Prince, founder and author at the World Writers Hub just nominated me, the Binge Watching Queen, for the Liebster Award. Thank you Prince, after all, you’re Prince and I am a Queen… Big laugh. Jokes apart, if you were wondering what is this Liebster award, what I can say is that it was created to recognize and/or discover new bloggers and welcome them to the great blogging community. But please, do not be shy, and if you want to know more, feel free to take a look here, and you will find also the official rules of this project by clicking here.
I hate chains, so for those who know me this would sound like a nonsense, but the reason why I accepted the nomination is simple: it is not just a way to promote ourselves, it is a way to promote others. In the blogosphere many are struggling: we may have great voices and amazing things to say, but at the same time we may not have the right networking entourage. A little help is always much appreciated. Spread the word you all, we need everyone’s help!
Prince’s blog, for instance, is about writing. Easy as that.
“It intends to function as a guide that will help you to understand life extra carefully and lead you through its hot tracks”.
As part of this nomination we have to answer a few questions to help others know us a little better, most of the times referring to our beloved blog or our muses and mentors. Here are my answers to Prince’s questions:
- How did you pick your blog’s name? I realized I have always been a binger, I binge on books and tv-series, movies and videos. Food. So it just came out naturally, I am the Queen of Binge… Watching!!!
- What’s your blogging quote? Don’t really have one.
- What are three things you cannot blog without? Sun, Silence, Sunkist
- Who is your favorite blogging father? You mean, Mother? I started working “professionally” for Facciunsalto, go check it out, if you know Italian. Otherwise scroll down and find the FUSion column where we wrote articles in English.
- Describe yourself in three words. Pensive, Imaginative, Misunderstood
- What is your guiltiest pleasure? Not sure I get what you are asking for. Chocolate?
- What is your most prized possession? Moral strength
- What single quality do you most appreciate in people? Honesty.
- What do you love most about blogging? Being appreciated for what I say&think.
- What’s the favorite post that you’ve published? (Link, please!) Not my favorite but probably the most important is a post about Chester Bennington from Linkin Park. You can find it here. Missing him every single day.
Now, let’s have a look at the nominations.
Blogs I nominate for The Liebster Award
Now, with my Academy Awards’ best voice, please let me introduce you to the nominees for the Liebster Award:
- A Scientific Perspective
- Nature is my home
- I am Geetha
- National Food Limited
- Tech Tips 144
- Blazing Gists
- Monarch Web World
- Unbound Outbound
- Doll Up and Take Care
- Seeking Solace
- BONUS NOMINATION: Trendablaze
Congrats to my fellow nominees! If you choose to accept this nomination, you have to answer the following questions, and write your blog post adding the link of the blog that nominated you (the Binge Watching Queen, duh!) followed by the other 10 you chose to nominate. Add your 10 questions and let’s keep rolling.
1. Who is your favorite writer (blogger, narrative, film…)?
2. Where do you blog from?
3. Who knows about your blog?
4. What famous person (dead or alive) would you go to dinner with?
5. When was the last time you cried watching a movie?
6. Have you ever binge watched a TV-series? If so, write me a message and explain.
7. Who do you want to become thanks to your blog? A more famous blogger? An influencer?…
8. Would you spend a year on a space station? A month? A week?
9. Which Countries have you lived in or visited?
10. What would you suggest to your fellow bloggers to improve their followers?
Great! Now it is your turn. Make us all proud. Remember to link your referrer and your nominees. Good luck. Talk soon,
The BWQ.
I could write my whole biography by just quoting every single word of your songs, I do too have memories tattooed upon my soul (DBS). I still cannot believe that the voice I kept hearing in the back of my head in those dark days, your voice, is now gone. And I hate that I cannot see what I am writing because my mind is foggy and my eyes are casting tears. Those tears I could hide day after day, sitting in my room, listening to you. Over and over. But now I just can’t hold them in anymore. No. Not today. I can’t.
I was in high school when a new friend, who crossed my path, made me listen to this brand new American band: the Linkin Park. We spent hours sitting in his car listening to their songs on repeat, and the one I always wanted him to play first was “Crawling”. Why? He asked. This is how I feel, I thought back then, until each and every word of all the other songs, one after another, one album after the other, started sinking in my brain, feeding my soul, healing my wounds, leaving only scars, and above all, making me feel I was not alone. Because you were there. But you are not anymore.
I want to write more, and more, but nothing makes sense now. I keep picturing you in that room, eaten alive by those thoughts you tried, we try, to fight every day. But we are, were, doing it thanks to you. We have semicolons spread all over, through the lines of the book of our life, because of you; because where there could be periods, ending it all, we took a break, we breathed, we shouted, and then we kept going. Why you decided to write that period though, to end it all, we will never know until we are here. And it hurts. Like hell. It hurts to know those thoughts were stronger than you, because now we think they could be stronger than us too. They took you, and Chris, and all the others like you, like us, and if there is just one little positive side of this fuc*ing coin is that, as of right now, we hate those thoughts even more. We hate they took you from us, you let them take you instead of fighting them, again, again, and again. We wanted to fight them with you. And now you’re gone. Just gone.
I will learn one day, maybe. Accepting the changes and embracing the consequences. Hilarious how for many aspects of my life I change something everyday because routines to me are boring, but for some others it takes me a while to align to the resonance. I guess I will have to just stick to this… Talking about frequencies, Los Angeles is apparently giving me a hard time this time. Last year I fell in love, or better, I realized I have always been attracted to this place that whispered to my ears “what took you so long?” while I was 
…the series finale of a tv show. “Oh come on yo!It’s over, bitch!” Ok, not explicitly like that, this is just because I am going cold turkey after a marathon of five, yes, five, seasons in less than a week, wait, probably three days, of 
Now, for someone like me who does not even trust herself that much, this is a really big issue. People lie all the time. Fine, not all the time, but at least once and more than once, everybody has lied. I mean, I do it too, and most importantly I lie to myself, but uh, not a big deal, yo. (Yo! Lol) Or maybe it is. One thing at a time though. There are different kinds of lies, as well as different degrees of lying. Sometimes we do it unintentionally just because we have been deceived by our own feelings, emotions, perceptions and, at the end of the day, we all have the chance to lie every once in a while. Remember those white lies? Those harmless lies, said to avoid hurting someone’s feelings? How stupid is this now, really? Shouldn’t the truth be told no matter how much it hurts? Weak people! Weak human beings. I want to be a dog. Dogs never lie.
Why am I even talking about lies now? Oh yeah, because I was thinking about trust. How do we build trust if we are aware of the fact that sooner or later, everyone lies? We live in this era when lying comes so easily while hiding behind a smartphone or computer screen!!! People can be fucking someone right next door and tell you on the phone “oh, I’m just reading the Bible, how about you?” and who will ever know? I mean, I would quote both my darling Brendon Urie and Natalie Portman in Closer (2004) when one sings and the other answers to “tell me something true” by saying “
Trust issues can come from two directions, I think: skepticism, which is a healthy attitude, and cynicism, which many consider bad but it is actually pretty useful, and these are the little Santa’s helpers that come into place when trust does not really know where and how to fit in. I think I rely on a mix of both, actually. Skepticism belongs to the ego whereas cynicism rules on my alter-ego, so ok, we got this far. Which personality damages my self-esteem and interferes with this whole issue the most though, is not clear. It will never be. And guess what? It got worse right after I had that amazing idea of changing the way I looked. Go me. I cannot believe that this is all due to a change of appearance. A different hairstyle. Maybe Delilah was right after all. Cutting someone’s hair is basically like ripping off a person’s strength, emotionally speaking. I know. I am totally aware it should not be right, but it is true. And as long as that person staring at me in the mirror does not match with me, myself and I, I will not trust her or anybody else dealing with her. Now. This said, and wrapping it all up, well, happy new year, you reflected image. I wish you all the best, but now give me my personality back, thank you very much.
It started last night, right after my “alternative” Thanksgiving dinner: my landlords invited me for Rosh Hashanah this past October and they wanted to have me celebrate with them for Thanksgiving as well, so I could not say no. These things usually get me nervous but as always I put my daily façade and I just cope with the feeling until those first few glasses of wine set it for the rest of the night. Sounds more like an alcoholic talk but trust me, it is not what it seems. I know this is what everybody says, but honestly? Who cares? The best part was actually when my mind was just rambling on getting my inner voice upset, and I was just zoning in and out laughing at more or less funny jokes we started reading on line, from “Yo mama is…” to “Trump…”. Fun times. Even funnier was that, when I had to say goodbye, I only had to open the door leading to the basement, and just go down the stairs. Once I was all undressed and I got my make up removed, I just started binging on Netflix movies when a brand new and cooler party started upstairs. I think the adults just spent a couple more hours sipping some wine while listening to music, songs going from Jeff Buckley‘s, to Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed… I honestly have to say I was kind of jealous. I would have done the same with the right company, so I just pictured myself in the future, in my own house (rented, of course) which is a big deal considering we may not be here tomorrow. Yeah, no. No drama, just saying.
I have to confess again, while putting my sweatpants and sweatshirt on, I accidentally looked at myself in the mirror, recalling I do not look like the person my memory still remembers. I cannot understand why I am having such a hard time getting used to the no-longer-new look. I still do not like it though. I guess I never will. While wasting time watching some movies, I had the chance to communicate with some people, not everybody was going wild till late at night after all, and it just made me feel more normal, if normal is a good way to feel anyway. Then oh yeah, I remembered. I just could not wait for a Netflix series to be finally on. I grew up watching #GilmoreGirls, I basically memorized every line because I watched and re-watched those episodes a thousand times, over and over just because I liked it. That is it! There has been people labelling it as a stupid tv-show, others saying they loved it, others simply did not watch it…and I mean, isn’t it always like that? I will always find someone to either agree or disagree with, so I just stopped justifying myself for having different tastes than others, in whatever field they might be.
I have watched all of the four episodes that Netflix had on. All the available ones. There are no more left to watch, and of course the last episode had to end the way it ended. My teeth are still grinding from anger. Why Amy Sherman Palladino? Why? Did you go to school with freaking Shonda Rhimes? I mean, if you all women in the film industry just want to drive us all spectators crazy, well go ahead, you are actually doing a pretty good job, just do not mess with us that much!!! This basically should make you guess how I am feeling right now! I am already going cold turkey (and any reference to Thanksgiving right now is totally unintentional) and I want to know what will happen next. Although, I know this is not going to happen soon, so all I can do is …imagine. Story of my life. Imagining things that will never happen, or that I would like to happen but then… of course they won’t, also having conversations that do not exist in real life but they are real in that parallel universe where everything is still screwed up a little, but definitely more interesting and exciting. Whatever. I tried to stand up every once in a while pausing the streaming for a few minutes, just because I recalled one of the guests last night, talking about how those Apple Watches tell you to move because you have been sitting for too long. I laughed so hard. Seriously, one episode is at least 80 minutes long so sitting on my butt for six hours straight would have been awkward. Is it just me or when you stand after a long while that you have been sitting somewhere, you feel taller? I had this odd perception right after standing and taking a few steps! I was feeling weirdly taller. It goes away, but I felt the same way a few times before and it just makes me chuckle. I guess it is not just time to be relative, uh?
Ha! It is also hilarious that the voice in my head (reading these words right now) is actually one of the characters I have just been watching. I have been told I looked like her before, since when the tv show actually started. One of my friends back home has me on her contacts list as Lorelei (although on the tv show it is spelt Lorelai) and another one still calls me that since high school. Should not even sound too silly that I actually own a picture signed by the actress because when I was still young and full of dreams I believed in the power of writing letters, like real letters. So I was very young, I wrote letters to celebrities, yes, and this is simply who I was. My young hearted spirit still recalls the nice feeling in getting 
those letters back with autographed pictures, or vhs gifted to me because I wrote this or that band a letter. Oh young and innocent Lor, where art thou?
Along with Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta and Charlize Theron in Mad Max, the recurring image when I stare at myself in the mirror is Britney Spears many years ago. I do not recall what year it was, and I may be too lazy to actually 
In so many ways I am now untouchable. Only those who are not devoured by their own preconceptions get closer to me, and as I got used to my aloneness -not loneliness- it is somewhat funny to try them, watch them, and experiment all this on me. Society makes you and others believe that only with Pantene-looking silky hair you can be attractive and pleasing to the rest, that if your appearance does not stick to the norm (a norm created by whom, exactly?) you are an outcast, a problem to be solved, sometimes a threat. But, if you are a threat, then they will try to belittle you because by saying you are threatening they are giving you power, and people are so sensitive to power or what they believe this power is, that they need to kick you out of the game. Although you were not even playing and you honestly were not even giving a damn about it!
The results of these 
It may sound crazy, I know. All those times I wish I were invisible, juxtaposed to those other times I wish people could SEE me… and now this: nobody recognizes me anymore. It happened in August, when back to campus, I was meeting friends, colleagues and students, and every time I was saying “Hi, how are you?” it took them a couple of seconds (if not minutes) to realize the blonde who was talking to them was Laura. “Oh my God, you look so different!” and while smiling at them I was actually thinking “no, not really, but whatever you say”. Again, some liked my new look, some just did not even care (thank you!) and somebody else just honestly said they liked me better with my “original” color. This world is a wonderful place, isn’t it? Fun.
I “work” the same way: when I see someone, it is not a matter of appearance or facial expressions, or color of their hair. Most of the times I recognize people from afar by the way they walk, the way they stand or sit on a bench, their profile, the way they move their hands, and for whatever reason, the aura they have around them precedes their mere external look. No, it is not a witchcraft word: aura. Oh wow, I just recalled a place in Melbourne I used to pass by while getting back from work: 
…I am now a red velvet cupcake. Why? Well, apparently cutting your hair short makes everybody want to touch your head. This velvet-like appearance feels more like when a woman is pregnant and people want to touch her belly for luck or something like that. Weird, maybe cute, but weird. The coolest part is that I pictured myself as a red velvet cupcake the last time it happened (it was one of my Professors actually, following the office administrator and some colleagues!) and it was hilarious. RVC are my favorites. I was also considering dying my hair red because of this but NO, STOP this hair madness!!
When things like that happen to appear on my brain screen, if this makes any sense at all, I just need to remind myself I am not a movie and I need to change channel. Where is my remote? Give me my remote, turn me off. Puh-lease. But no, it’s not going to happen… and a horde of thoughts just starts raging in my head trying to make me feel dizzy and give up on rationality. Which would be good if only I could find someone who relates to this pretty easily. Uh, uh, nope. Not working. Game over.
One day I am 30 years old and I am responsible, the day before I was a 20-year-old brat screwing everything up pretending I was having fun. All the things I have done when I was 16 just get repeated, and the way I felt at 23 is just right here with me, digging holes through my stomach while I try to figure why this and this did not work out, or what I did right or wrong. Hanging on the wall, right in front of me, I have a poster saying “Rebirth, regeneration and re-emergence”, how is this not even a sign? Do signs exist at all? I don’t know, because this blog is called “god exists and she hates me” and I am expecting a sort of doomsday to fall over me anytime soon.
That’s how it started. Or maybe not. There are people that leave their footprints in your life path and they do not even know of how much their presence (or absence) has or had an impact in your existence. Yes, I know, it is a classic. Nevertheless, I like to remind myself that there must be a reason for this coming and going or for that specific thing to happen.
The last few months have been weird and crazy, in a way. Getting back to Italy for the summer had more consequences than expected. I never had surgery in my life until 2014 for example. I never had scars, not “important” ones at least and not so visible. Now I can basically play “connect the dots” with all the scars I have on my body, and this is because I had the last of three surgeries this year, in August, right before I flew back home: Boston. Yes, currently Bean-town is my home and I am a huge fan of that quote that says “home is a feeling, not a place” FYI!