The monday mission questions, I mean.

1. Are there any confrontations you have been avoiding that you know you will eventually have to deal with? What’s that all about?

Not that I can think of at the moment. Except the potential one with Him if I decide he really is a “Him” not a “him”, but that should potentially be pleasant, though possibly stressful, rather than unpleasant, and “confrontation” sounds quite unpleasant, really, doesn’t it? Am I rambling? Yes, I think I am.

2. When was the last time you surprised yourself by being more brave than you ever thought you could be?

Uh? I dunno. When was the last time I surprised myself at all? I’m not sure whether I’m just suffering from “mind like a sieve” syndrom here, or whether I really know myself that well. Probably the former. Oh. I know: Telling F to his face why I wasn’t really interested (or rather, that I wasn’t interested, don’t think I went too heavily into the why) instead of slipping a note under his door (which was what I was tempted to do). That was kinda brave, for me. One the other hand, it would have been seriously awkward if I hadn’t, so maybe it wasn’t so much courage as “no choice”.

3. You know that sickly feeling you get when are speeding and out of the corner of your eye you realize you just passed a hidden police car?

No. I don’t drive.

4. One of the things I’ve had to do recently, is clean out my attic. I have an amazing amount of things I’ve collected over the years, and I am almost embarrassed that I still have so much of it. I realized that I may as well sell it, since it does me no good in the attic, and when I die, my family will probably sell it for a dollar a pound at a garage sale anyway. May as well enjoy the money now. Do you have any things stored away that you just can’t get rid of but will probably of no sentimental value to anyone once you are gone? Why do we hang on to that stuff? Do you think you could sell or auction it off?

Not much. Most of it would not even be worth a dollar a pound to anyone else.

5. I’ve become the resident Handler at the house. Got bugs? Call me! Flies, ants, spiders, I’m your man. Vomit? Dog Poo? Toilet overflow? Yep, I get it all clean. Not much bothers me in that area, and I am glad really to be someone you can rely on. But the one thing that does make me squirm are injuries. Stitches, incisions, bloody puss-laden bandages, heavily scabbed areas, all that just about does me in. What are some of the things you have a strong stomach for, and what are some of the things that can turn your stomach?

I’ll take the spiders, bugs, bees, what have you, and I can patch up a pulsing slashed wrist or clean up a bruised knee with the best of them. I need a big, strong man to deal with the vomit, though. The smell makes me want to vomit, too, which would defeat the object of the “cleaning up” just a bit. (I suppose a teeny-weeny woman would be just as good at the actual cleaning, I’d just rather have the big, strong man.)

6. I am at the point where I am going to have to make some tough decisions about the future of this blog. I think this sort of moment comes to all bloggers at some point. For me, I am not very good at managing my obsessions (read as: things I enjoy passionately). Eventually they get too much focus and something that once was good begins to impact my life in negative ways. Something’s got to give. Have you ever been involved in an experience that started out as something good and enjoyable but eventually became destructive and bad for your health (mentally or physically)?

Not that I can think of right now.

7. Do you believe in evolution or creationism or something else?

I believe evolution happened – I also believe someone was in charge and made it happen. I want to eat my cake and still have it.

Voice in my head: Prefab Sprout – Cruel

he had no capacity for the sort of conversations which were not supposed to be meant

There are few thrills like the thrill I get when I read a sentence or a fragment of a sentence where a few common words are put together to create something extraordinary. It’s like a shudder down my spine. I don’t know why this one pleased me, but it did. Ten points if you can guess where it’s from (actually, I’d be seriously impressed – not many clues there, really – you’d probably have to check my bag – I’ll give you one hint: It’s huge – the copy I’m reading has tiny print and 1074 pages).

Voice in my head: Jon Bon Jovi – Blood Money

Having finished Parsons, I am, naturally, listening to “The Best Sixties Love Album… Ever!” (I hate those titles). As Linda said, the last time I visited, “Is it any wonder we’re completely hopeless at this dating thing?” It isn’t. This is the stuff we listen to and believe in. This is what we want it to be like (I believe we had “When I Fall in Love” coming from the speakers at that point), and real life is bound to seem a bit tame in comparison.

‘(…) She could handle things the way they were. But for some reason, I couldn’t.’
   ‘Because you’re a romantic, Harry,’ Eamon said. ‘Because you believe in all the old songs. And the old songs don’t prepare you for real life. They make you allergic to real life.’
   ‘What’s wrong with the old songs? At least nobody thinks it’s clever to be a bitch and a lover in the old songs.’
   ‘You’re in love with love, Harry. You’re in love with the idea of love. (…)’

That’s it, isn’t it. In love with love. But then, as Harry realises, and I have known all along – or at least believed all along and will continue to believe:

And I knew that Eamon was wrong. If you are always craving, always wanting, never satisfied, never happy with what you’ve got, you end up even more lost and lonely than you do if you are some poor sap like me who believes that all the old songs were written about just one girl.

I want the stars and the fireworks and the “where did the orchestra come from”. And if it can’t be like that, then sod it, I don’t want it at all. But then, of course, I grew up listening to Fairground Attraction. So what do I know?

Voice on the stereo: whatsisface singing How Do You Do What You Do To Me?

Your Evil Rating is: Neon Green
Like the colour neon green, you, uh, are neon green. Are you sure you filled out the form right? I mean, how can anyone get a rating of neon green? Sheesh, I’m really not getting paid enough for this.

Okay, okay. Neon green. Well, like neon green, you’re, um, interesting, I’ll say that for you. Uh. Like neon green, you also have a tendency to blind people, am I right? I am, aren’t I? Yeah, I’m good. This whole blinding thing would tend to make you kinda evil. I mean, whoever heard of a superhero causing people to cover their eyes, and drop to the floor yelling ‘Get it away! Get it away!’?

Exactly.

You can put the following snazzy thingamajig on your website if you want. Tell the world just how evil I say you are.

(Well, I though that text was funnier so I put that here instead of the snazzy thingamajig.) It might not make sense, but I thought it was kinda funny.

This has been a pretty lazy day. I did go outside, despite the snowstorm (I am not kidding you), as I had to get some more bits and pieces for the bunad and meet my mother, who was in town for a short visit. None of this was particularly strenous, however, especially the long lunch at The Dubliner.

Continuing the laziness when I got home, I wanted to veg out in front of the telly, unfortunately there is, as per usual, nothing on at all. I find I am watching much less television lately than I used to. On days like these I would normally be able to switch my brain off and watch some sitcom/soap/series thing, like Charmed or Frasier or Gilmore Girls and so on, but I find I can’t anymore (or not just now, anyway). I have lost patience with them and their irrelevant and petty concerns, as if my concerns were any less petty (well, I suppose at least they are real). So I’ve been ripping CDs for the Crenjuz and reading a bit here and a bit there (too restless to really concentrate, too lazy to actually do anything).

I made a great find in the bookshop today. Sitting unassumingly on a shelf was Benny Andersen Samlede Digte. I’ve been looking for single volumes of Andersen’s poetry on and off for years and never found any, now, at least, I have all of the poems in one place. If I ever find any of the original volumes, I will probably still pick them up, but there is no urgency about it. Finding the book made me very happy, particularly as I could then put up one of my all time favourites, Udflytter, in the commonplace book.

Voice in my head: Prefab Sprout – All the World Loves Lovers

So. Linda came. We went to the Dubliner Wednesday evening, but went home quite early as a party of girls (very drunk, it must be said) decided to sing “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” out of tune (so out of tune, in fact, that it took quite a while to figure out what they thought they were singing) and compete with the live band playing “Irish” music.

Thursday we were awakened by a marching band marching (duh) past outside at around 8 am. They were very good, though it’s hard to appreciate that sort of thing in the morning when you’d planned on a lie-in. Anyway, we got up and made tea (PG! Yay!) and lounged in front of “lifestyle” programmes on BBC Prime until about noon, when we finally decided it was time to step outside. We walked down towards town. In Sofienbergparken we found a fairground and so were well and dizzy by the time we got to Grünerløkka proper. We had an absolutely fabulous lunch (tapas) at Delicatessen, and a bit more of a wander after that. The weather had been dodgy for a while, and it started raining, so we had coffee at Cafe de Stil (they have the best coffee!) and then tried to find a movie to watch. Unfortunately we had both set our hearts on “Two Weeks’ Notice” or something similar, and nothing even remotely promising in terms of feel-good and happily-ever-after was on the board, so we headed for home and rented Orange County on our way instead.

Orange County, by the way, was a very funny film, though not, in my opinion, wholly sucessful. It starts out very well, with a kind of absurd twist to the whole thing, but towards the end the surrealism peters out into a typical Hollywoody happy ending sort of thing. Now I’m all for happy endings, but the ending of Orange County felt to me a bit as if they’d run out of ideas and money and needed just a few quick takes to wrap the story up. It’s still recommended, though.

Voices in my head: Murmurs – You Suck

I’m all in favour. I think all Thursdays should be days off and then Fridays would all be one-day-weeks. Today’s Friday Five is rather related to that other list:

1. Name one song you hate to admit you like.
Oops, I Did it Again w/Britney Spears, apart from that freaky bit with the guy at the end.

Uhm. Did I say that out loud?

2. Name two songs that always make you cry.
One Moment in Time – Whitney Houston
Teddybjørnens vise – Prøysen
(OK, “always” is overstating it a bit, “frequently” might be a better word)

3. Name three songs that turn you on.
Tricky. Not sure I’d say I ever get “turned on” by songs. The bit of “Red & Black” from Les Mis when Marious sings: “Red – I feel my soul on fire. Black – My world if she’s not there. Red – The colour of desire. Black – The colour of despair” send shivers down my spine. In fact, I get a tingly feeling just thinking about it, so I suppose that’s a good one. Will try to think of two more.

4. Name four songs that always make you feel good.
Juba Juba – Knutsen & Ludvigsen
Fin frokost – Lillebjørn Nilsen
Mary’s Wedding – Van Morrison & The Chieftains
Supercalifragilisticexpialidoscious – Julie Andrews & Dick van Dyke

5. Name five songs you couldn’t ever do without.
You Win Again – The Bee Gees
Only Lonely – Melissa Etheridge (in fact, that whole album. In certain moods nothing else will do.)
The Moon is Mine – Fairground Attraction
Öppna landskap – Ulf Lundell
Pretty much all of Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette.

Linda just phoned to say that if she can get a train tonight she’ll come for a quick visit (1st May being a bank holiday both in Norway and Sweden) – oh, please let there be a train!

Voice in my head: Alanis Morissette – That I Would be Good

I’ve just spilled coffee over the keyboard of the laptop and it seems to have short-circuited. Oops.

I am in doubt as to how big a catastrophe this is. I have it, after all, on a home-pc-lease-thingy, in the contract I’ve signed it says clearly that the machine is my employer’s property until I have paid for it, in 36 months – or more, as they haven’t started deducting the part-payments from my salary yet. There is also insurance on it for those three years, but that obviously has the usual “except in case of negligence” clause. Does spilling coffee on your laptop count as negligence? It’s not as if I meant to.