Uncommon... reflecting

I've spent the last 30 minutes in front of my screen wondering what it is I feel the need to belch upon this world today... The only conclusion I've reached is that, instead of doing automatic writing as I always do, I'll give everything a thought before writing it down and the I'll be re-reading it. I know this is not like me, but hey, I don't think it'll hurt this once. Still, don't get any ideas of me writing regularly here, that ain't happening any time soon.

I was listening to a YouTube selection of Synthwave and RetroElectro music which clearly had a distinct 80-esque ring to it. As I was listening, I went to Wikipedia (haters com at me if you dare!) and looked synthwave up. I was surprised to see, beyond the description of how the style appeared and a bit of history, a list of bands the first one cited being Depeche Mode. Now, I've never had any interested in them or their work, but as I linked concepts in my mind, I recalled the first time I had ever heard about Depeche Mode: it was in a Spanish pop FanMag called SuperPop (I think it still exists), I swear I was unable to know whether that was an English or French name, and had absolutely no idea how to pronounce it. But the idea I got from them was that they were just another one of these commercial successes happening in pop music and nothing beyond that. How could I have known they be this long lasting?
Back to the thing... I suddenly felt a... let's just say curiosity about how they do indeed sound: if I like modern synthwave that sounds like 80's synthwave, maybe I could end up liking that as well. It's been surprising, and what is even more amazing, a few of the tunes off thir first album I had already heard sometime somewhere, maybe ask a kid even...

The sun is no longer shining with it's scorching might but is slowly letting the night take over. And this eases my thinking.

It was a good night, I was reacquainted with people I had seen, in some cases, in ten years. And although we've changed, we were still able to recognize each other and to know exactly when and where we had met. It was a series of happy, and fortunate incidents, that lead to enjoying 6 year-old spicy German mead, to conversations with an ex's ex who is a far nicer guy than I ever though or even wanted to accept, late night sword play in the street, and of course a long list of anecdotes from the past...
Some of us are getting older, others like me not really, but still, when we meet, our inner kids come out and call for our help in not hiding them under lock and key. I had to experience the old-time "no, you can't come in dressed like that" and for once in my life I was happy about it, the guy was shit-scared about my looks, pretty normal I may add (cargo pants, sneakers, sleeveless metal band t-shirt and of course upper arm tattoos, and my long hair flowing surrounding my beard)...

Today I still had bit of green in my hair, something stuck with me all through the night, from park I was lucky enough to sit in for a while, under the greenish shade of a tree, just...being.
... and I smiled to myself...

All cards in

My beloved unfaithful followers, as I am your unfaithful writer, here I stand, once more before you naked in my own self, pouring out my emotional entrails.

"Jatta, jatta, jatta, give us some juice!" Maybe some of you might be thinking...

Well, 2017 is becoming an outstanding year. Hey, don't fret! It is!
I've spent some time already remembering days long gone, how I met my friends, how I suffered to evolved to the self-righteous meaningless being I am today.

Well, first off, I'm content. Content but not in the manner you are all thinking of as some sort of nerdy little prick content with a new deck of D&D cards hiding in his parents' basement.
I analyze, and overanalyze (some I know would agree), about how I've led my life. Mistakes? Many made, many more to go. For starters, it is the first time I'm writing from my own bedroom computer since 2009. Why, because I couldn't keep silent any more, because if I have to write, I'll do so on my own terms, when I need it, not when my conditions are "appropriate". You might even say I'm impulsive. And I like that thought. ;)

Aaaaanyway... I've spent a few months reviewing the evolution of my musical tastes, listening to my old high-school mix-cds (yeah, I might be old, but not old enough to keep on saying mixtapes. Up yours). And of course, as some of you might already know or be thinking, this triggered both my shallowest and deepest memories. I've gone back to places I thought I'd never see again. And these thoughts I was fortunate enough to have someone around me to share them with someone at a given point.
I like how I have gone from a guy with low self esteem more than 15 years ago, to a guy who knows what he likes and wants (at least every once in a while), a guy who is so clear toward himself that whatever the results of a certain action, he always accepts the outcome as his own responsibility, even if it is not that what he was hoping for...
You know me for my late night ramblings after a few cigarettes and some booze, but this is different, this time I have not been trying to temporarily escape my own blocks. I do miss the ritual though...

I've seen myself 15 years ago, I've seen my friends, I have felt once more the old teenage angst, the old teenage awe toward the world and the fear that went with it. And I am so grateful for my memory and how these chances have helped me evolve. My colleague once told that I am able to look at the past in a manner so clear she envies it sometimes. But yes, I do remember that day.
I'm not getting older, well, maybe physically, but not mentally,. I'm getting riper, I ponder, I analyze, I look, and I get to see beauty in places I had never expected before. I'm no longer that pessimist. I believe in my future, even if it don't shine bright. It is mine, it will be mine, and the best I can have in it is my determination, whatever may come.

Ramblings...

I've felt once more like the 20-year-old I used to be, I enjoy music once more as I did back then, I do the same stupid shit I did back then when listening to this same music, I even end up signing and dancing at work. I'm content, and I am happy. And then I find hope, but not spiritual, not in the gods nor the rituals, but through someone where my happiness can shine upon. I never asked for this gift, however long or short this may last, and my yearly highlight has already been met, found and it was sublime.

Some might argue I am suffering from Peter Pan's syndrome. Fuck you, or not. If I am, then this life is better than the one I had before.
It is amazing what you can achieve with a sincere smile and nice words to people. I might be the greatest asshole in the planet, but every night I manage to go to sleep knowing I did some good to someone to some extent. I'm happy, I'm content. Laughter I have brought, but not because I needed to see it but because I felt fortunate enough to be willing to share both my humor and my life energy in a given context in which I never required any reciprocity.

I could go on and on about this but my future me would kill me when reading this. The www does not need my happiness neither to thrive nor to exist. But some lost dark soul might be out there and maybe this endeavor of mine shall be complete by that person ending up here. after all, all what you are seeing is that part of me which I freely chose to gift you with.

Whatever may come, today I have had a smile upon my face, and everytime I look back, I see those intrigued and yet hungry eyes, looking at me with a sort of devotion and curiosity I was no longer able to conceive beyond my imagination in recent years.

One more thing will be said, and "then there was silence"

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