Radiohead blares from my tinny shittypie speakers. I am enjoying in immensely. The shuffle mix of four albums (Opeth - Watershed, Pink Floyd - Obscured by Clouds, Radiohead - In Rainbows, Univers Zero - The Hard Quest) I created yesterday continues. Perhaps Banshee will stop its slight irritation of stopping at the end of each track. We shall see soon.

So begins my second full day in Rioja. I live in a flat adjacent to Madis. It is huge (for a small animal such as me) and mostly empty. I spend most of the time in the bedroom. Madis loaned me a table to place mustela-ermina on. A place where I can work, he said. I shall do my best to actually work whilst I sit here instead of wasting time as I have been known to do in the past reading pointless dribble on Reddit, Cracked or Progressiveears.org.

Yesterday (which, if you have the ability to calculate, was my first full day in Rioja), we drove to a hillock (1200m above sea level at its peak) and walked up to a height sufficient enough to view the surrounding countryside. The quiet was refreshing. The only sounds came from Astrid’s whining. For some reason, those sounds did not bother me much, however. I snapped photos, got ahead of the group, rejoined, edged away again, rejoined, and generally enjoyed the slight hike. My new boots even treated my feet passibly well. Madis spent much of his voice on explaining the bureaucracy of the Spanish government, both local and national. Of course, this pertained mostly to attaining grants for European Mink conservation. He has recently received 20 000 euros. He’ll use this to research the distribution of European and of American minks along two tributaries of the Ebro which cascade through the valley in which are the towns (villages) of Cihuri, Casalareina and Haro. The latter is the largest and I expect we shall visit it today. I need a fucking Spanish sim card. Ah…. I have drifted from the subject.

Banshee crashed after Pink Floyd’s Biding My Time. Is there some symbolism to be seen in this? The universe let the song play, of course, but then rejected its premise (or, rather, the title’s premise) because I am not, actually, biding any time at all. I am revelling in my current time. The contrast to Stonecrop, the summer and early autumn, the swirling disarray of the management and general discontent is steep. I’m already in love with a life which is temporary. (One can argue that all lives are temporary.) Madis’s dream is to buy land in the Burgos region of Castilla y Leon for a mere 30 000 euros, build a house on it, etc. One can imagine the rest. He enjoys Cihuri, but he’d rather have a house than a flat. I would, as well. I share a dream such as this. This region of Spain (or Pais Vasco, which may be much more expensive), is alluring. I passed through Burgos on the train Thursday on the way to Miranda de Ebro (where Madis picked me up). The region still had a dry, deserty feel to it. The green, hillock spotted area did not begin until closer to Miranda de Ebro. Of course, I don’t know exactly where Madis is indicating, for the actual Burgos region includes more than just the city of Burgos. Necesito unos dineros, vole. I, too, can construct a structure in which to spend lonely, poignant days.

Los próximos días van a estar diciendo. And then again, would settling ever be correct for me? Next year (March?), I’ll be in Estonia again, as well. Oouh, baby.

I feel as if it has been a small eternity since my last flight. Let me see. When was it? Oh… From Prague to Houston. I recall vividly the police-type-person in the booth checking passports shaking his head disgustingly at me. I had been a few months over in my stay in the Schengen. He did not stamp my passport at all. After his disgusted head-shake, he just handed it back to me. I wonder what, if any, problems this will cause when I arrive in Madrid in nine-odd hours.

Nine-odd hours

That is, if the flight which just took off thirty-odd minutes late arrives on time. Yah. I have a mere an hour and a quarter to catch my flight at Heathrow to Barajas. And we all know how flighty Heathrow is! Oh yes! The terminals are mere kilometers from each other. I may be stuck in London for a time, after all. Damn them!

The ambient noise is much more noticeable to me than it ever used to be.

I blame that on Boston. I mentioned to Ryan (who was surprised - as if he’d never thought of such a thing) and to Jeremy (who concurred, to an extent) and to Steve (who ignored the comment) my distaste for the noise pollution in the city. Just today, actually, in the morning, walking my usual route, but pulling up short at REI, buzzing, drilling, digging, scraping and wailing blared from machines all around. There was little room for calm. Perhaps the only portion of the walk that was tranquil was the park I crossed at the Longwood T stop.

After requesting a wine or four, I shall watch the film Oblivion. I know little about it. Perhaps it will be entertaining. Perhaps not. I can always program. In fact, I should program.

My mother often created apple/tuna/mayo sandwiches for me (on white bread, desafortunadamente) when I was young. Accordingly, I created one recently and consumed it. Supplanting mayo was jalepeno mustard. Additions were cilantro and horseradish. It was yummy.

Justin gave Hope Roberts an 87 on her exam. He seems quite proud of his student. He mentioned that she had been lost at the beginning. I imagined a furry, brown mouse that had been kept for all of its darling life in a cloistered cage, cared for with devotion. Suddenly, she is placed in an utterly flabbergasting maze. It stretches and curves elastically. Bizarre angles greet her with each twelve and a half paces.

Actually, I am just testing testing testing the new martenblog entry uploading device. Once I get my lethargy under lashing whip, I’ll also have a much maligned (by me) UI up to view the damned posts.

Yeah.

The giant hammer stands, or rather squats, over the dry, patchy landscape. The scant blades of grass in its ever-moving shadow reach up almost reverently. Their capabilities of growth are limited, however. The denizens who call the grass their gods scurry beneath. They have no real concept of the hammer. It is too vast. A lifetime of one of these small creatures would pass were it to try to traverse from the base of the structure to its summit. It’s ever-moving summit.

So the three levels of existence perpetuate into eternity. The godhead, unknown to the tiniest, is solitary. Swaying middle men are also fixed in place, but have comfort in multitudes. In the context of the solitary godhead, multitude is an appropriate word. Only the lowliest creatures are fully mobile. They even have the option to leave the forest of grass. Few do, though, and none have returned.

Perhaps one can see the whole universe as a puppet show. The reverent blades of grass reach up, but at the same time, peer down on their subjects. The hammer pulls their strings (in this case, upwards). The manipulation is a farce, but still maintained for a sense of order. Considering carefully, and were there a place from which to consider outside of this bubble, the godhead is sensless. It’s endless pumping which moves the daylight from one part of the grass forest to another, is fully automated. It is as if it had a greater purpose not even known to itself.

The mobile creatures do as they are instructed by the swaying turrets all around. Or, rather, they interpret the tilts and yaws of sessile beings to be a language punctuating their lives. The illusion is maintained on three levels. Perhaps four, were one to consider the unnamed purpose of the atomaton - the hammer.

The story passes to one of the few who had the courage to leave the forest. She is a segmented creature covered with fuzz and moving at a rate of perhaps one length of grass per ten seconds. The flat wasteland she discovers beyond her known world is baking with a heat she has never experienced. Bizarre, quick shapes cover the light for moments at a time, but never leave her in their coolness for long enough for relief. She can only see flatness everywhere. A booming fills her body and a sensation of unrest shocks her body into the air. Fortunately, she lands with no harm done. She continues her tortuous course.

Eventually, swaying spires appear again in front of her. Having an excellent sense of direction (for it is the only reason she ‘escaped’ in the first place), she knows she has not travelled in a circle. Then what is this? Another world? Another forest? Are worlds seperated by vast, flat wastelands?

It is a new forest. She does not name it, for she does not know exactly what names are. The teetering grass is apathetic to her. It does not try to instruct, for it is not pulled upwards by some unknown and monolithic force.

I pain myself at the moment, as people beg my pleasure. I am immaculate. I stand proud to be loved. Or at least wanted. Or at least questioned. Well, what is the difference, really?

I encouraged Christián to create a blog. He will not because he craves immediate satisfaction. Oh… I know that I do, as well, but he is more adept at it and that is why it is easier for him to fail.

Let’s make another dichotomy. There are ones who spend their lives delving deep into a subject. Then there are ones who stay the drug of knowledge and instead go broadly into many subjects. The former are the celebrated. The latter are the ones who can communicate with all, but are easily forgotten.

Then there are those who attempt to do both at once. They die in a mire of quicksand which envelops like a predator.

Discussion now centres around how the Uralic culture always wants their children to grow up around reindeer. You cannot be a human without reindeer around you. And the transfer of values to children because of this let them grow up in a ethically rich way and pass the same values on to their own culture.

If this were me, the world would be a desert. Desolation. Nothing. My childhood should not be passed on.

Is quality of life the freedom to be your own boss and to have freedom from the chains of country and culture? Or is quality of life accumulating material things?

This is another black and white question. Think about it as on axis, or a plane.

The dichotomy of black and white as opposed to living without any kind of conflict because no conflict actually exists. Western Culture creates a sense of good and evil in everyone. Without something to fight against, there is nothing to define ourselves by.

Indigenous people who live in harmony with their own ecosystem accept all around them as it is - they are harmonic, if you will, to use a cliché’d phrase. The mentality of black and white simply doesn’t exist. There is no reason to define oneself because conflict against something else. Rather, humans live in a culture which is at one with its ecosystem.

Discuss.