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?

Black hole

There's chaos. And then there's chaos.

I've applied for a netbased course in English, "Writing in Academia" or something like that. To be eligible, I have to present my high school grades, which I haven't even looked at in years. So... Where were they? I was quite certain that they were in my filing archive, presently located in a cottage half an hour's drive north of Gothenburg. So, I went there and spent some time with my sister, and went through all my folders. No luck. Second option: It could be in my parents garage (which hasn't been a garage in years, more like a storage room/work shop).

That's quite a scary option, actually.

You see, my parents have lived in this house for 32 years now. Things have started to pile up. There are toys for three children and 30 years in there. And stuff. And christmas decorations. But for some reason the christmas decorations seem to vanish every year. It's always the same question: "Where's the glitter? And the baby Jesus?". And they're nowhere to be found. Until around Easter, when it's time to look for easter bunnies and coloured feathers.

I found the grade sheet with almost eerie precision. But then I also had to find a couple of books. That's when the troubles began. I knew perfectly well in which box the books were supposed to be. Piece of cake.

If only I could find the box...

Water is thicker than blood

A water nymph has moved into my home. A naiad. She is beautiful, and she sings to me. Her songs are about spring and ice breaking open and melting, about tender rains and fogs. Her very being is moisture. When she isn’t singing, she’s talking. She has the loveliest of voices.

She resides underneath my window. That way she can watch the stunning view of the valley covered in mist in the morning. She loves the mist. The mist is her kin. I think one day she will leave me for it, and I will be broken hearted and my life will be dry, wither and fall apart, when I no longer have her humidity to rely on.

She mistook me for a naiad, that’s why she moved in. I spend most of my evenings soaking in the tub, I must have had a watery scent. She noticed me from afar and when I approached her, she placed a soft, wet kiss on my forehead. I drowned in her eyes.

I am no naiad. I am flesh. I am blood. I don’t have the loveliest of voices. I am not moisture, nor mist. She knows this, now. Her mistake lasted but a moment. Still she came to me. Still she tells me I am a naiad too.

Serendipity

The other day, this really attractive guy recommended me a movie. I wasn't going to rush out and get it straight away (wouldn't want to come across as too keen, you know, wouldn't that be dreadful...), but I certainly intended to get around to watching it one of these days. I asked my sister, who is very reliable when it somes to having watched just about any movie you can think of, if she had seen it, but she hadn't even heard of it.

She must have forgotten all about it, and I wasn't thinking about it much either. Then, during the Easter holidays, she came home from work, bringing with her a movie that one of her colleagues had insisted that she'd borrow. They hadn't planned it ahead, he had just happened to have it in his pocket, and she just happened to glance at it, asking him what it was. It wasn't until she came home that it occurred to her that it might actually be that very same movie that I had asked her about, only a couple of days earlier. We agreed that it was a rather spooky coincidence. Two sisters, a movie neither of us had ever heard of before, both having it recommended to them only a couple of days apart. Not quite the Twilight Zone material, but close...

We watched it together, and we both loved it, although she fell asleep towards the end. That, however, is quite normal.

I am Selina

Living in Gothenburg is not so bad, really. It's on the ocean, and by Swedish standards it's a big place, however more of a village by international standards, which leaves us with pretty much the best of both worlds.

One interesting thing about living in Gothenburg, is that, when travelling abroad, you will inevitably end up chatting with someone or other who asks you whether Gothenburg is the place where the Batman lives. The first time this happened to me, I was 15 years old and staying with at family in Hastings for a week, on a school trip. My host father had pasted a huge Batman sign on my window, to make me feel at home. I found that very odd.

Since then, this has repeated itself time and again. Not the signs on the window, but the mentioning of the Gothenburg-Gotham link. Unfortunately, Gothenburg has very little in common with Gotham City. Very few hig-rises, and the few there are are 1980's style mirror facade or red-and-white plastic facade buildings. Very few gargoyles. Not very well suited for Batman to climb, in other words. And there has as yet been no sign of the police making use of a Bat-signal.

However, from time to time, I wake up with a feeling that there might be something to it after all. This morning was one such day. The whole city is covered in mist. When I looked out through my bed room window, I could see nothing. Or rather, I could only see whiteness. It was as if someone had removed my home from where it's located and placed it in an enormous bowl of whipped cream. It was lovely, and not a little gothic. You could almost hear the Dark Knight swooshing past.

No, no, Gotham City isn't really New York. This is where Batman lives.

Hunting and gathering

Today I've been doing some hunting, however not too much gathering. I've been hunting a book. The book should - according to some pretty trustworthy sources - be in the library. Or possibly in my professor's office. Or possibly in my supervisor's office. Or possibly in my professor's home.

Step one: Search the university library. Nope, the book has been borrowed.

Step two: Search the department library. Weeell... Yes. But no. It should be there. However... Well, let's just leave it at me having made the librarians look for it for over an hour and we still didn't really find out on what shelf it ought to have been placed, shall we?

Step three: Ask supervisor. Well, no. She has another book by the same author though. Close, but no cigar.

Step four: The office of my professor... Ah, this is interesting. Some years ago, Chaos set up camp in there, and has refused to leave ever since. We could soon conclude that there was probably no book to be found in there either. Actually, there were heaps of books, but unfortunately, I'm a picky girl. I wanted a particular one. He promised to have a look at home, maybe it's there somewhere...

I have a distinct feeling that this book has not simply been borrowed, or mislaid. It has vapourised. Most likely something to do with atoms and half-life.

Approximately 27 years, what material would that be?