"You can become an archangel or a serial killer without anyone noticing, but everyone will tell if you're missing a button."

-E.M.Remarque (not perfectly quoted, but I don't remember)

Art; the extension of Faith

Dance. Like ripples of water through the emotions of the human body. Like expressing the universe with the flickering of a wrist, with the tilt of a shoulder. The language of the body perfected into the language of music, and ultimately, to the beat of a universal heart, the heart of the world.

This is the one thing I cannot express in words. No matter how poetic I try to be, or how accurate, or however well it can have you understand what I mean, this is the one thing I cannot, never, reproduce. Quite litterally. For with my leg I will never dance. And is it the forbidden fruit that sweeps my mind away, or the passion, the immersion, the ability to close your eyes and let your body drift on the ocean of existance or be tossed between the waves of chaos, that makes my eyes tear at the thought alone?

Dance. An embodiment of the concept I call beauty. An expression, an art, but most of all a path to the insides of your soul and the discovery that it is no more separate from the universe than a molecule of air is from the air itself. The world does not matter. Not the one you see or feel through your eyes or your ears or your skin. What matters is the flow, the beat. The beating of the heart of what some would call God, but that I have no word for.

There are no words.

Shun, I summon you!

You can now get your Spore Creatures as figurines, and however silly and however disappointing that game was, I feel a slight tug at my heart at the thought of getting a tiny Shun to guard my desktop.

I wonder what having a figurine done costs, generally? Wouldn't it be awesome to make the roleplaying characters one has played for a while? Or make them before starting, so they can be used as "tabletops" for those annoying situations where it matters if you stand to the right or the left of the shooter. If I was filthy rich, this is one of those ridiculous, environmental-destroying things I would do, I imagine.

I also read an interview with a scientist, who, shockingly, unveiled that scientists do not believe Spore to be very scientifically correct, while on the other hand horribly fundamental catholics have been known to protest against it (not to be confused with the impressive amount of intelligent fundamental catholics who don't believe a stupid, fluffy game to be insult enough to their religion to raise their voices). What surprised me, however, was how the interview revealed that EA actually had made claims before its realease with hopes that it would be a "tool among the scientific community". What? The lady scientist said that the prototypes that had been released earlier were much more likely to ever be used in a serious setting.

So like many, many others, I wonder; what the hell happened to this game? Halfway towards a groundbreaking, mindblowing game about evolution, about the very cornerstones of intelligent life, Maxis suddenly decided, screw this, let's make this based on five-year-olds, yet illogical and boring enough to make sure no five-year-olds ever play it. The question on everybody's lips is (or were, when they released it, I'm just slow) when did they turn into Microsoft?

Shhhhh!

Ah, secrets secrets. I have one. No surprise there, we all have secrets, but what I mean is, I have a specific secret that I will tell you about later, but can't now. I'm all for secrets, because they make life that much more interesting, and I hate ruining secrets because that wastes a lot of work and ruins a potentially awesome moment. But how difficult it is to keep secrets. I just want to wave my arms around and bounce and tell everyone, no matter how unrelated a person and how little they care. Because a secret is really only fun at the very moment it's revealed. Like the huge plot twist of a role playing game; that's what I'm working towards the whole time. And I try to make my writings unpredictable just for that feeling I'm hoping to achieve when the monster reveals its true form and intent. To see people suddenly discovering THE SECRET, that's one of my greatest pleasures of life. It's a feeling I love, when things fall into place and I can see, so obviously I want to share it.

You realize this rant is all about me trying to ease the feeling of wanting to wave my arms around and bounce and tell everyone around that secret I'm having right now, right? Don't worry, in some weeks it will all become clear. It's no big deal. It's just that it's a SECRET! :)

Cycle of life

I'm in some sort of period where I get loads of ideas for new creative stuff, like drawings and writings and stories of all kinds. But nothing gets done. I've been wondering for a long time if my circles actually follow the calendar, as in my female calendar of monthly pain; if not only my body but my mind and my creativity is governed by this highly unwanted touch of biology. It's humbling, maybe, to in this way be reminded that I am also, only, human. But hell's balls how bloody fucking frustrating it is!

Report from the frontline

I'm in one of those periods where I feel like a normal person. When school is okay, I get things done, I clean my house and cook real food and go to the bank like a responsible adult. While it feels awesome and I actually function, it also feels a bit like walking around in a dream, in someone else's perfect life somehow. Is this how it is to be normal, I think? Is this how people live their lives? And I waver on this line, between thinking too much and just going on.

I waver between kicking myself down again into death and darkness and depression where I can wallow in the fruits of creativity, where nothing gets done and I hate the world and postpone any kind of contact with it but there is so much more to it. Or between taking another breath, stand up, and do the dishes and go on being a normal person in a normal world filled with normal people. Always on the edge, always fighting to know what is right, what is home, what is me. I stare up at the clouds and waver between sky and heaven. And here I am, balancing on the spider silk line between ignorance and despair, squinting my eyes trying to take it all in and protect myself at the same time.

Is there a way I can be both corporate queen and goddess? Must I choose between the depths of my mind and the plains of society?

And love? Love keeps me in line and tips me over in favor of the normal world and the normal people. A safety hatch or a prison? One I stay in voluntarily, regardless, no matter if it hurts. Because who can ever be sure that there will be another high if I let this one go?

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.