Busy bee

I know I'm super late with today's post, but it's for a good reason :D Today I booked my plane tickets to go home to Romania next month and be there for a whole month! I can't wait to see my friends and family back home... I've lived here in Sweden for almost 15 months now, but I still feel home is HOME, where my mum is and where all my friends are and where I had people and places and sugar and spice and everything nice! It's going to be a real treat to be there for a while and just recharge the old batteries with some good ol' lovin' :P 

In other news, today I purchased a used IKEA bookcase and of course I had to pimp it out a little bit, so it's nice and pretty for my books. Oh, the books! I got all these books from the family here as a token of appreciation for my marvelous existence and assistance. And I have my books from before. AND my mum's going to send some of my books from home. So it's books books books! For a long while, I had a massive pile of them on the floor. Then they moved to a trunk I got for Christmas, and now they finally have a home! I just have to find another bookcase to match this one to hold all the other books that are coming my way... Sooooooon! Until then, I'll show you my bookcase BEFORE and AFTER tomorrow, when it's completely done :) 

Seeing I was a busy bee today, I didn't get to complete my 365 story, but I will come back tomorrow with two pieces! Pinky promise :p I do however have a photo for today! It's a picture of a tree here in the village, which I thought looked like one of those ink blot Rorschach tests, so I emphasized the effect by mirroring the original image. Maybe I'm cheating, but I think it's cool! 

All in all, this busy bee had a good day... Here's to many more!

365 Photos

1x15: Rorschach 

Not in the mood

I'm really not in the mood for anything, so there will be no funny comments and witty banter. I need to sleep better to be able to function properly and be more inspired. Today is all about going through the motions. I'm not so happy with the story I wrote and I'm not happy with the photo I took. Anyway, they're done so I don't have to catch up tomorrow.

Today's story is about a daughter and a father who love scavenger hunts and the father sends her on one on her wedding day. He's been dead for two years, but this one hunt he'd been planning for years. In the end, the treasure it leads to is closer than expected. 

And the photo... well, I wasted the day so I wasted the light too. I tried to do a moody night shot, but I'm not very impressed with the outcome. Nevertheless, some days are just worse than others, but you never know when it turns around!

365 Stories

1x14: LOCKS AND KEYS

"My dad and his goddamn sense of humour always got me in trouble. I was stuck in my school’s gym for an entire night, I had to talk to a mortician about make-up tips, I had to pet a tiger at the zoo and I had to dig 30 or so holes in our backyard to find a box I wasn’t even allowed to open then. Normal kids don’t do any of this stuff, because their parents would stop them, not encourage them. My dad lacks this kind of parental brakes, he’s all about acceleration. But I love him for it. He taught me that little clues can lead to big surprises and that you can find out about pretty much everything if you take the time to ask around."

365 Photos

1x14: Night light

Missing the city, loving melting trees

I woke up late today and didn't really know what to do with myself. So I didn't do anything but write my story and take my picture of the day. Simple as that. Sometimes, I don't feel like doing anything, so I don't. But I strive to keep my promises. That is why I did the 365 thing anyway... The story today is about... well, a person realizing their are the city and the city is them. I haven't thought about metamorphosis and the like in a long while, but I guess I miss the city, because this story is an ode to the loud crazy cities that I love so much. However, living outside the city does have its perks. Like today's picture, simple as it is. I took it through the window, so some parts of the tree look like they're melting, and I love that. It reminds me of "What Dreams May Come", one of my absolute favourite films of all time. Speaking of films, that's probably all I'm going to do for the rest of the evening, watch some nice film and say bye-bye to yet another day. So bye-bye and see you later!

365 Stories

1x13: THE BACK WINDOW

"From my back window on top of the world, I can see everyone and everything, take everything in and feel it all at once. As the ants walk on the streets bellow me, I feel them going up and down my legs and arms and body, as if I am their asphalt and sidewalks. As lights go on and off, my skin warms up and cools down in unison. My eyes change colour again and again, like a hotel sign, and my throat rumbles with the sound of everything at once. [...] I am the city and the city is me." 

365 Photos

1x13: Watercolour sky

White light and upside-down worlds

There's now snow outside and the light is white and full. I went around the house a bit and took some pictures with my Yashica, because my film is finally sensitive enough to produce good pictures. Before, when the days were too grey and dark, I couldn't take pictures on the film I had inside (200 ISO), but now, with the snow making up for the lack of sun, I'm good to go. Besides, I love snow. It's a bit late for it now, given that we had NONE around Christmas, but it doesn't matter. I still love it, even when it comes late. I froze my hands (and other parts) off taking pictures, but I hope they'll come out right, so I can capture a little bit of winter on film. As for the digital ones I take for my 365 challenge, I decided my neighbour's house was pretty photogenic today, so that's what you get! 

When it comes to today's story, I must confess it's a strange one. I don't know where it came from, so it  kind of matches the subject. It's written in the voice of a father who thinks (and worries) his young daughter might come from an upside-down world, because she always looks like she's about to float away to the sky and the stars. I told you it's strange :) 

Here we go... Story and photo time. See you tomorrow with another installment :) 

365 Stories

1x12: UPSIDE DOWN

"[...] If it were up to her, she would glue all her furniture to the ceiling, so she can have her tea parties by the big glass chandelier. She would say it’s a very fancy floor lamp. She would probably sleep like a bat, with her nightgown hanging down like giant wings. She would swim in the sky and say birds are the new fish (pigeons would be the goldfish of the sky). She would play hide and seek with the stars and make the moon her secret spot. She would even have the rain fall backwards, coming out of the ground and floating to the sky like millions of soap bubbles. [...]"

365 Photos

1x12: Santa's Secret Swedish Stuga 

Strange selections

Sometimes, we make weird choices. Our subconscious works in mysterious ways. There's probably people who've craved peanut butter and mustard sandwiches and have no idea why their mind would even be capable of such a dangerous and utterly weird combination. But it happens. And we give in to our strange selections, because there's nothing to do about it. Something like that happened to me today. I wasn't in a bad mood or anything, yet it seems both my story and my photo are in a seriously bad mood. My story is about a blind man and him missing the eyes that were taken away from him. And the photo is of some skinny branches with tiny drops of water from the snow melting on them. Both very moody and strange pieces of creation. But that's how it goes. I don't really want to control what comes out of this 365 thing. What ever comes my way, that's how I roll :) 

365 Stories

1x11: THE BLIND MAN

"[...] I lost my eyes some time ago. Long enough to stop mourning them, not long enough to forget them. I still see images where there aren't any, but they're a ghost ache, like when you lose a leg and you still feel it there, an invisible limb you can no longer touch or, worst of all, use. Actually, I don't understand why people even say things like "lose a limb" and "lose your eyesight". You cannot lose a leg and you really can't misplace a pair of eyes. They're not the keys to your car, hanging in the hallway [...]"

365 Photos

1x11: Melting points

Cry-reading, snow and old titles

So, I finally got around to reading John Green's "The Fault in Our Stars", which has been waiting patiently on my nightstand, and I have to say, this book simply killed me. It's so beautiful and tragic, I basically read half of it while crying my eyes out. It's one of those books you want to read in one sitting so you have it all in your mind and soul as fast as you can, but you also want to read slowly, like one page every day, so it lasts for ever and ever. I read it all in a few hours and don't regret doing so, but I wish it wouldn't have ended. Like I said on Facebook in a very late post last night, right after I finished reading the book, TFIOS is a dark, bright, funny, sad, simple, complicated gem of a book that I dare everyone to TRY to read without crying like hungry babies. It cannot be done, I promise you, and I pity the ones who are so cold-blooded to succeed in reading it without turning into a sobbing mess. I was super heartbroken after I was done, but I loved every line of this bloody book that turned me, supposed grown-up, into a cry-party, table for one. It really is a beautiful book and I hope everyone reads it, once, twice, a hundred times, just like Hazel and Augustus read "An Imperial Affliction". And, to end my book-worm rant, here's a song I thought suited the book:

In other news, today's 365 story is about a girl burning up and melting in the street in the middle of July. I'm celebrating the coming of snow, I suppose :)) The title, A Snowball's Chance in Hell, I thought of 3-4 years ago, when I planned out the story. And now it's finally coming to life! Hooray! Oh, and it's all one BIIIIIG phrase :D Yup... And yeah, today's photo illustrates the snow that just arrived. So the story and photo are like opposites attracted to each other in my blog post :P Here's to my matchmaking skills!

365 Stories

1x10: A SNOWBALL'S CHANCE IN HELL

"[...] When you’re standing on the corner of Fireball and Supernova, sometime in July, when the sun can’t get enough of burning people like me, with my white, too white skin and eyes that tear up incessantly, one eye stops, the other starts, and you look up at that goddamned sun and laugh at it for making you cry, and you’re just standing there waiting to melt away like ice-cream in a hot oven, your odds are relatively on the same level as a snowball’s chance in hell, which means you've mainly got two options, asking Hades to kill you softly and swiftly or face the pain and try to make your way through his underworld of doom and heat exhaustion [...]" 

365 Photos

1x10: Fresh snow

Recycling ideas

Recycling is always a good idea. If we can recycle paper and metal and plastic, why can't we recycle ideas that never properly met the light of day? All ideas deserve a fighting chance. That's what I decided to do for my 365 Stories challenge. I have all these pieces of stories I never completed. Just a few sentences that I came up with a long time ago and then abandoned, because I lost my inspiration or I wasn't feeling for them anymore. But it would be a shame to forget about them forever. They deserve to get their happy endings or sad endings or surprising endings. All those bits and pieces might actually become something. 

Today's story began three years ago and it ends today. It's the story of a man whose life is a novella he writes himself. I know, it's complicated :)) That's just how I roll! Here's a piece of it that's not gonna make any sense... 

365 Stories

1x09: NOVELLA

"[...] I had no family or friends, I had readers. People who witnessed my life, but could make no real impact on it. The pages of my novella still bear the fingerprints of all those hands that wandered over the letters, trying to hold on to them, reaching for the next one impatiently or simply forgetting them. I’ve been held by many hands, some cautious, some violent. Some held me close, handled me with care, lingered on my pages. Others dog-eared me, threw me across the room and forgot me in a dark corner. I have even lost a few pages… [...]"

365 Photos

1x09: Bloom

Sleepy days

I was really sleepy today. It happens sometimes, even to the earliest bird. I woke up early to send the scoundrels to school, read the final pages of "Something Happened" (something happened eventually, but I was no longer impressed) and then I forgot how to keep my eyes open. I suppose only sleeping like four hours the night before didn't help... So I just gave up around noon and went to bed for a couple of hours, just so I can function like a normal person. Then everything was fine again! I wrote my story, took my photo (a crappy photo with my mobile, but it's got a certain charm to its minimalism and graininess...) and even looked for airplane tickets for next month, when I plan to go home for a bit. I can't wait for that, I just want to see my old friends and my mum and everyone I left behind when I moved to Sweden. It's gonna be so good... but I have to wait just a little longer. Soon, soon... For now, a little work and a little walk, that's what the evening has in store for me. Hope I'll sleep better tonight... Oh well, functioning humans are overrated.

365 Stories

1x08: THE HIGHWAY

"[...] I leave the city behind, and all its swampy puddles. A splash of water hits the sides of the car just as I pass the city “Good bye” and “Come again” signs. The muddy water leaves behind these awful dirt streaks on my car doors, which would normally kill me slowly but surely, but right now I couldn’t care less. I just want to go. And that is exactly what I plan to do. Drive and drive and drive some more until I see the sun shining over some hill I have never seen before. [...]"

365 Photos

1x08: (G)rainy weather 

Thrift shopping, books and sweet revenge

Well hello there again! After three days of delayed posts, I can finally get to it at a reasonable time of the day. It's been a good day, so maybe that's why. I'm almost done with "Something happened", I went on a brief thrift shopping expedition (well, search party, we were trying to find a bookcase), took the daily picture (because the biiiiig collection of books at the thrift shop needed to get some love), bought chocolate and peanuts, got back home, downloaded season one of Torchwood, ate lasagna, wrote my daily story and, finally, wrote a new post. Then it's a bit of cleaning and maybe a walk, who knows. Anyhow, long day, felt short, lots got done... Yeah, baby! 

In other news, today's story is about a guy who hates his boss because he is a big bully. The guy gets some sweet revenge in the end (pun intended), so it all ends on a positive note. Plus, there's homicidal thoughts, solar-powered hatred and birthday cake. Yummy story, huh? Here's a bite coming up!

 365 Stories

1x07: JUST DES(S)ERTS

"They say you need to be strong and stand your ground. Set your foot down and not be a victim. But that’s a lot of talk coming from nowhere. In real life, planting yourself in front of your bullying boss, trying to be brave and face him with newfound strength of character, is not as simple as some picture of a happy kid in an anti-bullying flyer is telling you. It’s tough. But it’s so good. Breathe, then do it. Man up. I did it. Best feeling ever. I gave that bully his just deserts. Or desserts. I pushed him face first in his birthday cake." 

365 Photos

1x07: Line up 

Back on track

With the whole computer mini-meltdown, I've been writing my stories at an odd hour, as in the middle of the night. But now I'm back on track and I have six stories for six days, so today, the 7th, I can maybe write at a more normal hour :)) Well, here are pieces, as proof. I slightly hate myself for not putting them up in their entirety, but who knows? Maybe I'll get published some day!

365 Stories

1x04: TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES (Saturday's story, inspired by my computer issues)

"[...] There’s nothing more excruciatingly irritating than troubleshooting computer issues. ‘There is no detectable problem.’ Well, the bloody thing’s not doing its job. ‘There’s no available solution to your undetectable problem.’ Isn’t that lovely? What should I do then? ‘Try again.’ And if that doesn’t work? For the 100^th time? ‘Go fuck off.’  Oh. Alright. Troubleshooting wins in the manners department. I see it now... This computer will make a great punching bag, since I’ve been meaning to do some boxing but forgot to buy an actual punching bag. Bang! Wham! Boom! Dead computer. [...]"

1x05: FINE

"[...] Sometimes, it feels like my bones weigh as much as two of Jupiter’s moons. My fingers feel frozen, but my head is burning. It’s overloaded and overworked. I’ve been hearing the “It smells like fried brain in here” joke for a long time now. I wish I could delete insignificant memories and thoughts. “Do you wish to permanently delete this thought?” Oh yes, I need the space. I wish I could delete feelings too. It would make my heart feel lighter. “Do you wish to delete love lost, regret, anger, sadness?” Yes, please, rid me of it all. Leave me only with sunshine, daisies and puppy dogs. “We apologise for the inconvenience, these feelings are too large to delete. [...]” 

1x06: WASTED MORNINGS

“[...] I don’t think we sleep enough to dream all that much. We sleep late whenever we can, but we fall asleep late too, so it cancels itself out. But we’re young. We stay up late, we drink one too much, we do stupid things and we forget too little of them. We fuck when we’re up after two in the morning, but that’s what we do when we are young. If not now, when? When are we supposed to have sleepless nights and wasted mornings? [...]”

Unscheduled technical difficulties

It was a scary Saturday. A heart skipped a beat. Panic set in for a few moments. The mind began looking for answers to an unexpected dilemma. Neurons and hands worked quickly. Pages were browsed. Solutions were not found. There were no easy steps to be taken. The question was simple, the answer was lengthy and intricate. But all was well in the end. 

Otherwise put, my computer gave me a scare on Saturday and I decided it was time for a clean-up and fresh start. So everything on it went away to a safe place and I started from scratch. However, there was no Internet, no blog, no beautifying pictures, no nothing nice for a couple of days, because this weekend was all about putting my computer back together, so it can stop toying with my poor heart. No more scary Saturdays, please! I am not a big fan of unscheduled technical difficulties, but that's life, it kicks us in the ankles when we least expect it and we just have to pick ourselves up again, if possible without complaining too much. So here I am, apologizing to my 365 challenge for the unexpected delay, but three photos are coming up today, so I'm making up for lost time. Since I was stranded indoors to work on the computer, the pictures I took are of things in my room or in the house. Sometimes we miss the things nearest to us when we always look far away... 

365 Photos

1x04: Through the drinking glass

1x05: Book worm

1x06: Plastic summer in winter

Here's to no more unpleasant surprises!

Tough break

I've been reading "Something Happened" by Joseph Heller for a while now and it seems like there's no end to it. It has a pretty deceiving title, because nothing ever happens in it. And it's so looooong... It does have some nice first person narrative moments, so I'll give it that. But by now I'm mainly reading it out of obligation. I don't like giving up on books. Tough break, I'm stuck with it for another 150 pages or so. But then I can move on to "The Fault in Our Stars", so that's good good good!

Otherwise, I'm on top of the 365 thing. Today's story is about a guy who has a tough time speaking to the girl he's head over heels with. Tough break, dude! But it's open ended, so... I'm a hopeless romantic, it's gonna go just fine for him ;) Oh and I took the photo too, despite it being a weird semi-foggy day. I'm sort of missing the snow. January and no snow... weird! Is it coming, is it not? We'll have to wait and see :)   

365 Stories

1X03: THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM

"It’s like I take just one look at her and all the words I spent all these years learning just vanish, evaporate, relocate to some undiscovered, unexplored region of my brain. I’m rather sure they flee in embarrassment. I do not for the life of me understand how I can drop so many IQ points by simply glancing at her...  [..] My legs decide it’s time to turn to jelly and my hands sweat like a snowball in Hell and my heart goes all wonky and I just lose it. There’s no control tower to help this crashing mess. I wish she knew she was doing this to me.”

365 Photos

1x03: Beyond and between

Still going strong

Day two of the year and still keeping my promises. I actually want to hold onto the things I promise to myself. As I was trying to explain to my nephew today, giving up is easy. Trying harder and keeping it going is a lot of work, but it's worth it. I'm usually so scattered and unplanned and only do what I feel for. And the problem is lately I haven't felt like doing anything. For someone who actually wants to do stuff but has no genuine energy or inspiration, it's feels all sorts of awful. Which is why I want to try as hard as possible to keep my promises and do the challenges I set for myself. So far, so good. Had a nice walk today and spent some time with the folks at home and took my picture of the day and wrote my story of the day (I'll post a tiny piece of it bellow). It actually feels pretty good doing the things I set out to do! I honestly hope I'll keep at it. Two days in, still going strong. Here's to 363 more. 

365 Stories

1x02: LONELY HEART CLUB (excerpt)

"She could hear the crimson waves of blood pouring through her arteries and cells coming to life and dying and her eyelids closing together and air whooshing through her lungs and electric shocks between neurons building thoughts. Before, all those things she discarded, shut off and turned down made it impossible for her to be her, to hear herself, to hear herself functioning to keep herself alive. Now, that was all she could hear, the little gears and bolts and nuts that held her together and kept her alive with their perfect timing and synchronised motions. She could even hear her own heart beating."

365 Photos

1x02: Nowhere Station

At it again

Well, isn't this funny? It's been a whole year since I started this blog and almost a whole bloody year since I abandoned it. I swear by the mighty TARDIS of Gallifrey it wasn’t intentional! But it happened. Like it happens sometimes. We’re all human here (despite all the failed CAPTCHAs trying to prove otherwise) and to err is human. Same with half-broken promises and busy schedules. Which, in a less vague way to put it, means life got in the way of the blog. I did keep by my promise of being creative as much as I could, but I broke my commitment towards the virtual journal I was so eager to fill in. I did not record my comings and goings, my doings and undoings, but they happened.