It's all about the lunch

I like the idea of meeting people for lunch. It's unpretentious, and it's got the added bonus of being an easily interrupted meal. If you go out for dinner, you have to stay for a while, and you might go for a drink afterwards and whatnot. Lunch, on the other hand, provides the possiblity to flash a polite smile and say "oh, well, I should really get back to school now". Or whatever. I'm going lunching with a couple of classmates tomorrow. And as soon as I logged in on my msn earlier, someone else propositioned me for lunch. It's something neat about lunching with people. Now I'm off to watch telly and drink tea. So long.

Freak Show Excess

Today's song is Freak Show Excess by Steve Vai. It is not my usual kind of thing, as people who know me and feel ambivalent about me can testify. But I do like music in any genre as long as it's got good harmonies, and that song totally does it for me. It kind of goes on forever, but who cares. Just wanted to say.

In other news, "Ugly Betty" totally rocks.

The Land Baron is dead - long live the Land Baron!

Ok, basically I've decided to take up blogging again. Having now settled in a new flat in a new city in a new part of the country I feel that I've got the time and commitment to start rambling from my (new) castle of doom again. I say this with a week left before term though, mind you. I've decided to broaden my horizons and have thus moved on from history to theology. I'm childishly excited about this actually. Uh, after three months absence, I wish I had more to say, but patience, my dears, patience.

Drunk middle-aged people.

My passionate dislike for pissed middle-aged people is probably going to vanish about the time I turn 40. But for now, I'm seriously pissed off by the sheer stupidity that controls their actions and verbal outbursts. Well, actually it's not so much the behaviour in itself (although admittedly being propositioned by fat balding, sweating men isn't my idea of fun), it's more the hypocrisy of it. When these people aren't out getting hammered they'll spend their time complaining about kids drinking and being generally rowdy in public places. Well duh. Way to set an example, nitwits. As I was walking home last night, I walked past a garden party, music playing way loud and people shouting and whatnot. Someone shouted something at me, and I was just thinking that if those people would've been 17 instead of 47, the police would've been called ages ago.

Uhm, this is not my way of encouraging under-aged drinking, by the way. I'm just saying that moderation might not be such a bad thing, no matter how old you are. Hypocrite? Moi?

So talk me through the offside rule...

I'm a completely involuntary football fan, it's a bit weird really. I knew all those hours in English pubs would come back to haunt me at some point. I guess I just figured it would be in the shape of alcoholism rather than the appreciation of the immensly stupid game that is football. When I realised I actually understand the offside rule, that's when I got a bit scared. And my "so talk me through the offside rule"-t-shirt? I can't wear that anymore. I will have to pass it on to someone who have yet to learn this stigmatised rule. As well as being an involuntary football fan, I'm also an extremely involuntary feminist, and as such I'm equally outraged and amused at how men don't seem to hear what a woman says during a game. I was watching Sweden v. Trinidad&Tobago with my husband and my father. The conversation was completely one-sided in my universe.

(me:) "Aw, come one, he's totally offside." (I like using the offside rule as an example)

(father & husband:) [silence]

(father:) "Offside!"

(husband:) "Yeah, I know. Bastard!"

Weird.

NVD

I'm a serious fan of Holland the nation and Amsterdam the city, but the latest political uhm... outburst... is a bit weird. It was with growing disgust and anger I was reading about NVD, the pro-peadophelia party. The further I read in the article, the more I lost faith in humankind. Lower the age of consent to 12, legalise child pornography, legalise drugs, let 16-year-olds make porn and prostitute themselves, legalise sex with animals, allow public nudity, and... free trainjourneys? I mean, am I missing something pervy with trainjourneys that would possibly make that claim seem remotly logical? In all its absurdity it's actually kind of funny. I mean, this long list of the worst stupidities you could imagine and then suddenly a demand that probably every senior citizen in the universe would agree with. Weird.

I had to much to dream last night.

I've not been sleeping very well lately, because somehow I've realised that I can't sleep when I've been drinking. So I decided to try and sleep for as long as possible last night instead. Well, I slept ten hours, but I didn't enjoy it. For one thing, I've got a horrible headache now, and also I've been dreaming a zillion uncomfortable dreams. I dreamt that my granddad died, which was a bit sad. I also dreamt that I was a man, living in a house by the sea and the waves hit my windows. I had many more dreams, but I've forgot them now.

Today I've been fab5-ing my flat. Uhm, that is to say I've cleaned it and changed a few details like lamps and shit like that. I can't wait to move. I'm in the process to kill off all my plants so that I wont have to pack them when I leave. Feels a bit cruel, but that's life. If you're a plant. Or a human. Argh, the insence in my living room is kinda giving me a headache. Worse headache than before. I need coffee.

Anyway, in the end I just banged me little gavel.

Let me ramble about legal systems in the west for a bit. Ok, I've got no academic knowledge of the subject and if anyone feels that I'm being a complete twat, you know, just say so. But I've been thinking about this for a while. Not too long ago I was following the documentary on Michael Peterson, the writer who was eventually commited of the murder of his wife. This despite the fact that a lot of key technical evidence (like the duh! murder weapon) was mysteriously non-existant. I'm not in any way going to put forward my opinion (if indeed I hold an opinion) on whether or not he was guilty. However, one of the main points the prosecution made was that Mr Peterson was bisexual, he formed ephemeral and purely sexual relationships with men he met on the internet, this proving in the amazing world of prejudist people that he didn't love his wife, thus proving his killing her. Like I said, I don't particularly give a damn as to whether or not he was guilty, but I'm slightly surprised that his sexuality became such a key argument in the trial.

And now the whole of Sweden are holding their breath for the outcome of the trial on the woman and her lover who may or may not have killed the woman's 10yo son, but either way definetly dumped his body in a lake. Personally, I hope they both burn in hell, but that's not the thing. My vague concern is how their interest in BDSM sex have become evidence in this trial, supposedly proving that they tortured the boy prior to death. In this case, I actually do hope they both get convicted, because they were both in situations where they could've stopped this from happening, but didn't. But I still think that it's worrying that their interest in BDSM is concidered evidence. Now, if either of them had previously expressed interest in torturing young boys, preferably related to them, then fair enough. The evidence as far as made public talks about sexual relations between two conscenting adults.

So, basically, if I ever have to stand trial for anything (hopefully not though), should I worry that my sexual preferences will come up as evidence? We're daily fed with the notion that everything is normal as long as no one gets hurt, but apparently that's only true to a point. If a guy stands accused for peadophilia, will it be used as evidence that he likes adult women dressed in school uniforms? I don't know if I'm being the Devil's advocate here, but it just seems that it's weird how things are perfectly normal and accepted, and certainly extremely private, until the point where we have to defend ourselves, not only against a crime commited, but defend our entire personality. No?

I fucking love these bugs, man!

The days when I would spend hours on end trying to convince people to listen to a specific group, song, album or watch a specific film or you know, generally trying to brainwash people into liking the same stuff I do are long gone. But I've come across something that I just feel this physical need to recommend. It's a v disturbing short film directed by Carter Smith, based on a story by Scott Treleaven that I've not read. Actually, the most disturbing thing about this film is that I don't find it disturbing. It just feels like I should. But either way, it's also well-made and artistic aswell as sort of... uh. Just watch the damn thing. It's approximately 35 minutes long, and the link is here; Bugcrush! Voilá! No excuse not to, eh.

A couple of days ago someone phoned me on my mobile and wanted to talk to my father. I politely informed the person that this is no longer my father's mobile. He had the decency to explain to me why he'd phoned. Apparently, he wanted to buy the an internet address, namely "myfather'slastname".se and somehow he'd found out that it was owned - but not used - by someone with my father's name and that he wanted to buy it. He also informed me that there were eight people in this country who share my father's name. I was slightly surprised, I would've thought it would be more. But either way, I assured him that my dad own no such webaddress, and that he could safely phone the next person on the list. And then I said "good luck" and hung up. I will now have to check on this website every now and then to see why this guy so desperately wanted to buy it.

Oh mother.

Wednesday means free local newspaper. Nothing interesting in there today though, apart from a picture of my brother's mate and his girlfriend and their newborn daughter. It seriously freaks me out that my little brother has friends who are parents. Isn't he like 15? Actually, no, he's not at all. Anyways, the father in question is someone I remember from when we were kids, because he was one of our neighbours. He was a very disturbed and troubled kid who grew up to be one helluva fella. I specifically remember that he used to call his mother "mother". Uhm, as opposed to "mum" or whatever. We were digging a sand castle once when I asked him why the hell he calls his mother "mother". He explained it to me in a way that I've been laughing at ever since.

"Because that's what mother called her mother, and her mother called her mother" and so on.

I thought this was a pretty unique way of explaining things, until I saw a programme on tv about an 8yo girl whose father had left her mother for another guy. The girl was narrating the programme herself, obviously reading stuff from a paper, it sounded that natural and easy. She was going "this is where I live every other week, this is where my dad and my bonus-dad live, when I don't live here I live with mother". Whoever had convinced this kid to tell her story (well, her parents story, I guess) obviously thought the use of "mother" needed some 'splaining, so the kid added that very same statement that my brother's friend told me some 18 years ago.

Seriously, what a great way of making your kid the laugh of the playground. It's not unusual enough to have two dads (in the rainbow sense), she's going round shouting "mother" whenever she wants attention. Imho, she's probably getting more greif about the mother-thing than the dads-thing.

Saturday Night Hay-Fever.

After having spent the better part of this spring complaining about people with hay-fever, or rather complaining about their complaining, it's finally bit me in the arse. My throat hurts, my nose is feeling like a uhm... beehive, I guess. I'm sneezing like a madwoman. It's just uncomfortable. Of course, the fact that I've been complaining about everyone else's hayfever means I wont be able to complain about my own. So I suffer in silence. With the occasional interuption of waking up my husband in the middle of the night with a "my throat huuuuuuurts...!". He doesn't appreciate it. Actually, come to think of it, I'm not 100% sure that it's hay-fever. I guess technically it could be a cold or something. I mean, does hay-fever normally include a sore throat? Yeah, maybe, I don't know. The important thing is I don't like it.

I also got a reminder for a bill today, which felt completely unfair since I honestly thought I'd paid it. I must have lost it in the mess of other papers I keep on my desk. I even had to like, contact my bank (thank you, impersonal internet service) to make sure that it wasn't a mistake. It wasn't. I had actually forgot to pay my phone bill. Typical. Hay-fever and forgotten bills. It's just a terrible start of the week.

Highbrow culture is a fuck up the arse.

Yes, that is a charming title, thank you. I once saw a t-shirt with that written on the front and I was half considering getting one. Not so much because I agree with the idea, more because I like prophanity. I was watching a program on tv last night (whilst surfing the net - this is my new hobby combo) about literature and whatnot. Some freak with a roll-up cigarette and too long white hair was talking about some writer or other saying that she was probably the person who best masters Swedish in writing. Wtf? Yeah, you're right, because there's no way the appreciation of the written word has any sort of subjective qualities? I've read a few bits and pieces by this author and neither the subject matter nor the language is really doing anything for me.

Every Wednesday people living in this town/city/hell-hole receive a free local newspaper. I like this paper. Mainly because it's free. It's got a lot of advertising in it, but so has the daily local paper, despite the fact that it charges a shameless sum of money for the privilige to read it. Anyhow. The free paper features a few little texts by local people (League of Gentlemen, anyone?), who are contributing on a rota. Every third week it's the Spokesperson for Culture and Queerness who writes. I've always really enjoyed reading what he has to say, because funny enough, I always tend to agree. A few weeks back however he was complaining over how the people in this town/city/hell-hole have no sense of quality when it comes to food, paying particular attention to the invention of the Kebab pizza. Well, I don't like it either, because I'm a vegetarian. However, I'm not completely insensitive to the enormous popularity of the culinary creation amongst the younger generation in this town/city/hell-hole. Most of my friends have longs since moved away from here, but always when they visit they will go for a Kebab pizza. Because you can't get them anywhere else. The forum on the internet for people from here is spammed with requests for guidelines on how to make the sauce or whatever. Poems written in the honour of the pizza, born out of the longing for it's greasy pleasure. That the Spokesperson for Culture and Queerness completely missed this collective affection signals to me that he's out of touch with the people in this town/city/hell-hole, and I've slowly started getting annoyed with his texts. From general dislike, via mild annoyance, heading straight towards full-blown rage.

I don't know if it's appropriate to compare highbrow culture with anal sex, as I'm informed that the latter can be enjoyable if you're that way inclined and so on, but highbrow culture need to be a bit more sensitive to what is going on in the cultural jungle out there. It's fascinating how the people who are supposed to mind and protect cultural interests are also the same people who are always the last to recognise when something new comes along. They really need a kick in the arse. Or a fuck up it. Sorry.

Wear your tiara like a man, boy.

When I was in my early teens I knew a guy who went under the pseudonym of The German. He wasn't German in the least, but the reason behind this was that someone once phoned him up and started a conversation in German, and The German replied in... German. Because of this, the person who phoned him started calling him The German and soon it caught on. When I think about him now I can only recall his real name if I think about it for a while.

Today I've been messing with my aunt's family values. Uh. Well, my cousin turned 11, so we all went there to celebrate her. Her sister is 4, and so that she wouldn't get jealous when her sister got a zillion presents, she was given a My Little Pony. It was wearing a pink skirt and pink shoes. Like ponies do. For no good reason, I started telling my cousin that the pony was obviously a boy. She went "no!" a few times, and I tried to convince her, going "yeah, but look, it's wearing a pink skirt and shoes, just like a boy". After awhile she had obviously given in to the idea that pink skirts and shoes are boys' things, so she went "but boys don't wear tiaras" instead. I said "only the pretty boys". A bit later I heard her go "oh, no he dropped his shoes" when the pony's shoes fell off, and I did a little victory dance.

Friday...

Different people bring out different qualities in a person. It's nice, but to me personally it also poses two questions. One, am I pretending to be something I'm not to be compatible with people, and two, what qualities do I bring out in other people.

Dog is now no more. He's not been for about an hour. It's like the end of an era, in a strange way. I'm not particularly sad, but at the same time it feels weird that he's gone, because for the past 12 years he's been a very noticable presence. Pets are funny like that. Every now and then I make little plans to get various pets; dogs, cats, fainting goats, chickens, that sort of thing. But in the end it just seems stupid. I think possibly in the future I might get koi fish, or something simularly ornamental.

America's funniest home videos.

Ok, I've been blogging with alarming frequency about Tom Bergeron, but I adore him. The preast in my local church looks just like him, which is a bit weird. Watching AFV makes me think that men are weird and do weird things. Women are much less likely to bring stupid things upon themselves. Women do stupid things. Like falling from things, throwing frying pans through the window when they see mice in the kitchen, things like that. Men tend to actually set themselves up for stuff. Like dressing up as Spiderman and trying to climb the walls in the garage, thus causing the ceiling to collapse. Or trying to pull a car out of a ditch but ending up pushing it further down. Men are... prone to accidents. This is the conclusion I've come to through substantial viewing of AFV.

Moshi moshi!

Being the subculture trend sensitive person that I am, lately I've been feeling increasingly uncomfortable about my complete lack of knowledge about Japanese stuff. I did try and draw manga a couple of years back, but I stopped because I sucked, and I've just never really got the whole sushi thing. My knowledge of Japanese is pretty much non-existant, though someone who used to be a missonary there taught me a song in Japanese when I was a kid which I still remember. I only know the basic anime terminology and I feel that I'm missing out on something. So at the mo I'm debating whether to learn more or if I should just focus completely on rollerblading. Yeah, I got a pair of rollerblades last Friday, but it's been raining since, so I've not been able to use them. But it's sunny today, so maybe later. Wuhu. Moshi moshi.

You Are a Henna Gaijin!

You're not Japanese, but you wish you were! You can use chopsticks with your eyes closed, and you've memorized hundreds of Kanji. You even answer your phone "moshi moshi." While the number of anime videos you've seen is way higher than the number of dates you've been on, there's hope. Play the sexy, mysterous gaijin, and you'll have plenty of Japanese meat.

What's Your Japanese Subculture?

My favourite suicide quotes.

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice... that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.
(Arthur Schopenhauer)

Suicidal thinking, if serious, can be a kind of death scare, comparable to suffering a heart attack or undergoing a cancer operation. One survives such a phase both warier and chastened. When—ten years ago—I emerged from a bad dip into suicidal speculation, I felt utterly exhausted and yet quite fearless of ordinary dangers, vastly afraid of myself but much less scared of extraneous eventualities.
(Edward Hoagland)

Suicide was naturally the consistent course dictated by the logical intellect. (Is suicide the ultimate sincerity? There seems to be no way to refute the logic of suicide but by the illogic of instinct.)
(William James)

Oh, and Dog's days are numbered. Seven more to be exact.

Your World View

You are a moralist with conventional ideas, which some people would call old-fashioned. You probably think that most of the world falls badly below your standards. Your inhibitions and sense of guilt are in the way of your happiness. You think that people tend to use sex for evil, as a weapon. Your parents probably played a big part in the formation of such a guilt complex as yours. Your mind is in chains, and it's time you did something to free it.

What Is Your World View?

Singing in the rain.

I went for a walk with my friend yesterday. The weather had been lovely all day, but when we went for our walk it was raining. We didn't mind though, we had umbrellas. As I walked back from her place to mine, I walked past a sort of... I don't actually really know what it is. Like a gym and a party venue type place. I've never been there. Outside of it, there was a group of probably ten people, smoking. They were all middle-aged and looked normal. Just I mean... Normal. When I got a little bit closer I could hear that someone was singing. At first I thought it was folk music of some kind, but then I heard that it was "I will always love you". I didn't look towards the people for too long, so I didn't identify the woman (or castrato) who was singing, but it was kind of funny that the silence from the other people was as loud as her singing. I walked past, but her excrutiatingly slow version of the song followed me until I was almost outside my front door. It was weird because she didn't have a bad voice. It was pretty good, apart from her changing key at one point. Yeah, a bit sort of... unexpected.

Gay or dead?

After some time of in-depth analysis I've come to the conclusion that whoever writes the lyrics for one of the most popular christian rock acts at the moment is either homosexual or is trying to make whoever sings the lyrics appear homosexual. In order to avoid legal action and so forth I will not be quoting any lyrics or even mention the name of the act, I just wanted to mention the result of my research. Otherwise it would've just been pointless, innit?

Read today about the 12(!)-yo Canadian girl who killed her family. Was in a morbid way amused that the newspaper in which I read about it was pretty much blaming vampirefreaks.com for what had happened (because God forbid that a girl of 12 would have the capacity to think or to reflect upon the moral and legal aspects of her actions). The newspaper was even quoting usernames from this site, to prove what disturbed people are registered there.

Well, I used to have an account with vampirefreaks.com and I'm completely normal. Here's my epitaph:

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

Cemetaries and jokes.

I had a bit of a freaky experience last Saturday. Well, not really that freaky, more sort of... interesting I guess, since this is the second time it's happened to me. A couple of years ago as I was looking through some of my old stuff I found a little book about a friend of my great grandmothers who died really young. Being the creative person I am, I started writing a little story inspired by the information I'd gathered from this book. Well, I've long since given up that idea, but as I went to my great grandmothers grave (which is in another county), I stumbled upon her friend's grave. I didn't look for it or anything, I just turned my head slightly and there it was. Ok, so it's not amazing, but it still felt like a pretty big deal at the time. Well, on Saturday my friend and I were taking a walk around one of the cemetaries in town, and we were sort of looking at graves, going "oh, I want mine to be like that one" and "isn't that pretty" and shit like that. And then I saw one just by the wall that I really liked, so I went "wow, look at that" and walked closer to it. Well, turns out it was the grave of one of the doctors whose work is a huge part of the reasearch I'm presently doing for my paper. He died in like 1867 or something like that. It was weird the way he's been sort of living in my footnotes, and now ironically seeing his grave kind of brought him to life.

Also, last night I dreamt that me and mindthelacuna watched Bill Bailey's "Part troll" DVD. I wonder why. Might be because I used his "are you an optimist? - yeah, I hope so"-joke yesterday.

Shown your arse to any statues lately?

Weird dreams again last night. A couple of separate ones, but the one thing they all had in common was rain. It was pissing down. According to my dream interpretation book (the one that says things like "if you dream about your house being on fire that means that you'll die"), dreams about violent raining means there's trouble awaiting in the near future. Anyway, my first dream was about school, when I was 18. Our business(or something)-teacher left my friend (and former classmate) in charge, and she got to grade us, using a system she made up herself. When it was my turn to get my grade she told me about how much she liked the fact that everyone else was scared of her. And just then our teacher walked back in the room. Only it was not really a room, it was more a sort of open space in the forest. He looked like a cross between my former landlord and Patrick Duffy from Dallas, which is kind of weird. He was seriously pissed off at my mate who was in charge and he sent us all home. The whole class was supposed to get the train home, but the train was open, like there were no seats, no walls or roof. And now it started raining. I pulled my jacket up, and tried to cover myself from the rain. The feeling I had was that I was on my own and didn't really belong with the rest of the class.
Then suddenly I was instead with my entire family, walking around in the rain, and we walked past a building in town where I'm determined to own a flat at some point in my life. I was like "yeah, come on, let's have a look, to see what the flats are like", and all of us went up there. Turned out it had like a weird decking type area around the whole building, I don't know if it was around the roof or what. It was raining like mad and we were completely unprotected from falling off the decking, I mean, there was no fence or anything like that. Then we met my aunt's ex husband sitting on the roof with his dog, wearing a pink shirt, very much like one of my husband's shirts. Weird.

Yesterday, the sun was shining and my youngest and blondest friend and me decided to piss about in town for a bit. So first we had coffee at this city's oldest café, which was pretty cool. Then we saw two guys walking past holding an inflatable uhm sexdoll. They crossed the street, sat the doll down leaning her against a lamppost and stood next to her for a bit, drinking beer. Then after maybe half an hour or so they grabbed the doll again and left. My friend and me left the café and walked through the park. It was just us, until two guys came running. They went behind this statue;

and one of them pulled his trousers down, whilst the other one took a photo of his arse in front of the statue. Then they run away again, doing a high five as the run.

After a night of working, this is what's on my mind:

Boy howdy, the tidal wave of linguistic debate have finally hit Sweden, and I for one am so going to get my board out. Actually, I don't own a surfing board, but I wish I did. Might be my next project or something. Anyways, the question debated by various opinionated people with their heads stuck equally far up their own arses is how one's supposed to react to the "new" words becoming suddenly accepted to the Swede equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary. Or whatever. The word that has particularly caused a massive erection in the selfimportant pants of the anti-establishment young journalists and the likes is the originally Turkish epiteth "guzz", taken to mean "girl". On the other side of the river are the standard bearers of highbrow culture who almost pissed their equally selfimportant pants, or at least choked on their morning frappucino, when they found out that this word had been admitted. Look, get the fuck over it. Language is in a state of constant metamorphosis (God, how I lurve that paradox!) and thus this will all be completely unimportant as soon as the press get bored with the already incredibly boring debate. But also (I'm about to dig my own standard bearer frappucino grave now, I know), I consult a dictionary when I need to know how to best express myself in writing. Papers, pretentious attempts at novels, all that shit, that's when you bloody look in a dictionary. Not when you want to know how to spell that word that no one uses apart from the cool kids at the local skateboard park or where the hell the cool kids hang out these days (my livingroom?). I'm the passionate patron saint of the idea that you know what you need to know, and that applies to language aswell. If guzz isn't part of your everyday vocabulary, then don't worry. I might talk (and blog) in a style that would have my Older Relatives and Honourable Forefathers cringe, but in all formal circumstances, my written stuff is pretty god damn acceptable. It's also when you write stuff that you might need to consult a dictionary. Dictionaries should cater for that need. Or do you keep a dictionary next to the phone so that you'll be able to go "yeah, I met this really fit guzz the other day" when you speak to people? If you do, then you aint never caught a rabbit and you aint no friend of mine.

The joys of the internet, part zillion and thirtyseven.

I occasionally write things which I publish on the internet. I like the idea of this. My motivation for writing is well... I enjoy it. I'm not doing it for profit. Obviously. The fact that the stuff I write is available for anyone to read and react to is an added bonus. Even if I got a deal with some kick-ass publicist, my motivation to write would still be that I enjoy it. If people went to buy my books, as you probably would if you really liked them, I would be happy as Larry. But really, I'd be just as happy if people read them on the internet. If they liked it so much they wanted to share it with their friends, thus spreading my stuff around the world, I'd be over the moon. The spreading of music, films, writings, et c on the internet have two major good points, if you ask me. For one, it makes it possible to discover all sorts of weird stuff. Music from all over the world. Also, I think that to some extent it limits the west's monopoly on popular culture. Because the say... Chinese scene is equally available. Where else is that true? If I go to my local cinema, I sure as hell wont find out anything about the latest Chinese blockbuster. Right. Secondly, it's released the creative pearl from the claws of capitalism. Anyone can record and distribute their own music or whatever. Technically, a million people could download The Catsong, if we only decided to record it and upload it to the net. What I'm saying is that it's suddenly the creator of the music that decides what happens to it, it's not the führer of Sony music or whatever. The Catsong could easily become the most played song in China, for example.

Oh. And also;

You Are Creepy

Serial killers would run away from you in a flash.

How Scary Are You?

Excuse me, but I suffer from...

This amuse me to no ends;

Landbaron -- [adjective]: Fetish oriented 'How will you be defined in the sexual dictionary?' at QuizUniverse.com

One of my greatest fears in life, if not the greatest fear is chronic hickups. Whenever I get hickups I'm also terribly nervous until it goes away. When I can't cure it using my standard methods I'm beginning to panic. The ancient Greeks recommended tickling to cure hickups. Someone told me when I was younger that tickling can actually cause hickups, so now I don't know what to believe. My mother, that endless source of wisdom, has a trick that consists of pressing a certain point between thumb and indexfinger. That cures hickups. I know how to do it aswell. I cured my friend's hickups once and she got scared and thought I had magical powers. I told her I did and made her my slave for the remainder of the year. And then I started giggling and gave myself away.

I'm one of those people (if there are in fact more people like this) who will always have an excuse for everything. That's because I make them up in advance. There's nothing in the world I've not already invented an excuse for. I made a new one up today, which I was planning to use had I been questioned about my slightly irrational behaviour on my way back from the supermarket. I think I've hit a new low with this one. I was going to say that I suffer from Aspberger's syndrome which causes me to obsessively adhere to the rule about driving on the right side of the road. To the extent that I can't even write something to the left of something else. And yes, I'm aware of how offensive I'm being, but it was a spur-of-the-moment-and-whilst-in-panic excuse I made up.

Geronimo!

So I was working today alongside a girl with dreadlocks who looked 15 but was 26. I only know that she was 26 because I said "how old are you anyway, you look about 15". She was from way south, but her boyfriend and I - it turned out - are born the same year and come from the same place, blahblahblah. She asked me if I knew him. I said I didn't. She quickly gave me a list of what I presume was nicknames of people and asked if I knew any of them. I truthfully said that I didn't. And she looked at me somewhat puzzled and asked "were you never in to trance"? I reassured her that I somehow managed to miss the whole trance scene. I have no idea why she thought I would've been.

On another note, I've promised to design a tattoo for my friend. Why she asked me, and furthermore, why I agreed is a bit of a mystery as I've got no talent whatsoever for designing things. But I know what to make, because I suggested the thing in the first place. So it's not that I'm just going to freestyle or whatever. Like, drawing a stick figure, presenting it to my mate saying "oh, look it's you niece" or something. I'm not evil like that.

On a slightly more disgusting note, the nails on my toes have turned blue. I wonder whether they're going to fall off now or what. I sure as hell hope not.

Tea-thoughts.

As I've stopped drinking coffee in favour of tea, I've developed a new habit. Because I like my tea without milk, it's too hot to drink when it's newly made. So I have to leave it for a bit, which I've noticed 9 times out of 10 leads to me forgetting about the tea full stop, only finding the cup when the tea is lukewarm at best and bloody cold at worst. And I don't think the mugs I'm currently favouring are microwave safe. Not that microwaved tea is that great anyway. My mugs come free with the dodgy tea my husband insists on buying from the little arab shop near to where we live. It's like a deal, you get 100 teabags and a mug in each packet. Neat. And it's only two quid aswell, which is well cheap. Anyroads. Even though I'm clearly using the mugs that come with the tea, I'm not drinking the tea itself. It's yucky. It tastes pretty much like Yorkshire tea, i.e. hay. Hay and water. I prefer flavoured teas, like Earl Grey, my current fetisch. So I buy a 100 Earl Grey teabags, and I'm sure they're more than £2, but I'm still not getting a mug. Conclusion? The arabs give you a lot better deal than the English.

Power-naps.

Naps make feel sick. I know they're supposed to be a brilliant way to recharge your batteries or whatever new-age term you want to use for it, but basically - if I sleep for half an hour, or an hour, in the afternoon, I need at least three hours to get back to normal. I get up really early in the mornings, which makes me feel tired pretty early, so technically it seems like a good idea to have a little afternoon nap so I can do stuff for longer. But I had a nap today, waking up at quarter to five, and I didn't feel alright until eightish. And also, sleeping during the day cause stupid dreams. I don't know if this is true for everyone or just me, but I always dream really dumb dreams during the day. The kind where you wake up and you think it's true. Like with my George Clooney will win the best supporting actor Oscar. Well, I woke up a zillion times thinking that was true even though I'd just dreamt it. Obviously he did win that bloody Oscar, but still.

Oh no, the French!

After almost six years of complete anglophilia, the past few days I've been turning my eyes slightly south. Oh, what a delightfully perverted expression. All it means though it that I've been experiencing an increasing infatuation with all things French. Like, if you ever saw the brilliant film "All or nothing", when Timothy Spall is driving some crazy French woman to some art gallery? Well, I kind look like her at the moment. Mainly due to my glasses which are a bit arty. Also, I've been going round quoting her, saying "'eee's urr... fat like you?" in a real poncy French accent. On a slightly more sane note I've also started readin Le Monde. That was the only French newspaper I could think of. So I looked it up on the internet. I'm still in the stage where I'm reading what it says thinking "God, I know these words!" but not really understanding. But I have learnt the French word for bird flu, so I can definetly see the progress.

I spent almost an hour, well half an hour, something or other, my watch has retired so I've got no sense of time anymore, on the phone with my mother today. The conversation can be cut up in points and listed as follows; 1) Today is - apparently - the day spring starts, 'cause my mother has found flowers, 2) Despite the fact that we are now without doubt entering the warmer season, my mother has a cold, 3) her friend's mother is dying, 4) I always read the obituaries despite the fact that I don't know any of the dead, I proceed to remark that a lot of people born in the 40's are dying at the moment, 5) another of my mother's friends have sold her house, and her brother has moved to Brazil, 6) I talk about what I'm going to write my paper about and my mother claims she's always been interested in that particular subject, 7) she asks me if I've received my tax return papers, I say I have and that I'll be getting quite a lot of money back (yay!), 8) my parents have separate accounts, compared to my husband and myself who have several accounts but they're all joint, 9) my friend's sister (who is also my mother's friend's daughter) is a vegan, and I try to explain to my mother why drinking milk is wrong, 10) my mother has new glasses, 11) I'm going to buy shoes with pictures of cats on them, 12) I suggest my parents go to Amsterdam, 13) my mother asks if I want to go shopping with her on Saturday, I say no, but what about tomorrow? And then we arrange the details of our shopping trip. I forgot to tell her about how yesterday I was humming the Shaft theme tune for about an hour and then turned the telly on and Shaft was just starting. How cool is that.

Lalala...

I was watching a program about literature yesterday and there was a short interview with some Japanese publicist who said the latest trend in Japan is teenage writers. He said kids today are very much used to expressing themselves in writing, for example through e.mails or whatever. I just find that absolutely delightful. And it's obviously true aswell. All people are blogging, or they're part of an community, an enormous amount of kids join writing-type communities where you can post your poems, short stories, and so on. I think it's brilliant. Also the number of places where people can upload their own music, and the availability of the technical equipment needed to produce music has just brought creativity to new unexpected hights. So there. It's a creative revolution.

Beam me up.

Sailing on top of the WorldWideWeb, I found this little gem of a test that gave me the improbable advice to become a Science Fiction writer.

You Should Be a Science Fiction Writer

Your ideas are very strange, and people often wonder what planet you're from. And while you may have some problems being "normal," you'll have no problems writing sci-fi. Whether it's epic films, important novels, or vivid comics... Your own little universe could leave an important mark on the world!

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

Although admittedly most of above is undeniably and absolutely true, I would probably suck harder than anything as a science fiction writer. Of all the things I do in my life, all the thoughts I have, all my interests et cetera, science fiction has never been remotely connected to any of them. Neither has fantasy. Which is kind of weird, I guess. I just don't like it. Althought I did like Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, but only for it's dry wit, ya'll.

Return of the Dog!

My grandparents returned Dog to me earlier. He's been spending the weekend with my brother. He was obviously extremely happy to see me again. He was so excited he sneezed. He does that a lot, it's very peculiar. It's like he's gathering energy for about half a minute before actually sneezing. And when he does, it's like a real kick-ass sneeze. I don't know if he's allergic to something or what. Anyway, as Dog is spending the night, that means he'll be sleeping in my bed. For some reason my husband's side of the bed isn't good enough for him, it has to be like the mid-section of mine. Why do we let him sleep in the bed in the first place? Because well, he gets up there anyway and it's just easier not spending the time that should be spent falling asleep telling Dog to piss off away from somewhere he's going to end up in anyway.

Mind your braces please.

I had freaky dreams again last night. Basically, the phone rang as I was taking a walk around the area where I live. The phone was on a table between to other tables where stuff was put up for sale. Turned out the person who phoned was my mate's mother who is currently in Paris with my parents (and well, you know, her husband). She phoned and was really upset because my mum had left Paris after just one night. I tried to defend my mother saying things like "oh, she needed to be back her for work on Sunday". Every now and again the phoneline would go quiet and it was generally like a really bad phone experience. The woman was crying complaining that my mother had left and I was getting increasingly uncomfortable. Then she started talking about the area where I was as being dangerous and whatnot. I said something like "oh, don't worry, the police are arriving as we speak". Which they did. And they run into the house next to where I was standing, still on the phone, all action movie mode. Then two people, a man and a woman, jumped out of the second floor window. He was wearing a wig which fell off, because the woman's braces had stuck in the blinds in the window, and he was holding on to her and they ended up hanging upside down in her braces and he'd lost his wig. They were both looking like skinheads, like the racist kind of skinhead, which was a bit weird. They had to struggle to get the woman out of her braces, but even though it took a while the police stayed in the flat. The woman was arguing, not wanting to run, so in the end the guy took off alone. She sat down on the pavement and waited. Still, the police waited in the flat. I was still on the phone. Then my mother and grandmother walked by, obviously pissed out of their minds, wearing sunglasses and my mother said that I shouldn't waste any time on the woman on the phone and if she wanted to leave Paris, she had the right to do so.

We'll always have Paris!

My parents left for Paris earlier today. They left their dog with me. This dog is a fascinating creature. My mother phoned me last night to ask if I got any bread or if she needs to bring some, as Dog prefers his medication injected in a sandwhich (how I wish this wasn't true, but it is). I don't normally eat bread, but I promised I'd buy some especially for Dog. So I did. I also bought cheese, as I think he likes that aswell. Looking after Dog means I'll have to remember loads of things, like taking him for walks, although he can't actually walk that far. He also needs to be fed. In addition to his morning sandwhich he eats dogfood. I've got a bag in the kitchen now, appropriately with a picture of the Eiffel Tower, with all things dog-related. I do kind of like having Dog around though. It's just that I'm expecting him to die any second, so I'm sort of constantly looking to see if he's still breathing or what. I mean, like, he's too big to flush down the toilet if he dies, so I wouldn't really know what to do with him.

It's on the internet so it must be true.

As I read my morning paper today I was informed in a small article that 80% of Swedish (equivalent to) A-level students are getting half or more of their information for essays, projects or whatever from the internet and not from their course books. Surely this comes as a surprise to noone? I for one think that this is terrific news. Not only does it cripple the monopoly on information that our schools have had for so long, it also gives the students a valuable experience in looking for information, and in extent processing and using information. However. Out of these 80%, 80% (yes, that's 80% of 80% of students total) claim they trust the information they find on the internet. When they hand in their work based on this information, is anyone going to question them on it? "Oh, you found this on the internet, did you? Well, that's fine then." Students are at most required to cite the website they got the information from. In special cases they're required to print a copy of it and hand in as an appendix. This mainly serves the purpose of allowing the teacher to check whether the student have actually done the work himself or if he's just printed it off www.howtoscoreanawithouthavingtodoanywork.com (that's not a real address btw).
In my humble opinion, schools are failing their students here in the sense that they don't teach them the first thing about source criticism. That's hardly surprising either. For years and years students have been given one (1) book on history, one (1) on civic science and so on and they're expected to learn what it says. That in itself is pretty poor, but when it comes to the magnificent, yet incredibly unreliable, source that we refer to as the internet it's absolutely vital that they know that not everything is true. Not even if it looks serious enough. But in a way this feels defining of our society as a whole. We don't like individuals who question information fed to us by various people and institutions. Without disappearing into a little cloud of neo-lefty scepticism, I just want to say that critical thinking is such a useful tool. And today more than ever it's what we need to teach people. The modern man and woman are absolutely drowned in a huge tidal wave of information. Every single day. So yeah, if I ever run for president or prime minister or whatever, I'll introduce two hours of source criticism/critical thinking every week from the age of er... 10 to graduation from Oxford.

Block my calories.

At half past one in the afternoon the phone rang. Being a very paranoid person I'm always trying to figure out who's phoning before answering. Yes, I know that the obvious solution to this problem would be to get a number presentation thingy, but 1) so many people have secret or unknown numbers anyway and 2) I like being unfashionable when it comes to technology. That's not the point though. I couldn't figure out who would possibly phone me at that hour. When I answered I found out it was a woman probably my own age, and in a very solemn voice she declared that I had been chosen by whatever company to try their calorie-blockers free of charge. I quickly informed her (unlike my mother I'm habitually polite to whoever phone me, even if they want to sell me stuff) that I didn't need any calorie-blockers, but thanks anyway and have a nice day. But as I sat down with my books again I immediatly regreated letting her go that easily. I would've loved to hear her explain to me what the hell calorie-blockers are and why she thought I needed them. Basically, the aim of these blockers is to prevent the body from digesting and absorbing calories, starch or whatever. I'm no expert on metabolism, digestion or whatever, but I mean... The reason I eat is because I need these things. I need my calories. Calories are energy, right? The day I wake up the size of a small house I'll consider blocking them. Until then I'll just continue eating and excercising whenever I feel like it.

Let it snoooooooooow!

As I was sitting on my sofa playing the guitar I looked out the window and saw how suddenly immense masses of snow started falling from the sky, like so fast. I mean, snow tend to sort of lazily fall in a hardly-moving-almost-snowing-upwards-type of way, but this snow had obviously been caught in a really alert wind and was forming interesting patterns in the sky.

On a less snowy note I'm reading about WWI. I've never really understood why that was such a horrible war compared to most other wars, but I guess I've never really understood the number of casualities. If the battleground is slimey with the blood and flesh from your friends and enemies you're not going to forget it anytime soon, are you? Well, now I'm going to do some more studying and then I'll write a fictional story and post it on the internet and see how many people are going to read it in say... 24 hours.

What is it about owls?

I absolutely adore owls, but I'm not sure why. I've got a lot of owl-related memories. Like when I was a kid and my teacher forced the whole class to go to the birdmuseum to look at stuffed birds and eggs and such, and there was this huge stuffed owl on top of one of the cabinettes. I was shopping around for an owl when I lived in England, you can keep them as pets there but you can't in Sweden. Although, I don't actually think it's recommended anywhere. And having spent a lot of time looking for an appropriate pet owl, and reading about them and so on, I must admit that well... they don't seem to make very good pets. You need to live somewhere where you can let them out so they can search for mice to eat, and how the hell you're supposed to teach an owl to come back to you once you've let it out on a mouse-hunt I have no idea. But in theory. Let's say I'd become a multi millionair one day. I'd buy an old abbey and I'd have a few cool animals. Like an Irish wolf hound. I love those. So one of those. Maybe a monkey. And definetly an owl. I'd let it fly free in my library. Get it a little stick to sit on. Actually, I think I'll write a song and call it "what is it about owls?". Or maybe not.

That'll teach you not to bring men back from the pub.

I had crazy dreams again last night. But for once they weren't of the morbid kind, which is weird seeing as I spent some time yesterday looking at pictures of third world burials, decapitated people, people who'd shot themselves in the head (boy, those are nasty wounds), and people who'd decided to end their life by standing in front of a train. Hm... Anyhow. I didn't have dreams about this, although at some point there was a detail in one of the dreams concerning someone getting decapitated by a helicopter. In the beginning of the dream I was staying with my paternal grandparents in their house in the middle of the forrest by a lake. I can see where this come from. Wednesday night I shared a room with mindthelacuna and I made the comment that it smelt like my grandparents summer house. But anyroads, I was living there with them, and they weren't really treating me that well. I can't remember exactly why I was living there, but it was for some practical reason, like my parents had died or my grandparents house were closer to school or whatever. Then I went to school, like, the level you're at when you're 17-ish. I was there with mindthelacuna, and we both thought that after the break we'd be having a double-hour of finances and then something else. But after hanging around for a while, we realised that both those courses ended last term and that we had the rest of the afternoon off. So we went to Kulturhuset for coffee and on our way there we met our band's drummer, so he went with us. We sat down and I was the only one who wanted coffee, Drummer and Mindthelacuna were drinking something else. So I went to the counter to get my coffee, but there wasn't enough, so I had to ask for more. That's when the counter turned into the reception of a police station, and I got a job answering the emergency calls. The problem was there was no one there that I could ask for help and I didn't really know what to do. But I answered the phone best I could anyway. The first person who phoned was a girl who had brought two men back from the pub to her flat and they refused to leave. It wasn't that they were actually doing anything or bothering her in any other way than refusing to leave her home. I told her that I'd send a police car round to her house as soon as I could, although I had no idea how I'd do that. And then I told her in my politest voice that "well, that will teach you not to bring men back from the pub", and we were sort of laughing together and then we hung up. Then two people came in to my little office and started answering the phones that were now ringing hysterically, and they were being über efficient and asking loads of questions whilst at the same time getting in contact with police people to go and help all these people. And then I woke up I think. Busy night.

Pondering over the Internet Effect.

Ok, this is going to be part repetition, part new boring stuff, but this is my blog and I can write whatever the hell I want. Within limits and legal restrictions, obviously. Right. It's my firm belief that one of the most defining features of modern society is the introduction of the internet. If, for a moment, we consider writing throughout the ages, it's always been concerning pretty much the same stuff. Things that are written down tend to belong to either one of two categories; either it's written down for practical reasons, for example calculations, inventories, to do-lists, things like that. Or it's storytelling, fiction, plays, generally stuff written down for people's enjoyment. What is stopping people from reading really ancient stories is usually not that they're "boring" or whatever, I think it's more often to do with the language it's written in. We as a society suck at updating classical works, and we end up with things like the Iliad, which is terribly difficult to understand, but underneath the tricky form and words there's a fascinating story. Errr... My point here is that fiction throughout the ages tend to deal with pretty much the same themes. Infidelty, love, hate, the relationship between parents and children, between lovers et c. Works of fiction always reflect the society in which they were created, thus we can draw the conclusion that these subject matters are somewhat permanent in society. Look at any soap opera these days, or Big Brother, or any movie made or book written, and compare it to an ancient Greek tragedy. People have had the same problems always, since we stopped pissing about as hunters and settled down in little villages. Uhm. To be continued.

Taking the piss.

"How do you like it?"
I gazed along the invisible trail the voice had left through the cold November air. It led to a bench by a bus stop, and belonged to a man in his twenties. He was looking a bit rough, a couple of days growth on his chin and a tattered hat on his head.
"How do I like what" I asked, looking in to his hollow eyes.
"Being dead, of course."
"I'm not dead" I said, my left foot creating semi-circular patterns in the snow.
"Of course you are, dear" he said and lit a cigarette.
"No I'm not."
"How do you know?" The smoke from his cigarette travelled towards the sky.
"Well I... I... I don't know."

How do you actually know you're not dead?

Death for relationships?

A hectic few days. Thursday was pretty cool. I spent most of the day studying, and finishing a project a few days ahead of time. Friday, I don't really remember much of apart from going to my friend's house for veggie lasagna and loads of wine. We spent most of the evening talking about death. She told me about a friend of hers who had died. The service in the church had been for everyone, but when it was time to lower the coffin into the ground only the family had been present. As my friend was walking home later that night, she decided to walk past the cemetary to see what the grave looked like. When she got there, she could see the whole in the ground, but the coffin wasn't there. Is there some sort of tradition/routine/whatever here that me and my friend are unaware of? After you lower the coffin in the ground, do you get it back up and store it somewhere over night?

Any old road, my friend has broken up with her boyfriend. He sent me an e.mail today saying something about wanting to tell me about it before he moves out. I really got the feeling as I was replying that we were talking about someone who'd died or something. And also, I felt a bit bad, because he started the e.mail going "I'm not going to do like [another friend's ex-boyfriend] and spend the next to hours telling you about mine and [my friend's] relationship". I mean, it's not like I wouldn't have listened if he would've wanted to. In the end, I replied in the shortest terms, along the lines of how I'd not yet spoken to my friend and didn't want to say too much, but wishing him good luck for the future and whatever. A bit sugary, I admit, but it kind of seemed polite at the time. Well, my friend's visiting next weekend so we can get pissed, talk about what's happened, gossip and just generally waste a bit of time together. So there.

Enough of this gay banter!

Right. I have this creepy gift of thinking of things/dreaming of things/hearing of things for the first time and then being haunted by information about these things for no good reason. I can only draw the conclusion that the CIA are somehow monitoring my brain and presenting bits of info accordingly. Example from just minutes back. In the middle of my daily media consumtion (extremely intense at the mo) I'm reading at the Guardian's website about how the Saatchi gallery is deep in debt. As I'm reading this I'm thinking "oh, who the bloody hell is it Charles Saatchi is married to again", but I'm not really interested enough to google him. Having finished my reading of the online version of the Guardian, I'm moving over to the Mirror. Force of habit I'm checking out what the 3am girls are up to first, and what do I see at the bottom, under "surveillance"? Following; "NIGELLA Lawson and husband Charles Saatchi sending back a red wine for being too cold during lunch at Cipriani's..." Eerie? Yes, it is. As hell. And I knew it was Nigella really, I'd just temporarily forgot.

I'm still being swept by the Colin Farrell wave created by that dream a few days back. American Outlaws tonight @ 9pm. Yay.

Tales from the crypt...

Last nights dream was scary. It started as a film, but ended with me sitting in a room in a crypt holding a rifle, prepared to shoot any living dead trying to open the door. Scene 1: a young boy is turning a key in what looks like a pretty normal, although admittedly huge, mausoleum in a graveyard. The turning of the key causes a load of other little keys and stuff to turn, and a man -thought to be dead- trapped within the mausloeum is slowly spinning around. At this point in the dream/film I understand that he's not dead at all, he's trapped there by mistake. As the keyturning comes to a halt, a sort of door opens, and the man walks out. He goes looking for his wife, who lives with the young boy (their son, I would've thought) and some other people in a house close to the cemetary. He finds her and explains that he's not dead at all. Suddenly they're back in the mausoleum, which has now turned into a giant crypt and is located in the cellar of their house. It's quite a weird crypt, consisting of a long hallway, and on the sides of this hallways are either rooms created for the dead, or just holes in the stone where the dead are resting in various states of decay. When they get back to the house, the man is no longer looking dead, and they think that they've overcome some sort of curse that caused him to be in a sort of limbo in terms of life/death. His skin is no longer grey, there's no cobweb in his hair, his eyes are alive. They go to sleep. In the middle of the night, the wife wakes up, and notices that one of her eyes have disappeared completely and the other one is definetly rotting. She realises that the curse has moved from her husband to her. In the morning she tells him this. He seems to be fine with it though, but the wife is not, so she goes to the crypt on her own. She running around, tearing a few of the corpses out of their in-the-wall-boxes, I especially remember a husband and wife, where she's a complete skeleton, and he has still got skin and a bit of hair, although all moist has long dried from his body. She finds some sort of well, something, that her husband left in the crypt as he returned to the living world, and she shoots it. The following night, her eyes have grown back, and by this point I turn in to the wife. I wake my husband, turn on the lights next to the bed and pull back my hair from my face to show him my eyes so that he will understand that he's now the one dying. He gets a bit... angry... or whatever, and we decide to go to the crypt and try to sort things out once and for all. As we open our bedroom door, there are three obviously dead men there, eyes a watery shade of greyish blue, and their bodies grey from decaying and their clothes in rags. When they see us they start chasing after us. We try to shoot them, I'm now equipped with a rifle and my husband's got some sort of pistol. They don't seem too affected though. We run down to the crypt, where the bodies, our family I guess, are in absolute uproar. We try opening the rooms, that have been built like a sort of morbid hotel, but in all of them there are people - dead people - trying to get up and kill us. In the end we find what we think is an empty room, so we go in and my husband is running around trying to make sure that we are definetly alone. I sit down on a chair with my rifle and wait for the living dead to find us, knowing that there's no way out. And then I woke up.

Father Postcard...

Right. I had lots of weird dreams last night, and I remember them with unusual clarity. It was a set of three dreams, the most interesting of which I'm going to write about now. It's got depth, it's got drama, secrets, lies, religious questioning, it's got it all - I dreamt I married Colin Farrell. The wedding was to take place in the church closest to where my parents live. Especially for this occasion it had been transformed into a Catholic church. In my dream, this meant that everything was cleared out of the church and replaced by white fabric, a few scarlet red cushions for me and mr Farrell to kneel down onto during the service, and the seating arrangements where somehow located to just outside the church. Me and mr Farrell where walking from the altar to outside, through the gathering of people, so that we'd sort of reach starting point to walk back in and get married. This dream was in English, which isn't in itself unusual, but I did speak with an Irish accent, which is just plain stupid 'cause, well, basically I don't normally and not that I've tried but I don't think I could pull it off to save my life. Funny thing was, Colin Farrell in my dream was really really shy. He was sort of almost shorter than me (which I guess could be true, because I'm pretty tall), and seemed scared by it all. Also I got the sense that he married me as some sort of cover-up. As we were walking away from the altar, I asked him about the Catholic priest that we'd replaced the Lutheran one with, and he went "oh, yeah, that's father Postcard". To which I replied, Irish accent intact; "Father Postcard?!?". He told me to be quiet so we could get on with it. After the service, which I don't actually remember much of, we stood on a mountain, looking out over Greece. Pretty weird. But nice at the same time. When I read my morning newpaper this morning, there was a huge picture of Colin Farrell on the front page and an articel about the Pocahontas film. Weird.

Observations...

Well, I spent the better part of yesterday comparing what John Keegan wrote about Clausewitz with what Clausewitz actually wrote. The reason I did this was originally because I have to, but as I progressed I found myself actually enjoying this a lot. I also found a terrifying interview with Keegan (here: http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1198) which did pretty much nothing for my confidence in him. Plus I've never been able to understand historians that read books on history because it's their "work". I do however like what he's saying about writing "a" history rather than "the" history.

Any old how. Today's most annoying and media-abused word is "coup". Everything's a coup these days. It's getting bloody annoying. This is a good example of how a word is changing it's meaning due to the hi-jacking of the word by people who use it in a different way than say... The Oxford English dictionary. Although actually, the OED definition of a coup is a "notable or successful stroke or move", which I guess could apply to an underground movement on the internet trying to get enough people to vote for a certain BB contestant's eviction. I maintain that it's a watered-down version of a coup though. And it's been used most frequently lately to describe everything from voting on Let's dance to today's headline in the main Swedish tabloid; hockeyplayer Sundin's "coup"; which consisted of him paying for everything at the party celebrating recent Olympic gold. I guess that would qualify as a notable or successful stroke or move. Oh, and that's the definition in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, ninth edition, "the foremost authority on current English". Just saying.

The Beauty of Warfare...

I start a new class tomorrow. It's called "War and conflict" and unfortunately it's only a 5 point class. Warfare though, especially ancient warfare, is a great interest of mine. It's something strangely beautiful about the way battles were planned and carried out before the introduction of modern weaponry. There are several appealing aspects of ancient warfare, but they can mainly be divided into two main categories; motion and invention. The motion aspect of it was developed to perfection by Alexander and his phalanx. That's just pure poetry on a battle field. The invention part of it is the creative ways that people used to cause each other injury. Such as catapulting red hot sand onto your enemies. Of all the things to get poured into your armour, I reckon probably red hot sand would be the least comfortable one. I went to the book shop yesterday to buy a few books on the subject of warfare and terrorism. The one that I'm really itching to start reading is John Keegan's "The history of warfare", despite what I heard about him spending most of the book slagging Clausewitz off. So yeah, now I'm off to indulge in violence and death. See ya.

What's that sound? The sound of Mary Lee's heart breaking.

Oh my. I'm having one of those days. When I'm just annoyed beyond any limits. Right now my annoyance is mainly focused on this horrible country I made the mistake to move back to a year and a half ago. You get it? I actually moved back here and there wasn't even anyone pointing a gun to my temple forcing me to. Fucking crazy. I'm moving abroad first chance I get, believe me. A friend of mine is moving to Tampa in the autumn and a friend of my husband's is moving to Texas, so what gets me through the days now is planning a long and bludeh well-deserved stay in the states, visiting these people and hopefully getting a chance to go hiking for like a month or so somewhere pretty.

Close but no cigar...

I was travelling by train yesterday. The train was absolutely crammed with people. It was most annoying. Usually I don't mind it so much, commuters tend to just sit down and shut up. But yesterday I was sitting just in front of a man travelling in the company of his wife and what appeared to be her friend. He was talking non-stop in a very patronising manner, giving these poor women (well, I guess one of them had actually chosen to marry him, so technically it was one poor woman and one stupid one) a lecture on cigars and kilts. The funny thing was, that they were sitting where I couldn't actually see them, and I found myself forming an opinion on what he necessarily had to look like and wear and so on based on what he was saying and how he was saying it. His voice was actually very pleasant, and he was talking without hesitation, just sort of stating things rather then stressing them. He mentioned being on the board of some company or other, and also having been the manager of something else. Based on this I presumed he'd be wearing a suit. For no good reason, I also thought he'd be blonde. For probably at least 10 minutes he was talking non-stop about cigars. The women were obviously not particularly interested, but that didn't stop him at all. I mean, I take a very blasé interest in cigars, in the way you do when you very occasionally smoke one and don't want to come across as a complete idiot because you don't know the first thing about them. But even I was bloody bored by his idiotic lecture. Then he was talking about how he'd once worn a kilt to a social at some university, and how it was the most comfortable piece of clothing he'd ever worn. And also that - thanks to the kilt - more people than ever had wanted to dance with him. Well, I've always been fond of kilts, so I didn't mind the kilt conversation so much. But as I got up to leave the train, I was übersurprised to see what this person looked like. If he would've been talking about in what trashcan you can find the best garbage for dinner I would've been less surprised. He was fat, had greasy brown hair, glasses, acne, well, the list of unpleasant attributes is endless. Weird.

Dreams and gossip, sorta.

It's Monday again, which means that even though it's early I've already got loads done. It also means that the first couple of hours this morning was spent having weird dreams, waking up, having weird dreams, waking up, and so on. Todays favourite dream was about an praying mantis who'd developed a sort of projectable shadow of itself, that somehow was supposed to attract prey. I was quicker than the praying mantis though and bit it just below the shadow, and it died between my teeth. Why exactly I did this I'm not sure.

Slight disappointment this morning when I watched America's funniest home videos and Tom Bergeron was wearing the ugliest suit ever. To add insult to injury he wasn't wearing the horrible suit with say a nice shirt and tie, he was wearing it with a t-shirt in some shiny almost-blue material. Hoping for something better tomorrow, mr Bergeron.

Lingering for a while in the amazing world of celebrities, I was enormously pleased to see that Brokeback Mountain won four BAFTA's, one of which went to Jake Gyllenhaal for best supporting actor. I've never liked him before, but I'm definetly developing a sort of weird affection for him. Especially if he actually turns out to be Toothy Tile, that would just be too fucking hilarious.

Lakes and ponds.

How is it actually possible to screw up the world order in my flat in just two short days? Hm... Come to think of it, I don't think it's actually two short days, it's a bit more than that. Having worked Wednesday night, Thursday and Friday just seemed to slide by unnoticed. Saturday... God awful day. Got out of bed by 2.30pm, which is just soooo late. However the reason was morning coffee in bed and then a trip to Nostalgia Land by means of looking at photos from when we first met until now. Lots of photos, lots of time. Unfortuntately this meant that by the time I got started on what is normally my EarlyMorningInternetSnoopingAbout it was late afternoon and by the time I was finished it was almost time to go to bed. Well, not quite, but yeah, you get the picture.

I've been following the news with a renewed interest later as the body of a poor 10-year-old boy who was killed by his stepdad and mother (may they burn forever in hell) was found on the bottom of a lake by which I've spent pretty much ever summer since I was born. I used to dive for clams there, it's where I got that pretty scar on my right foot, I learnt to swim there, I've skated all around it. Well, the first thing I'll think about when I think about this lake in the future is the horror of people who are able to commit such acts. I mean, his own mother, how fucking angry doesn't that make you? On a vaguely related note, this lake where he was found isn't actually even a lake, it's a man-made pond, which I only learnt two weeks ago. My great great uncle was also found dead in this lake (sorry pond) by the way, but that was in his house on an island. Why there are islands in a pond, I don't know. Come to think of it, his wife died on that island aswell. My mother says she remembers when the brought her body across the ice.

Well, now I'm off to church. Church usually makes me feel all energetic and motivated, so I'm hoping I'll feel like that when I get back today and restore the world order in my flat.

This is a .44 caliber love letter straight from my heart...

Right, because it's Friday afternoon and I've decided I've got nothing better to do, I took a small test called "What kind of rocker are you". Apparently I'm an emo rocker, which I found vaguely amusing. Mainly because, well, I'm not an emo rocker. I think if I was 14 though, I'd probably probably make a kick-ass emo-kid. I'm morose enough, I'm sure.

As it is, I'm just relaxing in front of the computer, glass of Greek red wine next to me, and in the background the sound of... silence. I'm a publish post away from slumping down in the sofa for a relaxing night in front of the telly, maybe later swapping telly for book and some Coldplay (in honour of them deciding to quit).

Yeah... Publish post...

36 hours without sleep...

Wednesday morning I got up at 06.55. Having got loads done by 10, I decided to check on the launderette for available times. Well, no luck there, so I booked it for 07.00 the following morning. Emergency call from my old workplace last night at nine caused me to rush away and work the night. I warned my colleagues that I'd been up for a long time already and most likely would collapse a couple of hours into the shift. Well, I didn't. I actually managed to stay awake all night through. Got the bus home and walked through the front door two minutes to seven. Grabbed the bags of laundry that I'd prepared the previous evening and went to the launderette. Due to a chat to my tutor and lunch with my mother, I didn't rest until two-ish. And even then I didn't sleep, I was just relaxing watching Oprah thinking that at some point in my life I'm going to be an American housewife and wear colourful cardigans and pearl necklaces like the ones in Oprah's audience do. Admittedly I'm feeling pretty tired now. Makes me think of (lo and behold!) Times Past when I could work 25 hours in a row and then go out drinking with my African mates and desperately trying to learn how to pronounce "q" (the click noise). I managed pretty well after a while. Now I only remember the beginning of an African beer commercial song though and how to say "cut". Substantial brain damage anyone?

When in Rome...

Last night I had another weird dream. In the beginning I was walking along a beautiful beach in Rome, all white sand and blue water. The waves were rolling in, soaking my feet as I was walking along. The strange thing was, I was the only person on this beach as far as I could see. It made me wonder (in my dream) if people were actually allowed there. And then I could see this giant wave coming towards me. I was half-trying to run away from it, but with the soft sand I couldn't get anywhere. And then I was swept away by it and landed in a sort of museum. I was having a bit of a look around, I mainly remember corridors and other people rather than any objects. After a while I walked down some stairs into a little yard-type place, all stone with palm trees. It was half underground, and there were other people there waiting for something. From this half underground yard there was a lift at one end, and two sets of stairs; the one that I'd walked down to get there and one that led to the street outside the museum. I was waiting there for a while, nodding casually at the guard by the lift, whilst trying to figure out how I was going to get back to my hotel. I had my backpack with me, and in it I had a guidebook, complete with a map, and enough money to get a taxi if I'd want to. I was thinking about getting the tube (the lift led to the station), but realised that I wouldn't know what to do once I got to the station. So I tried walking. At first I ended up in some sort of jungle amongst other people on some sort of safari trip. I realised I'd walked the wrong way, so I went back to the yard. I made another attempt at walking, reading the name of the street outside, but somehow not thinking about looking it up on my map. In the end I just waited in the yard until I woke up.

What is strange with this dream is that I had all the means to get away, and even in the dream I thought about going to the subway station and ask someone to help me get a ticket and get on the right train. But even though I knew all these things I just didn't get anywhere.

Today (apart from doing a zillion other things), I've met up with a person who could probably most rightly be described as the Daughter to Friends of the Family. She's 16 years old or something like that. We play music together, on the initiative of our mothers. This girl apparently wanted to play folk music, but no one her age wanted to play that kind of music with her. So that's where I come in. Any old how, we've met up a few times, and I really really get on with her. The first playdates (pun intended) were pretty awkward, but since we've taken to drinking tea together and sort of just talking for hours on end. And playing music aswell, obviously. She's got a weird musical gift that I desperately struggle to understand. Playing with her is different from anyone else I played with. I mean, she is terribly gifted. She plays three instruments and has got a kick-ass singing voice. She can read music, no worries. But it's like something's missing when it comes to rhytm. For some reason it takes a lot of practice for us to be able to get through a piece of music together. It's really weird, I've never experienced this with anyone else. Usually you can sort of freestyle a bit, you know, you'll find the key and the beat no worries. But this just doesn't work with this girl. It's tempting to bring up that old klichee about feeling and technical skills being somehow opposing forces, but 1) I don't think that's true, and 2) it's obviously not the case with this girl. I will have to think more about this. Main thing is I enjoy spending time with her and I hope it's mutual.

Ms O'No.

I had an interesting church-experience today, which made me reflect upon the role of church in society today compared to say 100 years ago. In the past I've been active in the church in various ways (mainly playing the piano and singing) but I've never really bothered to go to services unless I've been participating. So now when I don't do any of these things anymore, I kind of like to go there as a bit of a Sunday routine type thing. It gives me stuff to think about, which I like. So today I sat next to this old lady, who kept looking at me in a bit of a funny way. When the service was over she asked me if I was there as the mother/sister/cousin/whatever to any of the children in the choir. I told her I was not. She said that she'd not seen me before and introduced herself and I did the same, explaining that I've been there every Sunday for the past six weeks. As I got out to get my coat, the priest was there, asking me if I was there with my grandmother (probably meaning the old lady who'd been talking to me). And I had to explain for the second time in two minutes that I was actually - lo and behold! - there out of my own free will. The priest looked delighted and went "oh, but that's even better then", adding that he did actually recognise me. And then he tried to get me to stay for coffee, which I politely refused but by means of compensation I told him I'd be back next week. I think it's interesting that whereas 100 years ago everyone went to church, it's nowadays apparently completely unbelievable that a fairly young person would go there because she wants to.

On a funnier note I was asked a while ago to give my opinion about this play, so that whoever's producing it could write on the poster "The Land Baron says blablablablabla". Well, this is now published and I was utterly amused to notice in what company my one sentence statement has ended up. It's basically me and every member of the local self-proclaimed cultural elite. In the light of that I wish I would've said "Go see it, it's fecking good" or something equally unpretentious. But I ended up with something about how the play deals with a serious matter in an amusing way, or something along those lines. I can't actually remember. I just scribbled down a couple of sentences on the spur of the moment because they needed it there and then and told them to change it if they wanted to, or just not use it at all. I love the way people will go "right, so who the hell is the Land Baron" when they see the poster. Pissing all over the pretentious bonfire! Yeah!

Oh my gosh, I was at the library yesterday and noticed a guide to the US of A, written by someone called Zac O'Yeah. I mean, is this the funniest name in the universe or what? I like the Irish touch to it. I'm thinking about finding this guy and marry him just so I can call myself Mrs O'Yeah. Although, seeing as I'm a mite negative sometimes I'll probably just change my name to O'No.

A Weird Time was had by all.

I went to see Brokeback Mountain yet again yesterday. Not because I particularly wanted to, my suggestion was to rent Y tu mama también and watch it at home. However my youngest and blondest friend was in town and desperately wanted to see it, and I've never seen the same film twice at the cinema so I thought of it as a new experince. It was cool actually. It was a lot better than when I saw it the first time. It's just ah... So sad. My friend cried, I didn't. After the film we were walking around town for a bit talking about it, trying to find somewhere to get something to eat but not really wanting pizza. Unfortunately the whole city seems to be packed with bloody idiots. I mean, I'm the kind of person who, when the questions comes up, will go "oh, there's never any trouble, I've never seen anyone do anything weird, no fights, blablabla". Maybe it was because last night was probably the first night since I was 15 that I was walking around in town sober, but it was bloody fights everywhere. I saw God only knows how many police cars, and a police van, making me think of riots and what-have-you. In the end, we went to McDonalds. There weren't really many other places open. So it was us and a zillion 15-year-old kids. It's fucking weird. If one wants to develop a serious ageing paranoia, there's no place like McDonalds by midnight. On the bus home it was me, three people with a crate of beer, and 7 kids looking like they'd had too much to drink. I was a bit worried one of them might be sick in the bus, but fortunately that didn't happen.

Conclusion? Don't go out sober.

We decided to turn yesterday into Friday. This meant drinking some red wine and eating nicer food than usual. I went to bed fairly late and set my alarm clock for 08.10, so that I'd still have time to make breakfast before watching America's funniest home videos. When I woke up, with that never-failing feeling that it's actually really late, I decided not to get too annoyed about it and went back to sleep for a bit. Then I woke up the second time, same feeling, and I could see that by now it had got bright outside and I was convinced it was noon at least. I grabbed my mobile, annoyed that the alarm clock had failed me, and had a look. 08.01. That's what the time was. One minute past bloody eight. My body must be getting used to getting up early, that's what it is. Feeling incredibly pleased with myself, I got up and started on the morning routine. I've definetly been given the gift of time.

Bloody snow!

I know I spent the better part of last autumn cursing the lack of snow, but I'm bored with it now. When I got up at 06.55 this morning (see yesterday's blog) it was bloody snowing. It didn't stop until 1pm-ish. Well, I've not been outside today so I guess I've not really got much to complain about, but even so. Bloody bloody snow. I want summer now. NOW!

The Gift of Time

I've been given the gift of time. Or rather, I saw time in a shop and decided to nick it. Getting up at 06.55 every morning, there's no limit to what I manage to get done every day. My morning routine is as follows; 06.55AM, my alarmclock goes off. By this time I've usually woken up a few times already due to stupid dreams about Jake Gyllenhaals' head chopped off and served to me on a blue plate (last night's dream was something of a Brokeback Mountain/Corpse Bride crossover). I get up and get my daily dose of strawberry-flavoured soured milk and porridge oats as I watch Simpson's on the telly. I usually finish my delicious breakfast by the commercial break, so I get up and fetch a cup of coffee and my vitamin B-pill that according to the label may colour my urine yellow (as opposed to the neon pink it was before?). 07.30AM I've finished my coffee and hit the shower. Just enough time to get ready and have a look at all the necessary websites (e.mail, uni website, news) before watching Americas funniest homevideos (boy, Tom Bergeron, will you marry me?). After that I freestyle a bit, usually making the bed, doing the washing up, baking a cake and then the second cup of coffee of the day as I sit down to do my studying. This fairly new routine of early mornings and efficient time-spending has completely fucked up my sense of time. I have serious problems remembering what day it is, and in the evening I never seem to know whether something happened earlier that day or yesterday or two years ago. I reckon I'll get used to it eventually.

Gun's going off!

I just got back from watching Brokeback Mountain. The film itself was brilliant, although I'm slightly disappointed Jack didn't go "Gun's going off!" as Ennis was buggering him in the tent that first night like he does in the book. It's such a funny line. Then again, that would probably have had me in stitches for the remainder of the movie, ruining the bittersweetness of two lovers trying to fit a lifetime into a few fishingtrips per year. Unfortunately, my lasting impression of the past three hours has very little to do with the film itself and more to do with the people I saw the film with. Middleaged women. Basically, in the theatre it was me and mindthelacuna, two guys who looked about our age, and then it was the women. A theatre full of middleaged women. God damn it. Why is it they can't shut the fuck up? I mean, this film takes a bit of effort. It's powerful, beautiful, sad, funny, whatever. But the mood shatters as someone behind you, instead of focusing on the drama, goes "oh, what a lovely house". Yeah, you're right, that is the point of the movie. To show us what lovely houses there are. It started with the first scene. Jack gets out of the car. Behind me; "Oh, that's the actor from The Day After Tomorrow". And there's only so much that can be said about a godawful load of sheep, alright lady? Yes, we can see that there's plenty of them, now why don't you count them and fall asleep so the rest of us can get a chance to watch this film in peace.

Result: I'm getting this on DVD to watch at home. Without the middleaged bloody women.

Children... What are they good for?

I went to church yesterday. Bit of a mistake on my part as it was what they call a "Family service". This just means that a group of four-year-olds were singing what seemed to be like a never-ending number of songs before the service even started properly. Ok, fine, so they're cute and all that, but I think there's definetly a case to argue that in order to enjoy that much exposure to singing children you need to be the childs a)parent or b)grandparent. If you're not then well... It's just a bit of a nuisance.

After church I went to my parents' place for Sunday dinner. It was all very nice, just that now my clothes stink of pommes au gratin. But finally it's Monday so I'm happy as Larry. The start of a new working week. I've been up for ages getting things done, and yet it's still only 08.51. Ah...

What do you want from me? Blood?

Well, we'll see. After a few years careful consideration I decided to go to the blood bank today to find out if I qualify as a blood donour. In the end the nurse told me to go home and think about it some more because she didn't want me to be in complete agony every time I'm going there to donate. But to start from the beginning. My mother is a blood donour, and she's been one for ages. She's been telling me for ages that I should be one too, as I've got a bit of an unusual blood group. So yesterday she kind of cornered me with a cheerful "I'm going tomorrow, you're coming along?". And as I didn't want her to discover what a wuss I really am I put on what I imagine is my coolest face and went "sure". So she picked me up at eleven this morning and drove me to the hospital. By now I had to admit - even to my mother - that I was slightly nauseous and not really too excited about the whole ordeal, and also that the only time I've been to that hospital in the past has been when people have been seriously ill, dying or dead. Hence not feeling in a very cheerful mood. But feeling that I couldn't really back out at this point, I went to the bloody place (haha) and was given a yellow paper to read to see if I'd qualify for the next step, i.e. the actual testing of my blood. Turns out, men who have had sex with other men, be it oral or anal, don't qualify as blood donours. Neither do women who in the past six months have had sex with a man who in the past have had sex with other men. Feeling now in a stupid and nervous mood I turned to my mother going "oh, look, are you sure you're actually allowed to donate, have you spoken to dad about this". My poor mother just laughed at this and at my general discomfort whilst I went to get a form to fill out, feeling fairly certain that I'd probably screw up somehow and not have to do this. It was basically pretty straight-forward. They didn't ask me if I'd had sex with men who had sex with men, so I just made some serious presumtions about my former boys only-school husband and ignored it. The form was made up so that the more no-boxes you'd tick the better. I was half hoping that the ones I had to answer yes to (operations, piercings and time spent abroad) would disqualify me, but instead I was lead into a private room with a nurse having to go through all my answers and answer some additional questions she had. It all made me feel really embaressed and uncomfortable. Then she asked if I had any questions for her, so I jumped at the possibility to get an answer to the gay sex-question. Apparently men who engage in same-sex activities are still considered a high risk group for blood diseases, such as hepatitis and HIV/Aids.
"What, even if they live in a monogamous relationship?" I asked, and she said something about sexual behaviour, which - had I been a gay/bi man - would have made me cry. But she also said that who ever will be receiving the blood is counting on it being free from diseases and whatever, so I see their point. But even so. It felt really unfair. Then I had to go to one of the big comfy chairs and sit down whilst the nurse performed a series of test on me. When she got the needle to take a blood sample, I closed my eyes, looked away (double measure here) and whined "shiiiit". She ignored me and said I had good veins or whatever and that it was easy to get blood from me. I had almost started the sentence "yeah, I would've made a brilliant junkie" when I remembered where I was and decided not to. In the end she told me to go home and think about it some more. I said, "no, no, it's alright, I'm just a bit... I mean, I want to give blood, I promise". So well, we'll see. I'm just waiting for a paper now telling me if I'm dying of something or what.

-Well, you see... -No, I don't actually.

I've been to my optician (yes, I do own her) today and it appears that I'm slowly but definetly going blind. Actually, that's a complete overstatement, but I was somewhat uncomfortable learning that my eyesight has now entered the past -3.0 zone. There was also other problems, mainly concerning the formation of little blood-vessels in my iris. To prevent this getting worse I've decided on wearing glasses more often. I've actually been doing that lately anyway, because it's just the easier option sometimes. Plus it makes me feel like Harry Potter and that must be an achievement of sorts, surely. And also... I like my glasses. Fashion and function all rolled in to pair of black thick-rimmed glasses. I've also been told on a number of occasions that they make me look intelligent. I can only take this to mean that I look like a bit of a dumb-ass normally.

Egyptian Joe

Last night I dreamt that I adopted a kid from Egypt called Joe. He was an adorable little baby, and I ended up with him through some kind of mishap at the adoption agency. I was supposed to adopt a white kid - Joe was black - the following day, but I grew so fond of Joe that I didn't want another kid aswell. Strange thing was though, that as I signed the adoption papers I asked the guy who was handing Joe over to me if he thought it would be a problem for me to raise a black child. Normally I'm very pro interracial adoptions, so why I would have these doubts in my dream is a bit of a mystery. I was very happy about Egyptian Joe anyhow, and he was an extremely well-behaved baby, not crying once, just smiling and looking happy as I was carrying him around on my hip.

What's time?

I'm not a student of philosophy, yet I've been debating this question a lot lately. Augustinus, I think, said something along the lines of "I know exactly what time is unless someone asks me". I think that's true for most people, and you can really judge the level of someone's stupidity on the basis of their answer to that question.

Thank God for jazz!

Oh my gosh, life wouldn't be worth living if it wasn't for jazz. Jazz is like a giant plaster on ones emotional wounds. Soothing ones soul, elevating one from deepest darkest hell to a heaven made of white fluffy clouds. Sleep... Zzzzzz....

I was waiting for the train early this morning and I really wish I would've brought my camera. It was absolutely beautiful. I'm always singing "She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes" in my head as I'm waiting for the train at that station. The view of the tracks disappearing round the well... it's not a mountain, but it's sort of cliffy, I guess, just makes me think of that song. This morning the view was perfected by rays of sunlight, glistering snow and that early morning air of hopes and promises. I wanted to take a photo of it, but obviously I'd left my camera at home, because I'm not the kind of person who brings a camera around with me all the time. So instead I ate an apple, biting off the bits I didn't like and spitting them out on the tracks. Why that seemed appropriate compared to spitting them out in the trashcan, I'm not sure. For a while I was standing there at the station, alone but for the company of the distant churchbells and a crow that flew up on a lamppost and sat down, looking at me, probably wondering when I'd step away from the apple long enough for him to start eating it. As other people walked on to the platform I finished my apple, all of it, and just stood there, waiting, gazing at the sun.

When I got home I got a message to phone my mother. Worried that something might have happened, I phoned her right away, even though I had planned to make dinner. She answered the phone with a high-pitched "hallo", making me more worried than before as she's normally introducing herself, even though she knows it's me phoning. Feeling increasingly sick, I asked what the fuck was up. She gave me the old "oh, do I need a reason to want to talk to you"-routine, and then spent the next half hour talking about Friends of the Family who are selling their house. I was listening impatiently, occasionally uttering mutterings from the "uhu"-category. She was talking twice her normal speed, obviously trying to squeeze in as much conversation as possible in the least possible amount of time. In the end I finished the conversation, feeling quite guilty that I didn't sound more interested. It's just that what with my recent gloomy outlook on life I've not been quite able to fall into my normal chat-mode when people want to talk. I exhausted all my resources of politeness during a 20-minute trainjourney with an old class-mate I've not seen for four years.

So anyway. Thank God for jazz.