I lived most of my childhood in a house with a garden in the Italian suburbs of Sao Paulo. No no. Rephrase that. As a child, I spent most of my days up a mango tree in my back garden. Mangoes, I had loads. Looking at old pictures with my mum one day, I spotted a huge tree that obviously wasn’t there anymore. Why did you cut it, Mama? I asked. She said it was an old blackberry tree and it was cut because it would cover the sun and stain the clothes drying underneath it. I felt bad. I really like berries and would love to have had a close relationship with them as I had with mangoes. I grew fonder of berries.
Berries are expensive in Sao Paulo. They come in little boxes that cost nearly 10 pounds! Some days I would refrain from buying New Kids on the Block posters to eat berries. I once gave up my religious Saturday visit to a club (yes, I used to go to clubs when I was11) just to sit in the park and eat berries.
But then I turned 18 and started experimenting with illegal substances/boys/weirder clubs and forgot about berries, as one would. Berries would come to my mind, sometimes in-between clubs, in the queue for the loo or waiting for a drink, those rare moments of clarity, but I wasn't really listening to my inner fruit.
That lifestyle was harming me so much (too much fun is bad for you) I had to come to London (haha), and to my surprise, berries are not that expensive here! I eat berries everyday. If a bad Karma takes me to Oxford Street I buy huge boxes of all types of berries in one of those fruit stalls that sometimes only sell berries (!!!), sit in Soho Square and press them against my face, laughing hysterically.
My most extraordinary berry moment was when I went to Finland with Mike Camel and hand picked wild berries in the forest. Free berries!!! I would roll in the grass and cry, shake the little berry bushes over my head with my mouth open until I swallowed a caterpillar a stopped being silly. Mike's Grandma would make fresh berry pies every night and I confess I felt sick of berries for a day or two. But that's past. I still love berries.
I wonder if I had the blackberry tree in my garden, would I still frenetically buy then everyday? I think I would. My friend T says we want what we can't have, and when we get it we value it much more, or find something else to crave for. She told me to play hard to get like berries in Brazil to make guys falls for me. I find this idea very distressing; I don’t need it, but recognize the pattern. I caused me serious problems. I tend to let people know how I feel about them, so if I like someone I kiss, hug, massage them and tell them how amazing they are from the very beginning. I did make some run away, fucking larval humans, and deeply regret it later. Don't call me anymore, hahaha. Brainwashed larvals on automatic pilot must perish.
The other way around is even worse. I say I’m not interested and they think I'm playing hard. I don't return their calls and they think it's cute. Fucking hell, people. You’re deranged! I'd rather play Pac Man!
We can't do much about "human nature". Let it be. But as I said to my friend T, I won't treat people badly in order to keep them near. That seems sick to me. I think you misinterpret the message. Everyone loves someone who's got a life. If you take time to reply the message or return a phone call to someone you like, it's because you were running between meetings, gym, work, cinema, and when you get home you do it calmly, in your own time. That's sexy. You can't spend more time with the loved one because you're working on a dream project. That's hot! That's what we want!
Playing games, to me, it's like simulating a busy, interesting life when you haven't got it. Got it?
I kept on being me. I'm all over my boyfriend. No games between us, I say. If I can't answer the phone it's because I've got my mouth full of berries.
At about 100 meters from the cargo bay of the space shuttle Challenger, Bruce McCandless II was further out than anyone had ever been before. Guided by a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), astronaut McCandless, pictured above, was floating free in space. McCandless and fellow NASA astronaut Robert Stewart were the first to experience such an "untethered space walk" during Space Shuttle mission 41-B in 1984. The MMU works by shooting jets of nitrogen and has since been used to help deploy and retrieve satellites. With a mass over 140 kilograms, an MMU is heavy on Earth, but, like everything, is weightless when drifting in orbit. The MMU was replaced with the SAFER backpack propulsion unit.
