We'd packed away our sorrows

The summer before I turned 19, I experienced a short and intense infatuation with K. K and I went to the same high school. We had no classes together, but he had for a time been together with one of my best friends, so we kinda knew each other. I'd be lying if I said we spent a lot of time together, but he was my prom date, and we were very attracted to each other. To cut to the chase, we eventually ended up in his bed, and there we listened to Tom Waits. We did other things there too, of course, but those are not what I want to talk about here. What is the issue is the music. Or more specifically, his song Martha. Because right then and there, in K's bed, I fell in love. With Tom Waits. The story of Martha made me cry then, and it makes me smile today.

Of course, things happened. K left town to do his military service only a couple of days later, and I was broken hearted for a bit, but within a couple of weeks I met the man I was to live with for the next near-six years. As I said, short and intense. I started studying at the university, years went by, I split up from the man I was living with, I began my postgraduate studies and got my first really own home. A part of those postgraduate studies turned out to be to go to Australia for some time. Exactly one week before leaving, my phone rang.

"Is this the Drakona who went to Highschool X? Do you hear who this is?" someone asked.

Of course I knew who it was. Of course I was she. This was seven years later.

Now, another six years later, K is one of my dearest friends. Not one of my most frequent friends, but one of the very, very dear ones. Almost as dear as Tom Waits. Just the other day I listened to Martha again for the first time in a very long time.

It always makes me think of K, for oh so many reasons.

The smell of tonight is the fragrance of tomorrow, and of today

As I was walking home last night, well after nightfall, the city smelled of summer night. That was the first of this year.

It’s the days accumulated flowers, it’s the laughter that still lingers, it’s the cobblestones eagerly awaiting tomorrow’s dew.

Priorities

I need to get my priorities straight.

Saturday, I went shopping for a very nice and useful reference manageing program, one which I could really use, and which I really like. Except for when it makes Word crash, but I have high hopes for the latest version. At my last work place, it was provided to us for free. Not so here. So, I figured I'd just buy it. I mean, it's a program for suffering academics for chrissakes, how expensive can it be? Just over SEK3000 (~€330) it turned out. Do I really need that program just that much?

I left the store, saying I'd have to consider it for a while. And I continued my shopping spree by entering a clothes store, where I checked out a suit, which I really need... I'll have to think about it a little, but will probably buy it sooner rather than later. And after that, I went off to pick up a pair of rather pricy earrings (I would have paid double if I'd had to, though), which I've coveted for weeks. The artist is really, really amazing.

Seriously? What do I probably really need more? A really nifty program to facilitate my job on a daily basis, or another pair of earrings?

Seriously?

Ms. H

Anders Ekesiöö and Anna Nygren recently defended their master's thesis at Stockholm University School of Business. They discuss consumer profiles, specifically what they call Mr. H, a person with "high demand on unique consumer products". A Mr. H buys things that he feels are unique and will make him stand out from the main stream. Preferably he should be the only one in the city or the country to possess the item he purchases.

I have a confession. I am Ms. H.

When I read an article about this in today's paper, I could hear echoes of myself saying things like "one of the reasons I'm so happy about this skirt, is that I know that when I bought it, there were maybe five of it, altogether, in Australia, which means, I'm probably the only one in Sweden who has one". I've stopped shopping at places like Designtorget, because the stuff isn't quite unique enough. I've become much more picky with what I choose to stand out. But I make sure I do. It needn't be expensive, but it needs to be one-of-a-kind.

Peter just remarked on some of the men that hit on me online that they seem to have found their lines in some kind of pick-up manual. Not terribly interresting, they don't stand out from the crowd. At all. That's not a good trick. At all. Not if you're hitting on a Ms. H. Inventiveness is an essential part of the attraction.

At least I'm consistent. I want uniqueness all over.

Who, me, picky...?

You see... I get bored. When I shop at H&M or such, I rarely use the stuff very much. Or if I buy items that are very much the current fashion. It doesn't really interest me. But if I find something that is brave or clever enough to stand on it's own, and that specifically suits me, then I'm happy to use the item year after year. I don't grow tired of it. It keeps me curious, interrested, happy.

I haven't read the thesis in question, so I don't know exactly how they define Mr. H, but reading the article today, I have a feeling that there's a little more to it than just standing out and having the stuff that no one else has. That is alittle bit too close to the game of "the one with the most stuff at the end wins" for comfort. No, I believe that the true Mr H can be extremely down played, neutral even. Minimalist. But the stuff that is there, is carefully chosen. Very. Carefully. Others of the same kind will know it and appreciate it, which is the whole point of showing off. Women don't dress up for men, they dress up for other women, to display their place within the ranks. And I guess it is also a form of neo-tribalism, as explained by the very unique Cory Doctorow. I doubt that Mr. Doctorow would agree completely, but I still believe it's in the vicinity.

Anyways.

My name is H. Ms. H.

Talons

My sister had her nails done the other week. Done as in built – beautifully long and strong, French manicures. I’m doing the low-budget version of it, fixing my own sorry excuses for nails up. It doesn’t look nearly as nice. Although I also got myself little glitters. Real girlie. It’s terribly impractical, but hey… One day I’ll probably have mine done, too. But not today.

There’s something fascinating about long, polished, strong nails. They’re symbols of so much. They signal, for one, that you have a social position where you don’t have to toil, you don’t have to work with your hands; if you did, you could never keep them long and beautiful. Like being pale was a signal of wealth in that you didn’t have to work in the fields, until suntan became a signal that you could afford going abroad and didn’t have to stay in your office all summer.

They’re also sexual symbols, of course, which naturally goes together with the whole not-working-business. If you signal that you don’t need to work, it means that you’re something of a luxury item. And luxury is desirable, no? Also, if you don’t have to work, what do you do? Do you lazy about in your sweats? No, of course not. You lazy about in something completely different. Think lingerie and negligees; jewellery and high heels; Chanel Nr 5 and champagne. And if you can’t really work, then you’re dependent on whoever you’re living with, right? And if you can’t really use your hands, it’s pretty easy to control you, as you can’t really take care of yourself. The same is of course true for high heels (it takes a looong time to learn to run in them, and if you’re wearing stilettos, it’s out altogether), corsets (properly bound, like Scarlett O’Hara, who had a 40-cm-waist, you don’t really breath too well; hence the fainting) and lotus feet (try running with those). It’s sexy to be just a little useless. That’s what luxury is – the stuff that we get that we don’t really have any immediate use for. And dependent. If your woman is dependent of you, you have to show that you’re a real man, who can provide. And she won’t get by without you. Isn’t that sexy? (For those of you who don’t know me: I’m being terribly sarcastic here.)

Then there’s one more thing, that doesn’t really seem to go with the idea of women as luxury items, but bear with me. Picture a woman’s hand, with long, shiny dark red nails. The hand sits on an arm, wrapped around a man’s torso, the hand pushes against the man’s back. Suddenly the woman is digging her nails into the man’s flesh, beyond control… Yes, of course nails are sexual. But why? There are more men interested in long nails than in pain, I reckon. Well… Imagine you have access to this piece of luxury. A piece of luxury which spends a lot of time maintaining it’s status as such. Imagine you have the power – to say nothing of the right – to affect it in such a way that it gives up its control over its attributes. Messy hair, smudged eye-liner, the risk of breaking one of those nails…

To me, nails mean something else.

For as long as I was living with my parents, every night we had the same good night ritual. My mum would come into my room and scratch my back. It always made me calm and relaxed. Like a baby. The best back scratcher, however, was my grandma. She didn’t cut her nails in a smooth half-moon shape like my mum did. She made two swift cuts on each nail, leaving the nails sharp and triangular. Like claws. Actually, that’s what we called them. When we kids wanted her to scratch our backs, we asked her to use her claaaws. Always with emphasis on every single sound (in Swedish: k-e-looor-ö-na – actually klorna. There are phonetic rules behind the weird pronunciation of course. Ask me – or better yet: ask a better phonetician – if you like). I still love having my back scratched. Whenever my sisters and I meet, that’s one way we show our affection for one another; we scratch each other’s backs. That’s what really makes me purr like a cat. Scratch my back – properly, not too hard, not too soft, but just so – and I’m wax in your hands.

This text has taken me forever to type. You see, one way that long nails make you useless is that it gets really hard to type. Especially when the nail polish isn’t dry yet…

When I woke up this morning...

...I laughed out loud. I had been smiling all night. There is so much joy built up inside of me, and it needs to get out. This feeling comes with a Busby Berkeley scenography, ladies in tiny glittering dresses and men in tails, dancing, smiling, whirling their top hats.

Oh, so much joy!