The year of 2010

This has been a rollercoaster year for me. Not because that much has happened, but maybe because nothing really has and it has made me frustrated. At times, I have felt like I have lost my motivation, no matter what I have needed it for. Be it pole dancing, work, writing or just seeing my friends, I have at times felt like giving up.

So yes, 2010 has been a bumpy ride. But there are a few high notes that I would like to acknowledge:

- The wonderful person that I share my life with every day – M. He truly is the light of my life. He inspires me, makes me laugh until I can’t breathe, surprises me, comforts me and loves me, the way I have always wanted to be loved.

- My beloved rats, Panic, Smokey and Devil (and Pain, who unfortunately died). They are the silver lining behind every storm cloud. They are loving, fun and loyal.

- Friends. In my life, I have had to cut a lot of friendships short, when people have finally shown their true faces. In 2010, I gained a bunch of new friends that now hold a given place in my life and have brought back my faith in people.

- My hobbies. Pole dance is a major part of my life (when I am not in the middle of one of those low-periods of course) and I am so thankful that it has brought dance back into my life. I am also thrilled to finally be on YouTube, playing around with makeup getting to know other people who share this passion.

- My looks. For me, the way I look is so important to how I feel. It is in direct line with my personality and I feel terrible when I am denied the right to look the way I want to look. In 2010, I continued my never ending journey towards looking like ME. I got two more tattoos, did some crazy shit to my hair (shaved it off, let it grow back, colored it, re-colored it and gave it dread extensions). And I continuously improved my closet.

- My goals. Even though I struggled this year, I have to say that I made progress in finding out what it really is I want to do with the short time that I have been given on this Earth. No big decisions were made, but I am now more aware of where I might land once I decide to act.

As for 2011, well I can only hope that it will bring back all the inspiration and motivation that I spent most of 2010 desperately seeking. And that myself and all the people I care about are given the opportunity to live the lives we have always wanted. And that we do it in good health.

Happy New Year!

Pretty in pink

I never liked pink, until I was like 22. In fact, I fucking hated that color. Mostly because, as a girl, I was expected to wear it with pride and giggle when people told me how cute I looked.

I never wanted to be a girl, I just wanted to be a person.

Wanted to be who I chose to be, not who my genitalia had pre-decided.

So I refused pink, and other girlie things.

Funny how life works, huh?

Today, I absolutely LOVE pink. I mean, just look at my new hair-do...

I guess the difference is that, now, I just don't give a fuck anymore.
If I want to look butch, I'll look butch. If I want to look like a fucking fairy princess, then hell yeah, I'm gonna do that!

And I'm going to love every minute of it.

Consumer

He says,

Why do you always let dreams into your head?

It’s better to focus on reality instead.

Here things are simple and the truth of it all,

is that no ache exists that can’t heal in a mall.

His voice always echoes in her thoughts, so deep.

Sometimes it still keeps her from going to sleep.

From hiding away in her dream world so dear.

From entering that place where there’s no need to fear.

She’s always hated how fake this reality is.

How cold and how shallow, the world that is his.

Where things that are worthless are supposed to bring joy.

Instead of affection, please have one more toy!

Instead of attention from parents and kin.

Please watch the TV or gamble to win.

Instead of true value and beauty in things.

Just buy all you can and happiness sings.

Her whole life she’s been at war with this sin.

And promised herself to never give in.

But even the one with good intentions will fall.

For the power of consuming will conquer us all.

One day when she’s passing a store that she hates.

A trinket a black hole inside her creates.

She looks at the beautiful jewel that there lie.

And says; If I don’t buy this, I know I will die.

No lesson to learn here, we all lose this game.

And when the time comes, there is no one to blame.

Poledance bootcamp weekend

Some photos from this weekend, when me and my best friend E

had one of our awesome pole bootcamps at her place.

Upper left; Full Invert, upper right; Gemini, lower left; Boomerang, lower right; Flatline

Howard's revenge

His name is Howard.

He reeks of cigarettes, sweat and human feces. He was once a tall, handsome man with thick, brown hair and blue eyes like pools you could drown in. Now he’s short, crooked, wrinkled, bald and never has anyone meet his gaze anymore. They say his eyes are hollow. Empty, since she died. And that it scares them. So they look away. Pretend he doesn’t exist.

A year has passed since it happened. A lot can happen in a year. A lot more than he ever thought possible could happen, had happened and is still waiting to happen.

Her death broke him. It tore him apart from within and the pieces that managed to hold on slowly wither. He doesn’t expect to linger much longer. In fact, he intends not to. There is only one thing that keeps him going.

Revenge.

Grieving took up the first four months after her death. He lost almost half of his body weight because it was impossible to find the will to live, to keep going on his own. After four months, by chance, or by fate, depending on what you believe in, he found a reason to keep existing, if only for a little while longer. He realized who her killer was and that he needed to be punished.

So Howard spent the following months planning the murder. Today, he is finished. His plan is completed and he knows every step of it by heart. Where to be, when to strike, how to succeed. And then, how to end it all.

Then sweet, deliberating death will reunite him with his beloved wife.

As the clock strikes twelve he gets up from the park bench, grabs his briefcase and walks towards the restaurant down the street. They serve Italian food and are currently half full of happy people, eating and drinking, unaware of the horrors in their not too distant future.

Howard sits down at a table near the bar, where he can overlook the entire room. He orders a cup of coffee and pretends to read a magazine. Two tables away a young woman is being served a glass of white wine. Across her from the table, a young man is smiling at her. Loving her.

Howard pays no intention to their love. It is unworthy of being called love. He couldn’t care less about the smirking blonde woman with too much lipstick. His target is the man who is right now trying to hide the tiny, ring-sized box he just slipped out of his pocket. As he places it on the table, the woman across him shrieks of joy. Happy tears slowly travel down her cheeks.

Howard smirks and opens his briefcase. It is time.

As he pulls the gun from the briefcase, he starts to feel at ease. So close now. So close to the end.

He stands up and walks over to the table where the young lovers are holding hands. As he stops right in front of them, they smile and greet him. Howard lifts his gun and fires two times. Once in the young man’s heart and once in his head.

- For your mother, Howard says. She died because of you, you egotistical bastard.

- Howard! cries the young woman between the sobs. Why would you kill your own son?

Howard puts the gun to his temple and stares into her eyes.

- Because he killed her, he replies. He killed her when he stopped visiting.

Three seconds later, Howard pulls the trigger.

Halloween part 2

My second Halloween party of the year was this Friday. It was planned and arranged by me (with seriously helpful assistance from my boyfriend) and it was held at the office, will all my co-workers.

As a true Halloween geek, I started purchasing decorations and other Halloween items in August. I was aided by a colleague in purchasing the beverages and my boyfriend helped me out with buying and cooking the food. That took…a little longer than we thought.

Thursday and Friday went like this;

6 pm – I meet up with my boyfriend at the local supermarket and we buy all the food and drag it back to our place to immediately start cooking.

7 pm to 12 pm – we are cooking and baking like crazy.

12.30 pm – we finally hit the sack.

8 am – we get up and keep cooking.

11 am – we take a cab to the office (since we have SO much stuff, it would be impossible to make it there using any public means of transportation).

1 pm – after lunch I mix actual work with preparing for the party (setting tables, hanging up last minute decorations and so on).

4 pm – the carbon dioxide ice (you know, ice that “smokes”) arrives and we start the last preparations, such as plating the food, pouring the welcome drinks and so on.

5 pm – people start showing up (some are still hiding in their rooms, being very secretive about what they will appear in/as).

6 pm – we start eating. Some of the stuff being served is zombie brain pannacotta, slimy green shots, witch’s fingers, mummy pizzas and veggie mummy hotdogs. The favorite of the evening became my boyfriend’s awesome Halloween cookies.

7 pm to 11 pm – I give the guys a Halloween quiz, show them my pre-recorded Halloween video (showing photos of last year and having me read a scary story that I wrote myself), declare this year’s Best Costume winner (which was me – yay!) and after that, those of us that are still left just let it all go. Dancing, singing, drawing childish stuff on the whiteboard and so on.

11 pm – me and my boyfriend head out to the Halloween party at our favorite alternative club Tech Noir. We have some problems locating their new facilities but finally make it there.

2.30 am – we take a cab home.

 

Me in my price winning Edward Scissorhands outfit

Halloween part 1

I’m attending two Halloween parties this year. The first one took place this Saturday and the second one, the one that I myself is arranging, will take place this Friday, at my job with all of my co-workers.

I don’t want to reveal my second costume just yet (since sneaky colleagues might be reading this), but I would like to share my experience with the first one.

Last Saturday, I was a werewolf. Those of you who have seen my YouTube tutorial for this look have gotten a tiny glance at the end result. It was a seriously fun look to create, but it took so much longer than I thought.

This is what I did:

1. I sliced up a double layered skirt in a stretchy black fabric, dug out a black top and put on a huge corset-like belt to join the two.

2. The wig from my SheWolf tutorial was really awful, so I cut it and it actually didn’t look that bad afterwards, but in the end I decided to skip it and go for my own messy mohawk hairdo.

3. Using Friendly Plastic I created a whole new set of teeth (fangs and all) and then discolored them using black tea.

4. Using liquid latex, I created pointy ear prosthetics.

5. Using liquid latex and tissue paper, I created freaky looking claw marks on three places on my body and made them all bloody and messy.

6. I didn’t buy any new contacts this year. Instead, I used my yellow ones that worked out OK.

7. I filed and attached ten seriously long and sharp fake nails to my fingers.

8. I put on my wolf makeup (see the tutorial).

This is what my costume resulted in:

1. The yellow contacts made it impossible for me to see anything in a dim light and of course it was pitch black outside and in the tent where the party was held.

2. The freakishly long, claw-like nails made it impossible for me to use my hands for anything but scratching. Don’t ask me how I managed to use the bathroom like three times.

3. The full set of werewolf teeth made it impossible for me to eat anything properly. The exquisite pumpkin soup served at the party was the only thing that I was able to swallow (since it didn’t need chewing).

But OK, since I LOVE Halloween, it didn’t really bother me that I was partially handicapped. I had fun and I got a lot of compliments for my look, so I’m happy with it.

Although I don’t want to reveal my second look just yet, I can tell you that it is not as complicated as the first one. I will be able to see, eat and use my hands properly. Or well…the third one depends on if I’m wearing one very important part of my outfit or not… Moahahaha!

 

Howlin' at the full moon.

Oh yes it's ladies night, oh what a night!

OK, I have sucked BAD at updating my blog lately. It's not always easy being on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook AND running a blog. Phew!

But hey, I'm here now and I have something fun to share. This Saturday I hosted a girls night at our place, with seven other lovely ladies attending. For those of you who don't know this about me, I am a planning freak. I almost love planning more than I love actually doing the stuff I plan for (I know, I'm a freak). So my Ladies Night had been carefully planned out for months.

And I wanted it to be more than just sitting around sipping wine and talking about stuff (not that I don't appreciate just doing that). So, when I sent out the invitation, I asked the girls if they had a special party trick, a fun game or something else that they wanted to bring to the party. An activity for us all, if you will.

My friend L, who is the girl I have known longest in the bunch, is a sommelier (which basically means she knows everything there is to know about wine). She brought four (!) bottles of champagne (the real stuff, not just sparkling wine) and we had a real wine tasting. It was so cool and she really does know everything there is to know about this stuff. We were all curled up around her in a circle, listening like she was Santa telling a story on Christmas Eve.

Champagne, as you might know, tends to make you giggly and happy. But thankfully, not that hungover the next day (awesome!). So the mood was through the roof all night.

I treated my guests to snacks and a drink and arranged for two activities. The first one was a pop quiz about all kinds of famous women (I slipped a little feminism in there too, hehehe). The girl who got the most correct answers (which was E2), won "The Girlie Bag", which was a pink gift bag that I filled with: a pink, plastic cocktail glass, a lipgloss, a mirror, a perfume, an eyemask, candy, bath bubbles in a container shaped like lips and of course, chocolate.

My second activity was a pre-maid "Truth or Dare" game, that my best friend Em and I prepared months ago (like I said - I like the planning). This was very much appreciated mainly because of two factors; 1) it meant that the girls got to know eachother better (most of them had never met before) and 2) it made them feel like seventeen again.

Among other hilarious things, we all took turns making goofy dance moves, pretending to cry or die dramatically, shaking our booties and burping, Barney style.

It's fun being silly.

After a couple of bottles of wine, me and Em were asked to put on a show using my X-pole. So, we showed them some tricks and played around for a while. Some girls wanted to try a spinn, but others asked to come back and try it sober (smart ladies, my friends).

We also ate pizza, talked about EVERYTHING and wrote fun stuff in my "Pink Guestbook".

I think it was 3.30 AM when I went to sleep.

Such an awesome night.

Love and the Devil

You were always there, at my side
Nothing about you harmful, no silly pride
You stood up for me, defended my right
We never argued, never got into a fight

Your love was a like a shadow, warm, embracing
We took on whatever we were facing
As long as we had each other, all would be well
None of us knew, it would all go to hell

And when I say hell, I mean literary downstairs
Where the big red guy shows you your fears
Where it’s always steaming hot and dry
Where everyone dreams of the way they will die

You never told me of the contact for your soul
Or of how my love was your number one goal
Less romantic, it seemed, when truth finally came out
I was told that at first, I was filled up with doubt

I never saw you the way that you wanted
And in your mind, my presence still haunted
So you decided to force love upon me instead
And gave the Devil access to the thoughts in my head

Whatever it took, my love was your desire
It didn’t matter to you that you’d burn in the fire
As long as you had me, you thought you’d do swell
But you never grasped the true meaning of hell

The Devil doesn’t care if you have love in your heart
In fact, splitting us up was the way he would start
You’d never see me again and I learned the truth
About the years of betrayal that wasted my youth

Blinded by love’s spell, I still always knew
That something was strange in the way I loved you
At times it felt like obsession, burning mad
But I never questioned the feelings I had

Or why they were suddenly there in my head
And how they will haunt me, even though I’m now dead
I guess, in a way, I got revenge, my sweet
For the Devil has taught me the power of deceit

Even though I live out my days in a flaming pit
Life has a bittersweet justice to it
Every day the Devil cuts pieces from your heart
And then gives them to me to pull them apart

That’s a fair trade, I guess, being your doom
I bet you regret the day I walked in the room
I bet you curse at my name and mourn what you’ve done
But the truth is, for me, this has now become fun

Nerves

I am nervous today. Discusting butterflies are messing up my stomach and I keep wanting to go to the bathroom.

You see, in two hours, I will be attending a poledance workshop. And not just any poledance workshop... One led by world famous poledancer Jenyne Butterfly (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrBliExJ9-4).

The thing is, I let myself go completely this summer and I am now just starting up again, trying to get back into shape. But I keep running into problems and it's pissing me off. For instance, the air in our apartment is fucked up. It makes my pole totally slippery, which is not only dangerous, but it also makes it pretty much impossible for me to practice any advanced moves. 

Thus, I am nervous about today.

I might suck more badly than anyone has ever sucked before...but hey, I still get to meet Jenyne, right?

And tonight, I'm attending the Art of Pole competition with my honey. Just sitting there in the crowd, being moved by some of the best poledancers out there. One of my Scandinavian favorites, Oona Kivelä (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QpaHWTXRIk), will be competing. 

I'm going to cry my eyes out from the beauty of it all.

Friday

Even though you have to wake up just as early as the day before, something is different. You know that you will be able to sleep in tomorrow. You know that everyone at the office will be in a great mood, talking about their weekend plans. And you’ll happily join in.

You know that, when you get home tonight, you’ll be able to pour yourself a drink. You can wear that tiny little dress that makes your butt look awesome and you can wear that red lipstick and your favorite necklace.

And it doesn’t matter that your favorite shoes, the ones with those deadly heels, will hurt your feet. You still wear them proudly, like trophies, because you never get to take them out of their box on a regular day. They are special to you.

You are extra loving towards your partner and you get more love in return. Almost as if you were both kids again, in the middle of their first romance.

You plan something special. It can be anything from staying home and sharing a bottle of wine and watching a movie to going out and dancing the night away.

You don’t care if you’ll get a headache tomorrow, because you can stay in bed all day if you want to.

It’s not magic, it’s the power of Friday.

When fate intervenes

She had always been surrounded by men. Ever since she was a little girl, they were everywhere around her. Boys and young men, attending the parties her parents threw for her in the great hall of the palace. She was a vampire princess and it was her duty to choose a mate to help her rule over their great kingdom.

Always surrounded by men, and yet, she never saw him coming.

When Anna was five years old, she had her first proposal. At the age of ten, she started collecting them and at fifteen, when she reached 1.000, she stopped counting.

Every year, for as long as she could remember, her mother had spent almost an hour on the morning of Anna’s birthday, talking about this duty. What it meant, why it was so important and how it was traditionally done. Anna knew this speech by heart, but had accepted it as a part of her life and listened intently when her mother spoke.

There was only one part of the story that made Anna’s insides turn. The part stating that, if she reached the age of twenty without choosing her mate, her parents along with a council of elders, would choose a partner for her.

This scared Anna more than she dared to think about. To be forced into a relationship as if it was just a business transaction. But as she feared this arrangement, it also seemed to control her and force her to make all the wrong decisions when it came to choosing her partner. As if she was destined to be paired up with somebody against her will.

It was two weeks before her twentieth birthday and Anna was petrified. But she managed to keep a calm face, as vampires usually do. She was an actress and a good one at that. Only one person knew how she truly felt and that was Alex, her oldest friend.

When her parents started surrounding Anna with men, they didn’t just invite them to parties. They also made sure that Anna had a constant male presence, wherever she went. There for, all of the employees working at the palace were male. And Alex was the son of her father’s right hand man. They had been playing together for as long as they were able to stand up. Alex was born two days after Anna and they always joked about her being older and wiser than him.

Alex knew. He understood the threat and possible horror that the curse of her twentieth birthday meant. And an observant mind might suggest that the two of them take the throne together and rule as best friends. Anna had considered this once, but decided that there had to be passion. She could never live a lie and even though Alex was a dear friend, she had never pictured him as her lover.

And so, Anna remained terrified.

But on that night, two weeks before her birthday, something changed. Something intervened. Call it fate or just luck, but on that night, something or someone, had decided that Anna deserved a better destiny than to be unhappy for the rest of her existence. And so, it intervened.

On that night, Anna’s parents made a last attempt at letting their precious daughter find a mate on her own, and threw her one last party. Anna, who had almost given up trying, didn’t bother to arrange her long, blonde hair in a bow, as she always did. Instead, she let it flow freely and dance around her shoulders. She didn’t wear the dark red satin gown that her father bought for her. Instead, she chose to put on her most simple long dress, the one she usually wore on a warm summer day. It was simple and white and moved around her body as if it was constantly waving in the wind. She was barefoot and painted her eyes black and her lips red. And she felt like herself and not this doll, this puppet that the male crowd was usually presented with. That was an image of Anna, but not who she really was. And if this was her last night as a free woman, she would raise hell if she was not allowed to be herself. So, her parents didn’t say a word about it.

All of the eyes in the great hall were upon her, as she danced down the stairs and walked straight up to the drinks, where she rapidly tossed back two glasses of champagne. She threw a strawberry in the air and caught it with her lips. Its juice running down her cheek like blood. All the time, everyone’s eyes burning her skin.

She turned around and wiped her face clean with the back of her hand. The music silenced the whispers, but she knew what they were all saying. That she had given up. That she was lost.

She strolled across the floor, ignoring hundreds of complements and dance requests from vampires, one more handsome and statuesque than the other. None of them caught her interest.

She saw a large knife shining at her from one of the tables and for a split second, she considered jamming it through her heart, taking her own life. That would mean the end of things. A peaceful quiet. No more demands. But then, it happened. The thing that intervened decided to act and just like that, everything changed.

As she thought about reaching for the knife, Anna tripped on a carpet and as she stumbled forward, someone caught her. She looked up, and realized that she was in Alex’s arms and that she couldn’t stop staring at him. He was absolutely beautiful. He, like her, wore white. His blue eyes glistened like ice diamonds and his wavy blonde hair framed his perfectly shaped face. She was amazed.

For her, tonight had been about shedding herself of the masque that she usually wore to these events, but for Alex, it was about showing her the kind of man that he was and had always been. She just hadn’t noticed it before.

In that moment, they looked at each other, and knew. When he leaned down to kiss her, it felt like the most natural thing in the whole world, but at the same time, made her knees so weak that she was worried she would fall down if he’d let her go.

It was one minute to midnight and almost exactly two weeks away from a destiny that no longer existed.

She had always been surrounded by men, and yet, she never saw him coming.

The geriatric zombie

Ethel Cormac was eighty-two years, five months, one week and three days old the day that she became infected. As always with these things, no one really knew how and why it all began. Why Ethel? Why now? Important, but difficult questions where being tossed around, but there were no answers. There never is.

The infection spread under the radar and for the first couple of days, nobody noticed anything. The old folks had always been slow, drooling and talking nonsense. Why would the nurses at the old folks home react with suspicion when their patients stopped asking for fruit jell-O and starting begging for brains instead? A couple of weeks earlier, an old man named Marv had started a riot amongst the elderly because he was convinced that an evil elephant lived in the basement. The nurses responded to the brain cravings as they did when the elephant alert was signaled – they ignored it.

My next door neighbor was a nurse at that home. They tied her to the living-room table and ate her entire head. It was in the local paper the next morning. The first time anyone noticed the effect of the virus for real.

After that, panic spread. No one knew who was safe and who wasn’t. After all, it was only the elderly that became infected. The rest of us just died from having our brains eaten or managed to hide. The politicians called it MGD, Mad Geriatric Decease. But we, the younger population, we knew exactly what they were. They were zombies.

Even though the geriatric zombie wasn’t very fast or particularly clever, it wasn’t safe for the younger crowd to be alone, so everyone moved into group homes. Kind of funny if you think about it. The zombies escaped from their homes to find delicious brains, and we were forced to live in similar homes as a result. Go figure.

After two weeks, every person over the age of sixty was a walking corpse. Parents, grandparents and friends who just happened to be a little too close to that age line were locked up, just to be safe. I witnessed my childhood friend Sarah club her own mother in the back of the head with a bat and drag her into the garage. I thanked my lucky stars that all my relatives lived miles away.

I shacked up with six other people in their twenties. We found a huge, abandoned apartment high up in a building in the middle of town. I guess that was why the seven of us ended up together. We didn’t want to run from this curse. We wanted to stop it. That’s why a setup smack down in the middle of zombie central was perfect. But we had to lay low. One false move and our hide-out would be discovered, making us all treats for the elderly.

The funny thing about the whole incident, if you can find humor in such an event, was that it was all over in just four and a half weeks. The infection never spread outside our little city. The rest of the world was safe. And it was our group of seven who finally put an end to the madness. We found the cure. Or actually, we found a solution.

The idea sprung from my mind at a moment when we all were sure that we were done for. We had left our hide-out for just an hour to gather more supplies when we were discovered in a convenience store by the brain-eaters. All of a sudden, there they were, by the dozen. Looking gloomy and staring at us through vitreous eyes. None of us moved or dared breathe for almost a minute. We were completely surrounded and there were too many of them to get rid of by using our weapons, which mainly consisted of bats, knifes, frying pans and other stuff that could be smacked hard against someone’s skull.

That was the moment when I noticed something. None of us were screaming. We were all frozen with fear. Not hiding, not running away and not defending ourselves. Just standing there. And so did the zombies. They were looking at us and we were looking back, as if both sides were waiting for the other to make the first move.

I told the others to stay still and be quiet as I slowly moved towards the zombie closest to me. It was a woman. She had a pink apron on, her mouth was open and her head slightly tilted to the side. I was almost within her reach and could hear the others breathe behind me. I smiled at her and said hi. Very slowly, her entire face was shaped into a gigantic smile that spread to the other zombies.

My fellow youngsters were astounded.

It just so happened that there was one thing the zombies wanted more than brains, and that was some attention. The only thing an old man or woman in a nursing home really wants from the beginning. Somebody to talk to. Not to be ignored by the nurses who work there. Or to be forgotten by one’s family yet again.

The irony of it all.

Summer vacation 2010

I know, I suck. I haven’t posted anything on my blog during my entire five week vacation. I’m sorry, but then again, kind of not, since I have been busy actually doing stuff. And have not always had a computer within reach (and have not yet made friends with the blog function on my new Android phone).

But, I am back now and to keep everyone posted on what’s been going on in my life since I last posted something, here is a short summary of every week that I have been off. OK?

Week one

Headed to the Arvika festival with a bunch of fun and crazy people. Had fun, did some shopping, got drunk a couple of times and listened to some OK bands. A bit disappointed though, that this festival did not learn the lesson that the now cancelled Hultsfred festival had to answer for earlier this summer – branching out so that there is a little bit from every music group is NOT a good idea. In fact, it’s damn right stupid. Giving people a little bit of everything means that everyone is a little unhappy. Why settle for that? Why not just keep Arvika as a festival for electronic music, the way it started, and have tons of happy people instead of less people and all of them sort of unhappy?

The last day of the festival I got seriously ill and had to be rushed to the emergency room, where I endured what was probably the most horrific couple of hours of my life. I had a panic attack and started hyperventilating, you see. And I am not kidding, all of the muscles in my body locked down. I was unable to bend toes, fingers, arms, legs, EVERYTHING. A nurse had to get me a bag to breathe into and be constantly at my side (along with my seriously worried boyfriend). After about thirty minutes of not being able to move (which was so scary!), I finally managed to breathe normally again, and the use of my limbs returned to normal. Jeez.

After that, we checked into a hotel and spent our last festival evening watching TV.

Week two

For the second week, we packed up the rats and their summer cages, and headed north to the small town of Malung, where my in-laws live. Week 29 is always dance band week up there, which means that around 40.000 people drive their enormous trailers up there and stay for the whole week, listening to Swedish dance band music and dancing like crazy.

We are not big fans of the music, but really love the mood that this festival sets. And it’s always fun to dance. And of course, to spend some quality time with my boyfriend’s family and friends. If you have no idea what Swedish dance band music is, it usually means the band name has the letter Z in it, they have really dorky and often sparkling (and matching) outfits, and all the songs are happy and pretty much about love. Check out these guys for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QLHUFxA6I0

By the way, the rats did so well on the five hour trip it takes to get there. And they had while we were there fun as well.

Week three

In between crazy music and relatives pulling you in every direction, we decided that we needed a week at home. My best friend E came to visit for three whole days (yay!) and we went to a super fun pole dance workshop with the brilliant Miss Zahra Stardust, who you can sneak a peek at here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIHOnVYIqK4 (this is the only pole dancing I have been doing all summer, so I am itching to get back to it!).

I also met up with an old friend from high school and drank sparkling wine and talked about everything. That was a great night.

We also went to dinner at our friends’ awesomely decorated house (they just got a hot tub, hello!).

Week four

This was the week that we were planning on spending at our family’s summer house, but we messed up the dates with my parents and it turned out my dad had to work this week, so those plans went down the toilet. Strange, this is the first summer ever where I haven’t spent at least a week out there.

We did some serious cleaning of our apartment during our fourth week of vacation. And we bought new stuff for the bathroom which changed it completely. It looks totally awesome now! We got rid of our annoying washing machine (which we never used since we have two big ones in the attic) and just made everything match in there. The bathroom is all in grey, black, white and red in there now. AND, there is a lot of room for all my makeup. Yay!

At the end of the week, my mom came to visit us and spent the night. We had a ton of fun taking her out shopping, going to a really great restaurant and to our favorite spot for drinks – Vampire Lounge. She had a blast and so did we.

On Friday, we once again packed up the rats and, accompanied by mom, went to her and dad’s place outside Uppsala, had dinner and then on Saturday morning headed out to the summer cabin. So at least we got one night out there this summer.

Week five

The last week of our vacation was spent in Cardiff, Wales. We were invited to a wedding reception by an old friend of my M and decided to make a week of it. Cardiff is pretty small and has great (and pretty damn cheap) shopping and was just what we needed after a hectic summer. So we ate, drank and walked around for a whole week. It was great! Just time for each other. And I bought two awesome pairs of shoes!!

My boyfriend had his birthday that week and I treated him to lunch, an unfortunately crappy movie (“The Last Airbender”) and a fucking fantastic dinner with drinks and groovy desert.

The wedding reception was a lot of fun, but unfortunately I once again became ill and we had to leave a couple of hours earlier than we had planned on. That night, I threw up as if my life depended on it. Not fun. So our last day in Cardiff was pretty much spent in bed, watching TV.

The only downside (other than me getting sick) to our trip was that it took so long to get there. The flight was only two hours, but Cardiff has no airport so we had to fly to London, and we flew with Ryan Air, which meant we had to go to an airport that is like two hours away from where we live. So from door to door, the trip took almost twelve hours one way. It was exhausting.

* * *

In short – I had a good five weeks of vacation and for once it didn’t feel like time flew by and I had to stress to get stuff done. I was able to just relax and go with the flow. And I loved every second of it. Well, except for the puking and the trip to the hospital. Oh, and both me and my boo have become vacation fatties, so it is time for some serious getting into shape now that we’re back. Unfortunately we both have a pretty nasty cold, so we can’t really start working out just yet. I miss my pole… It’s just standing there, all golden and shiny, looking at me like it’s saying “Why haven’t you been twirling on me for so long? Don’t you like me anymore?”

Vacation

Warm. Sweaty. Thirsty. Tired. Home. Rest. Chill. Cuddle. Kiss. Hug. Smile. Sleep. Dream. Amaze. Guess. Yawn. Shower. Makeup. Pack. Travel. Feel. Drink. Listen. Dance. Laugh. Swim. Shade. Rain. Breathe. Hungry. Taste. Flavor. Like. Love. Enjoy.

Live.

Grrlie

I have a really strong need for girlie things right now. I want to wear pink, purple and baby blue (with black of course), wear my platform Mary Janes with striped knee high socks, cute dresses and dark red nail polish, play around even more with makeup, listen to and dance around to girlie music and chew bubble gum. Just be silly for a while. And of course, mix it with the alternative.

And in all honestly… I miss my hair. There, I said it. I like having a shaved head because it’s pretty cool and really easy to handle, but that’s just it… I miss having to color it, mess with it and use tons of hairspray. I miss my hair. I want it back and I want it to be blonde and pink and purple and messy. Short and spiky. Just fun.

A special summer Tech Noir is taking place this Saturday and I want to go there and be a doll. The no hair thing is a problem though. Maybe I can find a cute wig?

The cave

She doesn’t move an inch. Tries not to breathe or make a sound. Do anything that will wake it.

The cave is monstrous. It must have been hidden underneath civilization for thousands of years without being discovered. The only possible entrance is from the sewers and there is not a single glimpse of light. The massive walls make hostile shapes that stare at her. They mock her for her fear. No one will ever find her. That is what scares her the most. To be forgotten. It would be as if she never existed. According to him, she never has. In his eyes, she is nothing. At the same time, the thought of never being found soothes her. That means that they will never really know what happened. They can never be entirely sure that she is gone. Not even him. And it would haunt him forever.

A sudden movement in front of her. A bat somewhere high up there.

She swallows a shriek and gives off a quiet gulp that echoes throughout the massive hollow. She can hear dripping and a quiet noise from the traffic far above. But other than that, it’s quiet again. Pitch black and absolutely silent.

The beast is resting in a void, not ten feet away from where she is standing. Its breathing is calm and quiet. The breath reaches her skin in an even rhythm and makes her eyes twitch and the hair on the back of her neck stand up. That smell… The smell of a million rotting corpses. It’s almost more than she can handle, but she manages to focus on the task at hand. No turning back now.

She takes a deep, but quiet, breath and takes a couple of slow, soundless steps forward. If she were to reach out her hand now, she would be able to touch the beast. She wonders what its skin would feel like. If it is smooth and soft or covered in some sort of fur. She has never seen a dragon before. And she will not live to tell the tale.

It’s time, she decides.

Very carefully she picks up the knife that is folded up in her jacket pocket. She grips it with her right hand and gently, but with some force, stabs herself in the left hand. The blade goes straight through. Like it has cut through butter. She winces from the pain, but is calmed by the warm blood rushing to greet her. A present for the beast in front of her.

She lets go of the knife. When it hits the floor of the cave, the sound echoes like a trumpet through the great halls.

The beast has been awakened.

Alealejandro

I am not particularly fond of Lady Gaga's "Alejandro", in fact, I think it's a pretty bad song. I doesn't speak to me at all, on any level. But I find myself being drawn to the music video that comes with it. It's extremely visually dynamic, dark and I love the androgyny of the characters. And the colors - there are hardly any. It draws me in.

If you haven't checked it out yet (I'm probably the last person to discover it at this point), I suggest that you do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niqrrmev4mA

The fairy and the carp

Yesterday I got two new tattoos. One for each calf. A fairy to the left and a carp to the right.

I had five tattoos before the two new ones, so I’ve been in the game for a while and felt pretty confident that the pain wouldn’t be a problem, because it hasn’t been before. I mean, yeah, it hurts pretty badly, but you get such an adrenaline rush out of it, so you don’t really notice the pain.

Well, let me tell you something – yesterday, I damn well noticed it! The calves are apparently one of the most painful places to get tattooed ever. I actually thought I was going to die a couple of times. And I had to look back there to check that she wasn’t cutting me open with a butcher knife, because that’s what it felt like. It felt like someone had taken a giant fucking hook, jabbed it into my leg and started pulling intensely at it.

Ouch, fucking ouch.

The tattoo artist was great though (www.fruduva.se). She was fast and thorough and kept talking to me throughout the whole process. About feminism even! And she gave me a lollipop. 

The actual tattooing part of the process took about an hour and a half, so it wasn’t really that bad time wise. But the pain… I know I’m being repetitive here, but I just need you people reading this to understand the extreme torture that I voluntarily put myself through last night. So, if you’re thinking of getting a tattoo and you don’t have one before – don’t start with your fucking calves! That’s all I’m saying.

But hey, on the other hand, today I’m ecstatic and I absolutely love my new ink. And it was totally worth all the pain. I can just pretty much promise you that the rest of the skin on my calves will remain untouched by ink.

The latest addition to my ink collection. All in simple black.