Cav's Place

This could be a very long post, seeing as it’s a personal update covering six different events that took place over a span of about two and a half weeks. However, perhaps largely because I don’t see myself as being capable of writing quite that much even when it comes to personal issues anymore, I’ll try to keep it from getting away from me. As such, it’ll probably be more of a brief summary, or in fact six brief summaries one after the other, but this should at least allow me to finally post some details about these things after putting it off until so many have gathered.
To be more specific, I’ll say that the three protests I’m talking about are the two against fracking that were organized here on March 23 and 30 and the fourth one against ACTA, organized on March 31. Then I went to a hypermarket twice, on April 2 and 3, to buy some things, and finally ended up going with dad to have an ultrasound two days ago, on April 10. So, even if two and a half weeks passed between the first and the last event in this series, the middle four took place during a five-day period. As you can imagine, that was extremely draining, though seeing a doctor was probably still worse than all of them put together.

The first protest against fracking was the worst. It included a march as well, which was a first for me, and the starting location, where we stayed for about one hour, was not the place where the regular protests take place, so I already had reasons to be wary. In addition, the organizers came prepared with a pretty large number of banners and enough sheets of paper with slogans written on them for pretty much every participant, seeing as I counted a total of about 70 people, which meant that I felt pressured to do more than simply stand around and shout or chant when I agreed with what was being said and those around me did the same. However, I obviously had no intention to be any more visible than being a part of such a small group already made me, so I refused when I was handed one of those sheets of paper. Unfortunately, that drained me so much that I turned away when those who were gathering signatures for an independent candidate for the upcoming local elections got to me even though I actually intend to vote for him, if he’ll gather enough signatures to run. I wanted to sign, still do, but I simply couldn’t see myself as interacting in any way with anyone at that point anymore.
Once the march started, I waited for about a third of the people to start moving before I moved myself and then just planned to walk with the group, staying more or less in the middle in order to reduce my visibility as much as possible. However, I suddenly found myself very visible and needing to interact when I felt a tap on my shoulder and when I turned I saw a guy who asked me whether I wanted to “befriend Alex”. Confused, I asked who and why only to have him shove one of the sticks holding up the largest banner into my hand, point to the kid who was holding the other one and then leave. At that point, there was little I could do but hold on to that stick, which resulted in something of a tug of war between me and the kid, as he wanted to go to the front of the column, where that banner actually should have been and also where children were specifically being asked to go, and I obviously had no intention of doing so.
By the time someone else finally asked whether I wanted help and took that thing away from me, I was moments away from a major breakdown, looking desperately around for a familiar street that I could just run away on. Then again, I’m still amazed that I managed to somehow hold it together as long as I did despite being very visible and needing to interact, both with the kid, who kept trying to tell me where to go, and with others who occasionally told me to hold it better, seeing as I obviously was holding it wrong and sometimes also bumping either it or myself into others. And I’m probably even more amazed that, at least for a few minutes, I managed to hold high the sheet of paper I was given by the guy who took the banner from me, though soon enough even that was too much and I didn’t do that anymore either.
Thankfully, shortly after no longer holding the sheet of paper above my head, the kid came to take it away from me as well, so I could finally drop back and try to recover, as much as I could possibly recover while still in the middle of a group of people. Still, it was enough for me to be able to get back to shouting and chanting in earnest once we reached the end of the march, for the 15 or 20 minutes until the group broke up because the protest in that area was only authorized until 6 PM. Granted that I then ignored the calls to regroup in the usual place and continue protesting there and just got the fuck away, but at least I somehow made it that far…

But I said I’ll just write summaries and that was more than a summary, so let me quickly move on to the second protest now and say that I only stuck around for about one hour because I didn’t like the crowd. There were slightly over 100 people when I left, but they were mixing issues a lot and some even seemed downright suspicious, so I spent most of that hour wandering around and waiting for the situation to change, rarely joining in the shouting or chanting. But at least I wasn’t the only one doing that, because I noticed that the regular protesters, those I already knew from the previous protests, seemed to share my view and were also largely just wandering around or even breaking off from the group and apparently waiting for something to change.
I should mention that the original plan for this second protest to include a march towards the presidential palace, which I didn’t mean to take part in because, unlike the previous one, it was bound to result in problems with the police. From what I learned afterwards, it appears that some 30 or 40 people, probably the regular protesters, actually did start marching shortly after I left, though the rest stayed in the square. As such, I left pretty much when I would have left anyway, the difference being that the crowd largely stopped me from actually participating at all.

As for the third protest, which was the fourth in the series of protests organized here against ACTA, I unfortunately have to say that it basically was no protest at all. I was there right on time, as usual, but only saw around 15 people, the number only reaching around 40 an hour later, at 7 PM, and passing 50 around 7:30 PM. I did try to give it an honest chance and stayed until 7:45 PM, seeing as the original “schedule” said that the protest will end at 8 PM, but I could do little more than wander around, not even shouting anything more than a few times because there were rarely more than one or two people doing so and therefore joining them would have made me too visible. I didn’t even write anything when that girl who usually does this came and asked me to write a quality that I think Romanians have, or at least one that I think we should develop, in fact probably being quite rude to her in a desperate attempt to make her leave me alone before the interaction would make me lose it completely and run away.
Overall, it was an unpleasant and very disappointing experience, probably made worse by the fact that one of the regulars actually asked whether we should call it quits, seeing as nothing was actually happening, only to be shouted down by another. Since, perhaps with the exception of the guys who had decided to put on some music by playing it on a phone and amplifying it through two loudspeakers, nobody was really doing anything, calling it quits and trying to plan better next time was the reasonable course of action, but after he was shouted down almost everyone stuck around anyway, still doing little more than wasting time. A few of the regulars tried to put up some papers with slogans written on them around 7:30 PM, but by that time it was too little, too late.

Moving on to the first shopping trip, the original plan was mainly just to pick up some things that I needed and was running out of, plus perhaps some sweets, because I hadn’t touched anything containing sugar for some two months in order to help my body try to get rid of the yeast infection that had become noticeable again after that bad cold I had. However, I also asked dad whether I should pick up anything else and he left me a list and the money for the items on it, plus around 50 RON more. Since I already had enough for what I actually needed to get, that gave me the possibility to get some more things, especially since he also bought two items that I originally planned to try to get myself if I had the money to spare.
The problem was that, once there, I soon panicked and kept meaning to just abandon the whole idea and come back without buying anything. I wandered around the place for quite some time, trying to decide what to do, until I finally found an empty aisle and could take some time to recover. Afterwards, I just picked up a basket and tried to put what I meant to get in it while I could still hold it together, adding quite a few things that weren’t on either list at first but which would be useful anyway, seeing as I’m talking about food that I actually wanted and therefore knew wouldn’t be left to spoil even if nobody else’d touch it.
Now I should also mention that the reason why I went back a day later was because I had seen a training suit that seemed good enough while also being surprisingly cheap and I’ve been looking for one for quite some time, seeing as one of the two I wear around the house when it’s not really hot has been basically falling apart for years now. I could have had the money to buy it then, if I wouldn’t have picked up some of the things I added on top of what I had on the two lists, but I correctly estimated that the three bags I had on me would be just about filled with the other things I was getting and I obviously am not going to get plastic bags from shops, so carrying it would have been something of a problem and I decided to leave it for later.

Leaving that for later actually proved rather fortunate, as apparently dad had forgotten to add something to the list, so when I went back the next day, after getting some more money from him, I could add that as well, on top of the training suit. Then, since I had enough for it, I threw in some more things, such as a new cap to finally replace the one I’ve been wearing everywhere for so many years, a little more tea and food and also a couple of cheap items that I had meant to get the day before but for some reason decided not to. Somewhat unfortunately, I also added some more sweets…
The problem was that, despite spending some 50% more on the first day than on the second, it was only when I added the two together that I got shocked by the amount, despite dad seeming surprised by how cheap some of the things I got were compared to what he’s used to paying for similar or even identical items bought from the supermarket across the road. Then again, I was particularly bothered by the amount I spent on the entirely unnecessary sweets, which added up to 14% of the total. That’s especially weird when you consider that it’s usually me who frowns at the fact that there are too many sweets around the house most of the time, not to mention that I was obviously very bothered by the fact that dad got some really good things during those two months when I wouldn’t allow myself to touch any of them. Of course, this would also perfectly explain my little binge, which in truth doesn’t amount to that much, but I’m usually very careful with money, so I was really bothered by it.

And now I’m left with the ultrasound. You see, I had asked for one some months ago, when my right kidney seemed to be telling me that I should have it checked out, but since dad just gave me the option of going with him instead of dragging me there, of course I didn’t go. However, when they went to my grandparents on Saturday he left me a note saying that he’s scheduled for another one Tuesday morning and that I should be ready to go out the door at 10 AM if I want to come. Of course, the very mention of something related to doctors resulted in me having a breakdown and I needed some time to turn the panic into rage and eventually recover after deciding that there was no way I could possibly end up going, which was still what I thought about it Monday evening.
Well, that changed many times before I went to bed that night, as I kept changing my mind about it every few minutes, with all the inner turmoil that caused. However, when I went to bed I was once again set on not going, so didn’t even set my phone to ring in the morning… Only to find myself waking up and needing to go to the bathroom at 8:55 AM, likely because of the large salad eaten the night before. That made me think that I should try to go after all at first, but by the time I was back in my room I had changed my mind yet again and curled in a ball under the blanket, afraid that he’d take the fact that I went to the bathroom then as an indication that I meant to come along and will come in to ask what am I waiting for when the time will come to leave. However, I then changed my mind yet again a few more minutes later, somehow managed to get dressed and, after changing my mind twice more, eventually went out the door with him.
Of course, I was frozen in fear all the way, which was certainly not helped by the fact that the place seemed to be quite far and dad obviously didn’t know exactly how to get there at first, so he drove around for quite some time before figuring something out. We then also had to wait for a while and he went in first, so I had even more time to think and worry about it, packing myself as tightly as I could and doing my best to look as far away from anyone or anything as I could. Granted that he didn’t actually mean to go in first, but he just softly asked for my jacket, without doing anything else when I just squeezed myself in an even tighter space and ignored him, and I obviously wasn’t going to go in if I was given the option to wait longer.
Still, I ended up inside after he was done, and he had probably told the doctor something, because she tried to reduce the interaction to a minimum, only saying something when she needed me to do something. Of course, he denied it when I asked him afterwards, saying only that he told her to let him know if there’s anything wrong, but he may have made up some lie about some other problem I supposedly had, so he will avoid the “embarrassment” of just saying that “at this age” I was still scared out of my wits. That’d seem to fit what I know about how he is, so I’ll just go ahead and assume it unless I’ll have some evidence of the contrary.
But at least that’s over with and, thankfully, there seems to be nothing wrong other than a little sand in my left kidney. Now that’s surprising, since the one that hurts from time to time is the right one, which is also the one I was told I had sand in the last time I had an ultrasound, at the end of 2004, and the one I was told was out of position the first time I had one, perhaps some ten or so years before that, but I can only be glad that it seems to be perfectly fine now and try to shrug it off if it’ll hurt again. I’ll even try to go with the fact that she said there’s really nothing wrong except that bit of sand and ignore the fact that my prostate showed up as being significantly bigger than dad’s, which would be quite worrying at my age. I looked up how big it should be and was certainly concerned when I found that, while two of the dimensions are close to the norm, the smallest one is nearly 50% above what it should be, but since she said it’s fine, I guess it’s fine…

So much for keeping it short… Certainly didn’t mean to get significantly above 1500 words, but here I am just getting over 3000 now. This also took me some five hours to write, just so you know, and now I’ll be going through it again to make corrections, so I’ll probably add at least another 30 minutes to that, if not another hour. And I didn’t even write something non-personal, to say that it was worth the time spent on it… Not that I’d still be able to spend so much time on anything non-personal, unfortunately, as you can clearly see by the scarcity of such posts and the fact that I haven’t even written that one that has to do with overpopulation that I’ve been meaning to write for about a month now…