Enter 2017, stage left

Slightly over a month since my last derailing into this blog, and things have taken not one but a few more turns... some good, some not so good... as always.

In exactly one year, I have gone from having 4 grandparents to only 1. January 1, Mid May, January 1... It can be said loss can be easily coped with when you get older, but some people leave a mark on you so deep a drill couldn't get to it.

I've been meaning to write, as I began doing again this Summer. It seems I even have a ritual, writing 70km from home, always at night and with something to drink, and smoke. Yup, that thing I should start quitting... I know...
As I was saying, I had been meaning to write just as I had already finished my previous post... but something kept holding me back, and it wasn't procrastination... it was as if I wasn't supposed to, as if I had to give myself time settle my thought down and let whatever I was feeling drain out before leaving it here.

But ah, cruel fates that have a tendency to complicate things, this time you've done a good job I must say...

In December I actually started procrastinating, sort of like began to live again the life of a 20-year-old, except that I was working longer hours than I did back then. But I was going out every single day of the week, even if it meant a few drinks on the street instead of in a bar or pub or club or whatever you picture in your minds. And for the first time in like... ages, I felt happier, not because I got shit faced pretty often, which I did, of course; but because I was sort of letting go of my self-imposed leash of proper behavior.
Then came Christmas, or Yuletide, or Saturnalia, or whatever you like to call it.
And then along came a strange situation which has made me rethink some of my preferences and mid term goals, soort of adapt them. I know there is quite a chance of getting my head chopped off even... but I think the end goal, if the other players are willing, is well worth taking the risk. Just need to mention that nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition (may those who know understand).

But my friends, that was Sunday when I wrote. And today I've felt a twist inside, and have seen rage in myself like I had not seen in quite a while. I'm sick and tired of neutrality and pretended normality, I creave blood, I no longer wish for justice, for justice is not coming. And there are people saying they just want to be OK... well OK comes with a price, and if the penance is for being true, then the liars are to perish and fall, and we need to rejoice because of their demise.

I am angry, and saddened, and I have hope in me, and yet I refuse to believe it fully for the messages seem to vary. I want blood, that of others, spilt.


"Let me die without fear!
As I have lived without it
So shut your mouth and spare my ears
I'm fed up with all your bullshit"

U-do or maybe not

Today I feel like writing again, maybe it's the weather that's helping: it's cold and rainy, and meesa like that.

I've had a flashback that took me back to 2005, to Udo. I hadn't thought of him in a while, 11 years... poor guy, he was nice, he was real... I've had a few flashing memories treading on that path and I've remembered that beautiful red-haired girl, can't recall her name though it was probably sometihing like Sabine (sounds right I think). For a while I have been thinking (whenever I got to thinking about this) that I fucked up pretty good chances of having long lasting friends on the other end of this beautiful yet everdying continent. But more recently I've come to realize that maybe I didn't strive to keep them close because I didn't feel they were right for me. Maybe they were just supposed to be the railing you cling on to when you lose your step... They are gone, but they'll never be really gone for me, even now they are a part of me, of myself back then.

Okay, brief news: this weekend I felt really adult, but in a really good and cool sense, neither paternalistic nor patrozing. I was asked, I replied, I said I wouldn't mind, I really didn't mind, and I felt good for realizing that I've grown. And I was happy.

And today, browsing through facebook, utterly physically destroyed, I came upon a video of a friend of mine singing Hurt by Johnny Cash, and I liked it. And I remembered the funny way in which I met her, and how for a while I had phantasized about what kissing her would be like, what hearing her play for me would be like... And then suddenly I felt the urge to play the guitar and sing. It came over me like a claw in the dark, I had to play and sing, it was just what I needed to lift my spirits up. Picked up the guitar, looked for the chords and the lyrics and began playing. and my spirits rose, first singing coarsly, then singing mildly, but firm. My fingers remembered the old metal skin embalming the strings, that raw and sharp pressure upon the tips, the way the hand gripped tightly yet seemd to flow in a succession of movements that I didn't even require me to need to look at the frets to check whether I was playing right. And I was happy.

Today I remembered something some wise person once told me: happiness is not a state one can achieve. Happiness is a succession of tiny little events that take place in your life that give you a stroke of sudden bliss without any need for justification.

And then I was happy again. 

A trip down memory lane

Slightly over a month since my last entry. I think I'm even getting good at this.

The thing is that these last few days have been weird, but not in a good sense but rather in a werid sense, that is, these las few days have been weird weird.

Now you're gonna wonder (or not... well then, fuck off) what was it it all about right?

Well, news is a dark blow was dealt on my kin, but we've endured, although now _I feel time pressing...

After a few talks I've decided to give in to mumbo jumbo, mostly for research purposes... and according to the signs, I was doomed from day one in many cases...

Anyhow, I've been moody lately... I've been pondering on my past, not so recent past, like 10 years back in the past and shit... even farther... I can't really make sense of it all, but I know it in my heart that this is not gratuitous: whichever forces may be ruling this universe (yeah, yeah, I'm a pagan polytheist, get over it) they are pointing me towards my past in order to see something I missed 10 years back. But what the hell is it??

This last month I have experienced some feelings, at some point even troubling ones, that I had not felt in a very, very long time. I know it was sort of a dellusion, but just like when an ex-junkie gets his fix and everything comes rushing in, flooding his mind, the same happened to me. To no avail I must say... But the fix was good enough to get me going again.

I know people who would be balancing the facts and words I've spoken out and they'd say I've missed not one but 100 chances to earn a victory, but it wasn't that sort of victory I prayed for.

And that was the beginning of it all: so many memories from the time when I was studying German... a back alley, a red-lit bar with soothing music, cold hands, German words... a strawl, a song... silence... why do you haunt me now? Be gone, older self, you know I'm better... But what is dead may never die...

Just as I decided to close a rather short chapter in my life (truly short) I realize a new one openend before me, almost in the same manner I envisioned I would like. I didn't ask the gods for a thing, but they've provided chances again, maybe because I dared risk everything, after a fashion. I know what I see, what I hear, what I read.

This battle I may lose, but I fear defeat not, for out of defeat, out of death I spawned like a Phoenix a hundred times, and I can only embrace new chance... and make sure that if I fall, I shake the very ground with my pain, should there be any in store in me.

I have felt the sting, and that clear venomous beverage I wish to drink till it burns me through or untill the scorpion lies motionless, its sting void of poison.

Gods, grant me chances.
 

"Når eg på Helvegen går

og dei spora eg trår er kalda, så kalda"

Vaepna Lengsel

Indeed, the title of a song by Black Metal band Vreid, spawn of Windir, the longing for weapons (or of weapons... anyway don't take this into account, I don't know Norwegian, I just try to figure it out by myself).

Why so? Beside the fact that I'm getting in darker and moodier music as time goes by... Honestly, I think it's because I sort of counted several strikes this weekend, on several levels. But it's not things that people have done or said to me, it's me counting strikes on life and the way it handles things.

You may expect at a certain age things to roll one way or another, not completely disfavorable if you live in a Western country and belong to the on-the-way-to-extinction middle-class. However, at a certain point in time you say "fuck it, let's bet everything"... and then dear oh life has some thick, dry and splintered wooden dildo to shove thrice in a row, fast enough to leave you wondering what the hell just happened to your beautiful star.
And I insist, it does not even imply that it's bad in itself what happens... just... I don't know... weird, unfair,... that altogether.

Then you get to the next point, you start wondering "did I do right?" "Was this the lever I should not have pulled?" And everything you have ever said, done thought of doing but later dismissed, think you ought to be doing,... about a certain thing/aspect suddenly pops into your mind.
Then you stop (maybe even give a loud cry to your own brain so it takes it easy on you).

Then there is silence... and you try to shake that off... but it sticks like moss on a rock...

I'm so tired of all which I am and was expected to become (not be); of all the shit that's often raining on my roof senslessly, tired of falsehood and doubleplay, tired of having to play the fucking games of lower minds in order to handle their own shitty existences.

This weekend brought the chance to call several strikes on life:
Friday, strike one. It was a bold move, destined to fail, but ended with a second plan. Friday night, double strike after three Newcastle Browns and a conversation with and Englishman on the toilet (in the WC room, you nasty bastards). But those two were hard to handle at first, I though I had gotten the worst part and needed a shot of Jägermeister.
Then I realized it wasn't that much, I didn't even really care for any of them. But still it got the upper hand...
Saturday morning, strike four. And definitely on unexpected grounds. Good things I've got one hell of a team I'd go to hell and back with.
Sunday night, strike five. This one for me was like "Really, dude, really?"

Good thing I've got one amazing brother who can help me sometimes keep my head cool  when I burst in flames cursing life. But as I told him: Fucking games. I hate these games.


I do miss Norway this Summer, the mild rain on the heather, mildly cloudy starry skies while we were drinking, and everything in silence, listenning only to Disturbed's Sound of Silence cover, while lying on the wet, muddy grass wearing Viking Age reenactment clothing. I felt so alive... I still do, but there was something else there, something pure and primal...

Californication, season 6... or not

It's so frustrating having a monologue inside of me when I'm all by myself having a smoke and then all of a sudden, when I get to writing, half of it is gone...

It's been more than 3 years since my last entry. That deserves some respect, right?
Today is finally the first day when I'm all really alone by myself: no cell phone ringing, no messages, no communication. It's a feeling I've been longing for since my last relationship went down the drain, in a good way though. I've been binge-watching Californication, some of the seasons I had missed a while ago. I know, I know, a lot of folks out there think that's some shitty show, but a man has his weaknesses. I must be honest, this show has really helped me out in some of my dark times when I was lost, not completely, when I thought something was missing or I was missing out on something: it's about a fucked up dude who's lost the love of his life due to his mistakes, so many mistakes, fucked his way out of a few situations and got deeper in shit as he was trying to get his life together.
But enough about Hank, why is this so fucking important for me?
I dunno, really. I just had a beautiful moment with myself, on a house terrace, having a smoke after a whole afternoon raining. It had been about two months since I last saw any rain. It's been cleansing. I've made some mistakes over the years, and maybe I was close to making newer ones without having the slightest hint, but although I felt distressed at first, with the rain the feelings subsided. Sort of like Hank and the drink, except he's doing it to cope with his shit-trail and sometimes ends well.

I had a call today, my with ex-better half. Weird at first, comfy later, awkward altogether: I even referred to her in the friendly, lovable manner I had done throughout our relationship. I don't know how it got to there, it just happened. And then I realized: maybe I'm not really over it all, five years you know...
It's weird, really. You think you know yourself and suddenly you get to the point in which you look at yourself and say "Who the hell am I? Who did I get here? Why did I get here". It would be nice the answer were 42, but then I'd still be wondering...

Aaaaanyway, back to the story. As I was half-way on my cigarette, I looked back ten years ago approx: I was about to travel for a whole year to Germany. I was feeling both excited at the idea and loathed by my own self and the way things were going (in retrospective, it wasn't that bad, I was just peeking out of my own personal pit of self pity... 20-year-old stuff...). As I got there, I thought I knew where I'd be in ten years (aka now). Not even a single thing right... guess I'm out of the prophet business for good...

But now, all alone by myself, it is both appeasing and yet utterly awkward: I had never really enjoyed being alone as I am today, and yet hundreds of images come rushing into my mind about what I should do, where I should get, whom should I aim at getting there with. Another puff, and as the smoke clears from my lungs all these thoughts just pass as if they never existed.
I do not know what the future holds in store for me, but feeling both alone and lonely since my 5-year relationship ended has got me feeling miserable and happy at the same time. And it got me thinking that I really do not need anybody to be myself and, if bad company tags along, they're in for a taste of hell, cause I'm no longer willing to take anyone's bullshit... except maybe from by best two soul bros and my blood bro.

To all those wandering souls who may happen to fall into this pit of despair, I thank thee wholeheartedly for the minutes I've taken from you with my words. Maybe I'll write again... I just don't know yet and certainly don't feel like pushing it.
Best of luck to you all.

Yours truly,


The man reborn

Existential crisis...

Existential crisis...

Yes it is... I think...

There is something I do hate about Facebook: seeing through it the life of others I personally know reactivates the subliminal message we were branded with about what we had to do with our lives and when we had to have that achieved...

I've realized how apart I've grown from some people... I have to point out that, although it's Monday, the day began quite shitty for me. I didn't get to sleep at the time I had to yeasterday. I could get my flubby body out of bed in time, woke up in a hurry... I'm experiencing Spring-lag (the sort of jetlag you experience with time change to Summe rtime). I'm positively altered, unfocused, over-stressed...

As I was asying, I don't know how I got to looking at a friends facebook site and saw his band. I know his played from other highscholl buddies for sometime... But then I saw: they've already published their first album last year! I didn't know anything about it, I can hardly say I know them still. I see their success (and I say success because I used to aim at that) and find myself sort of lost. They are playing what I said we should be playing back in the day when we played together, about 11 years ago... So frustrating...

But that does not stop there: the grant I was applying to was for a research and lecturer position abroad. So far everything's okay. The thing is that either they switched the topic (which I clearly remember had to do with faith and nothing to do with iconography) or I'm starting to lose my mind and I'm reading what I want to read... I'm positive they changed the subject. And  all my efforts getting documents ready seem so futile know... should I still hand in the papers?

My situation is not mine alone, in the sense that there are more people out there like me... but I know none. Maybe my problem is that I know very precisely what I aim at getting. And the worst is that the world we are heading toward is neither going to make it easer nor going to be of any improvement...
yeah, yeah, I know, I get discouraged quite easily... But I also stand up again quite fast. It's just that I often get tired of fighting thesame fight everyday, seeing no change beside that I'm ageing. I see all those I've known who I still have little contact with and see where they're getting at once I'm no longer involved in the projects and can't hardly stop myself from thinking: why is it that every time I leave a project it gets better than it was when I was working my ass of in it? Does this fucking mean I shall never have no solace and find no reward in my own work?

These things, these thought I pour out here but that in real life I keep to myself, are the things that are eating me raw from the inside, more often than not, and I need to rid myself off of some tension...

I have to say, though, this last month I've gotten the idea for perhaps two academic essays... finally!

Lightheadedness

Yes, that would sort of summarixe it...

I feel sort of lightheaded, but a different sort of lightheadedness than the one gotten from smoking weed... It just felt like someone suddenly snacth the floor of my feet and all I could see underneath was a magnificent yet terrifying void...

Lost happened to me... as well to anybody else... But it's sort of big. Even the need to speak about it, but to no one in particular, has got me writing again.

After my master's thesis I was congratulated and encouraged by the jury to keep on researching, to go beyond and get a PhD...

I've been dragging my feet, postponing my duties, although I use the time to both organize the ideas in my head (I hate paper brainstormings) and to create medieval clothing for reenactment... And yes, I'm still here in Spain...

But today I got an e-mail. I read it, clicked on the link... a vacancy at the University of Oslo to get a PhD within a specific research group, a well paid 3-year research fellowship... And the topic is similar to mine...

I've just shat my pants. From to 10.000 in just a few seconds. My compass is spinning senselessly and I'm in a sea of doubt... I'm to leave everything behind... Should I? Can I?... What if it's all for naught and I don't get the job... What if I fail? What if I just play everything away and then find out that I've ended up loosing more than I feel like I could bear?...

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is fear. And for the first time in my life I truly feel completely and utterly alone.