New Years Resolutions

I make a rule to never make them. The New Years resolutions that we put up for ourself so that we can feel like failures when we cannot follow them through. So few people do. By the end of March, they stop going to the gym, have their first pizza and that one cigarette that turned into a whole package that night out with the friends. And so it starts again. After all, we are creatures of habit.

So no New Years resolutions this year either. Instead I will do what I always do and try to be a better person all through the year. Little by litte and with the right to once and a while indulge myself in the few pleasures that makes life worth living without having to feel guilty about it.

I’m not even going to promise my readers that I will try and write more in my blog. I’m not sure I will. True, it is my new job that has taken up a lot of my time, forcing me to work very long hours since it’s all so new and since I managed to step right into the launch of a new product which in itself means a lot of extra work. But it is not only that. I don’t really like writing when things are going too well. It would feel like bragging and no one likes people who brag.

No promises this year, just the hope that this year will be better than the last.

Indecisive

The documentary that my boyfriend has been working with for over a year is finally finished. It turned out great. I was impressed. By far the best thing he’s ever done. By far the best thing that anyone I know has ever done in terms of film.

I’ve seen all the material and I’ve seen bits and pieces while he’s been working and when he wanted someone to give him direction, feedback, ideas. But the end result was so much better than anything that he has showed me.

Too bad he’s giving up on the notion of creating films. He really has potential. Yet at the same time the selfish part of me is relieved. It’s taken far too much time that we could have spent together doing other things.

I’m indecisive.

Meltdown

I tried writing yesterday. I was sitting in bed and had arranged all the pillows behind me perfectly, balansing my laptop in my lap and stretching my fingers (just for show).

"Here we go!"

Empty screen, cursor blinking as if to taunt my lack of creativity. I sigh and ask myself what I need to get off my chest. There are so many ideas that it becomes hard to focus.

I start writing on something happy. Something sweet. Something that makes me smile. I get bored and stop after half a page. Save and store.

Something painful. Something dark. Something absolutely heart breaking. That requires a lot on my part. I need to feel it and I don't. Not now. So I stop before I even have a chance to start.


I have the creativity, it's just not taking form in the way that I want it to. I don't mind. This is how it goes. It will return. It always does.

More Pain This Way Please

This msn passage just made me laugh. So sharing.


Fia says:
was I right or was I right?
I just realized... we're pathetic

Susan says:
so...how many times have you listened to it now? :D

Fia says:
about ten times :D
in a row
and you?

Susan says:
only five

Fia says:
and how are we feeling?

Susan says:
mixed emotions...I would like to experience more pain

12 of 12: November

My 12 of 12 for November. I forgott to take notes on what time I took these pictures so I will just display them in chronological order.




Puppy Exhibit














We heard about the puppy exhibit that was taking place in the exhibition hall of Malmö and of course we had to go check it out. I didn't find my favorite breed, the Lhasa Apso, which I didn't really expect to find since it isn't very common here. It was kind of hard taking pictures in there too. I deactivated my flash in respect to the dogs and puppies move around a lot so a lot of the pictures came out in a blurr.



Siberian Husky


















This is my boyfriend's favorite breed. I think it is a very beautiful dog but I don't think I would want to have one in the city. It is gorgeous though.



I'm Calling this Dog Number 2...


















I asked about the name of this breed but I don't remember what it was. I think it's a very interesting dog, some famous photographer (don't remember the name of him either) took a lot of pictures of his dogs wearing clothes and placed in situations where they looked almost human. Very interesting pictures and not at all as blurry as this one...


The Naked Little Fellow













I just thought he looked kinda cute. In a funny looking way.



Turning Torso


















Drove past the Turning Torso on our way to Österlen.


UFO?















Took this one from the car, outside of Ystad on our way to Hammenshög Inn. Spook-ey.



Hammenshögs Inn













My boyfriend sitting at our table at Hammenshög Inn. Amazing old place from the 1660's or something. Rumor says it even has a ghost roaming the halls. We went there to celebrate the traditional Swedish Mårten Gås (gås=goose). It's really a tradition that is held during this time of year only in the southern parts of Sweden. I believe that it is French in origin.


Black Soup













The Goose fest starts off with Black Soup (Svartsoppa), though I don't know if that is the correct translation for it. The main ingredience of this soup is blood, which is why I always go with the additional Lobster Soup which according to my boyfriend is wrong wrong wrong. He likes the bloody soup (pun intended). After the soup you have your goose with potatoe, gravey, apple sauce etc and to desert a Skånsk (which is what we call of the south of Sweden) apple pie.



Coffee


















I just had to take a picture of this cup. I generally don't like these types of coffee cups but I thought this one was very pretty.


Inside the Inn













This one and the following pictures will need no further explination. It's pictures taken from inside the Inn. Just to show that feeling of ancient Swedish interior design.


Entrance




















Loving the Wallpaper

Evaluation

I think that you appreciate that there are extraordinary men and women and extraordinary moments in time when history leaps forward on the backs of these individuals. That what can be imagined can be achieved. That you must dare to dream but that there's no substitute for perseverance and hard work. And teamwork. Because no one gets there alone. And that, while we commemorate the... the greatness of these events and the individuals who achieve them, we cannot forget the sacrifice of those who make these achievements and leaps possible. / "Max"


I used to carry this around in my organizer. I thought it was inspirational. Because you always think of yourself as someone part of it all. You don't want to be one of those people who just made the sacrifice but didn't get to see the results. Which basically means that when push comes to shove you don't really want to be the hero.

I find that... disturbing. I wouldn't want to say that it hypocritical because to me that indicates a person who is aware of doing wrong, or doing something for the wrong reason, passing it on as something righteous. And in any case, it has to do with faith. You have to believe in the cause enough to justify what you are giving up and how many passionate people are really willing to do that these days? No matter how loud some people scream about something, most people have a limit.

This has not been a wake up call. I wasn't put in a situation where I had to test my limits or anything. It's more of a slow process that forces me to evaluate myself in a different light so I won't turn into a hypocrate.

It is true what they say, ignorance is bliss...

How Do I Look

My first almost tipsy post....


"You look wonderful honey."

And I just know that he wants me to decide on an outfit already.

Life is hard sometimes.

Alla talar svenska...

Ok, so this entry will be in Swedish since some of these comments are difficult to translate with the desired effect. It’s from a Swedish site that lists stupid commetns from people calling in or visiting the movie theater.


= Personal talar.
- Kund talar.

- Åh, Ravenous, den är skitfräck! Den handlar om att man blir vad man äter, typ! [Och om vampyrer]

- Är han lång som kommer sitta framför mig?

- När slutar filmen?
= Vilken film?
- Den som började förut. [Jaså DEN.]

- Jag vill ha en stor Pommes Frites.
= Visst (ställer fram en stor popcorn).
- NEJ! Inte popcorn, baconsnacks!

- Hej, jag skulle vilja ha en biljett till Exhibitor of the Year [Exhibitor of the Year är en utmärkelse som biografen hade fått. Vi hade ett par affischer med en massa fyrverkerier och texten Exhibitor of the Year på…]

- Jag vill boka biljetter till American X-Files.
= OK… Du menar American History X, eller?
- Ja, just det. American Express.

- Jag vill beställa biljetter till Kåt å ugly [Coyote Ugly].

- Du, jag ska gå på den där filmen om den där Einstein… ja, den där gamle gubben som blev kär. [Shakespeare in Love]

- Kommer det sitta nåt stort huvud framför mig då? [Det hoppas jag VERKLIGEN inte!]


Länk till fler kommentarer.

Msn conversation

The conversation between truly brainwashed people....

Fia säger:
is she still not talking about ben and ethan?

Susan säger:
yeah isn't that rude?

Fia säger:
so rude
why do people do this? call you up and don't talk about ben and ethan?

Susan säger:
i don't know

Gimme a Peg Leg

"If you have a peg leg or hooks for hands then maybe its enough to simply keep on living. You know, bravely facing life with your disability. But without these things you're actually expected to make something of your life, achieve something earn a raise, wear a necktie. So if anything I'm actually the antithesis of Ahab, because if I did have a peg leg I'd quite possibly be more happy and more content and I wouldn't feel the need to chase after these creatures of the unknown." /Quagmire


I listened to them talk about their problems. They were all on the same page; hating their jobs, wishing that they could buy that dinner table set in the designer store instead of the one they ended up with from IKEA. Thinking that the biggest problem right now revolves around finding the time to go to the gym or saving money to buy things they don’t really need.

They all have houses. Pretty houses. Though they all talk about what hasn’t been done to them, the flaws and beauty marks. They talk about other houses they’ve been to. How it would be like to live like that, to have that kind of house. Bigger, better. Location.

I’m silent during this. I have nothing to add. In our apartment we can’t sit at the dinner table at the same time as we sit by the computer. We can’t be in the bathroom together at the same time. In fact once you’re inside you pracically have to walk backwards to get out again. We only have room for one couch by the TV and it’s rather small so we come up with creative ways for the both of us to be comfortable without hurting each other.

Listening to them talk about all those things they don’t have that I never even considered for myself should have made me really depressed. It should have me hate my life and my tiny tiny apartment with all its limitations. But I didn’t feel either one of these emotions. And I couldn’t figure out if it was because there really isn’t any point for me to crave these things or because I simply do not value happiness that way. In either case I actually felt lucky.

I’m happy. I have come to terms with my misery and all of its companions. I should have been the one complaining the most in this particular crowd yet I could not think of anything to nag about. I really don’t care about bookshelves or pool houses or the fact that I don’t have a special room for a large dinner table. It doesn’t strike me as important at all.

And I think I figured out why.

Since I’m such an unlucky bastard in everything that happens to me all I can do to keep the depression at bay is to look for the positive things in life. Stop and smell the roses if you may. Cause let’s face it people if I didn’t think like this I’d be one step away from jumping out from the balcony and that would just not be me. So instead of dvelving in my own misery, I find the good things in life and I focus on them.

(Dear God, I really am Ethan....)

In fact, I am probably more happy in my misery than I would have been had I really been happy. Cause then I would have had the time to focus on what I don’t have and be miserable about that.

Maybe Baby

We talked the other day. He’d fallen asleep on the bed. I could hear him almost snoring in there and went in to see what was going on and to wake him up. Across the bed. Strong light straight in his face. Now that’s tired.

I love that we talk. I try to remind myself about that. I didn’t think you could do that with someone you dated. I was missing out.


“Why don’t you publish your work?” He asks.

He never asks about my writing. He accepts that there are things about me he will never get. So I am surprised.

“You could try get it published in Japan if you don’t want people you know to read it.”

“I’m not ashamed of my writing,” I explain. “And either way I don’t think that Japan is the best place for it.”

He looks at me as if he thinks I’m making excuses.

“Besides that is not why I write,” I hurry to add. “I write because I love it. If you write with the purpose of making money you’ve got it all wrong.”

“People make money from writing,” he objects.

“That was not what I meant.” I know that he knows this. He is just humoring me. “I’m just saying that the reward for writing is just that. Writing. If it becomes about money the passion, or even the soul of it, might be lost. Not everything is about money.”

“So how do you expect authors to make a living then?”

“First of all, I am not an author.” I clarify and smile at him. I think it’s cute that he thinks of me as one. “Secondly, you’ve just brought up the most interesting and maybe just the most difficult dilemma that authors have been faced with throughout time. Atwood actually devots a whole chapter to this in her book. She means that some people value a book after the number of copies that it sells and others value the book because it doesn’t sell many copies at all. Something about the artistic value of it all. I don’t strongly believe one nor the other but either way you swing in this matter one thing is very clear; You can’t make a living as an author if you don’t make money on your work.”

“I fail to see your argument against making money on your writing. It seems like that would give you more opportunaty to do what you claim you love.”

“It’s a very versatile problem. The way I look at it is that once you’ve published something there will be expectations if your work is good enough. There will be a follow up. And the follow up will be driven by money and a whole lot of pressure. Once you’ve taken that step you no longer write for yourself and the minute you make that choice it will never be the same. The magic that is writing will be lost.”

“But what if you fail? What if no one cares if you write something else ever again? What if it sucks?”

I have considered this of course, it’s not as if I am that self absorbed. Chances are that I am just like one of those people who’s been singing in the shower for ten years and had one or two people telling them that they have a wonderful voice. Then when they are standing in front of the Idol jury they are told what they really sound like and are broken down. They’ll stop singing in the shower even though it wasn’t about sounding good as much as it was about feeling good. Knowing that you suck puts a gigantic cloud over everything.

“Now that would be a whole other kind of bad.” I tell him.

“So what you’re saying is that either way you play it, you can’t win?”

“No, that’s what I am trying to tell you. I am winning. Right now. Right now I am doing it for the right reason and I’m loving every minute I’m spending with it. Why risk changing that? For anything?”

“So you’re never gonna publish it?”

He seems very dissapointed about this which is strange because I know that he has the same attitude about his music. And we have thought about publishing it but it always stops at discussing it. Somewhere along the line we realize that publishing it would mean that it would have to end and that is some scary shit.

“Maybe baby,” I smile. “Some day if it feels right.”

Lova Marinda

Went out to my parents house this weekend. As usual there was Lova, my sister's little daughter. She posed for the camera. I think she's starting to realize that she is a very very pretty girl :) And again, look at the eye lashes on the second picture.... amazing aren't they?

12 of 12: October

OK, I thought I'd finally give this a try. I have been reluctant to try it because I figured I would forget the next month, which I probably will, and I hate not being consistent. Anyway, here goes...



08:00 Coffee
















Every morning has to start with coffee. Strong coffee. Actually strong Swedish coffee which is a whole other kind of strong than for instance American coffee.

If you deprive me of my coffee in the morning I will not be a happy camper.


08:30 Little Ms. Lova














I put up the photograph of my sister's little angel, Lova on the fridge. It's the one to the left, in case there was any doubt :) I never develop my digital pictures. Thank god my grandparents are still using an old fashion camera.


08:31 Lot 49















I looked through The Crying of Lot 49 while waiting for the guy at the printer to call me back on the pdf I sent them yesterday. I have a lot of comments in the books I read when I studied English. I love that. I really should be doing that with the books that I read now. Jot down my thoughts to see if I feel the same in ten years or so. Wrote my blog post on Pynchon.


14:30 Color Issues














The guy from the printer finally called at 14:30. The colors didn't work this time either. My .tiff had been CMYK:ed too many times or something. This is still sort of greek to me. I worked on the graphic. EPS. Pantone. No CMYK. Again. This time I got it right. I hope.


17:15 Ready for Party


















Tried taking a picture of me all ready to go. My arms are not long enough. I couldn't get the whole dress so I just got this one of my head looking kinda big. We're invited to the House Warming party at the club and resturant Millenium in Höllviken. One of my boyfriend's closest friends is the owner.They've made some renovations so that's basically what they wanted celebrate. Anyways, this is as good as it gets these days. Lighting is everything. The possiblity of choosing which pictures of yourself you want to display means even more.


17:30 My Darling Comes Home


















Not happy about the close up. Especially since the camera greets him before I do. "Do you mind?" He asks me and tries to get away from the flash. I do mind :)


17:35 The Present

















We brought wine. Everyone else came with flowers. Marcus, my boyfriend's friend, appreciated our present a lot more. This is Ola trying to be creative. He'd designed the card as well but I forgott to get that angle so this is all you get to see of that.


18:30 At Millenium














It's a bit dark but this is Millenium from where we were sitting. The food was to die for. I'm spoiled that way. Almost all my boyfriend's friends that we spend time with these days are chefs so the dinner parties in general are pretty high class as far as the food is concerned. The downside of this: I'm getting fat...


19:00 A Few Good Men


















From left to right: Henrik, Ola, Peder and Micke. Unfortunately I did not get a chance of taking Marcus' and Sofia's pictures. They kept running around the place fixing stuff. Micke's pregnant girlfriend and Marcus' sister were also there but they were somewhere else a the time.


19:30 Peder


















Peder, Marcus brother, sitting across the table from me. For some reason we always end up talking when we're out. And he always looks at me when he notices that I'm there in a way that I can only interpret as: "Thank God! A person under 30 who can talk about something else than food and resturants..."


22:20 Going Home














We listened to a boring report on our way home. People talking about their cars. I was a little tipsy though and didn't really care. But as we pulled in to the parking lot they finally decided to play some music instead. Now that's just bad luck.


23:00 Studying

I read through the passages about RGB, CMYK and Pantone before going to bed. Had to get up early the next day and get the graphics straightened out.

Pynchon

Certain things, it is made clear, will not be spoken aloud; certain events will
not be shown onstage; thought it is difficult to imagine, given the excesses of
the preceding acts, what these things could possibly be.

I heard on TV yesterday that Thomas Pynchon has been placed on the famous list of "could be a nobel prize winner this year". In litterature of course. That would be interesting.

When I read The Crying of Lot 49 it was a frustrating joy. My English professor in litterature looked at me and told me that he had thought of me when picking this book for the reading list.

"You'll like it", he said. "It's right down your alley."

The quote in the beginning of this post is taken from that very book and it pretty much captures the structualistic essence of it. I won't even dig in to the post-structualistic analysis because that is where I got really confused. I re read the book after having done the analysis. It made more sense the second time around, when I had all the facts, or the non facts as it seemed.

Looking back, it is by far the most interesting book I've ever read. It's the kind of book that will keep growing as you do. It has to sink in before you can enjoy it. I have it on my favorite book list here on blogger so it was obviously memorable. I might read it again, especially if he wins the prize. And maybe, if I feel brave enough, I will give some of his heavier work a try as well.

Development

There is another way of denying the fact that you've lost your touch. Read your old stuff. It's actually much more fun than cleaning your keyboard.

I went back like five years in time and found the good the bad, the ugly as well as the interesting in our old work.


The good - a lot more humor in the early stuff. Being dark and painful is all fun and game but I realized that I miss the humor. We were cracking jokes as if there was no tomorrow. Most of which are not suited to be posted in here though.

The bad - the black sheep character was (ironically enough) darker. Meaner. Edgier. Much more insulting. Much more interesting.

The ugly - spelling and grammar were not our friend. Still isn't, but we get along just fine these days.

The interesting - back then the characters smoked indoors. Ever since the ban on smoking in public places was introduced here in Sweden I've made them go out on the balcony for a cigarette. I found that very interesting cause I wasn't aware of it but looking back now I noticed that they were smoking all over the place in the early stuff.


I'm gonna read one more before I go to bed. Something about watching Russian TV in Mexico... I dunno, I don't remember this. Sounds intriguing.

Pillowbuilder

This summer I watched amazed how a friend of mine started building a fortress of pillows prior to bedtime up at our summer place. I looked at her as if she was pulling my leg but apparently this is what some people consider comfortable. It just had to be documented.

Cactus

I've managed to kill my cactus and I realize that I might be one of few people in the world who posess this skill.

It looked strange so I went up and poked it. It fell apart.

This is the second time that happens. I don't really know what that should tell me.

Late Night Conversation

We brainstorm a lot over msn. New suggestions. Old suggestions. Most of them will never "see the light of day". And yesterday I saved the whole conversation for the first time ever and read it though, realizing how very disturbed we are. It was a real epiphany I tell you. I guess it is all about perspective.

Anyhow, I will call this exhibit 1:



Fia:
she wants him dead so she can live with richard
Susan:
I toyed with the idea of it
Fia:
you did?
Susan:
I killed off Tony to see how much pain I could draw from that
Fia:
was it worth it?
Susan:
no
Susan:
just wasn't the same
Fia:
so you brought him back to life?
Susan:
yes I had ethan say something nasty and he just woke up
Fia:
so in a way you could say that it was goodbye for a little while?


Susan was so inspired by this post that she decided to go ahead and post exhibit 2. Apparently, she's been saving these conversation for years. God help us all!

Krycek

I watched that show Kyle XY last week and I realized already after two episodes that it lacked one very important ingredience: quality. I had good reason to keep watching all thirteen episodes though.

Nick Lea.

He is getting OLD. It really had me depressed. And filled with nostalgia.

I miss the rat bastard.

Nick Lea, for those who don’t know, is the actor who played my all time favorite character Alex Krycek in The X-files. Small brilliant role. Complex and dark. Kept things interesting but didn’t get to show his face all that often. And then of course Chris Carter thought it was a good idea to kill him off somewhere in season seven (or was it eight?) and that was it for me.

I had already started to loose interest during season five but this was the last straw. Nevermind Duchovny leaving the show or the obvious drop of quality since the move from Vancouver to L.A., who cares? But they killed of Krycek! Stupid ass Carter!

Sadly though, Nick Lea isn’t a brilliant actor. And I was never one of those people who went out and got myself a Krycek clone (oh yes, they exsist... or rather existed). I wasn’t crazy. I just really thought that his character was the only good thing they had left to hold the show together. So watching him in this show that was following the trend of today where all shows have poorly thought out plotlines, two dimensional characters and bad actors, it really bummed me out. Which is why I feel it is my duty to enlighten the public (how very phily of me) to why he is the best TV character ever.

This is where I was about to insert a short video with clips of Krycek. It backfired on me for one of two reasons.

1. I couldn’t work out the technical kinks.
2. The network is down.


I believe this is what they call anticlimax. But I can post the link if anyone is even interested. I mean, this is just me being obsessive. Comes naturally to me. But in any case. I present the unbeatable (lots of puns intended) Krycek:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOTSs0xofo4



I seriously doubt that this is suppose to be slash so don't even go there...

Oh, and I did not make this.

Gettin' High... Apparently

“Don’t take too much of that cough mixture I got you the other day. My boss told me that there is some kind of drug in that so you shouldn’t take too much.”

I’ve managed to get out of the apartment and down to my boyfriend’s old job to have dinner with my boyfriend and my parents. My mother is sitting across the table, neatly folding her napkin to the side. She works in a hospital so her boss is an M.D which inclines me to take her serious.

“Define too much,” I say.

The other night my boyfriend looked at me through a haze of exhaustion while I searched for my lungs somewhere on the floor next to the bed. In lack of a measurement cup I had taken a glass and felt that I already taken more than the bottle required just before I went to bed. Now it felt like it had been less.

“Sweety, I love you but if don’t stop coughing there will be consequences,” my boyfriend informs me and sits up.

I nod like there is a silent agreement that the consequences would mean that under these circumstances it would be OK for him to suffocate me with a pillow. I would understand. I can’t stand this myself. So I go out to the kitchen and have another go at my medicine. Better fill it up this time...

The last thing I remember is the feeling of my head against the pillow. I can’t move, my head is stuck to the pillow. The good news is that I no longer feel the need to cough but I am sure that if I fall asleep it will be the last thing I ever do. I accept these facts and think that if I’m gonna fall in to a coma I better think of something nice just in case I get stuck with my thoughts too. So I think of something nice and then I pass out.

In retrospect, I think I’ve already defined too much.

A Time for Soup and Tea

I have a cold and I feel pathetic.

There is a lot to write about. For one there is my weekend up at my summer place with my boyfriend and our friends. Very successfull voyage. Then there was the election here in Sweden that leaves a lot to be said about.

Unfortunately I can not hold a thought long enough to keep myself interested. I haven't even been able to write my own stuff since before this weekend. So I'm just gonna focus on getting well first.

Too Late for Thoughts

It's 3:30 in the middle of the night and I am suffering from insomnia. I tried writing but I couldn't get to the point. Just mindless conversation about nothing.

Plot? We don't need no stinking plot. Right?

We should make an effort though. PWP becomes a little trite after a while. A little redundant and meaningless when you're trying to develop and grow.

Ha! Who are we kidding? This is just a drug. And we know the timeline will be revised... again. And again.

I have actually been pushing for an idea for about five years. I finally broke her down and got my way. Poking some rather big holes in the timeline. Now she is stuck in that mode along with me and we can't seem to get out. She has seen the light, that's all I have to say about that. That and Hallelulja!

After all, this is us playing God....

Here We Go Again

what day is it

and in what month

this clock never seemed so alive

In the middle of the night when the power of suggestions is triggerd by the slightest thing and stronger than ever you just have to fall a little in love. So we do.

Cleaning The Keyboard Instead

Sometimes you just sit in front of the computer trying to force yourself to be creative. You write one line. You erase it. You write a new line. You’re not happy about it but you continue writing, hoping that it will come to you. It usually doesn’t. And then when you read what you managed to create you see how the stitches just falls apart. There is too much focus on how or even why someone went from sitting in the couch to standing in the kitchen. It’s structured. You have no sence of scent or emotion and your characters are stumping out cigarettes on the balcony rail just to fill out the space in between. In between nothing.

And then somtimes when you’re doing the dishes or standing in line somewhere it just strikes down on you. That intense feeling that starts with a goofy unintelligent smile and ends with an urgent need to get to a computer, a piece of paper, anything, before the emotion of it all is gone. And even then it’s hard to capture it like you intended. This is the greatest feeling ever but it usually keeps you overwhelmed with the images in your mind and you can’t make heads or tale of it all. So in most cases you end up with a blank sheet at best. Attempting to write at all in such a state usually ends in disaster.

There is some balance there in between that allows for you to actually be creative. Right now I feel stuck between the two in a place where ideas linger but won’t exsist outside my head.

Writing is like therapy for me. Comfort food. I crave it. This is very frustrating.

Keeping it Real

We created almost all our characters almost ten years ago and they still keep getting more and more complex. However, writing a character for almost ten years has its drawbacks. Sometimes we take the concept of getting in to character a little bit too far....


“So the thing I sent you. Any thoughts.”

“I loved it.”

Which is always the case.

“Cause I was thinking that he would do that.”

“Of course he would. That’s how he is.”

Silence.

“If he was a real person.”

Silence.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s a character. We’re just making this up. You are aware of that right?”

Silence

“Right?”

“Yeah...” Long dissapointing pause.



This is still under heavy debate.

Strange

Look at that, it's back! Whaddayaknow.

Warped Signifigance

Puners be coming left and right.

And for some reason the function that allows for people to comment on the blog has vanished without a trace. I can't seem to figure out why. This does not fit in to my own megalomaniacal cosmology.

Stuck in the quagmire.

Thinking out Loud

If you really had to choose, what would be worse, to be liked but not respected or to be respected but not liked?

Most people claim that they want to be both liked and respected of course. I wonder what the turning point from being liked and respected to being neither could be for those who take that path. What motivates the choices some make that turns them into bastards? Money? Fame? A false sense of respect? A false sense of justification for the actions that they take? I guess it all wages against our conscience and our self respect.

I have been offered the possibility of becoming a bastard on two occasions. I didn't take any one of them. The first one was not a hard choice at all to turn down. I was offered to become the “front figure” of a Japanese French Maid Resturant when I was in Tokyo. At first I thought it was a joke, I mean for one I’m not exactly model material and the very idea of seeing myself dressed in a French Maid costume at all, never the less on large billboards all over Tokyo felt a bit bizarre and very repulsive.

“You blond, big blue eyes. You make millions of dollars here.” He explained to me.

“Well, that sounds very nice but I’m afraid my self respect is not for sale,” I explained having a hard time sticking with the politeness one must adapt to in Japan.


The other situation was very different and very complex which was why it was a much harder choice to make. What I learned from that experience and what made me understand that I made the right choice is that when you realize that you feel a need to justify your actions in terms of how it will affect other people, there is something that is very wrong. And that is your cue.


Hell no, I’m not that desperate... yet. :)

To Boldly Go....

Creativity builds more creativity. I guess that's just the way it is.

I got great feedback on my graphic assigment and it might generate some more work on that department for me. It's not really a big deal but it's just something that makes me feel really really good about myself. And I am easily flattered these days, if someone tells me that I have talent I chose to trust their judgement. Even if it turns out to be total crap, this would be the kind of lie I would like to believe.

I then found a lot of inspirational videos on the net. And some music videos with clips from old XF episodes. Sort of like fan fiction but in movie format. Felt kind of nostalgic about that, like discovering Spell for the first time, even though I am not (and I can't stress this enough) a shipper. This philer is a slasher down to the bone.

Anyway, I ended up in my Word document writing away on my "story in the making" (sorry, that expression just cracks me up). I managed to write 6 pages so far and for once there seems to be something recembling a plotline. I'm so proud. Until tomorrow when I read it all in the light of day and have to ask myself what the hell I was thinking :)

Crappy Day(s)

Monday started off bad. Thuesday's been even worse. I know for a fact that Wensday will top the cake.

I'm not really in a bad mood, I'm just... depressed. It takes a lot more than for most people I know, but eventually I do cave when the pressure gets to me.


Then my boyfriend calls me from his business trip. He's been away for two days and he tells me that he finally got to do something he's been talking about, dreaming about, ever since we first started dating. He had the opportunaty to go out and sail, and he won the whole sailing competition. He's so happy I just feel like hugging him for making me smile. Then he remembers the hell that I've been through and stops talking about his wonderful day. I didn't want him to but then he goes ahead and tells me that he loves me and that he misses me. And suddenly everything else seems unimportant.

Next station: Benville

Sometimes you just have to laugh about it. Even if it is not even remotely funny and it comes out more like the cry of a madman who's been sitting there waiting hours on end with no assurance that help would arrive.

Let the smile be your umbrella and that crap.

Yes crap.

I might be going mad. I don't know how you can tell. I asked my boyfriend, he said: "not more than usual." What does that mean?

Maybe crying would be healthier but then you're not so much mad as you are weak. I'd rather be mad than weak. People who are insane make great authors. Or mabye great authors go insane, I don't remember which.

I'd better stay in Benville instead. There everyone is a bit mad. Except for the lawyer who is just boring and who feels like one of those Ken dolls you had as a child that couldn't bend his arms. He tried to hug Barbie and he risked poking her eye out. But other than that you will feel right at home so just go right ahead and.... step right in.

Who Ever Said the Japanese were Different?

Like does He have a Car?

I happened to catch the last couple of minutes of Footloose on TV a few hours ago and now I just zapped past Saturday Night Live on another channel. In movies such as these people start to dance in sync just like that. In the spur of the moment and by some unexplained force they all know the moves. And no one ever trips and fall, no one ever finds him/herself standing there looking like a complete idiot dancing on their own. As one would do had one attempted to do this out on a club (or God help us all: the street).

It's like musicals, where people start singing for no particular reason at all. That never happens in real life. I've never been standing in line in a grocery store or anywhere else for that matter to suddenly hear someone burst out singing, feeling the uncontrollable urge to sing along. It never happened. People who go around singing in public without any particualr reason are called lunatics and we lock them up in special places.

Negotiating with the Dead

I still don’t understans what it is that persuades a person with common sense to leave behind a sense of security and devote his or her whole life describing people who does not exist. If it is make believe – which a lot of people who writes about writing often claims – how can one explain the overriding urge to do it, and that alone, and consider it as rationell as riding your bike over the Alps?

I walked absent mindely though the different stands at a market yesterday, waiting for my sister and mother to finish their shopping frenzy when I noticed a book in the bookstand. It caught my attention instantly and as I went in for a closer look I was surprised to see that it was written by my favorite author. A Canadian woman who makes the rest of us look really bad as we try to make sense of plotlines and purpose in our own writing. Turns out that I’ve stumbeled across her book about just that; writing. There, in a mist of bad novels and pretentious authors I find the best, offering her view on authors and writers.

The quote above is a part of the introduction in Margret Atwood’s book, Negotiating with the Dead. A Writer on Writing. It’s a quote from Mavis Gallant’s Selected Stories and she dives in to the passions and difficulties of writing. I’ve only read 70 pages so far but she strikes down to the very core of what I know and all that I want to know about but didn’t know I needed. She simply continues to amaze me.

I’ve read a lot of work from feminist author’s, most of them very old like the Brontë sister’s, Jane Austin and Kate Chopin but also more contemporary author’s such as Toni Morrisson and Bharati Mukehrejee but Margret Atwood is without a doubt the best one. I have no good way of describing it, she just writes it like it is. Her work is subjective of course becasue she writes about women in different situations but you can still detect her as the objective force holding the pen (or the keyboard in this case). She is never obvious but she gets her point across without ever explaining it to you. She is simply amazing, a true inspiration and I am very happy that I stumbeled across her take on reality.

You Say Potatoe....

I was sitting on our bed yesterday, reading at the back of my X-files boxes, getting really excited about all those amazing episodes that I had forgotten about. So I looked up at my boyfriend smiling like an idiot saying:

“Jose Cung’s from Outer Space!”

He looked at me in fear.

“You’re crazy,” he informed me. “You should see yourself right now. You’re scaring me.”

And he, a trekker. He should just talk. I read somewhere a long time ago that while the x-philes are somewhat sane and responsible people trekkers are just completely insane. But I guess this is what happens when a x-phile and trekker falls in love.

“Nerd,” he fills in, mocking my tapes in the process. “And we’re not watching gay people having sex while eating dinner today either.” Referring to my Queer as Folk obsession.

That’s what he’s seeing. Gay people having sex. Talk about missing the point. I guess that was why people were getting so upset. Couldn’t see the forest for all the trees huh?

So no Queer as Folk during dinner. Instead we got to see a Klingon coming on to a Betazoid, like this isn’t a strech of an alternative life style...

They Did What Now?

This is what my friend sent me. It strikes me once more how much amazing things that are out on the Internet these days. This could be my new favorite word.


cheek flapper

To expell gas from one's anus with such force that both sides of his/her buttox slap together to create a distinctly audible, and occasionally painful, vibration.

Example:
During the awkward silence on his date, John let forth such an intense cheek flapper that the silverware on the table rattled.

Has anyone ever really experienced this?

Completely Completely Fantastic

I got my VCR to start working again. Bliss! Yes, you heard me right, my VCR. Mind you, I have a lot of my favorites still on video tapes and I haven't been able to watch them in years.

So I started off with Queer as Folk (UK). Well obviously since that is without a doubt the best show ever produced (should not be mistaken with Queer as Folk US which is by definition the worst crap ever produced). I haven't seen it (back on the UK version for those who are trying to keep up with me) in about three years and I thought I would get dissapointed like you get when you realize you've outgrown something. But it is still at the top of my list.

Everything from the script to the acting and choice of characters. It is so amazing how something can convey a message so clearly without ever really stating the obvious. It is all so sublte, so perfectly put together. It's pure brilliance.

It is in fact so good I had to turn it off and watch some Once a Thief (also brilliant, but not at all in the same way) to even things out. So OaT to the rescue, a show that was so bad when it first aired that they had to cancel it after the first season. I love it though. It lacks everything that makes QaF such a great series and by some strange reason it is because of those absolutely awful plotlines, rotten acting and confusing messages that I simply can't get enough.

I think need to get a life :)

To Brag or Not to Brag

I had a professor when I was studying English and Communication six years ago who wasn't very good. He was young, around 37, which is very young as far as professors go and pretty unexperienced. But he did give me the best piece of advice I think anyone has ever given me.

He told us to always be humble. He said, you will learn a lot here and you will probably run in to friends and family who didn't have the opportunaty or didn't want to study for a higher education. Don't throw your -isms in their faces, don't talk about Darrida or Barthes and give references to what you yourself just recently learned. Don't ever fool yourself to think that you are better than them just because you now percieve the world in a different light. It is not necessarily a better light. So be humble.

It was a footnote to his class. He just said it in passing and as if he hadn't planned for it. Not like a rehearsed speech but more like something that he really needed to tell us, right that moment. And for someone who taught representations of litterature he was usually very stiff and textbook oriented but this once he changed completely which is probably why I remember it so well.

Since then I've learned that his advice can be applied to any given situation. I mean it's basically about not acting surperiour when you have it going for you and people who lack humility often have to pay for it later when tables are turned. Which of course is exaggerated in numerous American movies but it still applies to real life now and then.

Anyways I think it's a great advice whether it has to do with avoiding the reality of what goes around comes around or just for the sake of being a nice person.

Tunguska

I have a history of re-watching a lot of tv-shows and stocking useless quotes in my mind. And then sometimes they pop up in my head whenever there is need for associaton.

Like today when I've been working on my writing and I realize that everything is very dark and depressing. Which in itself isn't unusal at all, most of what I write is quite dark. It is kind of ironic since I usually write when I'm feeling quite good about myself and my life. Not to be mistaken for diaries I've held that are filled with tragic events. I started writing a seperate diary once and I called it my "Happy Diary" but I never wrote in it which is why will look back at my life thinking it sucked.

Anyways, I had a (praying mantis) epiphany while I was going through my stuff earlier today realizing how very dark it actually was. So the qoute in this context came from Tunguska (or probably Terma but few people know the difference and Tunguska sounds so much better).


The only thing you will find here is pain... and suffering.


Should of course be pronounced with a Russian accent for desirable effect.

The Power of Suggestion

"I have been on the bridge that spans two worlds..."

No but seriously, I've been caught in a creative whirlwind, or tornado really, for the last month or so and that kind of messes with my own take on reality. I've been mass producing page after page and there seems to be no end to this madness. But I love it. I absolutely love it.

My genetic gene pool consists of words. Whoever or whatever it is that decides these things probably thought it was a good idea to skip the numbers and science alltogether and focus on the words and creativity. Which was why I as a nosy five year old told my parents that it was about time I learned how to read and write. I understood that there was a whole world there to discover before I understood other stuff that would probably had been more useful to me.

Writing was my first love but it didn't really turn into a relationship until I was 13 and got an electric typewriter from my father. It was a noisy bugger, and for years I tried different ways of drowning the sound of they keyboard as I usually stayed up all night writing. I wasn't very good though, it was never really about that. Being good that is. I would like to think that I am getting better though.

When my boyfriend moved in with me and I needed to free some space in my closet I found that first story I wrote from around 1992 to about 1997 . I didn't even remember that I'd brought it with me when I moved to my apartment but there it was, under a pile of old clothes that I can't bring myself to throw out. I kept it in a black thick folder and most of it was typed on my typewriter. Hundereds of pages. Of crap really, but it's my crap and it's not the text in itself that moves me, it is what it represents. But I won't lie, it is crap incarnate.

The other stories I've worked on (actually only two more) are all in my computer and they are getting less and less crappy. I guess it is the power of development and probably also because I am not writing alone these days. There is this need of trying to do better when you know someone will read it, even if it is only one person and you know you can write just about anything and she'll think it's brilliant... But you still try to push yourself to do better and sometimes when you go through your stuff you'll find something that isn't half bad and you feel kind of proud.

But as passions go, this is mine and if I am absent in my blog it only means I'm being creative elsewhere. So if you'll excuse me I have a very depressed and border line suicidal homosexual who needs my attention.

More Pictures

Probably the prettiest girl in the world.

Catching the Strawberry Thief

Sometimes, when no one is looking and things are in the right level, life is just great!

We spent Midsummer this year with my sister, her boyfriend and the lovely little Miss Lova (above) just like last year. It’s in the middle of nowhere, or it feels as if it is in the middle of nowhere which it is not of course. A lot of nice houses, a lot of trees and mosquitos and at Midsummer an open medow with a temporary wooden dance floor and a DJ. This is where all the people, young as old, end up when they’ve run out of herring, strawberries and schnapps. It doesn’t get more Swedish than this.

Last year I got to see my boyfriend dance to the lowest form of music, a very popular genre with the older generation, especially around Midsummer. Since it is not really his scene it went fairly and considering the fact the dance floor is in fact moving up and down from everyone “dancing” around on top of it, it doesn’t really matter. You can stand still and look like you’re shaking it all like that! Though this year Marika, a friend of my sister’s, tried to teach him how to dance “kasedans”, which is the custom in these settings. He then wanted to show his new moves when the next appropriate song came, in this case In a Small Fisherman’s Harbour (I en liten fiskehamn), a smooth transendance from the previous song Lordis Hardrock Hallelulja. I doubt that we got the moves right judging from the professionals around us. Maybe next year we’ll show them.

Bored

My boyfriend sits with his headphones on, editing his documentary. He pretends that he doesn't hear what I say when I talk to him but I know he does. I just have to say something interesting enough and his curiousity exposes him. Mostly I humor him though and communicate through the msn which is even more annoying I'm sure.

"I'm bored" I write to him which he at this point feels is my own problem.

Every now and then he wants my oppinion of course. Not in the sense of a muse but rather a 'partner in crime'. Still, he mostly just sits there, poking around in the timeline, going over the sequences as if there was no tomorrow.

And I am bored. So incredibly bored.

Cracks Me Up

"The ants are my friends
they're blowing in the wind.
The ants are blowing in the wind...."


What I can't understand is how the person singing this could connect this line of thought with the previous lyrics of this song.

Graceful Me

I am one of those boring people who seldom gets drunk beyond the ability to control my own action or motorfunction. Usually that is.

Once when I was around 16 years old I drank a whole bottle of wine with a straw in the park and my friend had to drag me in to a taxi. This isn’t even my own memory but a story told by others which scared the living daylight out of me. So I spent the rest of my teenage partying days drinking myself pretty and holding my friend’s hair when they were throwing up in the bathroom in the back of a club. These were friend’s who drank tequila straight from the bottle and who apparently did not understand the sentiment of the word enough.

Sure, once in a while I would stumble and fall but as my boyfriend pointed out to me the other day, it had little to do with the alcohol and more to do with my ability to fall over and run my toes in to dead objects.

“You’re always cursing the furniture,” my boyfriend explained one morning very matter of factly. “It’s always ‘damn that chair’ or ‘stupid idiot table’. What you should be saying is ‘stupid idiot feet’” he snickered, recieving a well deserved pillow in his face.

It’s because of my mother you see. My mother always falls, trips or turn things over. I inherented that gene. The clumsy gene. On every vaction we ever took my mother would fall. She would tell me and my sister that we should be careful and then the next second she would slide down the slippery slope on her behind. In New York she got it out of her system right from the start as she flew out of the taxi, falling flat on her stomach right in front of the hotel, just inches from the doorman, a tall African American who was looking down at her. I was so embaressed.

Maybe that is why I stay so much in control when we’re out. Becuase for once I am the person standing up straight. The person who can look at others acting clumsy, falling over, and for once feel like a graceful being.

Dare to Dream

Today came the verdict. At least it felt like a vertict since the outcome wasn’t what I had hoped for. “They decided to go with another candidate....” If I got payed every time I heard that, I’d be rich. But at least they called this time. Usually they don’t, you have to call them up yourself, which you know is a bad sign right from the start.

I am dissapointed. Naturally. This was not just any job. It was not Customer Support, which I have been told from one agency is my only option because of my limited experience and which I can’t get either way since I have too much education. It was not a Marketing Assistent job which another agency called me in for a couple of weeks ago, but that I didn’t get because they wanted someone with education in economics. It wasn’t even a job as an Informant or Communicator which I have been told I can forget about right from the start even though I have the education for it. It was Head of Information at on of Sweden’s most successful companies. Like being Chief. Boss. In charge.

Madness!

“Don’t look at this as a defeat,” the recruiter said. “Try to focus on the fact that you got this far on almost no experience. They felt you had a lot of potential and ambition but they wanted someone with experience.”

He said it almost as if he disagreed with their decision. As if he thought that they’d missed the point. “I’m really sorry.” He added.

It didn’t feel like he was feeding me a line, it felt as if he really meant it. At our first meeting I found him completely intimidating in the way that he kept throwing difficult questions at me, as if he was testing my ability to cope. I walked out of that room never expecting to hear from him again.

Then he calls, out of nowhere, and he wants to see me again. We meet again and he is no longer intimidating. After that meeting he calls and tells me he wants to send me to the interview. For the job as Head of Information! He tells me that he is sending two other candidates with experience and then me. He tells me I am his favorite candidate, the most ambitious one in the bunch and also the one most likely to pull this off. These are almost his exact words. He sees something no one else have dared to discover. He sees potential. And he tells me that potential is more important than experience.

I can’t believe it is happening. I can’t believe that I am going on this interview and that someone believes in me as much as he does. And even though I know that this is too good to be true, I dare to dream. I know I don’t have the same chance as the rest but I am toying with the posibility of getting the job and I can’t stop myself from thinking: what if?

So of course I am dissapointed. And I panic over the fact that I now have to deal with the people of little faith. The unbelievers.

Dead Ficus

My ficus is officially dead. I can't tell if it is caused by too much or too little water because all the other plants are still alive. But the ficus is sagging like a tired old man sitting outside a dressing room, waiting for his wife to try on the tenth shirt which looks like all the other shirts in which she just posed for him.

"It's been a good couple of months," my boyfriend proclaims and rather congratulates me on the success of the plants that are still alive. He knows as well as I do that I am hopeless with plants, maybe even more so than he is. And I am proud of this minor achievement, a step in the right direction, but at the same time I can not let go of the failure, the stains in my success. That's just the kind of animal that I am.


Meanwhile I am three out of over two hundered. I am one of three for the position of a life time. The kind of job that no one gets, not in my position anyway. I am the candidate least qualified for the position, of this I'm sure. Not sure like in "I pity myself" but sure because the man sending me to the interview told me so. He said I had spirit and ambition but not sufficient experience. He said he believed I was the best candidate but that chances are that they don't. People stare themselves blind on experience, he said. And contacts, I added in silence.

He told me I am his favorite candidate. That out of over two hundered, cut to ten, then to five and three, I am his favorite. I don't care that he probably tells all three candidates this, I really needed to hear it. After all the dissapointments, the deceits and unfairness that comes from the position I am in, it felt like coming up for air when you are suffocating.

Even if I don't get the job I am very content. I am proud that I got this far. I never thought it possible after what I've learned these past couple of months. And I take solace in the fact that you can get far with honesty and hard work. It feels comforting.

But I am very much like my ficus. Usually I drown in the water, having too much experience. Otherwise I dry out, having too little experience. This interview felt very dry. I'm fairly sure I'm not getting this job, it all adds up to that. Never the less I have had a good experience and I've regained faith in something I thought I'd lost.

Misunderstanding

In Sweden most kids come to the realization some time during pre teen period that the rockband Kiss does not mean urine, which it translates in to in Swedish. I am embaressed to say that I was very late to discover this myself which is strange since I was always advanced in English in relation to my peers. Justified humiliation though since I was always very arrogant about it.

My best friend once told the story about her boyfriend's brother who misunderstood the song lyrics for the theme song in the cartoon version of Robin Hood. Instead of singing "Oo-de-lally, Oo-de-lally Golly, what a day", he sang "Woody Allen, Woody Allen Golly, what a day" (in Swedisn of course).

I just love such stories, because I know how stupid we feel when we realize the mistake. And usually we've always felt that our misunderstandings sounded weird and didn't make much sense even when we were unaware that we were wrong. I mean, why would any band want to be named Urine?

This is why I was delighted to find this site about the song lyrics we thought we heard and what they really meant. Some of these are hilarious.


http://kissthisguy.com/

Point, what Point?

I was sitting on the bus on my way downtown when I noticed a man looking straight at me. I met his eyes and he didn't look away like people ususally do when caught staring at someone. Intense glaring makes me uncomfortable however so I broke contact but noticed that the man kept staring at me.

Had I been 16, thinking that the world evolved around me, I would probably have thought that he couldn't help himself, seeing how pretty I was. Now, eleven years later, it's more leaning towards: "I must have smut somewhere on my face...." So I dove into my bag for my hand mirror and tried to see just how bad it was.

Turns out I didn't have smut on my face. It also turns out that the man is holding a white cane, indicating he was blind. I felt really bad for thinking he was creepy.


Then, two hours later, over a cup of Vanilla Nut Latte, my friend starts pondering whether or not blind people dream. According to a number of not so reliable websites I find out that they don't. At least not in images.

You're now probably thinking that if there is a point I should be getting to it shortly. Sorry to say that I have no point to make. Just making an observation.

Review

I feel the pressure of writing some kind of review of the documentary, Smiling in a War Zone, I watched this Friday, since I brought it up. So here goes.

I heard that it got some bad reviews on TV the day before but I haven't seen the review myself so I can't really object to any specific complaints. I can see how someone would be unimpressed by it, and I had a few bad reactions to the poor video qualities, embaressing "special effects" and the occasional unability to keep a clear perspective. It felt as if she wanted to say so many things with the documentary that some things became a bit redundant when she didn't take the time to explain her point thurully.

But.... to give it a two out of five? To me that just feels like the person didn't understand the point of the movie, which wasn't to do a high quality documentary but something completely different. The fact that this woman spent a year of her life, a fortune that she didn't even have and risked her own life to be able to fulfill one young woman's wish of flying is enough to give it at least three points. I mean, are we so spoiled with special effects and perfectly scripted and orchestrated documentaries that we fail to appreciate a genuin effort and inspirational message just because it doesn't come in a golden wrapper? I think it is sad.

To me this documentary represents a brave woman with a message that becomes a truth rather than a cliché through the journey that she makes. A message that you really can do anything you want if you just put your mind to it. And that's good media.

Smiling in a War Zone

About two or three years ago I went to a seminar held by a Danish woman, Simone, who was making a documentary of her "journey" to Kabul. Allegedly she had, through some news channel, heard about a young woman in Kabul who wanted nothing more than to once be able to fly a plane. Reading this, Simone got the crazy idea that she should fulfill that wish. And she did.

She bought a forty-year-old Piper Colt and made the trip, 50 hours in the air, 33 landings and one illegal flight in to Afghanistan to find the young woman Farial and make her wish come true.


The documentary, Smiling in a War Zone, premieres here in Malmö today and I am meeting up my boyfriend after work to see it. Expectations are high.

The Horror, The Horror...

I went on an interview for a position as an international informant this morning and I honestly can't say what scares me the most; to recieve information of yet another failure or to actually get the job.

The whole experience of the interview was, to say the least, horrifying. He treated me as if I had worked as an informant for years, asking me questions that probably any qualified informant could answer in a split of a second, and demanded quick answers. I started to wonder if he had read my application at all because it would clearly tell him that I have limited experience. Then he confessed that his approach was rather agressive and that he understood that I could not possibly know these things with respect to my background. And I started to wonder why I was even there. With all of the 300 applications he'd recieved... I did not even impress myself.

I feel a bit discouraged about this informant business. It's sad because I've had that goal in sight for as long as I can remember. But everytime I get within reach of it I end up either devastated or doubting my own abilities.

I've never created an entire internal network by myself. I've never composed an actual communication plan by myself. I'm not even sure if I know what it is. I've never been a part of any board of directors or responsible for the communication of one. I've never had to defend a company in a press release...

Given the cance, I could learn and I know that. But it doesn't really matter when you are expected to master it before you've learned it.

It will be a cold day in hell before I get this job. My only solace is that whether I get rejected or, God help us, get the job, it is all me. I'm loosing or gaining this job on my own. And damned proud of it either way.

I Have a Confession to Make

My name is Sofie, and I am a chocoholic.

Like that. The truth. The ugly truth about the habit that I apparently can not kick. Chocolate is my heroin. Simple as that.

I stopped eating chocolate for two weeks. Two whole weeks. It is hard for anyone to comprehend the nature of the situation. The nervous eye twitch, the biting of nails, the self delusions I suffered. Until time did its thing and I realized that I didn't need it anymore.

Then comes Easter.

Big Easter egg. Chocolate dreamboat. The best kinds of chocolate in a see trough delight. The kind of chocolate that melts in your mouth before you even get around to tear the wrappers. Not at all a cheep perfunctonary gift that nobody ever asks for. Just an oval shaped piece of heaven.

I was such a good girl. I didn't even touch it. Then the next day my boyfriend opens the egg and lets out a scent of chocolate my way. He looks at me and asks: "Do you want one?" Do you want one? Is he freaking kidding me?

I was lost and the addiction came back. But I didn't really understand how serious it was until today. When I went through the last remains of the egg and found three pieces of the disgusting chocolate still there. You know the hardened jell-o and marzipan pieces that no one really likes. And as one piece of my brain concluded that I hate marzipan the other part of the brain kept insisting on the importance of; covered in chocolate, covered in chocolate. It all ended with a see through egg, filled with brown paper wrappers and one girl who never knew what hit her.

Last Friday

My boyfriend knows a guy who works backstage at various concerts here in Malmö. He managed to get my boyfriend the drumsticks after the Morrissey concert last friday. Since my boyfriend is a drummer and a fan of Morrissey he thought that was a very nice perk to the whole concert.

The drumsticks are barely holding together and they smell kind of funny. But I appreciate sentiment.

Segments of Tokyo

Renee

My father is an accountant and he finished his studies a when he was around 23 years old. He got a job right out college at a company which he is now part-owner of. The lady that interviewed him for the position was called Renee.

Renee was an old lady who had lost her husband a few years back and she now claimed that his ghost was still living with her. Once when my parents were over for a visit and they were sitting in her living room, small talking, she stopped in mid-sentence and smiled. "Now there is four people in the room" she had stated calmly. Very serious and matter of factly.

At the interview Renee asked my father for the date and time of his birth. He found it odd but gave the information to her. Months after he had started working she told him that the information he'd given her had been of signifigance to his employment. She had found that at the time of my father's birth the right planets had been aligned in the right way (though I'm sure she put it more adequate than that). That's why he got the job.

About one or two years after he had started the job I was born. It had happened really sudden, and a good one or two weeks before the predicted time and my father had to go straight from the hospital to his job, leaving a much smaller version of myself and my mother at the hospital. He was alone when he got there. Or so he thought. Because all of a sudden, Renee appeared in the doorway. "Congratulations to the new baby girl," she said, smiled at his perplexed reaction and then went away.

Years later my father and a co-worker was at a business trip in Norway and decided to take a tour at their spare time. The tour lady had turned out to be the splitting image of their now retired co-worker Renee, a resemblance so evident they both brought it up on their way back to the hotel. Later that same day, their boss, and moreover an old friend of Renee, callled my father to check in on something work related. Before he hung up he said he had some tragic news to deliver as well. Renee had passed away a few hours ago.


I've heard these stories since I was very young. My mother brought me by my father's office once when I was just a baby. Renee looked at me and told my parents her prediction of my future. A very strong statement that I prefer to keep to myself. I have never been able to decide if I should believe it or not. If she really knew these things or if she was just plain crazy. I'm not closed to such thoughts but I am extremely sceptic.

My father doesn't believe in such things, he's an accountant for cying out loud. Numbers and facts are his religion. Renee made him doubt his beliefs though. And I guess for myself, I will always wonder, unless her prediction comes true. That would be neat.

Our Collective

How fast we managed to evolve into a unit. I've always considered that to be an unhealthy development in any relationship. I still do. But in the neck of time one of us got a job, even if it wasn't me. Yet. Hopefully the unit will partly dissolve now.

We have too many inside jokes, too many things that only we appreciate as a unit. In the private of the apartment that can be quite cosy and nice and in so many ways I am amazed that we still get along like this. I had expected fights, maybe even wanted them to prove that we have a normal relationship. But aside from the occasional nagging about the little things real fights have been completely absent. It'll come though. Fights are healthy. They keep things interesting and help you see things in perspective.

Outside the apartment the unit doesn't work as well. At least not in social situations. Which is why I think this job will do the unit good.

Oh Well....

At college we had a lot of professors and teachers who held lectures on feministic problems in the Patriarchal Society in which we apparently live. The fact that women are treated differently to a disadvantage could be applied to almost all the fields that we studied, not the least from a career prespective.

A lot of people, mostly women, became extremely upset about what they learned from these lectures, a reaction which is common when you first encounter what you perceive as unfair, and so encouraged by the people in power most of these students came to pursuit these feministic problems in many assigments during our education. A noble and much needed pursuit indeed.

In my oppinion there was a little too much focus on these feministic perspectives. They are extremely important and should be given a lot of space but they are not the only problem to adress. And what I felt eventually became destructive in this one sided approach to every field was that the focus always stopped on the problems and gave very little room for the solutions.


It's almost been a year since I finished my studies and I am still looking for a job, a career. The market is though for young academics without work experience in Sweden, that is a known fact, but as the one year anniversary of unemployment is closing in those feministic disadvantages has come in to questioning. Is it harder for me because I am a woman or is that just the "propaganda" speaking?

What if that is true?


"Let's see... we have an acceptable candidate here. Education, check. Minor work experience in the field, check. Good English skills, check. This looks ok." Continues to read in silence. "Oh damn! That's not good, this one has a uterus. It has to go in the no box."


Even though some work places probably panic over the idea of employing a woman with the risk of pregnancy and all what that would mean as an economical and practical setback I don't want to believe that this is common. I always dismissed the thought that my gender would stand in my way and hoped that hard work and talent would prevail. But suddenly I begin to doubt that theory. And it has much to do with those endless lectures about how society discriminates against all women. I am begining to wonder how close to the truth that really is and how my role as a human being holds up against my role as a woman.

For the sake of argument, seing I still refuse to accept it as an absolute truth, I am annoyed and upset over the fact that I was given the tool to acknowledge such information but not to fight it, or be able to do anything about it. So with the risk of ending with the cheesiest line in historyI would like to say this: I've heard the truth. Now what I want are the answers.

Nad the Pursuit of Happiness?

When I was 16 I could recite Martin Luther King's speech I Have a Dream by heart. I had problems in the start with the Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. I had no idea what the Emancipation Proclamation meant and I couldn't for the life of me pronounce it either. Which is why I constantly changed that part when by rare occasions someone asked me to recite it for them. In retrospect, I do wonder what kind of document I had poor Lincoln sign in my recitation.

There was also a typo in the copy of the speech that I had in my possesion which is why in the part: This note (reference to the Emancipation Proclamation) was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I kept saying nad the pursuit of happiness, thinking that the nad was probably a meaningful and fancy word that I just didn't understand.


Today, I can't recite the speech from start to finish. Probably bits and pieces but not the whole thing. I do however know that it is meant to say and the pursuit of happiness and I know what the Emancipation Proclamation means and how to pronounce it. And you've got to be impressed by that ;)

A Fish with Struma

In a previous post I brought to attention the unexpected gay community that had formed in the animal kingdom, more specifically in the penguin community. I thought that was an extremely fascinating piece of information. Little did I know that the unexpected animal facts would soon become a theme.

It happened as I was waiting for my mother in the reception where she works. I noticed that the numerous goldfishes in the reception tank seemed unaturally obese. Naturally I had to investigate.

On a closer look I had yet another shocking discovery. All the goldfishes seemed to be suffering from a serious case of struma! I kid you not, it looked just as if their eyes were about to pop out of their... do you say scull?

I managed to take this photograph with my cell phone and I would like to present it as exhibit one. And quite possible the only exhibit that I will be presenting all together. But it is really true what they say. You learn something new every day.

Broken Flowers

We rented Broken Flowers the other day. You know, the movie with Bill Murray that the critics seems to love.

Now I have different options in how to proceed with my feedback on this movie. I can play along and say that I loved it and that it was amazing so that I fit the profile of the intellectuals. Or.. I can be honest and tell you that I liked it but that I didn't find it particulary amazing. In fact, I am not sure I got the point of the movie at all.

Don't get me wrong, I have lots of theories on what the movie wanted to convey and I prefer a movie that is not obvious over one that is any day of the week. And even if the movie was beautiful in the way that it was shot and carefully planned in esthetics I still didn't feel that it was enough for it to be amazing.

I require something more mind blowing for that.

So I got to thinking. Why has there been such a chain reaction when it comes to praising this movie? I'm still not saying that it was a bad movie, it just left me hanging too much for me to classify it as pensive. Is it simply that people are afraid that they would be considered idiots if they don't praise it. I mean if one critic loves it and another doesn't understand it, would he or she really admitt that? Wouldn't it be easier to just pretend that they understood what was so amazing and join the line of those who understand better than the rest.

Usually the critics are right about movies. At least to my liking. But in this and a few other cases I just have to wonder if they aren't acting out of cowardice.

There is of course another explination. A very plausible one. And that is that I am an idiot who just doesn't get it. Well, if that is the case, at least I am an honest idiot.

At Least there is Still Air to Breath... Right?

Same old same. No good news but instead a confirmtion of what we already knew all too well.

But I did have a new revelation as the scary thoughts subsided the other day. Even if this situation is beginning to be ridiculously trite in the way it consumes my every thought I realized that it is by my own fault completely. And so again, same old same. I focus on the bad parts and completely miss out on the positive ones.

So what that we are broke and unemployed! I get to live with my best friend, my soulmate. Love of my life. And I know for a fact that even if a good job is hard to come by, I have something which is even harder to get. Something which began over three years ago, on a balcony somewhere. Now there is a Romeo and Juliet complex to live up to...

I should therefore stop all my whining (or at least tone them down a bit) over not getting a job and living in poverty and focus on the fact that I get to spend my days the best possible way.

I can do it!

*nervous laughter*

Back in the Real World

I had an awful realization just now. For the first time in over a month I was alone in the apartment, since my boyfriend was on a interview, and I sat down in the living room in complete silence. There are minor details still to take care of here, papers to be sorted, the last two boxes ready to be carried up to the attic, organizing all the small stuff that has no definate location, but the apartment is more or less ready. But in my silent solitude I could feel the reality creeping up on me again.

When you're constantly moving around boxes and have one single tangible goal; to be able to live in your apartment, as it was inteded, there really isn't much thought over for anything else. We've had no weekends to talk of, no time in between to ponder about the life outside our apartment plans or really do anything at all. So when all that is over the space becomes huge.

Huge and scary.

But who knows, maybe there will be good news when my boyfriend comes home. From what we've heard, chances are good that they are. And by now, our luck really should turn around. It has to.

Queer as Penguins

I found this wonderful article in one of the online tabloids. Now, the tabloid has been known to stretch the truth from time to time but I would like to believe that this story is true. (Article in Swedish)

Time, Love and Tenderness

We've been living in chaos for so long now that I can't remember how it was to have an organized home or how it felt to step into my living room without having to jump over boxes of junk. Hopefully this place will recemblance a home in a week. Which we have been saying for weeks now of course.

There is always something missing, always something more to be done. No instructions for the bookshelf, one important missing screw for the dresser, the list goes on. And we have been cursed with some additional bad luck lately.

Parking ticket even though we payed for our parking space. The electrician didn't come, he had forgotten. Then he finally arrived a week later to install our new oven and the fridge decided to break down which meant we had to wait another week before we could make dinner in our new kithcen. And when we lifted our spirit enough to install the computers so that we could start working on the documentary again the screen on the head computer was broken and we now have to wait for two weeks before we can start working with that again.

Sometimes you just have to laugh about it to prevent yourslef from going crazy. But then again, maybe that is the definition of crazy. Just like a mad man laughing at the rain....

My boyfriend has this old bookshelf that he refuses to give up on. There is no room for it. It doesn't fit in with the colors of the room. And it is ugly. I am waiting for him to realize it and until he does it will probably be standing in the middle of the living room, collecting dust, drivint me nuts. Like the Michael Bolton CD that we found. No one wants to confess to this error in judgement, this youthful indiscretion. But some day, sometime, someone will put it in the CD player and then the world will see which one of us who can't resist singing the lyrics.