The Little Things.

But most of the time, life is pretty hilarious. Not the ha-ha kind of hilarious, but the smug kind of warmth that spreads slowly across your face and trickles down your belly like warm soup of goodness. Like when the train is packed, and that one guy didn't get a seat. Now that - that's pretty fucking hilarious.

Dating vs Self Respect.

The problem is that when you finally go on a date, you end up mysteriously drawn to your work clothes anyway. Not so much for the fact that you have no other clothes- which, incidentally, you don't, but because they're so darn comfortable.

I tried on a number of outfits that night only to realise that I've somehow turned into a pants and shirt girl. With a pullover, for chilly nights. With the same pullover for every night because there's always some stain or the other on any one of my ten shirts. Finally settled for pants and pullover - but here comes the surprise twist - AND a sleeveless shirt that I save for more festive occasions. It shows off my tattoo, and that's always festive, right? Right. Well, people laugh at any rate, and I tell them that I was only 23 at the time. Yes, haha, kids can be so crazy. No, it won't wash off.

Yes, I've tried.

After a while, your decision anxiety is drowned out by slowly but surely creeping resentment for your potential date, who though largely unknown, is a turd by default. Who does he think he is? Allowing my self esteem to hang by the seat of my stretchy pants? Asking me out on a date like that and putting me in this situation in the first place? The gall. Begone, Orgasm Machine! The power of www.Ellos.se compels you!

I never used to have these problems. Not before I turned 25. Or, well, twenty-something. or I can't really remember. Maybe it has less to do with actual age per se as much as the fact that I'm a crappy dresser. Does have its upsides. In his moments of drunk tenderness, Dan pats me on the head and calls me his 'little bag lady', which, is quite nice if you look beyond the whole 'bag lady' part. I'm not choosey. As a bag lady I just take whatever I can get and chuck it into the cosmic shopping cart that is my well-being.

Most days I just feel like one of those people who always get sent to Ricki Lake, persecuted for their love of vacation shirts. It's always the same guy with different levels of red-toned caucasianess, but in different banana shirts for each show. Or that girl who looks like she's been saved from 50 years of stove bondage, and who should have probably been left there. Ladies, you understand. Hair that give you the heebie-jeebies! Living in shucki-dang-dong corn-shucking country does NOT give you the right to leave your hair grubby because you "know" some twister will mess it up anyway.

And I suppose, that if I wasn't such a fan of The Double Standard, I suppose I should take my own advice and wear something new instead of waiting for that Twister. But have you been to the stores lately? There's neons, and neons and neons. And they cost a heck of a lot of money- two hundred for one tube top that only covers one boobie? Ha! Last time I tried shopping I found exactly one piece of clothing that wasn't neon - and quite nice. Unfortunately I didn't have have the balls to ask if it was a dress or a t-shirt and ran off. It would have been nice to have the shop-attendant come flying to my rescue, but Swedish shop attendants have an aloofness that only a hefty employee discount can buy. "What, Puny human? You don't knooow the difference? Get out! GO HENCE! You deserve NOTHING."

In Trinidad this wouldn't have been a problem. Trinidadian shop attendants, invariably female, work on commision. And they work in hordes. Any one 25 cubic meter store will house just as many shop attendants, swooping mercilessly until you're too mentally exhausted to refuse the trendy, yet retro bellbottoms they're waving at you like you're a Pamplonese bull.

"Five dollah, five dollah, you love them looong time."

Don't need that kind of pressure, man. Neons and greeons and pinkons - no, I care not for these. Those new pointy "pixie shoes" are for hunting boar and hunting boar alone! And last, and least - Three-quarterway pants are a right that should be reserved for the poor. So it is with immense pride that I say that the stretchy pants win again, for such is the nature of the stretchy pants. And my date will just have to accept me for the corn shucking queen I am. Worst case scenario I'll just have to take my pants off. And that will make one of us happy. The kind of happy that lasts exactly as long as the time it takes for the other's fast legs to carry him to oh say, Japan. Or maybe even Malmö.

It's the Little Things, it's the little things.

[And occasionally the big stretchy things as well.]

One two, three

The Family seems to be on the verge of breaking up again, which has become something of an annual festivity demonstrating that even parents can be schmucks galore.

The Dan is moving out before Summer's end, which demonstrates that this will be the worst summer of all time ever, possibly for infinity.

Since bad things tend to come in threes, I'm just going to sit here for a while and cry my ass off until the inevitable gangrene comes to claim my extremities.

The Dan.

One Thousand Secret Kings

Peter's reflections on life is definately worth reading.

Let me take you to my shrine for the gummibears.

Am I the only one who forgets to remember that people can't hear you think?

Post office attendant: "Well, here's your package then. Hope you enjoy whatever's in it!."

Me : "Yes, people rang my doorbell and woke me up."

(Meaning, "Ah! Thank You. I would have received it earlier, if I had had the energy to open the door when the mailman rang the doorbell in hopes of delivering it to me himself this morning. he came by at EIGHT would you beleive it? Hahaha - Too bad it wasn't big enough to slip through the slot. Thank You for your help, have a NICE day" )

Oh Why don't you just hand me my puck and let me hobble off, why don't you.

But then there are the times when you're truly happy people don't hear what you think. A heavy-set man of dark complexion passed by the booth yesterday, appalled that his bus didn't start running till 06:45. It was quite insane, considering that his flight left at seven. Did we expect our customers to fly to the aiport? WHAT sort of service were WE PEOPLE providing here? All the time, he was waving the flimsy little timetable at me. Turns out he had the timetable open on the wrong page - quite understandable, considering that it has four whole pages. I plucked the timetable from his trembling fingers and flipped it over.

"Arlanda- City here. City - Arlanda there!" The man reclaimed his timetable to check this himself, and started chuckling quietly.

"It's a good thing that you're black too. otherwise, you'd be sitting there thinking "Stupid black folk!"

Oh, the comeback was there allright, holding on to the tip of my tongue for dear life. I chose the straight and narrow and laughed my booth approved laugh, saying that it was a common mistake, seeing as how the timetable had small print and all that. And all that.

But the thing you come to realise while sitting in the booth is:

1 Fact: Most people are lazy. Some people have the privelege of being extremely lazy. These people we call "fat", but it in the spirit of political correctness, we call them "obese".

2. Laziness has nothing to do with race colour or creed.

3. I am the hottest thing to have ever graced the booth.

Allright, the third one had basically nothing to do with the first two intellectually stimulating observations, but it just had to be said.

Robust rodents & record contracts

"FATMOUSE IS COMING AND HE HAS A MESSAGE AND YOU ARE NOT GOING TO LIKE IT. FATMOUSE WILL CONSUME YOUR POOR THIN WORLD AND REGURGITATE IT IN HIS OWN IMAGE. FATMOUSE DOES NOT WORK FOR YOU AND HE DOES NOT ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR MEAGRE HOPES AND DREAMS. IT IS BETTER TO WALK WITH FATMOUSE THAN TO BE IN HIS PATH, FOR FATMOUSE MUST FEED. "

Oh, and we got a record deal. Neato!

Because I had nothing better to Blog about.

She said "Is this the return to Oz?"
The grass is dead, the gold is brown, the sky has claws.
There's a wined up man walking round and round,
what once was Emerald City's now a crystal town.

-Scissor Sisters, "Return to Oz"

Dreamt that I astrally projected myself out of myself and trotted into Dan's room only to find that he had astrally projected himself too. Or so I thought. Knowing that Dan would obviously not remember what happened during his little astral trip after his awakening - while I would, (oh there is tonnes of logic right there) - I decided to ask him the question that's been wrestling with my mind for the past month or so.

"Why are you leaving?"

Astral Dan shrugged. "Dunno. I'm not Astral Dan, I'm just a ghost, studying Dan and trying to get into character. For a play, you know. Just because we're dead we can't put on plays...?" (gigantic boulders of logic, even)

Another dead end. But I did get to hang out with the ghost aspiring to be the perfect Dan for the rest of the dream. And even if he was not a very good actor, it was a bit nice, in the warm and fuzzy koala-bear way, to be talking to someone resembling Dan again.

Because it's been so long. Because some days, it feels as if every thought has its own sword of Damocles swinging over it, and that opening one's mouth would send it straight down, cleaving some speaker, some speaker's dream. I suppose that's why we mostly mumble through our teeth nowadays words forced and masked as heavy breathing - Every word infected and bringing with it the risk that some minute world will come to a screeching halt.

Jesus, I'm a Goner.

Allright, so I'm terrible at dating. I'm also terrible at going out on second dates if the first date sucked. I am ALSO terrible at informing the person of that there will be no second date, and I am terrible at answering phonecalls which will inevitably coonfront me with the question of why oh why, was there no second date. What did I do wrong, was it my hair, cause I can cut my hair, is it my nose, I can cut my nose - bla bla bla.

All in all, I'm a terrible person. On the 26 th day of March, 1979, God created a Jenny and saw that it was a giant barf.

I would not be a terrible person, I would not be going through a tumorous guilt trip if not for the fact that I'll be meeting one of these no-second-daters tonight. This is the downfall of dating someone you've worked with, who you thought was only a summertime security gaurd but who is NOT. Because he's BACK. Like CHUCKY. Only BIGGER. And he has a BATON the size of a BATON because he has an actual BATON and the HORROR of it all does not encourage silly metaphors or lower case letters.

The first warning sign came when he asked me if I really wanted to go out with him. I answered yes, because someone amazingly insane once said to "do unto others as you would do unto yourself", and I'm not so sure I would want someone laughing in my face. Besides, everyone deserves a chance, right? And on top of THAT, not every boy who asks you out wants to sleep with you, some just want to be your freind. With benefits. And that's an entirely different matter. B then goes on to tell me about all the bad experiences he's had with women who say yes, they would love to go out, but never turn up on their first date, leaving him standing alone at the cinema, ticket stubs in one hand, a sad little droopy corsage in the other. I mean come on. You don't tell reluctant potential dates that you're the guy nobody wants to go out with. It's like suicide. Only sadder.

The second warning sign revealed itself as I slid into his car for the first and last time. There's a tape lying on the dashboard. "Oh," methinks. "he is a musically inclined fellow." Turns out he is a Patsy (in)Cline(d) fellow. "Top twenty Truckers Favorites - The Best of Country Ever." I laughed, I cried, he stared at me laughing & he stared at me laughing till I was crying. Well, I don't really feel the need to elaborate. "Do unto others" never covered country.

We went to see The Pirates of the Caribbean which was as I suppose it was intended to be- a pleasant matinee, all the perfect ingredients for a 'nice' movie. But it wasn't hilarious. And while I smiled through a larger portion of it, my date guffawed his heart out, occasionally pausing to mercilessly jab me in the ribs. There's popcorn flying everywhere.

"Did you see that? That was so funny. Why aren't you laughing?"

"I'm smiling in the dark, only you can't see it, because I'm black."

"Was that a joke?"

"Okay."

(half a minute later)

"HAHAHAH! Did you SEEEE? Did you SEE that? And Johnny Depp was like KA-POW!...."

"Yeah. I saw."

"...Why aren't you laughing?"

(Do unto others as you would have them do unto you two loaves five fish two loaves five fish first remove the log in your own eye before you beat the crap out of your date - no! TWOLOAVESFIVEFISHTWOLOAVESFIVEFISH!)

"I'm laughing on the inside."

Except I wasn't. And I doubt tonight will be a ride in the park either. Getting sms:es from the other nightgaurds wishing me the best of luck and Vaya con Dios and all that isn't helping much either. Can someone hold me? If I go to work only to go down in flames and humiliation, I don't want to go down alone.

Privacy, Planning & Pulitzers

The plan was to copy scribblings from my notebook here - but I see it's been left behind at work. Which is sad, it being a very private notebook and all. Listing among other things, which bussdrivers are hot and which are definately not. And various rantings about depression and desolation and various bowel afflictions. Well, there you go, morning shift person - pleasant reading tommorow.

What I've arrived at is that it might be a pretty good idea to have some sort of structure, or story, if you plan on writing a book. And sure, while this was the basic cornerstone of Creative Writing 101 last term, it managed to escape me till now- Story - good. Lack of story - bad.

The last drop of inspiration needed for this was Edward P Jones who's just been awarded gotten the Pulitzer for his first novel "The Known World" at the tender age of 53. And while I may not win anything but my do-it-yourself kit of tar and feather, it's still a releif to know that one doesn't have to rush into things. The world is out there, waiting for you, at 25, 35, or 55.

Paperback Writer says:

"Buss drivers are a strange and lovely strain of man- and so are ticket sellers. There are those that think that we are the scum of the earth, and those that are our lovers."

Are you as moved to tears as I am? Hemingway - Eat my Bussdriver!

Doom and Gloom, Doom and Gloom.

The fifteenth of April is coming up, meaning that it's time to pick a course for the autumn 2004 semester.

Let me try to contain my joy.

Well, I'm doomed. A rat trapped in a cage. Rat watching captain flee the sinking ship. Rat being forced to read fifty basically identical Linda Skugge columns in one go. Well, you know - that general feeling of entrapment and excrutiating agony, that burning sensation. You have to be someone, do something worthwhile. And while childhood dreams will leave part of you clinging to the hope of someday making it big with your gosh-golly largest ball of belly button lint in the WORLD, 25 finds you grinding your teeth to the realization that No. There is a chance of you wrestling with selling tickets to students and seniors for the rest of your life. Which is no life at all. An absurdity. An anomaly. An "Arlanda or Bromma Airport?"

Paper or Plastic.
Cake or Death.

Meanwhile, Dan, The Generic Roommate, is all doomy and gloomy over another girl. And while I've been doing my usual party tricks, like cleaning the brush of its reserves of hair and taping them to my face in mustach and beardy fashions, crying "Look at me! I'm Hemingway!" - nothing seems to work.

Merde. I don't know what to do when people cry. Hence, I usually stay away from the criers. And the Phobians. Like those who have a phobia of circuses, who I find very funny and exceedingly funny at the same time. Especially those who are afeard something awful of clowns. Never go to the circus with these people. They'll be all like "Oh, Hold me, hold me" and you'll be like "Dude, you're spilling my popcorn." You'll trudge home with snot on your shoulder and popcorn in your hair.

I couldn't hold Dan even if he wanted me to. He belongs to a strange religion which stipulates that thou shalt not hug another unless all your clothes are off and you're ready to get held from behind & sideways for 1,5 to 2 minutes straight. But considering that my body is less a work of art than it is a garbage truck, my clothes flying off tends to turn weepers into shreikers, and tinnitus was never really that sexy. Tears or Tinnitus, tears or tinnitus - is life always this infuriatingly hard?

The Case of the Receding Eyebrow.

So, plucking your own eyebrows is never a good thing. Once you start- you can't stop, much like pringles, except less fattening. One slip of the hand, one wrong eyebrow lash removed, and whoop, there goes half of your facial hair. And whoop, your hand independetly decides that having half an eyebrow is no good, so it settles for NO LEFT EYEBROW AT ALL.

All this is very depressing, since I'd thought that 25 would bring with it good things. A missing eyebrow does not fall into the good chategory, man. Luckily, god's created black ball-point pens, which generally solve the problem. You men have receding hairlines to worry about, but lemme tell you, it's no big deal. People won't look at you twice. Some women won't look at you once - but a missing eyebrow will equate you with the fat bearded lady. And if you're a guy, it's like you were going for the nazi look, but like the stupid wanker you are you read Mein Kampf upside down, shaved the wrong part of your skull and converted to bearded lady. Well don't you feel silly now.

I'm wondering if I can explain this as an April Fool's joke since it's too early for Halloween.