Category: Really old entries

The Friday Five is back…
1. What was your biggest accomplishment this year?
Getting a new job immediately, resulting in all of, eh, one week of “unemployment” (or holiday).
2. What was your biggest disappointment?
My complete failure to get anything done with the kitchen…
3. Will you be making any New Year’s resolutions?
My ongoing resolution is to get a grip and stop procrastinating. Ah. Next week, perhaps. Or the week after.
4. Where will you be at midnight? Do you wish you could be somewhere else?
At midnight tonight? At my parents’ house. And, no, I don’t particularly want to be anywhere else. On New Year’s Eve? I have no idea as of yet. Somewhere in Trondheim. I have, however, armed myself with a Moet & Chandon, so I’ll be allright.
5. Aside from (possibly) staying up late, do you have any other New Year’s traditions?
Watching the fireworks (in Norway, New Year is when we do fireworks). Drinking Champagne.

In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s sorta, kinda, almost Christmas. Due to several different causes, mainly that I want to spend time with my brother and parents while I have the chance, there might not be a whole lot of stuff going on here over the next week or two.

I’ll drop by, though.

Voice in my head: Avril Lavigne – Nobody’s Fool

Lycos have published their annual list of “most searched for”. I am tempted to try some of them on Google to see whether I show up in the results at all, but have decided I have better things to do. In the meantime, someone found me by searching google for “Always look” + “10 kr”. Cryptic. One has to wonder what it was they were actually looking for. Suggestions on a postcard.

I seem to have solved the reading problem, at least for the moment. While discussing it with my brother (who arrived yesterday for a pre-Christmas visit), my eyes were scanning my shelves and alighted on Bloom’s Western Canon, which I’ve been meaning to reread, and I thought “Why not?”. I read the preface on the bus this morning, so the drought is alleviated. My thanks for the reading vibes sent my way…

Voice in my head: Elton John – Nikita (why on earth?)

I will be summing up 2002 in 20 words at some point.

In the meantime, you can get thinking about your own entry…

I haven’t opened a book for days (since Wednesday last, in fact). Seriously. I haven’t wanted to, either. That is, I’ve wanted to read, in a general sense, I just haven’t wanted to read any specific book. I pick one up, say Nils Holgerssons Underbara Resa or The Little House in the Big Forest or Middlemarch (which I’m half-way through) and think, for a second, “How about this one, then?” and then immediately: “Nah.”

I must be ill.

Voice in my head: Pete Seeger – Little Boxes

En gang om dagen er ensomheten så stor
at man ikke kan stille noget op med den.
Og én gang er lykken.
Indimellem så må man så se at få ordnet sine ting.

Søren Ulrik Thomsen (F. 1956)
Hjemfalden, Vindrose 1991

(On the tram – the local version of Poems on the Underground. Something like this (it’s Danish, by the way):

Once a day the loneliness is so big
that there is nothing to face it with.
And once the happiness.
In between one then has to sort out one’s business.)

Voice on the stereo: Avril Lavigne – Nobody’s Fool

…though I draw the line at jumping off cliffs, I think.

[Spell your first name backwards]: dlihngaR
[How old?]: 28
[Where do you live?]: Oslo, Norway
[4 words that sum you up]: whimsical, lazy, helpful, reading
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Some idiot rang my doorbell and woke me up last night. I didn’t even pick up the door phone thingy to check who it was, so I appologise if whoever it was is reading this and actually knows me. Thing is, there is no name on my doorbell downstairs, and because people tend to move in and out of the flats (there are 15), confused guests try my bell if they can’t find the name they’re looking for. I really need to fix that nametag.

I can’t figure out why they didn’t put in a nametag when they installed the system. We had a new doorphone system put in a couple of months ago, and I’ve owned that flat since las November for &¤%#’s sake (and I haven’t changed my name, either). They managed to put the correct name on the new mailboxes they put up this summer, so why not the doorbells?

I dunno.

I need to do something, though. I can’t have people wake me up at midnight (when I’ve only just managed to fall asleep), at least not if they’re not even looking for me specifically.

Note: If you actually want to get hold of me – try the mobile (though I switch that off) or the phone (if you don’t have the number, ask – I try to keep it private). I might find out how to turn the volume off on the doorbell…

Unsociable, me? No. I do actually like visitors, I just prefer visitors who know me…

Voice in my head: Melissa Etheridge – Occasionally

The concert Sunday night… Lovely. I think I’ll write a review here despite the pointlessness of writing a review in English of a concert where all the songs were in Norwegian and where the artist is highly unlikely to ever tour outside of Norway…

Anyway. I can’t even remember which Bjørn Eidsvåg record I first heard. I think the first one I bought was ‘Alt du vil ha’, and it would have been around the time that ‘Tatt av vinden’ was released (his record, not the classic movie, I’m not that old…). So. I suppose it would have had to be a pretty disappointing concert for me to be dissatisfied.

However, how could a concert that opens with ‘Klovnar’ and ‘Gammel drøm’ possibly be disappointing? The former is one of my favourites (as is the latter, and most of the rest of his songs, sorry, just bear with me will you?) – the song starts like this:

Her e gråt og her e klage
her e bitterhet og død
her e urett, her e plage
her e aue fyllt av nød
her e folk med depresjonar
her e folk så djupt fortvila
dei e utan illusjonar
og dei kan’kje lenger smila

og me flyr rundt og grine med
og prøve å få opp motet
me snakke om håp og kjærlighet
og trur på orden i alt rotet

me seie: Gud e glad i oss
forstår ikkje at me tør det
me seie: midt i sorgen møte han oss
forstår de’kje sjøl men me gjør det

eg lurar på om det e klovnar me e
te allmen lott og løye
men får me sjå et lysglimt av og te
så får de’kje vær så nøye

(Translation of sense, though not of poetry:
here’s crying and here’s lamenting
here’s bitterness and death
here’s unfairness, here’s torment
here are eyes filled with need
here are people with depressions
here are people so deeply despaired
they are without illusions
and they can no longer smile

and we run ’round and cry with them
and try to bolster courage
we talk of hope and love
and believe in order in the mess

we say: God loves us
can’t quite believe we dare
we say: in the middle of sorrow he meets us
can’t quite understand, but we do

I wonder if it’s clowns we are
for the entertainment of everyone
but if we get to see a glimmer of light every now and again
then it doesn’t really matter)

Obviously, most of the songs following were from the new album. No matter, it is a cracking good album, anyway. I was especially caught by these lines:

eg like å elska
men e redd for å gi meg hen
te nåke så risikabelt
som å bli elska igjen

(I like loving, but am afraid to give in to something so risky as being loved back)

If the Ki and Vandien quartet could be said to have a theme, this was it. The courage to take love given to oneself on trust. Songen was also on the programme, which is good, as I would have missed it if it had been left out. It’s the best poetic description of Christianity I’ve heard.

In addition to being one of our best lyricists and a great performer, Eidsvåg is lovely in concert because he exudes genuineness. He’s genuinely happy to be there, genuinely means what he’s trying to say in his lyrics and genuinely laughs at himself. It may be that he’s just very good at dissembling, but as long as I don’t see through it I don’t really care.

Venus is bright this morning. What would that mean to the centaurs, I wonder? It’s part of the “it’s c-c-c-cold” symptoms for me – no clouds, no insulation, no heat. -13 this morning.

What’s with Sunday nights, anyway? It’s the third Sunday in a row I’ve spent hours wondering why I can’t sleep. Well, to be honest, I wasn’t even tired last night, which is odd, because I didn’t sleep that much earlier on in the weekend – got up reasonably early yesterday. Still, knowing that the alarm goes at six I do feel that some time before midnight would be an ideal time to fall asleep. Instead it was closer on 2am again.

Bother.

Voice in my head: Lisa Stansfield – Been Around the World Tonight (or whatever it’s called, it was on the radio this morning)