Monday, February 26, 2007

Blue in Green

We sat down next to each other in the sofa, they had their arms around each other and he pressed play. There were no lights on except candles and I held on tightly to my cup of tea, so as not to disappear. Blue in Green, Miles Davis. I could sense a room behind my eyelids, and in that room there was calm. Finally. It was raining outside of that room, I could smell it. I didn’t disappear into it though, I had my teacup and no one can feel lonely with their teacup, now can they.
I never experienced his music like that before.

Linn and I

We  grew a dinosaur! It came out of the egg when we put it in water. We put it among our collection on the TV.








This is a literature professor at the University of Oslo. We love him, so we made him an altar and sacrificed chocolate biscuits.


  

Then we ate cinnamon buns and watched Little Britain. Eh Eh Eehh!


Tuesday, February 20, 2007

“Then I took the dust from a long sleepless night”

Yesterday I lay awake for some time, listening to the silence, and the sounds behind the silence. I listened to the sound of the cat’s breath, of the apartment creaking. I wonder if my apartment block ever goes to sleep and what it dreams of.

It’s snowing again and the daylight is coming back, more and more with every day. I can no longer watch the sun tickle the horizon when I get up. Still I walk to the underground thinking of the same things, like how life is the strangest thing I will ever come across, and how the French superlative really is quite easy.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Drinking tea and thinking (roughly the same thing)

I like when the tea is warm and I can observe the vapour disappear at some fixed point above the cup. I like sitting at the table with Linn drinking my hot hot tea, sometimes in complete silence, sometimes laughing wildly. I like that. I like eating nothing but fruit for breakfast. I like baking buns and eating them with chocolate and vanilla custard (for the Shrovetide). I like putting up my new book shelf and filling it with all the books that’s been been lying about, cluttering up my room (at my desk, in my windowsill, under the chair, beside the old shelf). It looks pretty and neat.
I like that I sometimes smile for no reason.



Saturday, February 17, 2007

Writing

I search for an unattainable smoothness in my words and paragraphs, but I can never find perfection. And anyway, why is the internet so distracting? O Google, stop being so terribly interesting, I beg you.

This however, might be perfection.



You can even buy Doctor Who action figures! Ah, tacky science fiction, in my heart.

Yesterday we made cinnamon buns and drank hot chocolate that seemed more like chocolate porridge. It was great.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Hair

I fell asleep yesterday with the cat’s heart to my ear, it was beating, beating. When I woke again today I found out he had not only stolen my pillow, but also my head. This was sort of interesting, so I lay quite still for a while and read Moominpappa at Sea. (Edit: Oh! I meant The Exploits of Moominpappa! English translations… grumble)

I cut my hair one night while I should have been asleep. I’m happy.
 


Monday, February 12, 2007

Cold and pancaky morning

Brrr. It’s so cold! I sleep with woollen socks, a woollen blanket and the cat on top of my duvet to keep warm. I wish we could turn the heating up, but we already got one bill I didn’t like, I don’t want another. I had pancakes for breakfast today though. I had forgotten how easy they are to make. Yum.

I almost finished the text for another picture book. I’m not sure if the narrative style works as I planned, I might have to do it all over. I do wish I had the time to make the pictures as well, but we’re only supposed to deliver the text. Oh well. And the next chapters of the novel are due in three weeks. I know I should get on with learning French verbs and the rules for adjectives, but this is just too much fun. I wish I only had one school.

Am listening to Bill Evans right now.

‘Undercurrent’ by Jim Hall and Bill Evans. An album of water, choppy and brushed by the wind, at other times silent and slow under the trees. On other songs, chords glinting on inland seas.
D. Mitchell.  

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Snow vs rain and something about cats

I woke up with no pillow this morning. I looked around, and it turned out it had become a magnificent and royal throne for the cat during the night. I poked him with a finger and he opened one eye to look at me. I let his highness sleep and got up to look at the snow.

All this snow makes me happy. This is how winter should be like all the time, not this rainy thing it has become lately.  

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

January came with snow, February with my photos of it




This is Caroline, looking for vegetables to put in the stew. It’s possible to see Simon’s jacket behind her.







This was a really, really nice day.
I will make them a lovely dinner some other time. I've been thinking about trout, since my mother gave me one to have in the freezer. 

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Sleeping cats

It’s impossible to wake up early when there’s a cat lying at the top of your face, washing its feet, making all those cosy sounds only cats can make. All you can do is close your eyes again and sleep while dreaming of hundreds of cats doing nothing, just sleeping really, sleeping, sleeping.