The owls are not what they seem

Between gaining employment, regretting doing so and getting my hands on the second season of "True blood", it seems my posting has come to a bit of a halt.

Well, with the slightly incoherent exception that is this post of course.
But never mind that.

I was gonna write about how it made me sad when I realized that I'd watched all the "True blood" episodes available and that to see another one I'll have to wait, like a whole year.
And I don't wanna.

But then I thought, meh.
It could be worse.

Like for example I could find a rift in the time space continuum and travel back to 2003 when I, about a decade later than everyone else (oh, the curse of being young) discovered the brilliance that is "Twin Peaks".

And then, I could continue by re-living the joy of taping every single episode that was aired at 03.00 so that I could watch it in the morning with my scrambled eggs and huge mug of drip coffee, I could yet again feel insanely creeped out by Bob, not to mention that freaky backwards-but-kind-of-not-backwards talking midget that hangs out in the black lodge.
I could hang out on Twin Peaks forums to discuss the meaning of the white horse appearing to Laura's mom in a vision(could it be as simple as horse=heroin? Could it David Lynch? You will never tell, and I can only guess... Bastard.)

And then, just when things are so fehking good and I'm all like "Omg, what does "The owls are not what they seem" really mean!?!! WHAT DOES IT MEAN I NEED TO KNOW PLEASE GOD JUST PLEASE!!!!!" and my head is about to explode because Agent Cooper's evil doppelganger is gonna catch him and then what's gonna happen and the log-lady, oh my god the log-lady, and all I wanna do is curl up in foetal position out of sheer frenzied joy and anxiety... they cancel.. the show...
Well actually they cancelled it about 13 years earlier, but that's not the point.

The point is that that scenario right there is how it could be worse.

And it was.

By God, it was...

So whatever, Vampire Bill.
Keep away for another 11 months, see if I care.
You might be all hot and gentlemanlike and speak with a breathy somewhat comical southern accent, but you're no Agent Cooper.

Not by a long shot.

drunk woman typing

So this is a drunk post.
Be warned.

I know that it's 11.40 pm which, considering I'm a fairly capable and socially average 26 year old, should be the starting point of my evening.
Instead, I seem to have chosen to embrace my inner 72 year old, leaving the party early (I didn't have tickets to the show the rest of them ere going to see. A really great thing as it was as it gives me an opportunity to sincerely moan about my misfortune while at the same time and equally sincerely feeling happy about the excuse for leaving early served up on a silver platter for me)and am currently lounging on the couch with fiancé, nursing a cup of tea.

If time travel is ever possible, I sure hope that my 18 year old self never visits this moment, as it surely will mark my demise.

However, tonight was a lovely lovely night, and a first at that.
You see, with all my travelling through the years I've never really stayed long enough to establish a sort of social circle and even less had to introduce anyone to said circle. It's always been me to have been introduced to my current beau's friends and swiftly find a way to manipulate them into liking me.
Tonight though it was me doing the introducing.

And I was terrified.

Fiancé is very likable and very socially capable, (which at times makes him very handy, especially when he's around me) but still there was a part of me worrying; wringing my hands and muttering to myself just thinking about it.
The friends I've made here in Melbourne are quite the bohemians I'd say, whereas fiancé is an engineering square, albeit a lovely and wonderful such. I was worried fiancé would feel out of place. I felt like a mother, worrying that her child might be the only one playing alone in the sandbox. Which, I admit, might be a bit of a creepy analogy when talking about the man I..ö you know.

Anywho.
Things went well.
Turns out, men seem to bond around stuff cooking on a barbecue. Apparently these men don't even need to have shown any kind of previous excitement or even vague interest in cooking, when there's a barbecue involved male bonding just seems to happen effortlessly.

Oh..
And yeah. Alcohol.
There was some drinks of alcohol involved. Which might discredit the male bonding (although one should never underestimate the power grilling equipment holds over the mysterious creature that is the man), but on the other hand will totally explain the possible lack of proper grammar and the probable presence of spelling errors.

But you know guys, it's the thought that counts.
Unless it's Christmas.
Then that's just rude.
Rude.

Brothers of death metal

I have three brothers.

The oldest one precedes me by seven years and spends his time "singing" in a death metal band.
If you happen to be familiar with the death metal genre (which, if you're Scandinavian like me, you probably are) there's probably no need for me to explain the quotation marks surrounding "singing". However if you have yet to experience the vocally challenging joy to the ears that is death metal, I suggest you do something about that and promptly check this out.

Ah yes...

Cannibal Corpse.

A band appearing on many a mix tape given to me by my brother, in what was a vain attempt to recruit me to the dark side. To try and mold my eardrums in a way so that instead of hearing what appeared to be a very violent assault on one of my senses, I would lock in to the.. ehr.. raw power.. of the music..? And.. uhm... identify with the lyrics..? Mhmm.. I wasn't quite sure.

But I tried.
I really did.
I even sported a Cannibal Corpse band-hoodie given to me as a present for a while, eager to make my brother proud.
Of course I was a thirteen year old girl, and even though the hormones running wild in my rebelling body occasionally did make me want to stab someone, I tended to identify more with the self loathing and heartache of Morrissey's lyrics than.. well this.

Much to the disappointment of my brother, it should be said.
Though he eventually got over it.
I mean we had so much else in common.
More important things, things like a shared gene pool and a mutual crippling fear of somehow contracting whatever it is that turned this man into a tree.

Older brother I miss you very much.
No one here really understands the beauty that is getting wasted and watch early 90´s one hit wonder music videos on youtube like you do.

All work and no play makes Josefine a something something...

I feel like I need a tattoo saying "I worked for five days and all I got was this painfully sore back. And oh yeah, some money. As if that would somehow make it all better... Whatever. Jerks". Or something to that effect.

Seriously people, I am dying. I am so tired. I've been tired since last Wednesday. And not like a "I've been up for a solid 10 hours. Better take a nap" kinda way either. I'm tired because I am exhausted because I spend my days working.

Yes.

All and all I'm just another brick in the wall.
But that's alright.

The crippeling state of my physique aside, working is actually ok. It makes me get up in the mornings, I get to spend my days around some really awesome (and some less awesome people), and as always, not having that much spare time on my hands actually makes me appreciate the spare time I have a lot more.

So yeah.
Working is alright.
Until about 3 pm.
At which point the ripping out of hair starts.

So happy I found a job.

I imagine his name is Bruce

After completing my third day of work I feel as I imagine a male steel worker with a mullet based in a 1980's Detroit would feel on a Friday afternoon; full of hormones, dying for a beer and having a desperate and undeniable need for belting out "Everybody's working for the weekend" while rocking a handle bar moustache and some kind of strip of fabric (very possibly a bandanna) tied around my head, Rambo-style.

And this might also be what is in fact going on right now.
Oh god how I hope it is.
Somewhere.
Somewhere...

Working girl

Oh man, how do you people do this?

Had my second day of work today and with that I have been reduced to an aching pile of flesh and bones, helplessly slumped on the couch with pathetic pleas for someone, anyone, to please bring more wine.

Considering that I have been well unwound for the past six months, the need for unwinding after a measly two days of work is surprisingly big. But if there's anything I've learned from all those well spent hours watching Oprah it's that you should listen to yourself and to your body. And what both me and my body seem to agree on and loudly proclaim is that what I need is to sit on the couch and enjoy a few glasses of red wine while that vacant look spreads slowly across my face and my eyes glaze over.

So that's what I'll do.
Because after all, who am I to question the infinite wisdom and knol edge that is the Oprah Winfrey show?

In Australia Burger King is called "Hungry Jack's", for no apparent reason

(... well to be honest I'm sure there is a reason, I just haven't bothered googling it. If you do, please fill me in on the details.)

A couple of years ago I watched this documentary about prisoners on death row in America. As I recall the inmates were interviewed about their background, some information was given on the crimes that had lead them to their death sentences.

The main focus of the film however was not on these people's everyday existence or trying to understand their circumstances, but on what they, on the day of their looming execution, would choose to have as their last meal.

Apparently it is tradition that inmates on death row can request anything they want for their last ever culinary experience (though I'm sure there are some restrictions. Like anything with arsenic in it. Or gun cake).
And while food is a great great love of mine only to be rivaled by my love for baby animals, I probably couldn't imagine a time when I would feel less like eating than the moments leading up to my demise.

But still, knowing that somebody has the freedom to order whatever they want and realizing that their choises consist solely of items you could find in any food court in any mall is quite sad.
No fava beans or chianti here, just Big macs, fried chicken, french fries and pizza.

But then again maybe "foodie" isn't an adjective commonly used by the average inmate on death row to describe themselves.

What would your last meal be?

Meeeeeeeeeeeeme!!!!

Once upon a time in July, a Finnish lady tagged me for a meme. I was awfully excited about this, but due to not having an internet connection or even my computer at the hotel where I was staying, I thought it better to complete this meme thingy when I got back to Melbourne. Which was almost two months ago.

So shameful.

Aaaanyway. I'm doing it now. Happy?

The idea is to create 5 categories each containing 5 favourite items of said category but without necessarily being listed in any particular order. Did that make sense? It doesn't matter, you'll get the idea. Oh, and then you tag 5 other people to do the same thing.
Sort of like chain mail but without the vague threats of being unlucky in love for the next 7 years.

So here goes:


My 5 favorite (random) things:

1 Breakfast - My favourite meal of the day, every day. Though I've always enjoyed breakfast, my love for it didn't fully flourish until I moved to Canada and into a culture where going out for breakfast is not only something you can actually do, but is encouraged. Overwhelmed by this new option of having someone cook me eggs and then letting me pay them for it I started having breakfast as often as I could, substituting it for lunch and dinner whenever I could get away with it. Which thanks to a high number of cafes sporting all-day-breakfast menus was surprisingly often.
Ah, those were the days...

2 Finding things you don't expect - Like a twenty dollar note in your pocket or a new coffee shop that makes reeeaaally good coffee and has an all French staff or a mint condition Burberry trench for $200 in a thrift shop. Thank you universe, it's just what I wanted!!!

3 People watching - I know it's slightly pervy, but I love watching people when they're unaware that they're being watched. It's like being at the zoo. When I was 16 I lived in this apartment that if you sat in the windowsill you could see up and into another apartment located diagonally across the road. I used to sit there for hours (yes sadly, hours) staring up into that apartment and watching all the things going on there. It was all very mundane everyday things, no one ever got shot or anything but somehow that's what I liked about it (the everyday mundane stuff I mean. And yeah, I guess the no-one-getting-shot part as well now that I think about it).

4 Mail - Letters, postcards, care packages, or just things ordered online. I love receiving stuff in the mail. It's the only thing I can think of that still has a bit of that childhood sense of excitement normally associated with christmas attached to it.

5 Puppies - It doesn't matter if my day has consisted of being deprived of coffee, sleep and food all while being punched in the face repeatedly, stick a puppy in front of my eyes and all is forgiven. Puppies make the world go round. For realz.


My 5 favorite celebrity crushes:

1 Ricky Gervais - Because of "the Office"* season 1 and 2 and the christmas special. I have never known a love like this.
*British, not American

2 Jon Stewart - Because he makes politics sexy

3 Andy Samberg - Because of this and this

4 Hugh Jackman as Wolverine - I feel no need to explain this one. But I will anyway: Because lumberjack shirts and massive sideburns will always hold a place in my heart. And spank-bank. Forever.

5 Jennifer Connelly - Because if I ever had to have a full face transplant I'd hope hers was up for grabs.


My 5 favourite articles of clothing:

1 My Burberry trenchcoat - We were destined for each other and as if by sheer magic, everything else I own looks great with it. Even the dining table.

2 Leggings - Though always, always (I cannot stress the importance of this enough) worn with crotch and ass covering shirt/dress/skirt/dashiki.

3 High heels Because I walk better in them after a few glasses of wine and any excuse to drink more wine is an excuse worth making it on a list somewhere.

4 50´s style dresses Complete the look with pearls, a smile and a secret but raging alcohol addiction that is revealed in a humiliating manner after a drink too many at the Joneses dinner party.

5 Tracksuit pants What can I say, I'm a sucker for comfort.


My 5 favourite frequent food cravings:

1 Tuna sashimi When I was I kid I watched a documentary on Inuits, and I remember one scene where they were carving raw seal meat from a (surprise!) seal and eating it, sort of in the fashion my grandma used to eat an apple. I also remember not feeling grossed out but actually a little disappointed that I would probably never get to do that. And so far, I never have. But sometimes while eating tuna sashimi I close my eyes and pretend.

2 Scrambled eggs with parmesan cheese and chili flakes Scrambled eggs has been a constant food craving of mine since I was eleven. I just want to eat it all the time, something I think was hinted at in the "5 favourite random things" section. And if you add parmesan cheese and chili flakes before scrambling it magically get better. I didn't think that was possible.

3 Toasted and slightly burnt fruit loaf with insane amounts of butter As in obscene amounts. As in melted butter literally pooling and dripping of the piece of toast. Mmmm, butter...

4 Seaweed salad I think it's the texture. Whenever I see seaweed salad I need to own it. Then eat it.

5 Vanilla malt milkshake I usually and for some inexplicable reason think "loser" about people who when buying scoop ice cream or milkshake pick vanilla flavoured such. Why? Why would you pick vanilla when you can have chocolate or rum or honey dew melon flavour? I just couldn't see any reason for it. But something has changed. Maybe it's the added malt (which strangely I also used to despise), maybe it's the sign of my ever changing palette. I don't know. All I know is that I can no longer resist the siren call of the vanilla malt milkshake. And I don't want to.


My 5 favourite things that make my life easier

1 Dry shampooI hate washing my hair and now I don't have to and still manage to avoid smelling like a homeless person

2 GoogleHow did people live before google and not go insane from all the things they could not get the answer to immediately? How I ask you. But maybe I should just google it instead.

3 ClothesWhen growing up in Scandinavia they come in pretty handy if you want to make it to adult age.

4 FiancéKind of like google but at times more infuriating and with glasses.

5 Caller idI'm not a confrontational person. So I just screen.


And that's it!
That's all.
Almost.

Now for the lucky 5:

1 Nancy @ f8hasit: Because her blog is funny and honest, and because she posted a photo of herself in a Peter pan collar.

2 Ladytruth over @ happily AFTER ever: Girl has Louis Vuitton heels and gay dates. Sounds like a good time to me!

3 Mysterg @ Meditations in an emergency: Because I want to, no need to know more about him. You hear me? Need.

4 Not so glamorous housewife @ Diary of a not so glamorous housewife: She knows how to knit a robot. I give cred where cred is due.

5 Dutch Donut Girl @ The world according to donut girl: A while ago she posted pictures of bedrooms from different German brothels and claimed they were sources of inspiration in her looming bedroom make over. What can I say? I like it.

Oh, and I just remembered. You can make up your own categories. Mix and match. Whatever floats your boat as they say.

There.
I'm done.
Over and out.

If I were a bunny, where would I shop?

There is a store I pass every now and then that I have never once entered, and yet there is something about this particular shop that makes me slow down as I pass just to try and catch a glimpse of the items being displayed inside and more importantly, the people who buy them.

It's the playboy store.
Which, sadly does not retail tall, dark, handsome and financially affluent men but instead specializes in leopard print evening gowns, rhinestone everything and tennis skirt/knee sock combos.

While I'm no stranger to watching that trashtastic reality show featuring Hugh Hefner's girlfriends who are not his girlfriends anymore, I can´t say that I have ever, not even once while watching it thought to myself "Gee, that Holly Madison really is the epitome of style, now if only there was a way I could dress like her... say a store... a store that sold "girls of the playboy mansion" type things..."
No, I have never had that thought. Except for now, and even then it is only to make it quite obvious that I wouldn't, would not, produce such a thought.
Which is why it's so intriguing that that store is there. Because that has to mean that somewhere, someone is in fact thinking this, though perhaps phrased differently.

I'm not judging (...) I just want to know who these people are, where they're from, where they're planning to wear that pink spandex dress and if they, by any chance are the same people who when I worked at French Connection used to buy matching mother-daughter tops with a rhinestone embellished "fcuk" splayed across the chest. And if so, it's pronounced "effseeyoukay" and not "fuh-kawk". So stop saying that.
Please.

Old people is da shizzle

If I ever have kids, one thing I am never ever ever going to say to them as they're going through their teenage years is "be happy for as long as it lasts, cause it'll be the best years of your life".

Uh.
Come again?

I don't know what kind of messed up reversed psychology this is supposed to be, but looking back knowing that this was the wisdom passed on to me by various adults, I am surprised that I didn't just drink a jug full of cyanaid kool aid right then and there.
I mean, seriously.

Maybe the people telling me this were captains of the cheer squad, sporting perfect complexions and suspiciously well balanced hormone levels, or maybe the years following high school, regardless of how traumatizing that experience might have been, were just even more disappointing and for some reason did not include you scoring a great job or you magically transform from nottie to hottie, but a rather badly timed pregnancy by some guy named Jonno who's mullet you vaguely remember brushing against your face during your Scorpions soundtracked one night stand and a dead end job that steadily eats away at your dreams and ambitions.

I don't know.

I just know that my teenage years were the most awkward, horrible and angst filled years of my life and I would never in a million years go back. Ever.
And come back in twenty five years and maybe I've changed or repressed enough facts to have changed my mind, but I truly enjoy ageing. I love getting older, getting better.

Young people can suck it.

Just kidding.

Just an observation

My belief is that leggings are not called pants because they're not pants and should therefor not be used as such.

I'm sorry people, but I can't take this assault on my eyes any longer and I don't care if your leggings are printed to look like denim, the fact is they are not and it looks horrible when you pair these non pants with crop tops or really any garment that does not cover your ass and crotch area.

So yeah.
Just wanted to clear that up.
Peace.

The bald and the beautiful*

Ah, the weekend has passed, the orangeness patchily subsided and once again I find myself on the couch, waiting for the week to begin...
And while waiting, indulging in a little "Days of our lives"-action.

The love/hate affair I have with daytime soap operas is not new but seems to come and go in waves, forever ebbing and flowing, pulling me in and releasing me from it's hypnotizing and possibly incestuous embrace.

At times (not all that surprisingly these times often coincide with the times of paid employment) I have not the slightest hint of interest for them, scoffing at the outlandish intrigues at hand and rolling my eyes while changing the channel and letting out a patronizing "puhleeze" under my breath.

And then there are other times, the less productive (and much more recent) times spent on the couch, where the windowless and apparently time warped existence of the Brady family casts me under it's spell and has it's way with me.
Then usually I have a little nap.

I do realize that I am but one pregnancy away from waving my hand in my child's face while yelling "Be quiet Lula-Mae, mama's watching her stories!!"
And as horrifying as that may seem, at least I'm not married to the half brother of my daughter.
At least not that I know of.


*This is what my fourth grade English skills lead me to believe was the title of that famous soap opera. It made sense to me at the time, but then again, so did over sized hypercolour t-shirts.

It is I, the Oompa loompa

Dear readers,

The person writing this is not the Josefine you know and are so very fond of, but a slightly more Hollywoodized and much more orange version of her.

Yes people.
I've done it.
I've had a spray tan.

Now, before you avert your eyes in disgust and mime sticking your fingers down your throat contemplating my vanity, I will say in my defence that this was a first (and quite possibly a last), and that it was done as a favour to a friend who's learning how to, ehr, spray tan people.

It should be stated that with the exception of my rather thick and very dark eyebrows and my dire need for some serious IPL, I do display the stereotypical traits of the Scandinavian. My hair is dark blond (or, roughly and literally translated from Swedish "rat coloured"), my eyes are blue/green and my complexion is very very very fair. With a sort of pinkish tint to it.
An unflattering tint, and one that despite years of trying to condition my skin into thinking otherwise, does not tan well.
Or at all.

So when I got a call yesterday asking me if I would be at all interested in having somebody practising spray tanning technique on my pale and very unready for bathing suit season body, I of course said yes.
I could picture it in my mind; me on the beach, all tan and glowing and somehow through a diet consisting only of wine chocolate and cheese, seem to have lost 5 kilos.
It was glorious.
And, as I believe I disclosed, a figment of my imagination.

In reality it turns out that Scandinavian complexion + spray tan = a look most recently sported by Magda, Cameron Diaz's kooky landlady in "There's something about Mary".
Or in the loving words of fiancé as he walked in the door:
"Wow. It makes you look... older

Yeah.
On the bright side, I won't be made fun of at work tomorrow.


You know, cause I'm unemployed.


The end.

There's a mucus party in my head and you're invited

Oh how glorious it is to wake up only to realize that your body has betrayed you and decided your skull should like totally host some kind of phlegm themed festival. Which then, in the way festivals do, escalates to the point where it's completely out of control and the phlegm has nowhere else to go but out my nose, and from the feel of it, soon out my eyes and ears.

It's also a beautiful feeling when this betrayal of the flesh coincides with the annual coming of spring and the glory of pollen.
Which for me means allergies.
Which, you guessed it, means phlegmfest '09 is one gift that will just keep on giving.
Oh joy of joys.

I feel like somebody has implanted one of those instant towels in my head and then left the water tap on and it just keeps expanding and it's not stopping and my eyes are bulging out from the pressure and I can't hear anything cause all the sounds are muffled and OH MY GOD, MOMMY JUST PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!

My eyes are so itchy and my nose is all raw and irritated and whenever I walk past the mirror I wonder who put that poster against domestic violence up in my apartment.
Not cool.

So now, without further due, I will go drug myself into a coma and hopefully wake up looking a little less like I'm dating Chris Brown.

Coffee, of all things I thought I could trust you...

No one drinks drip coffee in Australia it seems. It's all posh espresso machines and the cleverly named nespresso machines and stuff.
Which is fine. I love coffee and that love is of the kind that does not discriminate.
However, I have noticed that drinking a pot of espresso doesn't seem to affect me very much, and I can easily have more coffee during the day with no other side effects than my urine smelling suspiciously like a latte (too much information? I'm sorry, I just find it quite interesting how that happens... Maybe I should have my kidneys checked? I've never heard anyone else having this happen to them, but then again maybe most people don't find it necessary to fill people in on what their urine smells like. Unless they've had asparagus recently, which seems to be an acceptable excuse for talking about what you did on your visit to the lavatory).
Nothing else. No twitchiness, no extra energy, no feeling nauseous. Nothing.

What's up with that? I thought to myself.

And I'll tell you what's up:

Apparently drip coffee has more caffeine than espresso, for the simple reason that the water spends a lot more time hanging out with the coffee grind in a drip coffee maker than in an espresso machine.

I am so confused right now.
I mean it makes sense, the way most things do once you have them explained to you, and yet I feel as if I have been deceived.
How is it I didn't know this?
I feel ashamed.
I feel like if coffee was a person I would look at it with a hurt and puzzled look on my face and say something like "It's like I don't even know you anymore".
That's what it feels like.

On children and not having them. At the moment.

A while ago I read an article in the paper, stating that couples without children are generally happier and enjoy way better mental health than couples who have procreated.

Reading this article, all I could think was: "Well, duh.."

Despite my mother assuring me that I was a very good child, and a very good teenager, I can remember quite a few instances of being a complete asshole to my parents. A spoiled brat, whining and screaming and slamming doors, sulking and more often than not responding to the question "how was school today" by throwing a tantrum.
As you do.

It is obvious that in an effort to keep from feeling hate and resentment for her child, my mother has repressed memories of any such incident.
Which is kind of great news, since I do prefer her to keep loving me.

Being a parent a lot of times seems to mean putting up with all kinds of abusive behaviour that in any other kind of relationship would be pretty good grounds on which to tell the person in question to piss off.
That is however, in most cultures not considered good or even acceptable parenting technique, though I'm sure the children of Joseph Fritzel might have some objections to that statement.

Anyway.
I'm sure I will at some point in my life at least attempt having a child, considering fiancé's aversion to indoor pets and all, but a process that starts with not being allowed coffee, wine or soft cheeses for nine months only to be followed by being ripped apart from the inside by a small persons head?
As tempting as that sounds, I think I might have to pass.

At least for now.
But who knows, maybe it's like how I used to hate olives and now I really really like them?
Maybe all that stuff will seem like fun and exciting in a year or two.
Until then, I will continue to gorge myself on cheese and wine and maybe I'll throw in a bit of mercury laced salmon just for the thrill of it.

Excuses excuses excuses.....

I know I haven't been the most frequent of posters lately, and for this I apologize.

However, I actually do have a reason for this seeming lack of devotion, and a valid one at that.

As fiancé's mom is in the hospital for surgery, his dad is staying with us. This, I know, doesn't seem like a reason at all, and even less so a valid one, but just let me finish. Ok? OK.

Fiancé's parents had him quite late in life, he was what I suppose you'd call an accident if you wanted to be funny about it, which I often do. Fiancé's dad was 46 at the time of birth of his youngest son, which according to my calculations makes him a 78 year old man today. This is another useful piece of information as this enables me to make funny jokes about fiancé's parents obviously having relations even after 14 years of marriage and suggesting that this might still occur.
Iam aware that this is not so much a joke as it is deliberately making fiancé uncomfortable, but it's funny none the less.

Anyway, I digress.
So fiancé's dad is 78, and Italian and has pretty much worked his whole life while fiancé's mom has run the home and taken care of children and still managed somehow to be a successful artist, which is weird since I have no job and no children but still seem to only ever manage a pot of coffee and watching the occasional "the bold and the beautiful" episode before the day is over.

But that's besides the point.

What I'm getting at is that fiancé's dad, when faced with such tasks as grocery shopping or cooking, seems puzzled and confused, much in the same way I would if someone suggested I'd change the oil in a tractor.
I could probably do it, given enough time and instructions, but if given the choice I would gladly hand over the assignment to someone more capable than me.
He's never had to do these things, and it's easy to see how he is just a little bit lost without the woman who's been his wife for 48 years close at hand. They've come to depend so completely on each other for all those tasks they're each assigned, to the point where it's not only emotionally but also practically difficult to live without the other person.

Which is kind of lovely. And a little bit sad, somehow.

So anyway, that's the reason I'm a little bit absent at the moment.
I'm trying to prevent my father in law getting scurvy caused by a salami-only diet.
Thanks for understanding.

A rare breed indeed

Despite many an attempt to suppress the fact that I will sometime very very soon need to begin planning a wedding, this insight keeps making itself known.

Much, I have to say, to my dismay.
Because, ugh.
I don't wanna.

Don't get me wrong, I really really want to get married.
The marriage part isn't what's making my neck twitch nervously. It certainly isn't the reason I feel like taking a nap anytime anyone has questions/opinions about it.
And although I can't definetly rule out that that isn't what's causing me to break out in some rather stubborn hives, I'm almost a hundred percent sure that it's not.
It's something else.

It's the wedding.
Or, in my case; the W-E-D-D-I-N-G.

I know that being a female, living in a first world country and having obsessively watched Disney's "Cinderella" growing up, I should (in theory) be able to perfectly execute this whole bridezilla routine that's become so popular with the kids. You know, the crazy-eyed obsessive compulsive bride-to-be reducing waitstaff to tears and throwing temper tantrums over the fact that "these napkins are ivory! I said egg shell! EGG SHELL!!!!" .

I'm supposed to be overjoyed by the thought of picking out colour schemes and centre pieces and wedding cakes and thank you cards, and apparently I should be keeping some kind of scrap book containing an over all "theme" for the wedding.
(What?
What do you mean "a theme"? How bout "we're getting married"?
Is that theme enough for ya?
No? That's not what it means?
Oh, ok. Right.
Sorry.)

But, as you might have gathered, something has gone horribly wrong somewhere, and all these things added up make me feel the opposite of excited.
So, "not excited" I guess.
I mean, all I want is to wear a pretty dress and marry the loveliness that is fiancé.

In Vegas.

With Elvis (or someone vaguely resembling him) conducting the ceremony.

Is that so much to ask?

Desperate houswife and why I shouldn't have children

The past few days I have been channeling the life of a house wife.
Or, according to a few people that shall remain nameless, "doing stuff kind of expected of you since, you know, you're unemployed".

Huh. What a curious thing to say.

Anyway.
For example, I cooked a nice mushroom risotto for dinner last night and had it ready, with the table set and drinks poured, when fiancé came home from work.
However, I was not cooking and serving said risotto dinner dressed in a full skirt and pearls but hey, if there's one thing reading Cosmopolitan has taught me it's that as a woman there are always things about yourself you can change and improve. Yay!
How wonderful it is to be told I will never be good enough!

Also I've spent a whole day doing laundry, hand washing things (note to self: start looking at the laundry tags of garments before buying them. If laundry tag says "cold hand wash only", gently place garment back on hanger and move away from the cash register. I repeat, MOVE AWAY FROM THE CASH REGISTER!), hanging and folding and what not.

Realizing that I have agreed to let fiancé's two little nephews stay over night with us on Friday night I have promptly broken in to a nervous sweat and, going about it like I have a severe case of OCD, tried to come up with activities and meals and treats that will translate to nephews telling their parents about what a great time they had staying at our house.

Because yes. I, a 26 year old woman, am scared of the potentially disapproving judgement of two small children who's collective age is less than mine divided in half (and apparently reminicent of a fourth grade math problem).
Why is this? And also, if it comes to the end of Friday night and it's apparent that nephews have had a less than incredible time, will slipping half a roofie in their warm milk help with wiping those memories out of their pliable little minds?
And more importantly, is this something that will go on my permanent police record if discovered?
Cause I really can't have that.

My brain needs a defrag

I woke up to find that this lovely lady will let me have one of her precious books after I enquired whether it is read worthy or not. I guess this means it is. Or, she's just pawning some of her unwanted stuff off on me. But I'm ok with that.

Something I'm not ok with is knowing that when Alanis Morrisette sang this little gem of a line:
"...is she perverted like me, would she go down on you in a theatre"
she sang it to and about Dave Coulier.
Yes, that is "Uncle Joey" from "Full house" which I watched religiously everyday after school when I was nine.

This information is really causing me some anxiety here, and there is no apparent reason for my brain to, completely out of nowhere bring this very disturbing information to my attention, especially since I've gone to extensive lengths trying to forget.

Ok, maybe not really "extensive lengths"...
Actually probably no real conscious effort on my behalf has been made to forget said information but that doesn't change the fact that I was still pretty happy having it stowed away somewhere in the murkier depths of my subconscious, leaving it to cob webby canoodling with grade nine maths and an incident in a tent when I was 15.

The thing that really gets me is that because of this Dave Coulier bullshit I'll probably forget something else, something way more important.
Like turning the stove off or taking the bullets out of the gun before fiancé and I joke-play Russian roulette.
And seriously, I'm not super excited by that idea.

My brain has turned to mush

This morning I was rudely awoken by the sound of what I’ve now managed to identify as a Kookaburra.
Which, as some of you might know, is a bird.
I, on the other hand didn’t, and in my hazy and very annoyed state of mind thought the sound molesting my ears to be that of an equally annoyed, and perhaps lethally so, monkey.

What a business an angry monkey would have to go about in a tree outside my bedroom window I’m not completely sure, but then again I’m told Kookaburra’s don’t usually hang out in the city either. So yeah.
That’s the very exciting story of how I was woken up by a bird, though at the time thought to be a monkey.

Whoever said I don’t lead an exciting life just got proven wrong, right? Right? AM I RIGHT???
Oh lord, mommy’s on the drink again…

Going to the movies just got a whole lot more appealing

It seems Melbourne is caught in some sort of mini hurricane (for about three minutes there, I couldn't remember the word "hurricane" but instead my brain kept suggesting the word "trombone" as the proper term for what dictionary.com defines as "a violent, tropical, cyclonic storm of the western North Atlantic, having wind speeds of or in excess of 72 mph". Yeah, not sure what's going on there).

And for a good part of the day I just saw that as a convenient excuse not to have a shower, get dressed and go see "the September issue" like I'd planned to do. But then, after realizing that I was in fact watching an episode of "Days of our lives" (and not the first one this week I might add...) and having the words "crazy cat lady" flashing before my eyes (why does it keep doing that?) I decided that having a shower might not be such a bad idea after all.

So now I'm back home after an hour and a half of watching Anna Wintour & co and stuffing my face with hand made chocolates (it's a documentary about Vogue, I couldn't very well eat buttered popcorn now could I?) and wine.
Yaha, wine!
Cause apparently cinemas can serve alcohol in Australia.
How, I ask you, is it possible that I did not know this? I did after all receive a "Welcome to Australia"-pamflet when my visa came through, one would think that this information would have been in there somewhere between the national statistics and the helpful tips on how to maintain an acceptable level of personal hygiene, no?

Well, no.

Obviously someone, somewhere, in a governmental writing-of-pamflet type job has a somewhat askew list of priorities.

Does Ruddy know about this?

Sweet dreams are made of cheese?

Arrgh, my subconsious is driving me insane lately!
This past week I've been waking up several times per night from either laughing like some kind of crazy person or being on the verge of tears, whimpering.

The dreams causing this very unwanted behaviour have been various and has included some real gems, such as:

The one where I hang out on a meadow by myself, and after getting a surprise visit from the Jonas brothers I and one of the lads belt out a beautiful duet while standing under a cherry blossom that showers us with pink flower petals.
Yeah...
Yeah.

In another one (and I'm pretty sure that even just admitting to having a dream of this rather violent nature will put me on a watch list somewhere), I run around a house, sweaty and panic stricken, tracking down and shooting people (not the Jonas brothers though. I think.) Every once in a while this switches and all of a sudden I'm one of the people being shot at. It's all very confusing and it's all taking place in a vacation home in Palo Alto.
Just how exactly my subconsious knows about Palo Alto I'm not completely sure, especially since my consious self doesn't. Or at least I didn't until a quick Wikipedia search informed me that Palo Alto is indeed an actual town, located in northern Silicon Valley, California.

Which sort of makes me wonder:

Is this the point where, through a series of seizure inducing flash backs and strangely familiar dreams, my past as a murdeous CIA agent unravels? Will I discover, as someone tries to steal my purse, that I have the reflexes of a feline and a level of martial arts skills even Bruce Lee couldn't keep up with?
Is that what's gonna happen? Will I discover that all my memories are not mine at all (and if so, can I just say "Good riddance, memories of puberty and general teen awkwardness!") but inplanted in my brain to... uh... protect the... uh... secrets of the CIA..?

Wouldn't they just kill me for that?
And where in all this does the third dream, the one where I binge eat wheels of cheddar cheese, fit in to all of this..?

For the love of sports (or fiancé)

As might have been hinted at in this blog before, I'm not overly excited about sports.
This lack of excitement also extends to sporting events, sports related tv shows or really anything with the word sports attached to it.
Physical exercise has always failed to appeal to me and much like me during gym class in the glory days of high school, it seems that in my genetic setup the gene that constitutes competitiveness has gone awol.

Which is fine with me. I don't pretend to be concerned with my lack of physical fitness and I figure that the amounts of money I'll need in order to unclog my arteries and replace this in red wine marinated liver of mine sometime in the perhaps not too distant future will balance out nicely with all the money I've saved on gym memberships, sports bras and protein shakes through the years.

So until recently, sports and I co-existed in a mutual understanding that we not bother each other. Sure, there were times when I felt sports overstepped the line, deleting episodes of Grey's anatomy from the tv-guide in favour of some ice hockey semi final (just how important can something with the word "semi" in it be anyway?), and sports in turn I'm sure wrinkled it's nose in disgust at my rare and flawed attempts at spin cycling or (worse), anything requiring hand/eye coordination.
But for the most part, we got on, leaving each other to do whatever it was we were doing.

I say until recently because it turns out that the man I'm marrying has a rather passionate and loving relationship with sports in general, and Australian football in particular.
At this very moment I'm sitting on the couch in the lounge room with head phones on and music turned up to a potentially lethal volume.
On the floor to the left of me is previously mentioned man banging his fist on the floor and shouting things like "Go Blues!!!", "Ball!!!" and "Bastard!!!". All of these with no less than three exclamation marks. Hence the ear phones.

Which I just now took off because I saw some rather wild hand gesturing going on out of the corner of my eye. Turns out, they came with a rather colourful audio commentary.

Again, that inside voice chanting:
"This is the man I choose, this is the man I choose..." and the realization that my relationship with sports has been altered against my will and now more resembles the one of a wife and her husbands mistress.
And knowing that this particular mistress is of the sticking-around variety I will turn a blind eye.

Cause that's just the kind of of wife I'm gonna be.
Apparently.

Soon to be a respectable part of society..?

Knowing myself and knowing that before 11 am, even at the best of times I move with the speed of a sloth, I decided to get up at 6.35 am this morning in order to be ready to catch my 8.32 am train and make it to my interview while not also resembling a sloth in matters of physical appearance.

As a result I have felt nauseous and had a blinding headache all day. I believe this to be my body's way of telling me "what the fehk you wanna job for when you can just laze around at home eating cheese all day? huh?" Which just goes to show exactly how well my rather eloquently gifted body knows me.

I hear you body.
Loud and clear.

Anyway.
Interview went well.

Or, at least I think it did though I really can't be too sure about the accurateness of this statement since the man interviewing me looked like he could be Simon Baker's long lost and even more handsome twin and for some reason the somewhat rose coloured memory of the interview is strangely distorted by a loud voice in my head chanting "must not forget I'm engaged, must not forget I'm engaged". For all I know this can also have been said out loud in which case I'm pretty sure I won't be getting the job.

Turns out, acting like a big pile of crazy isn't on most employer's list of desired qualities in job applicants. I'm saying most, because really, who knows? If I was a British production company specializing in making documentaries about sexually deviant behaviour that will then be shown on a weekly basis on basic cable in Sweden for example, a certain amount of crazy probably would be on the desired qualities list.
I'd say.
But hey, what do I know.

What's in a day

So, pretty happening day today.

Last night fiance's cousin called me up to tell me about a job opportunity that sounds really interesting and that's in a field that I've sort of been thinking about getting into for a while. I don't really have any experience relevant to this position but I thought, hey! what the hell.

Said and done; This morning I called the guy I needed to speak to and after leaving a message he called me back and now I have an interview Friday.

How's that?

I'm firmly holding all five of my galloping horses though, seeing that it is quite a desirable job and like I said, I have no experience. But, according to the news anchors at the 5 o'clock news that seem to be a regular feature on this tv right here, stranger things have happened and in fact continue to happen every day. And really, who am I to question those trustworthy perfectly made up faces with their prompters and checked facts..?
That's right. No one. That's who.

But I needed swiftly to bring out Josefine 2.0, as all the 1.0 version seemed to do was sport a look referred to as "homeless man" and look unemployable (this is part of said look, who ever said I did anything half arsed? Oh yeah, well I showed you, me didn't I?)
Anyway, after talking to this man that was so eagerly sprinkling interviews around I decided the least I could do to help things along was to get a haircut. It's been three months since the last one, to say one was do would be to gravely understate the state of this hay coloured mop growing out of my head. I called up the salon I frequent (term used extremely loosely)and got an appointment. Oh joy!

Except for one thing.

Just like Extranjera, I too experience a slight surge of panic when faced with hair appointments.

I don't enjoy them.

Not so much because of the stranger-touching-me-bit (although I will say there is a certain discomfort brought on by this, what with being Scandinavian and all) but because of the talking.
The chit chat.
The small talk.

It's not so much that I'm incapable of the physical act of small talk, nor is it that I lack the mind required to come up with subjects relevant enough to be interesting yet irrelevant enough to leave both of us with a feeling that no personal territory has been invaded.

I just don't like it.

I'm not interested. I know I might come off as a jerk but I go to the hairdresser to get my hair done, not to talk about what was on tv last night or whether Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt may be headed for splitsville or not. Which, I know, is strange since those are usually two of my favourite subjects.
What I want to do is go in, read magazines, have coffee and those mint chocolate things that come with and just relax. Quietly. In uninterrupted silence.
This also goes for when I get a massage, have my nails done, am on a plane, train, tram or bus, hang out at a café or bookstore or when I'm at the park. Pretty much most situations where I'm not actively seeking out some kind of social interaction (this is IRL we're talking I'm assuming you're assuming).
Exeptions include situations involving alcohol or backpacker-type travel.

And yes, I know.
Not doing much to help the "cold and reserved Scandinavian" stereotype, but being Swedish it's either that or milkmaid with braids and her juggs out.

Sick as a dog. Or a man.

I'm writing to you from the depts of my couch where I've spent the past couple of days in the form of a shivering sweaty pile, resembling not so much a person but some spineless jellybased creature most likely to be found in some b-grade horror movie.

Mmmm, yes.
I'm sick.

Sick to the point where I haven't even had the strength to surf the internets.
I know, crazy.

I've also been so sick that communication between me and fiance has consisted of me pointing to different things while emiting various sounds like "ugh" or "hahrr" and him then trying to desipher said sounds to try and figure out whether he should call the hospital or if it'd be enough to give me some toast.

I haven't however, been too sick to watch Oprah and be reduced to a crying blubbering wreck after seeing a small Philipino girl get to sing with her idol Celine Dion at Madison saquare garden. I tend to turn into a very emotionally unstable person when I'm sick. (Yeah right, when I'm sick...)

Today seems to be better though. But just to be safe, I might take another day on the couch.

Things to do at the airport

Aah, yes...

I'm back in Australia and with that back on the juice.

The sweet sweet juice squeezed from the millions of ones and zeroes growing off the binary tree of knowledge and also known as the internet that is.
Internetohol.

Well, the other juice too I suppose. Case in point: The lovely rum based cocktail I'm sipping (chugging) at this very moment. Mmmm, coconutty...

See one of the perks of international travel is the never to be missed tax free shopping.
Since I am not a comparer of prices when buying stuff (it's not that I have a lot of money but rather that I'm very lazy, much to the dismay of fiancé), I'm not really sure just how much of a percentage is taken off prices (although a somewhat hazy memory seems to be telling me that there are signs under the tax freed items informing you of that. Not sure. Hazy memories are not surprisingly often of the "do not trust" variety. This for various reasons that shall remain unnamed but that could have a thing or two to do with the chugging of alcoholic beverages.)and hence how much I save by shopping tax free.
However, this seems to be as irrelevant to other people as it is to me and the term "tax free" has instead become a perfectly good excuse for people to buy what would otherwise seem like an imorally large quantity of alcohol.

So fiancé and I thought: who are we to fight the system, really? and walked out Melbourne Airport with a number of bags making the clinky noises made when happiness in a bottle snuggles up against it's buddies, comfort and confidence, coincidentally also in bottles.

And now here I am, home alone surfing the interweb and enjoying a few (hrrm) cocktails on an empty stomach while fiancé is at the football. Everything is back to normal.
Only with a slightly (...) more well stocked liquor cabinet.

Sappy and gushy, I blame the hormones. That's what they're there for, right?

I will take a moment or two to reveal something about myself that might be eh... a bit sad, in a pathetic sort of way, but if you can work past the pity, I'm sure there'll be something more positive at the end of it. Ok? Ok.

When I was of the tender age of 21 (oh, to be young again) I moved continent for the very first time, to North America in general and to Canada in particular. Eventually I was going to find myself loving and never wanting to leave Canada, but those first months were a bit rough.
I say rough, but really what I mean is that it was mildly trying.

Anyways, my first few months in Canada were spent in Windsor, Ontario, which failed to have me at hello. Coming from a small Swedish town where anywhere can be reached on foot and being so used to everywhere being pedestrian friendly that I hadn't even thought about ever getting my driver's license, it'd be fair to say that I was sort of ill equipped to deal with a city built for cars.

So, after a month or so of feeling a bit closed off from the world and not really meeting anyone to really hang out with, a shameful habit that would eventually become a fullblown addiction was starting to form.
Far from dark alley ways and seedy clubs I got my fix under the bright fluorescent lights at the 24 hour Sobey's, handing the clerk money while clenching my jaws and avoiding his gaze I would then hurry to stuff my purchase in my bag, out of sight from the prying and judging eyes of others.

And then, the giddy excitement, the feeling of euphoria and relief as I flipped open the cover of this weeks Us weekly, the anxiously awaited update on whether Mary-Kate Olsen had actually been hospitalized for a cocaine overdose rather than the stated anorexia...

I was a woman possessed.

There was no stopping me, soon I had to up my dosage, and from there it was all just a slippery slope really. I mean, where do you stop? Where do you draw the line? Star? OK? National Enquirer?.
Luckily, the story (sort of) ends there. Soon enough I traded the pollution and strip clubs of Windsor for the forest trails and beaches of Tofino, a small town on Vancouver Island. With this trade came a social life and it seemed that my need for the recognition of the famous faces displayed in Us Weekly diminished.

And... yeah. There was a point to this story, and it might be perceived as a sappy one, but really I'm just quite happy about it.
The point is, that this time around, feeling a little lost while trying to find my feet in Australia, you people here with your blogs and comments and being brilliant and having stories that sometimes resemble mine and sometimes are completely different make me feel... well, like I don't need to flip through gossip rags to find something recognizable. I don't know if it makes sense, but it's making me feel more positive about the world.
Who really knew there were so many cool people out there?
I guess they're just all in front of their computers.

I'll be passed out by 2 pm

Ah yes, it is indeed 8.06 am and I am not in bed but actually fully dressed and my face fixed on and for some reason sitting in front of a computer seemingly all the way from 1986 in front of me.
The mouse doesn't even have a scroll button.
I know, hard to grasp.

The reason for this strange and uncharachteristic getting-up-in-the-morning behaviour is that fiance decided to do an adapted sort of "bring your kid to work" thing today. Except, you know, with me instead of a kid.
Turns out though, fiance works with things that are kind of secret and stuff so I'm not actually allowed in the "office" (I don't know if office is really the correct term, but it is some kind of facility residing at the top of a mountain. Yeah...), so what I'm doing is hanging out at the lodge next to it. There is coffee and internet access here, plus a really brilliant view of the mountains so I can't really complain. Except for the fact that on the computers, everything is in French. And I don't know how to change it, cause, uhm, it's in French.
It'd be kind of neat if what I wrote all came out in French as well. I'd seem all sophisticated and shit and I bet even though you might not understand what I was writing you could totally picture me smoking a cigarette in one of those fabulous cigarette holders. I think you might picture me sitting here with like a brunette 20's bob haircut as well. Or maybe that's just me.

Anyway, I've stocked up with plenty of magazines, a book, a deck of cards and plenty of internet credit. Schweet.

Oh, and I have a question: How do you post a link but make the link appear as like a word or a name instead of the actual url?
Yes, I'm sort of slow when it comes to stuff like this. And since I'm gen Y I prefer to have people tell me how to do things rather than you know, actually have a go and try and find out for myself.
Sorry. Blame the parents.

Dating shows, I love thee

Yes, it's true.

I love dating shows.
LOVE them love them.
Love them like a cat loves catnip, and like MJ seemed to love prescription painkillers (too soon?).
That kind of love.

My personal preference leans towards the shows that have a good percentage of awkwardness going on, such as "Blind date" or "Elimidate", where the probability of watching a segment and not going "Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!?!!!" is next to non existent.

I remember one scenario, where after being eliminated and hence humiliated this one guy in a feeble attempt to walk away with his dignity intact says to the girl (who for some reason while talking about her love for animals keeps referring to them as "amnimals". It's unclear if she believes that that's the proper pronunciation or if she has a complex speech impediment extending only to this one word. Anyway, what he says is):

"I wasn't attracted to you anyway".

Pause.
You can sense his impending attack.
He looks at the girl with feigned superiority and pity.
And then he yells:

"By the way it's ANIMALS, not amnimals you fucking idiot" and walks away.

Hahahahahaha!!! What? What just happened?

All I can say is, way to handle the situation, guy! Your reaction has completely convinced me of your non feelings of rejection.

I do hope that in the distant future when aliens are trying to understand what happened to the human race and what led to their demise, that tape will fall in to their hands. At least it would provide some hilarity.

What to do when even caffeine can't help you

Very much enjoying myself today.

Got up in time to be able to be out of my room by the time the maid knocked on the door (usually when this knock happens I'm rudely woken up from an hour and a half of snoozing. In a state of sleep sprinkled panic I will throw on whatever clothes are scattered around the bed so that I can answer the door and while feeling very rude and guilty ask if there's a possibility she can come back in an hour. If feeling very guilty I will just ask for clean towels and smile sheepishly. For whatever reason this hotel does not have those "do not disturb" signs to hang on the door, which would otherwise come in quite handy).

Once out of the room I walked in to town, had breakfast (scrambled eggs & smoked salmon and a coffee the size of my head which for some reason unknown to me came served in a bowl) and continued to read the book I've been trying to get in to for the past month.

I think the fact that getting up at the ungodly hour of 9.30 am this morning though has, despite the mentioned bowl of caffeine, left my brain with the capacity of fruit pulp as it can't seem to cling to any one thought for more than a second or so. If someone would place a mirror in front of me right this very second I'm pretty sure the face staring back at me would suggest at least partial brain damage or perhaps some kind of ill fated drug binge back in the day when ecstasy seemed like the possible answer to everything.
Ah yes.

I think what this suggests is that I should take the stairs down to the dvd rental place and after spending an anguishing 3 and a half hours deciding whether "pledge this" starring Paris Hilton was in fact unjustly reviewed and may actually be a movie I would enjoy, I will walk home to my freshly cleaned hotel room and ignore the beautiful weather outside.
I might also buy some "blast-o-butter" microwave popcorn. I figure that whatever cardiovascular damage the fake and no doubt shockful of trans fat butter may have on me, it must surely be cancelled out by all that red wine I'm also buying.
Right?

I surf the internet, isn't that enough?

I feel like people who are what one could refer to as "out-doorsy" (although I believe you have to actually be out-doorsy to feel that term is socially acceptable to use)feel that they are superior to me and that the life I am leading is an unfulfilling one.

This might all be in my head, but it's like I can actually feel them out there in the woods, in ski slopes and on hiking trails, flaring their nostrils while loudly inhaling the fresh outdoor air and exclaiming how a person hasn't lived til they've skied down the Chamonix alps.

What? What kind of superior statement is that to make? Huh?

Yesterday fiance and I had dinner with two of his colleagues. When asked what I've been doing this past week while fiance is at work, I could sense that the answers they were expecting had nothing what so ever to do with getting up at eleven and slowly walk into town to get my daily dose of internetohol, but rather; skiing! sky diving! hiking! other activity that would make sense when you're visiting a town where people come to do out-doorsy stuff!

For a split second there, I contemplated lying and saying that I've at least considered taking skiing lessons, or made friends with a talking wolf while hiking the mountains or something else just as likely to happen.

But I didn't.

I told the truth.
The ugly shameful truth full of in-doorsiness, caffeine, unhealthy amounts of wine and the fact that my fascination with Miley Cyrus's somewhat unbalanced teeth-gum ratio sometimes forces me watching a full episode of Hannah Montana.

I said that, and the puzzled looks that followed were enough to tell me that the person who came up with the whole "silence is golden" saying was probably on to something.

Mmmm, indecision

While seeming to have absolutely no difficulty what so ever with making big, life changing decisions such as choosing to re-locate to a different continent, quitting a job or other major things that one might think would take just the slightest bit of consideration or even thought, I do suffer an almost crippling inability to choose in situations where what I choose really doesn't have that big of an impact, if any.

Such choices might include which chocolate bar out of two I want (need) the most, whether I would like popcorn when going to the movies or not, or which one out of three dvds to rent.
These choices when made offer few (obvious) life altering consequences and yet when faced with them I get so confused I go into a near catatonic state of mind. I go blank. I end up staring at the items at hand, and instead of my brain going

"yeah right, like I'd ever pay money to watch "he's just not that into you', put that down woman!"

it just goes

"does...not...compute...self...termination...initiated..."

There is literally a sound of static in my head.
As you might imagine, this is vaguely infuriating.

Fiance, I suspect has noticed and consequently grown tired of this inability to choose and as sort of a counter action has put in place a dr. phil-esque strategy to deal.
Hence, instead of him deciding things so that I don't have to bother (or more likely so he won't have to re-consider this engagement of ours, which would really be more than just a bit of a hassle you see), he now will sit in the car while I, all by my lonesome and with beads of sweat gathering at my hairline, walk into the dvd rental place and pick something.
I'm not even allowed to call him. Or even, as it turns out, try and catch his attention from inside the shop and crazily wave two movies in the air while staring even more crazily at him while trying to avoid making a decision.

Where am I going with this? I don't know. They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
And I think it is apparent that I do.

Selfish? Moi?

A lot of times when me and fiance go out to dinner, we might order a bottle of wine.
However, since weeknight are worknights and are to be followed by work mornings for mon bebe, I usually end up being the one drinking most of it. Which is totally fine with me. In fact I might even prefer it that way.

Thing is, there is no way I would ever go out with him to enjoy a nice dinner and some wine and then be forced not only to abstain from drinking but also watch while he gets a bit toasted. I just couldn't! It puts me in a bad mood just thinking about it. Which raises a question;

Does this make me

a) an alcoholic
b) a selfish bitch
c) all of the above

I'm not sure I'm willing to subscribe to any of the above mentioned options, although it must be said that they have all been suggested at one point or another. Not by fiance though, I might add. He knows better.

Today's plan was to walk in to town, get a coffee and go hang here at the internet cafe. This has all worked out well. Also part of the plan however was to locate the combination of keys that will produce the little mark thingy that should go over the "e" in "cafe". This has not happened. Tomorrow?
Yes, I can feel it, tomorrow is the day.

Like sand through the hourglass, these are the days of my internet deprived life

It seems my fiance is a horrible and deceitful man not sparing any means in his quest trying to make me a healthier person.

Despite previous statements alluding to the "fact" that our hotel does not have internet access, and being "pretty sure" about that fact, it turns out that, in fact, it does. Of course it does.

When, in a slight panic, mentioning this to fiance while experiencing heart palpitations brought on by the fact that against better knowing I left my computer at home and thus am completely cut off from the world as I know it, he simply says

"Well, this gives you a reason to get out of the house."

Whaaaaaaaat?

How rude!

So indeed here I am, out of the house and sitting in an internet cafe "downtown" where I somewhat struggle to find all the correct keys and combinations on this New Zealand style keyboard, reminiscing about my own computer and the good times we've shared.
Like the ones where he freezes up and won't let me do anything no matter how furiously I keep clicking stuff.
Or, those times when I try and log on and this process ends up taking forever and causes me to shake him like a British nanny while threatening guttural sounds escape me.
Good times. Good times.
Maybe we need some time apart. Maybe what fiance is doing is trying to salvage my somewhat unhealthy relationship with my computer.

Yeah. Not likely.

jitter bug

So I feel like bursting out in one of those "ohmigodohmigdohmigod" rants so frequent in american high school movies.
The reason?

I GOT MY VISA GRANTED!!!!
Ohmigodohmigdohmigod!!!

I am so ridiculously happy, I don't know what to do with my self...

Well, actually, what I should do is finish packing since, true to (poor) form I managed to distract myself from said task all night long yesterday and I need to leave the house in two hours.

Doesn't matter!
This is so amazing! I've been waiting for FIVE months and now it's done!

Ok, need to finish packing so I can go to airport and celebrate in the tax-free section.
New Zealand, here I come!

once upon a spa

This past weekend was spent in the spirit of relaxation and what have you, as I was treated to a spa weekend by my future sisters in law.

Now I'm not a big fan of walking around in swimwear.
This is especially true if there are other people sort of hanging out in the same area where I'm swimwearing, which there often are at say, beaches and spas.
If added to that, these people are also my future in laws, that makes for some serious feelings of discomfort on my behalf.
This discomfort can be somewhat eased by submerging one's body in a pool, or by sitting in a very steamy aroma oil scented steam room, or just by having a few drinks before even getting in the car in the first place (only one of the many perks of not being expected to drive).
Or, if anticipating some serious discomfort, all of the above.
Having tgone fore the last option, I found that lounging around in my swimwear with people soon to be integrated in my family tree is actually not that big of a deal.

Today's effort on the other hand, will not really be eased by any of previously mentioned tactics. You see, I have one (half) day of trying to do all my laundry, clean and pack before going to New Zealand. An effort which can only be described by one word:

Mmmeeeehhhh.... (sigh)

I absolutely loathe packing.
It's what my idea of hell is.
Packing, re-packing, taking things out, putting things back in...

Ok, so I guess that sounds a lot less painful than it really is but knowing me I will be on the verge of crying more than once, behaving like a 5-year old and making threatening phone calls to fiancé, all while procrastinating like it is going out of style. Yet somehow, I will pull it together in time to be able to get on that plane and fly all the way to New Zealand where hopefully I will still be engaged.

Wish me luck.

Mmmm, bread...

Today for dinner I am having veggie sausages and half a "rustic baguette". Whatever that means.

My fiancé left two days ago so if I was Freud I would probably say that the fact that I only seem to be eating phallic shaped food means I miss him. Or something to that extent.

I bought the "rustic baguette" at a place called "French fantasies" that surprisingly enough does not specialize in latex style clothing and feather dusters, but pastries and bread.
I didn't ask the French woman behind the counter what exactly made this particular baguette rustic. But I kind of wanted to.

Wikipedia says that "baguette" is french for "small cane".
But if I literally wanted a small cane, would I still ask for a baguette?
I might never know, and before posting this I will probably have forgotten about my desire for this knowledge anyway.
I'm sure it makes for a lot of good pun though.
French high quality pun.

Sounds dirty.

It's not a phobia, it's a preference

A telling sign of just how little I do every day is the fact that I experience a sense of accomplishment every time I find myself all made up and clothed in something other than black "trackies" (this is an Australian term and I'm pretty sure it refers to what I used to refer to as "sweats". Which is a grosser, more descriptive word for what I wear when looking like a successful and well integrated part of society is not an issue).

And that's what I did today. I acheived a sense of accomplishment by putting on make up and jeans and some other stuff, and then I ventured outside to do something or other.

Actually, to be honest the only reason I went outside is because last night when fiancé called me all the way from New Zealand, he asked if I'd gone outside.

And I said no.

There was a telling silence on the other end which I'm pretty sure was a disapproving one, to which I said "Why would I go outside? I don't really have a reason to, do I?"
There was more silence and then what was said with a very very concerned voice was...

"Babe, I'm really starting to worry".

And I snickered. Because it's funny.

You see, although only in his thirties my fiancé and the way he thinks sometimes makes me suspect he has an ageing portrait in an attic somewhere and that the year he put it there was 1952. So the fact that I haven't gotten any "fresh air" all day is to him very unfortunate, not to mention worrysome.

To me, not so much.

This is what happens when I'm left to my own devices

* Pot of espresso + milk
* Large piece of crisp bread with butter and cheese
* 6 almonds
* 12 squares of rum&raisin chocolate
* 4 vinegar flavoured rice cakes
* 1 can of baked beans
* 2 vegetarian hot dogs
* 5 pieces of strawberry liquorice
* 2 glasses of red wine

I have been awake for approximately 9 hours. This is not a healthy diet.

Some kind of wonderful (I am)

So this morning at 5:45 fiancés alarm goes off.
He doesn't usually get up that early, but today he had a plane to catch. A plane that will take him to New Zealand where he will be working on some kind of project for three weeks.

Don't worry, I'll be going over there in a weeks time because apparently my company is that of the desired kind. How very flattering!
Also, I need to leave the country for a couple of days in order for my temporary visa to be renewed. So I guess it's not all about me. What..?

Anyway, yesterday as fiancé was in an increasing state of panic, trying to pack and not being able to find his passport I, instead of helping him, gladly took a phone call from my friend Karin and blabbed away until said passport had re-appeared and thus my helping locating it was no longer needed.

Cause that's just the kind of girlfriend I am, it seems.

Ignore something for long enough and it will work itself out/go away/force someone who is not me to deal with it. Lovely.

Then later on when fiancé smilingly talked about how nice it'll be when I come to visit, how the hotel we're staying at has been re-done, has a spa bath etc he also mentioned that this hotel might not have up and running internet access.

I laughed of course, because what kind of hotel in this day and age doesn't have internet access? I'm assuming that although in a different time zone, it is still year 2009 in Wanaka? I know we're in the southern hemisphere but what kind of bizarro world statement is that?

So when fiancé proceeded by saying,

"I don't know, but last year when I was there there wasn't any (internet)"
the way I responded was not
"Well, that's a shame, but you know what? I really appreciate you forking out all kinds of money in order for me to come stay with you for two weeks and I'll enjoy myself and have a great time because I'll be spending it with you" as it should have been, had I not been a spoiled brat, but rather
"Whaaaaa? Well what the fuck am I gonna do all day!?!!"

Because, why hold it in, right?

And reading through this post I realize that if I find myself single sometime in the near future I will not be able to say I didn't see it coming.

Probably lacking vitamin D now that I think of it...

For the past two years I have somehow managed to avoid summer.
Instead, what I have done is moving back and forth, Sweden - Australia as to live out a sort of self inflicted "Groundhog day" state of perpetual winter.

I guess this would lead you to think "Wow, I guess those Swedes really do like their winter".
Not so.
Much to the confusion of people I meet here in Australia, when asked if I ski I truthfully respond no.
The conversation that inevitably follows always goes something like this:

"Oh, so you're a snowboarder? Yeah I guess more people snowboard now."
"No, not really. In fact I've never been on a snowboard. Or a pair of skis for that matter. It just never appealed to me."
"(Puzzled pause)... really?"
"No, I'm making all this up because I take joy out of making pointless jokes about not skiing."

(That last part is silent.)

Anyway, this is beside the point. What I was getting at is that no, I don't particularly enjoy cold weather or things associated with cold weather, so why am I doing this to myself? Is it possible that somewhere deep down in the murky depths of my subconscious I loathe myself and this is the subtle yet life draining punishment I chose? If so... wow. Pretty sneaky of you, me.
It's like having an evil twin sister trying to sabotage my life for her own gain. Only more schizophrenic.

Ah well, we all have our flaws.

Conundrum

Today is a very chilly, very windy day. I know this because I briefly ventured outside to get half a rock melon and a glossy mag while at the same time forgetting to buy milk for my coffee which is what I originally left the house for. The situation resulting from this temporary loss of memory is one I find myself in all too often and the question I now have to ask myself is this: Do I want milk for my coffee more than I don't want to go outside?

I really want coffee.
I really don't want to go outside.

Ok.
That didn't really solve anything.
I think I have soy milk. Except I don't really like soy milk in my coffee unless it's coffee from a coffee place (which makes me question purpose of the soy milk in my fridge. I can't even remember buying soy milk. Is it like a back-up milk? In case I run out of regular milk? That makes no sense, why wouldn't I just buy another regular one? This is so frustrating).

...

Whatever. I'm just gonna put some kahlua in my coffee and be done with it. Who needs dairy anyway...
I remember one of my younger brothers telling me that Scandinavian people are the only people in the world who's stomachs can properly process dairy.
So you know, take that French people! You might make delicious cheeses, but you've got nothing on me when it comes to digesting them.

What dreams are made of

I'm watching Dr Phil. Waiting for Oprah to come on. Finishing off my morning pot of espresso and feeling a bit twitchy from all the caffeine. It might have something to do with the fact that I also had a slice of suagary chocolate cake for breakfast.
Oh mother, if only you could see me now...

I had a very strange dream last night, quite obviously influenced by things I've watched on tv lately:

I started out being me, and for some unknown reason that seemed very logical, I had been named the sole caretaker for Michael Jackson's two eldest children. Being their guardian my main task was to protect them from something very harmful and non descript. The way I went about this protecting business was by playing a touch screen video game, oddly enough placed in a big "witch style" kettle. The objective of the game was to string together at least three of the same coloured balls and thus make them disappear. I'm not quite sure just in what way this provided safety for Michael Jackson's children, but it did.

Then, all of a sudden I was Harry Potter, or at least some times I was. I kept sort of morphing back and forth like it was going out of style, but no one around me seemed to think anything of it. I was at a beach, a beach that in reality is located in the Swedish village where I grew up. Located on a cliff on said beach I saw a kiosk, and in it was my older brother. Sitting in front of a mac computer (one of those chunky candy coloured ones from the early 2000's) he was handing out small pieces of paper with scrambled letters on them to random people and told me they were passwords to use the internet. This made me panic and I kept thinking, "But they're gonna come back tomorrow! Everyone is gonna know the password! They're gonna use up all our 5 giga bytes in no time, and then our internet connection is gonna be really slow for the rest of the month!"
And then I woke up, all sweat and panic.

My friend Sarah is leaving for a three month trip to Europe on Saturday, and I'm kind of sad about this. Sarah and I met when we were both working at a FCUK store last year, and she has become a very good friend. I will miss her very much while she's gone. Also I'm jealous of anyone who gets to be in any part of the world where it's summer while I am currently stuck in Melbourne, home of windy, rainy stupid winter in July.
But you know, I'm not bitter. Not at all.

Time spent outside today: 45 seconds

That's alright isn't it? I wonder if there is some sort of guideline for when you can officially call yourself a recluse? And are you a recluse by choice or is it like a sort of disease inflicted upon you? What's the difference between a recluse and a hermit? Severity? Hermit sounds way classier, I must admit, but I think the fact that I'm not living alone sort of disqualifies me, no? Need to research this...

Sitting on the couch at the moment, drinking some red wine and eating a bag of Haigh's dark chocolate covered almonds that fiancé forgot in my bag. I hope he keeps forgetting, there won't be many left by the time he gets home.

Dinner dilemma was put to rest last night after fiancé called and was told I still had no idea. His proposal was that he'd call and order pizza from Pinocchio's and then pick it up on his way home. It almost brought a tear to my eye. Pinocchio's has beautiful pizza, my favourite is called "Genoa" and comes loaded with pesto, roasted peppers, goats cheese and (if you want) proscuitto. Lovely. Today however I'm not counting on such luck. Due to my not-leaving-the-house-other-than-to-get-mail stint I haven't really picked up any groceries, so it looks like today is pasta-bake day. Yes. Very exciting. Watch this space...

Dinnah time!

Well, not quite yet, but there is a smell of burnt cheese slowly taking over the apartment and that made me realize that the time for cooking is now.

I watch "Master chef" a lot, and it always amazes me how they manage to come up with stuff to cook from some random ingredient on the spot. Not to mention "Iron chef"! Ohmigod, I had almost forgotten about the genious that is Iron chef until I stumbled across it while channel surfing aimlessly a dark night some time last year. Need I mention it's the Japanese version and not the American one I'm referring to? I hope not. While living in Canada I used to watch it all the time on the food network (oh, how I miss thee), and the inventiveness and sheer skill of the iron chefs never seized to amaze me, as well as the randomness of the main ingredient. How to make a delicious tasting 6 course meal, every one of those meals containing abalone I might never understand, but I guess that is sort of the point.

So, what to make for dinner?

Commitment

I'm very impressed with people updating their blogs religiously while also working full time jobs, taking care of their children, travelling the globe or whatever it is other people do. I'm unemployed and I still manage to be "too busy" to post a single update in four days.

Ok, I just lied to you.

I'm probably the least busy person (not counting comatose people) on this planet right now. As I am writing this I have just finished my second cup of coffee for today, washed my breakfast dishes and realized that today's "The view" is in fact a re-run that I have watched before. Normally this just means I change the channel and watch Oprah instead, but today's Oprah means watching musically "gifted" children singing their little hearts out to a live audience that probably curses under their breath as they realize that today is not the day Oprah will give everyone in the audience a new house. It's too painful.

Yesterday, my dear dear fiancé dragged me out to go running. I'm not fit in any way shape or form. I'm not fat, but that's more of a welcome surprise than the result of regular excersice. Running to me seems pointless unless to catch a tram, a hundred dollar bill blowing in the wind or escaping something that will more likely than not physically harm you if you're slower than it. Judging from my performance yesterday, I stand no chance against most predators, or tram carts on the move for that matter.

Thursday...

...means "Thor's day" and comes from Norse mythology. All the names of all the days of the week carry names from Norse mythology, in English as well as Swedish. I like that for some reason. I guess for the same reason I like it when I find Swedish words incorporated into the English language, such as "smorgasbord" and "ombudsman". It fills me with excitement when I hear these words used by native English speakers and I always make a point of explaining that these words are in fact Swedish, as am I. I explain it feeling a sense of pride and smugness, as if this proves or even means something. Which of course it doesn't. Or at least not to the people I explain it to. They just tend to nod distractedly at this linguistic fact thrown at them, not really knowing what else to do with it.

I had lunch with my fiance's cousins wife Katy yesterday. I do consider her a friend, but the family tie seems to make it impossible for me to introduce her as that, I guess because she was my fiance's cousins wife before she was my friend? That would be how it works, wouldn't it? Hmm.. Anyway, it was a lovely lunch, and I very much enjoy listening to Katy's British accent. Somehow it makes everything sound more witty and intelligent, even if it is just ordering broccoli soup with red onion marmalade. I am always and forever being told I have an American accent, which I think makes for the opposite. I don't mind that though, it lowers people's expectations.

I continued my day by going home to change shoes. The idea was that I would then walk to the art shop 20 minutes away and buy some more red paint, maybe stop by Borders and read some mags, have a coffee and then walk back home. I should have known this would not happen as unless I have an appointment somewhere or someone to go see, I find it incredibly difficult to leave my apartment. So instead of getting the paint I need, I stayed at home watching double episodes of both "Bewitched" and "I dream of Jeannie". Well done!
As for now, I think I'm gonna go check the mail. Oh, the excitement!