Mum calls me every day. She wants to know how I slept and if my lunch included any proteins. She tells me to wear a scarf and remember my gloves. She asks if the snow has melted and when will I finally buy rain boots. I used to roll my eyes and say, Muuuuum! I mean, who didn’t? Wait, she used to say, when you’ll have children, you’ll understand. I do, mum, I really do.  

I love winter. I love its slow, unrelenting steps. Its phlegmatic nature. Even in places where nothing ever changes, where the trees never shed their leaves, believe me there is winter. There, winter does not fall from sky in white mysterious flakes, it does not wave its flag from the roofs of sleepy cities. But believe me, winter still is, for it cannot not be. For we need winter just as we need a good night of sleep after a day of play and labour. We need its pastel colours to give our eyes a rest, to quieten our hearts,

Random thoughts for Valentine's day, 2004. Today is a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap. Joel Barish said that in the opening lines of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I like this movie. It’s all about the awkwardness and misery and particular loneliness of love. Of course, love is a lonely feeling. Love comes with a thousand fears and a hundred different pains, one more poignant than the other. Love gives to you and then it robs you. It has this particular quality to take your mind off important things, to make you act foolishly and not listen to the good advice. It affects your general mood and appetite. Love is rarely good for you. The worst thing about love, it makes you vulnerable. It bares those secrets you protect the most. Being in love is a like walking naked through the streets of the city where everyone knows you.