A Day in the Ordinary Life of Stan Faryna

I’m Only Human

I blog about what’s in my heart. Or on my mind. I don’t blog much about me. Perhaps, because I don’t think my days and nights is good content. But I get feedback now and then.

Every now and then, someone will ask me to write about me and my day. Because, somehow, I don’t seem real enough to them. Not insincere – but as, someone recently wrote, “not real.” Like an imaginary friend.

“Like Harvey?” I asked with a grin.

“More like an angel,” they replied the next day. Who is Harvey?!

I reply: This is not going to be a five minute read.

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Human League, I’m Only Human

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Silly Talks (like silly walks but with a mouth)

Yesterday, a friend stopped by about 2pm.

The door bell rang. I saw him in the video monitor and buzzed him in. Little bells on the door rang out as he entered the apartment.

I offered him coffee, tea…

He asked for Coke on ice. Ice is a luxury in the home. In Romania.

We sat at the dinner table. It’s a huge oak table in the living room. It takes six strong men to move – myself not included. But I did design it.

A spiraling column supports the middle of the table. It was inspired by the four columns of Bernini’s baldacchino in St. Peter’s (Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano). The column looks nothing like the columns of Bernini’s balacchino. It is undecorated and small. It’s almost unnoticeable. But I like it.

My friend looked agitated. I asked what was wrong.

“I have a problem with you,” he said.

“Have I offended you?” I asked with concern.

“Yes…”

I felt the searching gaze of great men and women as they looked down on me from the painted ceiling above our heads.

“You’re an angel,” he said with resolved heart.

“And I think we’ve been friends long enough for you to be able to confide something of such importance to me.

I just want you to be honest with me. Because you have always been honest with me. Except about your true nature – it seems.”

I laughed a long time.

“If I was an angel, I’d have a Ferrari,” I finally replied. “Because I really want a Ferrari!”

“And God… God knows my heart,” I added after a pause.

Oh Darling

A few hours later, Adrian Klein asked me to help him think out some promotional material for Beatie Wolfe and the Pack. He’s helping Beatie become a rockstar.

Beatie is a talented English songwriter and singer. She’s a hottie too. <laughing> Check out her website here.

Adrian set up a microphone and other things in my living room. I didn’t have time to run over to his studio.

I wrote a few lines. Then he recorded me. We also recorded my reading of a recent blog post. Are you interested in hearing me read my blog posts?

I agreed to help as long as I can give away one of Beatie’s songs on my blog. I chose – Oh darling. Because it touches deeply into my heart. Next week, I hope to set it up for easy downloads.

Planet of the Apes

It was 9pm and we were on our way out of Bucharest when an ape in an Audi R8 (what a beautiful car!) couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t pull to the side and let him get wherever he was going – faster. I wasn’t doing anything to make him focus specifically on me. I was in the slow lane. I was even doing double the speed limit. But the road was clear ahead of me.

Finally, he got a chance to move into the fast lane and he pulled up next to me at a stop light. He glared at me. He was begging me to provoke him. So he could get out of his car and beat the hell out of me. He had biceps almost as big as my head.

I looked him in the eye and I said something. <grin> I said it so loud that the ape freaked out. My GF freaked out.

She yelled at me and slapped me in the back of the head.

“Don’t do that! You scared the hell out of me!”

And a woman walking on the crosswalk was frozen in fear.

I was still looking the ape in the eye. He turned to look away and made an unplanned left turn. I’m pretty sure he was now going the wrong way – wherever he had wanted to go.

I motioned to the woman standing in front of our car that she could move along. She did.

But what happened was a little luck and a lot of psychology. It’s not proof that I have angelic powers. But, ohhh yeah, it rocks for a testosterone fix.

Oh – angels don’t need testosterone kicks.

Dacia Logan: 75 Horsepower Tardis

It was after midnight and we were almost in Bucovina. Still, a few hours from our friend’s home. My GF saw I was tired, so she asked me how my day went. I told her about the silly talks.

“You could be an angel,” she said excitedly.

“You too?!” I gasped in exasperation.

“For example…” she started.

“We’ve traveled further than we should have traveled at the speed we’ve been traveling at. And it’s not the first time. When you’re driving, we tend to get to places faster than we should.”

She looked at the road sign, turned to me, and proudly announced that we shouldn’t be where we were for another hour. At the speed we were traveling.

“It’s just a feeling,” I replied. “The math would demonstrate that nothing extraordinary is going on – if we were any good at math.”

There was a moment of silence. I hadn’t convinced her of anything.

“Anyway, you don’t want me to be an angel,” I continued.

“Because that would mean I will have to move on at some point. If I were an angel, I’d have to go where the Spirit blows. No one knows when and where it blows.”

“How would you know that?” she said with a knowing smile.

No Mass for Bonzo

It was 6am. I fished a cigarette out of the almost empty pack. I had slept two and a half hours. I lit the cigarette and took a puff. My friend’s german shepherd nudged my leg. Bruno sleeps outside the door when I’m visiting. Now that I was up, he was free to leave the watch and roam. Maybe, kill a neighbor’s chicken. But that’s just Bruno being Bruno.

A half hour later, I arrived at the Cacica church wondering when Mass would be. Maybe 7. Or 8.

The doors of the church were open. I lit candles for the benefit of friends and family whose names are written in my heart. I prayed and I fell asleep in the pews. On my knees. I woke up at 8:15 in an empty church. I was bummed out that there was no morning Mass. On the other hand, there’s few things more restful than a nap in a church – especially if someone isn’t elbowing you because your snoring is disruptive to their participation in the service. <grin>

Note to suspicious friend: things don’t always work out like I’d like to them to work out.

Men In Black

Returning to my friend’s house, I saw an old priest (Romanian Orthodox) slowly making his way down the road. He moved slowly because he made his way with crutches. I know the man. He’s in his seventies. He runs an old people’s home. He gives them a roof, food, and a home. I celebrated my last birthday there. We roasted pigs. Lots of pigs.

I stopped and picked up the priest. He didn’t recognize me. I think he was tired. He told me to take him as far as I was going in the direction of the nearest city. I took him all the way. It took me two hours out of my way. Of course, I knew he was going to beg in the farmer’s market. Beg for money to feed the elderly in his care.

On the way, he told me that I don’t look like someone who should be driving a Dacia – a Romanian car with the horse power of an American lawn mower. Almost.

The priest said that I should be in a Mercedes. Or something better. I laughed outloud. I was thinking of a Ferrari.

I didn’t insist that we knew each other. He blessed me. And he said other things that I didn’t understand. My Romanian sucks most of the time.

He noticed that we both wore black. He smiled and mentioned that we must work for the same boss. I smiled back.

Then, he pulled a vial of holy oil out of his shirt pocket. He asked if he could annoint me. I agreed. He smeared the oil on my forehead in the pattern of the cross. “You have important things to do and it’s not going to be easy,” he said.

When I dropped the priest off at the farmer’s market, I blessed him. He laughed. He said that he needed my blessings more than I needed his blessings. I don’t know about that.

When I finally got back, my friend wanted to know how fast I had driven last night. He was sure that I must have been doing 150 kph (93 mph). But I never went over 120 kph! And, the truth is, I averaged about 90 kph (55 mph).

“Come on. You can tell me the truth,” he said.

I asked him if he had any Jack Daniels in the house.

He did, but I decided instead on a bowl of soup. It was a bit early to throw down the Jack.

Humor Monastery

On the way to the medieval monastery, Humor, in the city of Gura Humorlui, I bought three pounds of raspberries in the town of Paltinoase (translates, The Oaks). People were selling the raspberries on the roadside. They pick them in the nearby hills and forests.

I passed unattended cows making their way home from the green fields of grass and clover. Alone. Walking on the shoulder of the road.

The nuns were happy to see me again and they wouldn’t let me pay the admission. I gave the raspberries to the nuns. In the midst of German- and English-speaking tour bus crowds in the little church of Humor, I prayed on my knees. I suppose I gave them something to talk about tonight at the hotel.

Pictures were taken. I didn’t smash cameras. But I wished that I had a hat to make the collection. <laughing>

God was there. His presence, I mean. And I think I saw an angel moving in front of the altar door. But angels tend to move too fast. And all you see is a blur of light and it’s gone- if you can see them.

Which is another proof that I am not an angel. I move too slow. I have a walk that is half the speed of most people.

On the way back, a shepherd was herding sheep down the road. Several horse wagons pulling tall, heavy loads of cut grass were passed. The grass had been raked by hand and packed by pitchfork on the wagons.

A BMW nearly went off the road as he came over a hill at 100 mph and nearly hit one.

It is ironic how the people here that can afford $100,000+ cars tend not to have the intelligence, common sense, or skill to drive such cars. That reminds me of a soccer player that burned his Ferrari out on the highway to the Black Sea. He didn’t know that that he needed to go to the service when the check engine warning light was lit. It turned out that he was too cheap to take his $200,000 car in for an oil change.

That’s the nouveau riche for you, today. No brains. All hustle. Unashamed of their lack of culture, education, and common sense. Today’s nouveau riche are living proof, however, that the answer is not money. Money can’t make you a better person. Money can’t make this a better world.

But, I suppose, that’s the kind of bummer that must even bum out angels – especially fallen angels.

If only it was so easy. If only…

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That’s 24 hours in my life. Snapshots – at least. Not including three packs of Marlboro red. Lucky for me the leitmotif presented itself without counterfeit.

Am I real enough for you now? <grin>

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Stan Faryna
09 July 2011
Cacica, Romania