It's the end of the world

I haven't written anything here in over a month. Instead I have focused on fiction, and have written quite a bit, to my surprise.

So I have decided to close the shutters on the window into The Shows in My Mind. For now at least. Why keep a blog if I never write here? I may open it back up at some point, I may not. Time will tell.

Thanks to those who have read and commented, though there weren't that many of either kind.

Things change. Some things disappear, others appear.

Not only am I closing the blog, but my writing group may be disintegrating as well. For three years now there has been a core of people around which others have come and gone. Could Be King, the only published fiction writer among us, has changed jobs and won't have time to focus on much else besides writing his next novel. Finally Has A Kid finally has a kid, and will be spending most of her time being a mom.

We will try to keep meeting after the last scheduled huddle in December, and I dearly hope we can keep going. The writing class as well as the online community that followed it has fallen apart, so the huddle and my cronies are the only group I have to fuel my inspiration in the way that only fellow writers. Plus its a nice feeling to go there and feel inadequate too...

So. Bye for now. I will still be watching the shows in my minds, and I hope you will be watching the ones in your mind.

I don't have a TV now, but that's okay. The shows in my mind are almost always better.
- The Maxx, episode 1

One night in KL and the world's your oyster

Last night in Kuala Lumpur. Tomorrow I go back home, flying out at 2355 to Amsterdam where I transfer to Stockholm. Why the transfer you ask? Mister Control Freak here booked in March, shouldn't he have been able to book a direct flight?

See, I did. I booked a direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Stockholm. However, those Malaysian Airlines flights have only been half-full, so over the summer Malaysian decided to stop the Stockholm flights from October 1st. Tomorrow is October 2nd. Hence the transfer in Amsterdam. Bastards.

Just finished packing everything, except my carry-on which will hold laptop, some other fragile electronics and stuff I need to get throught the flight without going postal. I will also carry a paper bag with some toys. Yes, toys. I may have passed my sweet sixteen twice over, but I'm still a kid at heart. Or wait...is that geek at heart? Either fits. So yeah, toys. One or two for me, one for a friend who doesn't know what he's getting. Eh, Steelwheels?

I was worried I would go over 20 kilos for my two bags, plus five for the carry-on. However, unless the scale in my room is lying (which might be a possibility) I am still a couple of kilos short. Which is a good thing, since excess weight costs 450 kronor. Per kilo.

Earlier today I almost perished in the heat. In two different ways. First I walked from the Suria KLCC mall to Ampang Park, to meet the tailor that did two pairs of pants for Mah Girl, and then back. In 37 degrees, the air like lead weights on my head. Horrible. Smoothies in two places, one pineapple, one pineapple/star fruit helped.

I really can't get enough of those buildings. Or the beard

The second death, narrowly avoided, came when I was walking down the street gawking at skyscrapers and almost fell into a hole in the ground. Now there would have been a spectacularly bad way of ending a trip.

Hans Moleman was having an open house

Since the flight leaves at 2355 tomorrow, I have a lot of time to kill, and since I can't hang out at the hotel room after 12, I will probably try and find some air conditioned place to read and write. Oh yeah, and go out to buy a toy and a portable hard drive.

The sway of alcohol strikes back

Continued from Saturday, or rather, brought back on track to “good party nights” from “good nights, period”.

My 25th birthday (the music one, not the one where my “friends” got me horribly drunk). This was when I still lived in Karlskoga. I went to an acquaintance of mine who had a restaurant/night club, and asked if we could rent that place. He said if I could get fifty people there, and paid for the bands myself (cause you gotta have bands on your 25th) we could have the place. With fifty guests he would make enough money at the bar to make it a worthwhile night for him.

So we sold 98 tickets, including the 25 or so friends who sat down at six o'clock in the restaurant before the party and ate. Then we went upstairs to the club, and hit the beer and drinks. The first band went on, my friend Posti's stoner band Dog Will Hunt. Then a friend of mine came up to me and said “There's a line outside...” And there was. All in all, over 200 people showed up that night. People I'd never met came up to me, all smiles and hugs, and wished me a happy birthday. It was like some weird dream, where everything just seems warm and fuzzy and pleasant.

Two more bands played that night. Local act Ed Myer, who began something of a tradition at my birthdays by giving me a present in the form of a cover, that time Deftones' “Korea”. Then my friend B-Jet's band H.A.L. played, fronted by another friend, Det Finns Bara En Av Oss, who was part of that band very briefly. Tito Beltran (pre-rape conviction) came up and stood watching in the doorway to the club, surrounded by various hangers-on, gaping as Det Finns belted out scream after scream. It was surreal.

After drinking literally every bottle of beer the place had, we all left at two, a bunch of us retiring to Posti's home for an afterparty of epic proportions. We left at 0700, riding the crest of a wave created by music, a perfect blood alcohol level and excellent, excellent friends.

Easily the best birthday party I've ever had, though my 30th comes extremely close.

I had three 30th birthday parties, because why settle for one? The first was with colleagues at work. Food and then a bar where we were the only patrons, and got the full attention of bar staff more than happy to help celebrate me. A good start. Then I had a party back in Karlskoga, this after having moved to Stockholm, with all my closest friends from back home. We started at the local Stadshotell (which is a very Swedish small town thing, where the often only hotel in town has a night club), with food and a set from friends Lingua, where they first played some of their own songs and then a set of covers. That was their gift to me, a cover set that I got to choose all on my own.

We fled the hotel quickly after that, cause the owner is an asshole and we didn't want to be tormented by what they normally play there. We went to Looks Like Jöback's place, which was right behind the hotel. Problem was, his supply of alcohol was very limited. So Mistlur and I got our asses into a taxi and went to the all-night gas station and bought a couple of crates of beer, and Makes Kick-ass Chili walked home to see what supplies he could find there.

On our way back we passed Makes Kick-ass Chili on his way back, with a big bag slung over one shoulder. Turns out he emptied his liquor cabinet. Again, this was a night of good friends, laughter and music.

The third 30th party was in Stockholm, at Tanto-gården. An acquaintance had a club there, and we made a deal where I could have my party on her club night if I could book a band, Fingerspitzengefühl (best band name ever), she had been trying to book for a while. They're friends of friends, so I did, and three bands played that night too. The band then known as Smut, now known as A Swarm of the Sun started, then Lingua did a set of their own songs, and then Fingerspitzen. Then Lingua finished with yet another cover set, with lots of guests. The highlight was Deftones' “Passenger”, with a guest vocalist doing Chino's parts and Lingua's vocalist handling the Maynard parts. Not as mind-blowing as the real thing, but close.

As an added bonus. For my 30th, Mah Girl made a cake with the bearded smiley that I sign with on top in chocolate, and got me this:

Somebody stuck his blades in all his
major organs in alphabetical order
T-Bird, "The Crow"

There have been other great birthday moments too, such as when Det Finns Bara En Av Oss's then band Headplate opened for Machine Head in Stockholm and got the 800 people or so there to chant “Hurra hurra hurra!” for me since the gig was on my 26th birthday. Too bad I was just pulling into the parking lot since we had gotten ourselves thoroughly lost on the way there...

So much for birthday parties. Another time, other parties.

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature

I'm not really a party guy, in the sense that I go out partying a lot. I like home. I like my couch. I like hanging out with Mah Girl. Without any alcohol involved. When I do want to party I prefer someone's home to going out, unless there are very specific circumstances. I'm picky. An entire evening out can be ruined by the wrong music. Yes, that's how shallow I am.

What really matters is what you like, not what you ARE like. Books, records, films, these things matter. Call me shallow, it’s the fucking truth.
John Cusack, “High Fidelity”

I don't go dancing. I don't like music that is typically danced to. Techno, trance, house, ebm, etc. I do like drum n bass, on occasion, but again. Picky. And not for dancing. For headphones, on rainy days.

Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit

So when I do go out, it's either to a place that plays specific music, usually live, or with a group of friends. And while there are some places I really like to hang out (Lilla Hotellbaren, ftw!), the best parties tend to be at someone's apartment, house, hovel, hole in the ground and other words that begin with h.

The best revels I've been to start out sort of mellow and then build towards a crescendo, fueled by excellent people, the right amount of alcohol, good music and something intangible, a quality that can't really be defined, which permeates the party from the beginning or is simply created at some critical mass of partyness.

Over the years, there are a few parties, a few nights of excellence, that really stand out.

April 3rd, 1999. Started out at Quick Like A Snake's place, together with Erik XIV and Looks Like Jöback, with drinks and music. Quick's apartment was one of the focal points of my life from maybe 19 until 25 or so. A place of friends, laughter, music and endless games.

After a few drinks, Erik (whose name isn't really Erik, but he looks like Erik XIV according to some people) decided he and I should go out, for a reason that wasn't apparent then but became so later. We walked up to the horror that is Wickan. If you live in my old hometown, you know this horror. If you don't, count yourself lucky.

We went in, walked around a bit, he played some blackjack and lost, then moved on. I was confused at this point. Then we walked to Gabbe's, one of the sunkigaste sunkhak in Karlskoga at any given time. There we hooked up with his then girlfriend, Idaho, and her redhead friend.

The friend wore a Slayer tee and a TOOL long-sleeve, had a killer smile and only frowned a little at the fact that I was drinking an alcopop. We ended up kissing that night, and I skip-jumped home with Erik and Idaho when she had to take the bus. Almost ten and a half years later, I'm watching her type away at her own laptop across the room now. She still has a killer smile and wears TOOL tees on occasion.

And with this I realize that anything I write about other nights of significance would pretty much pale and fade to nothing. More on that some other time. I have to go hug Mah Girl now.

The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any

Oh. I forgot. I talked about good manners, and forgot all about the bad. That's very much out of character for me. So here goes.

On Saturday I spent time with very good and very nerdy friends. Having finished the game we were playing, we went to the local pizza/pasta place to grab some food. As we sat there, outside, Triangles, Ribbed For Her Pleasure and I, waiting for our food, Triangles said: “That kid is peeing in the street”.

And he was. Peeing. In the street. While his father stood beside him, watching. For all I know urging him on. The thing is, this is a residential street with an assortment of stores and restaurants, and slopes down towards a bigger road. Sloping down = pee running down.

We ignored this. Tore into our food. Ten minutes passed. Then Triangles says: “That kid is peeing in the street, too”.

I turned around. Again, he was. Peeing. In the street. Another kid. Father by his side. What. The. Hell. Seems like the street in question was a urinal. Very nice.

Is there something I'm missing here? Is it something that parents do, allow their kids to pee in the street? Please tell me. If yes, then I have yet another reason to never have children. That would be reason 138, I think. If no, then I might need to go all The Locker on that street and figure out if it's something that happens there a lot, and investigate further. Then again, we're talking about children peeing in the street, so maybe I should just let it go...

Windows are made in your mind

It's been a good weekend. Good people. Good food. Good stuff.

Had meaningful conversations with some people. Talked about letting your guard down, which circumstances can trick you into doing and it turns out to be a good thing. Talked about not having children, ever, and the things you can do to live by that. Made lasagna. Ate lasagna. Marveled at how good a lasagna we make. Played some Lego Batman. Felt like a child again, which is a good thing. Which I should do more often. Listened to new Bat For Lashes songs. And Kongh. Lots and lots of Kongh. Read the 20th anniversary issue of Empire, which is guest edited by Stephen Spielberg. Realized, once again, that there are too many movies and not enough time. Worked on monster Kongh interview, soon up here. Hugged the girl. Watched lots and lots of TV. Hugged some more.

Now, sleep and dream. Tomorrow, off into the City of Masks. More on that tomorrow.

Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters

I haven't written here in a month. No real reason, it just kind of happened. Inspiration has been running low, and I have been focusing on other things. My fiction writing has been suffering as well, though I have managed to come up with two embryos for stories for the workshop I hope to be part of next summer (one about time travel and JFK, and one about angels, kind of).

One of them was conceived and written today, aboard the train, using Laban, my new-ish laptop. Yes, of course laptops need names, don't be silly. The other one's called Lelle. He's in love with Mah Girl's laptop Lina. We were expecting a flock of little Palm Pilots or something, but alas, they're either saving themselves for marriage, suffering from reproductive problems or practicing safe sex. If they've gone religious on me, we'll be having us a laptop skeet shoot any day now. Just as long as they don't have an STD (Serial port Transmitted Disease).

Life has been a roller coaster ride of ups and downs lately. Tuesday was one of the worst working days I've had, ever. Actually, maybe top ten or twenty crap days ever, regardless of work or other circumstances. The Friday before was also epically bad. Just horror show bad.

Then Friday, three days ago, I began three days of bliss. Barbecue on Friday with good friends and then a visit from Mah Girl's best friend over the weekend, which included beer, drinks, steaks, movies (some good, some disappointing, some sooo bad), pizza, more beer and Wovenhand live. Excellent.

Some kind of balance has been reached, then. I'm hoping the universe won't read this and decide to pummel me again.

I should go to bed. And I will, soon. I intend to write more often than once a month from now on. Here's hoping I will.

Travel is glamorous only in retrospect

I walked outside at half past five this morning. The sky was already a lighter shade of blue. Pink in the east. Cold. Winter's last hurrah. In the parking lot where cars burn now and then, people were scraping the frost off their car windows.

Spring was in the air yesterday. "This is the first day that doesn't smell like winter", a friend said. It was true. And we all felt it. Spring in the air became spring in our souls.

This afternoon, in a car going to our pitstop for the night in Gothenburg, spring felt very far away. A landscape drenched in fog and rain, dotted with farms and ten foot milk cartons spread out around us. Endless traffic. Two people crammed into the backseat with me, and I'm not a skinny guy.

Now I'm sprawled on a hotel bed, the TV on, laptop on my lap (hence the name), and a book within easy reach. The backseat boys are trying to lure me down to the hotel bar with promises of beer, but the way things look now, I'll stay right here and go to bed early. Spring is very far from both soul and body right now.

I'm gonna be sore tomorrow

Today a full-length day with the team I work in. Talk of strategy, product development, the future. Fairly interesting and thought provoking. Afterwards, we played curling. Curling! Boule on ice. Or maybe chess on ice. Whatever. It was fun, and more exhausting than I thought. Now, chili and beer. Sweet. Oh, the pic is good beer, bad beer.

There were pretty songs

Apart from the walk down to the local sunkhak to buy pizza, I haven't moved more than ten feet from the couch today. Last night was fairly subdued, but we didn't get to bed until two thirty, and I feel the lack of sleep. So, a string of episodes of Spaced, and fatty foods, in the company of two excellent friends. My kind of day.

The anticipation last night was brutal. I've been a fan of Wintersleep since 2003, when I read a review at ThePRP and then found a fragment of an mp3 of “Orca”, that we listened to over and over and over. Since I'm the CD buying type, I tried finding the CD, but it was impossible. The only place I found it only shipped within Canada.

An email to the band led to contact with then bassist Jud, who was kind enough to send me the CD. Now that there is concern for a fan. We emailed a bit, and Mah Girl and I translated their bio to Swedish, since they had for some reason decided to have it in as many languages as possible on their homepage.

When their second CD came out, I ordered it, a tee and a few other CDs directly from their label, which was run by the band. The package took weeks to arrive, traveling as it did by boat across the Atlantic (and quite possibly sherpa and llama before that from the depths of Canada's wilderness). When the package arrived, there was a tire track straight across it. No kidding, an actual tire track. I can understand a package being dropped, but dropped and then run over? Unlikely.

A few CD cases were damaged, and the disc from the singer's other band, Kary, was broken. The email explaining it all was met with a short “Dude, that's harsh. New stuff is in the mail”. This time via air mail. So now I have two copies of the second Wintersleep CD; one in a damaged case, the second one still wrapped in plastic.

The third CD, I sort of missed. It was released last year, and I didn't get it until a few months ago. There's no reasonable explanation for it, it just sort of happened. Which is weird, since I love the first two. Whatever. By that point I had given up on seeing the band in Sweden. They'd been in Europe a few times, but never close enough to just go see.

So last night was the culmination of a six year long wait. Seeing a band I love live is as close to a religious experience as I can ever get, and there have been many extreme highlights over the years. Wintersleep didn't rank among the best, for a few reasons (too short a gig, not enough songs from the older albums, kind of an anticlimax at the end, and the vocals were too low in the mix at times), but it was still a great show.

As we walked out, a few of the band members were outside, smoking. I walked over, told them what a great show it was and explained I was the guy who translated their bio. They were mildly surprised, to say the least.

So. Full circle. Now they need to come here again and play for two hours, and play more old songs. I'm such a fan boy.

My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary

Today is spent on the couch, hungover, from a formidable evening out yesterday. We started with Eritrean food, with a couple of beers to wash it down. My hands still smell of sauce and injera. Then off to Strand for drinks. Then off to Mosebacke for more drinks. Spoke about beards and music and life. Watched two bands play, one was great, the other...not so much. Though I didn't really pay attention at that point.

Recently I haven't been paying much attention to music at all, save for one band. I bought an armful of CDs a few weeks back, and even though I was efficient enough to transfer them to my iPod right away, I haven't listened to two of them at all.

I've been too occupied with Wintersleep's third release, “Welcome to the Night Sky”. It's...I can't really describe it. Rock? Indie? I reserve a particular loathing for that last word, but it might be the only one that applies. I can hear traces of The Cure, QOTSA and Pearl Jam in what Wintersleep does, but without them actually sounding like those bands at all.

Some of their songs bring tears to my eyes if I'm in the wrong mood. Some of their songs plaster a big stupid grin across my face. Some of their songs should be five minutes longer than they are, so they could just keep going.

I don't think I've been this fascinated by a band since the mid 90s...

I have a list of bands I haven't seen but want to see. It's fairly short now, since I've managed to see most of my fave bands over the years. A part of that list is dedicated to bands that I won't ever get to see. They might be dead, they might have just quit, or, as is the case with Wintersleep, they never play anywhere closer than the UK.

So I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't get to see them live, ever. March 7th they're playing in Stockholm. I will be there when they open, hanging on the door handle. All fan boy, all the time.

Because your own strength is unequal to the task, do not assume that it is beyond the powers of man

Picking up the piano was fine. Getting the piano into the trailer was fine. Getting it out was fine. Getting it up the stairs was not. I have pathetically weak thigh muscles.

The two friends I had Shanghai:ed to help me managed to wrestle the thing up one flight of stairs. Two to go. Two curving flights of stairs. So we took a break. A long break. Then we called what could only be described as a lean, mean carrying machine, and voila! Problem sorted.

Drinking of beer, eating of tacos and laughing ensued. A good time was had. And the piano was finally home.

As a side note: I misunderstood the reference. 'twas not the Hummer Fucker Crusher. 'twas the Hummer Fucker. The Hummer Fucker Crusher is the big-ass Hummer that crushes the Hummer Fucker for having a sticker across the back window that says...wait for it...Hummer Fucker.

Still a long story. Still won't go into it.

A home, a place of warmth, or comfort, first of physical warmth, then the warmth of the affections

Back to work today after a week away from the office, a combination of being sick and having a day with our department to discuss strategies and the future.

This morning I got up at six, like I do most days. Sat for a while on the couch, like I do most days. Wrote a note for Mah Girl, like I do most days. It started out as any other morning. Took a shower, packed breakfast, plodded down to the train station, read the paper and started on the latest issue of Wired. Did you know you can get 155 bushels of soy beans from one acre of land?

Walking across the parking lot outside the office just before eight, a sense of unease wrapped itself around me like a wet, cold blanket. I texted Drunk Carl (if anyone reading this works at the same company as me, you know why. The rest of you will have to live in ignorance) and asked if there maybe was a chance I was supposed to be somewhere else. He mocked me.

So I got half an hour of staring at my over-flowing inbox (also a combination of being sick and having a day with our department to discuss strategies and the future), before I took a taxi to our second office. There I enjoyed seven hours of solution presentations for one of my personal Holy Grail projects (that begun back in November), before aiming for home again.

Waited for Mah Girl at the train station, as she was only three trains behind me. Read more Wired. Levees in the Netherlands will be built to specs making the risk of breach 1:100000 in any given year. The levees in New Orleans are being rebuilt at 1:100. Spheres have a lower surface-to-volume ration than cubes, so ice spheres melt more slowly, cooling a drink longer with less dilution.

Walked home, hand in hand, through the snowfall. Made fast food, and then nestled in the couch, Xbox controls and laptops at arm's reach. Arks were raided. Temples were doomed. Crusades were...last? Discovered Frou Frou and Imogen Heap. A good night.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one

Today we were visited by a bearded friend and his charming offspring, Una. Cinnamon rolls were eaten. Pixar characters went to infinity and beyond on the TV screen. The view from our living room was commented excitedly and unintelligibly. R2-D2 was the prime suspect in a water attack in the kitchen (though Mah Girl was the architect of that particular atrocity, not the child).

A grand time was had (I hope) by all.

I'm not having children. Ever. At 33 years old, I can say that with a fair amount of certainty. It's not for me. With that said, I need to clarify that I in no way, shape or form judge or look down from my oh so high horse on those that have chosen to have children. It might be for them. I know it's not for me. I know I have seen many examples over the years where people shouldn't have had children. And a handful where it was really the right thing to do.

Why aren't I having children? Hard question that. One that I have pondered a lot over the years. And not one I'm going to answer in detail here, since most of the reasons are private, and frankly, this here blog ain't about exposing stuff I want to keep private, but about writing when I feel like it, for me and anyone else that thinks it might be interesting. But I do have answers, and answers I feel comfortable with. If you feel like getting into them with me, let me know. We just might.

Tomorrow off to work after sixteen days away from the office. Sixteen glorious, much needed days. I feel mentally rested, though I shouldn't have stayed up late the last couple of days, to adjust to getting up at six again. Oh well. It was worth it. 104 episodes of The West Wing in 15 days. Not a joke.

And there's the answer to the question. I can't let one of those small, bi-pedal entities with almost human brains get between me and my TV shows *grin*

Without a soundtrack, human interaction is meaningless

'twas a great party. They don't come along that often, those parties that seem to transcend expectations and morph into something else, some experience that words aren't enough to describe. Nor pictures, though I took over a 100. I do so love my camera phone.

At a quarter to two this morning, I was sprawled over a couch in Drickard's living room, happily singing along to Queens of the Stone Age. Around me, the party was slowly winding down. Not like last year, when it crescendoed around midnight and then mellowed out completely. This year it was more gradual, a more even level of energy throughout the evening, which only made it better.

Music was played. Beer was drunk. An extremely good time was had.

Favorite quotes from the party:
It's smoking that makes me hung over.
Nicklas tried to explain that his coming hangover wasn't due to the ten beers he had consumed, but rather the half dozen or so cigarettes he availed himself off during the night. Right...

Shit. You too.
Andreas I, as yet another Ghost of Childhood Pasts walked in the door.

You can't roll dice to determine when to drink. It's the little voices in your head that tell you that.
Mia, upon hearing some serious drinking games were taking place in the basement.

To describe the taste of Lars, I would use the word “aftershave”.
Erik, having licked Lars' cheek and ear, for reasons unknown.

Three rounds with The Cock is usually enough.
Can't remember who said it, but referring to the basement drinking game, oddly named The Cock (as in not “a rooster”, but rather a penis).

I tried to apply it to my wife. It went to hell.
Andreas K, while hearing the line “you speak when spoken to” from a song by The Editors.

Drift like sleep

Drove through a flat and grey Sweden today, in a rental courtesy of Drunk Carl. Wovenhand on the stereo. Thy will be done, here on this highway.

Rainwash against the windows. Not a single snowflake, as far as the beard could see. When did it all change? White blooms to white and freezes white again.

Now cocooned in the comforts of home. Old home. Eyelids heavy. Right eye bloodshot. The headache is acting up. Sleep sounds like a good idea, but won't happen for a while. Jeff Dunham is on TV.

That state of mind where you realize that you're actually on vacation, that the office actually won't fall apart without you, is right around the corner, held off by the excellent combination of exhaustion and a major sugar rush. Hopefully it really hits me tomorrow.

When the world is mine, your death shall be quick and painless

I had a birthday on Wednesday. If you'd cut me apart you'd find 33 age rings now.

People I know have had major crises when they turned 30. I mean, major. No crisis for me yet. Maybe at 40? A red sports car and hair plugs for my chin when the beard starts thinning out? No?

I used to celebrate my birthday in style. For my 25th, I had three bands and we partied from seven in the evening until six in the morning. Thanks for the after-party, Jouni and Ellie. Then I had live acts for two more years, then paused for two until I celebrated my 30th. Three times. With four sets from three bands at the biggest one, including an all-cover set from Lingua, where I got to choose the covers. Third best present I've ever had, after the NFL game my brother took me to, and what Mah Girl gave me:

This fantastic man graces our kitchen

It's been three years since, and I haven't really celebrated properly since then. This year, I snuck out of work at 3:30 in the afternoon, and we went to see Rock n Rolla. Good stuff. Then home for sushi and chillin' out. An excellent birthday.

The day before I got a notification I had a package at the post office (not post office really, the post desk at the local grocery store, the pathetic workings of which should be the subject of a whole 'nother post). I didn't really think much about it, since I had a whole bunch of stuff on the way in various packages from Amazon. So I didn't go and pick it up until Thursday, the day after my birthday.

“Happy mofo birthday, buddy” was stenciled in thick magic marker over a long cardboard package. “From your friends in Rågsved”, it continued. This is when I realized Misha was involved. Sneaky Misha, who had hinted at having found the perfect gift for me a while back.

So now we need to set a date for playing Family Guy Monopoly. What the deuce?!? Giggity, giggity, giggity! Thanks to my friends in Rågsved!

Misha playing grownup Tetris

Hanna sipping a cold one at her own birthday party

"What? Who? Me? No no, I'm just hangin' out with Pingu."

I like the pretty lights

On my way home after a nerd session at a friend's place. We have come to the realization that we're quite happy with being nerds. Though geek might be a better term. Whatever.

Part of tonight was spent watching UFO clips of dubious origin on YouTube. This brought back memories of that time we saw UFOs from our friend Lars' balcony. We saw these curving lights slowly moving at the horizon and couldn't really explain what they were. Lars put on the soundtrack to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and we called SMHI, the Swedish weather service.

They couldn't explain it either, but asked us to call a guy at FOI who was quote interested in this sort of thing unquote. Now, I don't know about you, but I find the fact that a UFO nut works at FOI both appealing and disturbing. And highly amusing.

So we call him, explain what's going on, and he gets all excited. Tells us he needs to run outside to take pics, and will call us right back. Cue the X Files theme.

We didn't get any kind of explanation from the guy, because he was kind of confused and incoherent. But when he called back, he managed to convince us that it was a natural phenomenon. See how he moved from Mulder to Cigarette Smoking Man there, between one phone conversation and the next?

At one point in the conversation, the guy actually says "Is that Close Encounters I hear in the background?". Again, highly amusing.

Afterwards, we were all wondering when the men in black suits would show up to wipe our memories of the whole incident. Come to think about it, I haven't thought about that afternoon in a long time, so maybe they did...

The street lamp's glow is the only sun I know

December. I can't believe it.

The weekend was a combination of splendid and horrendous.

Splendid:
- Hanging out at Eva and Fred's place, watching 12 Monkeys, playing Little Big Planet, drinking Mackmyra's Den första utgåvan.
- Hooking up with Matthias and his girlfriend (who has the lyrics for the TOOL song “Sober” tattooed on her arm) for food and music nerd speak.
- Playing CDs at Belsepub, meeting up with friends both old and new, and hanging out with Larsa and Alice In Jeans until the wee hours of the night.
- Shopping. Cargo pants, jacket, three sci-fi anthologies, Dave McKean's tarot deck and a four-inch alien warrior for Mah Girl.

Really. We weren't that inebriated. Really.

Horrendous:
- The five hour hellride that was supposed to take three hours. An X2000 train that can only do 110 kilometers per hour should be outlawed.
- Spending an hour and twenty minutes at the train station in Borås because I read the wrong time table. Without my Nintendo DS I might have gone crazy.

In all, a good weekend. Though it was good to come home too. Back to the girl, and yet more episodes of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Happy happy joy joy.

In Memoriam

(something like this was supposed to be posted yesterday, but I'm a dumbass and didn't bring my mobile broadband stuff with me on the trip, so it had to wait until I was once again in wireless range)

Yesterday it was two years ago Henrik killed himself. Mah Girl and I hooked up with Mikaela, Henrik's ex, and went to the cemetery where his ashes are scattered. We lit candles, stood in silence for a while and then talked a bit about Henrik and life. Considering what Mikaela has been going through (lots of info on that on her blog, in Swedish), it was good to see her and to see her smiling.

The visit was better than I expected. I have been dreading it for quite some time now, but it turned out to be a calm and spiritual experience. I still miss Henrik, but I know now that time will allow me to come to terms with his death, even though I'll always wonder why.

Henrik. Happy. Hairy. Hilarious.

The text below was written early 2007, two or three months after he died. I was unable to write anything during that winter, and realized that the only way to get around that was to write about him. About all the things I was feeling. The text is completely unedited since I wrote it, and I probably won't touch a word of it. It isn't about guilt or anything really, just something I had to get out to move on.

I was considering bringing a copy of the text to the cemetery yesterday, to leave it there, but I didn't, since I didn't want anyone to read it. Last night, on my back in a bed I've never slept in before, I realized that internalizing this again will only bring about writer's block or other problems. So I'm posting it. And next week I'm leaving a copy at the cemetery.

For Henrik. Rest in peace. Vaffanculo!


NOVEMBER

It felt like falling. Down into some dark abyss, where you know a rock hard floor is waiting, but you can’t see it. That whole day, after I found out, felt like falling. I’m not sure I have landed since. I’m not sure I want to.

Death is never easy to deal with, though sometimes it seems like a good thing. My grandmother passed away after spending several years in a care facility, slowly shrinking and forgetting the beginnings of conversations at the end of them. Who she really was only became visible during brief moments, like glimpses into someone else’s life, a life clouded behind dementia and the smell of disinfectant. For some of us, her death felt like a release. An end to suffering, for her and us. I loved my grandmother, but I didn’t cry at her funeral. I was 20. Her death had been processed earlier, I think. A death of the soul, not the body.

During the ten plus years since, I’ve only had to deal with one single death, until November. I keep wondering if that’s normal. Maybe the cliché has it right, that the number of deaths around us multiply as we grow older. At least those that really matter.

He wasn’t a close friend, really. We met in college, those first days when the class is trying to establish some sort of social hierarchy, rearranging and bonding according to opinions, shared interests and plain dumb luck. We didn’t like each other at first. In fact, we each thought the other was an obnoxious, arrogant loud-mouth. That lasted about a week. Over time, he became the only one in the class I really got close to. We spent hours at a rundown café, talking music and other things, when we should have been studying, and did a radio show for a few months with a bespectacled madman named Victor.

We drifted apart after that year, as you do when you end up in different places, with different people. New social circles were created, old ones revisited or resurrected. Too busy with life to really keep in touch, we still tried to. When we both ended up in Stockholm we re-established contact, and managed to work around our respective schedules to hook up for coffee, beer or music at least occasionally.

Looking back at the whole thing, at him, I think maybe he was the one friend that was most like me. Or at least most like me a few years ago. I’ve slowed down, figured out that it’s OK to take some time to myself, with myself, and maybe become a better person through that. I’m not saying I was better than him, I just like the now me better than the then me. Evolution through introspection, and a good deal of psychotherapy.

It never seemed like he slowed down. Always talking quickly, walking quickly, drinking quickly. Always going somewhere. Of course that was part of what endeared him to people. Like me, he knew people everywhere, and I suspect that like me, he had very few really close friends. Somehow that tempo, the constant running through life, stops you from forging deeper bonds with those you pass. You meet too briefly. I know it was that way for me as I went rushing off to whatever was waiting around the next corner, before I had to slow down. Knowing what I know now, I wished we had seen each other more. I wish we had taken the time, both of us, to stop and talk, at length, about the things that matter. Maybe things would have been different then.

He killed himself in November.