But not the fish-eye you eat.

I called my mother today, congratulating her on her 49th through clenched teeth. Calling the Caribbean is no piece of cake. Or maybe it is, if you measure the cost of a call in slices of the cake that that money could buy at optional café. Each minute costs some 12- 15 crowns. The clock you keep glancing at tucks away one slice, two slices, three slices, four.

Five slices cover the hello's and mom's account of what my family are going to eat that day. Two more will tell me what they are eating tommorow. Half a slice gets them updated on my life.

"So what's new in your life?"

"Nuthin. Chillin."

"Well that's nice. Did I tell you that your father made a fabulous soufflé yesterday?"

My father and I rarely talk, because we don't have much to say to each other. There's no bad blood between us, save that I'm not doing anything constructive with my life except perfecting plans of world subordination, while he is THE GREAT AND MIGHTY PHYSICS PROFESSOR. Differences which probably disturb myself more than him. One nibble of cake will get us through semi-shocked hellos. Two slices will cover the uncomfortable silence that ensues, neither of us really understanding what the other is doing on the other end of the line. With this ritual performed, he will tell me how he is doing in two or less words. Today this changes. Today he decides it is time for him to share the tale of the mysterious fish-eye foot.

"My fish eye dissappeared the other day."

"Really...? Never really understood what that was."

"It's this lump that forms under the sole of your foot, resembling a fish eye."

"No need to elaborate."

"It dissappeared by itself."

"No need to elaborate."

"Like a milky cataract it was. It just fell out. Dislodged itself from under the skin. Creamy and white."

"....Where's mom?"

-Hysterical laughter as the dad passes the phone back to mom -

"Your dad is terrible. But don't worry. It wasn't as SLIMY as a REAL fish's eye."

And that, I think, is my sole comfort while struggling to make peace with the world and its teeth and claws and Japanese tourists, all wanting tickets to airports the names of which they've made up all by themselves - in the end, all parents will go mad.

And there's comfort in that. Let's be realistic. Even if you pursue a degree in English, reaching as far as inevitably defecting to your opponents side while defending your ow paper, English doesn't really get you anywhere. Unless everyone else suddenly succumbed to the I-only-speak-german disease, aliens invaded planet earth, the latter communicating in English alone because they somehow got the idea that it was the international language. English, and love. Except having a bloke sending romatic glances across the room is one thing, having an alien doing the same is, well, I guess we've all been there.

But According to Trinidadian tradition, doctorate titles are passed down through generations when the previous generation fails to carry out what the title entails. Or, okay maybe not. Maybe that's just with royalty. And maybe it's only the expectations that are passed down the line. I suppose it wouldn't matter even if tradition stipulated that doctors' titles were hereditary.

Upon returning to Trinidad after one year abroad, the immigrations officer told me that I wasn't a citizen any longer. So I suppose that at best, upon my father's full blown madness, I'd be sent a slip of paper with some mathematical formula on it. Instead of saying "You are now Doctor Bla Bla", it would simply state Pi. Eventually the thrill of being compared to something sweet and syrupy would die down and cold hard reality would settle in. Congratulations Jenny, you are now Pi.

I'm not convinced that would be a bad thing. 3,14 has to be better than 1 lonely (non) Trinidadian.

Hello Kitty.

The scene in Ringu where the girl comes creeping out of the television.

The twins in The Shining.

All of Battle Royale.

NONE of these hold a candle to the short (quicktime) animation entitled "Cat with Hands" - quite simply, the tale of a kitten with human hands.

Holy Crap.

On "Fly Away From This Place"

"Having not officially released music since the mid-90s, legendary modgroup Fairlight's Mikael Fyrek makes a comeback in the netscene , teaming up with awe-inspiring vocalist ... as the ambient/electro duo simply named ... They offer us 4 tracks of sublime electrified trip-hop, with slowpaced, cinematic progression, accompanied with elevating vocals and soulful writing. An ep to enjoy while they finish their album for Apegenine Recordings, due 2005. Peaceful, yet creeping and crawling beats, that soothes the mind. Photography by elias Adabugday."


Download, why don't you. Might want to take the 'awe-inspiring' bit with a pinch of salt, whereas Fyrek should be consumed in bushels.

The Doctor is Incoming.

I think that one of the reasons I haven't blogged, or wanted to blog in such a long time, is because, if you hadn't guessed by now, I'm in Love. It's the BOMB. A bomb which consumes me - not consumed as in wanting to be with him all the time, (which I am) or thinking that the world will implode if I do not hear his voice that day (which it never has, but I'm ruling out any possibilities.) But it has wrapped me up in a cocoon of goodness through which no coherent words can escape. No words can encompass this. This wondrous thing.

This human being. This Andreas. This best friend turned better.

And I don't want to become one of those wankers who spends more time speaking of their respective partners than say, gum diseases or overpopulation. I don't want to become one of those persons who publishes couples' pictures, in which the couples share that perpetual half-dazed post-orgasmic grin that makes you look like you're on medication, or if not, should bloody well be.

Don't want to become one of those people who blog cute anecdotes about how cute their boyfreinds are or what cute thing the boyfreind said because he's so cuuute, cute like a little baby bird cute, cute like a little baby bird with-a-pink-ribbon-around-its-foot-cute; RIBBONS WITH PUPPY DOGS ATTATCHED TO EITHER END CUTE. Cause I don't think I'm built for that sort of thing. Sooner or later, it'll all lash back and I'd be having to compensate by ending each sentence with something terribly uncute or unromantic, like booger. Smegma. Mystery Meat.

The world would become a very odd and confusing place. Autumn enrollments has gotten the ball rolling already. I finally decided upon English, maybe even picking up a degree along the way. not that I'm sure what a degree in English is good for. The international sign that you've read David Copperfeild, or that you were planning on writing a book but never got past the table of contents, even though you really really tried. But Doctor Jenny has a nice ring to it though. I'd let the colleagues closest to me call me D.J at office parties, and make allowances for the cooler students and the widows, because they're widowed and all, not many priveleges there. Maybe I'll give them my business card.

The Parents are very understanding regarding my late career choice - each year I ask my mother if they're not disappointed in me for delaying any prospective degree, my mother answers : "It's ALLRIGHT dear. Your father didn't get his degree till he was 34. " Of course, this response was given three years ago when I was planning on becoming a religions expert. Two years ago when I Knew that God meant for me scrap the whole religion business and become a guidance counsellor, my father "didn't get his degree till he was 37" Now that it's 2004 and I'm aiming for an english degree in the obscure year of 2012, my father "Didn't get his degree till he was ... uuuh ... FORTY." I'm thinking that if I wait a few more years with deciding on what to do, my father and I should be able to graduate together. Very understanding, my parents, and very senile.

Not sure if I'll ever get anywhere the esteemed Doctor's title though. Sadly enough, I seem to have this gentic diesease of the thyroid that takes my B or C papers, vital for continuing a course, and making them bad, maybe even downright evil. At deadline-day it's not so much a case of the cat eating my homework, as a "Here's a cat. She be Lulu." scenario. Never really works, but never ceases to amaze either, for which no points whatsoever are awarded.

"Artistic freedoms!"

"No, it's a cat!"

"...Which I have appropriately named Lulu"

The above is complete rubbish, of course, but revealing that you wrote an essay in which you predicted the destruction of all religion, everywhere - and according to the paper for no apparent reason at all - seemed slightly less interesting. But there are two predictions that I can make with most certainty and no cat - that these four or five or maybe eight years of studies ahead of me will be interesting, and in need of many prayers. And that for these prayers, I can count on Andreas, my better half, my One True Love. Ssssmegma.

The Trinidadian did it, in the booth, with the machete.

Today was the last in a nine-day sweep of night-shift. Nuff said right there, but the grand finale isn't called the grande finale for nothing, so let the fat lady sing for you a while. Four people of lesser or no intelligence passed by booth today. One of these bought tickets, the other three just wanted to make my day. The first wanted me to change his fifty euros into about ten thousand coins.

This is something I don't do. One, the booth does not have one of those super thingies that tell you if a bill is forged or not. Two, fifty euros in coins would wipe out my booth coin reserve. Just another one of those few times when you wish you'd had the balls to reply: "But of course. I would love to change your fifty euros. Because I have a little dwarf prancing around my forehead and his name is Idiocy. Oh, I'm sorry! I see that you suffer from the same afflcition."

Second out was a man who, though speaking perfect English, had trouble understanding the same.

"I'd like to take a buss to Motala."

"Well, that's nice, but I only manage the airport coaches."

"Oh! I understand. Thank You. Where can I buy tickets?"

"I'm assuming it's upstairs, but I can't be sure, Information opens in one hour."

"I see, I see."

I gave him a pamphlet with airport coach information (any port in a storm) and sent him on his way. Ten minutes later, he comes back.

"Okay, I'll take a ticket to Gothenburg."

"Aha. But I only have airport tickets."

"Oh. What about Motala?"

The third time he came around, the company upstairs had opened and I waved my thumb at him before he reached my counter, motioning for him to go there instead. Anywhere but here.

The third ghost of Christwhatamorning was a heavy-set fellow, not big enough to be called fat, but bulky. Watery blue eyes and hair the colour of a wheat feild, just before a thunderstorm. The archetypical Swede - and as it turns out, the archetypical lonely Northern Sweden prone to humping elks and elves, maybe a pine cone or two. The kind that grows potatoes for a living and bakes a cake for every annual bake-sale, each time succeeding in coming last.

"You should know that-" (lenghty pause)

"What? What?!"

"Well, that's going to be my little secret."

Things only went downward from there. He failed to respond to any of my questions except with long cow-eyed stares, told me he thought I was creepy and wanted to know if I wanted to have a quickie behind the booth. Despite his few words and goggling eyes, he struck me as a great man, meant to be preserved somehow. Pickled, maybe. Maybe in a jar.

My fourth revealed himself in the shape of a man hunched over a walker. He wanted an airport ticket so that he could finally go home to south of Sweden. He had spent 14000 during his one-week stay in Stockholm and didn't want to spend any more money on our insanely priced pizzas. Back in his day when HE was young yadda yadda ya not that he couldn't afford it because he had just inherited ten million, since his brother had passed on. I offered my condolences, but ten million had apparantly done their job of healing him.

"Besides," he confided in me. " We were never that close. He was a homofile."

Tell me that selling tickets in a booth like a monkey in a booth is easy and I'll tell you where we store our application papers.

So much for July.

I glanced upwards towards the House as I put the key in the lock of my new front door, catching a glimpse of the Old Apartment. The balcony door stood ajar, the new tenants probably letting light and air into their new apartment while scuttling around re-assembling their lives, rescuing their favorite photographs from the bellies of banana boxes.

Oh, I could tell you about July. A handful of insignificant details about the culmination of an tumultuous one and a half years. About how Life careens ahead to come to a sudden halt, how you die a little, and how you are reborn a little, and how you learn to redefine all the things that you have known - grandest of them all being Love.

But I won't.