Rememberance

I realized it's been almost a year since he returned and that I still do miss him. I can still feel his smell if I try, and there has been times, especially when I'm back home, when I catch the glimpse of something white and spin around, only to remember it's impossible, or when I wake up and hear a sound I misinterpret as his steps and expect him to come into bed with me. And yet, it isn't just my imagination, is it? Even if things return to the Lifestream, they never completely disappear, do they? Maybe he thinks of me, at the same time as I think of him, and somehow we create a link for just the shadow of a moment. His soul is being poured out into new living things as I write this, maybe somewhere in them there is something of him that reverberates through space and reaches me? No. Not maybe. I know there is. And I know as long as I remember him he will be around. So I tell him I'm sorry I couldn't save him. And I promise him I will remember him as long as I live. And I hope he knew all this long before I had any need to say it. No. I know he did.

A small hole

I thought I had most of Kirya planned in my head when I started writing it, not uncommon when I'm writing longer stuff. At the end of chapter 18, however, I realized that I, like Shemhazai, was without direction, and that I was dangerously close to losing that link to Kirya herself that I'd fought through 17 chapters to build. She's a very difficult character for me to hold on to. I realized that where I'd thought I had a small hole in my planning, easy to fill, I had a gap the size of Australia. But despair not. It took a while to work up the courage, and then I dedicated every moment my brain wasn't occupied for two days to stitch something together. That's how it feels, like picking up pieces, maybe like pieces of a map that someone's cut up to fit in envelopes then sent to me in the wrong order. I have to stitch them together, and then I look at the map and go wow, this is awesome. So then, making an uncut, unstitched copy of the map, I wrote chapter 19, which funnily enough you won't get to see until I've written 20 and 21. The side effect is that this story is getting longer and longer, but also that I finally feel I've pinned Kirya down to who she really is. So have faith that there is a plan, and it is coming along nicely, and, wow, it is awesome.

Somewhat out of synch then, I post ch16-18. I didn't post them before because before my fantastic stitching, I was convinced they were crap. That's usually my sign that I need to think about where to go next. And, well... I hope this plot still intrigues you. Let me know what you think of the new twists and turns... if they are twists and turns.

What do you think I think of you?

Was walking back from the store with a Coke (I'm still keeping to my three-day rule, it's even been five days since I bought the last one) when I thought, what do people think when they see me? I mean, just as a curious thought, how do they preceive me? Because I felt awesome, walking in half-dark with my fake leather jacket, perfect hair, Coke in one hand and the other in my pocket.

I mean, if they think at all, what do they think? This is hard. Thinking like other people is hard. As a writer of course I can fabulate, but privately I have no idea. Cripple? Because it's really obvious I limp, especially when I'm carrying something in my hand like that. I don't think I dress agressively enough for anyone to think dyke. And I think they can see I'm a girl at first glance, if nothing else they will assume I am from size. Corporate bitch because I'm carrying a Coke? Fashion disaster because I don't dress like the 60% of this town that wear black or the 90% that wear cloth coats (yes they overlap, a lot). Ah, and also foreigner, or more probably, Asian? Because in Sweden, people tend to be divided in those two categories for some reason. Or maybe that's just me.

"What I think isn't as fun to analyze as what you think I think of you."

Also an observation related to my store visit; the trend of my head-turners seems to navigate towards broad-shouldered guys, short according to scandinavian standards, probably crew-cut, who looks very serious but are quick to laugh. Those of you who have seen my father, shut up. I know. I can't fight every stereotype.

The Birth of a Short Lived Poem

I lost a thought.

It happens. I was walking back from a test, it had gone better than I thought (which isn't saying much since I expected to fail completely) and most of all, no more tests for weeks and weeks and no studying to do for a whole weekend. It had been cold, but just as I stepped outside the door the sun went up, the whole glistening snow and imaginary birds singing, you know the story. Life was good to me for half an hour. So I had a thought.

I get thoughts when I do nothing, and am alone. Mostly it manifests when I walk, since walking is painfully boring, and I prefer to walk alone so I can keep my own pace and pretend I'm somewhere else so I won't notice how boring walking is, and also when I know exactly where I'm walking so I don't have to pay attention. Also when I'm walking in remote places where there aren't much people who can see me, because I need to "talk" to myself, move my lips at least to focus my thoughts into words.

Thus I walked home this shiny morning and I had a thought. A long, intricate thought, focused through a beautifully crafted rhyming poem. A thought that connected me to the rest of the world, to the sky, the snow and the reflecting surfaces of polished cars, to the morning light and the smoke and fumes. It was a simple poem, but a thought spun of the finest of threads in the hands of the most skilled goddess of fate.

I've lost the thought. It happens. It doesn't matter. A week, a month, a year from now I'll be walking alone down a road in the morning light, and I'll have another thought. Maybe the same thought. And while I wait for that, I guess I'll just keep myself busy.

Life through the Lens of a Sofa

I just went from having no sofa to having seven to choose from, all with their pros and cons, not two of them looking the slightest alike -_- Picking furniture for a new apartment is hard in itself, but doing it without having seen the apartment and together with a person who simultaneously has to separete her stuff from her ex's stuff is exhausting. Who knew the science of a comfortable, functionable and preferably not horribly ugly and clashing sofa was so complicated? This one has a nice color, the other has space for two people to sleep in, another is fashionable and a real bargain, and that one fits a lot of people into little space. Insert person with severe problems with decision making (= me) and voilá, you have... I don't know, it's so pathetic it's hardly amusing either.

It's kind of funny how I spend as much energy angsting over which sofa to pick, when I don't have to pay for it myself and probably won't keep it more than a couple of years, as I do on making life-altering decisions like, hey, let's move to Uppsala and study this on random. More, even.

I also have no time whatsoever to study for my test, since I'm busy angsting over sofa, among other things. Also because I have a decent internet and computer for the first time in a month. Rather distracting. Maybe I have an hour or so right now, which is why I'm blogging >_< Okay, off I go.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Without further ado I must admit this day won't turn out as I thought, since all couples in my vicnity turned out a bit more boring than I expected, for various reasons. Anyway, I feel like celebrating this day anyway by ordering in food or something.

For some reason I turn much more friendly towards relationship-related holidays when I'm not in a relationship, possibly because of the reduced pressure. Imagine all couples out there now with expectations for today, and angst because of either not wanting or really wanting to please their partner in whatever area they have chosen. It's not really that thought that calms me, I'm not that sadistic, it's mostly the thought that there are happy couples out there and they seem to do fine that keep me happy. They deserve to be celebrated for managing what seems to be so difficult these days - keeping it together. I by no means think being single is inferior, I somewhat plan to stay that way the rest of my life. I only mean that managing a relationship is an accomplishment and should be recongized.

This weekend I'm going to look at the apartment I'll have from the 1st of Mars. I'll share it with two really cute black-and-white cats. Oh, and also a woman. She seems nice too.

In other news: I found one actor each for my two favorite tv-shows in the movie Serenity; one from Bones and one from Numb3rs. Funnily, both died. Err... don't want to ruin the movie for you, but they did.

Valentine's

Saturday is Valentine's Day.

Means everyone else will be busy.

Means I might get the apartment ALL TO MYSELF ALL DAY!

Valentine should have a candy cane for coming up with this great day.

Darling

I wonder
what is it like to be you?
To see the world from your eyes
To breathe the air through your lungs
To smile at me with your lips

To see the wretched thoughts of your minds?

I wonder
why is it that I love you?
When your eyes twist my form
When your lungs steal my air
When I cannot tell if you grin behind your smiles

When I hate you until I suffocate

I wonder
humanity
Do you know what I am
Do you see what I see
Do you know what I see at all

Do you hate me too?

Humanity, darling
it would never have worked between us
so please don't love me
it just complicates things.

What I've Done

I wrote some shit last night. Might put it up later once I've eyed through it for spelling and stuff. I'm just telling you this because a) I've felt so goddamned uninspired the last week (although I have written some more on Kirya, it just hasn't felt very exciting) and b) I have a lot of things I want to write on this blog and most of all drawings I have in my head that I want to do and put up, but since my computer is faaaar away back home and I'm stuck with crappy touch-pads (sorry, friends' computers, but you suck) I'm here rambling about nothing again.

Through some roleplaying my thoughts were led onto the subject of beauty again. That's what I've written about, basically. And although what I wrote should scare me, and should say to me I need to change my attitude to stay a human being, it doesn't. Some things in life are worth dying for, just like some are worth killing for. Not many would agree with that beauty is one of those things, at least not at first thought. But it would be kind of boring if everyone in the world were the same, no? I'm just adding variety to life :) and maybe to death.

Cheers.

A few cats and a dog

I did one of those career tests again. It told me I should be a forensic scientist; a live CSI member. That would be awesome, I did consider it long ago, but it takes a lifetime to get there, and I'm not really that patient.

Looking at it, there's a whole load of things I do the same thing with. I would love to be a forensic scientist but i would hate the road to getting there. I would love to be a dancer, or a machine technician, or a psychiatrist, and a lot of other things. I really believe I would like it. But the roads there are so intimidating. Most of all, the whole "protocol" about it bothers me. How I have to study one exact thing in exactly the way everyone says and write essays containing exactly what other people think they should and stuff like that. It bothers me so much, that most things I never get started on, and those I do get started on I fail because I can't focus. Being a writer is easy, in that sense. You do what you do and see if it works. With other things I have to do it the way others say I should. Some protocol is necessary, of course. But it's not the protocol of the subject but rather that of the studies that hinders me.

I dream sometimes of becoming one of those hermits living in the forest, surviving on what they can make themselves. Absolutely free and separated from the claims and rules of society. Alone to make their own mistakes. Responsible for their own life only. I'd have a few cats and maybe a dog, and it wouldn't matter if it was sunday or monday because vegetables grow on both days and the deers don't care. Is it possible? Would I be happy? I think, and this scares me, yes. I would. But something, most likely my own cowardice, keeps me from trying. Or is it the spirit of the pack that whispers in my ears and warns me from the path of no return? To turn your back on society is the crime society cannot bear, is that not so?

Nature vs Nurture

Woke up in a horrible mood today. Wonder how those things work, those days that you've somehow decided for one emotion from waking up to going to bed, for no apparant reason. It's like laughing to make yourself happy or acting scared to become scared.

There's a manga/anime called Death Note. Awesome. Anyway, in part of it the main character makes sure he loses memory of everything he's done that far in the story, so that he can lie believably and not get caught. But the point of his plan is that he will regain his memory later on. He doesn't know that will happen. He doesn't even know if he'll still want the same things. But he has such faith in himself, he goes through with it.

These two things connect as follows: if you can manipulate so well your own emotions, and yourself, if it is so easy to change yourself, how easy wouldn't it be for others to change you? I wonder all this often, yet at the same time I have the feeling of that it's not true; that you, that I, would still remain no matter what. I believe in DNA, not environment. I believe in self, regardless of circumstances. "I" am as much a fluid concept as it is absolutely set in stone. The world exists to me only because I believe in it. And you can take the world from me, but I will still remain.

My virtue will be Faith.

The universe and me

The universe have spoken.
Faith is my answer.
No thing is weaker than a heart never broken,
but no thing is stronger than belief never tested.
And when all else have proven me wrong
I will still believe
Not that I can do everything
Not that I can do anything
but that I will remain
And that that is enough.
I am the single item
the single person
the one true entity and belief.
I am my own god, for
Without me
there would be no I
And I will remain.

Floating thoughts of a counsciousless mind

Last post from home. Tomorrow is Uppsala, and fear and angst and death. And also possibly my wonderful new future. I am dead tired. I hope I didn't do a "person without any sense of social sense" and didn't let people know I'm coming to Uppsala... when I think about it, which I haven't until now, I'm suddenly not sure. My head's been full of said fear and angst and death lately. Sincere apologies. And also math tests. I did it this morning, had to get up half past six, which is why... y'know. Rest of the day was spent packing, and pondering how I'm going to learn to do eye make-up that doesn't look like crap. And also realizing because I wore a hat right after showering that my hair had decided to look exactly like the hair of one of those Korean boyband singers I've been pestering people about, during one of his less hot hair periods, so I spent an hour dressing up in my most boyish clothes and dancing to his songs. Haha. If I had gotten proper sleep I would never have told you this. I wonder if I can make my hair do that again? Probably not. Then I angsted some more over why my suitcase won't hold more clothes. And other things. But I have made a pretty necklace now. It also looks exactly like one said boyband singer wears at one time, but that one was actually more accidental and less freaky fan stalker. Sorry. Ranting. Sleep now.

Le Gasp

Okay, so I wrote a long segment about how silly I am to care about this, but really, what I want to say is:

That guy Tobias from Swedish Let's Dance, I rambled about him long ago, and how handsome and awesome he is and all that, well this year he's dancing with the blonde bitch from the Idol jury. Does anyone understand what I'm saying here? Gah!

Ah. Felt good to vent that with you guys. Gah! There, done.

Beauty is really the thing that can wipe away all those ideas about being calm, cool and sensible that I otherwise harbor.

Don Don Don

Does anyone else have trouble with paying with Visa cards online? Cuz these last days it hasn't worked anywhere for me. And for some reason I can't understand I won't get the money back for the monitor I tried to buy that was sold out until february... which means I'm suddenly and inexplicably broke!?! This sucks.

<--- (new Kirya chapter)

The Writing of a Poem

I close my eyes
I cleanse my mind
I turn inside
and I listen.
I feel it now
the voice inside
speaks not in words
but in essence.
And I write -

Drifting
Swiveling
Hovering
Fingers
Frictionless
A Devil's Breath
above my skin
Enclosing
Yet opening
Lifting me
To see
Storm
center around
Me

.
.
.

Question: Better with or without the "intro"?

Hint Hint

Calendaring was fun in its own way, but I'm also glad to be back to posting normally.

Hm, I'm just thinking... how do you hint something to someone who doesn't take hints? Doesn't life get pretty de-layered without hints? Say, for example that I would DM some story in which the characters have the free choice of choosing, say, A or B. If I blatantly make someone say "A is better" then hint-less people would choose A, nee? Or if I let two people blatantly say one each is better, it comes down to which person they like better. On the other hand, small things subterfuged into the story and into scenes here and there would guide hint-taking players to consider the choice carefully... so that they can discover the truth on their own, not having someone tell them how it comes together. How is this accomplished, really? Because I refuse to have people *say* all important information in a game. Then it feels like all it's about is talking to, alternatively mind-raping, the right person. I guess that works if it's ass-hat hard to talk and/or mind-rape people, but it's not. In a game, the main thing players tend to do is talk and mind-rape people as much as is playably possible. So... what do you guys think? You like having info told to you? Or how are you supposed to discover things?

I hope people understand what I'm trying to say here...

Oh, and also, I'm going to get rid of that banner because it's annoying the hell out of me that I suitably put it up with the first calendar post, but not taking it down with the last... Yes, I'm anal about it. It's just, ps is fucking with me and it's 4 o'clock in the morning. G'night.

An Advent Tale XXIV

Up to them stepped a man in uniform, and the impressiveness of his charisma was only matched by the width of his chest and the whiteness of his teeth. He saluted them with a friendly smile and looked them over.

“Well, I can tell we have a winner right here,” he said and reached out and shook hands with Julian. “Congratulations!”

“What?” Julian said, blinded by all the attention and this sudden change of events.

“Ah, excuse my manners,” the man said. “I am Derek, I am in charge of public relations. And safety. And finances. Oh, hello Leigh.” He shook the human’s hand as well. Leigh still looked grumpy and went off to climb a building to get his mind off his defeat.

“Wait, what? In charge of what?” Kati wanted to know.

“Ah, let me explain. The Lancea Sanctum will be pushing a political campaign in the area, and we thought we needed a local to speak for us while we’re off elsewhere. My boss, wise as he is, knows that it’s the woman behind the man that counts. So we agreed that the couple with the strongest woman coming to our Christmas Party would take charge in this region.”

“See?” muttered Benji.

“In charge of the region?” Julian said.

“This guy’s so fresh he can’t tie his shoes,” Kati said. “And don’t think you can just waltz in here like that, the Invictus…”

“Obviously he’s the most suitable man,” Derek declared and went on to shake Sam’s hand. “It can’t be doubted! Ah, well, I am needed elsewhere. Please enjoy the party; we will sort the paperwork out tomorrow. Tonight is Christmas, after all!”

And he was gone.

It was silent for another ten minutes. Then the star atop the tree released Ray from its magical spell, and he yawned and stretched and looked around if anyone else was bored.

“Hey guys, look, presents!”

An Advent Tale XXIII

“We will stop you, one way or another,” Kati said. “Think you can defeat us all?”

“We’ll take down your evil plan!” Aiden declared.

“I think,” Ray added.

But Julian, at seeing the couple and at the damage he’d taken, suddenly remembered what had happened, how Leigh had come around and sent him off. He struggled to get on his feet and Kati helped him up. “It doesn’t matter what you do!” he yelled. “You’ll have to kill me to keep me away from Sam!”

At which Sam jerked up. “What?” she said and turned to Leigh. “You told me he left.”

Leigh wet his lips and smiled disarmingly. “Did I? I meant, he left when I told him to.”

“You beat me up!” Julian protested. “Said you’d kill us both if I didn’t get lost!”

“Well, he’s obviously too weak for you,” Leigh told Sam. “I’ve shown you what we could do with the place. Come on, let’s continue. Don’t mind these people.”

Sam stared at him. “Forget it,” she said. When he tried to stop her from going she simply lifted him by his stylish coat and told him if he ever laid hands on Julian again, or any of Julian’s friends, she would send him back to his boss in one-pound boxes.

And once that was out of the way, she returned to Julian, who was overridden with joy at seeing her and immediately recovered.

Seeing as Leigh had met his match he had no desire to fight them. He came with them back through the tunnels and up from the hatch under the Christmas tree. Where our heroes discovered that today was Christmas day, which they had, with all the excitement, forgotten. The tree was lit up with the most amazing lights and the star at the top mesmerized Ray for a whole fifteen minutes.

Outside also waited a whole crew of vampires, setting up a stage and testing microphones. None of them seemed to notice them coming up.

Kati didn’t recognize any of them as Invictus. She grabbed one of them and asked, “What is going on here?”

A voice cut through the crowd; “Let me answer that!”

An Advent Tale XXII

Julian sped up when he heard voices. It did sound like the guy was giving Sam a tour, and Sam was listening and talking back. Good. Then at least she wasn’t hurt.

He came rushing just as the guy was telling her about the composition of earth that gave it its orange color, and the guy flickered his wrist and a dozen throwing stars came flying at Julian. He didn’t even stop talking meanwhile. Sam was a bit distracted, though, as Julian cried out in pain and stumbled to the ground.

The others caught up with them but were slowed down by the ease with which the guy had defeated Julian. Ray and Aiden hurried up and pulled Julian away some, and began plucking stars out of him.

“Now what is this?” the guy demanded. He was of middle length, dressed with stylish ease and with nothing but peach fuzz on his head.

“Leigh!” Benji shouted, stepping out and pointing with one dirty glove. “It’s not over yet! I have…” And he grabbed Melody’s arm to pull her up front with him, but she was quite finished with pretending and finally got to elbow him again.

“Release that girl now!” Aiden yelled.

“What?” Leigh said. “What are you talking about, release? She can go if she wants.” He turned towards Sam and held out a hand, showing her she could do as she liked. She hesitated.

Aiden, Kati and Melody tried to attack him when he wasn’t expecting it, but like with all good fighters he didn’t really have a time when he didn’t expect it. Even Ray who had snuck up invisible was struck back. They were all repelled again and again, and the chances for our heroes seemed slim.