The traditional "Happy new year" post

I've read quite a few of those posts today, summing up 2009 and promising things for 2010, how one'll change and the world will change with it. I would, instead, like you to picture the setting for this dialouge.
- You and what army?

- You are my army.

Artistic break. The setting needs to be your head. I can go all zen on you and advice you on change. But I won't, all have already heard all the clichés the static lines, blatantly handed out in times of desperate need. The future is an abstract place we can't know, and the past is a bottomless pit for us to reevaluate and learn from.

Instead of doing it once a year, it's something we should do constantly. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” (Albert Einstein) That's where the change lays. In your every day things. Don't make those great promises of being a better person in the new year. Don't get the idea that your life will be perfect when the bell tolls for 2011. You already know you'll fail.

I promise you this for 2010; good things will happen, bad things will happen and I'll get one year older.

That time in St Tropez, sugar

It doesn't matter anymore, I'm too tired to fight. It's not within my control, you left me by myself, and of course I got scared. My last hope was to see and to be seen. I forget to breathe, because sex, music and violence are the most beautiful things to happen to me ever since I sold my soul. To cause but remain unseen, looks easy from afar. But I live by impulse, via remote controll. But I always said no.

Noone listens. Noone hears.

The guest for tonight is Jesus. He kicked heorin. He sips his glass and water turns into wine. He tells us about his time in Saint Tropez. He speaks of giving yourself a chance, about his new Z3 - in a world full of idiots, he's standing there, first in line. Like flies on on sugar, you mean nothing. He tells the world in front of the camera, about how his gender change, or something else entirely too personal. About all the ones he really love or the ones he only blew. But he always said no.

Noone's listening. Noone hears it.

Things that grew in the 00s

This is pretty much a rip off of this article, but as always, my added notes and comments.

First, Melodifestivalen. Second, reality shows. Third, talent shows. Fourth, grand movie openings. And fifth, royalism. Actually, now looking at it this isn't a ripoff at all, because I can sum it up in one word - exposure. So I think I'll write about that instead, and ponder why DN lists these particular things. What's even more interesting is that Dagens Nyheter links to YouTube!

What I think the difference really is all about is the general acceptance of the narcissism and the "love me" attitude, for the sole reason that the arenas have grown incredibly. This is in it's turn, due to technology. In 1999 we simply didn't have camera phones and Internet usage wasn't as high as now, nor did we have the speed we now possess. (Yes, I used the word possess just to show that I know how to spell it - what a show off!)

Anyone can be a star in the YouTube age. Commerical arenas aren't more stupid than that they want a piece of that cake too, hence all the endless Idols and copy cats. Then it's the simple spiral effect, it worked for channel blabla, then of course channel ughugh has to do it too, and tada, we have a phenomenon typical of the age we live in.

This personalization continues, screen names and anonymous chats have been replaced by real names and Facebook. We gather those we know closer because we know so many strangers. This is where royalism comes in. What's more familiar than kings and queens? When fifteen minutes of fame has been reduced to fifteen seconds of lame we need something substantial, something we know will last. Royalty and royalism have been around for centuries, it'd be naive to think they're going anywhere, no matter how much we focus on the little person.

We need the contrast between the new and the old, the fast and the slow. And even if the article doesn't say much else, it is an illustration of this.

Poets are people too

I found myself reading about the movie Bright Star. I really have no desire to watch it, it's about John Keats, and his greatest love. I don't want his greatest love to be a person. I don't want him to have been a person. He's a name in books I read, occational founder of quotes I use. But a person, no.

William Shakespeare isn't a person. Karin Boye isn't a person. Edith Södergran isn't a person. Nelly Sachs isn't a person. Thomas Tranströmer isn't a person. Bruno K. Öijer might be a person. Kristina Lugn isn't a person, for sure. They're words, words, words, endless words for me to rip apart and make mine.

The endless constructions of life, lust, love, fear, hate, discoveries, melt downs, travels, transformations, they're nothing but means for me to see the world differently. It's not about the poets. There are plenty of excellent poets that never get read, those with perfect ryhmes and verses that never get read because they don't speak.

IN A STATION OF THE METRO
Ezra Pound

The apparition of these faces in the crowd ;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Knowing the poets only gives a false sense of understanding. We can't feel what they felt. Did Shelley have intentions or was he just high? What's my intention when I write? None. I have no intentions. I just do it. And I would hate for people hundreds of years from now to remember those words of mine

"and those shoes I wear

laces cut like

the hair on the barbers floor

died before it leaves the skin"

and have them mean anything bigger than what I thought of on a dreary day when nothing else would work. Yet that is exactly what I'm doing to the lot of them, I'm depriving them of their humanity for my own selfish reasons. My own wish to make sense of the world via words of others, because the non existant God knows I can't manage it by myself.

Telling myself I'm not a poet is a way to preseve my individuality, yet, I'm just like everyone else. Telling myself I'm none of those labels that define me is my rebellion, but all I can rebel against is myself. Utterly useless.

THE MOON
Percy Bysshe Shelley

I.

And, like a dying lady lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapp'd in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The moon arose up in the murky east
A white and shapeless mass.

II.

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

We should write what we know. I know nothing but the wor(l)ds of others, I'm not naive enough to think mine matters so in order to make the wor(l)ds mine I must kill all the poets.

Finally the explaination

I can't give anything other than my words, so that is what I was trying to give. To sum up a year's worth of thoughts, in a a bite sized snack. Time has changed things, and time is about to change again. Hold on to your seats and enjoy the ride.

Reruns, part seven

Originally posted March 18 2009

Love in the morning sunlight

A morning sun of the spring shining through the cracks of the blinds, there's no stopping it once it started, I'm a bit afraid to open my eyes, a bit scared to drown and see the imperfections of my world coming rushing towards me.

The warm body breathing next to me, in such peace showing me I should just sleep, dream away the day I'm about to encounter. In blind I kiss an arm, a cheek, run my hand over a chest raising and lowering. I don't need to see, the image is etched in me, I know each outline and every detail.

It's not the first body to keep me warm, and surely won't be the last, but it can't possibly take away or make the love smaller. It's grand and full. One to only be ended by the breaths stopping, ending, ceasing. I dread that day when I have to give this creature up, when time has run it's course.

Perhaps if you've loved and lost you choose your objects more carefully. But I feel no losing. I feel no slipping away, all I feel is the fullfillment of being this close to the exention, the personification of my inner need of being perfect alive next to me. I have no fears left in this world, not at this moment, and I wish this morning'd last forever.

I wrap my arm around the cells that are my peace and pull it closer. It's simply not time yet. Not time to let go.

For now, all I can do is enjoy the electric sparks his soft fur transmits to my heart

Reruns, part six

Originally posted on March 27 2009

Speaking of my last post
(which was entitled "Creator and creations")

Someone turn my brain off so I'll stop wondering about things and coming to conclutions. Most of the time the questions are way more interesting than the answers, yet it's answers we need.

What I was wondering about this time is what you can get for free, and what free is. Is anything ever free. And the answer is, in my opinion, suprisingly, yes. But truly free is only one thing; being born. That's the one thing you can't ask for and if you don't ask for it you're not being offered a favour or gift. It just is. Nothing more or nothing less.

Don't get me wrong, I'm rather grateful for being born, and to my parents for going through the trouble of (hrm) raising me, clothing me and feeding me. But I didn't ask for it. So that's free. Being born is free.

The rest costs not all in money of course, but in time effort and hard work. But you pretty much start on either plus or minus. If you were a planned child you start on plus, because you're something your parents asked for. If you were an unwanted child, shame on your parents, you start on minus as chances are you have quietly been cursed. I hope they gave you up for adoption to live with people who can understand just how wonderful you are, or that your parents came to their senses and realised you were a blessing in disguise.

Either way, the rest is all about plus and minus and money is the shortcut to getting what you want. But money isn't free, as we all know. I was very disapointed when I was about 4 or 5 and planted my 10 kr bill allowance in a pot and expected a money tree to grow. And it didn't. I'm still not sure how it had the nerve to disapoint me in such manner! My grandfather found it all very amusing and gave me 20 kr instead. See how this works? I made an effort and got money for it. Yes I'm trying to prove a point here. Work hard and get rewarded for it. The most commonly accepted under the term "transaction" includes money. But everything is counted in plus and minus.

Then it's the emotional part, but dear god, I'm so torn about that. Relationships are a give and take sort of thing, and hopefully you end up on +/- 0 so that noone feels neglected. That's also hard work. So basically for that hard work you want it to end up on 0. The most rewarding transaction includes people and relationships.

About good deeds then. In an utopian world you do one good thing and get one good thing back. Not sure if I've lived long enough to know if the score evens out eventually. But I do try to be kind, friendly and warmhearted. Some days failing miserably. So I have to compensate the next day and be supernice to the clerk at the gasstation or pay extra attention in class or return a lost wallet. Well maybe I'd like a little extra in the good deeds account. If I fall down I'd like someone to hold me until it stops hurting. Literally and metaphorically.

The 0 returns. When I die I hope to be on 0. To not owe anyone anything and not be owed anything back. Today I believe that's where my peace of mind is. Knowing I've done all I could and everything is at a perfect level. Perhaps life is nothing else that finding that balance. Anything else is just greed.

Reruns, part five

Originally posted April 22 2009

The generation debate

Gustav Fridolin has written a book called "Blåsta - nedskärningsåren som skapade en generation" (loosly translated as "Screwed - the cutdown years that shaped a generation".)

In Sweden, don't know how it is in the rest of the western world really, the children of the 80s have been called spoiled, demaning and hard to please. This critique usually comes from the babyboomers, the ones that are recently retired or about to be retired. The ones that are slightly too young to be our grandparents and slightly too old to be our parents. (oh yeah, in Sweden we don't generally pop out kids until we're about 30, or after)

Either way. Amelia Adamo, a magazine queen here is one of the loud voices in our generation debate. I've had nothing but respect for her, up until, well about now. Her opinions have been nothing but stupid and full of self pity. Is it bitterness? Is it jealousy? I don't know.

But what I do know is that in the early 90s when Sweden had one of the biggest recessions we've ever had, actually worse than the one we're in now. Everything had to be slashed. Teachers, day cares, libraries, hospitals, buses, you name it it got to a point where you should be glad if your book in school had most of the pages. The outlook for the future was bleak. I was living in a small town, and the majority of the parents of my classmates lost their jobs, and basically we were told that we should be lucky if we ever managed to find a job, or a place to live. As the well known Swedish public housing buldings were being sold off as well.

What we learn when we're becoming aware of the world shapes us, and for the ones born about the same year as I we learned that the world doesn't need us and we have to take a step back and let our elders get the things we want. We shouldn't ask for anything, it's not ours to have.

This is where the thing Amelia Adamo critizises the most comes in, the individuality and "underground" values come in. She claims we're a selfish generation. Well, what choice is there, when you're shut out of society you have to create your own cliques. It's a human need to belong, Where can you belong when you're not allowed on the conventional arenas? She also has not so nice things to say about the children of the 80s seeing other parts of the world and refusing and grow up. See the previous sentences... It's all explained there.

Actually I feel a bit offended. I've always worked hard. I've worked like a dog just so I could get to work at all, waiting tables, substitute teaching, running my own business, telemarketer, cashier, clerk, all those jobs, except businessowner that people of Amelia Adamos generation wouldn't touch with a stick but still rely on. Who will give her her coctails when she goes out and spends her money if it's not for the masses clinging to every paycheck to pay their subleased apartments?

I'm well aware of the fact that we always have greater sympathies for our "own kind", but I can't shake the feeling of that there is no room for me, and people like me, and in just a few years the people born in the 90s will pass us by and we'll be left behind only because we were too individual to form a common voice to scream at the top of our lungs "we deserve better and we're worthy of a humane life".

Reruns, part four

Originally posted April 27 2009

Selling your virginity

The weather is so nice, everything's turning green. I had to come inside and watch TV for a bit before the cats think we're never gonna bum around under a roof again.

So, that girl that's selling her virginity is on. Everyone's speaking for her, she hasn't said a word, and I'm probably about to do the same. I'm more fascinating with the whole idea of virginity. It's the one thing we're all expected to do at one point, it's in a way a step towards becoming an adult. I suspect not everyone's first time turned out the way they wanted or expected. That's the thing about our bodies, they don't always react the way we think, there's mechanisms in us which we can't quite control. And it's that control that can be hard to give up.

As far as making someone pay for your virginity, you're only a virgin once, and that experiance should be mainly yours. You're not only selling your body, you're selling part of yourself and you're denying yourself that experiance. Fast money I suspect is the thing she's looking for, but what will the price be long term? How will she tell her daughters when they start dating to stay chaste? "No darling, you should wait until someone pays a million dollars for it"

I don't know, I don't want to be judgemental and a prude, but it just doesn't ryhme well. You should get something more than money for your virginity and for your body in general. Don't become only a virgin or a sexobject. Become a person with needs and wishes, and feel powerful enough to choose who you want to share that with. Sharing it with noone is too few, sharing it with everyone makes you a sellout. For everytime you let your body be enjoyed by someone you don't know, they walk away with a part of you you can't afford to be without.

Now sharing it with someone you love and respect and loves and respects you back is heaven. And there's no highest number of how many you can love in a lifetime.

Reruns, part three

Originally posted on May 11 2009

I hate rugs

In general rugs are so f-ing ugly. I mean seriously ugly! and also in general can't match their curtains or furniture with this ugly f-ck rug. It's a disgrace. Oh my god I'm boiling even thinking about it.

What's the purpose of rugs anyway? Do they have one? Besides from being ugly I mean. The patters are, once more in general, hideous. I can't stand it.

I've had rugs. Chosen very carefully. One was creme coloured with circular patterns. It was kinda hot. Another one was pink with white dots. It was kinda hot too. I think that a rug should be spiffy enough to hang on the wall as a piece of art. Wish more people would keep that in mind so I wouldn't have to get all torn up by the state of their homes.

I don't have any rugs in the house now. Not even in the bathroom. I don't see the point. I have floors right?

If you feel offended by this, and if you're looking at your rug thinking I'm wrong. By golly, you're ONE OF THOSE, one of those people with no taste. Not my fault. I bet you have ugly shoes too.

Reruns, part two

Originally posted July 15 2009

De-sexualisation

Having overheard a conversation about exposed bodies and sex on tv I began to wonder how that can be concidered sexual. I, personally, don't get turned on by half dressed people on posters by the busstop or a kiss on tv. I really think that the more expore to nudity we have the less of a deal it becomes. The censorship also has another side. It pushes morals on us which we don't really need. When did sex become such a big deal? Is the Victorian era still to blame? Why do men blush of guilt and women of innocence?

I suppose I'm jaded. I remember feeling almost as if sex wasn't real at all when I lived in the US. It was something you heard about, sometimes read about, but it wasn't really real. What I did had nothing incommon with the things not shown. Why is it that when the act itself is shown it's (almost) always concidered porn? People fake things for us to see all the time, why is it so bad to see actors fake sex? We don't get hurt by the fake words they speak so why would we by that?

Who is it that sets these rules of what's ok to see anyway? Do they have sex? And who are we protecting and why? When I took ethnology we went on a fieldtrip to see houses from different eras. Only in the modern ones were there spaces for privacy. Perhaps it's as simple as sex becomes a sin only when it's possible to do it in private. I find it hard to believe people did it less only because of the stable boy sleeping by the fire because the house only had four walls and no rooms. Were they imposed by the fake morals of today?

We are animals. We eat in front of people, something I would concider to be somewhat more barbaric than being touched by someone you love and that loves you back. Society's rules apply to all of us. Wether we like it or not. But the more foreplay I see the less sexual I feel. Because that's really all we see, isn't it? A constant foreplay and no climax. Maybe it's just the climax that's a problem, not the act. I don't know. But it's really starting to annoy me.

What's the difference between the postergirls and the real girls half naked on the street? That's what made the whole conversation overheard so ironic. The girls must have been, I don't know, in their teens, barely dressed at all, and they were going to complain about the buscube ads to the company for showing too much skin. Maybe it's their budding feminism speaking. But I don't see the exposed skin in public domains to have anything to do with what I do in my bed at night.

Then it's the whole whore and madonna complex. That's another chapter, really, but I think it connects to the desexualisation of the common space in all. The ones being watched are the whores and the ones watching are the madonnas. It's so easy to judge and say it's wrong. But in my opinion only an idiot would by a product because the girl is hot. (Oops, I forgot, the world is full of idiots...) If we base everything only on one aspect life gets dull and flat. But noone really wants the raw naked truth. The real sex has no place in advertisting and entertainment. Barely even in porn. It's sweat, unmatched underwear, untimed orgasms and someone always falls asleep too fast. It's not the well puttogether act it seems. I can see why that wouldn't sell as much as a jock strap. But, really, do we need the misconceptions and the mystery. Everyone gets to fuck eventually, even the poor children we're protecting from erections and premature ejactulations.

When reality tv is so hot, that's still blanked out. Hear me America? You're doing it wrong! You're not protecting anyone, if you did you wouldn't have the teenage pregnancy rate you do.

Hear me Sweden? You're doing it slightly wrong too. I don't want to have sex in cars, on picnic tables, in the café bathroom, and I don't want the filth or watching others doing it.

That's really the core isnt it, why we don't see it, they don't want us to feel excluded. We can't participate in something we're only capable of watching. Better to make us think we're in the middle of foreplay and then we go home and have real sex. Where's the paper towel?

Reruns, part one

(Originally posted August 12 2009)

What became of it

When Internet had it's big breakthrough of becoming mainstream in the mid 90's or so we were all lured here for different reasons, information, politics, nudity, communication, whatever. But what has the 21st century done with this goldrush? The focus has shifted to the users. It's all about US. (Or as I'd like to think ME, ME, ME)

You don't have to write well to be something big online. You don't have to tell the story about your trip. A fast update on Twitter such as "I'm on a train" is enough. A waterout of language if you wish. The focus on text was an issue when I was in high school and we were getting some rather basic information about how to use the Internet. It was discrimiating to those who didn't read an/or write well.

Well that has been taken care of for sure! There's no room for any length it seems. It's all statusmessages and small updates, you don't really learn much of anything, do you? I would have thought these short messages would have become way more popular earlier on when we paid by the minute for the time we spent online. Well, maybe that still holds as a lot of people seem to twitter and facebook through the browser on their phones.

But who are we kidding, really? WIth the endless possibilites of a masscommunication tool we are stuck updating people about sitting on a train, having breakfast, or going to the cornerstore for milk. Does anyone care? I don't. I don't care about different things online than I do offline. If you don't have anything of weight to tell me I don't want to hear it.

We upload videos of ourselves to YouTube and update strangers on our bathroom habits. I'm ashamed. I do it too. I want to be noticed in a medium everyone has access to. (Not everyone, but you know what I mean) I want to be heard, embraced and accepted. Though I'm fighting the same issues here as I do offline. My thoughts are too swirly, I prefer to call it trail of thoughts rather than a train of thoughts as a trail can lead you anywhere but a train has a set destination. Can you tell I just read an update about someone being on a train?

I like reading wellwritten posts that get my head going. So much for being an intellectual snob huh? If I can't be a snob where we had endless possibilites I might have to reinvent myself, so here we go.

What are you doing right now?
Waiting

The colour red

I read an article, in relation to Christmas about the colour red. But there's more to it.

Red takes a big place in several cultures, and religious cermonies, such as weddings, baptisms and funerals. In the Chinese culture (don't worry, I'll get to the Volvo stuff eventually) red means prosperity and happiness while India holds it to be happiness, life, energy and creativity.

Naturally Christianity is more bleak and it's a symbol for shame and guilt, even wrath, one of the capital vices. Is there really a conflict between happiness, life, energy, creativity and wrath? Isn't anger a kind of energy, regardless? Don't we sometimes need to get angry to push forward and actually get to those better places where we can be happy?

A sidenote: Kent's new album holds the title Röd - Red. How much more can it get? Red is here. Even though Christmas is fading for this time.

But first, and foremost red is the colour of love symbolizing passion, desire, sensuality and life. Just look at the expression "red light district". Or the 12 red roses as part of seduction. The metaphor might be platitudinarian, but the message couldn't be more clear "I love you, I want you".

The colour red is deceitful, however. You can't trust a colour that both symbolizes love and hate, capitalism (look at the red FOR SALE signs) and communism. It's the colour of socialism, as well as the colour of the American republican party.

The colour red is seductive and deceptful, is that why we love it, for it's temperament?

A song for a tingling night

Have yourself a Molly little Christmas

I wish all of you a Merry Christmas. I suggest you spend yours like mine, cuddling cute animals, watching movies that makes you cry even though they're supposed to make you laugh and give those you care for a minute of your time. Perhaps two if they've been good.

Right now, Babe and something saffrony.

Poems I wish I had written, part three

i carry your heart with me
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings

Well, congratulations.

In accordance to tradition I decided to clean my house for Christmas. The full works, washing, dusting, but mainly washing throws, blankets and such to get rid of cat hair. The drain in the laundry room was a bit clogged. No big deal. I'll fix it. Yes. I'll fix it. Three buckets of water later, I try again. How do I manage to make it worse by trying to fix it? Five buckets of water later, it must work. Well it doesn't. I'm cold. I'm wet. The house is still messy and the day is pretty much gone. Let's try again! And this time, I get down on your hands and knees and curse. Turn on the water and whine a little. Stomp around in the puddles, thinking "this could have been fun had it not been so pathetically annoying". While I'm trying to keep a cat off my back, quite literally, I scoop up the water, for the mess I've made is way beyond mopping. Oh no! The mopbucket! Water, water, everywhere water, under the shower, under the washing machine, the bucket floats by. I feel as if I'm in that poem I wrote while sitting in a guest house, the one about flying sofas and tigers.

I...just...can't...get...the...tool...far...enough...in. So I bend, I push, I grunt, I pout, I go back to the cursing. Pull some nasty goo out while I hear drip, trip, stomp, swoosh. Hello cat. A happy cat, in the misery made up from water spills and tiled floors (I should say "Thank you God for giving me tiled floors") I sigh and put the cat on top of the washing machine. I can, yes I can, hear him giggling at me. I go back to scooping water off the floor, feeling my heart sinking lower, but I will be damned to be beaten by a drain. It must work, somehow. My stubborness is mighter than my intelligence. Much mightier. So I struggle more. Try even harder, always with the same result.

I can feel the rest of the house bending in over me, the boxes, the curtains, the dishes in the sink, the piles of laundry that brought me to this in the first place, the burnt out candles, the expired milk, the dried in coffee stains, the bottles I ment to recycle, everything at once and by that I'm close to tears. It's not the drain, it's not the mess in the house, it's not the agony of having to have a nice holiday, it's my own shortcomings and trying to accept that I can't do anything I set my heart to.

I can make sense of abstract problems, but I simply cannot fix a clogged drain. (I can cure cancer, I can climb mountains) I can relate Derrida to Almqvist, but I cannot fix a clogged drain. I can avoid answering the phone for weeks, I can write a story about a lactose intolerant mouse, but I cannot fix a clogged drain. I can memorize all of In i öknen ("He clung to me like the drowning") I can train a cat to sit before dinner, I can train it to fetch, but I cannot fix a clogged drain.

I've been beaten at last. My Akilles heal. Who'd have know it'd take a drain to do it? So congratulations, world, you finally beat me.

The aging skin post

You have the power over your wrinkles, the article proclaims. Only 60 per cent of your skin's aging is genetic, so the rest is up to you. Yes, surely that'll help a lot, not being able to blame someone else. The sun and smoking causes the most damage, no suprise there, really. Actually. It was a pretty badly written article, it didn't say much at all. It reported two or three things from as study, then asked a Swedish doctor about it.

What about those other events, such as the frowning? Wouldn't you get more wrinkles if you frown more? Smile more? If you lay flat on your back and don't make a face your entire life, and drink nothing but water and eat exactly what you're supposed to, at the amounts you're supposed to, from the day you're born, will your skin age differently? Shouldn't the studies actually, rather, investigate how the skin keeps those facial expressions? What carves them into the skin to leave permanent markings. And furthermore, are those something we really want rid of?

I do agree that one should stay out of the sun. Every time you tan it's because your skin reacts to damage. And smoking, well yes, one shouldn't smoke (pick whichever reason you want, people still do it). Alcohol is said to have no effect on the skin at all.

The depressing bit is that as soon as the lines are set in the face you really can't get rid of them. But is it so sad? To carry those laughters, those times you cried, those times you lost your head, all on the map the skin creates?

Time is changing

Today's the shortest day of the year. It'll start getting lighter and before you know it I'll actually notice the sun coming up, and have a chance to catch it before it goes back down.

Stealing kisses from a cat

Time escapes us and the notion of time makes it worth while. To steal kisses from a cat. The droopy eyes of a creature in dreams, only half available. Present only to ask you to steal kisses from a cat. Puffs of heated air in a cloud around a being you can't quite leave alone, you have to steal kisses from a cat.

Not being asked, not being let, not being punished for your disobeying those wishes of someone smaller than you while you bend down quickly to steal kisses from a cat. Walk swiftly where you're going to, be careful where you sneak, I promise, it'll make it easier to steal kisses from a cat.

Though, you wouldn't really know, if it was all planned in such a way that while you steal kisses from a cat, it's actually stealing kisses from you.

Twenty below and flurries instead of stars

Yes I know the whole world is covered in snow. Part of it at least. My part especially. It's freezing, it's snowing, the shoes are creaking. What happened?! Wasn't it summer just the other day?

I wish I could see some stars instead of the flakes dangling as if being held up by fishing lines, ready to be jerked back up like a theatre back drop, killing the illusion. Let us bow our heads and remember the summer passed. It was hot, it rained, there was music, it contained trips, books and my arms stretched towards the sky in an attempt to embrace it.

It'll be summer soon again and I'll wonder what happened to winter, I'll wonder how spring managed to escape me and life will change once more. Perhaps it's just the new year howling. I'm ready. Come get me. I don't fear you right this moment, but maybe it's the stage set up that makes me comfortable.

Good night Saab

Thanks a lot GM for pulling the plug on Saab. Trollhättan will die. Swedes will complain. Politicians will be blamed. Surely, it'd be nice to have saved Saab for nationalistic reasons, but to keep a company around that makes a loss of 37 billion kr in 10 years for nostalgic reasons (that's 37 000 000 000 kr) ... I don't know. Of course the news papers are filled with pictures from a golden era, poor people having worked for Saab for 35 years crying "Now what will I do now?". I'm sorry, but I can't answer that question. Get a new job maybe? 15 000 people will lose their jobs. I don't know if you know, but we're not that many people in this little country, so that'd probably even make a dent in the unemployment statistics.

My own idea of Saab doesn't have much to do with the one presented in the media. I remember my aunt's rusty Saabs, the ones with broken mufflers going up and down my street with screaming semi conscious teenagers in the back seat, the working cars of the farmers full of cow droppings and piglets. Not as glamourous as the sales pitch makes it sound is it?

The long term effects would be more interesting to investigate. Will the factory worker die out in Sweden? Will we have to be so centralized that the more rural areas will go the same route as the nostalgic idea of Saab to begin with. Is there no hope? Of course there's hope! Life goes on. It's perfectly fine to miss what has been, the days of safe employment, cheap housing and a sense of that all of Sweden is alive. Parts of Sweden have been dead for a long time. This is just another another nail in the coffin for landsbygdsromantik. Feel free to google that expression. I'm proud of my country, I'm proud over being a Swede. What I'm not so proud of is the tendency to become handicapped in situation where action is needed. The tendency to dwell on what has been. Saab falling apart has been rushing towards us as long as I can remember. It can't really be that big of a suprise.

Saab hasn't even been fully Swedish since the 1980's. In other countries the governments have supported the car industry with more billions, but not here. Kind of ironic when you think about it. But why should they? Saab wasn't technically Swedish. GM has had full ownership since 2000. Is it the Swedish governments responsibility to support a company that, yes has production in Sweden, but the profits end up in a corporate business? This is what the protest of the workers are. They should have helped more. How? I ask you how? Where's the limit? After that help would any company be eligable for help when they can't quite make it? Every little knick knack store, every plumber, every stable. It wouldn't work, would it? The rules should be the same for small and big. And I suppose this is what happens when those rules are applied.

There was a similar situation in the 1990's where the banks got bailed out. Only one bank made it completely without governmental support. If we're going to have a free market, why not let it be free? That is however impossible in Sweden.

We don't have minimum wages, yet employers can't shop around for the cheapest workers as it's regulated between the union and the employers, and no company would like to be black listen for low salaries. I'm all for being able to make enough money from your job to be able to support yourself, but maybe, if we had a roof for how much you should be paid, companies would be able to afford more workers, and unemployment'd drop. At least in theory. Don't be greedy. The more money you make, the more you can afford to spend, prices will go up, and you'll need a raise. It's called inflation. You might have heard of it.

So, good night darling Saab. I'm sure there'll be a special about you on TV soon and Sweden will cry for a car not many of us even wanted.

Question of the day.

Howcome not more stories start with "It took him one hour, twenty minutes and 1200 post its"? And howcome it doesn't get replied to with "I'll keep you posted"?

Happy Birthday CEDAW

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) turns 30 years old today. Read the full convention here. Amazing. The international law of the equal rights for women is slightly older than me, yet, we still have to fight for the same issues. Women still make less money than men, they're still less likely to be hired or be found in power positions, they still do more housework, they're still the ones tending to children more, they're still the ones expected to change their last name (and dare I say, with that part of their identity) upon marrige, medicines are still being developed based on men not women, women are still abused, raped and beaten, sold and traded, women are still a lesser kind of person.

Article five of the convention is about fighting the stereotypes of genders. How are we doing on that? These stereotypes are so set in our culture than we're fooled to believe we chose them. It's not about choosing a pink blanket for a baby girl and a blue blanket for a baby boy. Small things like that don't really matter, it's about the whole idea of men and women. What they're supposed to be and what they actually are. If you're constantly told "it's because you're a girl" or "you're such a woman" of course you'll believe that the personal traits that have more to do with your gender than your personality. Apart from this there are everyday and real issues.

Men and women are not polar opposites. It's not about "culture vs. nature" or "hard vs. soft" It doesn't make you less of a man to make dinner. What saddens me is the fact that we notice when a man makes dinner and it's taken for granted when a woman does it. How often do you hear a man say "Oh my god, I couldn't believe it, she made me dinner last night. It's oh so sweet, I now must be forever grateful and put out for a week straight." Making dinner is expected from women. Always being ready for sex is expected from men. Buying flowers and chocolate is expected from men, and the woman is expected to see this as a sexual invitation and be grateful that be brought her something in return for her preformance. I used these examples because it's something we can relate to, and they're easily identifiable.

What'd happen if we just stopped? If Facebook stopped asking about your gender, if no forms had that little box you tick? If the Oscars didn't have "best male actor" and "best female actress"? Would all of society fall apart? I honestly don't think so. But at the same time I don't think the world is quite ready yet. My worst fear is that it'll never be. That'll we continue to be amazed by female firefighters and male nannies.

This isn't all for the benefit of women, men can, and will benefit from a more fair approach to humankind. Equality is a right, and you should fight for yours, and not see it as a contrast between cleaning a drain and water the plants. You can, and should have the both of both worlds, only when everyone will embrace them both can they be one, and when it is a human world instead of a man's world we won't have to fight any longer.

So no, I don't think we should switch positions, men wearing dresses and women suits. I think you should instead wear what you want instead of it being a reflection of the gender aspects they represent.

Yeah?

Are those of the ironic and sarcastic generation capable of having deep and meaningful relationships without one day jumping out and saying "Ha! You feel for it you naive idiot!"? Maybe it's impossible to be true when you're always saying the big words with a smirk instead of a smile.

Nothing but big fakers, flowing along, leaving aside things like love and guilt and focusing alone on the comic effect of embaressment and evil. What happens to those who refuse to play? Those who actually feel things without a sarcastic distance to the subject. What about all those who eat the foods they enjoy, simply because they enjoy it, not because of a trend, those who celebrate holidays without the condescending approach to tradition, those who say "I love you" and blush instead of taking a breath of air and finishing it with "I also really love cockroaches", those who mean what they say, simply.

Selfpreservation and protection. You can only be fooled so many times without being a cynic, without your heart being a lump of ice. You know what happens to things that are only partly defrosted don't you, when they freeze back over. They become a frosty useless lump.

Tread carefully where you walk. And I don't mean that sacrastically.

Guns and ammunition

By now, it should be clear where I stand on all issues including weapons in general, war and armies and all things associated with it. But as it happens, one of my favorite albums of all time is called Vapen och ammunition. Guess what that is in English. I'll get you a cookie if you get it right, I'll get you one and I'll eat it myself.

What the issue at hand really happens to be is my lack of effective words to curse with. I don't believe in God either, so all those are just out, I don't find them offensive at all. All that stuff about fucking your mother. Well, that's not offensive either. She didn't become a mother without fucking, so I don't really see what the big deal is. Your own mother probably is a bit offensive though. That's the kind of complication I need. But, incest, that's just so obviously wrong from an evolutionary point of view that's not even worth mentioning.

It's about the same with terms referring to body parts. Aren't the bodies the very things that define us? What can be offensive about that? Example. Dickhead. Aren't most men quite fond of their dicks and in particular their dickheads?

So if the basis of cursing is to be offensive, shouldn't it be personalized? Or are words offensive because they're curse words? You'd probably have to pick one side or the other. But, words also evolve and change, the perfect example is the Swedish word kärring, first it simply meant someone you hold dear, as in darling, and now it means bitch. So how does it happen? And what kind of shift of values can we see in the bigger perspective? The value of women, in this example? I doubt that. Maybe it's revolving motion.

Either way, that wasn't what I was trying to say. (Just try to focus kärring) Maybe, we should try to find out what offends those you know the most. Or write it down on a neat little post it and hand it to new acuquaintances, so they know what to say if they feel the need to make you angry. For me, it'd go something like "Hi, I'm Molly, I'm mostly offended by unnecessary violence and weapons. If you want to offend me say 'bomb you Molly' or 'shoot this Molly' or how about 'Why don't you go join the army?'"

Fragments of an association game

Irony, writer unable to write. Solution, none in sight. Sight, something about seeing. Seeing, unclear. Unclear means grumbled. Like the waters on the east coast. Seaweeds chasing legs. Sun too bright. Blinded, blindfolded, tied up, captivated. Swept away. Swept of feet. Fall. Fall is over. Winter now. Cold. Fall. Classes in the fall. An ad that said Art and culturetrips spring and fall - Rome, Paris Provance and English castles and gardens. www.kwkulturresor.se. Something misspelled, but not in the translation. Misplaced. Disgrace. About those dogs. A horrid scene. Was the movie as good as the book? Can't remember. Always better in the head. A tune stuck, playing over and over. Memories on repeat, shuffle button activated. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Laughter randomly shuffled. Wake up laughing. A deer the size of a mouse. A bite electrocuting. It was funny. Wake up laughing. Wake up laughing.

Irony, writer unable to laugh. The funniest clowns. Tears of clowns. Rainbowed tears. Pink popcorn? Like pink cottoncandy. Purple's a fruit. Yellow is a colour. Twenty years ago. The climate change. Unable to change. No change in the pocket. Pocket leaking. Catching a fish. Keep it in a bucket. Those seaweeds, like hands. Clinging to like drowning. Selfcritical drowning. Wash up. Wash out. Wiped away.

Click, click, click labels. Label me. Then I'd know.

Word of the day

You can't break your way through an uphill, so I'm going to try to write my way out of this writer's block. Bear with me.

Word of the day is bungler. Someone who makes mistakes because of incompetence. Anyway I bungled.

My writers block

.

You took the words right out of my mouth

Good to know I put myself in the middle of things...

Get me away from here I'm dying

Get me away from here I'm dying by Belle and Sebastian

Ooh! Get me away from here I'm dying
Play me a song to set me free
Nobody writes them like they used to
So it may as well be me
Here on my own now after hours
Here on my own now on a bus
Think of it this way
You could either be successful or be us
With our winning smiles, and us
With our catchy tunes and words
Now we're photogenic
You know, we don't stand a chance

Oh, I'll settle down with some old story
About a boy who's just like me
Thought there was love in everything and everyone
You're so naive!
They always reach a sorry ending
They always get it in the end
Still it was worth it as I turned the pages solemnly, and then
With a winning smile, the poor boy
With naivety succeeds
At the final moment, I cried
I always cry at endings

Oh, that wasn't what I meant to say at all
From where I'm sitting, rain
Falling against the lonely tenement
Has set my mind to wander
Into the windows of my lovers
They never know unless I write
"This is no declaration, I just thought I'd let you know goodbye"
Said the hero in the story
"It is mightier than swords
I could kill you sure
But I could only make you cry with these words"

Yes, I always cry at endings, but that doesn't mean the ending is bad. It's just an end. Life holds plenty of those.

Maybe I'm just dreaming out loud

Sometimes it just seems like things aren't lined up at all, not until you look back and see that even a zigzag pattern has a fixed middle.

This about bosses and employees

Every now and then I come across an article like this about types of employees. I've seen plenty regarding bosses as well, so it's equal slander. Yet, no matter the actual topic of the article the comments are filled with employees telling stories about their bosses and how they themselves'd do the job so much better. If I was basing my knowledge about managers/bosses/whatevers only on the comments to such articles I'd think that they were all psychopaths.

Am I a pshychopath? Do employees realize that a boss has to take everyone into concideration? And not only everyone but everything. Availability of the employees to fit peak seasons and hours, the aspect of making everything run smoothly. And then there's the thing about sometimes feeling like you're running a daycare. Constant gossiping, people who don't like each other, people who love each other too much. Stealing, being late, leaving early, private phonecalls during business hours. Sick leave, vacation time. It's a puzzle where someone's going to feel taken advantage of. I made it easy and made myself the one taken advantage off. Days off were granted just because I didn't feel like listening to the whining. I picked up things undone because discussing it would have taken longer than simply doing it myself. I know it was wrong of me to do so, but some just had a tendency to not-work-themselves-out-of-a-job.

Now, I musn't forget to say that I've had excellent employees as well. Those who manage to work as a team, preform their tasks with, not always accuracy, but with excellent intentions. I didn't mind mistakes. Rather they try and fail a little bit than not try at all. With them things had a way of working out. That's what I always liked, smooth sailing and an easy going attitude. They were rewarded for their efforts, good moods and flexibility. So it is possible for a boss to like employees.

I really don't see what the big deal is. I've been an employee too, I didn't pop out my mother being a boss, and surely some people aren't great leaders, not saying I was one either, sometimes I just wish that more employees understood that a boss needs a wider perspective than the single employee. If the office has one window, not all can sit by it. If the business is up and running on Midsummer, someone is going to have to be there. It's as simple as that. And as far as doing personal things when you're at work. I'm torn. I've done it, but basically as an employee you're paid to do a job, and especially if you're hourly, you're supposed to be working during those hours, not talk on the phone or ponder the meaning of life. You get paid for your time, the company is buying that time. The company doesn't own you, but it does own the minutes you're there. You'd like to get paid for what you do right? I'm sure the company wants to get what they're paying for as well.

It's easy to focus on your own aggrieved position, maybe it's hard to see that another 32 people are quite pleased with the situation. If you find yourself in that place often, perhaps it's simply time for you to either change jobs or change your attitude towards your job. The boss isn't automatically the bad guy just because s/he's the boss.

It's about people really. You're not more likely to get along with someone at work that you wouldn't get along with outside of work. I guarantee you, your boss does care about you, at least a little bit, for the sake of being human but s/he doesn't really care about your personal life any more than you do about his or hers.

Personally I don't see what's so hard about showing up and doing what you're supposed to do. Trust me, I'll never be a boss again. Whiny employees who don't know how good they really have it is one of my biggest pet peeves. When all is said and done about school I hope I'll eventually get a job, and I'll be good and do as asked and not worry about the bigger picture anymore.

How to put up the tree in Molly's house

Start out with locating the boxes. Avoid stepping on cats. Once found, pick them up and curse the tape that doesn't hold them together anymore. Try to get the cats out of the storage room without stepping on them or dropping the boxes. Take it easy down, to avoid death by Christmas.

Once downstairs, open the box with the tree and ponder why parts of it is white, then remember you got it cheap because of those white spots, also pick up a mirror to see if you have any grey hairs yet. Start putting the tree together. Remove cats from tree. Wonder why you have a fake tree when you live surrounded by evergreens, but slap that idea of going out in the forest away and remember how muddy you get and how heavy it is and keep in mind that you don't have a tree foot anyway. (Even though you do, somewhere) Remove cats from tree.

Move the catbed and the lamp to get the corner ready. Ignore evil stares from cat. Put a toy in the catbed in it's new place and speak in a silly voice to prove the new spot is even better. Put bandaids on your booboos. Put the catbed back, along with the lamp and give the cat treats so that he'll find it in his heart to forgive you. Wonder how you ever got the idea to move the ugly purple and black shagbed to make room for a pretty tree.

Move the palm plant to make new spot of the tree. Lug it over there. Remove other cat from tree. Begin to untangle lights. Remove cats from cord. Attempt to put the lights on and come to the same realization you did last year. You can't do it by yourself. Ask someone to help. Wait for response. Remove cat from tree. Ask for help again. Remove cat from tree. Get frustrated and pout. Laugh at cat wrestling with tree. Wait for help and remove cat from tree.

Explain the new location of the tree to said help. Sit around and wait for help to do everything but help. Hold lights for help and try not to be in the way. Make smalltalk. "Yay!" a little when it's done. Remove cats from box of ornaments.

Put the glitter up. Sigh when you don't have enough and try to distribute it as evenly as you can. Tie strings to all the ornaments as those have magically disappeared from last year. Giggle at the glittery snowflakes. Throw a cat toy to keep them occupied. Feel your mood raising by each ornament. Ask for help to put the topper on. Sit back and enjoy. Remove cat from tree.

Take a picture and try to upload it to your computer. Fail. Repeat. Fail. Repeat. Succeed. Post picture on blog and know that you think it's prettier than it actually is, because after all, it's your tree.

That song

Figured I should actually post the song too, even if it's a couple of days late.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Franz Ferdinand, Ulysses.

Waiting is better than having

Tomorrow's the second week of advent. Yes, I celebrate Christmas even though I'm not religious, but I'm quite willing to overlook everything churchy just for the lights, the scents and the movies on TV.

There's something else to it though, the notion of moving towards a fixed point rather into a vast open field of nothingness. December with it's advent offers a break from the endless oceans of time and with presents in the end. Though, wanting is better than having. Once you have, there's no more wanting, no more longing, and very rarely does it even begin to meet your expectations.

When Christmas Eve has already been it's done. Finito. What good were those presents, did you get what you wanted? Is your stomach full and your bank account empty? So really, advent is better, candles and oranges.

No matter how it feels in the middle of March when everything's slush and damp, we're still moving towards a fixed point, the final end, and you can't take all those things with you when you go.

Award for most creative lyrics goes to...

Whoever composed this version of Ulysses by Franz Ferdinand. Within parenthesis is how it actually goes, and some other stuff.

While I sit in here, a sentimental face stares (I sit and hear sentimental footsteps)
And a voice says hi so (Then a voice say "Hi, so?)
So what you gotta what you gotta disdain (So what you got? What you got this time?)
C’mon let’s get high (at least this part was right...)
C’mon look so, you got next oh (Come on lexxo, what you got next-o)
Walk twenty five miles oh (kinda right yeah...)
Well I’m bored I’m bored (Mhmm)
C’mon let’s get high

C’mon let’s get high
C’mon let’s get high
High

Well I found a new way (I've found a new way)
I found a new way
C’mon doll and use me (wtf... it goes "come on don't amuse me")
I don't need your sympathy (this is right though)

La, la la la la
Ulysses
I'll find a new way
I'll find a new way, baby

My Ulysses, My Ulysses (Am I Ulysses? Am I Ulysses?)
No, bet you are now, boy (No, but you are now, boy)
So sinister, so sinister (good.)
Last night was wild (good good)
What’s a matter there, feeling kinda anxious?
That heart that grew cold (That hot blood grew cold)
Yeah everyone, everybody knows it
Yeah everyone, everybody know it
Everybody knows I

La, la la la la
Ulysses
I'll find a new way
I'll find a new way, baby

La, la la la la
Ulysses
I’ll find a new way
Well I'll find a new way, baby oh …

Oh, then suddenly you know
You're never going home
You're never you're never you're never you're never you're never you're never
You're never going home.

Not Ulysses, baby.
No, la la la la whooo whoo
You’re not Ulysses, whooo whoo
La la la la, whooo whoo

I mean, seriously, sentimental face stares??

For the sake of time

In Sweden we have the tradition of letting children take music classes, usually starting around 3rd or 4th grade. Getting to leave class to go toot a trumpet or bang a piano seemed like a waste of time. My best part of the day was when two bullies had lessons right after one another, they never came back on time and the room settled. Even back then I couldn't quite grasp the concept of musical notes, so I never learned. Not even playing twinkle twinkle little star on the piano or flute. According to my high school music teacher I'm not worthy of living.

I'm wondering how many of those people still play their horns, drums, clarinet or violin. Did they keep it up for long after it offered an escape from class or was just a ploy to make kids into musicians?

There were concerts too, endless concerts with instruments out of tune. The idea wasn't really to teach anyone to play well, it was more under the banderole that anyone can, everyone's good, if only they try. Those poor souls that didn't participate in the concerts were forced to listen, as I recall we were five children. Five to applaud twentyfive. Do the math for an entire school...

I would like to see some statistics for how it was in different parts of the country, and not only in this god fearing area full of farmers and factory workers. (Dear Molly, that was such an evil thing to say) But seriously, I have a point in that. Maybe it's more appealing to those who didn't have classical music around them anyway, to those whose mother didn't say "Listen to this sweetheart, can't you just hear how the build up fills your whole being and then explodes in your heart?", repeatedly playing the same symphonies over and over. And maybe I would have been able to enjoy the out of tune concerts myself had I not been dolled up as a child and taken to places a child had no place.

So I suppose I should be grateful that they were given the chance to discover the things I was given for free. Just like I had to learn to play soccer and hockey. I never would have gotten the idea to try had it been up to me. It saddens me that the activities I had an actual intrest in weren't part of the curricilum so the soccer nerds never had to learn to ride horses.

School isn't only about teaching you to read and write, it's also about showing you new things, something that doesn't have anything to do with your family and friends, a chance for you to grow and discover who you will eventually become.

For me, that ment I discovered I'll never be able to read music, and I ice skate better than I kick a ball and I have no personal use for the periodic table, but that's a completely different story. My love for books, words, music from another angle, cats and the colour red has completely different origins. Although, I will give school some credit for helping me with the basics of a different language.

Thank you.

Today I sat in a hallway reading a book. Sinking into it word by word only being flung back to reality occationally by the sound of a piano out of tune, heels clicking on marble floors and held back laughter. I smiled, but wasn't fully aware of what was going on around me. The building is interesting, it's floors almost lavitating around a tube in the middle, looking down or up gives you a glance of what's going on beneath or what's over your head. The more I listened the more quiet the world grew, eventually it was just me, words, piano and laughter, and those occational heel clicks.

I felt as if though I should throw my head back and let my hair flow down over the ledge of the floor, the air catching it and blowing it towards my face. I didn't. That would have been silly. Yet I was filled by an essence too satisfying to deny. I'm here and I'm part of something.

Thank you world for reminding me of your presence and thank you for letting me be part of it.

Oh the humanity!

Quote of the day "I compare these versions, but they're different, and you can't compare them."

Que?

Tuesdays are the new black

I was flipping through the paper, trying to find something to catch my eye. Can't be bothered with the referendum in Schwitzerland. Democracy is more important than religion. Too bad that it looks like racism though.

Flipping pages, governmentally owned Swedish powercompany Vattenfall has bought coal plants somewhere, not every smart, we should care about the enviroment more.

Flipping pages, less men die of cancer. Lovely. Perhaps I should read this. I might find useful bits of information.

Flipping pages, animal rights activists in Spain. Something about blood and being naked. Good cause, naked isn't the way to go, who cares about naked people?

Flipping pages, Swedes demand the names of the people in the WHO committee... Oh, it's about the vaccine again, don't really care. It'd be ironic if I caught the swine flu and died. Or the oink oink disease. Did you know that they don't want to call it the swine flu in Swedish schools as it enhances the muslims' idea of the pig being a filthy animal. I wonder if that is related to the referendum in Schwitzerland?

Flipping pages, the jellyfish is as big as horses and invading the coast of Japan. Makes me think of that video with the leopard seal. You know, the one that tried to feed the photographer. It made for a good YouTube. I watched it several times actually. It's a book too. Hm, a Christmaspresent for someone perhaps? Only two more to buy. So many bizzare creatures in the waters. Like whales. Good God. Whales are scary.

Flipping pages, sports, ugh. Sports need to be banned.

Quickly flipping pages, Russia stops all imports of Swedish meat. Why? Not interesting enough to justify reading the article.

Flipping pages, WARNING!!!! WINTER IS COMING!!! Seriously. It's Sweden. It's December. It's nice when it snows. Drinking tea and watching the flurries. I hope they're right for a change.

Flipping pages, stuff about the train in Russia, something about Tiger Woods, something about weight loss, something about an ad for Gilette, something about a disposable toilet. What? Will help the people in the slum in India. Good for them. How are we doing on toiletpaper? It can probably wait til next time I'm at the store.

Flipping pages, Saab in a meeting with GM. Hm, they'll be milking it for all it's worth. Not sure which party I'm refering to. I've already started planning what I need to do when I'm done reading the paper. I've never actually owned a Saab. Maybe I should buy one. A pink one, like that other article I flipped past, something about Paris Hilton. I don't think that was Saab though. Maybe they should make more fun cars and people'd buy them. Like really interesting stuff. Speakers on the outside and blinking lights and things. Yeah.

Flipping pages, the FRA law goes into effect today. I should stop my downloading. Oh yeah, I don't download stuff, I stream instead. I like Spotify. Works for me, who needs a bunch of stuff you'll get tired of eventually on their harddrive. Perhaps I should actually read more about the FRA so I don't accidently commit a crime.

I think the laundry is done. Good Lord I hate Tuesdays.

Here's looking at you kid - sing me those sad songs

Hold your breath until you turn blue in the face, complain until the world is just the way you want it, then change your mind. I changed my mind, I take it back. Let me start over. Like the soccerplayer kicking a ball around just because he can, a show off I'd like to tell you a story about May in 2003, or perhaps one about fall of 2001 instead. They're almost the same.

The rattling sound of a bikechain badly in need of oil and the rythm of cobblestones through my cells. Slower tones in my ears than the pedals give away and I float and soar just slightly over those sounds. Here's looking at you kid. Can you see your face in the puddles of water when you rush by?

It was getting really cold and the sun had vanished for a while. I didn't long for the warmth, I was warm instead. This is where May differs from fall. With May the swallows hold promises of a long summer that usually just rains away. So fall is a bit better anyway. You expect the rain and everything else is a bonus.

So let's decide it was fall. Yes, that sounds good. Where was I? Oh yes, rain and sun and such. My coat was black, black like the pavement, black as my soul. That last bit was a joke, come on, I know you were expecting it. But it wasn't. It really wasn't. And if it was it was because it was a black hole that had absorbed all the light surrounding it. Was my soul black or wasn't it? It doesn't really matter now anyway. It's a fond memory, if I hold my hands out where the handlebars should be placed I can still feel it, and if I peer my eyes I can still feel the watering from the wind beating at them.

It was usually windy you see, there by the sea. The wind would blow through bone and marrow. I didn't mind. I didn't mind that either. I didn't mind the dark afternoons, the cold and gushing winds, the shaking of my bike to make me shiver, I was just in a good place.

Sing me those sad songs, I miss those days when I didn't have time to listen but did anyway. Are you feeling the cobblestones in your May or November?

Take what you please.

The bottom of the barrel

There are plenty of things to worry about in the modern age, what clothes to wear, which shoes go with what, what should I do when I get a job, who should I marry, how fast does my Internet need to be, how many channels on TV, how big is my credit card debt, which celebrity is sleeping with who, what song is at the top of the charts, where should we spend the holidays, gas car or diesel, some of these questions are universal over time, some not so much, but the one we might take a bit too much for granted is how will I live, and where will I live.

Imagine not having a home. Imagine not having to worry about the curtains, the dishwasher, if that chair blocks the door, the heating or anything of such sort. Having a home does bring a lot of problems, but they should be a lovely chore. A home represents so much of who you are and what you've accomplished in life.

It's a place where you can keep your things so you don't have to carry them around, it's a place to rest and relax. It's a basic need. Housing now is different than it has been. Noone in the western world would like a place without indoor plumbing and a fire place as the only source of heat, but that is how it's been for more time than we've had dining rooms and second bathrooms. What we're used to today is just a blink of an eye of human time. It's more expensive than we'd like to have the things we refer to as being basic. Poverty shows in your lack of electronics and things. Why is it so hard to let go of the things to live a bigger life?

I find the most depressing shows on TV, and yes indeed, I saw one about being homeless, and just like with all my other fears I look straight at it. I wish I couldn't imagine being homeless, it's a curse of the vivid imagination that I can. Yes, I've lived in places too small to fit a goldfish, places where things don't work, places where I had to share space, but I have never been homeless, even if all my belongings have been packed in boxes.

Who do we loathe and avoid in the street? Those who don't seem like "us", those with greasy hair and stone washed jeans, What I learned from the documentary is that it might be even more important for the homeless interviewed to keep up the physical apperance, just to avoid those looks and the stereotypical view of those without homes.

Here I sit in a house with too many rooms. I'm still not satisfied, no, I have too much. My happiest times have always been times of nothings, it made the struggles worth while. From the outside I have a good life, but what do we know about the struggles of others?

I don't think that housing politics is the only explaination for homelessness, but it is more than likely part of it, and it's not the regional politics that's the issue, it's the national one. Also, it has to do with the reluctancy to move to other places here cheap places to live are available. That's how I manage to sit in a house with too many rooms.

A safe and adequate home should not depend on your financial status, it's a human right to feel at home, even if that home just happens to be one room to fit a life into. And no, people without homes don't "have themselves to blame", even though I'm not naive enough to think they themselves didn't have anything to do with it. Sometimes life just doesn't offer the second chances even after we've paid our dues. Hopefully my housing luck will continue even if it means I buy my clothes on sale, watch a TV I was given, have the heat set to low, eat falukorv and toast and only have basic cable.

Mhmm

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Children's songs

My favorite songs as a child was one about Smurfs drinking raspberry lemonade, a snail that should avoild getting caught, a sleeping bear, about a kid that got lost in the woods, and a cat in labour pains. I also enjoyed a ryhme about some monkeys that fell off a bed and went to see the doctor, well one died, but that was the best part.

On TV I watched shows like the one where a boy kepts losing his toy mole and it almost finding death, a grown man with a beard telling stories to dolls in his bed, about toys that were malfactured and broken, this was all spiced up with children dressed in red shirts singing the aforementioned songs.

I wouldn't be the nerd I am without mentioning the books I read, it was one about Alfons Åberg and his imaginary friend. It totally freaked me out, as I had a hard enough time seperating dreams from reality as it was. Then it was Ronja Rövardotter, about the daughter of a robber that lived in the woods. Hm, what else, there was one called Mio min Mio about a boy that died and went to different stages of lands of sagas, signifying different levels of death.

In a way, it's a wonder that my whole generation isn't insane.

Poems I wish I had written, part two

ATT LEVA
Karl Vennberg

Att leva är att välja
och hur hänförande stort är inte valet
mellan betongmuren
och de sönderfläkta naglarna

O ungdom som kastar dig ur sängen
för att få hjulet i rörelse
och vända på världen
medan dagarna kryper som ormar
kring min tomhet
och vänskapen stramar som rep
kring mitt guppande adamsäpple

Endast gubbklådan
håller mina händer i verksamhet
över slutrökta cigarretter
och sönderbombade stationer

Varför skulle jag inte minnas
eller ge upp hoppet
längta efter betongmuren eller hjulet
tomhetens ormar
eller vänskapens rep

Att leva är att välja
O saliga val
mellan det likgiltiga
och det omöjliga

(TO LIVE

To live is to choose
and the entry is not much choice
between the concrete wall
and the broken fan nails

O youth who throw you out of bed
to get the wheel in motion
and turn the world
while the days creep like snakes
around my emptiness
and friendship are tightening the rope
around my Adam's apple bobbing

Only the old man's itch
keep my hands in the business
over the final smoked cigarettes
and bombed stations

Why would I not remember
or give up hope
long for the concrete wall, or wheel
emptiness snakes
or friendship rope

To live is to choose
O blessed choice
between the indifferent
and the impossible)

The other tale of change

Sometimes even I forget that change and chance is only a letter apart. You already know the clichés, "God doesn't close a door without opening a window", that particular one I don't believe in myself for all the reasons you already know, and also, I don't see jumping out a window as a very good option, we all know what kind of people who end up leaving through windows. Burglars and lovers.

In a way those who have more in common than we think. They both break in where they aren't necessarily welcome and they take things with them that weren't intended for their eyes and hands, hiding from the world, sin and shame.

I've never seen a bird fly so high it didn't have to come down either, so the best in all things is to not lose one's head, no matter how tempting it seems. So in all sincerity what the world as a whole really needs is a big revolution to give us a kick to move forward, a mental revolution, if you will, to get us out of our own heads and open us up to a new beginning.

The swine flu failed my hopes of being that factor to overthrow all known reason and toss us into a new era, it's not the new black death, no new cholera, no new AIDS. No wars were started to get the vaccine. I'm disapointed.

So when God closed that door to my hopes I must get a chain saw and cut open a new hole so I can breathe, and fly, but not so high I forget what the ground feels like beneath my feet.

Poems I wish I had written, part one

INGENTING
Edith Södergran

Var lugn, mitt barn, det finnes ingenting,
och allt är som du ser: skogen, röken och skenornas flykt.
Någonstädes långt borta i fjärran land
finnes en blåare himmel och en mur med rosor
eller en palm och en ljummare vind -
och det är allt.
Det finnes icke något mera än snön på granarnas gren.
Det finnes ingenting att kyssa med varma läppar,
och alla läppar bli med tiden svala.
Men du säger, mitt barn, att ditt hjärta är mäktigt,
och att leva förgäves är mindre än att dö.
Vad ville du döden? Känner du vämjelsen hans kläder sprida
och ingenting är äckligare än död för egen hand.
Vi böra älska livets långa timmar av sjukdom
och trånga år av längtan
såsom de korta ögonblick då öknen blommar.

(NOTHING

Be calm, my child, there is nothing,
And everything is how you see: the forest, the smoke the race of the rails.
Somewhere far away in a foreign land
The sky is bluer and a wall with roses
Or a palm tree or a tepid breeze –
And that is all
There is no more snow on the branches of the spruce
There is nothing to kiss with lips so warm
And all lips will in time grow cold
But you say, my child, your heart is powerful,
And to live for nothing is less than dying.
What wanted you with death? Too feel the disgust spread by his robe
And nothing is worse than death by ones own hand.
We shall love the long hours of life filled of disease
And cramped years of longing
So as the short moments when the desert’s in bloom)

Books, books, books

Thank God for Hjalmar Söderberg.

After reading who the winners of Augustpriset are this year, I must sigh. Congratulations however! Well done!

After being polite I can continue to discuss something else. It's clearly too predictable which kind of books which will win awards. Books written about minorities, and books about being a minority, or being oppressed. Be black, be a woman, be jewish, be whatever, and write a book about it, you're bound to win an award. Just a tip.

Anyway there's a certain kind of inflation in it, how many holocaust books do we have to read? How much kitchen realism? How many books about overthrowing racist ideas and laws? I'm hardly saying it's not important, but, what kind of favor are we really doing? If we are going to be equals shouldn't we do it on equal terms. Is the art of a book about a middle class man less art that that of a black working class woman? Shouldn't it really be about the way the writer uses the tool of language to compose something? All rhetorical questions, but that's besides the point.

In a way this is what I was trying to get at in my "on the other side of feminism" post, highlighting other groups is great, for a while, at one point in time it has to be normalized instead of marginalized, and the compensation has to stop.

I want to be good at what I do as a person, not as a woman. Perhaps the winners of awards should ask themselves why they won, is it because of literary talent, the subject of the work, the composition, or their place in the sliding scale of society?

I do not want the days back where writing was for the male upper classes alone, and I'm looking forward to the day where art is able to stand on it's own two feet instead of being a political beet.

We can't all be special

You can do anything they say, you can be anything they say, you're so beautiful they say, you're so funny they say, you're so clever they say, you're so witty, they say, anything you set your mind to, they said, everything will turn out for you, they said, everyone loves you, they said, everyone adores you, they said, you're perfect they said.

It wasn't even true while it's being said. If it had been the whole world would be made up out of winners and success, and sadly we know it isn't so. Instead we're taught to run in blind, in an equal race of equal chances, because indeed, we're all equals and with that comes being equally special. But isn't it in the definition of special that it stands out from the crowd, and can those who are less than equal adapt the word and make it less special than it is.

Before I continue I must stress that I do believe in the equality of man, and woman, and no matter your ailment or shortcoming you are still a person, and you matter. You're the same person with or without limbs with or without your sanity.

For when we call a person special we mean to call them extraordinary and exquised, something rare and good. We don't mean to call them handicapped. This is really a sidenote, but in reality, what has it done to the word "special" to be put in the context of special olympics? I have no better word for it, no, really, I don't, as "handicapped" focuses on what they can't do, not what they can. Shouldn't the special olympics be for those who are extraordinary at their game? Or is the regular olympics, indeed, the special olympics of the heart? Do we really make it better by belittling those who already face great challenges by calling them "special"? It devalues the word, in an instant, and perhaps we should call those without physical limitations able bodies, and then somehow calculate a percentage for the rest, such as "you're 97% able bodied". But that'd probably offend someone. It's so easy to be offended and it's even easier to offend.

The thing is though, if we're all special, noone's special at all, then we succumb to the grey wet mass we're trying to get away from. So, please, use your words of affection sparingly for when they're just burting out from your very being.

I'm nothing special. I'm just me, and I don't need to be told otherwise. I'm fine, honestly, I'm better than fine, I'm me, and that is indeed, something special.