Things you probably don’t know about me. Part 9 of 16.

I learned to read pretty early. The problem was that I didn’t really care about reading more than subtitles or the back of a VHS cassette so progress was slow. Really painfully slow.

In school we had this short novellas. I think you was supposed to read them all, and then move on to the more advanced. Or it could have been a fixed number, like five or eight or ten. Anyways, that isn’t important. The thing is this: I was among the last to be able to read the advanced ones. I was slow, didn’t really care for the questionaires in the end of each book we were supposed to answer to prove that we had read it, and I wasn’t good at writing either. It was some sort of rebellion, I resented the other kids for being better.

A few years later, when I was about ten, I think I read better than most though. It might have something to do with the fact that I got my allergies around that time. And now, I doubt many of them even remembers how to open a book unless it comes with an instructional cd.

Things you probably don’t know about me. Part 10 of 16.

I know, I know. Another body part post. Not the thing that makes you scream “yay” and slobber like a gossip hungry vulture. Except! This one contains violence! Blood! Pain! Murder! Okay, not murder.

I’m a bit ashamed about this, because it is rather stupid and I should know better. But the thing is, I hit my knee into things on an almost daily basis. I’ve managed to avoid it today though, so far anyway. All types of furniture that are heavy, sturdy and consists of wood or metal throws themselves into my path. I think they have a bet on which one will be the one to break something.

I doubt my knee looks like this anymore. Truth to be told, it’s not just the knee. The hands and elbows have started to act evil too. Perhaps I should try to burn the Necronomicon before they get possessed too much.

Things you probably don’t know about me. Part 11 of 16.

Soon done with these and that feels both good and bad.

I don’t believe in God. At all. I even got thrown out from Sunday school. But it’s not that simple, while I do agree with some of the things Richard Dawkins et all says, I feel a bit disgusted doing it. Most often they come across just as fanatically insane as the people they oppose, if not more. Sometimes a whole damn lot more. Which makes it hard to even say “I think they have a point” because the way they say it makes me throw up a bit in my mouth

The truth is at times I see this non-religiousness as a limitation. I can’t believe, I can’t have faith like that which means that my world is more boring and lacks some imagination. At least, that’s how I see it sometimes. This makes me interested, I even considered reading theology at the University. I want to know how it it works, what the theories are and how it binds people together like it does, it fascinates me to no end. There are even times when I really want to believe.

And when the atheist fanatics argue that people who have spiritual beliefs are stupid and such, I just want to beat them up because I get really angry. Fuck, some of the smartest people I know are believers. I have huge issues with this binary mentality about these things, it’s not that simple. You’re not a moron or a bad person because the beliefs are different.

Things you probably don’t know about me. Part 12 of 16.

My movie interest was sparked by my parents. We had one of those Betamax — wonderful cassettes, I miss them — real early and I could handle the video player when I was three. Most of it was cartoons but when we got a VHS we got more movies. The thing is this, my parents always had the opinion that I could watch what I wanted as long as I didn’t whine. If I thought I could handle it, fine, otherwise leave the room.

I learned to read to the folder with movies available to rent at the local gas station, I saw Star Wars the first time when I was five. Between the re-watches I saw almost anything I could get my hands on.

I still love movies, but it’s been surpassed with passions for books and music. I’ve had bookselves in front of windows due to lack of a good free wall and music… Well, you know about music. If it’s good, it sets the soul on fire and tears down walls of perception. Together with books, it’s a constant revision and revolution, improvising a wall with holes and gaps and spikes and towers and aqueducts, corroding graphitti and blown off pofrtions letting almsot anything good enough through.

Because I love reading and listening to new things. The new affects me, it makes me see and feel things differently, it’s exciting. Sure, I listen and reread things which after some time gives new angles due to not being the same person anymore. But really, always go back to music you loved for ages? That’s like being suffucated by a security blanket. Perhaps I’m just restless. But art isn’t supposed to be safe, and I love music too much to not make an effort to find the good.

Oh, and I’m really elitistic about literature…

(This all made sense in my head, but it might look a bit like I’m just rampling.)

Things you probably don’t know about me. Part 13 of 16.

Can something be worse than bad? Well, if it’s about things not happening to you but rather artish things then yeah. Music, movies, photos, et all, they can all be worse than bad. They can be mediocre. If it’s bad, at least it makes you feel something. You can’t shrug it off, you notice details that might throw you off course and think differently. Mediocre does nothing. It just dulls the mind.

Hence, I’d rather watch a bad movie than a bland one. The middle road is useless.

Things you probably don’t know about me. Part 15 of 16.

A small list of things I’m afraid of.

1. Water
2. Clowns, mimes and all their unholy offspring
3. Horses
4. Height
5. Death
6. Getting sharp pieces of glass while drinking from a bottle
7. Seeing my own blood
8. Most dogs I don’t know
9. Being abandoned
10. Wasps
11. The scarf getting caught in a door
12. Going deaf
13. Getting holes in the socks
14. The house burning down
15. Breaking my hands.

Since Dollhouse last night, and in truth before that due to av Cronenberg overdose, I’ve been thinking about self-identification. Rather silly, but as always there are things in the past that still defines important parts. The eleven year-old with a typewriter and a deadly Charles Bronson wish to make a fanzine.

The thing is this though, I mostly define myself with my failures. Don’t get me wrong, some of them are spectacular and I learned a lot from them, far more than an odd success. To use them as a signifier though, that might be wrong. Hard habit to break, no real clue how to even start but it should be possible. Even if it all comes down to luck and not useless skills, which is the wrong way. I got lots of useless skills.

This is the plan*. Occasionally, I do music. Pretty wide definition of music, that’s true, but it is what it is. The origin is the new phone in your tumblr-post-function — that’s way way too expensive for me — and an IM conversation about this with Fredrik.

This is it: draft down some lyrics in a local or non-local coffee shop, take out the four-stringed six-stringer from the car trunk and then sit somewhere in the open and record a demo on the cellphone. And then of course upload it when I get home.

This is really stupid. Far more stupid than the English drama class, I’m shy and closed off. Is this even possible to do? Without the inevitable betrayal from my nerves and brain? Don’t know, but it’s a stupid idea so I must try it.

*) Funny story, I’m listening to “Plan B” from TAL as I type this. Eh. Okay, more of a one-liner than a story. Stop nit-picking me!

When you close your eyes, it doesn’t get really pitch black dark. More of a darkish grey mush. Try it yourself, there is a huge difference in darkness when you just close the eyelids and then you close them hard.

Well, I had forgotten about that so when I earlier today closed the eyes hard I got a bit of a panic. “I broke something! In my eyes!” were my first thoughts, then I opened them and everything was as normal. Soon that even applied to my heart rate.

My editor notified me that I was late with a translation. Normally I would feel really bad about this, but as it is I’m just disturbed. I mean, couldn’t he have told me himself and not do it by way of my mother? This must be what it’s like in New York publishing, and perhaps we’re Jewish after all.

It’s kind of late, but not as late as usual. I sit here, really bored, and drink a cup of hot cocoa.

In some ways, today has been fucked up. Not that anything particular happened but rather all the stress from yesterday — I know, I say I don’t do stress but apparently I do albeit under very specific circumstances — was over. So the head was… Odd is probably the right word. Odd and bored. No sense of time and the thoughs just shut down occasionally.

This state of mental unrest almost made me go out to fetch the mail in underpants earlier. Not a good idea, I could have scarred the minds of numerous young people. (Four? Perhaps five? Most kids in the school across the street don’t play on that side anymore.) Thankfully I realized what I was about to do when I had my right hand on the door handle and said “Uihuhuiuhi! Stop!”

Anyways, the cocoa is good. Bitter and sweet. How’s your night?

1. Lactose free milk, one big cup’s worth.
2. Milk heated on stove,

• with a few spoons of “Oboy” milk chocolate-powder (free of milk products),
• and one tablespoon of cocoa,
• and one and a half tablespoon of vanilla sugar,
• stir like crazy to simulate steamed milk and stop it from burning in the bottom of the pot.

3. Lactose free whipped cream, one tablespoon on top in the cup.