On embracing chaos

It's my new motto. Embrace the chaos.

It's my new motto: Embrace the chaos.

It's my new motto; embrace the chaos.

It's my new motto — embrace the chaos.

I couldn't decide which punctuation worked better, so I chose them all
(It's my new motto.:;— E[e]mbrace the chaos.)

Most people use punctuation to avoid chaos. I'm not most people. Besides,

besides

besides, punctuation is chaos. To me.

So I'm embracing it.

Chaos is everywhere. Chaos is everything. Chaos is a movie starring Ryan Philippe, Jason Statham and Wesley Snipes. Chaos is "a state of utter confusion or disorder; a total lack of organization or order." Chaos is (religion) a chasms or abyss; it is (science) any state of confusion or disorder, plus a branch of mathematics and physics; it is (in the Discordian calendar) a month. Chaos is punctuation. Chaos is being punctured by chaos.

My head is chaos.

Chaos = my head = chaos.

Stop thinking so much, they say. I have no means to do so. Besides,

besides,

Chaos = my head - thinking = chaos.

(This is a very specialized version of chaos theory. A branch of mathematics and physics.)

I cannot stop thinking. I cannot even stop thinking so much. Define "so much". Definitions are meant to make things less chaotic. But then there are so many of them. =chaos.

My only remaining solution.

Embrace.

Embracing the chaos.

Letting it surround me.

Inviting more of it in.

Maybe I'll explode.

Or implode.

Either way explained by a complex branch of mathematics and physics, I'm sure.



On bags

I recently got a new bag.

It was a good bag. A great bag. I had been searching for one for a while, and there it was. The first one I spotted in the shop. It was surprisingly easy to find, and the price was right.

So I bought it. Started using it immediately. Put all my other bags away. And it felt good. I liked using it. I liked the way it looked on me. Liked the things I did with it

Still. It wasn’t perfect. There was nothing objectively wrong with it – the bag looked good, I felt good with it, it was exactly the kind of bag I’d needed. But there was this small voice in my head, whispering that this bag wasn’t what I *really* wanted. That I liked it because it was easy and comfortable, but that I didn’t love it. Not really. As long as there wasn’t anything wrong with the bag, however, and as long as I didn’t have any other bags that seemed better, I faithfully stuck with the one I had.

Then, one day, the bag broke.

I hadn’t had it for long – only about a month. There was no warning – the bag went from great to broken with one tiny snap. The strap tore off, and just like that, I was without a bag.

I thought about going back to the store and complain. It was a new bag, and it should last longer than a month. I also thought about fixing the bag – maybe the strap could be sewn back on and everything would be as before?

In the end I didn’t do any of those things. I accepted that the bag broke. After all, I was partially to blame. I’d probably put too much stuff in the bag, causing the fabric to rip prematurely. It probably would have been broken sooner or later anyway, but this way I didn’t have the time to get too attached to the bag. Besides, now that I started to think of it, there were things about the bag that I hadn’t liked. It put a little too much strain on my shoulder, for instance. I’d been willing to ignore that since I liked the bag, but now that it was broken, I realized that this was something that with time could have become a real problem. Better to nip it in the bud than to end up with an injured shoulder.

Should I get a new bag? I thought about that too. Even browsed a few stores. But in the end I’m strangely okay with not having a bag right now. I’m not even sure what sort of bag I’m looking for, so for the moment I feel fine without one.

Instead I found an old tote I can use until I know what it is I really want.

For now, that’s enough. 

On ghosts

I like to keep an open mind. But frankly, I'm not very good at it. The last few weeks in my lodgings in Tokyo, several of my housemates started talking about a ghost. Apparently, we had a ghost. Strange sounds were heard, and some people got quite scared. I didn't much believe in the ghost in the first place, and when I heard who was the origin of the tales, I believed it even less. One of our residential Aussies is renowned for being full of crap - in a good way - but nevertheless. I confronted him, and normally I'd expect to find him caving to me demanding the truth relatively quickly. But this time he seemed serious. Serious about there being strange sounds.

To me, there is always a rational explanation. We might not know what it is. We might never find out. But that in itself isn't enough to assume that there is a supernatural reason why spirit boards move, why "white ladies" appear in empty houses or why strange sounds are heard in a shared house with 17 people with most varying rhythms and habits. Just sayin' - there are no strange sounds in that environment...

What amazed me more than the fact that people failed to see this connection, however, was that so many of them accepted the paranormal explanation. Normal, rational people - but most of them would readily believe in ghosts. And before you knew it, the house was swarming of stories of walking killer brides, grandmothers that just would not rest in peace, and other scary things. All of a sudden I became something of a misfit in the house, as I was one of the few that insisted that all of this probably had a natural explanation. I was - shockingly - accused of being too logical!

Maybe I am. Maybe I need to open my mind and accept that there are things out there we cannot explain, and that instead of being a sign of human limitations, that is a sign of supernaturalism. Maybe. I had a reminder the other day, though, that I wasn't always this logical.

Being back in my hometown after months abroad always makes me look around to see if there are any major changes. This time there was one. The "haunted house" of my childhood was gone. It's just a house, like any other. But it's been standing empty for decades, and no one has been taking care of it. Gradually, without the proper maintenance, it's been turning into a mere shell of the grand house it once was.

When I was younger, it used to be such a thrill for my friends and me to dare each other to enter the garden. We never even contemplated entering the house. It was haunted, after all. We were convinced.

One friend and I managed to scare ourselves witless one night. Or "night" - it was probably not very late (as we were eleven-ish, we clearly had a curfew). We were out in the garden, it was dark (even with the curfew, Norway gets dark at night in winter-time, and I know it was winter because there was snow). For some reason we decided to make a snowman. But no ordinary snowman, of course. A corpse-snowman...

We made what looked a lot like a female figure, lying down on the ground in the haunted garden. We thought of a story for her - a jealous lover, of course. A tragic death. Burial in the garden (a garden we imagined much like the one from The Secret Garden, by the way - even though it of course was nothing like it). The tale we spun became so vivid to us, that we almost started believing in it. Before we knew it, we thought we saw the murderer on the balcony of the house. We fled the garden in haste, not returning for days.

When we finally returned, the snow had almost melted. Our snowman corpse should have been all gone. But where she had been, the snow had shaped a figure much like the one we made - but much more life-like - out of the rotten grass and leaves underneath it. This time it really looked like a corpse was lying there in the haunted garden.

The stories we had made up came back to us, more scary than ever. And suddenly we were convinced it was a curse - that we were now cursed for having seen the corpse, and that a ghost would then haunt us for the rest of our days!

I haven't seen or heard from this ghost since. Maybe it finally caught up with me in Tokyo. It must have disappointed it greatly to find that I no longer believed in it. By now I am more concerned that the old house the ghost came from finally was torn down. I guess the house could not be saved - in its current condition any renovation would have been futile. But I'm not too keen on what is likely going to be the alternative - some apartment complex, I'm guessing. And I'm a little sorry for future generations of kids who will not get to exercise their imagination in our good, old haunted house.

On pictures and words

If 1 picture > 1000 words, could you watch 473 pictures and say you've read The Lord of the Rings?

Could you take 50 snapshots, and claim to have "won" NaNoWriMo? 

Could you query an agent, pretending that you only took 80 pictures, while you actually sneaked (sorry, Tami, snuck) an additional 12 into the album?

I think not. Though sometimes a picture is worth quite a lot of words. Like this one: 

By my count, it is worth 179 words. 

You'll have to swing by Burrowers, Books & (today more than ever) Balderdash to find out which words. 

On why it is a bad idea to celebrate the year of the rabbit by rabbitifying your store

"Frank", from "Donnie Darko"

"Francine"(?) from Harajuku, Tokyo

At least Francine didn't tell me that the world would end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds.

On wishful thinking

A list of things I wish I could do, but really can’t:

• Play the piano.



• Find a pair of shoes that won’t make my feet hurt.



• Pilot an airplane, no, wait – a hot air balloon! That would be awesome!



• Pull of any shade of red hair.



• Speak French. Or Japanese. Or Russian. Or basically any language that isn’t Norwegian, English, or Fairy-Swedish.



• Time travel.



• Read only one book at the time.



• Sow. Though I am rather fond of the opinion of Kristin Scott Thomas’ character in The English Patient in this respect: "A woman should never learn to sew, and if she can she shouldn't admit to it." ~ Katharine Clifton.



• Ice skate backwards. Really, I have NO idea how they do it!



• Use my Japanese phone to anything besides making and answering calls. What’s the point of having a high-tech phone if you don’t understand how it works?



• Get up early enough in the morning so that I don’t have to run to work.



• Become – and stay – organized in every aspect of my life.



• Lick my elbow. (You had to try, didn’t you?)



• Finish this blog post in a meaningful way.



• Giraffe. 

On bloodvampiresthoughneverbuffythinglikelovetwilightwerewolvesprobablytrue

I am so confused. I have never been a fang-girl, but since vampires have been hard to avoid these last few years, I haven’t managed to escape them entirely.

I watched Buffy when I was growing up, and I sort of liked it. I didn’t *l♥ve* it like some of my friends, but I enjoyed it. Mostly because of the girl power message, and more importantly, I adored Spike and the quirky relationship between him and Buffy. 

When Twilight became a thing, I deliberately stayed away. Especially because one of the first people to tell me about these books confessed she was in love with Edward. I wanted to tap her shoulder and tell her that not only was he dead, and sort of creepy, but he was also fictional. I couldn’t bring myself to destroy her delusion, though…

However much I loved to hate Twilight, I caved this summer. I watched the first two movies in shameful solitude, and I was talked into seeing the third in a theatre with friends (which was sort of fun, because we kept laughing at unintentional jokes. This probably was more fun for us than for those who were there because they actually wanted to see the movie, though…). 

I first heard of True Blood through a friend who loves fantasy literature and movies. Thus I never really took much notice of it, because she tells me about a lot of books and shows that never really become a thing (and that definitely isn't my kind of thing). This one became one, though. I haven’t read the books (I’ve looked at them, but they didn’t strike my fancy), but I have watched the show, and I love it. Not for the vampires per se, but because of the feel of it. That swampy, creepy, clammy, vintage, Southern, sexy feel of it. The music, the lighting, the actors (“Hallå, Alexander Skarsgård!”), and sure – the vampire thing too. But mostly because the vampire stigma is used as a clever parallel to real life discrimination. The poster shown during the opening credits says it all: “God hates fangs”. Doesn’t that sound oddly familiar? If True Blood can help even a little bit to raise awareness or make someone reconsider their prejudices, it's all good in my book. 

However, there is a problem with all this vampirety we're dodging on a daily basis. 

I am getting my mythology all messed up. I can’t keep True Blood vampires from the Twilight ones. I keep thinking that Buffy taught me that vampires can be killed with a wooden stake and then they turn to dust, but in Twilight they break like porcelain (what’s that all about?) and then you set fire to them. In True Blood there appears to be several methods, but they ain't dead 'till they turn into mushy goo.

Also, as far as I can remember vampires aren’t supposed to be able to go out in daylight. In Twilight this is just a myth – they can and they do, they just don’t do it in public because then their skin sparkles. (Basically, the Twilight vampires are sparkly porcelain figurines, yes?) In True Blood they can, for a little while, but direct sun will burn their skin (however, a taste of human blood will heal them quickly). Also, they get nose bleeds if they don’t sleep during the day. Edward never sleeps, but that is probably because he is afraid to mess up his make-up. It must be tiring to wear those yellow contact lenses 24/7, though.

As for werewolves… Vampires = cold, werewolves = warm appears to be a universal truth. Everything else, however, is different from one fictional universe to the next. In Twilight werewolves never wear shirts. In True Blood they dress like bikers. In Buffy they still transform only when there is a full moon (hello, isn’t that common were-lore?), but both Meyer and Harris has their furry friends transform at will. 

Basically all the inconsistencies make me worried. How will I know how to react if I meet a real vampire? How can I be sure if the vampire is of the turn to dust/goo/porcelain variety? Will garlic work at all or will he then offer to cook? (And if he does - do I accept?) How about a cross? Or a silver bullet? The way this is going, the vampire will probably kill me before I even have time to ask for his autograph...

And yes. I got the title for this post from a Wordle. If you want to read it again but disapprove of the way I have arranged the words, I can recommend the picture below:

On trolls

As you might recall, I've been away on vacation for a few days. I explained how I visited the Jotunheimen mountains. What I perhaps forgot to mention, was that this “family holiday” actually was an expedition to locate the remaining specimens of some of Norway’s most mythologized creatures: the trolls.

The main population of trolls today lives in the Northern parts of Europe, most notably in Norway. There are more than 2500 species of trolls in the Scandinavian countries, 2000 of which are native to Norway. Of these, the most prominent ones are the Common Norwegian Forest Troll, the Norwegian Forest Dwarf Troll, the Sea Troll (Draugen), the Bearded Bottleneck Troll and the Obnoxious Norwegian Mountain Troll.

Meeting trolls is never free of danger, but we had prepared well. We brought several mechanical toys, a whole set of flashlights with extra batteries, and a copy of The Da Vinci Code.

Trolls are extremely dangerous creatures. While they might be tricked by riddles, logical paradoxes and faulty prose, it is safest to rely on physical means of defense. Sunlight is, as should be common knowledge, lethal to trolls. Because of this they only venture outside their caves in darkness or during extremely rainy days. Should they be encountered under such circumstances, or even in one of their caves, it is useful to know that trolls are also easily blinded by artificial light (even a simple flashlight will do). Be aware that this will only cause temporary blindness, and as soon as the troll regains full usage of its eyes (or eye, as the case is with the One Eyed Rural Dwelling Troll and the Kykloptical Klutter Klinger Troll) it will chase the subject it most likely believed caused the blindness. Thus another trick is to bring decoys in the shape of model airplanes or other objects that can direct the attention away from yourself.

You should not, under any circumstance, attempt to outrun a troll; or (this should not even be in the book as it is self-evident) engage it in combat. You will lose. (With the possible exception of man-to-troll combats with the Procrastinating Fickle-Flogger Troll. Due to its size and extreme strength it would crush you in an instant, but it will most likely put it off until you can make your escape.)

As we approached the mountains, it was nerve-wracking to say the least to scout towards the skyline to try to make out if any of the mountains were moving. We never drove very close, as this is haphazard to say the least.

Since the Jotunheimen is one of the last natural habitats for the trolls, there are any number of regulations for how the area can be traversed. However, most of the regulations are intended to ensure human safety rather than the survival of the trolls. Caravans are mostly forbidden, since trolls occasionally mistake them for lunchboxes. Paragliding is discouraged, but not forbidden (it would only make it more attractive for the extremists), though tourists and locals alike should be aware of the dangers involved in flying around looking like troll-sized butterflies. Trolls do not like butterflies.

The best way to access a troll bound area is by foot, as this will allow the best possible escape. Humans are tiny compared to most types of trolls, while cars are easy to pick up. Finally, your attire can be what saves your life. Most trolls are trained to identify creatures that are meant to blend into the scenery (as they are highly efficient hunters for wild animals and the occasional sheep), while colours such as hot pink or bright green that isn’t part of the natural colour scheme of their habitat actually are more difficult for them to distinguish. In general, trolls often have relatively poor eyesight, but their sense of smell more than compensates for this. They can smell “Christian blood” (the preferred troll term for “human”) up to twenty miles away.

In the end, we never got to see any trolls. A pity, perhaps, but a part of me is relieved. After all, these are extremely dangerous creatures, and it really is quite foolish to try to seek them out. But, it’s a family tradition. Fortunately this time we came home safely – who knows if we will the next time?





All the excerpts in this text are from Professor Geirr Ådne Ørjesæther’s book, Trolls and their Relatives (not to be confused with the children’s book of the same title).

On WiPs

I hope that the project that currently holds the dubious honour of being my WiP (or more accurately, Work Not Exactly in Progress but At Least Not Abandoned Altogether [WNEiPbALNAA]), isn’t going to define my writing career. This story is an idea that started out as satire or societal criticism, it took a strange turn towards chic lit during last year’s NaNoWriMo, and when I picked it up again this spring it had morphed beyond recognition into a “find yourself and the meaning of life”-esque, Oprah book club-ish, cliché-cluttered cacophony of merged ideas and non-likable characters. If I am lucky, the character development will camouflage the thin story, a rewrite from tell to show will make at least some of the characters believable (though I only think one of them has the potential to be likeable), and the humoristic elements might save the entire thing from drowning in sappy lurv-scenes and descriptions of sunsets.


If I am very lucky (and even cleverer) it might be a societal criticism satire chic lit with Oprah book club potential.

But that is also all it can be. I am not bashing the societal criticism satire chic lit Oprah book club potential authors out there, but I can’t really see myself fit into this category with anything else I write. My other WiPs (or more accurately Works Not Exactly in Progress and Frankly Quite Lost and Forgotten [WNEiPaFQLaF]) are all very different from the WNEiPbALNAA. While I do not like to describe non-written works (not just because of the risk of someone else writing them, but also because I fear there are WNEiPbALNAA- and WNEiPaFQLaF-eating basilisks out there who might be hungry), let me give you an idea how my mind works.

The most prominent WNEiPaFQLaF is one that is insisting on not being forgotten (in fact, it is more of a Work Not Exactly in Progress but Impossible To Block Out Entirely [WNEiPbITBOE]). The idea for this one goes a couple of years back, though it also started radically different than what it currently seems to have evolved into. It’s got to do with history, and some trolls, and maybe a quest of sorts. I should think it will end up as a YA fantasy-ish thingie. Actually, I’ve got it pinned down more specifically than that, but shhh! I think I hear the basilisk lurking nearby...

However, due to the history part (which isn’t even close to the part of history I dabble with at the university) and the mythical creatures part, there is some heavy research required for this one. I want to do it justice, so I don’t want to do it right now. I just can’t see myself battle with more than one major research project at the time (and my thesis has a deadline – the WNEiPbITBOE doesn’t).

No matter if I decided to keep this one in the drawer until I am ready to tackle it, though, it won’t listen. It keeps bugging me with all sorts of details that simply *must* fit in. Also, whenever I see a mountain or go into the forest, inspiration bubbles and I can barely keep from getting back to it (I keep a notebook nearby at all times, though, since I am terrified of missing out on any of these details).

The third WNEiPaFQLaF (or more accurately – no, wait, this one really is a WNEiPaFQLaF) is a story (I am thinking novella, eventually) about a cloud. This might not seem all that interesting, but it is a very persistent cloud... This is actually the current story of mine that style-wise will remind readers the most of the writing on this blog. Nothing I ever write will be entirely without humour (it is a law of nature, I think), but this story has the potential to use the dry, not-laugh-out-loud-but-chortle-lightly sort of humour I often end up with here. Plus, I might add a zen-group (if that didn’t make any sense, I think my point has been made).

On top of this, there are maybe five or six ideas that haven’t really formed into story mode (the one that was supposed to be a prequel to my WNEiPbALNAA, but that really isn’t anymore; the one with the wooden pig; the one with the anthropologist; and not to forget the one with the married couple whose upcoming divorce I for some reason feel competent to explain). Finally, there are about sixty thousand (or so it feels) ideas that don’t really have anything tied to them yet, I just know I want to do something with them some day. These might not be more than a sentence, a character trait, or a setting (someday I will write a World War Two novel, I WILL!).

Having ideas is not the tricky part for me. Having viable ideas, though, is a whole different matter. Having viable ideas that can be turned into actual stories, stories I can convince myself to give up procrastination for so that they will actually be written, is the most difficult of all.

Anyone else ever get overwhelmed by the amount of stories wanting you to write them?

On thunder

Last night we had a special visitor, and he was frightfully angry. Back when he was a superstar he was known as Þórr. In contemporary Norway he is known as Tor. You might know him as Thor. Thor was out throwing his hammer, Mjöllnir, in fury over something. He yelled, and he cursed, and he tried to bring down the mountains, but fortunately he only managed to cut our power for a few hours. Thor was the god of thunder in Norse mythology. The noisy storm last night certainly lent credibility to the old belief that a savage with anger management disorder was the cause of heavy weather.


Usually before a thunder storm, you can feel it hours ahead. We have a word for this in Norwegian – lummert – which is the hot, humid, heavy weather that precedes thunder. You can feel the pressure building up until the only outcome must be a thunder storm. Frequently I get pre-thunder headaches. My dictionary claims that the English translation of the word lummert is muggy, sticky or sultry. I beg to differ. They are close, but to me all of these lack the essential component of lummert – the inevitable thunder.

Yesterday, however, it wasn’t lummert at all. The thunder storm came as – well, as a bolt from the blue.

Thor was here for well over an hour. He was louder than I have heard him for years. The lightning flashed so frequently that even though he visited during the night, it was as light as day. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up to watch the "fireworks". Most of the action took place up in the sky, but there were certain lightning bolts finding their target at ground too. The rain washed away almost our entire street, and the wind howled around our house for hours afterwards.

I don’t know what upset Thor so much. Perhaps he was rooting for the Netherlands in the World Cup? Even though I enjoy his shows from time to time, I am glad he seems to have cooled down again now.