Carol Vorvain's Blog

WE, IN THE WESTERN WORLD, have plenty of doors. 

Front doors for who really matters to us: us.

Screen doors for annoyance. 

Back doors for convenience. 

Doggie doors for independent friends.

Garage doors for “precious metal and plastic.”

Sliding doors for muscle training.

Revolving doors for a pinch of confusion and swift punishment.

French doors for elegance and fancy. 

Dutch doors for—I don’t know, heritage?

Enough! 

Doors, checked. 

Beautiful doors? Missin...

I’VE GOT NEWS. Fashion in Saudi Arabia is at its peak. 

What? You don’t believe me? 

Look around! 

Haven’t you seen those black, extra large, extra long cloaks moving in groups, never alone, like a grim reaper team in plain daylight? On which planet are you living? Because where I’m coming from and wherever I’ve been going too, they multiply fast and follow me everywhere. 

By the way, they are called abayas and they are part of the women’s liberation movement. Really, they are. Beca...

ARE YOU AN OVERZEALOUS FOODIE who compels himself to go through the horrors of trying every imaginable food and bets he’d survive?

A sad traveler who thinks of food only as sustenance? 

Globetrotter Joe who doesn’t think of it at all, just gets some? 

And are you traveling to Uzbekistan? 

Buckle up and get ready to be taken for a ride! 

Or, learn how to haggle. We’ll start with a song.

The song of a proud man…

[Singing]

I don’t wanna talk,
About all the deals I’ve mis...

My dearest Zoey,

Won’t you tell me the meaning of this distance? The meaning of this silence?

How could you tell me? I’m the deserter. The coward, the sheep, the phony.

And still, my heart sings like a wind chime in the ocean breeze when I think of the day when we’ll see each other again. It should be a Sunday, so you can be mine the whole day with no one to bother us.

What will I ask you? Millions of questions invade my mind. Some beg for an answer, others are there j...

Today is Sunday and, as any good Christian, I should wake up with peaceful thoughts in mind. But I don’t. Instead, I wake up with a burning desire to become a serial killer. Yes, a serial killer of mosquitoes, cockroaches, flies, millipedes and of everything that should stay out, not in. Then, if I could only become a serial killer of roosters too, perhaps I’ll finally gain...

First they were two: Adam and Eve,
Then, she bit that apple and took a sick leave,
One that will always in history remain,
As the longest sick leave ever to blame.
From the Garden of Eden they were thrown deep
Into the Land of Reality to become the black sheep.
Surrounded by fears, opponents, and rum,
Adam decided there was nowhere to run.
 And so, in madness he went on to propose
And as a sign of true love he gave her a rose.
Eve did accept and showe...

If we juggle everything at once, we might drop the most important piece and not even notice.

Depression is not a choice, but an unwanted and predictable outcome of a series of unhappy choices.

If you are living a dream but you are still depressed, check if you are not living someone else’s dream.

There is no absolute freedom. But when we are the ones choosing our confinements, then we feel free.

You stop living when you stop challenging yourself.

Only when you will respect others...

They’ll say you are bad
or perhaps you are mad
or at least you
should stay undercover.
Your mind must be bare
if you would dare
to think you can love
more than one lover.
― David Rovics

What is polyandry? Well, polyandry is a form of polygamy where a group of men, usually brothers, have in common something less than common: a woman, one dear wife for all to love, honour and cherish, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.  

Sound kinky? Let’s pause and think abou...

My love,

Life is a string of things that end even before being finished. But nobody asks us.

Like today. According to the calendar, today is the twenty sixth of July, meaning it’s my last day in Bhutan. And according to my wrist watch, there are only two hours, ten minutes and ten seconds left before the dragon will take me on its wings and carry me far, far away. Oh, how much I resent calendars. They keep us on a leash. No questions asked.

Bu...

The penis, a “ridiculous petitioner,” as the novelist William Gass has called it, “unreliable, though everything depends on it, easily teased, insulted, betrayed, abandoned, yet pretending to be invulnerable, a weapon which confers magical powers upon its possessor.”

In ancient Greece, Sophocles believed that to possess a penis is to be “chained to a madman.”

Why is that? Five hundred years ago, Leonardo da Vinci, the outstanding genius of the Renaissance, explain...