This is instead of this week’s GPOYW.

In the place I grew up, the school only had the first six years so it’s rather small. One of the two buildings held the kitchen, gym-class and a bath. All in all it was shaped like a T, but the bar was longer and held the classrooms. Okay, this is how it looked:

When I was about eleven there wasn’t really much to do at the breaks, so we used to go around the building with the classrooms and talk. One day, me and a friend was out walking when he saw some other kids play at the site marked X on the drawing. I had seen two assholes go there to earlier so when he suggested we’d go there I said “no, I don’t feel like it” and I explained why. He said “no, it will be ok.” I still protested and he walk overthere anyway. I contined around route A.

Next round I heard him shout for me to come over. I was sceptical to the whole thing but I went there along route B. And sure enough, the assholes were there too, grabbed my arms and punched me in the stomach. Again. You’d think they’d learnt some new tricks after a while because aft the first years of being beaten up, it had gotten a bit stale. Sure, it hurt and I cried, but really, this lack of new material was embarrassing to all of us.

Then they left and my friend didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with what he had done. That was the last time I spent some time with him without any of our shared friends. What a cowardly idiot he was.

This, in part, is why I have a problem with being a follower as well as being the person who drag people along. Also: issues with physical contact.

There’s a porcupine in my throat. A frightened one, and it has tried to escape. Raspy, so clogged up with debris that the words hardly come out. A squeak, and then the mind starts to do its thing and panic sets in. What if there will be blood? Perhaps some oily soup will help. Something spicy to kill off the beast and burn away the junk. Oh God, I hope there won’t be blood.

The night before last night, there was an incident. I sat up far too long and drew stuff and lost track of time (at step one it’s 5:45 AM). This is important, because this explains what happened. I was tired. Very tired.

1. I take the medicine, swallow it down with water. Then I think: that glass was half-full. Why?
2. Was it because I had a sandwich or did I take a pill before?
3. This can’t be good. Unless it was due to the sandwich. But I don’t know! Have I doubled up?
4. I look at the chart and see three missing pills. Didn’t I open the new chart yesterday? But then again, it might have been the day before. This does not help at all.
5. The instruction paper. I need that now! Oh no. It’s in Norwegian?! That doesn’t give the help I need, they thing “serious” is “fun” for fuck sake.
6. Found the Swedish, it was on the other side of the paper. Apparently I’m still within the safe amount even though it’s way beyond the regular dosage.
7. But I probably just took one. Yeah. But… What if not…? Is that the heart speeding up? Do I have trouble breathing? Should the head hit the wall like that? This anxiety isn’t going to let me sleep. The hand! It feels numb at the finger! No, that’s because of holding the pen. Nevermind.
8. My God, this fishing programme on the tv is so fucking boring I might…
9. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

This was the first time I had this problem. I don’t intend to do it again, my nerves are pretty tender as it is.

It was on the floor in the apartment but only because the sofa was taken. There were several people around and someone — I’ve forgotten who — asked “which one is the best spaceship?” This is a dangerous question. Even more so than the one about where the fine line between cyborg and robot is, most people get bored with the technicalities.

But this one, people began to say their own preferences and why, and the others tsk and say “that’s not a spaceship, that’s a moonshaped space station.” That is until Rikard threw himself into it. I’m not sure, but I think he defined it like this: a spaceship is mass-produced, if it’s a one-off it’s just a dumb boat. And then he listed the top five mass-produced spaceships of all time. I don’t remember the list and I’m sure we didn’t agree in every detail. It was a great list though, I remember that much.

These are the friends I miss the most.

Due to tiredness from public transport (Fredrik) and upcoming exams (Alma) , the first meeting of Sällskapet För Mumindalens Utvecklande was transposed until April. Then: cookies, tea and reading.

Instead we had a few beers and talked about curling and language. Apparently, the losing team in curling gets free beer from the winners. We need one more member for our free beer team.

Game night. Arkham Horror and Azathoth as the big bad. I of course had to play the librarian. Brains and the ability to read stuff without loss of sanity? Instant win in my book. (Also quite true to life, this is how librarians are.) When I closed the final portal, only me and one other was (sort of) unharmed. The other three players were much worse off: one in the Arkham Asylum and two were on the other side of the portals, now forever lost in time and space.

But I won. Obviously. I did the final act. Points? Pfffffffffffft!

I hate it when thoughts make me nervous and the stomach goes transformer into a black hole. Everything just spiral and with no guts… I have no guts. Damn.

There has been a restless drift inherent in most of my blogging since the beginning. (I still remember the greymatter interface fondly.) I started up Lost Pages in the summer of 2001 and shut it down around 2004 when I switched to textpattern and was far more interested in writing about comics. I cut down on the number of non-comicblogs I followed, and later, even more as I stopped writing in English all in all. When I did this, I also lost track of many other people whom I loved to read.

I have no real explanation why, I just know that it happened. I still feel a bit bad about it. I lost contact with people I liked. I still haven’t found everyone — the easiest one’s that still cling to the same domains was easy when I dug up the old link-lists. But the others? I feel as if I abandoned them. This guilt make me both try a bit too hard at interacting here I think, as well as keeping the distance. Yeah, those two shouldn’t work together at all but they do. I don’t want to miss everyone. Not again.

It’s a bit surprising that I now and then I’d stumble over a few of these wayward people here. The Internet is only as large and vast as one makes it — it can be a very small place. I like that. And even if you might not remember me, I do remember you. I hope. It would be a bit awkward otherwise, but I’m all for that as well.

My nose is colder than the rest of my body. Last night it was really cold, you know, as a wet dog nose? Like that. I was thinking about getting a hat for it, knitted and with cute flaps, but no, then I remembered. All nose-wear are the property of clowns, and I don’t want to be associated with that lot. And I really don’t want to stab my face when I see myself in a reflection — which would happen if I even for a second thought I was a clown. Horrible beasts.

There is an easy way of telling how the day is qualitywise. Three hours after I awoke, I took a two hour nap. Because let’s be honest here: naps are my first line of defence against the bad thing in the head. Sure, there might be several things really but I feel more relaxed by thinking of it as a demon with split personality — easier to duct tape to a chair.

Now though, after the nap, I feel a bit better. I’ve smiled even at times and not had that abandonment crap that was there when I woke up the first time. The weekends are the worst really. Sadly. I can’t explain it.

You know the song Glacier by Unbunny. A few lines in that song describes this day pretty good.

We’re moving like glaciers now,
when we move at all 

and a bit later

Well, i waited for the weekend
but the weekend didn’t want me

It’s slow. Undead slow, almost down to a halt. Half past eight and I’ve assumed the clock should be well into the night. There is this restlessness combined with apathy, this ambivalence is probably what they built the movie Scanners on. Not that it give unbelievable headaches but in that it’s not fucking normal. On the other hand, normal seems to imply that the brain is made of cotton.