I have written 120 blog entries since December 2009...and I think this the first time I do it completely sober.

I just realized I have written 120 blog entries since December 2009, and in these 4 years, I think this the first time I do it completely sober.

My sad experiences, my biggest fears, the moments of infinite boredness, the incredible lonely weekends, failed trips, weird meals, pitiful moments...they all have benefited from the Gin and Tonics, Prosecco, Nicaraguan rums, Chardonnays, Georgian Saperavis, Grüner Veltliners...

I still remember writing a very nice sentence in a blog regarding a very young flatmate I had “we are not alcoholics, we are just in our thirties”. Well all this is just to tell you that I have not been drunk in three and a half weeks. It is not that I don´t want to (I would love to!), but at the moment my body doesn't. I have some theories for this:

Theory No. 1: Hannes has suggested I have no appetite for mojitos because I am sick. And according to him, I am sick because I haven´t been consuming enough vitamin C. Here is the twisted thing: My main source of vitamin C for the last months have been mojitos. I counted the limes I was consuming per week inside those delicious and fizzy cocktails and I got a number that is too silly to mention.

Theory No 2: (This is the one I don´t like) I am getting old.  It is hard to accepts, but I am on the second half of  my thirties (note how I avoid writing that number which is conformed by four decades), my beard includes white hairs (I thought they were “dark blond” hairs, which turned to be false), and I have a business to run...

Theory No 3: (This is related to the last theory) My body is getting tired of passive smoking. This is surely linked to the fact that Austria law - one of the few in Europe - allows smoking in bars, something that doesn´t even happens in Mexico or many other Latin American countries.

Maybe it is all of them together: I am getting old, I need more vitamins and smoke bothers me. Oh shit! Have I recently mutated into a grumpy person who doesn´t drink, hates smoke and has to take pills? Is that a definition of an old man?

In order counteract those symptoms, I want to do something I used to do when I was 17: Everytime my mom caught me drunk I was grounded for at least two weeks. That awarded me the nickname “germes claustro” in high-school (claustro -in reference to my second name “castro” - means monastery). I will do something to keep my young at heart: Back then in Chihuahua the first thing I did after not going out for two or three weekends was to go out and get drunk (something that earned me another grounded period), now, the first thing I want to do when I feel healthy again will be to ruin my liver while supporting my immune system with vitamin C, because hell yeah, next time I go out, I am getting drunk on mojitos and this time, my mom won´t ground me.


...but first I have to get better by keeping out of smoke, going early to bed and taking my pills.

Oscar, don´t let her notice that you see black dots on her face

I think this has been the longest pause between two blog entries since I started publishing. On my defense I can say that I restored, built, painted and opened a restaurant.

Before narrating the story, I have to tell one thing about my restaurant: there is no sign with the words “restaurant” on the sidewalk.

Innsbruck is a very sporty city, when the sun shines you can see people walking, skateboarding, running, riding bikes, Rollerblades or wearing mountain shoes and sticks. In Winter it is usual to see people with their ski or snowboard gear waiting on the bust stop.

Some weeks ago, I was serving lunch to a couple when a woman entered the restaurant hyperventilating and holding walking sticks on her hands. She asked me what this place was. I smiled politely and was explaining her my restaurant´s concept and I started to observe her better: she was all sweaty...and then...my eyes noticed she had tiny black spots on her face. In some way I managed to continue explaining her while saying to myself “Oscar, don´t let her notice that you see black dots on her face...what can these dots be? Was she maybe recently operated and those are stitches?”, it was soooo hard not to let her notice I was fixated on her black dots!

At some point she told me she does jogging and she runs in front of the restaurant and she noticed it was a new place. While saying that, sweat drops felt from her face and dripped onto my floor! I thought...can you picture me trying to be calm and polite while that all was happening?

The lady -  who was on her early 60´s - continued the conversation, and as expected, my eyes focused again on the tiny black spots. It was so hard for me, I wanted to know what were those black things on her face! Then, suddenly, I identified them! And hold on to your seats: The running-woman was a human windshield, yes, she had dead mosquitoes all over her forehead and cheeks.

I did not know you can run so fast that you can actually hit bugs so fast with your forehead just as a car on the motorway in summer...I am happy I am a lazy dog who rides his bike so slow that until now, I only have killed two mosquitoes by swallowing them alive.

By the way, I really hate the fact that I cycle with my mouth open

last time I wrote an entry was so long ago that the browser "forgot" the www-adress

Last September I hosted a party to celebrate my 17 years in Innsbruck – my half-life. One of the guests, Maurizio, brought me an incredible present: A bottle of Motörhead Rosé. I promised him to drink it together...but right now, I have an emergency, I need to write this blog.

Yesterday, I went to the doctor to make a general check-up. My last one was done two years ago, right after coming back from Georgia. Back then, the doctor told me my cholesterol was a little above the normal level and that my body-mass index was also slightly above, but they were still on the safe side. Back then, I was working, doing pilates daily and eating almost a kilo of fruit every day, the only negative aspect: I had only two friends in Tbilisi, Eka and Keti, with whom I met some times.

Currently, my life is a little bit different as it used to be in 2012 in Georgia: the summer here in Innsbruck is non-existing (compared to the daily 35°C of Tbilisi). I am unemployed since months, I no longer do pilates; only similar thing to Georgia: I haven´t been really socially active lately, but the alcohol consumption of the last two Saturdays clearly got my average back on track. Ah! and my fruit consumption has been stable this "summer"

But now, to the health check-up results:

Lungs – perfect, like those of the militant non-smoker I am

Kidneys – I urinate like a vegan baby

Liver – and this was surprisingly cool: perfectly normal levels!

Body-mass index: lower than 2012, hell yeah!

but there are bad news: both good (HDL) and bad (LDL) cholesterol are higher than normal, but still on the safe side.

The doctor wanted to know more about causes of my cholesterol level and asked me about my sport activities, to which I answer „I ride my bike about 60 minutes per week“ right after saying this, I realised how lazy I am, so I added „that is actually only 10 minutes a day...doctor, forget it, I don´t do any sport“. It was like at AA, first thing is accepting you have a problem, and yes, I am lazy

She then asked me about food, to which I responded I eat meat around two or three times a month. She asked me „what about chocolate?“

Only then I realised I am a 35-year unemployed who makes no sport and eats too much chocolate...and right now I am starting to feel the effects of the Motörhead Rosé on my head while I proof-read this blog entry and listen to Motörhead.

Thank you Maurizio!
(and yes, I have pink blankets)

I think "Girls" is the sitcom version of “Reality bites” for the people born after the Seoul Olympic Games

Yesterday, I went out for a drink with Sarah and Eric (for the foodies among you: Sarah had an apple juice, Eric and I had a magnificent Mojito). We chatted about the series we are currently watching. Sarah and I are watching HBO´s Girls. I told Sarah I always have liked TV series in which I find parallels with my life, like with Seinfeld. I like “Girls” because it reminds me of the problems my friends and I used to have ten years ago, when after finishing university, we all faced our quarter life crisis. I think Girls is the sitcom version of “Realitybites” for people born after the Seoul Olympic Games.

I had my quarter life crisis around 2005. Back then my friends and I thought becoming an adult was mainly linked to having a decent job. The rest would happen automatically with the paychecks: wearing adult clothes, drinking adult wine, visiting adult restaurants and having adult conversation topics. After my first paycheck I wanted to become an adult: I wanted to stop using sneakers and old t-shirts, start drinking €5 wine bottles, having enough money to order a second drink and dessert each time I went to have dinner...and talk about how business was going in the offices with my friends.

Today I saw Girls´ most recent episode. Hanna, the main character, got her first decent job as an advertisement writer and she loved it; however, during her second day of work she realises, if she stays on that company, she will slowly give up on her dream to become a writer and become a simple office worker. She decides to quit her job and pursue her true desire, but after some seconds, she makes up her mind and decides not to quit. I then started to look for the parallels between Hanna and me...

I worked eight years, that means I received 96 paychecks. However, I still use old t-shirts, drink €4 wine bottles, I sometimes order water while having dinner ans check my wallet before ordering dessert and the last conversation I had today was with Hannes about our plans to get wasted this weekend.

I may not have a job, I may not be an adult (based on social behavior), but I am pursuing my dream. Hanna´s dream is to be a respected writer, mine is to cook.

I don´t care if you bite reality, here I come!

I may be called Oscar Germes Procrastination

It was not until some three or four years ago that I looked into a dictionary searching for the meaning of the word „procrastination“. I was very happy to see that there was a word defining an entire lifestyle. For example, my last blog entry was over a month ago, and ever since I wanted to write two things, but this procrastinating stuff I have been doing kept me away from writing those two blog entries.

My thesis has turned to be one of the latest victims of my procrastination...I think it is amazing how small things as getting a glass of water can keep you from writing. Today´s episode started like this:

After six weeks of failures in continue writing on my thesis (there were days in which I opened the file, stared at it for some minutes, closed it without doing any modifications and started to watch videos on youtube) I finally sat today on my desktop. Played goldfrapp with the volume at its lowest level, closed all firefox pages and opened my file. I read it, found some things that needed to be better formulated and voilà! there I was finally writing on my thesis. This went on for three Goldfrapp albums (Felt mountain, Head First adn Seventh trees)...then I got thirsty. On my way to the kitchen I saw the vacuum. And realised I haven´t vacuumed in days, but before I also got some chocolate from the kitchen.

I vacuumed my room, ate some chocolate, drank some water and then decided to take a break...and the big error was to watch two fantastic music video on youtube:

The video for the song “journey” from Polo to the masses and “Spanish sahara” by Foals...then I started to read the news online, check my e-mails and all of a sudden I realised I was procrastinating again...and there was no coming back. Because I have discovered, that once you lose yourself to the forces of procrastination, there is no coming back - the only way back is when the chances of doing whatever you needed to do completely disappear.

I hope tomorrow I can defeat the powers of procrastination and hear all five Goldfrapp albums while working on my thesis (for the music freaks: Today I missed Supernature and Black Cherry).

Meet the new oscar, a well-performing and efficient unemployed

I haven´t been working on an office desk since April 3rd, which means tomorrow I would have experienced 8 months of waking up late, skipping breakfast in favor of lunch (or sometimes even skipping lunch and have only dinner). Yes, I am a lazy bastard.

What people doesn´t know about us jobless lazy-bastards, is that we are well-performing and efficient people. Even though I go to bed at 2:00 a.m. with no worries of being late for work. But let me tell you about my performance (and we all know that performance is something very important nowadays).

Environment: At the moment I consume less groceries as usual, apparently because I am living on a permanent stand-by-modus in which I move so little around the apartment that I also require less energy, and therefore less fruits, vegetables, bread and dairy products. Yes, mother earth is surely thankful with me for requiring not so many of her ressources

Energy: Since I am living on this “stand-by-modus”, my muscles need to perform less movement as normal (I used to ride my bike to work every day) and this lack of sporty-activities have a positive impact on my energy consumption, and therefore on the water-heating costs. This is how it works: Since I sweat less, I require less showers a week. I will not tell you the exact number, but the amount of weekly showers has decrease; to that we can add the amount of saved chemicals (shampoo and soap).

Cognitive-performance: even though I am not working, I cannot tell my mind hasn´t been occupied, I recently saw all five seasons of Breaking Bad in only 2 and a half weeks. Oh yeah! That is what I call performance!

Meet the new oscar: environmentally friendly, up to 25% more energy saving and complex-media consumer, just like a champion.

The better life

Let me be clear from the very beginning: I am writing this under the influences of three  four gin and tonics

Some minutes ago I turned 35 years old. I still remember that on my second or third blog entry I wrote, I narrated my 31st birthday celebration in Nicaragua and how I spent it with dozens of children in the morning - and then I went to eat Mexican food with Erika (whose boyfriend threatened me weeks after that).

Well, here I am in front of my computer at two in the morning, searching for statistical data that would make me feel better about being 35 years old. During my search, google suggested me a website I knew from before: the better life index.

In 2011, the OECD (organisation for economic cooperation and development) launched together with the French government and Amartya Sen (the guy on whose theory my PhD thesis is based on (by the way, I haven´t finished it yet)) a multidimensional indicator which measures wellbeing. They called it the “better life index”. On their website one can retrieve different kind of wellbeing data of the 34 OECD members; this data varies from income, health or education to life expectancy...and this is where my present situation plays an essential role.

According to the information I got from the better life website, the life expectancy of men in Mexico is 71 years, and 78 in Austria. And that just triggered an identity problem in me...

Just seven weeks ago I celebrated my 17th year in Austria, that was a special date because since that day I have spend half of my life in Innsbruck. That would make me half-Austrian...BUT, which expectancy rate should I take as valid when calculating my age?

If I take the Mexican life expectancy, it would mean I just started to live my half life (statistically seen; I have lived already 49,3% of my life), but if take the life-expectancy data from Austria, I have just lived 44,9% of my life. That is a difference of 5%, but believe me, I want to be on the younger side of that calculation. I have the feeling that the “better life” is on the first half. Being on the first half of life gives me the feeling of going upwards, having lived already 50% of my statistical life expectancy would mean nothing but heading downwards.

My Mexican friends may hate me, but I will stick to the Austrian life expectancy data, that makes me statistically younger.

About the term “better life”, well, I can only say I am unemployed, I go to university twice a week and since last April, I haven´t woke up before 10:00 a.m. I think in that sense, I may have been living the better life this year...oh yeah!