Snusmumriken

There’s a new channel on Norwegian Tv. It’s “The woman’s channel, fem”. Their slogan is that it’s “made for women, with access for men”, and the posters are filled with pink shoes. Pink shoes? Pink shoes. Ten years ago, just talking about Girl’s and boy’s colours were a taboo, and now luring women with photos of pink shoes is considered good coutume.

Seriously, tv channel makers. What are you thinking?

It’s not the pink shoes that upsets me, and it’s not the existence of a channel with dating programs and yaddayadda that upsets me. I can just chose to not watch it, right? Like I do with almost every other tv-channel out there? And perhaps the generalisation that women and men like different tv-programs wouldn’t upset me so much if it didn’t try to place me in a category where I’d feel completely alienated. Cause it’s true that there’s loads of stereotypical male films that I can’t even find vaguely amusing. I don’t like watching people killing each other, and I don’t care to watch people hitting each other in the face. Long fight scenes are boring. Perhaps a tv channel that is like P2 (norwegian radio channel), but televised wouldn’t be so bad? I skimmed the program list, it makes me feel that the world in general has expectations on how I should be, think and behave as a woman. Expectations that I can’t fulfill. I end up thinking that I, because of those silly double X chromosomes really should be interested in paranormal phenomenons and “big love”. It’s like there’s an agenda where the ultimate goal is to reshape those decaying gender stereotypes and create some new ones, nice stereotypes where women, no matter how smart and independent they seem, really are little girls who just want to sit down in the sofa, eat ice cream and watch a good dating program.

I guess it’s a comfort that noone seems to be watching it, and that according to the previously mentioned article: “The tv3 airing of the Champion’s League-match Porto-Liverpool actually had more female viewers than FEM’s most viewed program so far.”

But then there’s the general tendency that the tv-channel is following. Where you can’t find raingear for a five year old girl in any other colour than pink. Where the separation of the way the kindergarden children play is much more severe than when I was little, because the girls are wearing skirts that are a bit too long, and a bit too likely to fall off, and that are pretty, and that shouldn’t get dirty. Last year, I had a kindergarden outside my window, and for fun, I counted the children and made a little statistic in my head. 26 children. 14 boys/12 girls. Only one of the girls were wearing trousers. Girls play quietly and cleanly. It makes me wonder what went wrong.

I have this little book at home, called something like “how we create the women”. It’s nice and brown and from the 70’s. A bit outdated, and sometimes when reading it, i’m giggling. I know that social constructivism isn’t too trendy these days. I know that there is research these days, showing us that the male and the female brain works differently, and I know that perhaps as a result of all that brain research the current norm is more essensialistic, - that one should accept that girls are born with a set of girly characteristics. I know that “we shouldn’t try and make the girls into boys. We should let them be girls, like they really are”. In a way it sounds reasonable, but when i turn it upside down it feels like it’s not me who’s the social construct, but them. That they are creating a generation of little princesses, just to protest against the jeans and corduroys we grew up with ourself.

It might be. But I really don’t like it.

There’s a part of my personality that, depending on how you look at it can be either horrible and gruesome, or nice and useful. The thing is: I can’t stand to not know stuff, no matter what it is. Aksel insists that I’m a reneissance man to begin with, but i guess it’s not enough, cause I keep stumbling into conversations that makes me feel unprepared for life. Yeah yeah, talking to interesting people who knows alot about something is nice and inspiring, but mostly “inspiring” means that it makes me want to read a thousand books just to be better prepared for casual conversation, cause I want conversation, not a lecture. I want to have something equally interesting to come up with. At least when it comes to the interesting parts of life, and I’ve yet to stumble upon something that’s not vaguely interesting. These days, interesting people are everywhere, which makes me want to read more books than I have the time to read. It’s nice, but it’s niceness mixed with a hint of frustration.

Yesterday, I went shopping, and who says shopping isn’t fun. I bought myself a shiny new radio. I guess it’s childish of me, but now that I have a new toy I want to play with it. I want to find all the channels and stuff. It’s white and DABby and in my eyes rather nifty. It makes me happy. Then I bought those little pins that prevents the strings from spioinking off the guitar. Now I want to play with the guitar, which has been impossible during all of last week, mostly because of all the spioinking.

But rather than playing with my new toys, I ended up in front of Trondsmo with Mikael and his friend whom I hadn’t talked to since we did Museology together. And we were spending an unreasonable amount of time on getting Don Rosa to sign our books. For me just entering Trondsmo is a recipe for bankrupcy. It is after all my favourite bookshop, with all the nice books with the nice pictures in them, and all the novels, the poetry, the political books and the comics. This queue went incredibly slowly past every single shelf in the shop, so that I had the time to pick up every book that looked even vaguely interesting, read a bit, and then, reluctantly, put it back on the shelf. Now I ended up restricting my purchases to two books, in addition to the Life and Times of scrooge McDuck. I felt very clever, and I even met Mr. Rosa at the end of the line.

When the day ended I was eating sushi on Mikael’s bed while watching the first season of Black books. I like living, - but then again. What’s not to like these days? When walking around in Oslo, I catch myself being dumbstruck with how beautyful the city, the weather and the people is. How good the coffee tastes. How autumn is one of my favourite weathers. How soft and worn my clothes are.

It’s like I’m finally off an anti-emotion drug I didn’t know I was taking.

***
Sometimes I wonder how the Beautyful Maud can sing without blushing. 1-2-3-4 creates fur in my tummy.

Shit. It’s three o clock, and every time I’ve sat down to study, I’ve been interrupted with cakes and coffees. It’s been nice, but I guess I should jam some hours of studying before the fortid-meeting at six O’clock. Yosh!

Long live living
if living can be this

After eating unscrupulous amounts of pizza, the afterlarp of yesterday officially started at 2kokker, which they claim is a rather quiet place. This time, the music was loud, and played by a man in his sixties with a guitar. He played and slaughtered songs that everybody knew. As if by magic, he chose good songs, and transformed them into hardly recogniseable country/dansband versions of themselves. On my way to the bathroom, he jumped in front of me and, jammed an unfitting guitar solo (i guess i should be flattered, but i really had to pee) into a song that started it’s life with led zeppelin, but which must have died at 2kokker. We ran away from the place and ended up at queens around the corner. A bit hesitant as they proudly announced that sunday night was jam night, but the beer was cheap and cold, and the music infinitely better.

I often don’t like drinking. But there are some night when the amount of happyness i experience is directly proportional with the amount of beer i drink. And yesterday was one of those days. I might have freaked out when i realised that the guy i was having a meaningful conversation with was born in 1990, and I might have entered a the fog completely. But it was nice. It’s all nice.

Of course I woke up feeling more than averagely shabby today, but I was also more than averagely happy and I got to school and to class and I was dancing. I still am. The weather is perfectly grey and autumnal. My mind is foggy and odd. My appetite is non existant. I’m working well and all I really want to to is work more. And I have a date tonight.

Peter Burke, I have something to tell you. I guess you know that for a long time, you have been the man of my dreams, I’ve been wanting to go to Cambridge, so that I could go to your office, and as casually as one can while drooling, try to say hello. I’d exchange my eyes with shining stars and sit, sparkling, outside your office. But that was before I met E. P. Thompson. For a long long time, I thought mr. Thompson was a woman, I assumed he was called Emma Pauline or something like that, and as I know that I could deal with having one woman, and one man in my life, I settled with having my heart split in two. But I know for sure, that having two men in ones life is alot harder to handle. Peter Burke, after a long long debate with myself, i’m afraid that I have to accept that mr Thompson won. And he’s dead. Now I’m dealing with necophilia.

Burke

thompson

Operaball yesterday was amazing. My dress was, as per usual not completely done, but it’s less than a day’s work from actually being finished, and it was good enough that I felt rather pretty. I danced alot, and I finally learned the troika, which was surprisingly easy. And we did loads of tarantellas. I love the tarantella. My waltzing was a bit out of practice, but after about a thousand long waltses that too went well. And the menuet *shrugs* I’d forgotten the menuet over the last few years, which sucks. I like the menuet and all the bowing and “look at my dress”ness of it.

My secondary school friend Stina, whom I haven’t heard singing since secondary school had the last of the little concert and I’m amazed. She was really good.

My legs are aching. I should dance more, and I’d have killer leg muscles.

After the ball, me and Karl went to some intern-party at Chateau Neuf. People asked if I was getting married seing as we were still dressed for the ball. And I had a few beers, which I hardly noticed. We ate some sausages (I have fallen in love with the meatball sausage. With sour cream sauce on it. That’s the most delicious meal I’ve eaten in a long long tome) And then walked home aroud 4 o’clock.

And then I came home. Took off my corset and fell asleep. I assume the “took the corset off”-part is what made the alcohol suddenly take action after I fell asleep, which again explains why I’m dreadfully hungover now, after only two beers and a small glass of drambuie. Every single muscle is aching. If this post lacks coherency… i blame those very few beers.

There’s a voice in my head that says “you want a carton of milk and come chocolate covered almonds. So I think I’ll go down to the shop. Perhaps buy a børek, some milk and some chocolate and curl up in bed and watch art school confidential.

I like living.

PS. I saw becomin jane on the cinema this past friday. It’s recommended.

PS2. Art school confidential was pretty much the most provoking and depressive film I have ever seen. As expected. but more so. I want to hit mister clowes in the head with something hard.

I’ve always ben inarticluate. I’ve always been told that it’s hard to grasp what im saying. I like to think that it’s because everyone have a limited time to express themselves, and if you talk twice as fast as everyone else you manage to express twice as much. It’s a good thought, but as i’ve been becoming more and more inarticulate over the years, i’ve come to suspect that i express less that your average person instead. I was talking to my dad on the phone today, and it was so hard to get all the words out. It’s like I’ve been having a stroke, in my sleep. Without noticing.

When I came home today, i just sank down in the tub, and i sat there for two hours reading a novel. Until the water had gone cold and needed refilling. Until my feet had gotten webs and i felt the gills starting to form underneath my skin. It’s how I like it, but it was also because I was a bit tired.

I curled up in bed and watched rockstar on video, and turned it off just after Izzy had made his grand sorti, and way before he went fuzzy with the acoustic guitar that ugly jumper. I hate when they try to wrap up a story with an unneeded epilogue.

I just got my fourth period in three weeks. You should all try it sometime. It’s like having a mood swing surprise every time you don’t expect it. Fun as hell. Gues i better ask the doctor if it’s normal. I mean… I have a body that works those natural cycles to perfection, but then I interrupt it. Voluntarily. Perhaps I should be fertile instead. I guess it’s better than voluntarily embracing anemia.

“Hun bedyrer at hun den dag ikke hadde den mindste smule Madkorn til sig eller s. Børn, langt mindre Penge at kiøbe for, og hun var derfor overmaade Glad ved at have faaet dette Korn til at stille Hungeren med”

I’m at Riksarkivet, and really really relieved. It turns out that reading my source material is less problemativ than I thought it would be. I understand almost everything, which feels wonderful. I've got 1500 interviews, and there’s a big chance that I’ll have to sort out half of them. But perhaps I can use more interviews if I become a really fast reader? Let’s hope so.

Fagsosial samling yesterday was nice. They had invited everyone (professors and master students) affiliated with the Democratic theory project, and there was wine and cheese and biscuits. I think their cunning plan was that the students should get to know everyone, which is nice of them.

Who says that the university is an excluding place that make people isolated and lonely? They must be filthy little liars.

When I woke up today, I was really dizzy. Even more dizzy than when I went to bed. I went to school, and it took some time before I realised that the dizzyness was caused by hunger.

After about an hour of being at school, I went home to pick up my credit card which I dizzily had forgotten. I opened the front door, and promptly realised that the person who lives next to the lift had changed his door decorations. I also noticed that they had changed the glass in the lift door, and that the lift suddenly had gone slightly off center.

I shrugged, entered the lift and clicked on the button with the bright “7″ on it, although the buttons weren't on the right side of the lift enymore. They were on the left. But on the 7th floor, it was like seeing our hallway in a mirror. My keys didn’t fit either. It was deeply unsettling.

I suddenly got suspicious, until I relised that I was in the wrong house. Not only was I dizzy, but I had forgotten where I lived. The world is out to eat me. That my keys worked is a bit strange. No wonder that I thought I was in a world of insane mirroring.

This is tough. Progress party, almost as big as the labour party? And “the retirement party” is bigger than Rødt? How can it be. I can’t deal with this. I’m going to bed.

Congratulations on your first mayor, Rødt! (communist party)

I’ve forgotten to change the name on my mailbox. I was wondering why I hadn’t recieved a semestercard, which again prevents me from buying a student buspass, and why the bank-passwordthing i ordered hadn’t arrived yet. I completely forgot that our address doesn’t come with an appartment number. Where does the recipiant free post end up, - can i go and claim it at a post office, or do I have to order everything once more?

I’ve got so much to do this week. Whenever that happens, I get a strong urge to creep into bed and just read a novel, so I’ve started rereadeing his dark materials, so I’ll be prepared for the film whenever it comes.