ouch

I have been eating way to much gingerbread today, and even more gingerbread dough. My stomach hurts! I havn't been doing much more than baking today, apart from chillin', watching a couple of episodes of Buffy, and spontaneously cleaning the fridge.

Ida, Hannah, Sandra and Rob came by to hang out, at different times, and tomorrow will possibly be a bit the same. Exept Maria will be gone. She leaves for Sweden early tomorrow morning. And Olof is leaving to! So strange to be alone in the house. Can't imagine what it will be like. Exept that I might eat a lot of fish. And playing video games with Johan. But I'll miss Maria (and maybe Olof to, a little bit). 

Last night was great fun and I have my new glasses now! With great eyesight and a few glasses of wine and quite a lot of rum and the most fun friends anyone could wish for I had a truly good time. And today I didn't have hangover at all! Great stuff like!

Speaking of like, I have started talking with a really broad Cork-dialect. And it's really annoying me. I'm not from here and it's kinda... poser. But I really don't try to! It comes all natural like... 

What's wrong witcha'?! Story like?! (Yes. I sound silly. I didn't talk skånska in Skåne so why all this now?)

Tonight I had the strangest dream. My mother and I were walking down this long road. All around us there's beautiful autumn nature, but the road is muddy and covered in trash. There is someone else there, it might be Maria, I don't know. And I meet - someone, someone who is very special to me and who I miss very much. I'm walking beside him, talking, when we encounter a guard in the road. Behind him is a hill, the road goes over the hill. To our left there is a lake and to the right there is some kind of house. The sun is shining, the air is scandinavian cold. The person by my side is silent and grumpy, smoking a cigarette. My mother asks the guard if we can pass, explains that we really want to continue walking on the road, but he says no. She says "we promise to be nice" and he says that well, alright. But this persone, this special person, he picks something up from the road, a long stick with a peice of broken glass on it, I have no idea what it is, and he throws it in the lake. The guard is really mad and says that we absolutely can't pass. We beg him and tell him that this is the road we always walk, but he says no. Then we hear a sound, and the guard tells us to run and hide. Over the hill comes a very big bull running. He is big as an elephant with long, sharp horns. We turn and run, and try to hide behind the corner of the house, because that is the only shelter around, but the bull sees us and follows us around the corner and it's coming against us, and I wake up. 

Now. It's a bit late and I think I'll maybe watch an episode of Flight of the Conchords or something. 

Sleep well world.

Listening to: Sun Ra and Be Good Tanyas.

stand tall

So I reach my limit and I break down and I'm lost in darkness and I loose all hope and I fight through it and go insane and start laughing at the pain and shake it off and go back to normal.

Normal in ths situation being shutting up about how I feel until I reach my limit and it repeats.

I can't really talk about it. I am surrounded by people who care about me and who I care about but I don't tell them anything and I feel kinda bad shutting them out but I don't have a choice.

But I'm cool. I hold it together. I have a stable ground of happiness to build myself on.

It's strange, to be happy and still hurt so much.

And I'm sorry but it does really hurt. Of course it hurts. I can't think of anything but you.

Today work was kinda slow. I got a really nice email saying that my support was great and stuff. I was a bit insane and funny and it's really easy to be happy in my workplace. It's so nice to have Ida and Hannah back. And me and Maria ate taco fries for dinner, and gingerbread (peppercookie!) dough for dessert while watching Buffy and Angel. I'm almost done knitting a baby hat for Carolines baby again since the first one I did was to small. After that I'm going to finish three christmas presents, and then I'll have to take it easy with the knitting for a while if I want to finish all the christmas cards and stuff...

And I'm dreaming about going to America, or getting lazer eye surgery. But I get my new glasses on friday and they are so gorgeous that I might want to keep my bad eye sight. So I'll probably just keep paying debts untill they're payed.

Tomorrow I'm making gingerbread dough, not the kind I ate today, which is prefab, but the real real kind, that's tricky to make without a machine. But I'll give it my best. And hopefully I'll make it. And maybe have a beer with Ida later. On friday, exept for getting my glasses, we have a team dinner, which will probably be awesome, as they tend to be.

There. Back to normal.

Listening to: Tracy Chapman - Collection

blues

Time heals nothing.

overload

There has really been to much going on in my head this week. It's impossible to write when I'm thinking this much. It's been a lot of drama and mixed emotions and shit, honestly. On so many levels.

I feel that I can safely share that this weekend is christmas cleaning weekend. And that I had a sight test today. And that I payed a debt.

When I catch up with reality I'll write about all the stuff that's going on, which is mostly work stuff.

And also... just so much. Nowhere to start.

Exausted I sleep instead

settled

I'm moving over to the IT helpdesk. On the first of december. Or, well, training starts then.

And today Ida came home from her two month vacation in the big world, and Hannah too.

And tonight there's a party at Fransiscan Wells for a lot of people who quit at the same time.

And tomorrow there's a party at some french guy's house and there's some going out going on but me and Maria are chillin' since we're doing our christmas cleaning this weekend.

And I'm still so tired I could sleep and work there is some drama and it makes me sad and more tired and other things make me tired as well... And work is slow and I am slow and sometimes I really want to have someone, but there's really no one here that I want.

november sun

I've been way to tired to post anything the last few days. I guess stuff has been going on that would be interesting to read about if you find my life interesting, like a really fun team dinner, juntameets, extremely good fish soup with saffron and chilli and orange and carrots and red lentils and salmon and haddock and guess if it had lovely colours?

Yes it had. Tasted good too.

Apart from that I've cleaned a little and planned a lot more cleaning, coloured Maria's hair, made lasagna, been tired and actually not so much more. Today is thursday and this week has swooshed by as in a haze.

Well anyhow christmas is here!

remember

"You will forget me. Everyone forgets about me."

And yet there is nothing else that haunts my mind like you. Every day, every hour, every heartbeat you are in my mind, in my heart. Time passes and life changes but that does not change.

fail again

I'll just go for one I say. One. One glass of wine, that is.

Fail.

It is soon tree thirty (half three in irish) and I got home a very short while ago. I should really go to bed.

Instead I listen to Smashing Pumpkins, eat chocolate and drink water.

Lots of red wine and very little food is never a good idea. At least I did eat something. Last friday I just... forgot about that.

Maria was still awake when I got home. And I talked a bit to my brother on msn. He seemed to have had a lousy night whereas mine was splendid up until I had a serious lack of judgement-moment. Comes with the drunk maybe. I should get my contacts out.

My head hurts.

I write a whole lot of crap when I'm drunk that no one should read. And I'm smart enough to delete it.

I miss you.

Listening to: Apart from Smashing Pumpkins, Cowboy Junkies.

fail

Ouch. Wrote a post at work. Never finished it. Saved as draft. FAIL. Nothing saved.

Today was a better day than the last few days! Energy, happyness. Spent a little to much time reading the Failblog. Spent almost fifty minutes on a call with a customer who had a very basic model that she did not touch during the entire call. She was a nice lady but I really did'nt feel like being a psychiatrist today. It was really frustrating. My problem is that I really want to help people. This is not a plus when you work in customer support. It's great for customers but not for me. Or, not for my avarege handling time, at least.

Last night I had a lot of dreams. I dreamt of rats and spiders and I dreamt that I was driving a car from the backseat. Or, I was in the backseat, realizing I was supposed to be driving and the car is picking up speed. This is something I've dreamt many times before, in diferent settings. The major differences was that this time I wasn't alone in the car, it was a quite big car, and I easily managed to reach the break, and the wheel. I stopped the car and even parked it neatly at the side of the road, and got out and walked to the drivers seat.

Now I know that everybody even remotely interested in the hidden (or totally obvious) meanings in dreams go "Oh wow!" right about now, and yeah, symbolically it was pretty neat, and yeah, a feeling of control is definitely more present in my life now than it used to be when I was broke, unemployed and lonely - no big surprises.

The thing was that the car lacked breaks. It had the manual one I pulled in the more emergency-ish situation of driving from the backseat, but it had no real pedal break, exept for something that looked slightly like a peice of cardboard, stuck to one of the wheels.

Anyone feel like analyzing? Please, feel free to explain lots of dead rats and spiders as well. And a relative that appeared, a middle aged man with long hair and a beard. (No Robin, not you, I said middle aged!) He also had a cowboy hat. I think he gave me the car, or lent it to me, or something. (This was not actually a relitive that I have in reality.)

Tribes with Sandra, Maria and Viola was great! Had a couple of glasses of wine, Philly steak cheese, (with bbq sauce, nomnom) and a peice of banoffi pie (delicious cake!) and knitted a lot. Junta is win.

Oh bother. I write like a total nerd. Woe. Woe is me. I blame wine and the late hour. Why am I even still awake?!

Delicious cake!!! (Let me be clear about one thing though - the banoffi pie I had today did not contain bananas, which made it edible to me, since bananas are absolutely disgusting. Also the cream was a bit different from ordinary cream. It was like the cream in southern Swedish "Gräddbullar".)

This post actually failed twice and is now published almost 24 hours after the first version was actually written.

Listening to: When written: Sun Ra. That guy invented new levels of interesting. Basically it's impossible to explain, exept using the words "he is from Saturn". Yes. Saturn. When published: Cowbuy Junkies - The Trinity Session.

srsly

Okay so all the other Scando's (and, uhm, the Irish, and everyone else as well) are making fun of us - still - for going to IKEA in Belfast. Yes, we left home at five in the morning and got back at eleven at night. Yes, we spent arount ten hours in the car. Yes, we spent a lot of money. Yes, it was wonderful and totally worth it.

So here are some pics of Team Kamprad's adventure to Great Britain where they talk funny and pay in pounds and have strange ways of measuring things.








Sweet weather on the way up!








This is probably only funny if you're Swedish.

Go Ingvar!








View from the resturant. That's all for today.






Listening to: Gogol Bordello - Huliganjetta

duh

I can see what posts are commented. (Yay bimbopoints for me!) And it was a post that is exactly one year old today, written in Swedish, written on the day that I was supposed to be contacted by Siemens. They didn't, on that day, but a couple of days later. I left Sweden a couple of weeks after geting the call.

Strange, zooming back through time like that. Totally unexpected.

Anyhow the comment was a total spam.

No lasagna today as I was feeling almost ill. Tired, headache, woozy. The woozy could be the painkillers though. Pizza instead. Yummy peperoni with barbeque sauce.

Listening to: The washing machine.

garlic and friendship

An interesting fact about this blog is that when someone leaves a comment you get to choose if you want to publish it or not. But it does'nt say what post was commented. I usually don't really care since it's almost only my parents who comment, but today I got a comment from a reader I don't actually know, which is always fun, especially since it's happened like... twice before. So now I just spent about half an hour trying to figure out which post was commented! I backtracked about a year and found nothing! Mysterious! It was in english and I have only been writing in english for about a year so It's weird. The comment was "Well written article!" which does'nt really give me a clue.

Well, I admit, that was not actually very interesting.

Anyhow, more interesting is what we had for dinner today! Wonderful, beautiful lamb! Superb! So I felt it was time for some recipe sharing!

Lamb chops
potatoes
red wine
garlic
fresh rosemary
haloumi
salt and pepper

Slice the potatoes, put in a pan with oil, a bit of wine, salt, pepper and rosemary and put in the oven for 10-20 minutes (depending on size) on 200 degrees celsius.

Take the pan out and put in pressed garlic and a couple of whole garlic bits, more wine, lamb, lots of rosemary, some more oil, more salt and pepper, some other spices if you feel like it; a bit of chilli maybe, soy sauce, some Worchestershire sauce. Put it back in the oven for another 10 minutes.

Take out and put on quite thin slices of haloumi. Put back in for 5 more minutes.

Finished!

Now if you feel like it change the times, they are not very exact, and it's really a question of taste and sizes of the ingredients. And you might want to make gravy out of the "sauce" but it's really nice just as it is.

Well. Today I finished knitting two itsy bitsy baby hats, I'll post photos when I remember to, and I bought new knitting needles (the kind with a "cord" between them) and a book with patterns! And some really really beautiful yarn... The same kind as I have in my hat but in other colours. I have a plan of making an oversized turtleneck-ish scarf kind of thing. Can't really explain it but yeah, you know, photos when I remember to take them.

Tomorrow I'm finally making lasagna, me and Maria have been talking about it for ages, and Maria's baking this weeks friday cake. On thursday we have a junta-meeting at Tribes!

And so life goes on...

It's pretty strange, how it's so easy to beleive that friendship is like bone, or like a thick rope, you just know that whatever happens this particular person means so much to you that shit just can't come between you. And then there's misunderstandings and minor fights and frustrations and all of a sudden you realize - he is actually avoiding me. And there's not so much to do. You realize that friendship is like spiderwebs. Complicated, beautiful and easy to break.

Somehow I don't think this is the end of it though. It feels more like we might need some space, and it's probably going to be okay in a while. At least I really really hope so. But to be honest I think the space is good for the both of us. As long as it's not permanent.

In the meantime... so foolish. So foolish of me to think that I could actually "get over" you. Play me soft songs in the middle of the night, climb in through my window, kiss me when I don't expect it. You are all I want.

Listening to: The Be Good Tanyas (new favourites yes) - all of their albums, on shuffle. Oh your god it's good! It's like... Well, like David Eugene Edwards if he was a number of women and not religous, maybe. Like 16 Horspower with a bit of Leonard Cohen and some more folk influences and beautiful lyrics and banjos! (I love banjos.) And, like creamy silky souly and very emotional, longing perfume for my ears these beautiful voices. Sometimes in southern dialects even though theyr'e Canadian.

the mondays

Today must have been the slowest monday ever. And since mondays are slower than all other days that makes it the slowest day ever. (Exept from one other day, which was a thursday. But that was still a better day than today.) I had stupid, rude customers, I felt generally stupid, did'nt get stuff done. So tomorrow I'll have a lot of stuff to do.

Which would probably be a good reason to go to bed now, no?

Today I made sweet potato curry for dinner for myself and my nerd family. Sweet potatoes are really good with curry, Just boil em', add whatever you feel like and creme fraiche and lots of curry. Make it spicy with lots of black pepper, chilli and tandoori spice mix.

After dinner we played wow, of course. Me and Olof have started new characters together, a gnome warrior and a dwarf preist. (If you know anything about us, or wow, or preferrably both, you'll probably guess which one was which.)

Best thing today was a long visit to the Quay Co-op with Maria on our way home from work. We found lots of nice stuff! Tea, chocolate, haloumi, potato flour (which we had heard did not even exist on Ireland) and much more. The thing I love about the Quay Co-op is that they cover everything. They have great substitutes for allergic people, whatever you're allergic to, everything is organically grown, they have a lot of locally produced stuff, they have unusual stuff like spelt pasta shaped like the Simpsons and vegan pesto and Dulce de Leche and... Well, potato flour. And a lot of wine! Ten handknitted scarf-points for them.

Speaking of; yesterday I finished my white and green scarf, and I'm really happy with it. (Photos will probably be here sooner or later.) I started knitting a baby hat today.

Now I'm taking my enormous knitted IKEA-blanket and going to bed.

Listening to: A lot of Be Good Tanyas and some Cocteau Twins and a little Regina Spektor but at the moment Kroke - Ajde Jano.

flow

Mer längtan än vad som får plats i ett hjärta.

The cakedaycake was thuruoghly appreciated. Friday evening I'm not even going to talk about. I had a great time though.

Yesterday I was really hungover most of the day but we really managed to make the autumn dinner really nice! A very nice night, great atmosphere, lovely people, great food, good wine, some rum... Lovely.

I made sweet potato pie, wich was really good.

Today something very unusual happened; I woke up around six and could not go back to sleep. I got out of bed around eight, after twisting and turning and trying to fall asleep and failing and watching the night on the other side of my red curtains slowly fade away and a grey morning light take it's place.

So I gave up and went downstairs and played wow.

Listening to: M.I.A. - Galang

skyfall

It rained today. My new boots proved to be just as reliable as fishnets when it comes to keeping my toes dry.

It rained a lot.

I baked this cake to take to work tomorrow, for cakeday. I added real rum instead of essence though, and orange. I have high hopes.

Listening to: Quincy Jones - Ai No Corrida

happy times

I must say that most of my days are spent in a happy mood. I've said it before, yes, but really now - I would never dream of trading happyness for less sadness. I love living in Cork, I love the people I live and work and hang out with, I have a great time at work and outside work and I have an income and I have more inspiration than I can use.

All that's missing, really, is julmust.

Listening to: Hedningarna - Vispolska

tidy

Who would have thought?









In other news: msn chat history reading is sometimes a bit depressing. But it can be a bittersweet kind of thing.

Today was a pretty relaxed day at work but it seems like we have a growing chism-thing going on and I really don't like that. For someone who puts the well-being of the team before her own, egoism is really provocing.

Mom has arrived safely in Brighton.

I cut Marias hair and we're watching Buffy and Angel.

On saturday we're having a small dinner thing, if I did'nt mention that already, and we've been preparing a lot for that.

On friday it's my turn to bring cake to work.

Everything is so structured. Tidy. I keep busy. Keep my mind off... Just off.

A cow has four stomaches without knowing it, so what the hell do I know about life?

Listening to: a lot of Sabbath Hela Veckan, a little bit of Robbie Robertson

heat

I wish they could fix the AC. I'm dying. This is crazy. The heat is unbearable. I want icecream.

Hey! I think I'm gonna go buy icecream!

earth beneath the clouds

It's strange. I have mood swings. Most of the time I'm really happy (happy happy, not just generally in some kind of pleasant mood but actually smiling and having fun-happy) but then all of a sudden, when I start to get a bit tired at night, it hits me, just for a while.

I have lot's of energy and creativity, really a lot. I feel good, strong, calm.

And then it hits me.

Today me, Sandra and Viola had a junta-meeting at my place, making clay figures (insects and animals) and autumn decorations and stuff. It was really fun.

Now I should take a shower but I honestly think I might wait til' the morning because I'm so very tired.

We don't want to be memories, we don't want to be dreams. Play me soft songs in the middle of the night, tell me secrets, make me a part of you.

Listening to: Lilium - Short stories

safety in numbers

Sometimes I get so scared it feels like my heart shrinks, and it's hard to breath. Scared that nothing will ever work out, that I will fail at everything, that everyone will be mad at me.

That everyone will find out.

I made a desicion to tell people. Not everyone maybe, but everyone that could be affected, and so far no one really seems to care.

I havn't been keeping it a secret actively, I've told people if it comes up for some reason or if I want them to know for some reason, but I havn't been very open with it.

And the thing with telling people is that it's fucking scary. But I need to accept it and I need people to know because if they don't know they wont understand things about me. Why I do things the way I do. And I realized that there's a bigger chance that they would get mad, or at least annoyed, if they don't know the reason for my actions.

So I don't hide it. I tell people. And it almost makes me choke.

But well... I can't count.

Numbers has no relevance to me. I have problems with time and money and everything else measured in numbers. I can't handle basic math. I don't know by heart what 8+6 is. I don't know the times tables over three.

There. Now you know; I'm an idiot. Feel free to judge me if you want to.

some assembly needed

I LOVE ALL MY NEW STUFF!

Me and Maria just assembled the lamp Årstid and I'm drinking coffee from the mug/bowl Ljuvlig. But most of all there's a man in my life now. The only one I need. He's strong and stable and he can help me carry thay weight; he is a working class hero and a peice of Swedish culture; he is versatile and good looking: Ivar.

Ivar is the man for me. And well, Moses is pretty nice to.

Also I left my sence of practicality behind and went straight for pretty; I bought a few frames and some really nice black and white photo prints that will keep Jimmy D company on the wall above my bed.

There was christmas things purchased, a shelf for the kitchen, I went all in on the storage system Bygel for my room, and also bought the desk organizer Mackis. Of course we also bought a lot of Swedish food, I almost died of happiness when I found sill! (Herring, that is.) We had wonderful meatballs with potatoes and cream sauce and lingonberryjam for lunch.

Well. All of our adventures are extremely exiting to read about, I know, but if you want to know about the ten hours we spent in the car and how the hell we managed to get all the stuff - and ourselfes - in there for the journey back, you'll just have to ask.

We left home at five in the morning and came back around eleven at night. I went right to Björns party, wich was really nice, I had a beer and hung around for a while, everyone absoultely loved my new chain-scarf, it was relaxed and nice and people where quite drunk and then I went home to go to bed but of course I had to stay up and play with my new things for a while.

Today is obviously assembly day, I'm going to do some cleaning and there's probably a junta-meeting tonight. And back to work tomorrow.

I think about you a lot, all the time almost, but I'm not sad now.

Listening to: Dr. John aka The Night Tripper - Gris-gris (the album)