Brianhead trip Jan. 4th-7th. Anyone who wants to come is more than welcome. Skiing, snowboarding and fun times.

Just give me a call or leave a message here if you want to come.

life

I saw this game Passage over at Joystiq a while ago, and Perry convinced me to play it. Give it a shot, it only takes five minutes and its well worth seeing.

Then head over here and read what it is all about after finishing it.

james franco is my favorite

Today is a fragile day.

The sun hurts my eyes.

As a few tears cascade down my cheek,

Its like glass that's shattered, now in shards and bits.

Strewn across a driveway and shining,

trying to gather warmth on a still winter morning.

Fire

Bonfire on the 29th of November. That's a thursday. Come one and all. Same spot as usual. Bring invite whoever.

when we daydream

if i came upon a dragon the first thing i would feel is fear.

a dragon is large and terrifying and i've never come across such a beast before.

with nothing but my wits,

my only recourse would be to talk to it.

if i ran it would chase me down,

if we fought i would lose.

i would like to meet a dragon,

if only because there is a chance we'd be friends.

i am still.

and the fear all around me

like a tuning fork.

i am afraid

it will eat me.

cries and shouts and breaks

every line is withering.

all the strings that held em' up,

all the thoughts.

broken and a heartbeat

i'm shaking. i think this is a storm.

I really liked this article about Bioshock and whether it is 'art'.

crushed,
and a fiery sky,
furnaces all lit
and hands reaching out.
i want to step into the fire
and turn to ashes
away from here.
i need to leave, leave, leave, leave, leave.
get lost in the fog.
sake haze, the other haze, all rolled up, with frozen cups.
stumbling down fifth.
i need something cold

in the twilight of my youth, everything is broken.

When I was traveling I would carry a notebook around with me since I didn't want to take my laptop anywhere. And I'd spend a lot of my time filling it up with all sorts of things.


In the twilight of a normal day,
I let my feet make all the decisions.
On stony roads the narrow streets,
Are metaphors of a mind,
my lost mind.

It draws castles, rivers, parrots, knights.
Colors vibrant
Daring Lights.
Forceful armies, lovers locked,
solitude,quietude,
remembrance, plot.

Everything is all inside,
And my feet sound weary,
quick in stride.

When light is gone and
i'm in the dark.
I wait for that sulfurous yellow,
For all that revelry, their shouts,
I stop for a while
have a drink.
Wish for a woman,
a friend, and think.

That iv'e never said a word,
and it all came and went.
Another day, and all those streets.
Another sleep, and all those defeats.

-Lisbon, June, 07

standing at the edge of a forest
and all the sky is steel
tears run down my wind burned face
and all the ocean is a deep stormy blue
sad that we are now isolated even more
a LaBounty in a wooden casket far away

Here in San Diego. The trip yesterday was long. I woke up and mom told me grandma had died. I looked at her in disbelief, half awake in dreams staring as the sun poured through the cracks of my window. I just decided it was too much to think about and went back to sleep. Throwing myself back down on the bed and covering every inch of me in my large blanket. I turned the air all the way up, making it cold. Cold for my feet when they touched the tile in the bathroom. While the steam poured out like a wave of fog in the city. All over until there was nothing, not even the form of my body to look at. Just the air heated up. Waking up to a fury of packing; throwing things into a bag and i talked to perry briefly. I went off on my own and we left when Edris arrived. We drove, watching Bebop while I was in the back seat staring off until we picked up Jessica and things were rightly on their way. Other than that I bought some green tea and drank rum in the hot sun on the way to San Diego. We watched The Matador and Chasing Amy. It was dark by the time we got here and I was all sunken. Greta's place is a fancy apartment high up overlooking downtown. The floor is more comfortable than the one in Oslo. I slept in a sleeping bag like the ones I slept in when I was eight. Now its morning and Edris is half using his shaver and doing push-ups while the shower is in the noise of the background. Coffee is being fetched and the Zoo is off in the horizon.

I left and there was everything I left.

will called me this afternoon. his web browser told him that he was committing computer piracy. he clicked a button and his internet was reset for him. so i guess that's cox's new initiative. that's how you know now if you have been caught.

There is a bbq on Saturday here at my house. I'm not entirely sure how effective putting the news here will be. But spread the word. And anyone is welcome. Bring something. If you have nothing, then its entirely acceptable. Either way, your winning personality is all anyone ever needs.

Oh, and I've the condo in Brianhead from the 13th of July to the 15th. Go up, come back on Sunday. So whoever wants in on that is more than welcome too.

its been some time now since i was home. it feels like i slipped back in at a moment, like stealthily getting into a room without being seen. as if class had already started but i managed to make no one notice my late entrance. seeing all my friends wells me up and i feel really good just looking at their faces and hearing everything they have to say. just sitting around a room with people. i walked a little bit, and the afternoon is wonderful. i had a moment of nostalgia for norway as jake was driving us home last night. i felt a pang at for the empty roads and the starry sky. 

it still feels like i haven't done anything. as if anything i did was just a gesture, like waving, but its impact, the striking force or whatever an impact is. no, see, right there, i was stringing together a thought but it fizzled up like fireworks so now its just failure. heh.

im working on a painting. its very different from my usual paintings. but now its sitting against my wall staring at me and i wonder when ill get back to it. or get back to anything for that matter. summer is an awesome expanse. i wish it just went off into the horizon forever. i remember tom plastering that endless summer album cover on the door of the house. i attribute that to the whole appreciation of holidays. its all symbols (holidays, that action). and symbols are important because they are a whole conversation, a whole lot of meaning in just this thing. and symbols were important to the surrealists, thought im not entirely sure. i remember reading somewhere that they intended to make things absurd and completely strange / different / out of the ordinary to reduce the complacency or just bring this sort of mysticism or imagination into life. honestly its vague but there was something about symbols in the surreleast wing of the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid. so every summer or whenever everything feels really great and everyone and all the people feel really great and everyone in my head is always smiling, always moving, i just imagine that endless summer album cover just plastered up on that there door.

like it was our religion that summer graduation senior year. there he was throwing down our commandments, and the only one was, to just live it up fully, relax and live and let it all just fall and scatter and we'd watch and be down there with all the pieces of life scattering about us and it was all forever. like we just slipped through a gap and we had found this safe place. i don't really know, or im not entirely sure but yeah, it felt good, and looking at it now its important.

so i guess im just sitting here in bed and the fans are blowing on me, nothing pressing, and i can think of endless summer and let it all be there with me. 

Went swimming last night with the desert breeze chilling me to my bones as i stepped out of jake's pool. and before, as we drove into the night from the lit up casino we passed by the whole of the city as a blur of light; like those 4th grade art projects. and all the workers seemed to be happy working, with glare and the erected construction lights casting menacing shadows along the road but we felt safe because we were still going fast in our car. i recited some thoughts and words that just came out. as if they had to be said. at that very moment i felt the great urge that everything inside of me needed to spill out so i let it, as my head was stuck out the window feeling the wonderful air.

i was up at the top of summerlin parkway just listening to music and letting all the light blur together and everything was as silent as it could be. the music itself coated all my feelings over so thickly that i didn't feel anything except awe at the orange lights. and everything past the freeway glimmered so it made me feel as the world past me, as hands moving past my body, was moving faster than i was. everything was  a movie screen that i was watching and someone had pushed fast forward so that those two arrows that signify that action were held down and they all buzzed below.

when i was finished there i gently went back to my home and there were people and everything was alive again for a moment before i closed my eyes and went to sleep.

Last night in Oslo. Tomorrow morning I wake up early in the morning, turn in my keys, drag all my luggage onto the train and ride down to Oslo Central Station. I take the bullet train to the airport and get my ticket for my flight. The sun is still up its 11 pm right now. The sky is beautiful, a spreading blue like thick ocean water with the sun all off in the distance as a point and then back in front of the eyes is a pink cap across the tall buildings and all the clouds drift by in a lit up night. I will miss the seabirds that fly by my window, and the feeling that im at the edge of everything.

Madrid and Lisbon were surreal paradises. In Madrid I spent most of my time at the Reina Sofia, art museum, camped out on benches overlooking the garden or walking through the exhibits. Dali and Picasso, hundreds of other artists. Massive works of art that set the mind on a ride through imagination and feeling. I camped out for hours in the surrealist wing watching old french movies written by Dali and directed by one of his friends. People in love, clashing society, a bull in a woman's bed, a man kicking a blind man after he escapes from the police and takes a taxi in escape. All in a dark room on solid wood benches that reminded me of my father's work as if he had been commissioned by the director of the arts himself to produce those specific benches for this specific movie room. The projector making silent humming and my books and red notebook sitting idly by the side as my hands were cupped at my chin supporting my head, i was crouched and watching intently feeling nothing of the world outside.

The whole trip was an adventure, all alone and I met many people and most of them i didn't like but either way. And i slept in rooms populated by 7 other strangers. Except in Lisbon where I had reserved a private room. When I found it to be located in a renovated mansion, where my window overlooked a plaza, the floors were wood and there was a giant double bed and nothing else, i felt at home. lying on the bed and letting the warm sea air blow across my body as the sun splashed gently on all the people and stone buildings. i found tiny bars and cafes and sat there reading and writing until i felt intrusive but never really was. ordering drinks and sweet bread, then walking up all the steep hills and watching yellow ancient rusty cable cars sliding up and down filled with gaggly eyed tourists as i walked alongside watching.

and i ate in fancy restaurants and had revelations that i told myself i would write down but never did so they slipped from me in my sleep when all my memories were being reorganized and put away. and i am missing almost all of it and only able to put a shadow down of where i was and what i experienced. of a jazz bar off in some small apartment neighborhood with children playing futbol in the park across, old men laughing and me ordering beer after beer reading in dark / light, murakami, and only in a small room with the free jazz playing loudly and the neighbors bringing in their dogs. the bartender bringing out a bowl of water, until five hours had passed and i left to go lie on my bed. until two romanian girls invited me out to go have a drink and eat tapas and we sat and talked until the late night.

all of it just a glimpse and in a year i was told i probably wont think any of it was real. but already none of it feels that way, that real, all like an image i saw in a movie or in television. everything just far like i never even touched it but i did because i still feel the sunburn and the soreness in all my body. and i can taste the freshly grilled tuna and delicious spinach boiled in cream. all the fish and pastries and juice and coffee. the beers upon beers.

now im sitting in an empty room and i forgot how big this window actually is. the tree outside that was so barren and scary, terrifying when i first arrived is now a leafy giant in slumber and here i am smiling at it until the dark comes for only ten minutes and its not really dark. just a shade of darker blue until the sun decides it never went away. then again the tree is illuminated and i cant recall how it ever scared me. tomorrow ill leave my sheets and blankets downstairs.

donate the last things i have and take all my stuff and i left my plants to be watered by any stranger that reads my note and feels a compelling reason to do so. its over and ended and now, well, i suppose i dont understand really where it leaves anything and, rather, if any of it was anything at all.

Im in a bar internet cafe somewhere in the soho district of Lisbon near my hostel. It has been a while since Ive touched a computer and Im just spending some time here. Resting my walking the streets. Lisbon is a sunny paradise filled with friendly people who dont speak much english but enjoy helping none the less. I spent about ten minutes ten minutes ago in a liquor store trying to explain to the old woman who owned it i was looking for absinthe. However, after a while we couldnt reach a common understanding and the closest i got was absinto which is absinthe without the thujone.

im not entirely sure what exactly i was going to put in here. i feels a little empty now staring at the page. so much around me, narrow streets, happy faces, hills and ocean. i suppose if youve seen the life aquatic then you have a pretty good picture of what this place looks like. i think i would live here. out of all the places ive been. its tiny, its san francisco but old. far older. i have a room to myself in an old mansion house that i rented. the floor downstairs is filled with art deco furniture and a flatscreen tv. the bottom floor is a kitchen. it leads out to the park. i leave the window open at night and the breeze is cool so even in the heat of the day its wonderful. stripping of my clothes and just lying there staring at the cieling.

i wander around the streets each day and hop into cafes drinking cold orange juice and reading and writing. im sun burnt and warm and im all strung out and tired. my clothes are worn and i feel just like them. i dont understand what it is exactly im doing except a whole bunch of nothing. regardless i think i like it. at least in a place like this. i get lost for most of the day. at night its cool and the smell of ocean mixed with the taste of cold beer is delicious. i hop into trendy bars and sit alone watching the groups of kids move in and out. my first night i wandered into a fancy place to eat, an underground crypt now renovated and was given my own private room to eat a meal of grilled fish and creme de spinache. i had a coffee and then the waitress walked out with me and pointed me off in the direction of all the bars.

i still, i dont feel like ive put anything down. or, i dont know how to put across anything ive seen or experienced from madrid to lisbon. but for now. here. i dont know.

So the PA guys linked this new Google Street Maps feature and seriously, fucking insane. Go see.

photos

Some more pictures taken by Reim. As you can see, she is faithful in using her camera where mine doesn't get much use after I've re-discovered I don't like taking photographs or taking a camera around with me. The most awesome ones are the two above of the lake with the cloudy sky and the twilight hidden. Then the Norwegian National Day and what has become of my room.

I spotted this a long ways back during the winter-time walking around the theater district, all hidden in the snow. While Reim and I were downtown, I remembered of it and had been meaning to get a photo of it. So I took Reim with me to this spot and had her take a snapshot.

There is some seriously smooth jazz piping in through my window from outside. I think its coming over from the shanty cafe off in the distance.

There is a crescent moon. Shrouded by a yellow drape and smoke curling upwards and slicing it in pieces. It is twilight out at one-thirty in the morning. The sun will rise soon. It is split between night and morning, coming together. The fjord is black and off up here where I am living the day is approaching. The cycle wraps around the entire building ending up back where it started and it feels like everything hovers at the curb of the world. I am tired and there isn't much else to say. Otherwise, here comes the light. It slowly, the tip hovers at the edge of the window, then awake.

i cant get the music loud enough. i wish i could make it louder.

free write

we have to get out. we got to be free. and running forever isn't going to take anyone anywhere so pick up your hands and move them like they will fold all the universe together to fit into your pocket. once the time is right and the space and songs all fill the whole void that we made scooping everything out then the sounds will engulf everything we are and thoughts will be dancing notes.

all the colors will be one color and there will be so much pain and hurt that tears will flood our lives until no one can breathe and we have all drowned. did we ever want to drown? no, but no one ever fucking cared so we just did and thats the lot of it. no one ever wants to die, but they do. and everyone let it happen over and over again until we all got so numb about it that it became life.

but there was a point in that long line that everyone is walking when it didn't happen and we were gods and we sat on rocks and looked below at the canyons and ants that populated a barren earth. what will happen to all those ants?

don't really know. but i know i am going to dance until i die and when i die someone is going to dance circles around my dead body and then people will be off in a party kissing and they will be beautiful with green and blue eyes and the swell of attraction all over their hips and legs tangled together. they will kiss over and over again until one of them throws the other on the bed and she pulls off his shirt and he pulls off all her clothes and kisses her breasts and licks her nipples until she moans and then he is inside of her after she removed his pants.

they have sex in the room with the loud beats of bass and they know death is creeping up behind them, watching with a smile on his face and he has headphones on because even death has an ipod.

when they finish it is all over and no one is watching so he falls asleep and she stays awake with her eyes half open waiting for sure until he is asleep and she slips her clothes back on and out back there she is so gorgeous and she is tan and her skin is smooth. she is ripe from the sex and her body is defiant and asks for more until over and over again every male in the room is asleep and she locks the door from the outside and sets fire to the house and that was how she killed man and they all burned to a crisp asleep knowing they slept with the most beautiful girl at the party.

'my god the drone is so much!' why can't it overtake me so that i will cry or feel something. why have i gotten so numb and restless? where did all the feeling go? why so much anticipation for the future when there is nothing tomorrow and nothing the day after. over and over again i look forward to the drugs. in my head they halt time. or at least make it slow enough that i don't even worry.

maybe if i took enough drugs all at once things would become frozen and i would be livid and colorful tasting the deserts until the drugs wear, were off. i have to do it over again. i have to face that wolf and his fangs and i have to face the god that is a woman who burned all those men alive.

she will want to fuck me and i will want to fuck her. and i will stick my tongue in her ear and she will moan and writhe and want more. 'give me fucking more!' she yells out and i stick my penis inside her and in seconds she is moving so quickly she comes and cant control anything. then she melts all around me and her face just becomes nothing and then she is covering me. i absorb what she melted into and now i am two people and can't control my thoughts.

i go crazy with so much droning music, all the sounds. why did everyone drown? why didn't we do anything about anything? why did gerard walk a lobster on a blue leash through the gardens. why did he hang himself. why didn't i hang myself sooner. why didn't someone invent the gun when they invented fire. maybe we would have killed each other off much sooner.

so i die by gouging my eyes and ears out with my four arms and all the sights and sounds around me stop at once and for the brief moment i feel peace until i collapse to the ground and everything is quiet before i die.

thank god there was just one moment of blindness and silence all at once. because it let me see and hear all the things i really wanted.

Took the ferry with Reim to the fjord islands down by the cruise ships. The ferry was small and captained by a blue-eyed man who smiled and let each person on board one at a time until he threw off his ropes and we moved away. The wind was blowing and the sky was a metal gray with the water choppy and moving up and down in small waves with whitecaps. The salt air stung and we disembarked on the third stop, an island called Lindoya.

We walked along a dirt path surrounded by purple flowered hedges and red and yellow houses. Off to the right was a forest and before that colonies of ducks and an abandoned soccer field. We kept walking until making it to the other side of the small island and there I left Reim looking through seashells and I wandered off along the windy coastline feeling the small drips of rain from the sky. I walked along trying to make all the terrible things inside me go away. I closed my eyes and ran my hands through piles of old snail shells and brought some home in my pocket with a tiger clam shell and some coral. I found an old wooden bridge that led out to a series of large rocks covered in beds of short yellow flowers and walked through them. Orange billed birds shrieked because I was near their nests and at the end of the rock jutting out into the endless sea there was a wooden bench and I sat down, where Reim was off in the distance taking pictures of the island, where small boats moved quickly and drowned by the sound of the ocean.

I sat there trying to let everything melt away. I didn't want to feel like I was. And I think part of me still feels like that. All around me the waves hit against the stones and water droplets splashed onto my face. It was so cold so I had to keep my hands in my pockets and all I could hear was the birds and waves. The sound of the sea seems so powerful, it drowns out the sound of the islands and everyone else. So that any thoughts in my head were dashed to pieces like those waves against rock. It felt wonderful and I watched the white clouds and gray sky move slowly. There was no sunlight and I liked it like that. It felt suiting, as if my temperament was the scenery. My hands smelled like dust, salt, and sand. I kept thinking things over in my head. I counted time, the days that were left. I thought about all the people and they were all fuzzy and blank. All the people I have met here. I talked to myself and could barely hear. So at one point I was shouting out, 'This is where I would like to be if the world was ending.' Here at the edge of the world as Reim called it. 'Which, every step we take it feels like it teeters and out beyond is the abyss of ice and ocean. It is cold in May, it has almost always been cold.' I yelled out that the sky would be on fire and that orange would meet with the gray sea and giant whirlpools would form shooting out forth and touching the fire. The land would swallow everything and the only thing alive but me would be the birds watching as their island becomes pitched in the battle of the ocean swallowing all the land up and the sky burning everything above.

I got up off the bench because I was too cold and getting wet and promised to myself that I would go back. Then went across the bridge and jumped off crossing tide-pools and finding Reim. We continued walking through the lines of summer cottages--tiny houses with colorful siding and satellite dishes pointed towards the sky--where Norwegians go to rest and relax.

I peed against a short stone cliff wall and then we saw more ducks and people walking their dogs. Eventually it started to rain more than drops and we used our umbrellas until we walked back to the Ferry and back to Oslo. Taking the boat back with the blue-eyed captain always smiling. We bought tickets on the boat but we were never asked for them. And I watched the ocean outside of the window completely forgetting about time and wishing I could sit there forever.

Finally near the end towards evening we found ourselves riding back on the train home and all I could think about was how everything inside my head felt dull and quiet.

---
i can see how she could mess you up for so long. and maybe...i mean it makes sense, the you still are not okay and probably won't ever be who you were before.

Zach

Zach gets ready to watch "Ellen"

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Tomorrow is my Victorian Literature test. And the week after I have to turn in this paper. Which I thought I would finish up today and get in early. It is already written and doesn't need a lot of revising but I am finding it difficult to concentrate on actually focusing on the words. Looking at what needs to be changed. Doing anything that requires adding more thought.

I stared outside of the large kitchen window that faces West today for a while. I waited for my meal to cook and watched the clouds rolling across the pine forest and mountains. Everything is wet and its been raining for two days. The sky is light, even now and is only starting to get dark. I don't know whether I feel anxious or not for my test tomorrow. I've read everything assigned and attended most of the classes. I don't know what else to do. I thought working on the paper would help me focus but all I've done today is figure out ways to stare off blankly. It is like part of me just isn't there. Everything simply became flat. I don't know how else to describe it. I can't focus my eyes on anything, so I have just being doing stuff that comes automatically, without thought.

My disgusting bathroom needs to be cleaned before Reim gets here. That is Wednesday. I wish I could focus. I usually have no trouble. But it isn't in me right now. I don't know what to do about that. If I should simply let that be, like it feels as if there is no point fighting it. It tells me there is nothing to worry, that everything will simply fit into place. And I don't know how to argue with it. I am almost paralyzed. I think maybe that is what it is. Just a mental paralysis. There was a dinner festival for someone today in my kitchen but everything seems rather quiet.

Tomorrow will be more of the same.

My fingers, they just won't write anymore right now. It all feels frozen and stiff.

---
and his face lost all expression

It has been raining a lot the past couple of days. Walking home tonight everything smelled like the jungle. All sorts of overgrown forest spreading into the student village and along the paths where I walk. I hung out with Tori and we watched episodes of The Office and she cooked. I saw Emile which was cool and he seemed happy to see me. Spent a lot of time reading and just lying in my foam mattress of a bed. Trying to get better before these two exams that are this week. Reim also arrives on Wednesday and I hope I have some cool stuff for her to do and see. The big national holiday is on Thursday. I hear that all the kids march up and down Karl Johan's street and parade for the Royal Family. There was also a mention of free ice cream. The time here seems to be moving steadily. I write each day but at this point I am pretty unsure about my motivation or what exactly it is I am writing. It has gotten to the point where I don't really know what it is that I have produced over this 6 months, and that also means I don't think I have produced anything that works as one whole thing.

My various flatmates have shown me that cracking an egg in ramen--which I received from my mom in the mail--makes a cup of noodle very good. I am saving my bag of Cheerios for a special occasion.

I laughed a lot today and I am glad for it. I also had a dream where i lived under the ocean, where you have to swim to the bottom of this large coral and stone tower and then at the bottom there is an opening to a spartan room where I would sit and think and drink water filtered by green algae. At some point there was surfing. That was where I got confused.

---
the night got deathly quiet

combination of attempt and and death

Yesterday all those kids who were there for the Gold Pants purchase decided to go to the Gay Animal Exhibit at a museum here in Oslo.

After class I walked to Tori's and then hung around talking to Vivi until we departed. Tori had to pay her rent so we went to the bank in the ultra posh Majorstuen. There I got tangled with an old Norwegian woman who didn't take a number for the que, but I kindly let her go before me after a brief exchange in Norwegian that I didn't understand. I made my point known through various hand gestures. After the bank I bought a ticket for the train because I had a feeling that there would be police kontrol on the trains.

Now I bought the ticket in one kroner coins. So I had to shove my hand into my pocket and withdraw twenty two coins with a line forming behind me. It seems to be the case that if one tells the merchant beforehand that one is going to pay like this, they smile and laugh and allow one to do so. The key then is to not ever try this unsuspectingly. A barrage of counting and stacks as one attempts to buy a hot dog and a orange juice will create anger. They will assume you are crazy, drunk, high, or a bum. Mind you, all those traits can be mixed and matched to one's own imagination.

After buying the ticket I felt 'safe', which was false. When buying one of these tickets it is imperative that it be stamped by a little yellow box--a timestamp to indicate that it is only good for an hour--which are scattered all around the platform.

We rode to Toyen and disembarked, climbing up the concrete steps past hovering Norwegians with red pants and yellow hair, where the exit was under guard. Up near the top there was a line of police kontrol with ticket readers and faceless expressions. I walked up, still unaware of my timestamp folly and presented my ticket, proud I had 'felt' the situation out. As if I was mastering moves in some video game and my intution had gone up a level. He grimaced and asked me, I assumed since it was in norwegian, 'What the hell is this!?'

At this point I realized something was gravely wrong and pretended to be completely retarded and made my face look confused and lost. Like someone had stolen my puppy and I was out looking for it. He tried explaining to me that I was in serious error, but when he realized that there was no dealing with me, stamped my ticket for me and let me through. This shows us that human beings are not willing to 'deal' with situations that stop the flow of their job, life, and inner movement. He let me through not because he understood that I would learn my lesson, or that somehow he was imparting kindness. He let me through because it was the most conveint thing to do. With such knowledge, one gains maybe a superpower. Being able to determine how to get by thing such as this because the other option is for the individual to deal with a much larger problem.

I made it past and we waited while I explained to Tori why you don't ever see baby pigeons. Eventually after much waiting the rest of the 'crew' showed up and we walked past japanese cheery blossom trees at the Munch museum to a large well mowed ground with trees and a botanical garden. Off in the distance was the brick museum, we entered and it was free with student identification cards. I had thought in my mind that I would be assualted by various real life animals like frogs having gay sex. I don't know why I thought that this was going to be an erotic 'mexican' sex show, but thats all I pictured. Instead it was all dead animals now stuffed and put in artful poses showing the various ways animals engage in gay sex, and why animals engage in gay sex, and how the scientific and world at large don't recognize that this goes on. There were large banners filled with statistics and large graphics.

Two things were immediately apparent.

1. Though this was a serious exhibit, someone had a sense a humor.


The stuffed penguins were given pink scarves and wrapped around their necks like so. It makes me think of a Warhol painting.

2. Jake may be delighted or mortified since they are his favorite animals, I don't really know how one would respond to this, but here is a picture of a giant banner hanging from a wall of two male giraffes having anal intercourse. I must warn, this is not 'thing' one sees everyday, and perhaps 'you' would rather not engage at looking.



We explored the rest of the museum and its artificial inhabitants. I was very disappointed that there were no real animals. We left and I played in a park on one of those spring sitting animal things that bob back and forth. The ones you sit on and pretend like you are riding a hare or a caterpillar. I think I could have sat on that thing all day just going back and forth ruminating over my life. There was also a black cat that prowled through the bushes and we all watched as it tried to kill a bunch of pigeons feasting by a tree. Then it appeared to anger a bunch of crows that had made a nest in this tree, and we watched as the crows dive bombed at the cat while it tried to defend itself as best as it could.

At the end of our trip we ate at a bakery and they all discussed the merits of jam, and what makes jam jam, and what makes sauce sauce. Afterwards I stumbled home realizing that my sickness had gotten worse for the excursion. I was dripping mucus from my noise and felt the legs of my body giving way. I collapsed onto my bed and slept in a drug haze until morning when I felt no better and elected not going to class. Now it is the evening and I have washed everything there is to wash in my room and will presently either read or fall asleep. Probably a combination of both.


---
is he a palyer?!
such a player.
god i hate players!

j.u.s.t.i.c.e.

My throat feels scratchy / strange, so I have great fear some sort of sickness is coming on. Though I am trying my best to avoid it. I also made a nice light pasta dish with squash. It was actually pretty fucking good, so I enjoyed that. I tried my cheese which was returned from its abyss last night. Man, that is some good twenty dollar cheese. I have grilled cheese plans in the future.

As for the rest of things, halfway walking to school it started to rain. Which makes one badass, walking in the rain, but then it gets cold. Though everything is green and jungle like, and old people were out mowing their lawns so nothing was so bad. No lawn mowing for me. I just watch the birds fly around outside my window.

School turned out to be another substitute, an old fellow who made a couple funny comments and was tricked by the class into thinking no one had read the reading. So he just did a silly plot summary and everyone twiddled their thumbs. Norwegians can be crafty. Sly foxes. We left and I walked back home since there was nothing at school for me. As of yesterday madness has halted. It stopped creeping. But I think it was just driven away by fear of the sickness. My floor, I vacuumed it, so it is nice to lay on and stare up at the smoke detector.

My roommate has been gone for some time now. This entails that the bathroom floor is never disgustingly wet, and there are no strange sounds at three in the morning or strange smells when I leave my fortress. I have about 100 kroner in 1 kroner coins. I don't know what to do with that. The dudes who do Coinstar should bring their machines here.

My t-shirts are getting pretty old falling apart style. I'm going to need to get some new ones when I get home. I have a large stockpile of food thanks to care packages. And I tasted chicken for the first time since I have been here. That was sort of weird. But I guess that taste, 'you don't ever really forget it.'

Well I guess I'm just grasping at dead air after talking about chicken. Nothing else to say. I still have no 'real' idea when school ends. I think it just sort of stops here. It is all up in the air. I hope the weather goes back to sunny and warm. Everything is green, flowered, and overgrown, but now it has been raining and the temperature has lowered. I rather enjoyed reading on the balcony. I want to take that activity up again. I had a moment where 'something' flashed before my eyes in an instant. The message was, something is going to happen. I have no idea what exactly that means. Like a brief moment of encompassing intuition. Its probably nothing. I also debated with myself with blankness all around me, why am I not more iced out. And then I realized later that I should never be iced out. I miss my jumpsuit. I was thinking about it today. Probably because I saw a blue 'moonsuit' up on facebook discovered by friends down at First Friday.

Dance.

---
do the dance!

This babies face and the article's headline itself crack me up. Fuck.

goodbye gold

I had to return those pants. I decided on Saturday as they were staring at me from the floor and I was in bed that this had to be done.

So I started the long journey Lord of the Rings style downtown. On my way I met no one, was chased by nothing, and saw many trees and dogs about and enjoying the day. Also, there seemed to be a fair going on, with all the major roads closed, and every Norwegian standing around with goofy grins on their faces just looking at all the stuff being sold. Waffle stands, shoe stands, sunglasses stands, health stands, McDonalds stands, every stand, all stands. If there was something that could be put on a table or given to an individual in leaflet form, it existed downtown.

I don't have a problem with this sort of thing. I don't stand around and look because the less of anything for me, the better. However, the fact that everyone else stops while one is walking becomes annoying. And i bumped into many people and was stopped by the slow paces of every single old person in Oslo. I wanted to yell at them to move. To fucking move or decide on a place to step so I could move past them. It was like they were playing ultimate defense and I couldn't get through to the damn store to return my gold pants.

I made it to the store and greeted the brunette warmly and unzipped my backpack and showed her three items. These three items, as I have learned from observing my mother return things since i was a young, are pivotal in exchanging.

1. The receipt
2. The actual item
3. The item's tag with the price and bar-code on it.

Now, I assumed since I had all three magical items that this would be easy. I would cast them towards her in a flurry of movement and have her approval to sort out within the store a new pair of pants to my liking. My quest, however, was not this easy.

She begin to frown when I presented the pair of pants and the tag separated. It seems I had violated a major rule with Norwegian retailers. It must be attached. She frowned some more and began to confer in Norwegian with her co-worker. A very tan Norwegian with bleached spiky hair, all gelled up--I'm sure he had one of those fucking white belts--capri pants, and a way too white smile. They looked at me and then back at each other and kept saying things and pointing. I sort of just glanced away and feigned indifference to the whole matter. At one point I remember commenting, 'Uh, either way, look, if its this difficult don't worry about it. I can just leave.'

She sighed again and looked at me. In her broken English she explained to me many times that it is difficult for her to exchange this without the tag being on the piece of clothing. Why, maybe I've been wearing these pants straight for all the the two days I have owned them? She told me this in a stern man. Over and over again she repeated that it is almost impossible for her to do anything with the situation at hand. I thought, 'Does she think that by magically telling me over and over again these facts the tag will just attach itself on the gold pants and she won't have a problem anymore?'

I figured she wished, deeply, that I hadn't committed such and error. I apologized profusely and wished to get the hell out of there. I didn't understand what was going on, was sweating because of the long journey, and was already annoyed at all the people outside with their giant fair.

She then seemed to cave and said those words that they always say. I will do this for you just once, but remember, it is wrong and I shouldn't be. I nodded and gave her my thanks and then proceeded to find some new pants as quickly as possible.

As I was browsing I became aware that there were many choices. And it seemed to take me longer than I had at first assumed it would take me. Eventually, I had some prospects and headed over to the dressing room in relief. I didn't enjoy shopping here, or shopping much at all, and just wanted to go back to anywhere that wasn't here.

Here is where the brunette once again appeared before me. I believe I was being followed. Because of my backpack maybe I was going to try and steal something. So she started to fumble with some hangers watching me while I waited for a room. I smiled and waited, until finally I could try them on. I decided upon them, and exited, bumping into her as she was standing right outside my dressing room.

'Okay, I found some pants,' I told her. She sighed and pointed towards the cash register. 'Just tell the girl up there,' she told me and then finally left through some secret coded lock steel door.

I went up, and saw that in the time I had been searching for new pants they had easily reattached my severed tag back onto the pants. I sort of did a little yell in my head at how retarded everything was, paid the difference, and walked back home. This time taking the back alleyways to avoid all the trouble of the fair. At home I relived the entire scene over and over again in my head and thought to myself that I was through buying anything other than food in Oslo.

Today I bought more bananas and we have a new flat-mate from Romania. She seems very scared of everything around her and is more of a shadow than me. Maybe it is just this place. Who knows.

---
just sit and stare until it all evaporates and everything is back to being okay

trying to deal with problems

On the same day as my crisis involving 'my room' (the post below), I embarked on a mission to try and fix the awful feelings sitting inside of me. I walked from school past all the greenery, the white flowers, and fields of purple flowers to Tori's flat. There I decided to lay on her couch and talk to the various people that came in and out of her kitchen. I was graced by the World of Warcraft playing Frenchman Emile, Tori herself, Blake, and Thomas. They all seemed to be, in general, good spirits. I explained simply that I was avoiding the prospects of going home. From there Tori told me that she had to go to the gym. 'Sure,' I said, and just continued to lie there as people came and went. The couch was very uncomfortable. Its more of a bastard futon. Blake commented that May 3 is always a good day. Where my face was a sordid painting. Blake merely went and smoked on the balcony.

After lying there and joking around with everyone, Tori came in and asked me if I was attending our Norwegian Life and Society class. It was being held at the National Gallery. I told her sure, why not. What else am I going to do? Go back home? No, I don't think so. I don't think that is 'going to happen'.

Anyway, it soon became clear that Blake was hungry. He told me so. He left and went to cook. Tori had her gym meeting with her friend Jade canceled, so we hung out until it was decided she would return her Arcade Fire ticket at the Poston (post office). From here we went to the post office and encountered more people joining our group for the adventure.

Alex from Canada
Leslie
Jade
Blake
Tori
April

(all joined the party)

Now, at this stage, living in Norway, I have opted out of buying my monthly transportation pass. Its about 80 dollars each month for the pass, and I figured I don't go downtown a lot anyway. So now everytime I ride the train, its a gambit. I have to hope that the police aren't doing random inspections, otherwise I get a ticket for about 150 dollars. My plan, if I am ever riding and get found out, is to blubber in English until the next stop and then bolt out running. I figure, the odds are about 50/50 that I get away. Usually the inspection police aren't the greatest in shape individuals and they seem pretty complacent. I doubt they would expect it.

So we all boarded the train and this was my plan in my head as we rode along. Thankfully, we made it downtown and found our way to the National Gallery. There we met a very old and cute elderly woman, our guest lecturer, who I think took a fancy to me. She kept pausing and asking me questions about what I was doing in Norway while she was lecturing, and would often ask my opinion of the paintings we were passing by. The last portion was devoted to Munch, and here we were able to see one of the versions of The Scream, as well as Madonna. There is a large room with many of his paintings hanging around.

After we parted ways, we retrieved our items and they asked me if I would be continuing on this journey. I sighed and shrugged. It was rather pleasant and the fear of imprisoning myself was too great. We went to the deli, there the girls all received free coffees because the milk had been bad. We went to H & M.

Here is where I seemed to lose part of my mind. I decided to try and cure my foul and sad mood by buying some new pants. I decided on a pair of slacks. These slacks, were, Gold. See, they were rather shiny and I was immediately attracted to them. They also fit nicely in the dressing room and in there, without the sunlight, I thought they were simply a shiny khaki. The woman who sold them to me said it would be fine if I changed into them in the store. So I did. Thinking, this is going to be great. Some nice comfortable pants. I'm going to look sharp. However, stepping out in the sun I became a jazzy 'guy' in my gold pants walking around downtown Oslo.

Then Tori and I decided to dine together, we went to the supermarket, and couldn't figure out what dinner would be. We decided instead of dinner to simply buy an assortment of cheese, grapes, and crackers, and then back at her flat to eat all this with some red wine. I also, in my attempts to feel better, bought a 20 dollar imported hunk of cheddar cheese. Which, later, after walking home I would forget in Tori's fridge, and I still have yet to retrieve it and try out my fucking cheddar.

Otherwise, in my gold pants, we had a wine and cheese party (Emile joined us and added to our blue cheese, brie, and smoked something cheese I can't pronounce assortment, a hunk of goat cheese from France and commented that I was wearing, 'sexy pants,'), I got severely drunk since I live on something like 500 calories a day and around 10 pm with the outside world still light out, I walked home stumbling along the sidewalk and couldn't move from my bed with all the spinning and strength leaving my legs. I fell asleep and woke up around 1 in the morning with a massive hangover and that goddamn pair of gold fucking pants.


---
drop that black album

'A man in a room and no entering lives in expectation of a visit. He will be illuminated or horrified by the absence of a visitor. But however much it is expected, the entrance, when it comes, is unexpected and almost always unwelcome,' (Pinter, theatre programme for the Royal Court Theatre 8 March 1960)

'Obviously, they are scared of what is outside the room. Outside the room is a world bearing upon them, which is frightening. I'm sure it is frightening to you and me as well (...) We are all in this, all in a room, and outside is a world (...) which is most inexplicable and frightening, curious and alarming,' (Pinter in an interview with Kenneth Tynan, BBC, 28 October 1960)

It was after hearing upon this metaphor, rather, I knew of it, I just never in fact contemplated it or was presented with the situation in such a manner, that I became completely shattered in the idea that perhaps this very situation is happening to me. And not in the sense that 'we are all in a room,' (we are) lately, more and more, as the days pass I have become far more entrenched for days on end in my 'room'. As a metaphor and as an actual thing. Inhabiting my room and also escaping to a mental one when the world presents itself in some form which is unsettling. Thinking back I am trying to figure out the latter. Perhaps this is more of a literal thing, when I am actually out, it is fine. Or I have no room to escape to in my mind, or that I wish not to because I have left my real room for actual reasons. It seems I like being in the world once I have freed my 'being' from my own jail cell. It is just, it rarely seems to be of my own doing. Which is the problem. I shouldn't rely on the push of others to do this for me. And it is becoming increasingly apparent that this is the case. That I will lose out on much of life because of this.

I am most curious as to whether it is fear or indifference, or if, indifference is merely an excuse created by my own person as to not make it so I am fearful. I am completely unsure on the matter, and it is at times like these I have a hard time trusting myself. Knowing full well that there is some part of me that is very capable of deceit and trickery; to myself and others.

So I am completely shattered, devastated, what have you. I really am actually afraid that I cannot leave. Or wish not to leave. And in this, I am missing something very amazing and wonderful outside of 'the room'. Maybe, (I think to myself, musing, while I write), that that was my real intention for leaving in the first place. By leaving, I meant, coming to Norway. Though, at the time I was unable to voice the idea in words. It was merely a feeling and was blurry and not formed. It lacked sharp lines.

(I thought that I would force myself out, and that I would be forced to deal with the situation and I would transform into someone who did not rely on this room any longer. Because I really want to exist without it at all. That might be too much though. But I wish to be far more leaving of the place than what is normally in me.)

Those lines, are now there. Or at least there is an outline. This is me coloring in the picture. I don't like the picture. Because, what I see is a lack of ability to ever leave. I left, but merely discovered a way of entrenching myself somewhere else. If this is the case then I feel that I have failed miserably in trying to enter 'the outside world'.

However, it would be even more sad I think, that if it was not fear, but indifference. It seems to me indifference is far more dangerous and hard to fix as a problem than fear. And I fear that this is the case, regardless of deceit or not. I can only hope this place, this new place, has done something so that I am not 'as I was'. What I mean is, that over time, I will be able to leave my room.

And maybe it is because most of the time I see nothing at all outside of the room at all. But when I lay out such an idea, that, even if it is the case, can only be a partial truth. Of course there is something outside. Something much better. There has to be. Because there is almost nothing in the room itself.

The real problem is not being sure about whether one is thinking truthfully to himself. Lying to others at least allows the person lying to know what is real behind the lie. But lying to yourself, that can be the hardest thing to distinguish from. I fear without moving past this point, I can't progress much further. Or if I do, it is through hoops and circles. Going round and round, and maybe once in a while stumbling a little further closer to something. When in truth, nothing ever really was.

Either way, the last 45 minutes of my life have been awful.

---
more to write on this later.

So Tom was finishing up his paper and then he started sending me links to The Onion. And we started laughing looking at all these hilarious pictures. This one though, that was gold.

And this story he sent.

I wish it was morning and that I was lying awake. Staring at a ceiling fan turn slowly somewhere South. And it is hot. So hot that beads of sweat cover my whole body. My forehead, I wipe it. And I just keep watching the fan. I want to escape. I want to leave. I didn't want to escape anywhere when I left, but I had to get out. And now that I'm out all I want is back in.

I defrosted the freezer today. Tom suggested unplugging it, which seemed like a good idea. I unplugged it while I worked with a cheese cutter scraping ice off the sides. Then, took a break and let some of it melt while I ate a pizza. After my break I went back to work. After I was satisfied I threw all the food back in and collapsed on the cheap plastic chair on the balcony. I started The Remains of the Day.

I laid in bed most of the afternoon before. Going in and out of sleep. A bee came into my room and left. The buzzing kept waking me up. Eventually I closed the window and dropped back down into bed. 'It is always something,' I thought myself. 'It is always something. I want to slice it all up. I want to burn it.'

I played with my lighter from Amsterdam. I read and sat in the sun. There wasn't anything. I have more days off than I can count. What should I do with all my days off? I keep reading these books. Stacking them up neatly on my shelf. Next to some video games and torn up magazines. When I leave I am going to throw out my curtains. My flat-mates are back from Germany? I think it was Germany. The supermarket was re-stocking today. Forklifts inside the store, young kids shelving cans and frozen goods. I almost went to the lake. What about the lake? It isn't anything. I almost dove in didn't I. But then I stopped because something made me. And who was that looking across the water? Must have been my imagination. Because I didn't think I knew anyone here. But they waved so we must have been friends. They dove in and I walked away. They must have drowned I thought. Because I don't know anyone here and they never knocked on my door for supper. Which I didn't eat. It never went in the oven. Just sat in the freezer with chunks of half melted ice that formed half clear / half white surface.

My lighter feels light. I won't be able to play with it much longer. Don't know what happened to smiling. Must have went out with my last batch of garbage. Haven't eaten a banana for four hours now. Just sitting there stinking up the room. Wish I was laying on my bed, watching a ceiling fan spin round in slow circles. Everything in the room is yellow. The chairs, the desk, my books, the plants, the flaking wallpaper coming off the walls. With the smell of cigarettes. The last person who stayed here, before they got lost in the rainforest, they smoked. They must have left a pack somewhere? Beads of sweat form up and down my body. I can't look for those hidden cigarettes. It is too hot. I can barely raise my hand to wipe my face. I shift just a little and feel the heat pour out from underneath me. I get afraid that I'll start a fire. It is that hot. The heat pecks at my skin. I feel it burn. I almost throw up. My glass of water has been empty since I woke up. There isn't anyone to fill it. I want to go back in. But its still forever until I'm out of here.

---
e uh u e

apple

MacOsaiX takes an image and cuts the whole damn thing up making a mosaic for whatever you wish. It is a pretty awesome program, mostly because it will search through Flickr and pull up images from their tags and throw all those random images together to make the mosaic.

Make sure to download the 2.0a7 release. The stable release is old and slow, and doesn't have the Flickr option.




My example. I think I plugged in guitar, orchid, coral reef in flickr to make it.

just like damn disappointment ruin a potential day

What happens to my mood? Shifting from desire to smoke cigarettes and read in the afternoon sun to then blatantly proposing to myself that everything I do is boring and unremarkable and that I should simply stop with it all and take up everything that isn't. I think that the mere fact that I know not what would be remarkable and interesting is what stops me. And there is a certain amount of knowledge that I do love what there is. But I get terribly bored and terribly bored as time moves and the sun sets. I don't know what to do.

I read a little more than half of Dorian Gray yesterday; the book, near its middle, and its longest chapter I believe, has a point that goes into describing the various aspects of Dorian's sin and character. It is the change, the full change from the Dorian we knew to who is to be in later action. That chapter is the thing that stopped me yesterday. I couldn't move from that spot, and in all its reference knew that I picked up so little that I wanted to merely stop. I did. Its wonderful. But it killed me.

So today I picked up mid chapter where I had stopped and finished the second half. I think, that, it was good to read it like that. Reading the first portion where Dorian transforms himself. Which, is only half of the truth. Because Lord Henry and even Basil are key to facilitating the change. But poor murdered Basil, he just wants to be a brilliant artist. And halfway through transformation, I pick up again and realize the rest as the rotting Victorian he has become. Either way, the book was far less beautiful--not in the case that 'it' is, it just was for a second time--and Lord Henry would have told me to stop if I had known the case. Sadly I already 'knew' Dorian. Oh well. It is still one of my favorites. Though only Wide Sargasso Sea has made me hold it tightly and read each page, consuming them like fire, burning the pages in orange energy, and bleeding eyes until all the words faded and I was done.

Today was horrible. My flatmate, a woman named Lee from China discovered our dear letter from our masters and she was able to request my aid in cleaning our disgusting kitchen so that we should not be fined. I obliged because she needed my help and there was no one else to do so. She cares, and I don't want her to take up my opinion of the whole affair. Which would have most likely ended up being in a bill around 500 kroner and I would have paid without any other thought on the matter. So for that 3 hours time scrubbing inside of a fucking oven, washing windows, hauling dead furniture down from the fourth story, and scrubbing floors, I have saved money which would have gone towards nothing in particular, and helped my roommate towards her own self-peace. I wish that sometimes we could be cruel. I'd take a knife to my roommate and make him hurt for every minute I cleaned and he bobbed his dumb head up and down and watched television. Then made a mess everywhere. I don't like him. But what to do. We aren't so cruel as to make others bleed and spill themselves on the floor.

Now I suppose I will sleep. For there is nothing else to do but sleep. I finished the book. I watched Ichi the Killer, which was awesome at some points and disappointing at others. Why the Japanese seem to get a hard-on for describing a character's actions through having been hypnotized is beyond me. It always weakens the whole damn story. Just stick with the event without the hypnosis and we are fine.

Its so early. But all I want is lots of days to pass at once. I was telling Perry now would be a good time for an opium addiction. I haven't cared to write about anything except what goes in here. Minus the minor fragments of what goes into a large folder on my computer. Nothing seems to pass except that I run out of food and eat cauliflower in disgust. It isn't much of a meal. Nothing is much of a meal. In fact I've given up hope that food can be interesting here. I'm tired of salmon. I'm tired of taking tap water with every meal. I don't like staring at the contents of my fridge: Eggs, butter, cauliflower, red peppers, broccoli, milk, peas, ketchup, and mustard.

None of that even sounds like anything listing it out. How am I still alive? From nourishment like that. I'm going to have to write a letter to Kellogg telling them thanks for Corn Flakes. 'You saved my life.'

Norwegian Cheerios are not the same as Cheerios from home. They aren't made of whole grain. They taste like paper, and are even more shit in milk.

There wasn't anything in the first place to this; no, nevermind. I went and had a word with that guy who makes me want to be cruel. His room stank. For some reason it looked like he had a bit of rouge and lipstick on and he had the face of a dandy. I was searching amongst his unbuttoned collared shirt and chest hair to see if he had a gold laced handkerchief about him. He did not. I was disappointed. That's the way these things go.

---
oh god you are beautiful!
now go kill her. she isn't as beautiful as you.

Tonight I played Brian Eno's Discreet Music. I think it is one of the most beautiful things I have listened to in a long time. It is so simple, but it means everything. I can lie here all night in the darkness just listening.

will ferrell

Jake talked about this in his blog a couple of posts ago. Then sent me the link yesterday? So funny.

Penny Arcade sold me on Odin Sphere before the game is even out. I've got a copy waiting for me when I get home for some nice summer-time relaxation with a couple of cold beers.

I finished Wide Sargasso Sea yesterday and am completely enchanted with that book. However, having read Jane Eyre this semester as well, and figuring I wouldn't like it and actually did, Wide Sargasso Sea killed a lot of good feelings I had for Mr. Rochester. Not that I don't sympathize with his situation, but I really want to write something about it. Seriously though, the images in Jean Rhys's book are amazing. Makes me want to lie around in a hammock watching fireflies at night. I want to see the burning ocean, the burning sky.

I am thinking about staying in Colombia next Spring. I think it would be good.

Today it hit around 70. Turning around from the previous days of fog and cold. I don't have to rest my feet on the radiator anymore, and I can sleep with the window open without getting out of my down comforter and sneezing. My roommate is blabbing away in his scary voice. I don't think he is aware of our impending doom from our master overlords on the first floor. Seriously, our hallway is littered with McDonalds that he just tosses anywhere from his job.

The flat is no longer empty. Quite a shame. There isn't much to say. I laid in bed with Dorian Gray resting on my face and the afternoon sun. I love lying around in the afternoon. I think it would be a perfect time to smoke cigarettes and sip cold drinks. Reading and going in and out of sleep. I think tomorrow I am going to lay on the hand made docks over by the lake and bask in the sunlight until all the sore parts of my body disappear.

I'm back to having fresh bananas each morning. Soon I'll be coming home. I wasn't sure how 'home' felt. I was closing my eyes and thinking really hard about it. About my bed and all the people. It seems distant. It isn't even that distant. I'm looking forward to Portugal, beaches, sunlight that seems more brilliant than a normal place. Why does it feel as if--no, it doesn't feel like anything. I wish I had an idea to lay down that I could put out as a bunch of different ideas that tie together. Like a web of words, and then comes all back. And then slice it back up. I feel everything is too linear right now. Need to break it all up.

I lost all my trains of thought. Nevermind.

Pictures instead. They aren't much. Courtesy of Tori while we were in Amsterdam. Part of the park, the crane, a canal.






---
smell you

da da da. sigh sigh sigh. don't you cry.

In the afternoon the warmth starts to disappear. Not like the morning when the humidity is starting to rise slightly. I thought about walking over to the lake after school but I had bought groceries and was tired and wanted to rest. I imagined that it looked like a picture I had seen a while back. When Tom was telling me about a story he wanted to write. About a family that lived near this lake that would turn to steam near a house. I imagined the house he talked about to be all white with a brown roof. The roof slanting like a triangle and there was a deck on the second story, there were French doors and there was a long patio that wrapped around the entire house. The family that lived there was a mother, her daughter, her son, and a father who could no longer walk but was confined to a bed because both his legs had been shot by hunters.

The two children were twins and they would crouch on their knees by their father's bed and he would touch their heads and smile, while the mother sat on a chair outside in the rain and steam and trappings of the world and stared out at the lake. This is her story, not his or their's. They are for her, and the lake is what keeps her. It is a trap, and the steam rising each morning and wrapping itself around everything, so they cannot leave, is not a curse, but it is beautiful. It pains me to think of their solitude, but they don't seem to age, and in fact after one hundred days pass, and then one hundred years there is only a wrinkle above her brow from frowning while she stares at the lake.

In the mist there are white cranes that move with graceful precision. The rain is always a fine drizzle, and they keep horses near a forest on the southern side to ride and play gaily about on the days when the steam is not so bad. The sun is ever present. Its yellow face. The girl child has a sing song voice and she twitters and flutters, occasionally fighting with the boy who is silent and warm. He is lost one day and falls asleep in the forest at night. When they find him in the morning stumbling out of the forest they find that his hair has turned golden from black and they wonder if he has been swapped by the outside world.

Thats all I feel like writing about that. But I thought that the lake would go something like that. I just felt like I had already been out and had no such desire to go out again. Now the afternoon has settled in, my feet are resting on the radiator against the wall, under my desk. I am going through things as usual. My feet start to burn, so I curl my toes, and retreat. Then, when they get cold in the linoleum, I stretch out. They rest and burn slowly on the radiator again.

The walk this morning heated up nicely. I made long strides and kicked no dirt because everything was wet and pushed down by the fog. As I walked it formed a tunnel ahead of me. And everywhere the houses were almost hidden, the trees touched a sky I couldn't see. The people were slow, I was fast. I was quicker than them. I listened to loud music and was in my black chucks and walking faster and eating all the sights around me. God this is beautiful. Tom says, 'The green stands out in the fog like that!'

'The green and the buds of the trees. They are my favorite. And so are the white blossoms on the peach trees. And I like seeing the men building houses when I walk back to my flat because it makes me feel like at least someone is doing something that means something. I only wish that I felt productive. But it only feels like glimpses or flashes or whatever a person who watched me would want to say.'

They bitched and moaned in a jesting way about Emile's goat cheese this late morning. In Tori's kitchen Thomas and Tori went on about cheese and sausages. The French, they claim, have the best of both. I watched him butter his bread and I tried to finish reading something on the couch. I watched a pigeon sit on the balcony outside and I thought it was stupid and I didn't wish anyone's face to resemble that.

Everyone here is still such a stranger to me. Not mysterious. They don't evoke anything of a past or a present. I just don't know them. Faceless blonds with blue eyes and I walked by a small army of children holding hands. In the deep fog by the side of the road, they said some things to me in Norwegian and I smiled and kept walking. What could they have said to me? Those children, that army, with headbands, sticks, and bright coats. They could grow up and say nasty things to me. They could grow up and save. I don't know them. I threw a ball back to some small children. The one in yellow ran after the ball but stopped as it went into the street. Obviously aware he was not allowed movement beyond his field and fence. So I scooped it up and threw it back, muddying my hand and I received an awe; 'He must be a god to walk so freely through the cars and on the pavement.' They said 'Takk' and we left each other.

The afternoon persists to night. The night will be cold. The green evaporates in darkness and I hope tomorrow is sunny. Sunny afternoons in Oslo are comfortable.

---
oh la la.
oh terrible,
la la and dance.
terrible movement,
la la kiss,
oh la,
oh dance and kiss.
you are so terrible,
la la,
oh la,
you play piano so beautifully,
la la,
oh play for me,
and i will kiss you again.
oh la la.

avoid sleep

the world is beautiful and all there are is glimpses.

endless summer was one of the most beautiful albums i ever listened to

It is such a dreary day. I realized a couple of things: routine helps keep lies alive, but is not a cause or to be blamed. It simply makes it easier to live a lie by living in a routine. And I want to say a lot of things. Or I assume that I want to say a lot. But that, I don't think, is true. In reality, I would wish there was a lot to say, to make things interesting. But most everything is boring. Well, lots of things, but then I get thinking and lots of things are great. So I don't know what to do with that. Just reading this play, 'The Birthday Party,' made me feel that routine really does make living all sorts of lies possible. It never is easy I guess. Makes me sigh, nothing is easy. What shit.

Other than that, I've been reading, wrote. I ate a salmon fillet with my last half rotten potato. It was one of the most meager meals I have ever eaten. I don't even know what is wrong with me. Why don't I just walk down to the supermarket and buy some more vegetables and cook a proper meal. I just don't care I think. The hunger is something, its not boring. It passes time.

There is a slip of paper in our kitchen. It remarks that our kitchen isn't cleaned as well as it should be. There is a checklist in Norwegian with lots of marks, and there seem to be threatening words. I am not entirely sure. We have residents that run each tower apparently, and we are all supposed to have met them. But I never did, and don't want to. I threw away their invitation. I smiled when I did. Now they are going to come back in the future and judge our kitchen for a second time. If we fail, they are apt to do something. That is the gist of what I can pick up with my small knowledge of things.

I've read Pinter's 'The Birthday Party'. I like it more as I think about it. Less so while I read it. But because as I read it I wanted all the connections and themes, and plot lines all at once. Like eating a meal in one bite. I didn't want to wait. So when I finished, I was able to examine the entire text as one thing knowing it from beginning to end. And then I enjoyed it a lot more. The same happened with 'Mrs. Dalloway'. Which, I actually really enjoyed all the parts with Septimus. I thought he was a great character. The end, right before he kills himself, he exclaims how remarkably hot the day is today as he sits on the window ledge. I was reading that and felt the sun across my body and thought about the great amount of warmth. Blinding light, throbbing, the heat wracking my body and then simply dying and being what I really am, nothing. What everyone is, nothing. I thought it was such a pleasant way to die, in such brilliant sunshine, warm all over on a summer's day.

---
future days of summer

au revoir

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