I am now the proud owner of decaf coffee, both instant and “proper”. Let’s see if it helps, shall we?

I never went to the photography course today. Fate was piling obstacles up against me. First I realised I needed to buy a new monthly pass for the bus in order to be able to get to work in the morning, so I stopped off in the centre of town, which delayed me more than somewhat, especially since it took an inordinate amount of time for any bus or tram to show to take me the last haul up the hill. Then the tram I finally boarded decided for some reason to take a completely different route to the one it’s supposed to take… (There was an announcement that might have mentioned something about a power failure and the benefits of changing to the bus, but I was way too deeply engossed in my book to be able to pay attention to announcements.) So I found myself off the tram again, still at the bottom of the hill and quite a long way from the nearest bus stop. So I walked home. Probably did me lots of good, but it meant I was way too late and way too frustrated to even contemplate going out meeting other people (and being late, I’m not good at being late).

Whatever.

Voice on the stereo: Icehouse – Crazy

…the more I think about coffee not being a good idea, the more I want coffee.

It’s distracting.

Ah. I slept more than 8 hours last night. It helped.

There was a Whisky Society meeting, so I was well soused by the time I fell into bed – I suspect it helped me fall asleep pretty much immediately, thus enabling the 8 hours (I had time for 8 hours the night before, I just spent more than two of them wondering why, when I could hardly keep my eyes open, could I not fall asleep). This is worrying. Much as I like whisky, I do not think that (*counting quickly*) 16 cl of whisky are an appropriate form of sleeping aid for regular use. (Hang on, 14 cl – I didn’t drink the 10 year Jura, it was awful.)

Bother.

It will be interesting to see what my brain decides to do about falling asleep tonight. At least I should not be as stressed about needing to fall asleep now that I’ve had one proper night.

I also didn’t have any coffee at all after lunch yesterday. I think I’ll manage to keep off today as well (after lunch, that is, I need coffee in the morning) – maybe I should invest in some decaf? I don’t think laying off coffee completely is an option.

It’s the last session of the photography course tonight. Have I even mentioned that before, I wonder? Anyhoo – I’ve been going to this photography course in order to learn how to actually use all the settings that my camera is capable of. It’s been great fun. This evening we’re supposed to bring our own pictures, three themes (“Morning”, “Self portrait” and “Closeness”) – problem is I have barely had time to work on them at all. I had all of two hours Saturday morning – I had to get the film handed in by twelve in order to have it developed so I could pick it up before two… So, I’ve got a couple of mediocre pictures from a couple of ideas I had but that I didn’t have time to work out completely, and one of the best ideas I didn’t even get to work on at all. Never mind. It’s been educational anyway, I actually (finally) feel pretty comfortable with the concepts of shutter speed and ISO/ASA values and so on. All I need now is practice.

Voices in my head: David Bowie and Bing Crosby crooning Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth

Damn insomnia.

No sleep (6,5 hrs does not make up for insomniac 3,5 hrs the night before… trust me, I’m an expert), the first day of my period and oh, the whole left side of my face hurts because my bottom left wisdom tooth decided to grow some more (which could mean I’ll need to have it extracted pretty much immediately because there’s not room for it to emerge completely, bit of jawbone sticking out just above it…)

Oh, and all day meeting where I needed my wits about me and my ability to stay somewhat diplomatic.

Nice.

Voice on the stereo: Gene Pitney – Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart

Oooh, lovely… Someone’s visited this page after searching for hemmoroid treatment on google. And, having mentioned it, I guess I’ll come even higher on the hit list.

A tip to those of you finding this while searching for the lyrics to songs I mention: When searching for lyrics, don’t actually put the word “lyrics” in the search. Most pages with song lyrics don’t contain the word. Try searching for a phrase from the song that you are pretty sure about instead. While looking for the lyrics for Mysteriet deg, Eidsvåg Nilsson Mysteriet deg lyrics will get you this page. “at du elskar meg” would most likely get you the lyrics – and lyrics only, no stupid weblogs just mentioning the song – if anyone had published them. Though no one seems to have. Bad example. And now that will most probably get you this page too – sorry. Anyway, it’s a good tip, really.

Voice in my head: well, it’s obviously Eidsvåg and Nilsson after that, isn’t it?

Damn chat fora on the net, I should have been asleep at least an hour ago.

I just need to answer this one thread. Oooh, and maybe that other one…

I was going to have a quiet night in. Instead I’ve been lured away to see a movie I hadn’t even heard of (actually not stricktly true, I have heard the title, I just have NO idea what it’s about). Well, I wasn’t terribly difficult to convince, I suppose…

Solveig SMS: Are you busy tonight? D’you want to go see a movie?
Me SMS: Ok. What? When?

I think the evidence speaks for itself.

Voice in my head: Bob Dylan Just Like a Woman (yeah)

From Donna, 50 places to see before you die – I’ve been to three… Florida, Niagara Falls and Iceland. I was going to blame it on the fact that I’ve concentrated on travels in Britain, but then found I’ve only been to five of the top 10 British places… So, no cookie.
I need to travel more.
I wonder how many of these my father has been to? A lot more than me, that’s certain. I need to send him the link.

Eerily familiar.

Norwegian lesson of the day: på jordet, literally “in the field”; idom meaning roughly the same as “at sea”, i.e. lost, confused and generally not in control of the situation. If you want to express excessive “lostness”, the expression is på feil jorde, literally meaning “in the wrong field”, i.e. you’re not just lost at sea, you’re not even in the correct oceanic area.

Voice on the stereo: Avril Lavigne – Anything but Ordinary (and in the room, additionally: me singing along)

Sarah has listed “Things I know to be true”. It’s a good list, to which I would add:

– When in doubt, read.

I had an interesting discussion with this guy at a party Saturday evening about A Clockwork Orange. I haven’t seen the film (I don’t think I want to, the book’s bad enough), but I think the plot’s basically the same, no? Anyway, the discussion centered on the perception of right and wrong in the book. I’ve got a problem with it (and I have a feeling Burgess actually intended for us to have a problem with it), in that much as I condemn the protagonist’s (can’t remember any names, sorry, it’s been close on ten years since I read it) actions – naturally I’m not particularly in favour of raping and killing people – I actually think what is done to him is much, much worse. The tying together of aversion for violence and classical music that they condition him to, the way he cannot afterwards hear a bar of Beethoven without feeling ill, is somehow worse to me than all the murders put together. Which only makes sense to me one way: Art is the attempted expression of truth. Association of art with something base or vulgar or “evil” or simply irrelevant (viz. irrelevant to the truth it is trying to express) is a betrayal of truth. The betrayal of truth is worse than murder. I suppose you could see a connection to my abhorrence of book-burning (see no. 10). Well, either I was expressing myself badly (very possible after a bottle of red wine) or my opponent did not agree. In his point of view (as far as I could make out) the music had spurred the protagonist on somehow and hence the only way of stopping the violence was the way chosen. Needless to say I disagreed. I think I might even have said that in that case they should have given up trying to stop him (i.e. let him keep murdering people). The other option, of course, which I don’t think I remembered to advocate, was simply locking him away for life.