Picos Gemeos

I forgot to mention LJ in my last post, but it's worth bringing it up as well.

I now have only 5 active friends here! It's such a change from the earlier years, when I had over 300 active friends. I've been reading my LJ chronologically (currently in 2009) and we all posted so often back then, and there were so many comments...

I've been thinking: with the advent of A.I., if there was some way for Livejournal to incorporate it and give us a functionality that translated posts and comments, maybe that would open a new world for us? We could start connecting with the other side of LJ, and vice versa?

That's my tip for you, LJ Development Team!

Chilly mornings. Stay longer in bed. No need to get up so early.

Take a swig of water. Meditate for 15 minutes. Start the day.

Stay in pyjamas until lunchtime. Cats play hide and seek outside. Make a meal from scratch. Avoid mother’s questions about the virus.

A little digestive rest. A little cup of coffee. The 50^th one.

Watch YouTube videos in bed. Wonder about what could have been. Wonder about him, and him, and him, and now.

Water saplings. Pet cats. Work on a translation contract. Navigate. There is no deadline.

It’s night already. How quickly it came.

A friend kindly put me in touch with a well-known literary translator in London, for an informal chat on her career and, hopefully, some tips on how I can one day become a literary translator.

Another friend got us a contract for a psychiatric website translation. I’ll convert it into Portuguese and she’ll revise it. She liked my suggestion we create a partnership and look for more contracts of this type.

A Malaysian acquaintance just published her first novel - a science fiction. Could I translate it into Brazilian Portuguese?

It rains and I have a lot of typing to do.

13. I live in a rural guesthouse in Brazil with my mother, brother and his family. I spend most of my time taking care of my mom, who has dementia, or managing the guesthouse (cooking, cleaning, gardening.) The guesthouse opened in 2006 and ran for ten years. My brother and I wish to re-open it - first as an Airbnb.

12. We have a cleaner called Rosana who works for us every Friday. We've been chatting a lot about flowers and gardening; this past Friday she brought me a cutting of garden balsam, which I planted near our gardening shed.

11. I am a single gay man, just come out of a 20-year-relationship.

10. I lived in a narrow boat in London for a year, as part of research on a novel. I will hopefully pick up work on this novel again once the culture shock from moving to this small village in Brazil subsides. I'm also keen to get back into Portuguese-to-English translation work.

9. I meditate for 15 minutes each day, sometimes more. I also enjoy mindful walking and listening to podcasts on the subject.

8. My brother and I recently did a big clean up of our library. My next job is to reorganise the books by topics (gardening and cooking in the guesthouse's reception area, fiction, spirituality and non-fiction in the library.) I've also dug out a box of my mom's crochet and I'm trying to convince her to get back into it - so she doesn't spend all her time watching television.

7. I secretly enjoy soap operas and I'm now living in the country that produces the best ones (and sometimes the worst.)

6. I got into pull ups last year and wish to resume training here in Brazil, but I'm finding it hard to get motivated. I also love running (but haven't done much of it here).

5. My lovely co-workers in London gave me a Kindle as a goodbye gift. They even got a leather cover for it with a photo of myself and a friendly cat who lived near our office and who allowed everyone to pet it. I still get this cat's photo updates in our WhatsApp group.

4. I'm seriously considering adopting one or two kittens. Not only for the potential benefit of having company for myself and my mom, but for scaring away mice (that invariably attract rattlesnakes to our house). We already have five dogs.

3. I've had a few low days where I didn't even want to leave bed. Meditation has been key for managing my mental health and accepting this new cycle of my life.

2.

1. I turn 44 in less than 13 days.