Ka-squish!

I’m a slow blogger these days. I blame life. Having up to recently spent most of mine with my (very cute) nose stuck in a science book, I haven’t quite adjusted to this whole vacation-thing. In short; I’m somewhat unprepared for actually having a life and it now takes up a lot of time, because once classes start up again, I’m going to have to get rid of it again. Enjoy it while it’s there, as some old woman on TV said the other day.

One thing I have learned is that life has its ups and downs. Last week, for example, it had a definite down.

You see, I have a freezer in my storage room. Having a freezer isn’t a bad thing, in and by itself, it can actually be mighty handy, but in my case it turned into a nightmare. In a Freddie Krüger kinda way.

To the extent of my knowledge the content of my freezer limited itself to some old plums and a bunch of berries, neither of which held much interest to me. Therefore the freezer was pretty much ignored, poor thing. However, it turned out that my mum had been putting stuff in there. Stuff that had once been alive, such as hams and bits of an elk that had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Had I known that there was actual FOOD in there, I would have stopped by to visit it every once in a while and the whole, hideous disaster might have been avoided…

But I didn’t, so it wasn’t.

It started last week, when I noticed a faint, but strange odour when I walked by the big, red door that the storage room likes to hide behind. My mum, who had come to visit, noticed it to. We stuck our little heads into the room and sniffed some more. More smell. We inspected every nook and cranny, and eventually decided that the smell seemed to be coming from the freezer-area. And then we saw… the electrical outlet. It was empty, but it was supposed to be filled with the plug from the freezer. The very same plug which was now lying on the floor, stretched towards the door, as if it had been trying to get away.

We opened the freezer and became acquainted with the little odours big, fat Momma. The previously mentioned ham lay on top of a mountain of plums.

We touched it.

It exploded.

Ka-squish.

Clean-up was a bitch.

So that was my weekend. How was yours?

Mucho mojo

I wasn’t much of a fashionista when I was in junior high. Not even close, really. To tell you the truth, I was a bit of a dork. A big bit. That didn’t stop me from trying to look hot, mind you.

All the cool girls in my class had really big hair of the kind that went straight up and then straight down, like a plane crash, and I did my very best to imitate them. Not well, but still. Hairspray was of course an important part of the process. I remember using the kind that turned into a greyish sticky dust after a while. I looked as if I had the worst case of dandruff since… well, since ever, really. Either that or an attack of lice to rival those of a person from the Middle Ages who bathed in cold water only for Christmas and slept on hay alongside of livestock.

One day I’d run out of the stuff. If I had taken the time to develop a sense of style, I would probably have considered that to be a blessing.

But I hadn’t.

So I started searching high and low for a replacement. Anything would do. I tried out every cream and sticky concoction I could find until I discovered one that worked somewhat. It didn’t make my hair stand up much, but it did make it paste nicely to my head, which made it a satisfactory replacement. After applying it, I took a moment to read the tube.

Self tanning lotion.

You know how your scalp, underneath the hair is usually paler than the rest of your face? Mine wasn’t. My face was quite pale – the kinda pale that teenage nerds who spend all summer inside with a book wind up sporting – and my scalp was a dark coconut brown.

Fancy.

Another funny

I heard a story a while back and thought it was funny, mostly because I’m a morbid sort of a person. You might have heard it, but…oh well. I’m going to tell it anyway because my tummy hurts today. Every now and then whatever evil, little genie I accidentally swallowed recently gives my innards (Can you have innards if you’re not a pirate?) a good SQUEEEEZE.

You see, there was this woman who came back from work early one day only to find her beloved hubby serving the woman from next door, if you know what I mean.

SQUEEEEZE.

The other woman jumped out the window and ran home, stark nekked and probably showing the other neighbours a whole new side of herself that they’d never seen before.

The wife was furious and her rage gave her almost superhuman strength. She grabbed her husband and pulled him with her out into the shed, which was home to tons of tools and a very large toolbench, fully equipped with one of those what-you-might-call’em screw-thingies where you fasten pieces of wood or whatnot to work on them (we had those in school, and I hated them. I somehow managed to spend the entire year pretending to make a candy box when I really wasn’t doing anything at all). The wife now fastened a whole other kinda wood in there, if you know what I mean. And then she removed the handle, so that he wouldn’t be able to get free.

SQUEEEEZE.

Then she got a saw down from a nail on the wall.

“Jesus, you’re not gonna cut my dick off, are you?” said the husband.

“No, of course not,” said the wife and handed him the saw. “I’m going to burn this shed down. Then you can do whatever you consider necessary.”

Hehehe.





SQUEEEEZE.

Tag!

I was recently tagged by Tom, but then I forgot about it. Then I remembered, and then I forgot again. Yesterday I remembered, but I got distracted by shoe shopping and a barbeque. There’s nothing to sidetrack me now (yet), so…

First I have to post the rules. Here they are:
1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1) I’ve never seen an alien: except in movies, of course. There used to be lots of enormous slugs outside of my apartment in the city, and they looked as if they might have come down from a spaceship somewhere, but they probably didn’t. I’ve had some bizarre neighbours over the years, and I have some bizarre family members, but they’re most likely home-grown.

2) I live with a semi-anorexic dog: She eats like a bird. And I mean that in the she-eats-very-little-way rather than the she-eats-several-times-her-own-weight-way. It doesn’t seem to be doing her any harm, though, and it’s very friendly on my student budget.

3) I hate gardening: If gardening was a person, I would stab them with scissors, set them on fire and dance around them like an Indian warrior.

4) I have a recurring dream that I’m being chased by bears. Brown bears, polar bears, grizzlies, any kind of bear that my imagination can come up with. I once dreamt that I was chased by a moose, but that also turned into a bear eventually.

5) I’m incapable of tanning. My summer skin tone varies between ‘colourless of the crypt’ and ‘livid lobster’. If I were a vampire I would either do very well or very poorly, indeed.

6) I love shoeboxes. Whenever I was bought new shoes as a kid, my mum would always throw the boxes away. Now I’m a grown-up and I get to keep them. Except for when my mum visits and throws one out in a fit of tidy helpfulness.

7) I have no sense of direction. There was one particular mall where I used to shop once a week while I lived in the city, and I would always get lost. I never had any idea where I was or where I was going once I got past the first escalators. My first purchase once I get a real job, will be something to do with GPS.

8) I turn my water boiler on out of habit in summer. It’s not that I want boiled water it’s just something that I do without even thinking about it much. I develop this habit of flipping the on-switch whenever I walk past it during the winter months, when I drink enough tea to drown a camel, and I just keep doing it all summer long. It’s boiling right now, as a matter of fact.


I don't think I'll tag anyone today. Unless someone wants to be tagged, in which case they may consider themselves to be so.

A lovely day for the wiggling of the toes

I’m starting to get that vacation-feeling deep inside my tummy, right underneath the ice cream, watermelons and fizzy drinks. In a couple of days it’ll probably have spread to my brain, from which it will have to be surgically removed once classes start up again, like some malignant tumour.

I’m going to grad school in the fall, you see. To Hellhole U, to be specific. The thing is that I didn’t really want to go there. I wanted to move back to the city, to where you can have food brought to you and where there is a big enough population to form a good-sized cult. But the universe had different ideas. It always does. First, I started thinking about all the stuff I’d have to haul halfway across the country, which put me off a little bit. This goes back to the lazy-thing I’ve mentioned earlier. I’m lazy. I’m also lethargic, sluggish and slothful, and I don’t like moving furniture over large distances.

Then I received my letter from Hellhole U, offering me a spot which I would have to accept by the 16th. Which is two whole days before the other schools I’ve applied to send out their letters. The thing is that I’m a sissy. The universe knows this, and tends to use it against me. The universe is very well aware that if I were to turn down Hellhole U, then not get accepted anywhere else, and have to postpone my masters for another year, I’d be forced to have a mental meltdown. I’ve seen meltdowns on movies and have always thought that they look like a lot of work. Which brings us back to me being lazy. I mentioned that, yes? So I’m going to Hellhole U.

But until then, I’m sitting outside in my garden chair with my laptop, wiggling my little toes in the air. I left the TV on inside and the sound is a bit annoying, but I’m too lazy to get off my ass to turn it off.

Some guy sounds waaay too happy as he says: “Before, we had to go to the doctor in order to remove my warts. Now we can do it at home with just one treatment.”

Idjit.

Time off and the evil of ants

For a very, very long time I’ve been very, very excited about today. You see, yesterday I had my last exam this semester, and that means that today is the very first day of my vacation. It’s a day I’ve dreamed about and planned in a hundred different ways many, many times. There is only one tiny, little problem.

Today is boring!

For one, it’s rainy. The first day of your summer vacation isn’t supposed to be rainy, dammit. I’m pretty sure that’s a rule. I know that I wrote it down on a piece of paper when I was a kid and gave it to my mum so that she could mail it to the king. That was ages ago, so it should have made its way into the lawbooks by now. As if that wasn’t enough, it’s also windy, which means that if you venture outside with something resembling an umbrella, you’re going to take off, Mary Poppins-style. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy flying, but I’d rather do it sitting down and with a stewardess serving me snacks, drinks and offering to fluff my pillow.

Just a little while ago, Pooch and I spent 20 minutes staring at an ant, just to see what it would get up to. Everybody knows that ants, although seemingly boring, are all psychotic maniacs. I know this for a fact, because I live in a very old house which is full of these delinquents. Only last summer I caught the little bastards trying to chew their way through the walls.
Even Pooch - who might not care much for the deeper philosophical conundrums in life – has insight enough to understand the evil of ants.

This particular ant, though, went on to crawling up the toilet bowl and falling in.

I flushed it.

I feel a little bad about that.

A very, very little.

Chasing that pink dragon

I had an appointment to go get my hair all pretty and shiny on Monday. It was about time, as tall people were now able to see my natural haircolor. Filled with joy and excitement, I skipped across the bridge and down the hill to where the salon is.

“Closed every Monday,” said the sign on the door.

Still, the hair dresser had clearly told me Monday on the 21st. I waited. And I waited, and waited and waited, but no one came. I even peeked through the windows, into the darkness beyond the L’OREAL posters, to see if maybe she was hiding under the desk.

It seemed clear that nobody would be making my hair all pretty and shiny, so I started to walk home. As I passed by the store, my stomach grumbled a bit, and I decided to go inside to buy a sandwich, or something. I spotted them quickly, stuffed full of chicken and lettuce and sitting on a shelf. And between them and me, behind the glass doors of the refrigerator, stood my old demon – strawberry milk.

Someone had come up with the clever idea, that you could fill plastic straws with strawberry milk powder which would then flavour the milk. I was just going to look at them, I thought, as I walked over. As I came closer, I could spot my own reflection in the glass. My hair looking distinctly un-pretty and un-shiny. Before I even knew what I was doing, I’d opened the door and placed a box of the straws in my little plastic basket.

“This is wrong,” I thought, but didn’t put them back.

So now I’m dealing with my strawberry milk addiction again. I know how it’s going to play out. The way it always does. I will gulp down the stuff until I can’t even look at anything pink without feeling violently sick. After I reach that point, it will continue for about a week. Then it’ll be over.

For now…

Pic by sindrityr for www.flickr.com

Meet Mr. Green!

For those of you who have been paying attention, you might recall that last year I mentioned that my lawn mower was the devil. Whenever you turned it on, thick clouds of smoke would well from it, oil would spatter everywhere and it would make a sound like a hundred mice being slowly squeezed to death. For this reason, I was now ready to mow my lawn for the first time this season with a brand new, hopefully non-demonic, and very orange mower, which I decided to name Mr. Green.

So there I was, in the middle of my garden with Mr. Green, surrounded by far too tall grass. I pulled the starter-thingy and the engine roared to life. Or…well…“roared” might be an overstatement, it was more like an enthusiastic fart. Still, it was a nice change from the usual 20min battle it had been with the old devil spawn.

Thus far everything was terrific, but there was one itty, bitty little detail for which I was completely unprepared – the back wheels that moved all by themselves.

So the engine came to life with a loud fart and all of a sudden, Mr. Green blasted forwards, clumps of grass flying in all directions. I hung on for dear life, while the little voice in my head (Toots) yelled “GHOST! It’s a GHOST!”

Luckily the rational part of my brain, which is called Bergerac, decided to join us. “Perhaps you should let go of the handle,” it suggested. I did, and the mower's enraged attack of the garden seized immediately.

Now I have a freshly mowed lawn, although it is a bit funny looking, seeing how I haven’t quite worked out the aim just yet.


In further news, I had an exam on Friday. There are two things in this world that make me incredibly grumpy, if not straight out malevolent, and those two things are 1) gardening and 2) exams. This means that this past weekend I was so grouchy, I just wanted to rip someone’s head off and then make my way through town and beat people to death with it.

I didn’t, though… I wasn’t me, and you can’t prove it.

I'm a grown-up, I am!

I’m waiting impatiently to hear back from the universities where I’ve applied to my masters’ degree, including Hellhole U.

Year ago, long before I wanted to be a brilliant scientist, I had a dream of becoming a lawyer. This dream was formed inside my tiny head way back when I was only a little horror, based on one very simple thing: the hit television show known as “LA Law”. More specifically, the power suits and briefcases worn by the women in that show. I liked the hairdos, as well.

For year and years, the idea remained there, until the time came to start applying to colleges. That was the first time I ever really asked myself why I wanted to study law. After careful consideration, I came to the conclusion that power suits and briefcases (even really, really fancy ones) probably weren’t the right foundation for a career choice.

As a kid, I had all sorts of ideas in my head about what it was to be “grown up”. Once, for example, I found a 100kr bill (a fortune for a nine year old kid like me) abandoned at the side of the road, just outside my school. I decided to be mature, so I instantly picked it up and ran back to school, where I handed it in to the principal, in case it’s owner would come looking for it, all the while hoping that nobody would so that I might get it back. Now I’m a grown-up. It says so on my birth certificate. Sort of. If I found money on the street now, I’d pick it up, put it in my pocket and be on my merry way, because that is the grown-up thing to do.

Also, when I was little, I dreamt about the day that prince charming would come climbing in through my bedroom window at night and… well, I dunno… sing me a song, or something, I guess. I was a kid, after all.
The grown-up thing to do if someone comes crawling through your window in the dark, however, is to scream, hit them on the head with something hard and call the cops.

All in all, I’m glad I’m not a kid anymore.

The doggie cloud prophecy

The other day, when I was out walking the dog through the farmlands of Hellhole, I saw something interesting. This was unusual, because Hellhole isn’t exactly crammed full of interesting stuff. It was a cloud, to be specific. Now, you might be thinking that clouds aren’t all that exciting, but this one was different – it looked like a dog with enormous ears chasing a cat.

“Hey,” I thought. “I have a dog with enormous ears, and she likes to chase things.”

At that very moment, the pooch’s ears pricked up as she spotted something on the other side of the field. “Mjau,” said the thing. That was pretty much the only invitation the pooch needed, and it shot across the field like a white arrow with lots of hear on it and huge ears. It as if the cloud was some sort of prophecy.

I drew a deep sigh and waited for the unavoidable: the part where the pooch starts to catch up to the kitty and realizes that she just might get her ass kicked. At that point, her brain starts to doubt the wisdom of her decision. However, it uses several seconds to transport this hesitation to the rest of her body. This is probably because said brain is very small. Very, very, very small.

This is the part where I call the pooch back. She is then so relieved that I stopped her from doing what she was about to do, I’m immediately elevated to hero-status.

But you know, in movies and such, prophecies always give you more than 30 seconds warning. I’m writing a letter of complaint.

A funny

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's SUPER-JOKE!

Pete and Eric were twins. Pete owned a run-down boat and accident would have it that the dingy, old thing sank on the very same day that Eric’s wife died.

Some time later, Pete ran into an old aunt who, mistaking him for his brother, told him how sorry she was for his terrible loss.

“Oh, I don’t know…” answered Pete. “Quite frankly, I’m glad to be rid of her. She was rotten from day one. The lower half was completely wrecked and she smelled of old fish. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she leaked constantly and had a huge crack in the back, not to mention a fairly sizeable hole in the front. Every time I used her, the hole got bigger. I suppose that what broke her in the end, was that I rented her out to four guys who wanted to have fun. The idiots all tried to get in at once, so she cracked in the middle. But it’s no big deal. I’ll just have to start searching the ads for a new one.”

Spring springing and sumo gymnastics

Spring has sprung. I know this for two reasons:

1) The other day I picked a gigantic tick off from behind the pooch’s ear, where it had settled quite comfortably in the soft, downy fur with its enormous, blood swollen ass in the air, like some sumo gymnast. Now that ought to be an Olympic event, if you ask me. I’d watch a sport like that.

2) Yesterday I gave the pooch a bath out on the porch. There’s not a creature on earth who hates bathing as much as the pooch does. She’ll take cover under the couch as soon as she sees the shampoo bottle. The trick is to wait until she’s not paying attention – which isn’t as easy as it might seem, since the pooch thinks I’m the most fascinating thing ever created – and then take care of the bath preparations (bucket with water, sponge, rubber gloves and shampoo. Not very complicated).

When it comes to the actually bathing process, she is somewhat conflicted. She hates the getting-wet-part but she quite enjoys the getting-the-shampoo-massaged-into-her-fur-part. After all, who wouldn’t? That’s my favourite part whenever I go to get my fur… uhm… hair done.

Anyway, her conflicted emotions keep her from running away, even though I’m sure she entertains the idea, long enough for me to bathe her properly. Once the bath is over, however, she storms around in a fit of joy so overpowering that it’s difficult for me to dry her off properly.

So you see, it’s spring. Although I suppose you might have noticed that yourself by now.

My empty head

I’ve got nothing. Less than nothing, even. My brain is an empty space full of boxes and spiderwebs. Yes, things can still be empty even though they’re full of boxes and spiderwebs. Those things clearly don’t count.

And I'm grumpy. Kinda like this:

My little alien-sister

As I may or may not have mentioned – probably didn’t – I have a little sister. A little sister who is doing that whole Scandinavian tall thing that I never got the hang of. We’ll call her V.

When we were kids, V developed a somewhat unusual interest: zits. She was fascinated by the whole pimple-popping-process. As soon as one appeared on her face, she’d kill it off and emerge from the bathroom with fresh claw marks on her skin. So far she wasn’t so very much unlike most teens, myself included, but the thing that set her apart, was the fact that once she had squeezed her own zits into oblivion, she started looking around for other people’s.

There was this one summer where her somewhat unusual hobby peaked. And at that particular time, I was lucky enough to have a tiny pimple on my forehead. To regular people like you (possibly) and me, it would be barely noticeable, but to someone like V, it stuck out on my face like a howling, red siren.

After a great deal of begging and pleading, she still hadn’t succeeded in getting her hands on it. V, the zit serial killer was getting desperate for her next casualty.

One rainy day, while I was sitting in the couch watching some mundane teen show, she decided to make her move. Without a sound she slipped down behind the sofa, where she waited quietly for a moment before pouncing.

Have you ever seen Alien? You know that part where the squid-hand-monster-thingy comes out of the egg and latches itself to some screaming victims face? It was like that. I did, however, manage to fight her off before she could lay her eggs inside my chest.

These days she claims to limit the hobby to her husband. Poor bastard.

Why I'm not a superhero

Every once in a while, I can’t for the life of me figure out what to blog about. Most of the time, it’s not something that an internal rant won’t fix –I’m very good at ranting – but, believe it or not, my life isn’t really all that remarkable. As far as lives go, it’s pretty run of the mill. Don’t get me wrong, I’m perfectly fine with that. I never harboured any dreams of being some spandex-wearing, cape-sporting superhero with my underpants on the outside of my outfit and a secret identity. When I take off my glasses, people still recognise me, and that has its advantages.

Really, it’s just as well that I’m not a superhero. First of all, a superhero has to drive a really cool car or plane, or something. I have a bike. Granted, it’s red and shiny with a handy basket, but it’s not quite the same thing, is it? I can’t quite see myself instilling fear into the heart of evil-doers while pedalling down the street on my trusty bicycle, cape flapping in the wind.

Also, superheroes have some sort of secret hideout. I don’t really have one of those, unless you count Hellhole itself.

Another thing that I don’t have to deal with, since I’m not a superhero, is saving the lives of that moron who always gets himself/herself kidnapped and strapped to a rocket aimed at the moon or slowly lowered into a volcano, or something equally ridiculous. I like to think that most, if maybe not all, of my friends have more sense than that.

Maybe it’s the tight material of their oh so clever disguises cutting off blood circulation to their heads that makes the average super more likely to befriend the dumbest, least observant people on earth. I’m not a psychologist or a tailor, so I have no way of knowing.

No, I would much rather be a supervillain. Sure, their dresscode is pretty preposterous, but the good guy bodycondom doesn’t seem to be mandatory. Also, I kinda like the thought of strapping someone stupid to a rocket.

Besides, I have a really fabulous evil laughter that I developed and at the moment I can’t really share it with people without them staring at me funny. When you’re a villain, these things are appreciated and will only increase people’s respect and fear of you.

Wanna find bliss? Come to Helllhole!

Tom recently suggested to me that I’d write something about why people should move to Hellhole. After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that this is a very good idea. As a matter of fact, the house I’m currently renting is being sold in the fall, so if anyone, after reading this article, should begin to feel overwhelmed with the need to spend time in this fascinating town, they’re welcome to buy this humble abode.

First of all, Hellhole isn’t really called Hellhole in real life. As a matter of fact, it has a name which means bent. It lies in a larger geographical area which roughly translates into “place with sheep”. And indeed it is. This is the place to come if you want to knit your own sweaters, people.

But that’s not the only advantages, of course. Our brilliant politicians have come up with inexpensive ways to fill our lives with thrills and excitements. Who needs to go to amusement parks? Not us. Perhaps you want an example? Well, you know those nifty lines that they paint on roads so that you can cross safely without being smeared all over the concrete by passing vehicles? Well, here in Hellhole, those haven’t been repainted since I was a kid. Over the years, they have become more invisible than Britney Spear’s underpants. All of the locals know that they’re there and will gladly step on the breaks if you feel like crossing the street. Should the car racing towards you be from out of town, however, you are about to have a very exciting day, indeed.

Do you harbour a dream of joining a sect? Well, then this is the place for you. We have them all. And if you can’t find one that meets your fancy, you could just start your own. Since pretty much the whole town swims in the same gene pool, they’re not very complicated, and are easily recruited into these sorts of things. I would like to take this opportunity to point out that our family moved in from out of town.

Or perhaps you’re just one of those people who have difficulty keeping track of what you’re meant to be doing in the coming days or perhaps of what you have done in the past? That’s certainly not a problem around here. Just ask anyone and they’ll gladly inform you. Even if it’s someone you’ve never laid eyes on in your life. It’s like being famous without ever having lifted a finger. Fame without the hassle, with other words. For example: only very rarely will someone follow you home.

And where else would you get the golden opportunity to step outside your door in the morning, perhaps in search of a newspaper, only to step on some inhabitant of the surrounding woods with sharp teeth. Yes, folks, we have things living in the woods with teeth. Most of them are badgers. But there are also bunnies and deer. You don’t think those last two sound very exciting? Well, think again. The deer bring ticks with them, and that always makes life more interesting, especially if you have pets of your own. The bunnies tend to sneak into your house, hide beneath furniture and then jump out really fast, which can be quite a thrill. Just make sure your pacemaker is on, folks.
Speaking of mail – the mailmen enjoy spicing up our lives by placing your mail in other people’s mailboxes all around town. Every day is a treasure hunt and what could possible be more fun? Not much, I say.

With other words – come to Hellhole! It’s a wonderful place to settle down and your kids’ll love it.

Pic by Billypalooza for www.flickr.com

Yawn!

Hello, my name is Choochoo and I’m an insomniac. (You go: Hi Choochoo!)

These past few days it’s been particularly bad. I go to bed early and spend the next few hours trying spinning like a top, swearing and taking my growing frustration out on my pillow. It’s a good thing pillows don’t bruise, or I’d have been put away for abusing the poor thing. I would have forever been known as a pillowbeater. In a small town like this, word gets around quickly. All the while, the pooch stares at me and no doubt wishes that I would just shut up, already.

A few years ago, I went to see a sleep specialist who gave me a long list of what not to do and a tiny little list of what I ought to do. That’s what it’s always like, ain’t it?

One such advice was to leave my bed once I’d been awake for about twenty minutes or so, to read a boring book or go to the bathroom. I wasn't allowed to look at my watch, though, to see how long I'd been trying to sleep, so I had to guess. And since five minutes feels like an hour when you're basically just staring at the ceiling in the dark, well... Let's just say I got plenty of exercise. Who the hell needs a stairmaster when you have a sleeping-disorder? Not me.

After one quick look at my bookshelf, I decided that my boring books were much to boring, and I would rather knock myself unconscious with a mallet, thank you very much. So off to the bathroom I went. Again and again and again. By morning I had been to the little insomniac’s room so many times, I was starting to feel dehydrated. I was also exhausted from running up and down the stairs. However, I was wide awake.

Better luck again tonight, I suppose. Maybe…

Moon pic by Nadar for www.flickr.com

A use for an angry wolverine

Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that about 95% of everyone I meet are either completely uninteresting or just plain dumb. Come to think of it, the phrase “dumb” isn’t really accurate. Being stupid is a character trade. And idiot simply can’t help it, and therefore he or she can’t really be held responsible for their idiocy. I suppose you’d have to blame the parents, or something. Ignorant is a much better word.

I count the people wise enough to read this blog among the upper 5%, of course.

With those who are just uninteresting, there’s no major problem. All I have to do is ignore them until they go away. The ones that are dumb/ignorant, however, aren’t that simple. They don’t have the intellectual insight to go away. Not only that, they insist on giving you their shockingly uninformed opinions on every little thing, regardless of whether you want them or not. Most of these belief they probably just invented themselves, most likely just after waking from a nap before their brains were fully conscious of what was going on. But the issue of whether or not such a person’s brain is ever fully conscious, is another matter.

Sometimes I come up with ways to hurt them. I have previously fantasized about probing them with sharp sticks. Then I advanced to burning sharp sticks.

My resent idea, however, is my all time favourite: live wolverines.
How cool wouldn’t it be if you could find a way to smack such a person with one of those? The only problem is, that picking a wolverine up by its tail and flinging it at people, might be somewhat tricky. There’s the whole issue of getting your head bitten off.

The seemingly best solution would then be to throw it at them from somewhere above. However, I don’t want to be too high up so that I’ll miss the sights and sounds of my little experiment. Perhaps a small crane or a fire truck would be best.

I’ll give it some more thought and get back to you.

The Pooch's great adventure

I had big plans for my Easter vacation this year. I was going to do absolutely nothing that had anything to do with work or school or anything like that. I figured I’d read scary books, watch the idiot box and definitely eat my chocolate bunny that I’ve been saving in the fridge for the past two weeks.

It’s a rather large bunny, wrapped in shiny bunny-paper. I’ve picked it up a few times, studied it intently – I even weighed it once on the kitchen scale, just because I wanted to do something with it and the time wasn’t right to eat it just yet.

But in stead I got to take the pooch to the emergency room. On Friday she clearly didn’t feel well and on Saturday morning a friend of mine drove us to the veterinarian, who stuck thermometers up her ass (the dog’s ass, not my friends), x-rayed her (still the dog), said something about a stomach/intestine infection and trapped gas and proceeded to pump her full of medication before sending us home with enough drugs to turn my kitchen table into a full-blown pharmacy. Or at the very least a small drug lab, like the ones you see on NYPD Blue.

That day, my head was full of philosophical questions. Should I change the water in the doggie bowl again? Was the bowl close enough to the pooch’s bed? Did the pooch need to go out? If the pooch didn’t want to go out, should I worry about that? What should I do if she didn’t want to poop? What if she did poop, and had horrible diarrhoea? What if she started throwing up? Etc, etc.

Then the pooch farted. I immediately picked up my cell to inform everyone of the good news. Everyone was thrilled, of course. For the rest of the day, and then through the night, the pooch did her very best to gas me to death. That didn’t matter, though, as I stayed awake most of the night, anyways, to ponder my philosophical questions and see if she needed to poop.

She’s feeling a bit better today, and all of a sudden I remembered that not only do I have a blog in need of updating, but I also have a chocolate bunny which must be getting mighty cold and lonely by now.

Thermometer pic by http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Ali%40gwc.org.uk&action=edit for www.Flickr.com

The cookie ambush

You know what? I almost forgot to post anything today. I was distracted by a bag of chocolate chip cookies. There I was, going through the cupboards – in search of carrot sticks, of course – and I heard a tiny, little voice coming from the top shelf.

“We’re lonesome,” it said.

I looked around, but couldn’t see anyone, so I grabbed my healthy snack and just as I was going to close the doors, the voice came again. “Please don’t leave us,” it said.

At that very moment, the sun peeked out from behind a cloud and sent a shiny ray of light in through my kitchen window. With an almost magical sparkle, it crept over my shoulder, into the cupboard and very gently touched the bag of cookies. I had almost forgotten that they were there.

Yes, I had. No, I hadn’t been nibbling on them for days. Oh, shut up!

“Take us with you,” said the cookies, and the bag stretched slightly in the sun.

“I can’t take you. You’re not healthy,” I objected.

“But we just want to sit on the table and watch TV, so that we won’t be lonely anymore.”

The cookies sounded very sad, indeed, and I couldn’t really see any harm in them just sitting next to me while watching reruns of Friends, so I brought them.

We watched in silence for a few minutes. Once again, I had almost forgotten that the cookies were there. Joey was sitting at the central Perk with Ross. He leaned forwards, about to say tell him something in confidence, looked around to make sure nobody would hear, opened his mouth and…

“Eat me” The voice came from the table, where a small cookie had somehow made its way out of the bag.

“I can’t eat you. You’ll make me fat.” I tried to explain why it and my waist line were natural enemies, and had just gotten past that part about how white sugar is bad, when I realised that the little cookie was sobbing.

“Please eat me,” it said. “Pretty please.”

I suppose one wouldn’t hurt, I thought, and put it in my mouth. It giggled as I chewed and swallowed.

Another ten minutes into the show, a tiny little voice sounded from my stomach. “I miss my mummy.”

And since I didn’t know which one of the other cookies were its mummy… Well, what else could I do? I had to eat them all. Anything else would have been cruel.

Cookie pic by Procsilas for www.flickr.com

Another day, another tag

But this one’s got an award in it, so it greases up my ego in a very pleasant way. I’ve always thought that a freshly greased ego is a very important thing to have. I will now name five blogs that I like, thereby greasing said blogger’s egos. My reason for naming every single one of them is that they make me laugh. Sometimes I laugh with them. Other times I laugh at them. But there’s no point in splitting hairs, is there? Of course not.

The rules of the meme are as follows:1. Post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.2. Link to original source blog (which would be The Thinking Blog, I guess) 3. If you don’t choose to do either then please display your thinking blogger logo as shown on this posting.

And these are the lucky people, in no particular order:

O mighty crisis

Useless writing

To do:1, get hobby 2. Floss

My brain hates me, but I hate it even more

Alchemy anyone?”

The swedish chef

Busy, busy, busy. Here, watch this:

Welcome to Stalkers R Us. How may I help you?

Last time I discreetly touched on the topic that I had en exam yesterday. It is now today, and yesterday went bye-bye. So have the exams. It wasn’t completely horrible. As a matter of fact, it rarely is, although I’m always quite convinced that it will be beforehand. I came, I wrote, I went home and watched The Singing Detective.
In between I tried to find a replacement for the jeans I tore when I was climbing a fence, and the fact that nothing fit me properly and the hostile light in the clothing booth made me feel fat for a couple of hours. Then I got over it, ‘cause I’m not fat, dammit. When I got home, I ate cookies out of spite. I briefly thought about staking out the store, just to see if those tiny-size-people actually exist, but that would have been boring, because such a person would obviously be twelve years old. You can get in trouble if you stalk someone who’s twelve. I’ve seen that on the news. Of course, you can get into trouble by stalking anyone, really. But some people might like it. I think some of the elderly that I worked with last summer would have enjoyed being stalked.

Hey, maybe I could set up an agency? Stalkers R Us. It would be like an escort service, only completely different. In stead of conversation, the chance to impress your friends with Mr. (really good at pretending to be) Perfect and possibly the opportunity for some form of sweaty activity, we’d offer phone calls featuring heavy breathing and groaning, lots of reasons for your friends and family to show their love and concern through worrying about you and the thrill of having your underwear go missing.

How’s that for brilliant?

Huge, mean, evil exams.

On Wednesday I have a huge, mean, if not just plain evil, exam. I don’t like exams. They freak me right the hell out. I’m studying like a real hero (wearing shiny, colourful pantyhose), until Bergerac (my brain) feels all soupy and strange.

My head is currently trying to figure out whether it should spin around of just go for some sort of explosion. Its inability to decide makes it sit on my shoulders in a very normal fashion, though.

All my thoughts are very slow today. I wonder if that’ll interfere with my hero-studying. Sometimes there are periods where I don’t think I thought anything at all. And then there are periods when I think sounds. Usually something along the lines of “grumpf”. A long, slow grumpf, of course.

As usual, I have all sorts of plans for what I want to do when I’ve survived my exams and I have time on my hands again. Not to mention in my shoes, behind the cups in the cupboard and in my right pocket of my favourite jeans (which I tore the other day when I was climbing a fence). I want to watch tons of movies, read books that have no -isms in them, stalk Jensen Ackles and so on and so forth. And as usual, I’ll probably just have the energy to vegetate in front of the TV and go to bed early.

Do you find me odd?

You Are 24% Abnormal

You are at medium risk for being a psychopath. It is somewhat likely that you have no soul. You are at low risk for having a borderline personality. It is unlikely that you are a chaotic mess. You are at medium risk for having a narcissistic personality. It is somewhat likely that you are in love with your own reflection. You are at low risk for having a social phobia. It is unlikely that you feel most comfortable in your mom's basement. You are at low risk for obsessive compulsive disorder. It is unlikely that you are addicted to hand sanitizer.

How Abnormal Are You?

Well, I'm pretty sure I'm not a psychopath, but I'll buy the no-soul thing. Especially after my last post. And I DEFINITLY don't have obsessive compulsive disorder. I'm completely random and unorganized.

Entertaining acts of desperation

Over the past week or so, we’ve had a charming mix of rain, snow and sunshine. Charming in the way that Sylvester finds that yellow canary charming. By now, it looks as if King Winter has been violently ill all over my yard. On the other hand, I don’t really mind watching spring kill winter off. Hellhole is actually on the pretty side in spring.

There are a whole lot of Jehovah’s witnesses in Hellhole. I don’t know if I ever mentioned that? They have this theory that only 200000 or so people will be allowed into the party in heaven after they die, so therefore they have to do a whole lot of missionary work in order to earn their seats. I guess it’s filling up fast, because lately there’s been a certain air of frantic desperation over the local witnesses. They may be all smiles and friendly greeting when they creep up on you in the streets, but there’s something in their eyes that I can’t quite put my finger on. Besides, if I tried, they’d probably just make a scene about me poking them, anyways.

Before the weekend, for example, I was on my way to the salon, and I saw one of them standing by the crossroads with a pile of pamphlets. She tried to give me one, but I threw up my arms and ran away as quickly as I could, although not until I noticed the impressive size of her aforementioned pile. It must have been at least 200 pamphlets in there. At a spot where maybe ten people pass through every hour. And she hadn’t even pitched a tent. Now, that’s the kind of dedication that only springs from deep-seated desperation and extreme anxiety.

Later in the day, when I was sitting in my living-room with my hair looking no less than fabulous, feeling a bit miffed over the fact that nobody was there do admire it. The Pooch had hardly seemed to notice my new cut at all, although she had a short interest in the smell of the dye. I like that smell too, actually. Sometimes I turn my head really quickly, so that I can inhale the head-air, until I get dizzy and flowery scents no longer appeal to me as much.

And then I saw her.

It was the same woman that I’d met at the crossroads. She was making her way towards my house. She’d come over the river, across the bridge (well, duuh) to the outskirts of town in order to go door to door. They never used to cross the bridge before, because there are hardly any doors to go to here, but lately things have been changing. It’s like something out of Lord of the Rings.

For a brief moment I considered whether or not I was eager enough to have my new hairdo admired to listen to the “joyful message” and quickly decided that I wasn’t. In stead, I ran upstairs and amused myself by watching the woman struggle with the gate which cannot be opened because it’s half-buried in the snow (the one on the other end of the fence works just fine, but no visitors ever think to try that). Then, after she’d climbed the gate, she fought to make it up my wet, unshovelled (it’s going to melt in the end anyways, so what’s the point?) driveway in order to ring my doorbell.

I pretended not to be home, and then I watched her go through the whole process again, backwards.

I’m guessing that I’m not going to be one of those lucky 200000 to get a golden invite into the garden party upstairs.

Canary picture from Wikipedia.org

Garden party picture from Wikipedia.org

Bridge picture by Pooterjon for www.sxu.hu

Toots thinks about snow

As you may or may not have known, depending on whether or not you’re stalking me, I just had my second of three mid-terms the other day. My brain, which I have decided to name Bergerac, focused freakishly much during the whole thing and by the time I made it back to the station, where I wait for the bus to take me back to Hellhole, it had pretty much decided to take a well-deserved nap.

The ground below my feet was thick with snow and big, fat raindrops were bombarding it from above. I had my little, red umbrella in my handbag and decided that it made good sense to use it. On my way to the station, however, I noticed that I was the only one who had come to that decision. There wasn’t another umbrella in sight. People were wandering around in the pouring rain, looking like drowned rats, but pretending it wasn’t there. I have observed the same phenomena before, and have come to the conclusion that when there’s snow on the ground, people around here rarely use umbrellas, even if it’s really pouring down.

This, to me makes very little sense. I would think that the rain alone, not to mention the slushy cold soup that it reduces the snow to, would justify the use of some sort of body-covering condom-thing. Or at the very least, a little umbrella.

Eventually I got out of the rain and was sitting on a bench beneath the big, round station clock, where a lonely guy named Harold had written a message to ask if other lonely men would meet him in the bathroom on Thursday night.

That’s when Toots showed up. There are two little voices living inside my head. The first, which I simply call The Voice, is the one that pops up whenever and wherever to convince me to stay in bed when I should be going to class, buy chocolates when I’m shopping for cereal and that sort of thing. And then there’s Toots. Toots only turns up when Bergerac is napping thoroughly, otherwise it doesn’t get through the door.

I had just found out the hard way that there was a crack in the sole of my shoe. “Fungus likes to grow places that are dark, wet and body temperature,” said Toots, sounding pensive. Toots always sounds pensive, even though it clearly never is.

I looked up at the clock. The bus wouldn’t be there for another hour. I shook Bergerac a little, to try to wake it up. That didn’t work. So for the next 60 minutes, I got to listen to Toots babbling on and on about all of the things that are of interest to it.

I think that Toots might be one of the things that I dislike the most about having exams…

Cat by Jezz for www.Flickr.com

Head by o2ma for www.Flickr.com

Look at me, I'm a staaaar

Look, I'm FAMOUS!

http://mrjoeblogs.blogspot.com/2007/03/joe-blogs-interview-96-welcome-to.html

Now that I'm a superstar, I'm going to start doing all of those things that stars do. Let's see... Maybe I should climb around the mountaintops in Tibet in search of monasteries where the munks will train me in all sorts of mystical arts. However, those munks tend to shave off their eyebrows, and I think that I'd be much too distracted by the shiny patch of flesh above their eyes to absorb much of their wisdom.

I could join scientology. Then again, I wouldn't want to be known as the woman who strangled Tom Cruise with his own corset.

I'll give it some thought while I'm in rehab and get back to you later.

Naked people and me taking over the universe

The other day there was a story in the news about how a butt nekked activist, one of those I’d-rather-be-naked-than-wear-fur-people, had jumped up on stage during a fashion show in protest. I wish there was a cause, or something, that I cared enough about to go stand naked next to a supermodel, but I’m pretty sure that would never, ever happen.

All in all, I’m fairly self-absorbed, really. Also, once I become mistress of both the known and unknown universe, everyone else will be forced to become me-absorbed, as well. I’ll be kinda like Captain Picard, only with hair and a title. Oh, that and a mean streak, of course.

I look forwards to having all the people I don’t like herded up and put in cages so that I can poke them with sharp sticks. Starting with the bastards who decided that I have to have my midterms tomorrow.

My brain, large scissors and a fat kid rolling down a hill

I wish I had an off-button attached to my head. Not one of those standard buttons that stick out, mind you. I mean, I wouldn’t want to turn my brain off by accident. Just imagine, standing in line at the grocery store or the bank (okay, maybe not the bank. Nobody goes to the bank anymore) and you just scratch your head and all of a sudden it’s lights out. But if I could get a button on a time switch, or something, that would be perfect.

You see, my brain refuses to turn itself off after I’ve gone to bed. Even when it’s been more or less non-functional all day long, it suddenly springs to life once I’m horizontal.

It’s especially when the brain-ball of wrinkly gel starts to imagine repetitive movements that it becomes impossible to stop. Last night, for example, I started (for some reason) to think of a kid on a swing. It went back and forth, back and forth, refusing to stop. So I had to think up a pair of huge scissors to cut the swing down. But then the fat brat started rolling down the hill. Obviously I had to place I rather large rock in his path. There was a muffled splat and then the situation was under control. This time...

So… Does this mean I’m weird?

Would I shoot you? Why, of course not...

A few years ago, I read a Garfield strip where Garfield's owner asked him and his not-so-furry canine bud if they wanted to go for a walk. It went something along the lines of "Do you wanna go for a walk.... Do you?..... Do you?..... You wanna go walkies?.... Do you?..... Do you?" and so on and so forth. All the while, his pets were becoming more and more frenzied, until they turned on him.

Then, last night, there was a story in the news about some guy in Bosnia who had been out fox hunting (shame on him) with his dog. He'd been minding his own business, when he suddenly heard a shot and felt a sting in his leg. He turned around and saw Man's Best Friend with its hairy paw on the trigger. They say that he might have to amputate his foot. I bet he was one of those walkies-people and his pooch knew how to hold a grudge.

Then again, if I had some weirdo following me around wherever I went, collecting my poops, I'd probably shoot him, too...


Pic of pug by Chance Agrella for http://www.freerangestock.com/details.php?gid=&sgid=&pid=1460

Goddess with lovely temple dog needs religion

…with its own temple somewhere warm and sunny. Preferably with a great view overlooking the ocean.
Must be monotheistic. None of that sharing-the-glory-with-some-hairy-greek-in-a-bathtowel-sort-of-thing.

Gloomy looking robes with large hoods, mysterious chanting and large, booming bells are encouraged.

Colourful, bed sheet-like outfits, singing accompanied by silly bouncing and the ringing of cutesy bells will be punished by immediate beheading.

Some missionary activity expected.

Good possibilities for crusading involved.

Lookie - I'm Nicola Tesla

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.


A minister's son from Simljan in Austria-Hungary, you were precocious from an early age. At three you could multiply three-digit numbers in your head and calculate how many seconds visitors to your home had lived. In awe of your older brother Dane, you shot a pea-shooter at his horse, causing it to throw him and inflict injuries from which he later died. This tragedy haunted you ever after. You frequently suffered bouts of illness with hallucinations throughout your life. During one affliction of cholera, you encountered the writing of Mark Twain, with whom you were later to be close friends. Later, another, this time mystery, illness inexplicably heightened your senses to a painful extent, only relenting when you hit upon the idea of the alternating current motor.

You developed an aversion to human contact, particularly involving hair, and a fear of pearls; when one would-be lover kissed you, you ran away in agony. Later, you insisted that any repeated actions in your day-to-day life had to be divisible by three, or, better yet, twenty-seven. You would, for example, continue walking until you had executed the required number of footsteps. You refused to eat anything until you had calculated its exact volume. Saltine crackers were a favourite for their uniformity in this respect. In the midst of important work, you forgot trivial details such as eating, sleeping or, on one memorable occasion, who you were.

Your inventions, always eccentric, began on a suitably bizarre note. The first was a frog-catching device that was so successful, and hence so emulated by your fellow children, that local frogs were almost eradicated. You also created a turbine powered by gluing sixteen May bugs to a tiny windmill. The insects panicked and flapped their wings furiously, powering the contraption for hours on end. This worked admirably until a small child came along and ate all the creatures alive, after which you never again touched another insect.
Prompted by dreams of attaining the then-ridiculed goal of achieving an alternating-current motor, you went to America in the hope of teaming up with Thomas Edison. Edison snubbed you, but promised fifty thousand dollars if you could improve his own direct-current motor by 20% efficiency. You succeeded. Edison did not pay up. It was not long until you created an AC motor by yourself.

Now successful, you set up a small laboratory, with a few assistants and almost no written records whatsoever. Despite it being destroyed by fire, you invented the Tesla Coil, impressing even the least astute observer with man-made lightning and lights lit seemingly by magic. Moving to Colorado Springs, you created a machine capable of sending ten million volts into the Earth's surface, which even while being started up caused lightning to shoot from fire hydrants and sparks to singe feet through shoes all over the town. When calibrated to be in tune with the planet's resonance, it created what is still the largest man-made electrical surge ever, an arc over 130 feet long. Unfortunately, it set the local power plant aflame.

You returned to New York, incidentally toying with the nascent idea of something eerily like today's internet. Although the wealthiest man in America withdrew funding for a larger, more powerful resonator in short order, it did not stop you announcing the ability to split the world in two. You grew ever more diverse in your inventions: remote-controlled boats and submarines, bladeless turbines, and, finally, a death ray.

While whether the ray ever existed is still doubtful, it is said that you notified the Peary polar expedition to report anything strange in the tundra, and turned on the ray. First, nothing happened; then it disintegrated an owl; finally, reports reached you of the mysterious Tunguska explosion, upon which news you dismantled the apparatus immediately.
An offer during WWII to recreate it was, thankfully, never acted upon by then-President Wilson. Turning to other matters, you investigated the forerunner of radar, to widespread derision.

Your inventions grew stranger. One oscillator caused earthquakes in Manhattan. You adapted this for medical purposes, claiming various health benefits for your devices. You found they let you work for days without sleep; Mark Twain enjoyed the experience until the sudden onset of diarrhoea. You claimed to receive signals in quasi-Morse Code from Mars, explored the initial stages of quantum physics; proposed a "wall of light", using carefully-calibrated electromagnetic radiation, that would allegedly enable teleportation, anti-gravity airships and time travel; and proposed a basic design for a machine for photographing thoughts.

You died aged 87 in New York, sharing an apartment with the flock of pigeons who were by then your only friends.

Ridiculed throughout your life (Superman fought the evil Dr. Tesla in 1940s comics), you were posthumously declared the father of the fluorescent bulb, the vacuum tube amplifier and the X-ray machine, and the Supreme Court named you as the legal inventor of the radio in place of Marconi. Wardenclyffe, the tower once housing your death ray, was dynamited several times to stop it falling into the hands of spies. It was strangely hard to topple, and even then could not be broken up.

Monkeys swimming in a circle

The class that I was… uhm… blessed to be a part of from the age of seven to fifteen, consisted of 25 monkey-brains (and a small handful of normal people). That’s right; monkey-brains. I honestly think that they all escaped from a lab, or something. I once saw a documentary where a bunch of scientist were doing research on monkeys. One of them was given lipstick and a large mirror and immediately began to smear its face with it. That’s half of the girls in my class, right there.




But I digress.

Once a week, our teacher would herd us all into a pool where we were supposed to swim around and around in a large circle. It didn’t take me very long to realise that this was a tremendous waste of time, since there was no way to swim in a circle with close to 30 people without being kicked in the face by the idiot swimming in front of you. Neither could you increase the space between you and the aforementioned idiot, without whacking the moron behind you (not that that necessarily was a bad thing). So I ended up trying to find a mode of swimming where I wouldn’t be kicked or kick, yet at the same time stay floating just enough so that I wouldn’t drown. It would not stand. And since I’m not a monkey-brain, I quickly came up with a cunning plan.

I scratched my thighs, legs and arms and claimed to be allergic to the chlorine in the water. And my teacher actually believed me (I guess that might made him a monkey-brain, as well). So from that day on, I spent every swim class in a little, green room with a book. Nobody kicked me, and I didn’t have to swallow a bunch of icky water that 30 other people had wriggled around in. The room also had a window, so that I could watch the other poor bastards as they swam and tried (mostly without success) to avoid flying feet and arms. Perfect.

Could this strategy be transferred to gym, I wondered? And indeed it could. I had a wrist injury. I didn’t fake it. It actually required surgery at one point. Our teacher was fairly strict about his students showing him reports from home when they were going to sit out on the oh so fascinating rounds of volleyball or football, which was all that the classes consisted of. All of the monkey-brains thought that both these things were tremendous fun. If they could chase a ball for a couple of hours and then go into the locker rooms and inhale half a can of hairspray (and in those days they had the kind of spray that looked like dust if you used to much of it), they were perfectly happy.

Then one day when I had forgotten to bring my gym clothes, I discovered that the same rule didn’t apply to me. The coach seemed to assume that it was because of my poor, fragile wrists. I had started to feel that if I had to catch another damn ball, I would break someone’s face with it out of pure frustration and boredom, so I couldn’t let this opportunity just slip away. From that day on, I never had gym again. Nobody questioned it.

I did read a lot of books, though. And I got a B.

Monkey and a duck by Scottobear for www.Flickr.com

Philosophical thoughts and bunny slippers

Today is about as exciting as watching my half-dead rubbertree plant try to decide on whether it should attempt another growth spurt or just wither away once and for all. I know, because that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing.

Personally I gave up on a final growth spurt eons ago. I’ll just have to live with having hit my peak at 5’2. This, of course, is no problem if you’re living in, say, China, but here in good, old Scandinavia it basically means that I frequently visit the salon to get my roots dyed, since people spend a lot of time looking down on the top of my head.

The practical thing about this situation, is that very few seem to pay much attention to my footwear. I could probably get away with wearing fussy bunny slippers. The kind with really long ears. I once had a pair or doggie slippers that my mum got me for Christmas. They were oh so comfy, plus that they made excellent playmates for the pooch when I wasn’t using them. The three of them could sit and talk for hours on end. They were very close.

At some point of the morning I started to contemplate such fascinating philosophical questions like whether or not life can suck and blow at the same time. If so, wouldn’t that be confusing for the person inhabiting that life? What would you wear for a situation like that, anyway?

Maybe bunny slippers.

Tag

I’ve been tagged by Jocelyn, so I will now present you with a list of weird things that have happened to me in the past. Six things, to be exact. Now, since this whole blog, more or less, is about weird things that have happened to me, it won’t be that much of a change. Change is bad, after all. Everyone over the age of 70 knows that.

I am completely incapable of remembering my first of anything. Well, with a few obvious exceptions, of course. My first day of school? Not a chance. My first visit to the circus? Nope. It’s as if my brain needs a certain amount of repetition in order to make an event worth remembering. Not that the school-thing hasn’t been repeated a gazillion times, but I’ve already mentioned something about my presence of mind in classes, haven’t I?

My first kiss: One of the few firsts that I’m able to remember. Mostly because it was horrible. I was five years old and in the woods, playing with the boy who lived next door to us, and he wanted to kiss. Since I couldn’t come up with anything better to do, I said yes. He then tried to make my teeth cave in, using his lips. Afterwards he wanted to kiss me again, and I ran like never before.

A lovely barbeque: my friend, Tommy, and I decided that we wanted to have a bbq. It seemed like a very adult thing to do, and we were, after all, nearly eight years old. It was high time we started doing grown-up stuff. The fact that we didn’t have any food didn’t face us at all. Who needs food when you have large bits of Styrofoam? We had a strong suspicion that our parents would interfere with our brilliant plan, should we be seen while burning something, so we found a perfect hiding place underneath his father’s big truck. Of course someone ended up seeing the smoke and they completely freaked out. Just because we were underneath the gas tank. Talk about being overly sensitive.

Thorboy: he was my doll. I hated to play with dolls when I was a kid. Thorboy, however, was an anatomically correct boy doll. That’s right – he had a little thingy. Not only that, he came equipped with a little bottle which you could fill with water and use to feed him. The water would then run through his little doll body and out of his little thingy. In the end, I ran so much water through poor Thorboy, he rotted on the inside and my mum threw him away.

When my alarm goes off in the morning, I have to press the snooze button twice, otherwise I feel like I haven’t fully enjoyed my morning snooze time. However, that means that I don’t get up until 20 minutes after the alarm goes off for the first time. Sooo… I now set my alarm 20 minutes earlier, just so that I can push the snooze button. Yes, I know I’m sick.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling domestic, I bake doggie cookies (yes, there is such a thing). Baby porridge is a key ingredient in these little culinary canine delights. Also, my dog has a baby toothbrush – right now it’s a purple one in the shape of Barney the dinosaur - for when I need to clean her teeth (that guy who claimed that there was nothing like the smell of napalm in the morning, never woke up with a dog breathing on him). One day I met this lady by the grocery isle, who had apparently snuck a peek into my shopping basket on previous occasions, and she starts talking to me. Suddenly she asks me about my baby. My brain tries to run away screaming. In stead I simply say that I’ve never had a baby, offering no explanation to the baby stuff in my little, blue basket, although she looked very curious indeed (Hellholers are very curious people). She probably thought I was going to eat it myself. Serves her right.

The Voice of Obligation meets Mumbles

The other day I woke up at 5:30 am. I don’t know why. If you ask me, there’s no good reason for anyone to have practical knowledge of 5:30 am unless your house is on fire. Really, I would have been quite content just knowing that it existed out there somewhere between 5 and 6.

What annoyed me the most about my very rude awakening, was that I had to get up half an hour later to get ready for class, and that I’d only really fallen asleep around two. I briefly considered skipping my class. I have been ignoring that particular class for a whole month, and lightning still hasn’t struck me yet. But my sense of obligation (which I like to refer to as temporary insanity) insisted that I would have to turn up at least once.

So I did. And as soon as the professor walked into the room, that nagging little feeling that I made a mistake started to pick at the back of my brain. He has long, splintered hair, a gigantic sweater, slimpants (SLIMPANTS!!!) and walked with tiny little steps, like those of a little girl, while he stared at something in the middle of the room that only he could see.

He then proceeded to sit on a chair, all the way in the corner, with his hands cluthing his knees and his eyelid pinched shut. He looked like he was in pain. Over the next couple of hours I learned that the I’m-giving-birth-to-an-alien-rectally-look was, in fact, his thinking look and not some evidence of great physical torment. His words all travelled in pairs. He spoke (no, mumbled) two of them, and then had a long pause where the alien seemed to bother him before letting out another two.

I realized that three hours of sleep wasn’t enough for me to keep awake during this ordeal. I looked out of the window and wished that I could tear my head off and throw it out into the parking lot, so that I would no longer have to be in the room. At that moment, Mumbles said “…The one thing you cannot amputate, of course, is your head”. I don’t know what the context was.

In the end, I managed to suffer through two hours, but then I absolutely had to go. I wasn’t the only one. My voice of obligation and my lazybones all agreed that I was never to return to that class ever again.

Don't make me boil your bunny, mister!

A friend of mine has recently decided to take the big step and move in with her boyfriend. He is also a friend of mine, whose apartment I’ve seen on several occasions. I would like to take this moment to say that I admire her guts tremendously. Last week he told someone that he didn’t have any pets, and I thought to myself that I wouldn’t be so sure of that if I was him. But I digress.

My point is that my good friend is now walking (or skipping) along wearing the pink goggles of luuuve. That’s not all, though. She wants us all to put on the pink goggles of luuuve, even me, and in order to help me do this, she bought me a very pink book (almost as pink as the goggles) called Pocket Superflirt (no, not in a dirty way).

The books introduction guarantees that if you would only slip pocket Superflirt in your handag next time you go out, you’ll never have to go home alone again… Because that wouldn’t come off as just a tiny little bit desperate. No, of course not.

I can just picture the tremendous success I’m destined to have when I try to pick up the stud at the bar while consulting my little, pink book with the words SUPERFLIRT written on it in capital letters, almost as big as the book itself. Sure he’ll want to be my boyfriend. He’d be to scared to turn me down, in case I’d start stalking him and boil his pets.

Pic 1 by Bulldog1 for www.Flickr.com

Pic 2 by Today is a good day for www.Flickr.com

The toilet mafia

Last night, I decided to be a very good girl. Or at least a very good student. Lately my study ethics has been lower than most known and unknown bottom-dwellers, but now the decision to learn was made. So I found my hideously yellow compendium and stuck my nose in it with great enthusiasm.

Over the next couple of hours, said enthusiasm plummeted back down to bottom-dweller level. By the beginning of the third hour, my eyelids were starting to sag.

All of a sudden, I was standing in a very long, very grey and very narrow hallway. The walls were lined with stalls containing toilets in various states of disrepair, which was hard to ignore despite of the attempt to distract the users from this fact by hanging pretty pictures in gold frames inside the stalls.

Next to me, was my friend Anne. She hopped up and down and clearly needed to pee. However, she was sceptical of using one of the stalls, because it was a well known fact that they were operated by the mafia, even though there didn’t seem to be any goons around at that particular moment. But when you have to, you have to, and that’s all there is to say on the subject.

So she went…

And then something bad happened… Something really bad… Anne broke one of the picture frames. Next thing I know, we’re running down the endless hallways of stalls, chased by angry members of the mob, while we were throwing the corpse of the frame back and forth between us, saying stuff like:

“You take it”
“I don’t want it”
“Well, you broke it”

Then I woke up with magic marker all over my face. But at least I can pee now without being chased by the mafia.

Overcompensation

Being sick sucks. I was fairly optimistic about my health this year, actually. And although everyone around me were regularly forced to stop what they were doing in order to have coughing fits which left their faces a shiny kinda purplish colour and their eyes bulging, my denial remained strong – this would not happen to me.

But then it did.

I’ve spent my whole weekend being all pathetic, and I now have a tremendous need to compensate for it. However, I’m still sick and, on top of everything, it’s Monday.

Have you ever noticed that tiny little germs have looong names. They’ll come up to you and say stuff like “Hello, my name is Varicellovirus Alphaherpesvirinae Herpesviridae. How are you? Wonderful. That’s about to change, buddy.” They’re obviously trying to compensate for something, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what that would be. A tiny, little germ can can do plenty.

Ambition and complicated hats

Just before new years, I met this psychic woman. She claimed that I had once been a princess in a past life. This mainly tells me two things:

1) I obviously could have been more ambitious.

This woman said that I was a princess in a time when royalty saw common people as little more than animals (yes, you are all far, far below me). Wasn’t it kinda normal for the children of kings and queens to murder their family and take the throne back when they had such modern attitudes? I mean, what kinda lily livered, yellow, dumbass princess was I, anyway? How hard is it to put a dash of poison into a goblet? They did it all the time in those Shakespeare plays. Back then, the usage of poison was seemingly as common as the use of multivitamins are today. Although the results may differ somewhat.

Obviously I was one of those scrawny, pale things with black circles underneath the eyes who coughed a lot and died young (insert eyeroll here).

2) I will now start wearing large, complicated hats and refer to myself as "we".

Ship Ohoy!

Today I am going to make seaman stew. That’s right; I’m doing the cooking thing again. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but at least my belly is nice and full.

I don’t know exactly what a seaman stew is, but I’m guessing that it might be something that you make either out of seamen or while acting like a seaman. One quick glance down at the pier on my way to get the groceries, pretty much ruled out that first option.

So I’ve made plans to eat my stew while pretending to be a pirate. I’ll sit in my chair with my steaming bowl saying things like “Arrrrrr” and “the decks need swabbering, matey”. And my parrot (of course, I don’t have a parrot, so the dog will have to do) will agree with me and say things like “Captain Choochoo is a mean, ol’ pirate” (but since it’s actually the dog, and not a parrot, it’ll probably come out as more of an “arf wuff arfarf”).

And afterwards I’ll walk the plank, just for added effect. Right out of the livingroom window.

I have commited cookery

Yes, I have. This weekend I made dinner, all by myself, actually. I know that I have previously claimed to be the least domestic person in the whole wide world, and if anyone would like to challenge me for the title, then good luck to them – they’ll need it. Still, I do like cooking, though. It’s just that I hate the cleaning up bit so much more than I like the putting food together bit, and therefore I don’t do it very often.

I had a very brief career as a kitchen assistant once upon a time. Then I got paid for cleaning up, so that was okay. I don’t suppose anyone of you would want to pay me for doing my dishes, would you? No? Cheap bastards.

Once we made this particular dish that I’ve heard lots about, but never seen. It’s name would imply that it had something to do with birds, but it didn’t. In fact, it looked suspiciously like dog poops… I remember the chefs used to chase their assistants down and make them taste stuff (I gained close to ten pounds during that period, which made me even easier to chase down, so it’s probably a good thing I quit when I did.).

I can’t say that the dog poop food tasted like dog poop, however, because that would imply something about myself that simply isn’t true.

Thinking in bed

Today is Friday, just in case you hadn’t noticed. It’s also my fourth day of being bored and grumpy. All due to the many joys of womanhood, or at least that one.

I was going to do productive things today. Last night, I made grandiose plans to do the dishes and vacuum and… well, I even thought of dusting. I even wrote a list, with little boxes where I could cross things out as I did them. The first challenges to my wondrous plan reared their ugly heads (big ones, with bad skin) early this morning, when I realised that I’m still un-domestic and a little bit lazy. I was kinda hoping that I’d sleep it off. But I didn’t.

About a hundred years ago, or something along those lines, someone invented a bed that would wake you up in the morning by turning 45 degrees. That way, your feet would hit the floor without any actual bodily effort whatsoever, and you could just go about your business. Maybe I should get one of those? The only problem is that my dog sneaks into my bed in the wee hours of the morning, and that whole tipping-thing might be a bit much for her. She’s a nice pooch, but she’s got mighty big teeth.

It might turn out like that time mum slugged dad in the middle of the night, because she dreamt that he was trying to shove me into the stove.

Off with their heads!

I’m incredibly bored. Yes, I am. Not only that, I’m fed up, sick and tired, exasperated, annoyed, cheesed off, hacked off and browned off. I’m also disgruntled, displeased and discontented.

Back in the good, old days, if people felt disgruntled, they’d go cut the kings head off, and everyone would feel much better right away. Now they have surveillance cameras.

I guess that leave me with… well… blogging.

People in between and the coat that haunts me

I like watching people at the railway station. People are easier to observe while they’re waiting for busses or trains, while they’re in between. Don't get me wrong - if I had anything better to do with the time between when my classes ended and my bus arrived, I'd do it. But I don't.

Inside the station, I always like to sit underneath the clock, so that, other than watching people, I can also watch the minutes tick by. Once there, I place all of my things on the little, round table next to my seat and (pretend to) read my book while secretly spying on people. Multitasking baby. Yeah!

I’m reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. That’s the title. Although I’m not in any way trying to diminish the content by pointing that out. It’s one of those debut novels that end up selling like hotcakes, cause the author was so obviously Born To Be, if you know what I mean.

Sooner or later, a dingy old bus will make a quick stop, on its way to somewhere or other, and a small flock of passengers will tumble out, eager to inhale a cigarette before it starts to move again. They stand on the platform, an arms width apart, blowing smoke and staring at nothing in particular, ignoring each other. If one of them leaves his place, it’ll cause a ripple effect through the line. Positions will shift, circling might occur, a couple of the smoke-blowers might swap places, still seemingly unaware of each other’s existence.

My bus turned up late, as it usually does, and as I made my way towards the platform, I saw The Girl. I have no idea who The Girl is, but she wears the exact same kind of coat that I do. I ordered it from a catalogue last year. She probably did, as well.

I contemplated a couple of amusing ways in which I could kill and torture her (not necessarily in that order), and thought things like: “This town isn’t big enough for the both of us…” I never got to finish my train of thought, because there, in the front of the bus, sat a woman who was also wearing my coat.

I want a new coat…

Pic by Crispulo1976 for www.Flickr.com

Bah, humbug

I'm having a get-away-from-me-day which blends nicely with my look-at-me-and-I'll-bludgeon-you-to-death-with-my-teacup-mood.

Now, if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to go find something to scowl at.

Pic by bokeh for www.flickr.com
( http://www.flickr.com/photos/bokeh/10185417/ )

Beware of the killer bunny!

Today I went grocery shopping, which – when you’re living in Hellhole – is pretty much the most interesting thing that’ll happen to me all day long. It was even raining. With all this excitement, I’m going to need a small nap later, or I’ll get cranky and difficult to be around.

After I got home, a friend stopped by to borrow something. She watched me quietly as I unloaded my recently purchased foodstuff from its yellow plastic bags, before she slowly picked up a packet of chicken filets, looked at it, looked at me, looked back at it and then at me again, before asking: “so you eat nothing but rabbit food then, huh?”

I think she sees rabbits pretty much the same way that Monty Python do...

I'm a year old!

I have officially survived Christmas. I walked away from it with, among other things, money, painting supplies, earrings with tiny little diamonds in them, and an A for effort. I also survived all of my attempts of eating myself to death. Well, obviously. If I hadn’t, I would, as you all know, have been haunting that castle on the cliff that I once mentioned. I’ll try again next year and let you know how I do then. Or not, depending on the outcome.

New years were a pain in the soft, fleshy area. The Pooch is, as I’ve also mentioned before, petrified of fireworks. I tried to calm her down by putting her, and bits of our turkey, in her cage, covering it with blankets so that she couldn’t see anything. That’s how you calm down parrots, anyway (well, I suppose the bits of turkey wouldn’t really be a good idea if you’re trying to relax a parrot…). The Pooch then successfully proved that she’s not a parrot.


In further news, it’s my anniversary today. I’m a year old. The blog is, anyway. Yay me!