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.