On pretense

Let's pretend this is a blog you still read with some regularity - in fact, let's pretend it's a blog I write with some regularity.

Let's pretend Albert Einstein was a duck. Might as well.

Let's pretend the below picture isn't photoshopped.

Let's pretend the reason I am not writing here regularly is because I am so busy living a fabulous life. Let's pretend I'm never tired of the fabulousness.

Let's pretend. That nothing no one never said was true or false.

Let's pretend that winter is not coming.

Let's pretend that I am not worrying about work and not work and the potential of not having to worry about work.

Let's pretend that I write. Occasionally.

Let's pretend that placebo is as good as Placebo. Let's pretend you could watch that video without having to watch a commercial first.

Let's pretend that all it takes is a good night's sleep, and that you will get just that, tonight.

On jolly July, aberrant August

It's been a weird summer in Norway. Weird, because it's been awesome. Weather-wise we are talking about the July of the century, or some such cliché. Sun has been had. Pale Norwegians soaked up vitamin D's to last us into the next decade, and for once I actually have tan lines on my back. We're normally used to summers where any outdoors plan always need an indoors alternative, but this time no such modification was called for.

July was spectacular.

August is looking for payback.

Frequently, August has been the warm and sunny month here. Just in time for school to start, summer kicked in, like a wonderful irony of life. This year, however, since July took August's job, August, apparently, decided to take September's. Ever since the start of the month we've had rain, wind, the occasional bout of sunshine, but then with the obvious promise of "plan B kind of day - expect to have to go indoors any moment". The cloudless days of July are long gone.


In a way I appreciate it. There is no doubt that it's really fall, summer is over, vacation time done, work takes the front seat. The transition is made somewhat easier by nature's clear message.

But then again - a few more weeks of sunshine, with the possibility of enjoying after-work-afternoons in a park instead of having to tote an umbrella everywhere - sounds nicer. August isn't playing nice this year.

There is, of course, absolutely nothing I can do about this. I can recall the lovely July, and I can curse the erratic August. In reality it makes no difference what I do. Winter is coming.

On stream of unconsciousness

"Not to be confused with stream of consciousness." Though it is rather confusing. I am confusing. And confused. Now the music stopped. Now I started it again. But one of my ear plugs are broken. The set is broken. It's mono. That is not related to the music stopping (again!), because my speakers are stereo or no-o-at-all, alternatively. I got an invitation yesterday. I already rsvp-ed.

I think it's lunch time but I feel like having breakfast. Second breakfast. I already had one. But I think I was asleep. I think I still am.

I really do have ice cream in the freezer. Having it anywhere else would be strange.

It's like this: I could have coffee. But I already did. Besides, quote from a fridge magnet in the coffee place I visited today (the guy working there is real nice, by the way, but you can't go there too often, because then he'll start making you "the regular", and then you feel obliged to always have that and always come there. I can't be tied down like that) - quote (with picture - piquote?)

Except I have no energy. Maybe this is a dream? In which case I'd like to not wake up. I probably need the sleep. Besides I'm not doing stupid things. Yes. That. I'm not doing them. That's stupid. Blinds. The blinds are stupid. And automatic. Like the blinds in front of my eyes. I should eat. Lunchfast. Breakunch. Brunch. Second breakfast. I'm not that found of LOTR, actually. But I do like a good second breakfast. Don't tell my friends I said that. The first thing. About the rings. I like rings. But it's difficult for me to wear them, because my fingers vary greatly in size according to my general body temperature, which also varies, apparently.

Paragraph.

One more.

Interesteling playlist. I didn't make it. I borrowed it from an old coworker. It's very nice, but I am very sleepy. I don't normally talk in my sleep. As far as I know, I don't have any parasomnias. Unless you count that I turn into a blabbering maniac when in lack of sleep. But you shouldn't. Count it. It doesn't fall under the right definition- I forgot full stop- Paragraph-

Foods and animals are really random.

And shampoo.

Whenever someone says "think of something random!" I think of shampoo. Which of course makes it not random at all. Random very rarely is random. Panda. Not random at all. You might think it is. But you would be wrong. Do pandas drink coffee? Probably not. Probably because they are so busy with eating bamboo and not procreate. I sometimes mix up the words procreate and procrastinate.

The curtains here are ugly. They are meant to be decorative, since the blinds take care of light regulation. But the curtains don't decorate. They undecorate. Dedecorate. Disdecorate. "Go, won't you?" I said that. And I meant it. But for entirely different reasons. ...it would be the first time.

Airplane. Swallowed by a cloud. Chewed and spit out again on the other side. The cloud didn't like the taste of metal. The passengers never knew what almost hit (or, rather, digested) them.

It's not really so that random is funny because it is random.

Fridge.

Not random.

Not funny.

But still possible to laugh at, if in the right state of mind. "Arms racing is a state of mind" vs "Arms racing is intense military competition" vs "Arms racing inevitably leads to war". The latter is wrong. Cold War case in point. Besides/ monocausal explanations to excuse personal blame for what later was to be known as the First World War (they didn't know that in the beginning, though, which is a more valid excuse)/

</fedora>

Teh food. I nneedd to go downstairs. Knife. Not of the slaughtering kind. But to eat. With. By. For. Over. Under. Around. Of. There are more. It's not important.

I'll be right back.

It took three minutes. I brought my key but forgot to lock the door.

Jack Malone is actually not the same man,
as,
he,
once was.

His wife left, or so he told everyone. In reality? He knows exactly where to find her. Six feet under a pile of dung. He planted a rosebush on top of it, to cover the smell. The rosebush has thorns.

Jack Malone is not the kind of man,
you,
want,
to get too close to.
As a narrator, then, you assign him a name, to create some distance. To keep yourself out of his head.
But Jack's name isn't Jack. And as you admit that, you feel him creeping into your head after all, speading his darkness through your veins and arteries, like a bottle of ink streaming (unconsciously) into every crease in a wooden floor, after having broken upon impact. From a desk. You are the desk. You are the floor. You are the ink. You. You are the narrator.

You thought it was me. You thought I was the one facing the problem. But you were wrong. Jack infuses you, now,


It's all very obvious. The cards are dealt. The chess board set. With the instructions in a foreign language. Someone draws a gun. Then colours it pink with half-broken crayons.

I have to go. I'm awake now. Asleep. Almost. Always. After all.

On keeping it together

First of all. Don't read damnyouautocorrect.com at work. Even if you're in your own office, behind a closed door. You *will* laugh loud enough for your collegues to suspect that you are not grading papers. Also, grading papers rarely make me tear up (yet).

Secondly - the weather. Yeah, that's right. I'm putting on my old man pants for a minute. Let's dicuss the weather. We're having snow. And then not snow. And then snow. And then ice. And melty-hell. And wet shoes, slippery, dangerous ice-melty-hell. And then snow again. Right now, the view from my window is not-so-bad:

(Not-so-great either, but that is mainly due to a) poor picture quality since my phone is ancient; and b) it's not that spectacular a view. That's reserved for the people on the 11th floor.)

Anyway. Today it was slippery-hell when I left the house, it was raining by the time I changed trains, and when I got to the office I was soaked. 30 minutes later it was snowing like mad. Hence the Winter Wonderland-ish-ness above.

Speaking of....

I kinda love this. (And my old man pants are off again!)

(Pants should, generally be off. At least this is what the Michigan contingent of my shrinks tell me)

(I haven't asked the rest of the world. Yet.)

I'm stressing, A LOT, lately. With everything. Life. Living situation. Work. More work. Christmas shopping. Finding the right kind of music for the holiday mood to tick in...

(This helps, a little)




Basically, it's all about keeping it together, right? Not letting the stress get to you. One day at the time, or, even, one breath at the time. Breathe in. Breathe out.

I will try, at least.

On rowan

The riping of all sorts of fruits and berries might be the first sign of fall (or autumn if you like), but nothing is so inevitably a message of summer's end as rowan berries. There is a saying in Norway, that if the rowan tree is laden with berries, we won't have much snow that year, since the tree shouldn't carry that kind of heavy load twice in a year. Actually, it might be the other way around... That the tree is tempered or toughened by the berries, and thus is capable of carrying more snow when winter comes. It doesn't really matter anyway, since the amount of snow we'll get is much more likely to be influenced by climate and weather conditions than the state of the local rowan trees, but whatever. Whether it's a sure weather sign or not - it's a sure sign of autumn.

I meant to take some grand pictures of the red, lovely rowan berries (which were plentiful and beautiful this year), but I missed my chance. The heavy rain we've experienced for weeks and weeks have made photography difficult, and the rowan berries are now soggy and not their usual glorious self. I missed a narrow window due to bad light conditions. Another time I didn't have my camera with me (and the pics I took with my phone are a) crappy, and b) stuck in my phone because I've lost the chord).

So we're left with the only semi-decent, slightly out-of-focus, berries-looking-more-orange-than-red shot I've got. It's hardly enough to build a blog post around.

But there you go.

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 rain coats

Moominians

I have a rain coat. Here’s what it is:

-purple

-pretty

-making me look like I should live in the Moomin valley. 

Here’s what it isn’t:

-waterproof

In addition it is clammy. I guess you could say it is waterproof on the inside. For water coming out of me. But not for water coming from the outside in.

This is a problem. What to do with a coat that is supposed to keep me from getting wet, but instead never fails to drench me, one way or another?  

On fluff, part two

Last time I wrote about snow, was in June. That was metaphorical snow. Summery snow. Candyfloss snow. Dandelion (or otherwise) seeds floating through the air like dust bunnies with parachutes.

Now it's the real thing.

I know it's only October. Not even late October (what do you mean it's late October? It's not! It's late-mid October, thankyouverymuch, and it is still AGES till my thesis deadline...). Even for Norway this is early. We generally can expect snow in October, but it never actually appears until November. And even then, it melts again, before proper winter sets in early December (or so). It's the law of first snow.

Thursday night, though, nature had forgotten about the law of first snow. October-schmoctober. It's snow time!

Early snow always causes problems. The subway was delayed. Cars that had not yet shifted to winter tires slid off the road like Disney on Ice. I was a popsicle in my tennis shoes and thin jacket.

And yet. There is nothing - nothing - as soothing as the first snow. It always fills me with a peace of mind unmatched by anything else I know. The fluff falling from the sky - quietly whirling through a dark, cold night, completely careless of the problems it may cause on ground - somehow manage to calm me down. There is nothing I can do about it. The snow will fall. It will cover everything in a layer of candyfloss that effectively dulls the sounds of the city, that softens every sharp edge, and hides the blemishes humans apply to our surroundings.

It is an inevitable sign that winter is impending. But it doesn't matter. The first snow always make me happy. However, I do hope it will be weeks before we have any more of it...

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.