Ghostly lumps and award-winning cuteness

sThis weekend I was scratching pooch and talking to her as if she was a big baby, the way we usually spend out weekends, when I suddenly noticed a sizeable lump above her ribs. “Oh my, we’d better call the vet,” I thought. And since I can recognise brilliant thinking when I hear it, I did.

The next day Pooch was standing on that glossy, black table in the vet’s examination room, being poked and prodded, but the lump was nowhere to be found. It was a ghost-lump. Seriously, the thing had vanished faster then Michael Jackson after the sex-scandal. It’s probably out shopping for a burka as we speak.

Aaanyways.

I also found an old newspaper clipping that my mum had been saving. It’s an interview of my favourite subject: me. Allow me to share with you my fifteen minutes of fame:

- you have to be careful so it doesn’t jump in your face, says a smiling Choochoo from Hellhole, Hickville. She’s four years old, and her and the stuffed gorilla, who’s name is “Nothing”, are the worlds best friends.

- But it isn’t dangerous, is it, Choochoo, this gorilla of yours?

- Oh yes, it’s very dangerous. It eats people. And it’s very old. Nine!

- Are there more gorillas in Hellhole?
- Yes, two.

- What about bears? Are there bears here?
- Yes, on TV. And there was one up on the roof.
- What was the bear doing up on the roof?

- It ate the chimney.

- That must have been a peculiar bear. You do other things during the day, then play with your gorilla, don’t you?

- I play with rocks.
- Do you build houses with them, perhaps?

- No, I kick them. There are lots of great rocks to kick around here. And the gorilla has to eat, you know. It likes rocks. Just like the bears. All gorillas and bears like rocks. Then they become strong and fly through the air.

That article was so damn cute, it won an award, it did. Yeah, I'm adorable.

Ho, ho, frikkin ho!

’Tis the season to be… well… running around like a frenzied chicken while you try to figure out who you still need to buy presents for and what the hell you should get those people. Not to mention wrapping the things and shipping them off while there’s still a snowballs chance in hell that they’ll get to where they’re going in time. I think that date passed sometime last week.

All this you have to do accompanied by the sound of cheery Christmas music and cheery Christmas lights and santas of all shapes and sizes yelling “ho, ho, ho” at you. This is the only time of the year when a man can get away with shouting that after a gal without getting pummelled by either her handbag or her boyfriend. You also have to tolerate the presence of screaming two-year, who are all out in force during the holiday season.

There was an interview in the paper the other day with a reverend something-or-other who was upset that the purpose of Christmas had gotten lost somewhere along the way. Most likely, somewhere along the way to the mall. Santa, he said, was clearly a false idol and he wanted everyone to explain to their children that Santa was a false god who made people sick and broke apart happy homes. That’s what he taught his own children when they were growing up.

I’m sure his kids could throw a tantrum to dwarf all other tantrums in the history of tantrums, both past and future, whenever you took them to the mall with all its Christmassy decorations. A few years back, my mum decided she was a lesbian and so my parents got divorced. We had several cardboard boxes of decorations.

Anyways, I’m going away. See you all next year.

Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve been tagged. I now have to pick up the book I’m currently reading, go to page 56 and jot down the fifth line. Iiiits… *drumroll*… “It wasn’t nearly as easy to dance with Charlie.”

Fascinating.

The things I put you people through...

I have decided to subject you all to Norwegian comedy at it's finest. MMmmmmhm. Mostly it's because I have exams and can't be bothered to think of something brilliant to say.

Bubbles!

For years I’ve had a strange and abnormal addiction. I’ve trudged through snow, rain and hail in order to feed it. I’ve spent my hard-earned cash to make sure I had enough of it. When I chased my strawberry milk dragon, world war three couldn’t keep me away from the drug store.

But now I have a new addiction: bubble baths.

My new flat sports a shiny, white bathtub. I remember the very first time we met. It was a lovely Monday afternoon. The landlady was showing me the apartment, walking behind me and letting me open doors and snooping around, just like they do on those reality shows where they sell houses. Because it gives the impression that the apartment is bigger than it really is. Although it didn’t seem any smaller on the way out, when I walked last. But what do I know? I’m not a realtor. And they did say so on TV, so it must be true.

But I digress.

There I was, opening the bathroom door and there It was, sitting pretty in a corner, looking all white and shiny. It was love at first sight, it was.

Once I’d moved in, I promised myself two things.
1 – my tub would always, always, always be clean and shiny.
2 – I would muster up some self-restraint. After all, it takes a lot of electricity to heat up all that water, and electricity is ridiculously expensive around here and I am, after all, a poor, starving student.

I’ve been able to live up to nr 1 just fine. Mostly because the tub is more often filled with soapy water than not… Those little specs of dust flying around doesn’t have time to land there before they’re washed away. And when the tub is empty, I find myself looking at it, picturing it with water and bubbles and me, happily splashing around.

So my self restraint has gone out the window, the way that my self restraint usually does. Why would it be different this time? I might starve to death during the winter, but at least I’ll smell nice.

pretty, pretty, shiny, shiny

I’ve had a cold. Did I mention that? I know I did, actually, I just wanted to see if you had been paying attention. Shame on you if you haven’t. What kind of fan are you, anyway? I expect much better from you in the future.

Anyway, my cold never quite got over its commitment phobia. After a while, it decided to settle in my right ear. Which I suppose is much better than having it throughout your whole head, so I’m not complaining. Then it went away. This caused for some sort of celebration, I figured. Movie, snacks, candles. And a bubble bath. Not necessarily all at the same time.

As soon as I’d decided to purty my flat up with candles, I reliced that all my make-the-room-look-real-purty-stuff was still crammed into cardboard boxes from the move. Images of myself throwing things into whichever box happened to be closest whilst cursing The Powers That Be for not having invented self-packing belongings, flashed into my head. I didn’t have the faintest idea which box held my tea-light candleholders and even less inclination to go searching for them. Clearly, I needed new stuff. Not only did I have cause for celebration, I also had an excuse to go shopping. This was turning into a pretty good day.

Now, a few hours later, I’ve watched a couple of movies, my flat is full of luvely light and I’m all pink and wrinkly from my bath. Course, the bubbles turned out to be of the cheap variety and I smell a little bit like a wunderbaum, but you can’t have everything. I suppose.

Never play leapfrog with a unicorn, plus other things you might as well learn:

1. Interchangable parts - won't.


2. Leakproof seals - will.


3. Selfstarters - won't.


4. If you try to please everyone, nobody will like you.


5. A shortcut is the longest distance between two points.


6. Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate


7. Everyone has a scheme for getting rich that will not work.


8. In order to get a loan, you must first prove that you don't need it.


9. The chance of a piece of bread falling buttered side down, is directly proportionate to the prize of the carpet.


10. Anything you try to fix will take longer and cost more than you thought.


11. If it jams - force it. If it breaks it needed to be replaced anyway.


12. If you fool around with a thing for very long, you will screw it up.


13. The repairman will never have seen a model quite like yours before.


14. No matter how long or how hard you shop for an item, as soon as you've bought it, it will be on sale somewhere cheaper.


15. The other line always moves faster.


16. Every solution breeds new problems


17. All warranties expire upon payment of invoice.


18. There is always one more bug.


19. A bird in the hand is better than one overhead.


20. Anything good in life is either illegal, immoral or fattening.


21. Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.


22. Smile... tomorrow will be worse.

A commitment-phobic cold

I have a commitment-phobic cold. Unlike a regular cold, which will creep up on you at the most inconvenient of times, and then reduce you to a flem-soaked, sniffling wreck, a commitment-phobic cold only turns up for a few hours at the time. You feel a slight tingle in your throat as you wake up in the morning. Your head gets woolly while you’re watching your favourite tv show in the evening. What really separates the CP cold from the onset of a regular cold, is the fact that the CP never stays the night.

That’s probably just as well.

Sometimes a commitment-phobic cold might be confused with a shy cold, but there are some very distinguishing marks. A shy cold will rear its little head just as your falling asleep. Or you might wake up at night, not feeling 100 %, with just enough presence of mind to think “I hope I’m not getting sick.” The reason for that is that a shy cold is… well, shy. It would rather not draw too much attention to itself.

Sometimes a CP cold – and sometimes a shy cold, although this is rarer - grows into a full-fledged man-cold. That’s what happens when a CP cold overcomes its fear of commitment and decides that it would rather never leave, and focuses all its attention on you until you’re completely convinced that you’re going to drown in your own mucus.

So let’s hope that doesn’t happen…

Life lessons vs. pizza

When I was a kid and I didn’t want to eat the crusts on my sandwiches, my mum would remind me that there were children starving in Africa. I thought that, in the event that I should put my bits of bread in an envelope and send them to Africa, they would be pretty inedible by the time they got there. Also, it seemed to me that the best way to help the starving, would be to not stuff yourself full of food when you were no longer hungry.

I guess what my mother was really trying to teach me, was to be grateful for the things that I had, and not how to solve world hunger.

Last night, I tried to keep that lesson in mind after I dropped my last slice of pizza on the floor. Pooch knows full well that if something edible lands on the ground, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s hers to pounce on. However, if this something edible falls directly on her head, the rules change.

At that moment in time, Pooch, at least, was very grateful for what she had…

Life and death of Mr. Sausage-Rope.

I have mentioned in the past how much Pooch loves Pigface, her hysterically pink puffer fish-pig squeaky toy. But once upon a time, in the grocery store, I bought another potential friend for her.

Mr. Sausage-Rope.

There he was, hanging from a rope with the other members of his family, just people-watching. I picked him up, dangled him back and forth a little, evaluated his shape, colour and all the little faces on all the little sausages. Briefly I wondered what it would smell like, but then I pictured myself standing there, in the middle of isle 4 while sniffing a dog toy, and changed my mind.

Into my little, blue basket went Mr. Sausage-Rope. He didn’t even have time to pack or say goodbye to his family. But I suppose that they had prepared for one of them getting bought, and that they’d therefore done all the goodbye-hugs-and-kisses-stuff. That would make the most sense.

The first thing Pooch did when she was given Mr. Sausage-Rope, was to remove one of his noses. Actually, “remove” might be the wrong word. She held him down with her front paws, grabbed his nose with her teeth and tore it off, along with his mouth and parts of his right eye. Then she spent half an hour bouncing around the apartment whilst throwing the nose up into the air and catching it again and again.

Then, after the original carnage, Pooch was content to carry Mr. Sausage-Rope around in her mouth, giving him a thorough shake every once in a while. Early one morning, I found Mr. Sausage-Rope in a corner of the kitchen, where Pooch had tossed him the night before. One of his sausages had gone mysteriously missing. The rest didn't have noses anymore.

Pooch was sleeping in the sofa, like a little angel. A little angel covered in small, brown pieces of plastic. Some of which had what looked like a nose on them.

Eggbert, Hallbert, distractions and all the serious research-stuff

My poor Eggbert is still at the hospital in Big City for sick computers. I had thought that with Eggbert being away, and therefore unable to distract me with games and such, I would get more work done. After all, Hallbert, who is Eggbert’s understudy, is getting on in years. He’s not very fast or playful. Also, being a laptop, Hallbert, with all his slow seriousness, can go with me wherever I am. So there’s no excuse not to work on my thesis.

But I can always count on the universe to assure that my plans never, ever turn out the way I thought.

Take the other day, for example. I took Hallbert and my papers with me to the park. If you can call a small path with a large puddle covered in reefs and algae a park. Actually, it’s more like a swamp with a bench in it. But I digress. The plan was to do all sorts of scientific, serious research-stuff. However, the universe immediately set out to wreak havoc on my plan.

First came the annoying bee. Bees don’t bother me, but this one was determined to crawl up my nose and would not take no for an answer. Then came the screaming children who were left to wait in the car for their parents just a few paces away. Their considerate folks had let them open up all the windows, to make sure they didn’t use up all the oxygen in the vehicle with all their jumping and howling. After a while I began to suspect that their mum and dad had abandoned them. Not that I couldn’t understand that.

“I’ll go home,” I thought. “I’ll make myself a nice cup of coffee and get tons of work done,” I thought.

Twenty minutes later, Hallbert was all set up at my desk, a large cup of coffee steaming away right next to him. I sat down, wiggled my fingers in preparation, took a deep breath… and heard drums. Then there were more drums and what sounded like trumpets, and it all seemed to be coming closer and closer.

Before I knew it, a marching band was marching up around and around in circles in the parking lot outside my house, showing no signs of leaving any time soon.

Well, you don’t have to knock me unconscious to make a point. The serious science-stuff’ll just have to wait a little while longer.

Gaaaaah!

My apartment consists of piles. It’s not that I’m fond of piles. They’re not a regular part of my décor. It’s also not due to me being messy or sloppy. Although I do confess that I’m a big supporter of the orderly chaos. It’s also not that I think “Hey, sugar. Want to come over to my place and check out my piles?” would be such a great pick-up line, should Prince Charming come along.

It’s because I’m moving.

In not too long – and certainly not a second too soon – I shall be free of the Upstairs People. No more noise, no more garbage everywhere and no more weird smells in the hallway. But as much as these things fill my heart with joy and make me want to giggle hysterically, I do hate the moving process.

Because it reduces my existence to a series of piles. Piles of cardboard boxes, piles of things that needs to be packed, piles of things that need to be thrown away, piles of things that I might want to throw away. Piles of things that I had no idea I owned.

And then it all accumulates in hours of heavy lifting.

Moving BITES. And blows and sucks.

Pooch loves Pigface and there's an enchanted acorn hat

I had just made my way up the hill and started across the green lawn, shiny with dew, which lead up to the magic castle where the Bubble Gum King lived. He had stolen my enchanted acorn hat and wouldn’t give it back. At first I had thought that the hat had simply been misplaced or eaten by giant beetles, but then the herald had shown up, reading loudly from a fancy scroll. “The Bubble Gum King has stolen the enchanted acorn hat and won’t give it back. Nanny, nanny, boo hoo.” Being the heroic no-bullshit gal that I am, I was going to save it from his grasp.
Anyway, that was the plan until something hit me on the back of the head.

Next thing I know, I’m in bed and its 3:35 in the morning. I couldn’t see Pooch, but I could feel her stare drilling into the back of my neck. Sighing loudly, I rolled over.

“EEEEEEH!”

The rubbery spikes of Pigface the squeaky toy dug into the small of my back and I had to shift a little. Pigface is a pink mockery of nature, a round freak with the body of a puffer fish and the face of a laughing pig. The spikes used to be in an assortment of different colors, but after spending hours and hours being carried around in the dog’s mouth, it was now simply just pink. Pooch loves Pigface. And when Pigface squeals it’s quite obvious to her that it’s in distress. Horrified, Pooch grabbed her beloved toy and dived into bed where she commenced the necessary licking and sympathetic whining that it took for the thing to feel better about itself.

In the meanwhile, I took the opportunity to crawl back under the duvet and concentrate on going back to sleep. I was nearly there when Pigface came flying towards my head again. Then Pooch got up on her hind legs and put both front paws squarely on my face, managing to squish my mouth and my nose together. Clearly she was serious about the whole getting-out-of-bed-thing.

Reluctantly, I complied and was rewarded by a happy roar and dance from Pooch which sent Pigface flying into the kitchen, and that in turn had Pooch flying after Pigface to make sure it was alright.

Usually there’s some sort of reason for why Pooch would throw a hysterical fit this early in the morning, so I staggered into the living room to check around. After concentrating for a couple of minutes, I managed to persuade my eyes to open enough for me to have a look around. And indeed, in the middle of the room, was The Reason. A big, wet pile of Reason.

“Next time the Chinese students from across the street offer you an eggroll, just say no!” I yelled back across my shoulder. “Or at least try to not swallow the whole thing at once.”

I cleaned up the mess, threw it in the garbage and left the bag in the hallway. Hell, if the upstairs people can keep their trash out there until it stinks like the inside of a bin, then my little bag could certainly stay there until morning.

It was now 3:58 and I was looking forwards to crawling back into bed, only to find that this might be a bit more tricky than I had anticipated. Sprawled out on my bed, lay The Pooch, on her back with her front feet tucked under her chin, her back feet straight out and her head on my pillow. She was snoring gently and her little toes were wiggling in her sleep. I always have trouble waking Pooch up when she’s all cute looking. So instead I slipped under the cover, very gently so not to wake the sleeping doggie, and ended up sleeping rather badly on the edge of the bed with barely enough duvet to cover ping-pong ball and no pillow to speak of.

I will be hitting the coffee hard today.

Eggbert and The Styrostinkers!

A week ago the unthinkable happened: I turned on my computer to find that the screen was black as pitch. Then a little, blue square appeared and in it were the words “no signal detected!” With an exclamation mark, as if this failure to detect a signal was very especially panic-inducing. I tried turning the machine off and then on again. And off and on. And off and on. Off. On.

“No signal detected!”

Something was very wrong, so I made a decision. I would call customer service. Even though that meant making a long-distance phone call with my cell phone, something which most students on a budget tighter than Boy George’s pants in the 80s, would be reluctant to do.

Two minutes later, there I was, sitting on the kitchen chair, staring at my blackened monitor and listening to Shakira sing how fortunate it is that her boobs are tiny so that they’re not mistaken for mountains, occasionally interrupted by a man’s voice saying: “thank you for holding. You will be serviced soon.”

I had a friend once who claimed to have dumped her boyfriend for saying that.

While we waited, Bergerac (my brain) and I started to conjure up images of me pushing setting Shakira’s hair on fire, and just as we were getting really good at creating scenarios, we were interrupted by Bob.

“Hello, this is Bob. How may I help you?”

I explained my problem to Bob and pictured him sitting in his office chair behind a desk with his headset, while nodding solemnly as he listened to me speak.

“I see,” he said after I was done. “Is the computer plugged in?”

The idea that the computer would, in fact, not be plugged in, was so far from my mind, that Bergerac needed some time to mull the question over before I could say yes.

“Are you sure?” asked Bob. I noticed that the tone of his voice never changed. Again I pictured him sitting there, behind his desk, but this time he was Data from Star Trek. And I was standing behind him, arms raised above my head, ready to beat him to death with a mallet.

“No, I’m a dribbling idiot. Of course it’s plugged in,” I said.

“Very well. Please turn the computer off and on and blah, blah, blah.” Said Bob in his ever-unchanging tone of voice.

He didn’t actually say that last bit, but that was what I heard. After much back and forth and blah, blah, blah, it was agreed upon that the computer would go to the computer hospital in Big City.


This immediately brought about another problem: Eggbert (my computer) needed something to travel in. Since I’d thrown out the packaging that the computer originally came in, I needed new stuff. I hadn’t thought that would be too much of a problem, but I completely forgot that everything is a bit complicated when you’re living in Big Hellhole, Hickville. After three hours of wandering the streets, hitting one store after another, I had to admit that it was a lost cause. I would have had an easier time striking gold.

Bob, of course, had secretly scurried down here and abducted all the cardboard boxes and Styrofoam, at the same time erasing people’s memories of them ever being there to begin with. He was being a very naughty little android.

What’s that? Ridiculous? It most certainly is not. However, the idea of living in a town where there is no cardboard or Styrofoam truly is. Now what? Paranoid? How dare you?!?

Moving right along…

Just as I was about to give up, I did manage to get a hold a sack of little marbles-like balls made of Styrofoam, each about the size of 1/2 ping-pong ball. They were crunchy with old age and smelled funny, kinda like Pooch smells when she’s tired. Pooch has smells for everything. But I digress.

I wrapped the ailing Eggbert up in generous amounts of bubble wrap and put him in a cardboard box that I found in the back of my closet. Then I filled it up with ping-pong stink-balls. Finally I closed the lid.

It didn’t fit. Eggbert was too tall, causing an odd looking bump on top of the package. But I didn’t have another box and waiting for Eggbert to shrink or the box to grow seemed like a futile idea. I also noticed that the box itself wasn’t in the very best of shape. It was time for lots and lots of tape. Soon I was whizzing around the box, Styrofoam stinkies flying everywhere and the tape making swooshing noises. When I was somewhat satisfied that the computer would stay put and the box wouldn’t fall apart, the package consisted mostly of tape. I used the whole roll.

Only then did it occur to me that there was no way in hell anyone would be able to get it open again without using some sort of saw. After which they’d be attacked by stinkies loaded full of statical electricity and a merciless taste for technical engineers. But it was too late to turn back now, so I got on my cellphone again and called a cab to take me down to the post office.

There I put Eggbert on the rattling conveyor belt and as he slowly floated down past the black plastic curtains, I hoped that he would be okay and that he’d be home soon to distract me from school work and household chores. Until then I’ll be working on my thesis and picking styrostinkers out of my hair.

The art of injury

For the first seven years of her adorable life, Pooch was a very cost efficient doggie. This made me happy, as I am a chronic student and therefore as broke as an investment banker during the great depression. She didn’t require much veterinary attention. She had no interest in food, other than what it took to keep her alive.

As of the last year or so, though, that has changed. She injures herself. She eats. Probably because you burn off a lot of fuel when all your energy is directed towards hurting yourself. Of course, when you insist on running everywhere as fast as you can with your eyes closed, it usually results in injury of some sort. I suppose I should be surprised that Pooch has lived to be eight years old.

Last week we visited the veterinarian, yet again. This time it wasn’t an injury that brought us there, though. It was those stinky, brown blobs that have been coming out of Pooch’s ding-dong every now and then over the past couple of months.

“You’ll need to bring in a urine sample,” the vet told me on the phone.

And so, being the devoted dog owner that I am, I search my cupboard to find something in which to gather up Pooch’s toilet treasure. It took me a while. My cupboard is an unbelievable mess. For instance, I had no idea peanut butter could grow such a thick and glossy fur. I named it Johnny and threw it in the trash. Then, as luck would have it, I stumbled upon a lovely, little Tupperware box which was now given a purpose that the creators probably never thought off.

I was very happy with my cunning pee-harvesting plan. However, Pooch refused to cooperate. I always imagined that Pooch pees on thing that she consideres to be hers by right.

“The oak tree… MINE! The neighbour’s fence… MINE! The neighbour’s underpants that blew off the clothes line… MINE! Ludo, the sleeping cat…. MINE, MINE, MINE!”

But never, unfortunately, has Pooch wanted to own a Tupperware box. As soon as she sat down to do her business, I would slide the box underneath her and immediately she would stop, looking at me as if I’d suddenly grown tentacles and turned orange. Every time I managed to get half a drop at the very best.

Desperate to squeeze som wee-wee out of the doggie, I patiently led her all around the neighbourhood in search of things for her to do her business on. I don’t mind telling you, I got some very strange looks. Not just from Pooch. But eventually I did manage to get about a tablespoon worth, with some help from the rain.

Then mum called to remind me that a urine sample needed to be kept cool, or it would give a false reading. Suddenly I was torn between having to get a whole new sample tomorrow or putting the one I already had in the fridge. Neither option seemed appealing. Reluctantly I wrapped it up in umpteen plastic bags and stuck it on the top shelf. Instinct told me to move everything else on the top shelf to some other shelf, but the fridge was full. There was no place for anything to go.

The strawberry jam never hurt anyone. The butter never said a cross word to anyone and the half carton of juice was completely innocent. But now they are all pariah – outcast.

Because the universe is a bitch with a very developed sense of irony, Pooch’s tinkle turned out to be completely normal. There were also several absolutely regular blood samples and a completely necessary ultra sound test, for which the poor doggie had to have her tummy shaved, which made it all itchy and nearly drove her nuts. Her temperature also needed checking, they said. That took two vets and a muzzle. Pooch hated them both with the fire of a thousand suns, but then they gave her chicken and she got over it.

Dogs tend to find it kinda hard to scratch their stomachs, so if it’s itchy, all they can do is spin around in circles and shriek. Which she did. Lots. Which in turn nearly drove me crazy.

Anyways, they couldn’t find anything wrong with her, so the stinky blobs of death remain a mystery. I’m working on a theory, though. It’s got aliens in it.

So long, suckers!

I am going on VACATI-ON! Yes, I know that's not how to spell it, but I don't care. It's my blog and I'm claiming creative licence, or whatever.

What will I do, you ask? It's only natural that you would wonder, seeing how my life is oh so glamorous and exciting, and all. Am I going on one of those space trips with the millionaires, perhaps? Swimming in the French riviera? Shopping in Hollywood? Or maybe I'll finnaly get around to stalking Jensen Ackles?

Well, you're almost right.

I'm going to my mum's cottage. There is a river, or a lake or a fjord, or some sort of body of water, anyways, so there will probably be swimming involved. Aaand there is a small grocery store somewhere around there, so there will also be shopping. Mostly for hotdogs and chips and such, but as long as there is an exchange of items and money, it still qualifies. Although not in the exciting euphoric kinda way that shopping for things that you don't need to survive brings about. And should I happen upon Jensen Ackles throughout my holiday, then by God, I intend to follow him around like a horny puppy-dog. That doesn't make any sense, does it? Oh, to hell with it. My brain, Bergerac, has left ahead of me. I'll be following it on Monday. Horray.

There are a lot of things in this world that I just don’t understand. Stuff that truly boggles the mind. For instance, what would possess Pamela Anderson to say she envied flat-chested girls because they looked so slim? Why would someone invent a motorized picnic table? But the greatest mystery of them all, is why so many people don’t have the sense to eat.

A girl I once worked with was a devoted follower of most insane diets. “Last night I forgot to eat, all together,” she told me once, while munching away at a lettuce leaf. “I just had a piece of toast for breakfast and a bowl of cereal before bed.”

But if your brain is so numb it actually forgets that you should eat, wouldn’t your stomach remind you? My stomach is so full of suggestions, reminders and demands, it is practically an entity upon itself. If it gets any more pushy, I will have to name it. I can’t even go to the frozen food section without it giving a lengthy speech about how any ice cream with the word “pie” or “cheese cake” in its name, has a natural place in our freezer.

Still, a great many people don’t seem to be on speaking terms with their middle bits. I’ve hardly ever been to a class, meeting or any gathering of people, where at least one persons stomach didn’t make noises that you’d normally only hear deep in the woods at night.

So why don’t intelligent (supposedly) adults just frikkin eat, already?

Can someone please tell me that?

pic by proscilas for http://www.flickr.com/

CHESS. It’s a well-known board-game, a phone company, a book AND it was a youth club in Little Hellhole, back when I was a kid. It’s quite remarkable that Little Hellhole could have had a youth club, considering that - with a few exceptions - I was the only youth living there. Then again, it did end up having a shorter lifespan than your average boyband.

Chess was more or less run by the three queens of our junior high school and their ladies-in-waiting. Every school has them: the picture perfect, trendy – and vicious – girls who seemingly sold their souls to the devil to make themselves irresistible to every guy and hated, yet idolised, by every girl around. This might also account for the clubs sudden death: 15 year olds don’t make good businesspeople. Especially the ones with no social skills. Go figure.

But I digress.

The Trio of Hairspray kept court once a week and spent the other six babbling about how much fun they had the last time. Tami was on top of the food chain, with an endless string of boyfriends and emotional issues. I suppose I should feel bad for her, for all the crap she put herself through, but in my head her name is still synonymous with the term “raving bitch.” Second and third to the throne were Helen and Mindy, respectively. Both did their very best to push Tami off said throne. When she wasn’t around to see what they were up to, that is.

The reason why I bring this up is because I recently ran into Tami again. I recognised her immediately, since neither her hair nor outfit seemed to have changed since junior high. Since then, a large, white spot of crusty baby spit-up had been added to her jacket and she had gained enough weight to make my week and then some. She didn’t recognise me. Nobody does. That might be just as well, really.

On my way home, I walked past where Chess had used to be, in the basement of a grocery store. The black and white linoleum floor from where it had derived its name, visible through the large glass windows, seemed terribly small. I’m very glad that I’m not 15 anymore.

And I’m very glad that Those Girls are now fat and earning minimum vague.

Ever since then, I have walked around with a bounce in my high-heeled steps. I am cheerful, yes I am.

I recently watched a documentary on plastic surgery among the hopeful wannabes in Los Angeles, because there’s nothing like the madness of others to make you feel good about your own life.

I doubt that I’m in any danger of ever feeling the urge to live in La-La Land, but I still had to do some philosophising on the issue, cause I’m… well… me. And I can never resist a little good old-fashioned philosophising. You know that by now if you’ve been paying attention.

LA is probably the worlds biggest chop shop. Only it’s got a twist. In stead of the cars going out with all new parts, their drivers do. A great, big masquerade where the masks don’t even come off at midnight. It’s got to be strange living in a city where you have no idea what anyone really looks like.

Just imagine: Miss Perfect Barbie meets Mr Buff Hunk. They fall in love, have their fairy-tale wedding. Nine months later, everyone’s shocked when Princess Plastic starts popping out babies who look like a cross between Bert and Ernie.

I doubt that I’m in any danger of feeling the urge to move to the city of angels, but if I did, I suspect I’d be to creeped out to ever date anyone ever again. My love life would be deader (if that's a word) than it ever was back in Little Hellhole. And I actually declared it dead and buried it there. Tombstone and all.

So I think it might be fair to say that summer is finally here, even though its raining at the moment, and I’m not sure whether or not I’m on vacation yet.

Every fall, winter and spring I burn off loads of calories thinking about all the things I would like to do on my summer vacation. In fact, this particular activity makes up around 60 % of my exercise regime. I dream of doing wonderful and exciting (and expensive) things, like skydiving, travelling the world, learning to fly a chopper and loosing weight so that I could have that perfect booty wear nothing but bikinis. Tiny ones. But I suppose that last one isn’t going to happen as long as I insist on having food as a part of my diet.

When summer finally rolls around, all I really want to do is lie around in the sun with my nose buried in a book. Yet again I’m starting to suspect that I might be dull, but what the hell.

This summer, however, I have a whole new project going: I’m declaring war on my inability to tan. I will get a tan. Even if it kills me. And it just might.

It’s funny, I can go from a cool eggshell white to a blistering hot pink in less than 30 minutes, but at no point do I get anywhere near a shade of brown. Or beige, for that matter. And every summer I am forced to watch people around me turn more and more golden. Thanks to tanning studios and spray-tans, a lot of those people also go through winter with a skin colour that would only be natural if their mothers did the nasty with a cheese doodle.

This summer is going to be very different. My project started three weeks ago, when they began to fill the stores with those body lotions containing tanning agents. It didn’t go well at first. For a few days, I was forced to walk around with brown knees, whereas the rest of me was as pale as always. Then, in round two, my left leg had a nice tan, but my right leg didn’t. Tomorrow I give lotion nr 3 a shot. If that doesn’t work, I might just have to dip myself in paint, or something.

Circus farts, q-tips and pig-bottoms

After eight years of semi-anorexia, Pooch suddenly got it into her head a couple of weeks ago, that it was time to start eating like a normal dog. One of those normal dogs that not only eat their regular dog food, but also scoffs down garbage wherever she can find it. Combined inside her belly, all these elements starts to produce impressive amounts of gas. However much Pooch might eat like a normal dog, she sure doesn’t fart like one. Pooch’s farts smell like the circus, bringing back memories of popcorn, pink sugar floss and elephants.

Pooch isn’t shy about where she releases her airy creations, either, as I discovered the last time I had people over. There we were, eating muffins, drinking coffee and having very intelligent conversation, when the smell of clowns chasing each other across a floor of sawdust suddenly filled the room.

Pooch lifted her head off the floor, sniffed twice before she got up and left. Luckily, it’s summertime, so we could just open up all the windows.

Speaking of summer. I think perhaps I’m on my summer vacation. I could be wrong. The professor in charge of the project I’m on, is away this week. When he gets back, he might just pile more work on me. The last time he got a hold of me, it ended up with me having to insert huge q-tips up the bums of very large, very uncooperative pigs. As in pork. I didn’t just go down to the bar one night. Mr Professor said I had to practice, cause I’m being shipped off to Lithuania in the fall for a research trip to do the same thing to wild boars. Only they’ll be dead. You should never sneak up on a wild boar and shove a cotton stick up its ass. That would be stupid.

And finally, to celebrate my triumphant return to blogging: