Three gifs that at the moment say everything there is to say.

The birthday — two hours left! — was pretty much like any other day except that I miss all the people from the weekend. Also no cookies. Anyway. Thank you all for your congratulations and well-wishes.

Of course, the best gift was Ardbeg Corryvreckan that I got on Saturday, and the worst might have been that Tumblr choked the ask feature pretty damn hard in their crusade to fight spam with any easy means necessary.

(A friendly reminder: I’m most often available on MSN/AIM/Gtalk/mail whatever if the channels here are being difficult. What to use is hieroglyphed at the top. Not a brilliant conversationalist, but damnit, I try!)

Today’s the 16th. It’s my birthday and I keep the post-meetup depression at bay by drinking Loranga (it’s like Fanta but a lot better) in a plastic cup. It’s not really working. I miss all the people already.

But it’s my birthday and I have no idea what I’ll do. Spend the day that comes after sleep with Kurosawa documentaries? Listening to Psychocandy over and over again?

This weekend I’ve been a part of the team that’s now the Swedish champions in Guyball — legs hurt, now I know how Nicholas Cage felt in the Wicker Man Travesty —, Rikard made us watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic as a Saturday morning hangover cure, my brother made the best damn chilli-burgers ever, I got a bottle of Ardbeg Corryvreckan, and someone showed us a whisky called Cromwell’s Royal (!) in a bag-in-box (!!).

This is me.

Helena.

Fredrik, beer, and heads.

Kalle.

The Moon.

Erik, the dog. He has this amazing theory about movies: the perfect length of any movie is 96 minutes.

STS: Dive

We, and with we I mean some friends and I, were in this dive. Not a cosy one, it was cheap beer and loud music and… No, sorry, the room where they had a really bad cover band in was nice until the band started. When that happened we dislocated into a bigger and more anonymous room closer to the dance floor.

Yeah I know.

There was this Black Jack table too, a friend — let’s call him Butch — sat down there and started playing. It went sort of okay I think, memory is a bit fuzzy on that. Next to Butch, his sister — here Sundance — talked to a stranger as one occasionally do in bars. Suddenly Butch leaned over.

— Does he want to sleep with you? Cool!

He said this really loud as he’s prone to do. Sundance blushed harder than anyone I’ve ever seen and went quiet. She couldn’t really talk to the stranger anymore, severely cockblocked in awkwardness by her kid brother. The rest of us found it hilarious. (Sorry Sundance! These siblings are really among my favourite people.)

Looked at the portraits of series one — September 2010 to January 2011 — and it’s silly how the layered improvements are in time. It’s also quite obvious to me about which I felt more confident in drawing, there’s a sloppiness when I doubt myself.

Not that I dislike the old work, I don’t. There are always thing in them that I like.  It’s just that I feel a bit awkward about them now. Like I should have tried harder. It’s a silly thing to do. Silly and stupid and even more stupid.

Part of the brain is under reconstruction. This means everything is going on one track and it’s very confusing. Is this how it is for you lot? Mid-thought something else comes up and the old one crumbles a bit and the logic that was there suddenly isn’t? And it’s very hard to return to the old line of thought because parts are now missing. I have a pretty shaky relationship with logic to begin with  so this is a bit distressing really. Why does this happen?! (I blame the heat, it kills my brain every year.)

Even today, already, there’s been lots of wasted thoughts that seem like they could have been something but are now ruined and stained by shitty brain behaviour.

The same thing is probably guilty of the code-switch increase. I’ve started out writing asks and mails just to realise towards the end that this person don’t understand Swedish or why English to a Swedish-speaking person. It’s awkward.

There are many flaws in this person. Some real, some imagined. There are some notions in the head that are false, I’m trying to correct those. One is that I don’t really dislike people despite what I tell myself — it’s the only explanation that fits with the disappointment when a human turns out to be an idiot. Anyway.

A month or so ago I realised that I could make a comic. I’m not good at scripts but I can draw so a limited length comic? It’s not impossible. It’s also a nice twist since most Swedish comic creators can write but not draw. I’m still riding high on this realisation — not many pages finished and there are gaps in the thumbnailed storyboards but still. There’s a glow that’s for me most often linked to the manic states of fanzine creation, except that it’s not so much manic and this will probably be a good thing in question of quality.

What was the last thing to make you enthusiastic?

One of my ticks is that if I notice it’s raining, I need to ask someone — most often on MSN — “Do you hear that? RAIN!” I’m certain this can be a bit annoying considering that chances are that the other person don’t have rain at that given minute.

Other ticks:

• Whenever I write “hello” or “hi” or somesuch I also wave after I’ve pressed enter.
• Need to smell things. Food, opened boxes, books, medicine, memory cards, other people.
• When trying to solve a problem I mumble like a madman. At least when it’s a problem I care about. If it’s something I don’t care about, there will be no mumbling at all.
• When nervous I tend to dismantle pens over and over again. After a while there’s a big chance I’ve ruined them in one way or another.

Even if I wore a tie — which turned out to not be as horrible as I imagined — spending lots of time with several of the good people™ had it’s drawbacks. The paradox that is separation: want to hang out more right now but at the same time the social wiring in the head is burnt out and need quiet. These people are thankfully people I see sort of fairly regularly but still. Can’t imagine the problems if I met a bunch of you guys — I predict a major mental itchiness from that scenario. (I mean, Stephanie is the only one I’ve met and she’s already one of my favourite Internet people.)

GPOYW.

Maija posted one of these yesterday, I think I’ll just smash together both memes. Like banging bricks!

Turn on and offs.

+1

• Humour. I like to laugh and I say stupid things a lot so the ability to laugh at those is a good one.
• Smarts. I’d like to believe that I’m pretty fucking smart myself so smarter people make me go all “awwww.” Do not assume this is a “smart topics only” deal, nothing should be considered beneath one to talk about. Poop jokes can be pretty damn funny.
• A small list of superficial things: (a) moving gracefully. You know, the fluid way people who really know how to dance moves. I myself is a broken down muscle car: not much torque or speed and turns like a beached whale. (b) thick socks and knitted sweaters. Anyone looks good in those things, one of the reasons I love autumn so much. (c) The eyes and nose triangle in the face. Noses are underrated I think.
• A willingness to do stupid inane things just because it’s possible.
• Being able to cope in a silent environment for a few hours. I’m not the most social person so sitting in silence with other people is something I like.
• Geekiness in one form or another. I don’t have to share it, I just think it’s awesome.
• The smell of wet hair. Especially from rain.
• Creativity in any form; words, music, paint, body, nature, metal, one can be creative in almost anything. The only thing stopping you from creating stuff is you.
• Fiddle players! Love that instrument.
• (+10 for liking the Mekons.)

-1

• Standard things like bigotry and prejudice.
• Belittling other people’s interests just because it isn’t shared.
• Creationism. I’m fine with religious beliefs but when religion puts limits on science, that’s where I draw the line.
• Overtly concerned with “adulthood” and the clichéd milestones that comes with that. Not doing something you like because “it’s not what other adults do” is rather sad.
• “My way or opinion is the only one that matters” attitude/authority. Can’t stand that.
• Ayn Rand-fans. We’ve got fundamentally different opinions about humans and society and what constitutes well-written literature that probably will only result in angry voices, so just no.