On midwestern adventures (part three)

Five years ago I went to Ann Arbor, Michigan to visit my friend Tami. Little did I know that I someday would be coming back for work (and to visit Tami again, naturally).

So far it's been mostly work, as you kinda have to put in long days when your job sends you to the other side of the world for a few weeks to gather material for your research project. You don't wanna come home short on material (so, naturally, I bring home way, way, waaaay too much). However, I did get to hang out with Tami and some friends of last weekend, and this weekend we'll get together again.

In the meantime, my only adventures have been walking around on campus, on my way to the archive. They have geese there. And squirrels. On campus. Geese and squirrels in search of an education, no doubt.

Gesse. Because, geese. 

Squirrel. And some nut who didn't realise her mitten-cup-combo was in the shot...

Column. With a certain phallic quiality, as columns tend to have. 

Crocus. And a surprisingly ghost-ish tree shadow for mid-day. 

On the transvisual transgressions of the transatlantic tranquilizer trajectory.

I spent all my creative energy on that title, so now all that is left is for me to pretend I really meant to and compose a short text devoid of any creativity whatsoever.

It shouldn't be too difficult.

I am, after all, trying actively on a daily basis to subdue creativity to get non-creative things done (insofar there exists such a thing as a non-creative anything). I am getting good at it. Well. Not necessarily at getting the non-creative things done, but at subdue creativity, at least! Hooray!

Now, let's not be bleak. This is a good thing.

Creativity is overrated.

Well, no it's not. I don't actually mean that. I already revealed that I at least on some level believe creativity takes a part in most anything human beings do (not that this belief necessarily demonstrates the importance of creativity, though).

And it's not even true. I don't subdue my creativity. It just feels like a natural part of the process. A process of "growing up", "having a job", "writing a PhD-thesis", "being a normal human being" (except for my belief that "normal" "human beings" actually are "creative" all the time. Except everything, really).

This text turned bleak despite my intentions not to let it. I meant to have it cheerful and happy, in order to present a joyous view on the world (of which there are too few, generally, I think), exemplified in the fact that it's spring (yay!); that I get to go abroad for a month, tomorrow (yay!); that there exist such a thing as semicolons (yay!); and that today we had a solar eclipse (though I didn't see it due to clouds and general indoorness, so yaaeii?).

I'm going to the U.S.

For a month.



I have in the past been eager to travel.

I have in the more recent past been less eager to travel.

I have this time again found that eagerness, but then also, the less eagerness lurking behind.



I get to travel but I have to travel.

I get to see lots of interesting documents but I have to see all these documents.

I get to be all by myself but I have to be alone.



But there are more redeeming factors this time around. I get to hang out with an old friend. I get to visit a new part of the U.S. that I have been eager to see. I get a preview of summer before returning home to full spring. And when I return home I get to stay home. I can travel more, but I don't have to.




Away, away, o'hoi and away!

On the return of light and giraffes

The sky is reflected in the windows of the nearby building, stretching out in a metallic-blue-yellow hue in between an instagram filter and something you might have found in the fabric of a skirt in the S/S13 Saunders collection, if you cared for such things. It's been a lovely day, with deceitful promises of pending spring, even though the mended heart is too scarred to believe it really is so. Winter may catch you yet. Regardless, you have this day. The day the light returned. Light, which will kick start the slow process of defrosting the marrow of your brittle bones.



In the meantime, there is this picture of a woman and a giraffe:

On ego

Hey! Hello. This is me. Moi. C'est moi.

I'm speaking to you. You. I wish I knew you. Maybe I do. But when do we really know someone? I'm not even sure I know myself.

I analyse things. It's a professional hazard. Can't help it. "Hey! Hello. This is me. Moi. C'est moi." Why "hey"? Why add an extra "hello"? Why exclamation mark for the first, full stop for the second? And why French? I'm not French.

I analyse myself. Try to see me as others do.

Students.

Colleagues.

Friends.

Family.

Boys/men.

And within these categories, each person individually.

I fail. If we can't know someone - not even ourselves - how can we even fathom the idea of knowing what someone (that we don't know) knows anything about ourselves (that we don't know), or that we can know this something they know (or don't know) about ourselves?

Big question. No answer.

Listen to this song:




Not the lyrics. They're in Swedish, and most you don't speak Swedish. "Most of you." Whether that means most people in the world, or most people potentially reading this blog. Maybe most of you (reading this blog) do speak Swedish. I don't care. Don't listen to the lyrics. Not this time. I don't. I never do. Even if I discovered that I knew these almost by heart. But I don't pay attention to them. It's a standing joke. And also true.

Don't listen to the lyrics, whether you speak Swedish or not. Listen to the trumpet. That quiet, vulnerable, wintery tone. It's spring. Kent is winter/autumn music to me. But the wintery trumpet gives me all-year-appropriate goosebumps, every time. That trumpet says more than the lyrics I'm not listening to anyway.

The guitar is good too. As a complementary - no, as a driving force for the aforementioned trumpet.

The trumpet that says anything. And of course nothing. But at least it makes me think that "nothing" is okay. Some questions don't have answers. Some answers are too complicated for us to understand. Some questions only trigger more questions. Some answers do too. And sometimes that is okay.

I don't know you. You don't know me. I don't know me. We don't know ourselves.

The trumpet. Listen to the trumpet.

It's okay.

On the sorrows of a wooden plaything

"Hullo, there. Won't you come play with me, please? Oh. You're too big. Sigh. Yeah, they all say that. Kids grow up too fast. And here I am, stuck to this spring, doomed to eternally flip back and forth, or occasionally sideways, but never as much as an inch off my axis. Kids, they run off, play with the other toys, and go home when it gets dark or when it rains. But I cannot. I wish I could run away too. Just once, I'd like to feel the grass under my hooves. But then I don't have hooves either. I only have this foot rest, with no feet resting on it.

Are you sure you can't come play with me?"

On V for Vendetta

I am involved in a feud. A long-running argument, where considerable amounts of blood has been shed. The parties cannot stand each other, and there is not much hope for reconciliation in the future.

I am talking, of course, of the eternal battle between shoes and my feet.

My feet don't like shoes. I do. I love shoes. I wish I could have a closet-full of delightful, sparkly, gorgeous shoes, Imelda Marcos-style (but without the dictatorship and starving population). But there isn't much point as my feet would rebel on me. Commit mutiny. Quite possibly amputate themselves. They really, really hate shoes, in any shape, size and colour.

Frankly, though, I can understand how my feet have a strained relationship with shoes. After all, shoes mistreat them on a regular basis.

You see, the hate my feet feel for shoes is nothing compared to the intense loathing, disrespect, cruelty and terror shoes see fit to treat my feet. All and any shoes I've tried to wear since I was little have mutilated my feet at the gravest. I've tried to come between them - wearing socks of various thickness, and using band-aids liberally - but nothing seems to ease the tension. There is a war, and my feet are losing battle after battle.

They've tried to call truce. To simply stay away. Many summers have been spent mostly barefoot. But then there are times when shoes are called for, and my feet cannot escape. The shoes taunt them long ahead: "Guess what we're gonna do to you tonight, lovelies? Guess who will not be able to walk in the morning..?" The feet wait in agony, but there is absolutely nothing they can do. Once squeezed into the torture chamber that is stilettos or sandals or sneakers alike, the feet can do nothing but suffer in silence.

Despite the relief of barefootness, summers are the worst. Summer shoes are meaner than winter shoes. Besides, being let out of prison every now and then makes the feet realize just how terrible their fate is. Thus this is when they are least able to handle it. Blister season is upon us, and I feel for my feet. I really do.

If socially acceptable I'd vote with my feet and skip shoes altogether. But it seems a far way off. A society without shoes is light years away, and I'd walk my feet off to get there. I think I'll just have to stand on my own feet and accept that I'll have to wear shoes until I'm six feet under.

On A for April

I'm guessing that 99% of anyone visiting this blog today already know what the A-Z challenge is, and the remaining 1% will be capable of clicking the icon in the sidebar to find out. Therefore, I will not go into details about why I am blogging six out of seven days a week this month, or why my titles suddenly will seem to have a peculiar relationship with the alphabet.

I'm also guessing that a great deal of the 800 other blogs participating in the A-Z challenge will also write about "April" today (funny how that seems appropriate), with the notable exception of Mary who claims we had a mind-melt over titles (only I used mine on Wednesday).

So what? April is a good topic to blog about. It's a spring month. At least if you're not living in Norway. Which I currently am. But we have great hopes of spring eventually catching up with us. Before summer...

Fine. So April isn't the most interesting of subjects. How about April Fool's Day? Anybody fool you today? I'm suspecting my dad will have a go - he usually does. As a kid he managed to trick me, often (when I was a kid, I mean. I didn't know my dad when he was a kid). When I grew older, I was prepared. But I never tricked him back. You'd think I would be able to, but I don't seem to plan well enough for this "beloved" holiday. Last year I had a go with my blog readers, though I think it probably only served to make them forever skeptical about the logic of my native language.

Perhaps I'd do better to choose a different topic than April, then. Aardvark? Algorithms? Arthochromatic erythroblast? Nah... I think I'll just call it a post and await tomorrow. B. B for bullfinch? Bubble baths? Brittle? I may have to think this through some more...

On "The Secret Garden"

One of the things I do appreciate about being back in Norway is spring. In Tokyo, it was already spring by my standards when I arrived. During the two months I spent there we had both cool and warm weather - even snow - but nothing even close to the dramatic process that is Norwegian spring. Without the melting snow, the "ad hoc" creeks in the middle of the road, the return of migrant birds and sunshine after what feels like an incredibly long absence - Tokyo spring just didn't feel like spring. 

Because of my lack of spring mood, I also didn't indulge in one of my annual spring activities - reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was my favourite book as a child, and I've continued reading it every spring. The timing is essential. It cannot be too early, since a return to winter after I've started reading it will always put me in a terrible mood. At the same time, I cannot read it too late, as the turn of spring into summer completely ruins the experience. I want the world around me to wake up to spring along with the garden in the book. 

Now I've been given a new opportunity to perform my ritual this year. When I returned to Norway it was winter. In just little over a week, it is definitely spring. The snow is melting faster than I've ever seen. The sun is warming, and my nose is as freckled as it only gets this time of year. I feel the urge to take off my winter coat and boots again, and it won't be long till it's time to look for the first brave flowers. 

This is the perfect timing for reading The Secret Garden. 

" 'I like you! I like you!' she cried out, pattering down the walk; and she chirped and tried to whistle, which last she did not know how to do in the least. But the robin seemed to be quite satisfied and chirped and whistled back at her. At last he spread his wings and made a darting flight to the top of a tree, where he perched and sang loudly."

"Mistress Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells, and cockle shells,

And marigolds all in a row."

"In the course of her digging with her pointed stick Mistress Mary had found herself digging up a sort of white root rather like an onion. She had put it back in its place and patted the earth carefully down on it and just now she wondered if Martha could tell her what it was.

'Martha,' she said, 'what are those white roots that look like onions?'

'They're bulbs,' answered Martha. 'Lots o' spring flowers grow from 'em. Th' very little ones are snowdrops an' crocuses an' th' big ones are narcissuses an' jonquils and daffydowndillys. Th' biggest of all is lilies an' purple flags. Eh! they are nice. Dickon's got a whole lot of 'em planted in our bit o'garden.'"

"It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place any one could imagine. The high walls which shut it in were covered with the leafless stems of climbing roses which were so thick that they were matted together. Mary Lennox knew they were roses because she had seen a great many roses in India. All the ground was covered with grass of a wintry brown and out of it grew clumps of bushes which were surely rosebushes if they were alive. There were numbers of standard roses which had so spread their branches that they were like little trees. There were other trees in the garden, and one of the things which made the place look strangest and loveliest was that climbing roses had run all over them and swung down long tendrils which made light swaying curtains, and here and there they had caught at each other or at a far-reaching branch and had crept  from one tree to another and made lovely bridges of themselves."

"There was a laurel-hedged walk which curved round the secret garden and ended at a gate which opened into a wood, in the park. She thought she would slip round this walk and look into the wood and see if there were any rabbits hopping about."

"When she had reached the place where the door hid itself under the ivy, she was startled by a curious loud sound. It was the caw-caw of a crow and it came from the top of the wall, and when she looked up, there sat a big, glossy-plumaged blue-black bird, looking down at her very wisely indeed." 

" 'This here one he's called Nut an' this here other one's called Shell.' 
When he said  'Nut' one squirrel leaped onto his right shoulder and when he said 'Shell' the other one leaped on to his left shoulder."

"And the roses - the roses! Rising out of the grass, tangled around the sun-dial, wreathing the tree trunks and hanging from their branches, climbing up the walls and spreading over them with long garlands falling in cascades - they came alive day by day, hour by hour. Fair fresh leaves, and buds - and buds - tiny at first but swelling and working Magic until they burst and uncurled into cups of scent delicately spilling themselves over their brims and filling the garden air."

All excerpts from The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, from The Collected Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett (Kindle edition). All pictures taken by yours truly, on three continents.

On my weekend

We're crazying up at work. Our prime minister is visiting next week (did I already mention that? I think not. It's been a lid on/lid off thing [that's an expression, right? In some language? Not Norwegian I think. English? Maybe I made it up... But y'all understand what it means, though - right?] for a while, because there were some protocol restrictions on who were inviting whom and such. Anyway..), and this is causing a lot of extra work for everyone - including the trainees. Thus, it was nice to work only one hour overtime on Friday, and then go home - collapse in bed hours before my bedtime, and concentrate on nothing than a missed episode of Raising Hope (because Big Bang Theory and Community both skipped a week. What's up with that?!)

On Saturday I took a personal day. Okay, so I wasn't working anyway, but most Saturdays and Sundays thus far in Tokyo have been spent sightseeing or some form of touristing. It gets exhausting. Instead, I brought my laptop and snuck out of the house early in the morning (or, you know, noon, which is still pretty early for most of the people living in my building), headed for the nearest (or actually, not the nearest at all. More like the 5th nearest. I wouldn't want anyone to find me...) Starbucks.

My laptop and I had some quality time there. First of all I cleaned up my "My Documents" folder, which was a total mess. I once had a system, but after various laptop changes and backups, it had crashed and burned. Now, it's all neat and folderized, and some of the duplicate documents have been deleted. Never mind that I still have another laptop at home plus an extended hard drive that needs a make-over...  Happiness looks like a neatly organized hard drive. In the process I also discovered several writing projects I had not quite forgotten, but at least filed in the very back of my mind. Interestingly, several of them made me want to pick them back up, none of them made me delete them (except the one-sentence one. No, I cannot read your mind, Cruella2004. You'll have to be slightly more specific than "like that movie, but the other way around"..), and one or two had me chuckling when re-reading (and yes, in the good way). Thus, the idea bank is safe (and now organized, yay!).

What I also noticed at Starbucks was that this apparently is the place many Japanese go to sleep off their Friday night escapades. In general, sleeping in public places is a bit of a thing here... Weird.

After Starbucks the Norwegian in me awoken and I decided that it was horrible to spend a sunny Saturday indoors, no matter how happy it made me. So I started walking.

What I love about Tokyo (or indeed any large - and reasonably safe - city with a good public transportation system; London and Washington D.C. come to mind) is that if you are not going anywhere specific, you can just randomly walk without a map (an added bonus for a mapilliterate, like myself) and still know you'll find your way home since there are metro stations everywhere.

So I picked a direction, and walked. After about ten minutes, I had a choice between right and (not wrong, but) left, and I picked left on the grounds that it looked slightly more appealing than right. I was right. After about ten more minutes, I got into a more official looking area, with guards and walls and fences. A sign informed me that I was passing the office building for the House of Representatives to the National Diet. (On a side note - the word "Diet" to describe your parliament, is confusing. If you google "Japanese Diet", only about half of the hits are about the parliament, while the rest concern rice & raw fish.)

"Poor politicians," I thought. "I must be very frustrating to have their offices so far away from the actual Diet building." And then I passed a corner, and there it was - the Diet.

See, I know that Tokyo is big. Thus it always surprises me so when I discover that it isn't as big everywhere. Or rather, even in huge Tokyo, some distances are small. Like the one from "my" Starbucks (only five away from where I live) to the Diet building. It's only a short Sunday walk, really.

Once you get to the Diet, it is also just a short walk to the government district (Kasumigaseki), the Imperial Palace, and Hibiya (where I've spent some time, so the area is familiar to me). Thus my guilt walk turned into an epiphany of sorts, making this large city slightly smaller to me.

All this time I kept wishing I had brought my camera. See, as much as I love my camera, it is also too big to bring along "just in case". Unless I know I will actually use it, I will leave it at home (and I made a mistaken last minute decision before leaving Norway regarding bringing my compact camera. Meaning I didn't, in case that was unclear). Yesterday, though, was a beautiful day. Lovely light, and a ton of great motifs my darling Buck (that's my non-compact camera...) would have done justice. Such as the single blossoming cherry/plum tree I passed (the blossom is a BIG deal here. Will post on that some other time. Regarding the cherry/plum distinction I am no expert, but I have been told that the plum goes first, so I am guessing the cherries are the ones that haven't started yet). Or the skyscrapers in Kasumigaseki bathed in sunlight. Eventually what made me cave in and pull out my (inferior) cell phone camera was the lovely view of the Imperial Palace in the sunlight. Thus, one picture from yesterday to share:

I swear, Buck would have done a better job, but at least you get an idea what lovely weather it was, and how pretty the palace (or rather, one of the entrances) looked, reflected in the water.

This post is getting long. Sorry - digressionist at work...

I got back home (by metro - it was a relatively short walk, but it seemed much longer to attempt to walk both ways..), stopped by my new favourite store (Don Quixote - it has everything. Everything, I say), went home, made dinner, crashed in bed early again.

Sunday - today - I got up, got out, and spent all day with two friends up in the Harajuku area. Harajuku is probably one of the craziest, weirdest, funniest, most interesting places in Tokyo. It's where all the cool kids (and let me emphasize the word kids. Many of them are no older than 12-15, and even the ones that are, frequently try to look around that age. It's a little creepy, actually...) hang. It's where much of the cosplay take place. It's where you'll find rockabilly Japanese, dancing rock&roll to the delight of passing tourists. But it also has a nice park (Yoyogi) and a beautiful temple and shrine area (which I visited a few weeks ago). We had a great time walking around in the (still) lovely weather. It feels a lot like spring in Tokyo these days (but I am convinced I will regret saying that tomorrow, when it will supposedly rain).

All in all a pretty nice weekend. Definitely a nice break from work. Muchly needed mental and physical rest, and I'm sure the exercise and fresh air can't hurt either. Though I sort of wish I had one more day off before going back to the crazy tomorrow...

Finally, one extra picture (since I just transferred a batch from my mediocre cell phone cam to the laptop). This is a follow-up to a request from the very first post I wrote from Tokyo. Kids bathing in a peach. I say no more...

On Sunday the 11th of April

I almost never do a “this is what I did today” blog. Partly because I almost never write my posts on the day I publish them. I usually let them simmer for a while, and I like to get a second or third read-through with fresh eyes which can only be achieved if I write it first, then leave it for a while, and then read it again. This gives me the ability to spot terrible writing, and the strength to cut it like a mad butcher. (Take this paragraph. Absolutely hopeless. I expect to molest it to smithereens before finally being satisfied with it [unless I will keep it the way it currently is to make a point. Oh, dang, now that I said it, I kind of have to, don’t I?].)


The other reason I don’t do “this is what I did today” posts is because I have absolutely no need for this blog to turn into my personal (yet very public) diary. I used to keep diaries (well, one at the time…). When I visited my parents over the Easter break, I found some of my old diaries, and boy am I glad those aren’t public material... Some of it probably should be – if it’s true that laughter is healthy, I should be sentenced for keeping this miracle drug to myself.

Back when I kept a diary I was surprisingly audience-aware (even if I pointed out a number of times that the only audience for whom I was writing was myself). I was concerned with voice, language, structure – all the things I now consider when composing texts were already then tools I actively used (more or less consciously) to make a readable diary.

A third reason I normally avoid “this is what I did today” (if I am going to continue using this term I very soon need to invent an abbreviation for it – TIWIDT?) posts is that my life often isn’t all that exciting on a day-to-day basis. A lot of my blog posts would sound something like this: “I got up between 6 am and 7.30 am (entirely depending on how long I bothered hitting the snooze button before actually leaving bed – usually somewhere between 3 and 50 times. No kidding). Had a shower, took the tram to the university. Sat at my desk for X hours, only interrupted by Y number of breaks. Took the tram back home. Slept.” Boring!

Today, however, has been an out of the ordinary sort of day. So if I ever was to do a TIWIDT post, this would be the time.

Oslo seems to be the kind of city where it’s either awesome or awful to be. It’s never, or at least rarely, “just okay”. Today was one of the awesome days. The sun was shining, and believe you me, after five months of winter and one month of rain (slightly exaggerated on both accounts, but not by a lot) we deserve some sun. When it finally showed up, however, it was so brilliant that it hardly feels like it’s been gone at all. I think my face freckled up after about ten minutes outside (alright – I’m exaggerating again – first of all we had lots of sun yesterday as well, and secondly I spent about 7 hours outside today, so I was expecting spring freckles).

I’m not the only one who feels this way. It takes no more than ten degrees (celcius) and half an hour of sun before Osloensians (we aren’t called that. I don’t really know what we are called. So I made up a name. I do that a lot…) are popping up everywhere, smiling, wearing short sleeves, eating ice cream or drinking beer (utepils – "outdoors beer" – is a common term here). If I had told a foreigner walking around in Oslo two weeks ago that the city has half a million inhabitants he wouldn’t have believed it, because there were no one to be seen. If I had told him today, he might be inclined to think I was making an understatement. Oslo does have half a million inhabitants, and today all of them were outside (or so it seemed).

I too acted like a proper Osloensian (it’s catching on!) today and enjoyed just how lovely this city can be in springtime. My roommate and I walked to a museum I’ve been meaning to visit for a while. The Nobel Peace Center (whose giraffe mascot I wrote a blog post about a while back) has been featuring an exhibit called “From King to Obama”, showing the links between the two Nobel Peace Prize laureates (cleverly summed up in the following quote: “Rosa sat so Martin could walk. Martin walked so Barack could run. Barack ran so our children can fly.”). As the quote perhaps also shows, the exhibit somewhat glorified both King and Obama. However, since the exhibit was focusing on the Nobel Peace Prize aspect of both their journeys I suppose there was little point in emphasizing any controversies.

After the exhibit (and the gift shop. Let’s not forget the gift shop. I almost always prefer the gift show [shop. I might subconsciously have given the answer to why I always prefer the gift shop. Clearly I mistake it for a show!] to the actual museum no matter how interesting the exhibits…) we had lunch – outside, naturally (this is also part of the Oslo spring – every little café will magically conjure up at least one table with a couple of chairs, and voila – people can enjoy their coffee/beer/meal/ice cream at the risk of freezing to death. Very charming). There we also met another friend of mine, before both my friends left me to walk around on my own. I went to the fortress, where I took some very poor pictures (in my defense, I was blinded by the sun), before a friend called up asking if I wanted ice cream. Of course I did.

I had some spare time before the ice cream appointment, so I went to a bookshop (probably the only one in Oslo that is open on a Sunday) to see if I could find a copy of The Secret Garden. This little piece of information has so many digressions tied to it that even I don’t know where to start… Alright, let’s give it a try.

First of all, I always, always read The Secret Garden in spring, and I have for as long as I’ve been able to read. It’s very important that I don’t read it too early (if any more snow falls after I’ve started reading it, spring is ruined), but I can also not read it too late (it’s already late-ish. Anything after April is out of the question). While I recognize that there are books that are better written, more interesting, with better plots and more complex characters; I still considers this as my favourite book. After all, I have read it about 20 times by now.

Seeing as I love it so much, you might wonder why I haven’t purchased it before. Oh, I have! Trust me! I own no less than three copies of this book. The first one is in Norwegian, and this is the copy I have read over and over and over and… And over. I know every little typo (there are plenty) in that copy, and because this is my childhood copy, I must admit I prefer it. For every other book, though, I tend to prefer the original version (that is, if the original version is in a language I can read. So my “original version preference” is pretty much limited to English and Norwegian. And Swedish and Danish, but that is only because they are so similar to Norwegian. It also used to include French, but I haven’t tried reading French for years, so I don’t know how much I’d get out of it now. How stupid was I to let my third language go?!?).

Since I normally prefer the original version, I decided to convert to English for my annual Secret Garden reading a couple of years ago. I bought it in English, and started reading it, but it just wasn’t the same… What I didn’t know, however, was that a good friend of mine (who was at the time living in the US) had bought me another English version, a beautifully illustrated version, even. When she came back with this thoughtful gift for me, I didn’t have the heart to tell her that a) I had already bought a copy; and b) I preferred reading it in Norwegian. So I accepted the present. The following spring (last spring, in fact) when I had to pack most of my books away for long-time storage since I was moving, I chose to keep the illustrated English version in the easy access pile, while the two others went into boxes.

Thus, I only had one of my three copies available this spring. I had completely forgotten that I had packed the other two copies when I promised my sister that she could borrow the book from me this spring. Consequently, I lent her my only remaining copy, and was left with nothing… I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I didn’t have another copy, but I also could not face having spring ruined because I could not read it. So I thought that buying another copy was a reasonable solution (I will never be rich. Not as long as there are bookshops in the world). (Un?)Fortunately, my other sister called just as I was about to make the purchase, and she managed to convince me to check a library before buying it (again). So, I still don’t have the book, but I’m guessing that this time tomorrow I will (if the library at the university doesn’t have it, the bookshop probably will. And what are the odds that my sister phones me twice in two days?).

To finish this digression before returning to the actual topic – as far as I know neither my sister nor my friend are regular readers of this blog, so I feel relatively safe writing about this without making anyone feel too bad about the possible ruination of my spring…

(See, this is another reason why I don’t write TIWIDT posts. With my digressionary tendencies, they end up frightfully long! I shall try to hasten my pace…)

I eventually met up with my friends for ice cream. Again, we insisted on sitting outside, even though it was getting chillier by then. Eating ice cream in Oslo in April in sunshine (am I even allowed to have that many in’s in [haha] one sentence?) can be quite pleasant. Eating ice cream in April in Oslo in shade, however, is c-c-cold. But we survived, and afterwards we strolled around to regain normal body temperatures. Oslo (this post should of course be called “On Oslo” [or quite possibly “On The Secret Garden”], but I have reserved that title [the Oslo-one] for a similar-yet-different post that I have in mind for June[-ish]) – Oslo has a relatively new opera house, and it has become a popular attraction for tourists and Osloensians alike. You can walk around on its white marble exterior, looking out over the fjord. It’s very nice, actually. We went there for something of a photo shoot (don’t ask – I have digressed enough as it is), before I finally decided it was time to call it a day.

I made one last stop on my way home – I picked some flowers that to me more than anything say spring. Hestehov [tussilago farfara, or coltsfoot] isn’t actually all that pretty. It doesn’t smell nice, and it grows in such numbers that by many it is considered a weed. Still, it is the first wild flower that appears each spring, and the yellow little heads look like miniature suns stretching towards the sky. In true spirit of this springful day, then, I picked some and brought home where they are now sunning up our kitchen table (I just googled “sunning” to make sure I wasn’t saying something I didn’t know what meant. The definition “the opposite of mooning – involving front” clearly implies that I did… And yet, I am too tired and amused to change it…).

There. I finished my TIWIDT post. I shall post it as it is (with one quick read-though. Just the one), even if it is as long as a Osloensian winter. Now that I think about it, though, the proper title of this post would have been “On spring”. Oh, well…

[Note: if you have actually read through all of the above you also deserve to know that I really meant to post this last night. Just as I typed up the last paragraph, however, my internet connection died. I probably should have interpreted this as a sign that the Internet gods didn't want me to expose anyone to such a lenghty ramble. Seeing as you are reading this, I evidently am not afraid of the wrath of the Internet gods. If you never hear from me again, chances are I should have been afraid...]

On springishness

Spring won’t show her beautiful face in Oslo for a long time yet, but there are nevertheless a few, early signs that she is on her way.


We have hardly seen the sun for months, and the little we did see of it did not seem to give any warmth at all. This morning, however, I could for the first time since I came home from the US say that I felt warmer because of the sunshine in my face. It won’t give me freckles and it won’t melt any snow just yet, but we’re getting there. The sun as it is known throughout most of the world is heading back to Norway too.

Speaking of the sun – she is staying up longer each day. My morning walk to the subway or tram is no longer done in complete darkness. I even have a realistic hope of coming home before sunset one of these days. The polar night (which isn’t actually something we have this far south in Norway; we have some light even during the darkest period) can be tough to deal with, but the definite bonus is the wonderful feeling of coming out of it. Those first few mornings when you realize that you might actually see some light that day are magical. (And then there is the ultimate bonus of our long, long summer days, but I will save that for a post in June…)

The snow may not be melting just yet, but the icicles are falling. Icicles typically form on poorly insulated houses, seeing as the heat escaping from inside meeting the cold outside causes the snow and ice to melt/freeze/melt/freeze into perfect spears of ice. While it takes cold temperatures to form them, it takes warmer weather to make them fall. Now they are dropping like Toyota stock prices. Walking around in the older parts of Oslo (where certain houses haven’t had an upgrade in their insulation for a century or so) is a dangerous business these days. If you’re caught in a rooftop avalanche or hit by a foot long icicle, you won’t be able to enjoy spring this year!

The Romanian accordion players are back! They can’t play for the life of them, but this does not appear to be relevant as they occupy every subway station entrance there is in Oslo, hoping to earn a few kroner. Wisely enough they have been gone during the long, cold winter, so seeing them reappearing makes me feel almost as springish as seeing the first snow drops.

There is definitely springishness in the air. You just have to know what to look for!