Saturday, March 31, 2007

I drew some cats, I ate some fruit salad

When I was cleaning the kitchen earlier I found a tiny green thing. I asked him if he thought we could be friends, but he just flew away.

I went home to my parents’ house while they went to my grandmother (the one who lives far away). I was meant to come with them, but then I got ill and figured I’d much rather have a whole house to myself (well almost). I need this space and this silence, I need this lack of presence around me. Not necessarily to do anything important, just to have it as my own. This is who I really am.

My throat hurts and I can’t talk. I tried to shout goodbye to my parents but it came out as some sort of squeak. All I can manage is whispers and some rather feeble coughing. I’m communicating with my grandmother (the one who lives in this house) through post-its, I play Bethoven and Neil Young on the piano, and I write.

Every now and then I have to stop what I’m doing and run outside to chase an ochre-coloured flock of hens away from my mother’s flowers. It’s charming, in a way. 

Friday, March 30, 2007

Scones


Look! I made scones shaped as fish and cats and the occasional octopus (though I only gave it four arms)

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

It is all very significant to me

I stayed up late last night and finished another chapter. I never thought I’d make it before the deadline and now I’ve got a couple of days left to work them over. I’m happy. As a treat I got up early today and went jogging in the woods. There is something immensely satisfying about running, running as fast as I can past fields where the frost glitter and flash like a frozen lake, running until every inch of me hurts and I’m about to throw up, almost stopping, almost, and then continue, continue, continue.

My fingers still numb, the creaking of magpies in the trees, the smell of newly cut wood. The green (so terribly green) moss sleeping on the ground. I jump in the puddles of ice. This is spring early in the morning.


Some polar bears:



Utdrag fra papirdabok 22. mars – 2007 kl. 23.18



Jeg har et arr på pekefingeren. De siste ukene har det gjort mer og mer vondt, jeg har latt tommelen gli over igjen og igjen, bare for å kjenne det ekstra godt. Spiser smerte som en hest. Mamma stakk hull på det med en sprøytespiss og i dag klemte jeg ut en hard, melkehvit ball. Var nærmest en symbolsk handling.

Fortalte det til Simon & Caroline, mens vi lagde hjemmelaget pasta. De mente jeg burde gått til lege tidligere, tenk om fingeren hadde falt av. Selvsagt overdrevet bekymring, men jeg begynte å tenke. Det ville blitt et interessant svar på spørsmålet: ”Så, hvordan var din dag?”

”Nei altså, jeg sto opp ganske tidlig, litt over halv sju, og leste fransk. Jeg spiste nesten ingenting, det føltes godt og rent, som en mer helhetlig tilværelse. Siden, mens jeg satt i sola på verandaen, falt fingeren min av. ”

Eller man kan gjøre det på en annen måte.

Du setter deg på en benk. Ved siden av deg sitter en mann med grått hår og et fett utflytende ansikt. Eller kanskje han har mørkt hår, langt, samlet i hestehale. Du setter deg med boka, prøver å la være å se på ham, slik du alltid gjør.
Du har akkurat lest et avsnitt, du leser Ghostwritten, eventuelt noveller av Roald Dahl. Uansett, du har nettopp lest et avnsitt, du strekker ut armen og klør deg i bakhodet. Mannen snur seg og spør om du har det bra.
”Ja,” svarer du og tror du er nødt til å smile.
”Jeg også,” sier mannen. ”Hva leser du?”
”Jan Prochazka,” svarer du (for det er det du leser).
”Jaha ja. Jeg er mer en krimtype, jeg,” sier han. ”Vil du forresten høre noe morsomt?”
”Ja,” svarer du, passer på sidetallet med tommelen og lukker boka, for du er høflig, det er du.
”I dag, mens jeg pusset tenner, falt fingeren min av.” Han smiler til deg, løfter øyebrynene.
Du er overrasket og ser på ham. Han viser deg venstrehånda der pekefingerknoken slutter i et jevnt hudstykke, glatt som den runde enden av en skje.
”Vet du,” sier du, for det er du som sier det, du tar av deg hanskene og sier, ”Vet du, det gjorde min også.”

Vi spiste pastaen med basilikum til, så på TV, jeg dro hjem.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Am reading the selected diaries of Franz Kafka. It makes the skin behind my ears prickle.




The scar on my index finger hurts. I slip my thumb over it again and again, just to feel it.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

At home

I made French onion soup. And the sun was knocking on the window. And I let the sun in. And there was the smell of onion on my fingers. Oh and the birds. They were playing. And we had papaya with lime for dessert. And grandmother told us about eating mangos on a balcony in Alexandria as a child. I had that onion smell on my red soft fingertips.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Some days (aren't yours at all)

Noen dager er litt som de posjerte eggene, de som så ut som silke og edderkoppspinn da vi kokte dem, de som gjorde magene våre like skjøre som støv. Noen dager er det vanskelig å strekke armer og fingre ut av munnen og ta kontakt. Noen dager har man ikke lyst.
Jeg har tusen post-it-lapper på veggen og i dag fikk jeg en stor regning. Og jeg kan absolutt ikke plystre.

Men hvis du ikke drømmer mer, hvorfor sover du? kunne man spurt seg for hundrevis av år siden. Jeg skal ikke spørre, jeg skal la det ligge, for det er uansett ikke så viktig mer, det er definert ut av betydningens sentrum.
I morgen drar jeg til Nesodden, jeg planlegger å lage fransk løksuppe. Løk har en vakker form. Og lukten av løk på fingertuppene gjør meg glad.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Yeah we're a cosy little threesome, you, your failure & me

I got Biscuits for Cerberus by the amazing Flipron in the mail yesterday. It makes me dance randomly around in my room. I don’t like it quite as much as their first CD, but that might change. I love “Youth Shall Never Beat Old Age In A Race”, “Waltz Of The Monster Dogs” and Bring "Me The Head Of John The Baptist".
You should order one too if you don’t have one already.

I’ve borrowed two documentaries about polar bears at the library, am going to watch one of them this weekend, I don’t really think I need to watch both. It’s research for my novel thing of course, I’m rewriting four of the chapters right now. I like rewriting, I notice things in my texts I didn’t notice before.

I built a tower with my dictionaries to count them. I have ten.
I love dictionaries. I love words.
Like infundibular, minikin, pelsabstinens, and fernweh.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

I dag

Akkurat i det jeg rundet hjørnet mot Helga Engs hus fra t-banen, og skogsduen sang ho hoo ho i treet over meg var varmen så mild mot huden at jeg satte tennene i underleppa av glede. Det danset solflekker over øyenvippene og jeg lot tungespissen gli ut i munnviken da fransklæreren spilte Claude Nougaro. Det var tidlig om morgenen.

Universitetet speilte seg blindt i varmen fire timer senere, vi praktiserte umotivert prøving av alpeluer og jeg kjøpte Kafkas dagbøker på salg.

Jeg møtte ei venninne fra videregående på det juridiske fakultet. Vi kjøpte en ciambella og satte oss på en benk i parken og leste. Etterpå kom Norsk Gallup og ga oss fire is mot at vi svarte på spørsmål angående smak, farge og konsistens. Det kan jeg godt lide. 

Monday, March 12, 2007

Chocolate Dalek

Some days are as near to perfect as they come and it has everything to do with the people you spend it with.
Like yesterday.
I made red lentil soup and Ida and I made a chocolate cake not quite resembling a Dalek, but that’s ok. We can try again. Anne, Ida and Benedicte are my favourite three persons, ever. I like how Anne has to lie down on the floor because she had too much soup, how Benedicte is slowly wooing the cat, and how Ida gets so excited she jumps up and down. I like how Anne and Ida recite TV-show quotes to each other and how Benedicte knows every Russian painter, poet and radical thinker there ever was.

We all had tea and watched Carnivàle. I like it so much, I want to watch it all the time. It sort of reminds me of American Gods by Neil Gaiman. And it reminds me of the way I read books as a child, although now I analyse all the time. Must be that year spent studying literature.

Look



(Notice Becket up there on our kitchen wall)
This was the second chocolate cake I made this weekend. I’ve still got half a Dalek in my refrigerator and that’s a weird thing to write. 

I’ve had five cups of tea today and am making another. One day I’ll die of lack of sleep and too much tanic acid. 

Spring

The snow is melting and I definitely hear birds now and then. People at the underground are talking about babies and redecorating their houses. I like it, it’s reassuring in its mundanity. The almost-absence of cold is snapping its way through me, there really is something animating about spring. During the winter I stay inside to keep warm, to look out of the window, inside my own head. That’s what winter is all about; hibernating. Something almost palpable is crawling back into me now, something real, and I quite like it.

Some days ago the cat threw up in my bed, close to my ear. Although this was, of course, not a very pleasant way to wake up, I discovered it was raining outside, just a little, and I discovered too that I had missed the sound and smell of rain in the dark.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Wasthing machine

It is with fascination I note how every piece of clothing have flocked together to sleep inside the duvet cover when I take it out of the washing machine. It’s like they’re afraid of being lonely or want to keep warm. Or maybe the duvet cover just ate them.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Crime and Punishment

“Do you like street singing?” Raskolnikov suddenly addressed one not too young passer-by, who had been standing with him near the barrel-organ and looked like an idler. The man stared at him wildly and with amazement. “I do,” Raskolnikov went on, looking as if he were not talking about street singing at all, “I like hearing songs to the barrel-organ on a cold, dark, and wet autumn evening – it must be a wet evening – when all the passers-by have pale green sickly faces; or, even better, when wet snow is falling, straight down, with no wind – you know? – and the gaslights are shining through it…”
“I don’t know, sir… Excuse me…” the gentleman muttered, frightened both by the question and by Raskolnikov’s strange look, and he crossed to the other side of the street.


Yesterdasy I finished reading Crime and Punishment. No more reading in bed late at night, no more disappearing in it at the underground and awakening at the University, not quite sure if I’m in Russia or Norway. It was beautiful and strange and I loved it.

Today I discovered the wonders of Lidl. It was trashy and grimy, but I loved it. They had cheap pasta and orange juice, and they had chocolate blancmange to 2, 50 kr. Two fifty! Nothing costs 2, 50 kr, except maybe those bubble gum things you bought when you were a kid. I'm not even sure if they exist anymore.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Picture books

I really enjoy writing picture books. It’s both easier and so much harder than I thought it would be. And there’s so much I can do with a story that I couldn’t have done in any other medium. After delivering the last one I’ve been thinking about writing more. It’s nice to have something small to write on when the novel thing is being difficult (like right now, I just can’t get those polar bears to fit nicely in with the rest). So today I wrote another, and though I haven't done much on the novel I feel content.

I was still drunk when I woke up on Sunday. It was a cold and shaky feeling, and I figured out how to do the picture book I wrote today. It’s as good a way to figure out children’s stories as any other.

I think I want to bake bread today, I haven’t done that for a long time. And I found a recipe for Masala Chai. With lots of milk, mmm.

But for now, back to the polar bears.

Friday, March 02, 2007

Photo


Look at this photo of Rudi Stephan. When I die, I want a photo like this to be the only remnant of my features. Right now there are about five hundred of me smiling awkwardly and closing my eyes at the wrong time.

"'Cause the world is round"

I met him for the first time in a few months. We went to a café and I dug my nails into my palms. It’s ok. We were a long shot from perfect, but he was true love. And to hell with that. With my hands in my pocket and feet walking through the half melted snow I feel so strangely alive and I go home and cry while making vegetable soup. I guess that’s ok too.

A girl from the writing school came over and we ate the rest of the cake I made for my brother’s birthday. I always use my great-grandmother’s chocolate cake recipe for birthdays.

Linn came home with an Oxford Paperback Thesaurus to me. I really do love dictionaries. So many words. So many words!