Snusmumriken

Kvinnehistorisk natt/women’s history night is over, and I’m in love. Maud Lindstrøm came from sweden and had the smallest little concert I’ve ever been to, at half past two, in the middle of the night in Ellen’s parents living room. It seems like everyone else knew very well who she was beforehand, but I didn't. Instead I was completely unprepared for all the niceness.

Hyllning til lesbisk sex/homage to lesbian sex is one of the cutest things I have heard in a long long time.

I’ve been trying to convince myself that i’m an avid newspaper reader for years. Updated people read at least two news papers every day, but I don’t. As a matter of fact i’m more likely to read one paper a week. At a maximum. It’s been two weeks since i moved to oslo, since i left my office job where I was listening to the radio all the time. And I already feel really out of touch with the world. I need to go and buy myself a functioning dab radio really soon. Does anyone have any good ideas? Anyone know one that isn't shit expensive? I need one, and I need one now. Making dinner-time is a good time for being updated on hte news. When sitting down, or at the bus I much prefere novels.

I also need a new computer. First it gnawed it’s way though a plastic bag and fell to the ground. It survived that. Nothing bad came out of it. But my luck was about to turn, and while it was standing peacefully on the table, the hinges of one of my wardrobe doors broke, and the door fell straight down on my coffee table and the computer fell down, got cosmetic damages and has turned into the slowest computer I’ve ever used. The guarantee doesn’t cover crap like this. I need a new computer. I need a healthy one.

I just did my civic duty and voted. Go me. It always makes me feel good. Perhaps I'd feel even better if I get to vote more often?

I’m at riksarkivet right now. Hilde bought me lunch and helped me to get access to the book, and it’s thick as hell and I picked a beetle out of the cover in which it had eaten a tunnell a long time ago. I’m pleasantly surprised. The letters are clear and readable, I was seriously afraid of all those squiggly lines that 18th century gothic handwriting sometimes consist of, but this book had letters, and I could read about 80% of it. I've also found a two page long text about the riot itself, which made it look like there are other sources to the event. I need to get down to Tvedestrand within a month or so, to talk to local history people and look at the place. It'll be fun, but I might need to borrow a car to be able to get back and forth without spending the night there.

At least one thing is certain. I’ll be writing about a riot in Lyngør in 1801, and I’ve got 1500 interviews to read. God I’m excited. And I’m a bit scared. It all feels so big.

Yesterday, we were roleplaying, and we’ll have the last session in the campaign next weekend. I don’t want it to end. For some reason I grow really really attached to my characters, just like I can’t seem to let the fictional characters in the books I read go. I know that’s what leads to fanfiction, but not in my case. In my case it’s what leads to the constant “can we play more”-nagging. But Martin is leaving in a week or so, and Aksel is leaving next tuesday. I can't say I'm looking forward to it. I like them. I like having them around. I’m going to miss them when they go.

Watched goodness gracious me with Mikael last night, and it was still funny. I'd forgotten all about it until he came up with the dvd’s.

This has been animals at war-week here at casa Munch-Møller. Last thursday I was in an incredibly horrible mood, and realised that the only good way of solving that was eating something nice, reading a good book and taking a long bath. The eating consisted of chocolate and cinnamon covered almonds, the bath was indeed warm and long (although the iron tubes makes the water yellow, and my blue bathtub makes the water look even yellower.) And the book was “the amazing Maurice and his educated rodents” I think it's becoming my new feel-good book. It's a good rival to any RL Stevenson book. Then I woke up sunday monrning feeling like it was in the middle of the day, and I started rereading watership down. Which is as amazing as the first time I read it.

I’m overjoyed with my new appartment. My mum posted some photos here. It’s got everything you need to feel like you are overflowiong with sumptuous things. It’s got a lift. And a veranda. And a dishwasher. And a blue tub. And a søppelsjakt (hole on the wall where you toss your litter) And a shop on the growund floor. I feel like the luckiest person around.

Message to parents 1: Mum. Buy a norwegian copy of Magical maurice nad his educated rodents. Read it. Possibly give it to your pupils when you buy new school rats. It's a very very wonderful book
Message to parents 2: Mum. The copy I have of watership down is falling apart? Whose is it? Dad’s? I found traces of tobacco between the pages.

Yesterday was wonderful

Although I’ve been at blindern everyday this week, it’s been more of the meeting new people, eating ice cream and drinking coffee than the actual studying. But I’m coming closer to knowing what to write about, and I guess that really counts as studying. I’m also bonding with the other 18th century people, which count as studying too in my book. And there are the lectures, and the actual reading. I have to hand in my first “project description” in the middle of september. It feels like it's too soon, but it also feels good to get it over and done with.

I’m in a really weird mood these days. I can go from being really excited to be alive to sobbing in a corner in a matter of seconds. I’m having a good time socially, but i also feel overwhelmingly alone. It’s the wrost kind of emotional roller coasters. Some days I wake up all apathetic and can’t get out of bed. Others I’m overflowing with energy. I’m doing my best to stay afloat, cause there are good things going on. Loads of good and new things. Except the whole emotional turmoil thing that comes with suddenly being single against my will, there’s no real reason to be sad.

But I’m back on track. Back to the books, the coffee and the chicken wraps. Back to having random crushes om my fellow students and being at the university library until far too late in the evening.

Insomnia and a slight tingling nervousness about schhol and life and too many thoughts inside my head combined with the fact that too many words came out of my mouth today, caused me to read 1100 pondus-stripes online. 1100. It almost makes me want to read 11 more just to make the number more agreeable.

After reading this one I started searching online to figure out whether there really is a twin bed shaped like anfield, with tribunes and a green mattress in the middle. I didn’t find it. In fact, the closest I got was a sleeping bag. I don't know if I’m disappointed, or if my faith in mankind has been renewed.

It’s hard to decide.

I guess it’s time for a public service announcement. I didn’t do it before because I really didn’t want to spill the blood online while the wound was still fresh. Aksel dumped me a bit more than a week ago, and it happened on our one year anniversary. I’m not doing too well, but I’m coping. I’ve already gone through all those phases, the lying in bed for two days reading novels without eating. The slightly more constructive reading novels and eating, but then vomiting because i couldn’t hold the food. Then onto the whole being sad, but coping.

I’ve been trying to do something (that would normally be) fun every day, and i’ve been out of the house, looking around in the neighbourhood every day, and i’m making foods i haven’t made before. I’ve written a comic-diary about how i’ve been doing (that noone will ever read), and i’ve been playing guitar for hours almost every day. At least there is enough room in my head now, that i can talk to people without sounding mean and annoyed. That was hard during those first few days.

I’m still rather down because of it. It’s like someone erased my ability to feel things, like being depressed and on anti-depressants at the same time. I’m numb. It’s like I don’t experience life like I used to. Not the pain, but sadly not the good things either. In fact trying to have fun is like trying to light a cigarette in thick fog: it takes several attempts, and when it finally catches the flame, it won’t burn well. I still sleep more than what’s normal for me. Ten to twelwe hours every night, but slowly even that’s improving. I just need to start school and have something worthwhile to do, and i think i’ll be allright.

I’m not angry or upset or anything. I know that people fall out of love all the time, - i’ve dumped people before too, and this time it all happened decently. Trying to feed some hint of anger that I have won’t work, and it won’t comfort me. I’m really sad though, because i thought that “having found someone with whom i’m such good friends and always have a good time with, the search has ended. This might be the man.” And it saddens me to know that I was wrong. There are so many things i’ve never had before, that I’ve had with him. Noone before has looked at me, and made me feel loved like that before, just by looking at me. But at least now I know how good things can be. I can use that for later. There are still things that I haven’t experienced. For instance i’ve never received flowers from a man. I guess I’m saving that for my fifth and improved relationship. I think I’ll be allright.

Today was one of those perfect early autumn days. Days where teenage me always went for a walk in the woods, but which adult me haven't had hte same ability to enjoy. I was on my way to Anna and Ingrid’s party, when I realised that Ingrid had given me the wrong time. I was an hour early, and rather than arriving before everyone else, I chose to sit down in the sun and enjoy the weather. I had borrowed “strangers in paradise” from Mikael and it hit me in that wistful, sweet, awfully wrong spot. So I found a place in the sun, leaning my back towards the warm wood of an old, lumber barn. I ate some chocolate and cinnamon coated almonds I had brought with me, I smoked a few cigarettes. I found a lock shaped like a heart and with the sun shining through the foliage, I read the rest of the comic. I cried a bit, but it was because of the comic, not because of myself. That’s what I love about life. Even in the middle of all the badness there are these perfect moments that makes it worth all the hassle.

The party was magnificent. There were loads of old and new people and people I almost never see, And there was wine and melon and warm rum punch, which is the tastiest thing i’ve ever tasted, and discussions and conversation and it was all nice and warm and fuzzy. Someone i’ve never met before even told me i was amazing, in an honest voice. There’s a sore point somewhere down in my belly who really needed to hear that. I stayed til three o’clock, when me and Ida realised that we live only 8 minutes walk apart, so we shared a cab home.

I guess life sucks sometimes. Then again, - sometime’s it’s as good as any life can be.

This image is hotlinked from my mother, who posted more photos of me moving. I’m in the process of unpacking the bags now, but I end up spending quite a bit of time in bærum, thus it takes a bit longer than necessary. I feel a bit like Anne from the book hus og hjem by Helle Helle, though I guess her reluctance to unpack is real, while mine is… being somewhere else. I don’t feel like i’ve moved in yet. But I will. I know I will.

It’s weird. On one hand, I can’t wait for life to start again. I want to read and study and feel like I’m heading somewhere. This holiday thing feels like an interlude of sorts, not like life. Not like how life is like. Not even how it’s supposed to be. On the other hand, real life starting is synonymous with Aksel leaving and going back to his real life. It feels a bit weird to have a boyfriend who’s not a part of my real life, and whose real life I’m not a part of. When he comes to visit, the real life stops; there is an interlude; I don’t study much; i interact less with others; it’s as if i want to savour every moment he’s around. It’s like being little, and only being allowed sweets on saturdays. It’s the sweet longing of never getting quite enough. There’s an up and a down to everything. Seeing as I’ve spent most of my life as a single person, I’ve come to enjoy being the centre of my own life. I get that now. But then there’s the longing, and the frequent urge to be somewhere I cannot be.

But it’s summer. It’s warm. I’m having my summer holiday. I should just take it easy. Most of the time, I do. Last sunday, I watched twin peaks with aksel, and I made cherry pie. Yesterday, I had coffee with my uncle. He has a tiny one octave accordion, that I tried to use, but didn’t really manage. I’ve been reading lots of good books and comics. Time is on my side. I’ve got so much of it. Could Life be much better? I really don’t think so.