Assorted updates

Well, it would seem I've sorely neglected spewing my sarcastic cynicism by way of this blog for quite some time. To my defense I was tricked into starting to blog and then real life decided I needed an intervention just for the hell of it.

So, what's new? Most everything, I would say. I have relocated some 540 km north of my previous home town, thus making a skip sideways and maybe slightly back to the place where I once grew up. The very place that began the shaping of the human I am today.

It all began when the news desk I've been working at for the last two summers contacted me and asked if I could fill in for one of their journalists here in Gällivare. Naturally I decided to take the plunge, three months more experience (as well as a steady salary during that time) is definitely nothing to scoff at. So, said and done. I packed the most necessary things into my little Golf and drove northbound. The first two months or so I stayed with a friend and her family since it's almost impossible to find vacant apartments in quick order (even if you, like me, had seven years of queuing for one). The cats and my horse had to make do without me, which they seem to have done perfectly well, aided by my wonderful friends and stable-mates.

Then I finally got an apartment. It's really cute, bigger than my previous one but with lower rent so I jumped at it. I have come to realize, though, that I've got way too little in the way of furniture. My living room still looks quite unbalanced at the moment, with way too many empty areas. But no matter, I'll fix it later. Thanks to the apartment I could finally fetch my cats and rent out the apartment in Umeå to a wonderful friend. The horse came up shortly after and is now quite happily installed at a brand new stable and spending his days having breakfast, lunch and dinner with a hot Spanish young thing. He seems quite happy though he's still doing his best to uphold his usual heteronormative behavior. Poor boy's got to be confused with all those gorgeous Spanish and Icelandic boys going gaga over him.

Anyway, back to my favorite subject, me. The three months of temporary work were up this Sunday (which I deeply lament since I had a heap of fun working at that news desk). Now I'm once again without a job, but only for two months. Then I'll hop onto two months of working for the rivaling news desk in this town. Something that is so exciting I can't even begin to describe it. It'll be fun to see things from that side of political colors.

Lastly I think it is more or less required of me to say something about my darling cars. The Toyota got a big red mark for the shock absorbers and is thus currently loitering on my friend's yard until I can afford buying new shock absorbers and convince someone, by way of my oh so considerable charm, that they would like nothing more than to tinker around with installing the damn things. I'll write an update on my success someday in the future.

The Golf is singing on its last verse, and quite a bit out of tune at that. The generator is making the most awful noises, like someone torturing a banshee ghost with a wooden spoon, at inopportune moments, usually when we're driving through a resident block late at night... I'm currently taking bets as to how long it will take before a) the generator flips me the bird definitely and the car won't start or b) an enraged mob decides to take matters in their own hands and reduce my little red bullet (or the Cow as it is fondly addressed as) to a pathetic pile of rusting red metal... To be updated if I get away unscathed.

So, that was probably all I had to write now. Now I'm going to return to staring fondly at my new ceiling lamp.

Continuing my masterpiece

It's time for another chapter in the horror comedy/oddly amusing, in a twisted way, tragedy called "Cat and the cars".

The setting this time is the stables... to begin with.

Yesterday I was on my way home from the stables after a nice training session. I slid into my beloved Toyota and turned the ignition... And then turned it again. There wasn't even as much as a "click".

It was clinically dead, not even a single blip on the radar.

Taking a deep breath I climbed out and gingerly made my way over to where the husband of the stable owner was sitting. Feeling like the most airheaded bimbo (if you can be one while wearing baggy clothes covered with dust) I asked him if he knew anything about cars. Not too long after that the stable owner returned from her horseback ride and the two of them helped me electrocute the Toyota with the jumper cables (in an operation that looked a lot like the TV show "ER" would look... if it happened outside... in the shade of an old barn). I managed to get my ass home, thinking it was ok now since my darling car did indeed start even after I made a quick stop at the grocery store.

Now this is where the story takes a darker turn and the tension-building music starts to fade in...

Today I once more slid into the driver's seat, on my way to pick up my co-rider since we'd planned to take a nice horsebackride in the forest. And, wonders above wonders..., the car was dead again. Not a single dip or up on the EKG of cars (if you don't count the fact that the clock did indeed light up when I had the key in the ACC-mode. It went out once I turned to ignition, though...).

Exasperated and feeling much like my favourite pet dog had just bitten me I got out, texted my co-rider who, thankfully, came by with her car so we could get to the stables. The horsebackride was nice, though the horse I'd borrowed was quite different from my own so we had our discussions.

Back from the stables again my co-rider kindly parked her car next to mine and we attempted the jumper cable routine again. It seemed to work. My darling started up nicely and was allowed to mooch some power from her car for a while. Then, when we thought it'd done so enough, we disconnected the cables again. I'd barely removed the cable for the minus pole when the headlights of my darling started dimming off. And by the time we got to remove the plus pole... Well, it was a close call whether the car wanted to stop altogether or jump a few times before stopping.

Not wanting to find out what would happen if my Toyota turned bronco I turned it off and... lo and behold, didn't get it to work again afterwards. Apparently it can't seem to hold the charge.

So now I'm sitting here with a clinically dead car, a mere two weeks before I'm supposed to be apx 30 Swedish miles north for work. Tomorrow I'm heading to the store to buy a new battery and offer up some very sincere and heartfelt prayers to appease whatever short-tempered car-god whose sensibilities I've apparently managed to severely wound. Let's just hope I'll manage to connect the new battery correctly and that there aren't any other issues effing things up...

About damn time

I heard on the news today that the UN has finally passed a resolution that states that it's a human right not to be persecuted for one's sexual orientation. A great decision in my opinion and about damn time it happened.

No one should ever have to hide part of who they are just because there are narrow-minded bigots infesting the world. There is a reason why one has something called "private" life. What does it concern anyone else what gender a person's chooses for his or her partner, after all? As long as it's consensual and both (or everyone, in cases of polygamous relationships) are of legal age I don't see why it should concern an outsider how the partners live their private lives.

The only thing bothering me is that it's taken so long for a resolution like this to come into effect. I shudder to think of all the people who have been persecuted, ridiculed, abused or even killed/executed because of their sexual orientation up to now. And, unfortunately, I am too cynical to believe it will end completely just because the UN has decided so. As long as there are narrow-minded idiots out there who are unable to stop sticking their nasty paws into other people's private business this world will continue to force people to hide who they are and what they like. I blame a lot of those narrow-minded views on sexuality and the likes on religion. I've never quite understood where religion applies to human relationships, really. It's a lot of rules that frankly don't seem to fit in anywhere other than in the narrowest and most bigoted world.

I want to see a more open-minded world where no one should have to be afraid to be who they are (provided they don't hurt others in doing so). Sadly, such a world will never exist. So I'll just hope that this UN resolution will at least help to give a few more people some peace of mind, and that the UN won't cave in at the pressure from countries built on outdated and bigoted views.

Go UN! Stand strong and do what you're supposed to be doing: Protect the rights of all human beings.

Politics, public opinion and other loose musings

These last few days the media seems to be wallowing in the news about Usama bin Laden's death. Wherever I turn the headlines scream it out (granted, I've mostly turned in places where the evening newspapers reign). First it was the whole deal about him "finally" being dead after a ten year long hunt. And now that the first awe about that seems to have died down speculations about how he died, when he died and so on have taken over.

While I am sure some people can finally sleep well at night now that he is supposedly dead (I'm still faintly sceptic since it seems the only picture of him "dead" so far seems to have been a photoshopped fake from 2009) the thing that affects me the most is the absurdity of how big of a news item it has become.

Frankly, I feel distinctly ill at ease when I see this type of single-minded focus, this right out wallowing in someone's death. I don't know how bad he was, I don't defend what he did, I know what his group claims to have done, I've seen the footage about 9/11 more times than I can remember, but still, while the Western world (including those countries that really haven't ever been in danger of the al-Qaida) celebrates they seem to forget that bin Laden was a human just like everyone else. He probably had people who actually liked him and who will truly mourn him, if he didn't have people following him most likely he'd never have been able to do what he's done.

Let's turn the scenario around: A charismatic ("good") leader of the West world has been killed (for the sake of reference let's remember the murder of JFK). The world is flooded with pictures of the place where he died, complete with pools of blood and what-not, speculations and so on about how it was done. And it turns out that there are thousands of people somewhere else cheering loudly because of his death, bragging even. How would those who relied on that person feel? We would immediately become enraged and filled with anger towards those people, right? So really now, is it any surprise so many in the Muslim countries hate the West? After all, we're doing exactly what the scenario above described right now that bin Laden has been killed.

Anyway, that wasn't really the main thing for me though. I'm neither happy nor sad he's supposedly dead. I haven't been affected either way by his existence and frankly haven't been all that interested in following what went on (other than being surprised to find out they were still looking for him). What goes on in my mind is more the issue of popularity. I know that some might think I'm way off my rocker and that my musings aren't nearly well-grounded enough for me to have an opinion. And I also admit that they're probably right. It still doesn't stop me from musing.

Apparently president Obama's popularity hadn't been all that great. And according to some sources it's better now that Usama is dead. This worries me. I've actually followed the presidency of Obama with quite a bit of interest. From my point of view (which, granted, is coloured by Swedish values and what is reported in the media, on the web and the likes) he seems to have really gone into it with a wish to make the US a better place, to improve the health of the citizens, to open up more opportunities for a better life for the majority. His health reform, the way he seems to have imposed regulations for credit card companies' right to raise interests and so on should be the good things. It should definitely gain him a lot more popularity than most presidents since he genuinely seems to care for his people and wish a better life for them. And yet I've seen a lot more negative, hard criticism from his own people about his reforms than George W Bush (who really only seemed to be aiming for more war, more oil and taking over the world while not caring a whit about his people) seems to have gotten during his time in office. At most Bush was ridiculed.

What I'm wondering is what kind of politic do people want when they think better of a head of state because a terrorist has been killed rather than for the improvements to their own everyday lives created during that head of state's time of office? Why should one person's popularity be boosted by someone else's death? To me it feels quite... nasty, really.

As for mass-murders and acts of terrorism I, under the threat of being mislabelled a religious fanatic, will now mention one of the few quotes I know from the Bible:

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"
What country hasn't got something like that in their history? The US quite often seems to conveniently forget the whole issue of what was done to the native Americans when the settlers (the future Americans) came to the continent and during the years of settlement. Or for that matter, the slavery. All those years white Americans treated other humans worse than cattle, forcing them to work their bones to dust and all sorts of other unpalatable acts. Or how the UK took over large parts of Asia and treated the natives there as servants, lower beings. Or South Africa with the apartheid. Or Scandinavia's vikings (who did indeed deal with slaves as well, both native and those they had stolen from other countries during their raids). The list could go on forever. There's Darfur, there's Zimbabwe and so on. Really, wherever you look, if you dare to dig deep enough, acts of terrorism, mass-murder and other dark acts of mankind will be found.

Terrorism by the way... It's a really hazy thing. In these last ten years the term has come to, almost solely, be used when Islamic groups have committed crimes against the West world. However, the Muslim fanatics does not have monopoly on committing them and is definitely not synonymous to the term. In fact, according to the UN's opinion on what is considered terrorism:

"Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them."For reference of the exact place it was written

This text segment does not specifically point out that the act has to be committed by anti-government forces, religious fanatics or even non-citizens of the country affected. With a phrasing like that, governments, religious representants (The Catholic church and their threats of Hell, anyone?) and just about anyone else throughout history could very well have been labelled terrorists.

With that definition... Which country can, after looking back at what their own history holds, truly say they are qualified to throw the first stone?

(There are plenty more definitions of the term "terrorism", of course, but I won't list them all here. To those who really are interested Google is a great way to find stuff and Wikipedia has it's own merits).

With this I'm going to finish up for this post, I think. The gist of above text is probably just my own wish that people started to think for themselves, started to reflect on what's going on and learnt some self-reflection. And maybe a small wish that people realised that no matter who it is that died it is still a life lost, no matter what type of person it was that died.

Just because Hitler and Usama bin Laden is dead it doesn't mean the world is a better place. One or two persons' deaths can't make it so. Only the positive effort, energy and will-power of millions of people working together and helping each other, without fighting over money, resources or power, will bring about a true change for the better.

On the subject of being busy and other musings

Let's start off by talking about my car. It has been an active topic of discussion within my circle of friends and family (well, mostly my mother and me) for the last few weeks.

Anyhow, since the heat fan decided to give up a few weeks back I have discovered that I can still get some warmth into the car by changing some of the settings for the fan. It won't blow out any hot air but opening the air vents fully, combined with some other things, while driving on the highway to the stables I've found that the warm air from the engine area is pushed into the car coupé, thus keeping the worst of the fog off the inside of the wind shield. It's not a long-term solution, of course, but it works for now.

On another, related note, however: I'm starting to give up on ever finding a workshop I can trust! During a previous visit to the work shop the mechanics told me that the heat fan was in a bad shape and would have to be replaced, which is why I bought a replacement for it now that it had, in fact, gone and died. So, thinking all was well and it would be fixed I took my beloved car to the workshop this week. Sometime during the afternoon that day the work shop called me...

Apparently they had tested both the heat fan itself and the fan module (and charging a ridiculously high price for doing it) and found that nothing was wrong with them! So there I'd bought the replacement, which wasn't free y'know, completely unnecessarily. They then went on to say that most likely there was a problem with the electrical wiring which resulted in the heat fan not getting any electricity.

However, as they said, they'd only planned for the time it would've taken to replace the heat fan. When they'd decided it wasn't necessary to replace it they then went on to fix some completely unrelated, marginally important things (which, granted, probably needed to be fixed anyway sooner or later) and in the end they "ran out of time, so they couldn't check the wiring".

In other words, not only did I, on recommendation from that same work shop, buy a completely unnecessary replacement for a working heat fan... I also left my car at the work shop for a full day and picked it up afterwards, without getting the actual problem fixed. And on top of that I had to reschedule for a date at which they could check the wiring.

Long story short... As it looks right now, if I continue using that work shop, my heat fan won't be fixed until sometime in early May, at the earliest, and I had to pay for them fixing things I'd never asked them to fix. Not to mention that they failed to notice that one of the light bulbs at the front of the car was broken and should've been replaced. I mean, since they were at it, fixing things unrelated to the actual problem, why the heck couldn't they then fix the lamp?

So, needless to say, I am quite disenchanted with car work shops. Once again. I thought I'd gotten over all that when I got rid of my previous car *deep sigh*.

The thing is, though, that I will still have to take my Toyota to the work shop. Not only because I have no choice, I need a working car since I can't get to the stable where I have my horse otherwise, but also because, despite the troubles, I still love my little red pebble. I feel happy when driving it, I feel content and, most importantly, I feel safe. It's old but it's comfortable, and cute, in a washed-out, quaint way. I fall more and more in love with it as time goes by.

As an example:
This time last year, when I still had my previous car, and when the snow was turning into deep, nasty slosh, 6 times out of 10 I barely got out of the parking lot at the stables without asking for help to push the car since I got caught in the slosh.

This year, with the Toyota, I haven't had to ask for help even once. Sure, I've still had to have a bit of speed when braving the slosh but I've gotten free and away on my own every single time. My Toyota also feels much steadier and safer when driving on icy winter roads, I don't have to worry about being blown off the road every time there's a slight gust of wind and it feels like I have a much better overview of the road. I also think that the full beams on my Toyota are much better than the ones on my previous set of wheels. All in all, to me the Toyota is a better car, which makes me more motivated to grit my teeth and endure the annoyances of work shops in order to fix it.

With my previous car I used to fantasise about the day I would get rich and could buy a new car. I would fix everything that needed to be fixed on the old car... and then push it off the quay into the river. With my Toyota on the other hand... even if I bought a new car I have a feeling I would still, if possible, want to keep my little red pebble around. I'd fix everything that needed to be fixed and then use it for weekend driving or just for some evenings of nostalgia. I love it that much. Besides, I've always dreamt of having a Toyota.

And now, on a completely unrelated matter:
Apart from car business I've been working as hard as I can to find a new job. It feels like I've sent out applications to just about every place there is (which probably is quite the overstatement) but either I hear nothing from them or I get rejection after rejection. I'm seriously starting to give up hope of ever finding work that suits my qualifications and education. I really don't want to work in sales and if I can help it I don't want to work in any stores either. I want a creative, engaging job where I get to write and create, delve into interesting topics, rack my brain for the best wording or the best visual and where every new task is different from the one before it.

Lately I have also been thinking, quite seriously, of starting my own business. I've already narrowed it down to a few names I would like to call it and I already know what I will be offering and to whom. I've also decided on what type of business it will be. Now the problem is to solidify those plans in a way that will ascertain a successful start, and to deal with the bureaucracy. So far I've borrowed a pile of books on the subject of starting one's own business, I've bookmarked a volley of websites and I've even applied to participate at an information and seminar day for those who are thinking of starting their own company. Well-informed is well-prepared in my book, after all. Hopefully I will be able to take the step into realising my company in the near future. Please, do wish me luck!

My future autobiography

I have finally decided what I shall name my future autobiography.

Cat and the cars - a match made on a bad day in hell

Yes, car trouble... once more. Then again, when have I not had car trouble? Actually, our family (or make that my parents and then me) seems to have angered the car fairy in previous lives. I've never been able to figure out another reason for why not a single car of ours has ever stayed whole for a longer time. But let's not get into my family matters. I'll just list off the cars I've driven since I got my license six years ago.

1. Suzuki Swift -'89: My first car. I bought it for the equivalent of $473 (current exchange rate) in 2003-2004 somewhere. I hadn't taken my license yet but I thought it'd be nice to have a somewhat easier car to practise with than my father's heavy battle-ship of a Volvo 240 from 1983. The Swift wasn't by any means a pretty car. It was a murky white, with one black side panel that had been added to replace a rusted up panel and the interior was a bit worn. But god how I loved my little Swift. I had nice times with that one. It was smooth, easy to drive, quick to accelerate and extremely cheap where petrol was concerned. And it always started. I remember this one time when it had been buried under a blanket of snow in the coldest part of the winter, for over a month. We decided we had to pull it out to make sure it was still ok before the snow got it too badly. So with a little help from the stable owner and her sturdy Nissan Terrano we got it out of the pile and I slid in to turn the ignition key. I didn't expect much but my little Swift purred and started smooth as anything, without a single hitch. Unfortunately it wasn't too well off where other things were concerned. The undercarriage was so rusty I couldn't use the manual jack on it without the edges sinking in, and I'm pretty sure there was a hole straight through to the undercarriage under the carpet on the drivers seat. We finally decided to get rid of it for several reasons. One was that my dog was starting to get too big for it, he took up the whole back seat. But other reasons were a) an air tube broke quickly followed by the realisation that b) the cooler looked more like the Niagara falls than anything else. On top of that I got a flat tire in a nasty bend in the road while on my way to the stables. Thankfully I wasn't driving all that fast since the road was slippery from snow. However, we still careened off the road and into a rocky outcrop, resulting in a big dent on the passenger door. Afterwards we also realised that the spare tire couldn't hold air. All of those things happened within 2 months of each other. So, yeah, my lovely little Swift wasn't so lovely any longer.
2. Dad's Volvo 240 -'83: For a short time, while my Swift was working on losing air in the spare tire, I borrowed my dad's Volvo. Hoo-boy... To this day, it's the only car, that I know of, that have gotten an engine failure and shut itself off in a downward slope. Not to mention the fact that, even though I drove it apx. 5 Swedish miles a day for a consecutive week, one day it just decided not to start at all and never did again while in our possession. I finally got the permission of my father to sell the beast to folk racing for the equivalent of $315. I still count that day as one of the best I've had.
3. Suzuki Baleno Wagon -00: Fed up with car troubles my mum finally decided we had to get a newer car. So she and I drove my little Swift to the car dealer and test drove a few cars. Finally we settled on a bottle green metallic Suzuki Baleno Wagon. It had room for the dog in the back and seemed quite fun to drive. It had a low mileage too. So we traded my Swift in for a part of the price of the Baleno and we thought things would get better... We should've known better, I guess. Just a few weeks after buying it I was testing the dog cage and was gently seeing if it fit. I swear to god I did not slam the back door, no matter what my dad was accusing me of at the time. Either way, the back wind shield went crack and dissolved into tiny, tiny pieces of glass. After that the heat shields underneath the car had to be removed and so on. I feel that there shouldn't be a single thing left on that car that we haven't had to fix. Let's not get into details, though, since it'll only depress me. Suffice to say, it came to a point where the car workshop guys knew me by my voice on the phone. So, needless to say, I was quite disenchanted with the car after 5 years of visiting the work shop. Which brings me to the latest little golden nugget (or more like faded red pebble).
4. Toyota Corolla -'87: Yes, you read it right. I switched from a '00 car to an '87. And, man, I will never regret it. The car has been in my family since my grandfather bought it in 1992. It's been through a lot of things with my grandfather throughout the years but it's a real trooper. When my grandfather passed away in 2007 my uncle bought the car from my grandmother, who didn't have a license. He used it sporadically (since he lives in Argentina large parts of the year) and in the end decided that he really didn't have any use for it since he was planning to live more permanently in Argentina for at least a year and a half. So, I gingerly asked if there was a possibility that I could buy it from him, so I could finally get rid of the moody Baleno. Instead of letting me buy it he generously gave it to me, which I am extremely grateful for. The problem with old cars is that you can more or less take for granted that they have their problems. The fifth gear on the Toyota has always been a little finicky. So, while driving the 70 Swedish miles from Stockholm to my home town, Umeå, after switching cars at my parents' place, the fifth gear simply decided it had had enough and gave up around halfway home. Hoping it was something that could be easily fixed (the fifth gear does work, it's just that the stick won't stay in position so I have to hold it there with my hand while driving) I brought it to the workshop. The nice thing with having an older Toyota, as opposed to a semi-new Suzuki, is that just about any workshop can work on them. So I got to take it to a somewhat cheaper workshop than my previous ones. Turns out they'd have to replace the whole gear box. It was also discovered that the shock absorbers in the back was in a bad shape and would probably need to be replaced. Both things are quite expensive to fix on their own and put together...Perish the thought. The last major problem (as in: will be expensive to fix, most likely) with it is that the heat fan is moodier than a woman with PMS. It only works on the highest setting and more and more often lately it's just decided to quit working even there without any provocation at all. I've always managed to fiddle it back into working though. Or rather, I used to manage to fiddle it back. As of yesterday the heat fan decided to flip me the bird and retire. So today I spent most of the afternoon trying to get a hold of the workshop (which didn't work very well so I'll try again tomorrow). And then I went to the stables. it went quite well, if you discount the fact that I was freezing my ass off on the way there. On the way home, on the other hand... I had one hand on the wheel and the other holding a combined ice scraper and rubber... thingy, in order to clear the inside of the wind shield from fog. The outside was caked with road dust and salt. Stupid as I am I thought that if I'm quick enough I should still be able to wash the outside for a somewhat improved line of sight. The fluid froze in a thin film on the wind shield, leading to me having to get off the road to scrape the outside as best I could. And then back inside and driving the last bit home in darkness, being blinded by the lamps of meeting cars reflecting on the fog and scraping the inside of the windshield about every 30 seconds. My, and I thought it was bad that time there was a snow storm making me unable to see where the edges of the road was...

So, as you can see, my luck with cars is practically nil and nothing. The odd thing is that while I felt almost homicidal every time the Baleno acted up, and could barely think of anything other than getting rid of it, I'm more inclined to hug my little Toyota, pat it on the hood and tell it everything will be all right.

I will, somehow, scrape up the money needed (thank god for salaries) to fix its "ouchie" and then we will be happy again. I do not even want to think about not having my Toyota. I love it to bits (obviously). I've never felt more safe and comfortable as when driving my Toyota this past winter. Sometimes I swear, although it's probably just fanciful thinking on my part, that I can feel my grandfather sitting next to me, smiling and doing his best to hide the fact that he is quite worried about my driving.

My conclusion is that the slogan "I love my Toyota" is more of a rule than just a fanciful slogan. At least in my case. I really, truly adore my little red pebble. And if I ever rake up enough money to actually fix all the problems with it I'll probably convert to Toyota:ism, the religion where they worship the almighty Toyota. I'd gladly take up the position of head priestess, if the spot is open.

Another candle to be lit

Today I received some sad news. Another one of my parents' cats has died.

My mother called me yesterday, asking what she should do with their cat Lukas (although my mother always insisted it was spelled 'Lucas'). He had acted strange since the day before yesterday, walking around meowing loudly and licking his fur frenetically. He'd also started picking fights with their other cat, seemingly for no good reason. From what it sounded like when she described it, it seemed like he was a bit frustrated, maybe annoyed because of the winter fur shedding. My mother described it almost as if he was behaving like he was in heat. The thing is, he was neutered around the time he turned 1 year old. Either way, it didn't sound all that serious. He ate and drank as he should, and used the litter box. I suggested she call the vet if she was really worried but it sounded like either he'd gotten lice or was just annoyed at the shedding. This morning when my mother got up from bed she made sure he ate and drank and gave him his vitamins, which he ate without any fuss. In other words, he seemed no different from his usual self.

Which is why it came as such a shock when my father called me earlier today, his voice choked, to ask if I knew where mother was working today since he needed to talk to her. I asked what it was about and he said something horrible had happened.

Apparently he had walked into the living room during the early afternoon and found Lukas dead. I don't have any details as of yet and my mother asked me not to call today since she'd only be crying in the phone.

Lukas was a great cat. He was big, weighing close to 9-10 kg. A big black lump of attitude and cuddles. He had firm opinions, much like any cat, but could always be reasoned with, at least to a certain limit. He was my mother's cat for the most part. She was the one he clung to, always staying close to her whenever he wasn't out hunting whatever thing he believed he'd be able to catch. Many a night they spent with my mother brushing his fur while he was oozing out over her bedspread in a mass of perfectly relaxed cathood.

Despite his obvious favouritism of my mother (which might also be because I was usually the one doing the bad stuff, like forcing him to eat his anti-parasite pill or cutting his claws) he was still a very special cat to me as well. I was there when he was born. For the whole evening and a bit into the night I stayed by the box his mother was in when giving birth, and soothed her when she got agitated. I slept fitfully, always attentive to her every noise and movement. And then they were born, one black and one grey/white little ball of cuteness. I saw Lukas and his brother, Maximus, open their eyes, learn to walk steadily and shortly thereafter raise hell with their weary but strict mother keeping a sharp eye on them. And then as he grew up to become the huge but mellow bundle of purring fur that he was up until today.

I will sorely miss him, just like I am still missing the other cats we've loved and lost: Lukas' grandmother Mia, his grand uncle Kim, his older brothers Bilbo, White nose and Grey nose and his younger brother Rufus; my sister's cats, the sisters Tiger and Doris. All I can do now, though, is hope that wherever they are now, be it Heaven, the Rainbow bridge or just gone, they are not suffering and that they knew, during their always too short time here on earth, how much I and my family loved them.

While most of us walk into it with open eyes, knowing we will one day have to part from our beloved pets, nothing can ever dull that pain when the animals leave us behind to mourn them. No matter how well prepared one thinks one is, it still hurts like one's heart is being ripped in two.

My thoughts go out to my parents and the one cat that is left to wonder where his friend, his half-brother, has gone. And I will mourn on my own, with my own cats for support.

And when All Hallow's eve comes around this year, Lukas' candle will join the others burning in my home in remembrance of the persons, humans and pets alike, that have passed on. And I will cling to the hope that Lukas's will be the only candle joining the others this year.

Rest in Peace, big little Lukas!

We will miss you!

My horse keeps me sane

I'm just going to throw it out there. Today was a really shitty day. I woke up feeling kind of numb, neither happy nor sad or even slightly annoyed at the early hour. That's usually a good sign something's not right in my world. Anyone who knows me could tell you that if I'm not in the kind of mood where I'd bite someone's head off if they so much as glanced at me when I got up early in the morning, something is definitely off.

I think I managed to keep a fairly straight face at work. I kept up a fairly good tempo and even managed to sell. But as soon as I got home everything just kind of crashed down on me. Still feeling slightly numb, and extremely exhausted, I took what has become my routine nap. And when I woke up a few hours later, instead of feeling somewhat refreshed I felt like I just wanted to crawl into a dark corner. The thought of having to get up from bed and drive to the stables had me on the verge of tears. Still, I had to. My horse is my responsibility, one I've gladly chosen to take upon me. But there are days...

Anyhow, I got dressed, feeling choked up and tired, and drove the 20 minute drive to the stables. I got there, chatted a bit with the absolutely wonderful owner of the stable. I'm pretty sure she noticed something was off but understood enough not to push. Either way, I managed to keep it down. Then I went into the stable to clean out my horse's stall. My horse was already inside and apparently he, too, felt that I was not feeling at my best. He chose a slightly different route of handling it, though.

If he could he probably would've crawled into my lap. But since he weighs in at about 550 kg he probably figured it'd be counter-productive. So instead he pressed up really close to me and pressed his muzzle against my shoulder and just stood there, snoozing on me. That's when it all uncoiled within me. Thankfully the stable was empty of other people, only the horses were there to see (or rather hear) me sob into my horse's mane. And he just stood there, cuter than cute itself, somehow knowing that this was what I needed. Once he sensed that the worst had passed he turned into his usual mischievous self, demanding to be scratched and placing himself in between me and the wheelbarrow so I had to twist around him while cleaning. When the stable owner's daughter came back with her horse I felt collected enough to chat and smile again. And as I drove home I felt a lot lighter, more centred. I'm still feeling pretty down in the dumps but it's not as stifling as it was before I went there.

Today, and similar occurrences in the past when I've had rough times, really got me thinking. It's amazing how animals just seem to instinctively know exactly the how and when to behave a certain way in order to cheer their humans up. You can fool another human, you can pretend to be strong, and manage to hide so much. But, no matter how good you think you are at it, an animal always knows when life's been handing you lemons. And they know the perfect recipe for a tasty lemonade.

Animals give selflessly of themselves. Of course, I'm pretty sure they're subconsciously aware of the fact that they are more or less dependent on us humans. And most living beings know to keep the hand that feeds them, whether directly or indirectly, in a good mood. However, animals always seem to go the extra distance. They put themselves out there for us. They tolerate so many things that are otherwise foreign and strange to them, just because their human asks them to. And they are always there to lend their quiet, warm support when their human is feeling decidedly cold and heavy, and just needs a silent oasis to breathe in.

When animals give so much, why is it that there are still so many humans out there clinging to this medieval belief that animals are worth less than humans, are less "intelligent", and think that because of that us "intelligent" humans have the right to use, abuse and oppress the animals? What makes us humans so much better that we feel we have the right to treat animals as things, soulless items? It only takes a quick glance into the eye of a horse, or a cat, or a dog, or whatever animal you encounter (that have big enough eyes to look into) to realise that if there's one thing animals DO have, it's definitely a soul.

How on Earth can we call ourselves the most intelligent creature, just because we've invented a lot of stuff (that in actuality most often serves to destroy the very world we live in) and can speak in words? What's saying that the sounds and signals horses, for example, use to communicate aren't more advanced than a human word? Just because we don't understand their language on an "intelligent" level we decide that they're lower than us because they can't speak human language. But, come on. Animals may not speak in human language, they may not sit there and write multi-page essays on the world economy or whatever, but they sure as hell know what we're talking about when we speak. They understand us a lot better than we seem to even understand ourselves. And, let's face it, unlike human languages, animals speak more or less universal languages. A horse from the USA may be put together with a horse from the open plains of Mongolia and instead of getting caught up in which country, or race, is the better while talking in two different languages, the horses just simply go in there, look at each other, maybe scuffle a bit and sooner rather than later they've reached a perfect understanding. Can we humans claim to be able to do the same?

So what does all this say about humans and animals? Humans can speak in human language, and write on papers, but cannot in general understand the animal languages and all their facets. In fact, often humans can barely understand each other. Animals have their own languages, intricate, intrinsic and effective for what they need it for. They can read minuscule changes in stature, tone of voice and intonation, without getting caught up in regional differences. They understand human language, connecting it to the signals they can read, and adjust their behaviour accordingly without even missing a beat.

So, really, who are the truly intelligent beings in our world?

Recycled renewal

First of all, I won't lie to you when I warn you that there might be a slight flavour of bitterness in this post. Just consider yourself duly warned.

I feel like I often stumble upon the word "renewal" when I read employment ads, business descriptions and the likes. The word isn't always spelled out but there nonetheless, in between the lines. It's made me wonder. Being an unemployed journalist I often find myself reflecting over journalism in general, trends within the area and currents conditions on the employment market.

This is just my personal opinion but to me it feels like the word "renewal" has taken on a slightly different meaning than the word should have where journalism is concerned. Considering the difficulties for young, "green" journalists to land a steady job, or being noticed by the more or less institutionalised news desks in the first place, I can't help but feel sad. I've, on more than one occasion, half-jokingly said that journalists are the only ones who never truly retire. It seems to me that the older you are, the more attractive you'll get where media is concerned. I am fully aware that it often comes down to the whole experience and social connections/networking thing. When you're older you're more likely to have more connections to draw on for a story. However, since the young journalists are so seldom given the chance to get into the business to learn they are also inadvertently prohibited from creating those important connections. And in the end the established, "experienced" journalists more or less just does a side-step between the news desks, wildly heralded that they'll bring new ideas to their work place, while the new, fresh journalists stand outside, looking in and hoping against hope that they'd at least get paid for whatever freelance article they've managed to create.

Within established Swedish media "Renewal" seems to, disturbingly enough, have become a new synonym for "recycling". The established journalists are recycled or the news desks just cling on to their aging, "experienced" work force. The thing is, I often happen upon articles brimming with such a sense of blasé weariness, kind of like "Yeah. I wrote about that same thing, just with another company, last year. I can probably use the same style in the text today", it just makes me want to shake my head. There's no sense of urgency, desire for action or interest for new angles. It all just rolls on in a never-ending hamster wheel where the same old texts, wordings and angles are recycled over and over. Where's the "renewal" in that?

Which brings me to another pondering I've had in the dark hours of the night. During my studies in journalism we were once told that journalism was often considered a reflection of reality. And maybe it is although, looking at the articles published on the web or in established, printed media, I get the feeling that reality is more and more being reflected through a tinted glass. Once upon a time journalists were the nightmares haunting the minds of corrupt politicians and corporations all over the world. The journalists could, with one skilfully and timely placed wording, overthrow plans that had taken years to concoct. And the journalists thrived on that. The public knew where to turn in order to find out what was going on behind the polished doors of government buildings and corporate conference rooms. Lately, though, media seems to have been domesticated, tamed. Instead of pushing ahead, digging into archives, protocols and anonymous tips the journalists seem to spend more and more time reporting on the obvious. They seem too afraid (or too tired by the sick workload caused by "potentiating", forcing less people to do more work) of the powers that be, the government, the corporations practically owning the established news media of today, to actually dare to stick their chins out and write about what they're really seeing, or instinctively sensing.

On another note, a reflection can never be reality. I think we all know that already. If you're facing a mirror and raise your left hand, your brain tells you that the hand being raised by the reflection is also a left hand. However, had the reflection been another person instead, that left hand would've in all actuality have been their right hand. In order for it to be a true reflection you would have to stand with your back against the mirror and still somehow be reflected from the front. Otherwise it's merely a case of your brain supplying the answer where the mirror is messing with your perception. So what does this mean? Somehow I can't help but draw parallels to the philosophical tree in the forest. If a tree falls in the forest but no one's there to listen, does it still make a sound? If a mirror is reflecting something but no one is there to see it, or doesn't have the brain to supply the information of that skewed image, is it still reflecting reality?


And with that I'll end this rather fragmented ramble before my brain decides to fool me into thinking I'm seeing things I'm not. I'll leave you with a quote I found in one of the books I've read lately:

"[...]Even the clearest mirror reverses right to left" - from the book The Door Into Fire by author Diane Duane

Boys (and girls) be ambitious?

I was getting ready to go to the stables this evening when all of a sudden I was struck by the sudden thought:
"What have I done with my life?"
And then, as I was driving to the stables, I was overcome with a sense of surreality. To realise that I am 25 years old and wondering what I've done with my life... What the heck?!

I am sometimes overcome with a feeling of restless impatience, as if I should be somewhere I'm not. And the reason I'm not where I should be is because I haven't done what I should've done earlier. I have missed opportunities, made wrong turns and so on. But at the same time I can't help but feel how impossibly stupid it is to think like that. If you ask my family and friends they'd tell you that I have always seemed to know what I want to do and where I'm headed. Looking back at old diaries and the likes I sometimes laugh at how straight a line my life has been. Ever since early childhood I liked to write and draw. At age 7 I wrote in my diary that I wanted to be a journalist. Today I am a journalist, or at least I have gotten the education of one even though I currently am not employed as one. I have never flitted about, trying things out, like many others seem to have done. I've kept a red thread throughout my life, with the occasional twirl. I might not have thought it at the time but everything I've done in the past seems to somehow have led me up to this place where I'm at now. I should be happy and satisfied. I've obviously managed to find out what I want to do and gone on to find ways to get there, without even realising it myself. And yet I feel like I should be somewhere else, even though I have no idea where or why I should be at that place. Or why I should feel like I've already missed my chances despite being only 25 years old.

The thing is, however, that I sometimes get this feeling that the society at large expects you to be well into your life and career by this age. You should already have working experience (forget about getting a job if you don't have it... even though you can't get experience until you get a job) and have started thinking ahead several steps. You should be hungry, ambitious and always looking ahead for the next big step.

I'm not a go-getter. I really am not. Which makes my chosen career as a journalist kind of tricky since nowadays the only jobs within journalism seem to be freelance gigs, chasing the news with a magnifying glass and a lasso. I am not a chaser in that regard. I do not lie awake at night, pondering and analysing the goings-on around me. I do not often look around me and wonder how I can find a newsworthy angle on the copious amounts of road construction going on in my town right now. I have no ambitions to unmask corrupt politicians, unravel the wicked plans of major corporations to fool the people or even catch a big name doing something they shouldn't be doing. I do not wish to be in the middle of the action at the battlefields around the world. I am not aiming to change the world. If one person could do it, it would've already been well under way (or that is my opinion at least).

My ambitions are modest to say the least. I am happy as long as I have a steady income which enables me to comfortably pay my bills, eat and make sure my animals get whatsoever they may need. If I like my job... all the better. It's not a requirement at this point, however. I'm game as long as I at least can feel I can do my job, earn my pay and not have to worry each day whether I'll have money to pay my rent once next month comes a-knockin' on my door with knuckle dusters. My dream job as a journalist hasn't got a thing to do with "The BIG SCOOP". I want to be the journalist that comes into the office every day, checks my mail and then goes out to do an article on the city council meeting or the neighbourhood festival that day. I want to write about the everyday news, about what's going on around me, in the community I live in. And at the end of the day I want to go home and feel like I did the best I could today to give the people I see on the streets around me something to talk about in between coming home from work and going to bed. Or over breakfast. I want to be the kind of journalist that makes people think: "Oh, I didn't know we had something like that just around the corner", "Oh my, did our mayor really think it would be a good idea to suggest that at the meeting yesterday?" or "How about we go out on Saturday and check out that park they recently opened downtown?". I'll gladly let others chase down the big news and stay in my little corner of the world writing about the news that, on a global (or maybe even national scale), are just drops of water in the sea.

The problem is, there doesn't seem to be any call for such journalists. If you're not constantly on the move, searching and chasing, you're not ambitious enough.

Fine. I'm not ambitious, we've already established that. But isn't that a good thing?

At least I won't be switching jobs every third month. I won't go chasing the better job, the higher pay (that's not to say I wouldn't like having a nice, fat salary but it's not a complete must). If I find a steady job where I can relax and be myself I will stay loyal, I will stay steady and do my best within the frame for that job. Sure, I may or may not come with the occasional suggestion for eventual improvements but I will be happy as long as I can feel safe in my job, feel like I can do it well enough and receive an occasional pat on the back. I would love to be the inventory employee, the one who's always there, steady and reliable but maybe not all that exciting all the time. Why isn't there any employers out there who seem to know how to appreciate the potential for firm loyalty and steadfastness?

The title for this post, by the way, is a quote from one William S. Clark who managed to do a lot in his life. It is said that the quote came about as Clark took his farewells of his students and co-workers at the Sapporo Agricultural College (nowadays called Hokkaido University) in Japan. The reason I chose that title (and added the "girls" part since he'd apparently only addressed males) was because I can't help but wonder why there seem to be such an obsession with ambition. Ambition is good, don't get me wrong. But there are more kinds of ambition than the "go-getter", constantly looking for the next big thing/change the world-type. I feel like we should remember and appreciate that potential for diversity.

Musical musings

There's been a lot of talk about the re-formation of the old boy band Take That on the radio lately. As I usually listen to the radio while doing the chores in the stable I can't help but hear and make some personal reflections over it.

I find this whole boy-/girl band phenomena quite fascinating. Most fascinating of all in my opinion is how people can actually tell the bands apart. To me, they all seem to be same same, without any difference, other than maybe their accents.

Firstly, they're all built up around the same sort of line-up. There's always a "cute pretty-boy"; a "sensitive, poetically inclined guy with slightly brooding eyes"; a "hip/cool guy with street attitude"; a "bad boy" and then most often a fifth member that is cast in various other roles but seldom especially noticeable.
Backstreet boys is, to me, a glaringly obvious example of these roles. They had five members when they first began. There was Nick, the "cute pretty-boy"; Brian, the "sensitive, poetically inclined guy"; A.J, the "cool guy", Kevin, the "bad boy" and Howie (whom I really never got a hang of, not being that into the band more than to note these stereotypical roles). Looking at pics today I can't help but wonder if he was cast in the role as the "open-minded, sweet friend".

Secondly, the bands usually deal with the same type of lyrics about love, pain, romance and various other, to me quite sappy, subjects. And all of them seem to have eaten chalk to get those soft, sweet voices supposed to caress the ears of the adoring audience. Personally I've always felt sleepy when hearing it, unless I'm busy cringing over the complete lack of depth and originality in their lyrics. Or, for that matter, the paradox of hearing the "bad boy" sing like that. While he may look the part, the part doesn't fit into the music they sing.

And thirdly, they always do those, yet again in my opinion, silly little choreographed dances, all the while smiling soulfully/wickedly/sweetly and so on according to their roles and what they're singing at the time. I do admit that I have sometimes felt impressed by their stamina and agility while doing those choreographies, but since the steps are so similar between bands I actually haven't paid enough attention to the actual techniques.

To return to the first part of this post, Take That was a bit before my time, but not that much before it (Boyzone and later Backstreet Boys were the big boy bands during my teenage years). Still, I've heard enough of Take That's early works to be able to discern some patterns. I think that what they had going for them was, as one of the main things, the rather distinctive voice of Robbie Williams. I'm not surprised he's managed to do so well on his own. Other than that they all had the looks "suitable" for a boy band, attracting teenage girls of most types. However, looking at their pictures today, after the re-formation, I just have to raise the question... Can they still be considered a boy band? They're far from pretty any longer, a few of them could be what is politely called "distinguished" and, granted, Robbie Williams seems to have either been graced by good genes or plastic surgery (I don't know enough to say which although I suspect a little bit of both), but overall there's no getting around it. They're middle aged men trying to sing like they did xx years ago. Once again, what they have going for them is Robbie Williams's voice. Listening to their new release "The Flood" however makes it glaringly obvious to me that whatever they once were as a band, Robbie Williams has grown too large for them. Meaning that while one almost immediately recognises Williams's voice, the others feel more like background noise, indistinguishable from each other and without any specific trait to mark one from the other. So, rather than the re-formed Take That, it feels like it's Robbie Williams and his back-up crew. I might be overly harsh and some might argue that I'm way off my rocker and out of line for saying it, but that's what it feels like. So once again I raise a question, if a once popular boy band re-form after xx amount of years doing their own stuff separate from each other, what genre would they then belong to? And why do it? Boy bands have a best before date nowadays. Just like so much of the music today.

Which brings me to my second reflection:
I once got into a discussion with my teacher about music. I said that I didn't think there had been any actually good music released in the western market since 1995. I still mostly stand by that opinion, even though I've since had to admit there are some exceptions to the general rule (the song Hero of War by Rise Against being a most obvious such exception to me, thanks to its very interesting lyrics and the simple music supporting it).

The thing is, I generally feel that with the music of (mainly) the 60's and 70's the artists had a cause. They often used music to raise the overall awareness of what went on in the world. Issues like war, injustice, bigotry and so on came alive in the songs and together, the song and the meaning behind it, made a whole. And since the artists really believed in what they sang the songs have an impact even today, even if some of the issues might not be very topical of today's society.

If I was to put a picture or metaphor to the different decades of music I'd say that the 60's and 70's were all about fire and glam. Fiery passion, beliefs and the hope to make a difference. Or glitter, glamour and sass.
The music of the 80's and 90's feels a little bit dirty, gritty like the aftermath of the heated glamour-party of their predecessors. Like a sequinned dress lying forgotten on the dance floor among deflated balloons and leftover food, with a bottle of alcohol next to it.
The music of the late 90's to the present feels, to me, like plastic, like Tupperware. Practical, useful for the moment but easily discarded and forgotten. Mass-produced music with recycled or nonsensical lyrics, lacking most of any real content or feeling, has become mainstream and a song's worth seems to be judged by how often it is played on the radio in a day, never mind the fact that the song doesn't sound much different from any other song that day. Meticulously manufactured, uniform music is practically flooding the Western world with the aroma of American Idol (and its' spin-offs). If music is supposed to reflect the people and the contemporary society... what does it say about us that the hit lists are topped by these recycled, easy-listening kind of songs?

I should've been born before technology

It's a bit of a standing joke within my family that I am pure death on technology. I barely have to touch my technological stuff (let alone actually turn it on and work on it) before it crashes, breaks, go bonkers or just plain annoys the hell out of me. And it always happens when I have the least financial abilities to correct it. Just a small list:

- I've bought 2 laptops within 2 years (the first one my mother bought and it held for a few years before the lid cracked, the second one met partial death by red wine and the third one is probably trying to find the most inopportune moment to crash any day now)
- I've reformatted them umpteen+ times,
- I've gotten close to getting on first-name basis with the support technicians at at least two different companies (I suspect I was close to being invited to their Christmas dinner too)
- I've bought in total 4 new cellphones in 6 years (one met death by eager puppy + very wet brook, one had a shitty battery in plastic casing and the clasp broke so the battery was loose, one just... went bonkers and started fucking things up + the keyboard became loose at least once a year. I'm just waiting for my new one to fuck things up)

Anyway, the reason I'm writing this right now is because I'm quite fed up. Today my external hdd (which I had lots of my favourite things on) decided not to boot up at all. I checked around, cold and clammy, worried that it was the hdd itself that had crashed. Turns out it seems to be the AC adapter, the green light on it just blinks, regardless of the type of power outlet I connect it to. Now, this might sound like a pretty easy problem to fix... if the HDD hadn't been 2+-3 years old and the AC adapter for it isn't common to find in electronics stores nowadays. The places I've found what seems to be a suitable replacement at lists the price at 250-400 SEK (apx. $34-$54). This might not sound like such a large sum in the bigger picture... unless you've got bills that takes over 75% of your total income and still want to buy food for both yourself and your (kidney sick) animals. Either way, I've got no choice in the long run. I'll have to live on noodles and oatmeal for a while. Can't skimp out on the cats food.

Anyway, as if that wasn't enough... my desk lamp, which has got these ridiculously small, strong lamps (not LED), decided to call it quits too. And of course I've used up all the spare lamps I bought when my economy was bit more decent.

So, in short... Tomorrow I need to go out and spend money I'd rather not spend because technology (I'd rather not bother with but have no choice but to bother with) fucked up again.

This joke about me and technology... it's so painfully true it's not even funny.

the End of the world/ Val 2010

It's depressing to listen to the news on the radio. Catastrophes, both natural and man-made, follow each other in what feels like a more and more rapid succession. If it's not tsunamis, earth quakes or floods, it's wildfires, major oil leaks or hurricanes. All of this makes me think. Is it that the amount of natural catastrophes (man-made ones were a fact ever since the beginning of man) in rapid succession are increasing? Or is it that we're just more aware of them nowadays?

To me it feels like our earth has finally had it with the abuse heaped upon it by the humans. Kind of like: "You drill me full of holes, you rob me of my oil. You cut down my forests, pollute my waters and air. You commit genocide on both yourselves and every other living organism in this world. And then you're chocked that I protest? Payback's a bitch, eh?".

The problem is that these natural disasters very seldom hit the ones most deserving of it. It seldom hits the rich company head quarters or the leading industrialized countries. The ones who, with their selfish and capitalising view of the world as their playground are the main reasons for why things are what they are today. No, instead it hits those that are already suffering from pretty much the same things as the earth itself. It hits Haiti, it hits Pakistan, it hits Chile, it hits the poor parts of China and so on. Where is this world headed when even earth itself is kicking on those that are struggling to stand up again? While the ones most deserving to be beaten down are still sitting on their high horses counting their money and thinking out how to pile up more money, more expensive houses, cars, private jets?

As Barry Mcguire sang in 1965:

"Don't you understand what I'm tryin' to say
Can't you feel the fears I'm feelin' today?
If the button is pushed, there's no runnin' away
There'll be no one to save, with the world in a grave
[Take a look around ya boy, it's bound to scare ya boy]

But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don't believe
We're on the eve
of destruction."
- (Eve of Destruction, written by P.F Sloan in 1965)

It feels like we're getting there, each day another step towards
destruction.


Svenska:

Val 2010

Jag kan inte låta bli att undra över om det är så att folk idag har en så dystopisk känsla av undergång att de helt enkelt inte orkar bry sig.

Världen håller på att gå åt helvete ändå, så varför bry sig om vad som händer i framtiden? Varför göra ett aktivt val som gynnar inte bara en själv utan även eventuella nästkommande generationer? Varför orka läsa på? Varför orka engagera sig på något sätt?

Så länge jag har pengar i min börs och kan köpa den senaste tekniken (som ändå kommer gå sönder just efter att garantin gått ut) så är allt väl i min värld. Vad bryr jag mig om att sjukvården blir dyrare? Att fler och fler går arbetslösa och knappt har råd att äta eller betala sin hyra? Folket, vi som ska vara ansvariga för vårt samhälle, överlämnar alla beslut åt politikerna, sväljer glatt de vackra vallöftena som alla vet kommer att brytas så fort valet är över.

Jag har länge känt att det skulle behövas ett totalt generationsskifte i politiker-Sverige. De som i år ställer upp i valet, de som lovar runt och alltid håller tunt, är så världsfrånvända och ointresserade av något annat än sin egen ekonomi och bekvämlighet att jag har svårt att se hur de någonsin skulle kunna göra något för det folk som röstar på dem. De har ingen koll på vad som sker i samhället och representerar gamla, utdaterade värderingar i putsade och ytligt hoplappade former.

Folket som röstar på dem är så avtrubbade, så obrydda och så bekväma att de bara rycker på axlarna och sväljer det som syns på ytan. Förförda av fantasin om att kunna bli som det USA man ser på TV, i filmerna, orkar de inte reflektera över skillnaderna mellan lilla Sverige och USA. De vänder bort blicken för alla de brister som finns där, klart belysta av verklighetens osmickrande ljus, och stänger in sig i sin egen lilla bubbla där allt som räknas är en själv och huruvida man kommer att ha en extra hundralapp i börsen vid löning.

Den hundralappen, förresten... Den hade kunnat gå till sjukvård, bättre skola, bättre vård av de äldre... Men varför ska de ha mina pengar?

Varför ska jag få mindre pengar bara för att någon annan ska få ett åtminstone halvvägs värdigt liv, slippa frysa ihjäl i en kartong på nån bakgata eller förblöda i väntrummet till akuten bara för att det inte finns pengar för tillräckligt med personal?

Varför ska jag bry mig om Svea, 95, som spenderar dagarna i en säng på pensionärshemmet med liggsår och blöja för att personalen helt enkelt inte hinner med att hjälpa henne till toaletten eller ta med henne ut i luften för ens en halvtimme? Svea som knappt minns hur det kändes att få sitta i en stol i trädgården en vacker sommardag eller äta vällagad mat tills hon är mätt?

Jag kan verkligen inte förstå hur folk kan vara så själviska, leva kvar i gamla föreställningar och fortfarande tro att politikerna tänker på folkets bästa. Vi kan inte längre sitta i våra soffor, blippa på fjärrkontrollen och tro att våra politiker är där för att fatta våra beslut.

Det är på tiden att vi, det svenska folket, vi som ska rösta nu i september, börjar ställa krav på våra politiker och på oss själva. Så att vi kanske, förhoppningsvis inte själva en dag behöver glömma känslan av hur det kändes den där dagen när vi satt barfota i gräset med solen som sken varmt ovanför våra huvuden.

A sidenote from the padded room

Everything I'd rather not think about seems to start with the letter C today. Granted, I do like to think about myself so maybe not EVERYTHING I'd rather not think about... Just a side note in the story of my life.

To return to the issue of the unholy triad of C's then. Let's begin with what might be the main reason the second two C's appear so horrid to me.

Number one on the shitlist:
Colds
For weeks I've managed to stay healthy. After the possibly worst winter in memory, with close to two months of constant colds, I thought I'd worked out the kinks in my immune system and was getting along fine. I hung out with my best friend, who were coughing her lungs out and doing a very good job of imitating a crow with bronchitis, for a week straight while bathing in semi-cold waters and toughing it out in hard winds on the beach just to get a bit of a tan. It all went well, I didn't catch anything, she survived and I'm pretty sure she's still got both her lungs with her. And my legs got nice and tan.

I also hung out with my dearest aunt... who, it would turn out, was suffering from pneumonia. And at the same time I hung out with my other best friend (yeah, I've got two of those. I'm a Libra so I can't choose :D) while she was coughing more than breathing. And still I stayed healthy.

Now this is where the story takes a somewhat darker turn. These last two weeks I've been hanging around with one of my two best friends again. She's better now but her oldest kid (5 y/o) seems to have caught a slight cold. And of course, every time he sneezes he forgets to cover his mouth and almost infallibly turns his head towards me. Not that he can help it. He's still so young and he's cute as a button. Either way I guess my immune system decided to say: "Y'know what? Screw this, I'm going on a vacation". The result? A sore throat and a head that feels like it's full of wet cotton... the last day at work and only two days before I'm going back to my home (a 6 hour drive southward bound) with two cats and glaring sunlight.

This brings me to the second C on the list:
Cleaning
Since I've been borrowing an apartment for two weeks while working in my little hometown I, naturally, have to clean it up and make sure it's at least as clean as it was before I arrived. I hate cleaning under normal circumstances but now, with a cold and no idea where the laundry room is situated, I feel my motivation hitting an all-time low. And yet, this is one of the few times I actually HAVE to clean today and not procrastinate it until next week. Thankfully I haven't eaten much at home so there's not that many dishes needing to be washed. But the cats have had a time of it shedding hairs all over the curtains.

The third C on the list is something I've been procrastinating for lack of funds. Now that I got a fairly nice salary I decided to deal with it.
Cellphones
My semi-trustworthy Nokia 5500 has been acting up lately (read: the last year or two) and I realised it was time to put it to sleep alongside my quarter-trustworthy Siemens M75 (which was its predecessor). So, with that slightly queasy and yet expectant feeling one gets when planning to spend more money than one'd like to think about I finally made the difficult decision to look for a new one. I found it too... It's pretty and it's made from recycled materials. I've even had the chance to feel it up thanks to there being one of those at the news desk I've been working at. I ordered it today and hopefully I'll get it this week. I'll be spending the next few months in a strange limbo where I erratically swing from euphoric to horribly guilty to slightly relieved and then back again while inserting a series of other emotional rollercoaster ups-and-downs and swirls in between.

I can't help but wonder how long my new cellphone will hold out before it activates its built in suicide gene and flips me off. Long live technology, eh?

What's wrong with traffic these days?

Let's begin on a positive note. Today we finished up our graduation project and turned it in to the teacher. So now all we have to do is wait for the seminars to finish, do whatever changes that needs to be done and then... finally!
Of course, I still have my thesis to finish up but for now I'm going to bask in the fact that the largest, and possibly most important, part of my education is done. It's been interesting, horrifying, devastating and fun. And God am I glad that it's over!

Now, on to traffic (which I'm not as happy with)... I'm starting to wonder if Monday is the new Friday. I wrote in an earlier post about how people drive like maniacs, callously disregarding any and all traffic rules as well as their own and others' safety, during Fridays. Well, Friday seems to have been extended to encompass Monday as well as Tuesday too so far.

Yesterday I was calmly driving towards the stable, abiding by the traffic rules set by our country's leaders way back. I come up at a junction, having put out the sign for a left turn in advance to make sure my fellow drivers knew where I was headed. I placed my car to the left in my lane and stopped to let a car on the crossing road pass (since it's my duty to give way). Then all of a sudden I see this dark blue Citroën coming up behind me, blinking left as well. And then the bastard places himself (it's gotta be a man, women generally drive in a more safe manner) on MY left, right next to my car. Now, if I hadn't seen him coming this could've led to a rather nasty collision. Anyway, the idiot blasts past me and since I'm not very fond of having to use up all my duct tape to tape up my front bumpers (been there, done that, spit on the T-shirt) I allowed my safety thinking to overrule my sheer burst of anger and murderous rage. I saw him do the same to some other car a few minutes later. Damn idiot.

One would think it would end there. No one got hurt (even though I admit I fervently wished the bastard would drive off a cliff that would suddenly and inexplicably materialise right in front of his car and just as quickly disappear) and I managed to get my temper under control. All's well that ends well, right?

NO. Because today, when driving home, I come to another junction. I've signalled a right turn in advance, placed myself as well as I could and... up comes this beat-up, piss-ugly old pile of rust (possibly a Ford), squeezes in on my right, signalling a right turn. Repeat the scenario from Monday, omitting the part where he did it again since I didn't actually follow for that long. Pick the scenario up at the part with the mysterious cliff materialising in front of the car...

Seriously, what's wrong with people? It's like as soon as they sit down behind the wheel of a car they all turn into Evel Knievel on crystal meth. It's at times like these I wish I had a huge neon-sign of a hand flipping the middle finger to turn on and shine at all the morons out there.

Procrastination at its best

...or worst, depending on how you see it.

I had planned to grab myself by the scruff and finish up my thesis this weekend, only two months too late. But, oh wonder above wonders..., I've yet to even open the damn document. I really need to get it done before the start of June since otherwise I'll have to wait a whole year before I can submit it. But writer's blocks are vicious things. Worse than Lord Voldemort, the whole Twilight-series (books also counted) and a three week hangover. I'll pull some all-nighters this week to get it done. I might not have a lightning-shaped scar and ugly glasses like Harry Potter, but I sure as hell have got painkillers, lighting fluid and a lighter. SO I'll vanquish two out of three bad things and finish up my thesis in a heroic and astounding last minute rescue while the world I saved will be cheering for me from afar (most likely afraid to come too close due to my progressive insanity, but hey, all admiration is good).

On a more positive, and less world domination-like, note: We're making good progress on our graduation project. Now all we have to do is hunt down some politicians, finish up one illustration and two headlines and we're good to go. It's been quite an interesting piece of work filled with some rather uncomfortable and shocking revelations about an environment many people believe is the epitome of peace and quiet. Even I didn't know it could get this bad... And I'm a natural-born cynic/realist who thinks this world is full of shit most of the time.

Lately, I've also come to the realisation that journalists has got to be the most ego-tripping people out there. Last week I filled in for a journalist at the news desk I'm going to work at this summer. It was such a high to see my texts, with byline and all, in the newspaper. And when my last article for that week actually made poster news... *speechless and jumping up and down* I had to go into the kiosk and ask them if they would give me that news poster. They did, those wonderful people, so now I'm gonna put that poster up on my wall. It's my very first one, after all!

The Filial daughter or "How to drive Cat crazy in less than 2 days"

At the moment I'm visiting my parents in the capitol of Sweden, Stockholm (also known as the Hellish pit of overly stressed and rude idiots).

After retrieving my car, which is obviously possessed by the Devil and/or operated through a Windows-based system considering the amount of times it breaks down, from the workshop I felt slightly queasy because of the chilling knowledge that my car would once again cost a fortune to repair. I then packed my bags and drove that same car, with bad brakes on the back wheels, on an 8 hour drive from Umeå to Stockholm. It was nice as long as I could still consider myself being in Norrland. But as soon as I passed a city called Hudiksvall I could feel myself leaving the premises of said region and instead be enveloped by the atmosphere of the southern parts of Sweden. It is hard to describe that atmosphere but I will try my best.

Imagine you're having the worst hangover of your life, you've just woken up next to someone you have no idea who it is, or if it's a man, woman or Chewbacca, and whom you would've been better never having to lay your eyes upon in the first place. Then imagine that while you're lying there, wondering what train drove into your head at full speed (in the process obviously smashing certain vital parts of the facial appearance of whoever it is sleeping next to you), you realise you forgot to turn the sound off your cellphone. As is demonstrated by the sudden slicing pain (similar to undergoing a bypass surgery without anesthesia) of a tone you usually quite like cutting through your pounding head ache and self-loathing.

And when you pick up... It's your mother on the other end. Nagging at you because you forgot that you promised to drive her to her very important meeting. And she nags... and nags... and nags until you start to picture your hands slowly wrapping around her neck, seeing her face turn bluer and bluer. And when she finally hangs up...

Your grandmother calls. And nags at you because you forgot to drive your mother to her very important meeting. Repeat the strangulation scene. Substitute mother for grandmother. Hang up.

And then that creature next to you wakes up, thanking you for a great night, wondering if you'll be meeting again and if you wanna cuddle for a while. And so on. You realise you are really late for work... and stinking like that alcoholic over by the town square. So now you're full of self-loathing, annoyance, anger, murderous thoughts, bad conscience and top that off with stress x 100... Imagine all this and then multiply it all with 10... and you'll come fairly close to what I felt when I came closer and closer to the Hellish Pit called the capitol of Sweden, Stockholm.

Then top all of that off with realising that your parents' computer is slower than a turtle with only one leg and eyes full of cataracts...

Yeah, great, isn't it?

But at least I get to meet up with some old friends I haven't seen for years. And hopefully I'll get something nice for my exam project. So I'm going to live in the hopes that a week isn't very long, I'll be busy most days... and in the evenings I can lock the door to my room and catch up on all those homoerotic novels I've never quite had the time to read.

Traffic... again

One would almost believe it's Friday today.

I've made the observation that people are more reckless and careless when driving during Fridays. Sure, they want to get home after work and enjoy the weekend. It's expected for Fridays. But what I don't understand is why people are idiots in the traffic on a Monday.

Today I was driving home from the stables. I kept the speed limit, drove legally and did everything one should. And then, all of a sudden, an idiot in a white minivan behind me flashes his lights, blinding me through the rear view mirror, before he passes me and races off as if he'd stolen the car. Angry and annoyed I flashed my lights right back at his rear window in a pathetic and yet oddly satisfying display of childish annoyance. I hope he at least felt the lights sting his eyes the way his lights stung mine.

People! Please drive safely, take care of each other in the traffic. You won't get home any quicker if your careless driving causes an accident. Pay attention to the people in the cars in front of, behind and around you. For the sake of us all!

So happy and relieved!

I am so incredibly relieved right now.

I've been worrying myself sick over what to do about a job this summer. Since I'm graduating from my university at the beginning of the summer I've been chewing my nails wondering what to do now that I've become a "grown-up". The ideal scenario would be to find a nice job at some news desk so I could actually work with what I've spent these last few years learning to do.

Since January/February this year I've sent out applications for summer work to various news desks around the country. It didn't look very promising though. I got rejection after rejection with the explanation that they wanted someone with "experience" in the field. But, hell, how can anyone get experience if no one's willing to employ people who might not have worked x amount of years at a news desk previously?

It's like a bad circle: You need experience to get a job within media -> You can't get any experience until you get a job within media -> and so on ad infinitum.

But! Things suddenly seemed to brighten a bit when I called one of the news desks I'd sent an application to. The hope rose and today I got a call from them saying that I'd get a few weeks (3 weeks) at the local newspaper office I had applied to. I was so happy I was shaking! And as the cherry on top of it all there's even a chance to get more work from them after the summer! It would mean I have to move (back to my rather small hometown, even further north than where I am living now) but I don't mind. They're willing to give me a chance, I can work at a newspaper I actually quite respect and that I grew up reading. And I get to work in a place I know very well, where I still have friends and family staying. So, all in all, if they ask me to continue working there after summer it's Good-bye Umeå; Hello again Gällivare!

It feels as if a great weight has been lifted off my chest with this. Of course I'm a bit nervous, thinking "what if I'm not good enough?" but at the same time I feel like "I can do this! I live for this!". To get a call like the one today is the most amazing feeling, it makes me giddy. And since I'm up to my ears with research and planning for our exam project it makes me feel even better to know I won't have to worry as much about the summer. So all in all... I'm on top of the world and aiming even higher!

The dangers of the PMS bitch

Females around the world suffer from it. Men around the world suffer because of it (at least if you ask them). PMS is like passive smoking. Not only does it harm the smokers, but those around them as well.

I am one of all those people suffering from it directly. I'm not going to go into much detail about it. Suffice to say I manage to check all the boxes along the long list of symptoms of PMS. It is a dangerous, dangerous thing, this PMS business.

For example:

I am usually a rather calm driver, at the most I can display certain aspects of passive aggressiveness (displayed through a few choice words involving cereal boxes and driver's licenses or the occasional angry sigh). However, the day before yesterday I transformed, from one minute to the next, into the horrifying PMS bitch. I didn't realise it at the time, of course, since I was too wrapped up in thinking about ramming my car into the back bumper of the idiot in front of me who seemed to have trouble finding the gas pedal on their car (yes, surprise surprise, all cars normally DO have a gas pedal). I would've done it if my car hadn't consisted of up to 95% of plastic junk. Knowing this, however, I managed to limit myself to staring hard into their rear view mirror while frowning and sending evil, evil thoughts their way. I do have to confess I also flashed my lights at them at one point and was *this* close to sound my horn as well. Personally I hate it when someone does that to me. But, come on!, they were driving 50 km/h on a 70 km/h road...

In order to reduce stress levels and traffic incidents I suggest putting a sign on every car driven by a woman suffering from PMS. That way the other poor souls on the roads will at least have a chance to avoid the dangers for themselves, their cars, their ancestors and descendants as well as the authority issuing their driver's license.

As for the times off the roads...

I believe that a lot of PMS-induced cases of domestic abuse, most often verbal and/or emotional but sometimes involving normally stationary objects suddenly becoming airborne or doors suffering damage through blunt force trauma, can be prevented if the passive victim (read: the other, most often male, part of a relationship) of PMS would keep a few things in mind:

1. Do not do anything that might aggravate the PMS bitch. Avoid eye contact, try to subtly stall all attempts at serious discussions about your relationship, or other volatile subjects, until a more opportune time.

2. Do not draw parallels between that awful bout of flu you had last year and your significant other's PMS. Do not talk about your awful day at work or other problems you might have suffered. Believe me, nothing you've suffered this day will be anywhere near what the PMS bitch will feel like she's suffered.

3. Do not forget to pick up your stuff from the floor/chairs/tables or anywhere else where you might have thrown/dropped them. You do not want to know what happens if the PMS bitch comes home to a messy house and realises she'll be the one who'll have to clean it up.

4. Do not come between the PMS bitch and her choice of a substitute for Valium (e.g chocolate, candy, cookies etc.). And for GOD'S SAKE do not eat that last cookie or ice cream you found in the kitchen. You will not like the consequences.

5. Use this time to show your softer side. A surprise gift (chocolate or flowers for example) is always nice. But also more mundane displays of affection are good. This is your chance to prove that a real man really knows how to handle a vacuum cleaner or the dish washer.

If you've planned on cooking a nice, romantic dinner for your significant other to when she gets home from a tough day, this is the time.

And, yes, you have to do the dishes and the clean-up immediately, at the latest, after you've finished dinner and the PMS bitch has relocated to the comfortable couch or chair in front of the TV, swept into a warm blanket that you've put around her shoulders, with a nice cup of warm tea or chocolate in her hand (and the remote control within easy reach).

And no, a romantic dinner doesn't automatically end with hot gorilla sex... just so you know what you shouldn't expect.

And here are some pictures of the whole bag of sweetness I found yesterday: