians who only speak portuguese. my favorite is: why is 6 afraid of 7? (because 7 ate 9). hahahahaha… i love explaining that “eight” in english is the same as “oito” (eight) and “comeu” (ate)… i love how they don’t understand.

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ok, i’m done for today… but tell me, how are you all???