The happy place

It feels a little bit better today, because I went for a run, but not good.

There were only a handful of stars up there in the dark blue sunset, but the snow was glittering like in a fairy tale. I didn’t see the moon.

The new little dog is very small and very black. Sometimes the whites around his pupils are visible in his wonky little eyes. He looks like a stuffed toy bear or a bat. He’s got teeth like staples and he bites my nose.

Bella; the big small dog, she can tolerate the puppy. That’s all one can ask for at this point because although cut, he is also annoying.

I’m solving crossword puzzles. I’m doing it with a permanent ballpoint pen. That’s how confident I am.

We are on the way home again. Already there are some traces of snow again. It thickens as we drive north. The feeling of rightness increases with the snow.

We are picking the little dog up along the way.

It’s been hard to sleep lately, and for some reason waking up has been a disappointment. Though I love life. I know I ought to be thankful, which I am.

Mother in law’s boyfriend went along for Christmas. He is hunch backed like Quasimodo, has a thin black moustache, black mop of hair and black clothes. He mumbles to himself non stop and overall is a strange man which normally I’d appreciate, but he is strange also in a bad way; He likes to show pictures which he takes covertly with his iPhone in the grocery store or other such places of people who look funny to him, for example if they are obese or he think they are ugly. He’s collecting some sort of freak show in his phone, which he shows like a compulsion or something, because it’s not like he’s encouraged. Maybe he relishes the reactions he provokes or something, who knows?

After having complained non stop for a while about the movie we were watching he fell asleep. I got a sense of Deja vu then, because he complained about exactly the same things on exactly the same places last Christmas too when we were watching exactly the same film. Enchanted.

When he fell asleep we were joking that we should take pictures of him and show people to see how he liked that, because he’d taken pictures of a sleeping woman on the train on the way to us which he insisted on showing. He didn’t appreciate that and said to my daughter who is twelve that she is mean just like her mother (my wife (even though she picked the fucker up from the train station)). Then, sensing that he’d crossed the line he went to his room and there he stayed until 15:30 the following day.

With him gone, finally I started enjoying Christmas.

If I can help it, next year I’ll do Christmas without him.

I reckon now is the best time of the Christmas; all of the stuff is done/ the food, the fetching of relatives from the train station, the cleaning and even the eating is done. The dish is mostly put into the dishwasher, the Christmas wrappings are in a big plastic bag and the small children are sleeping.

Now is just the pleasant feeling of being among loved ones and watching TV. The feeling of not having to do anything in particular and the warmth of kindness and the contentment of being well fed.

Speaking of the gap toothed goth, she was always unpleasant to spend time with. We used to do that every Christmas, even though she and I kept our interactions to a minimum because we were incompatible. Once when we were young, before she was goth and gap toothed and when we were very young, maybe ten, she sat on the metallic bucket of cheese doodles and farted loudly, sound amplified by the bucket, just to make them inedible for the rest of us.

That sums her up pretty good, I think.

I’m chilling downstairs with the little dog.

We’re at my sister in law’s today. They do also live in the northern hemisphere but outside of the EU in a relatively more tropical climate as they have no snow, it’s just wet.

I’m concerned about the German economy and I have a mild headache that’s been there in the middle of the head.

I’ve not read very much. I’ve just had this mild headache and a slight feeling of being off key, like something’s not right up there.

👆

It’s the sadness goblin that’s been visiting the family lately, only leaving the dog unaffected.

I love my dog.

The darkest day of the year for us inhabitants of the northern hemisphere is now behind us.

I’m at my sister in law’s family for Christmas.

It’s very nice.

Here’s a memory I don’t like:

Once when in her teens my bigger sister was a Goth. Her cousin (arguably this is also my cousin but I’ve never felt any kinship with her) would always come visiting during summer. She too was goth but with a broken front tooth. They liked to spend their summers together, listening to My Dying Bride and wearing fishnet stockings over their arms and such typical goth stuff, and they did go to a lot of parties where young people would drink and have premarital sex.

This time for the summer visit, the cousin had brought a friend with her. A normal friend who wasn’t Goth and who didn’t know my family or anything, she knew only my sister’s cousin and for whatever reason she came along.

We did have a huge birch tree outside of our house which we’d built a treehouse in, or at least the flooring of one, a few years prior when we were of treehouse building age.

They did lure this normal person up into the treehouse somehow, and then removed the ladder and went inside, leaving her alone up there, unable to get down safely. They went in and after some time started making mashed bananas which they poured salt on. They were gonna feed that to her, but I’d already put the ladder back by the time they went back outside.

Must’ve been a terrible summer break for this friend of my cousin. She didn’t come the next time. I never saw her again.

I think about this from time to time and feel bad about this “friend“, but I’m sure my sister hasn’t because she appears unable to think about anyone besides herself.

Yesterday when I was out in the blackness of the night, the sky was very cloudy and so it looked like a sort of blanket over the stars which weren’t visible, but they gave a silvery golden glow to the dark clouds. It looked ominous but yet at the same time not bleak

It looked more like a gothic horror sky than a cyberpunk like sky with the TV set on a dead channel. (That with the TV is from the opening in Neuromancer, Chiba City Blues or something. It’s one of the best openings I’ve read.)

Nonetheless, there was in the middle of there, in the sky, a little square shaped window in the clouds and through that opening shone the full moon. I saw the full shape of the full moon through there. Just for ~ five minutes.

If that isn’t a sign from above, a signal to keep struggling or whatever, then I don’t know what is!!?

Ambivalence .

My life is a fruit salad of sorts. There’s kiwi and pineapple, apple and banana, right?

A lot.

Now I just need to get the onions out of there, as they are ruining it, obviously..

There are two pieces right now which I’ll need to carefully extract.

The first one is all of my managers like I told about some days ago.

The second, most pungent one is a bit tricky as it involves my sister.

One can argue that one should not let such things affect, and just eat the salad, as it’s nutritious and all of that.

That may very well be true, but I’ve got my sense of smell back and it amplifies the pungency of the taste.

The taste of bullshit.

Here is the thing: my friend has come visiting.

I got one of the VR head set from him because he got the new one. With the new one he can become batman.

My wife says you shouldn’t put it on because meta the company behind Facebook will scan your brain and that’s true, I think. I did it anyway. I used the VR headset to check my Facebook, because it came preinstalled and I’ve not checked there in ages. There were pictures of children and 🧦 sock deals etc. so same as I remembered it. And then there was a police game in which you shot people and were supposed to do it to the beat of the music and dodge. I played for five minutes yesterday and today my legs ache.

I used to be a fitness man with legs like steel springs but now they look like a normal person’s legs and I am thinking I ought to do something about that. Maybe play that police game every day? Maybe, we will see. I am used to rest my formidable torso on two pillars like timbre and it’s a dissonance between how I feel and what I look like 💀 that ought to be corrected. I miss going to fitness dance classes.

Anyhow

We’ve been driving my friend’s monster truck, like a type of car the Brits used to win WWII with, the defender or challenger or something; a massive steel beast which looks like you’re supposed to fit two bazookas to the roof of, to go buying some cool stuff in the big city. He’s got an interest in Warhammer 40k which has a rich lore that does seem fascinating. I met a guy once. Must’ve been fifteen years ago. He had a beard and glasses, long hair, an Amon Amarth T-Shirt, who said that Warhammer 40k was his primary interest. I remember it crystal clear. A strong memory.

Anyhow.

so my friend is playing space marines. He paint them yellow which is the same colour as that of his heart. Or similar: the Gold.

Now we are watching Christmas program on the TV they are making dick cheese(!) for Christmas and I’m sceptical.

What else is there? I’ve been doing some carpentry and have built a kitchen island for when my sister in law will hopefully come visiting this summer, then we can make pizzas again but this time there’ll be plenty of room for that.

The fishing rods I bought for them is still in my mum’s barn.

The love of my dog is big, although she is so small. I bury my face in her warm fur when I am sad and it helps.

I cannot describe accurately how much she means to me.

My little dog.

We are getting another dog after Christmas. A puppy named Bjorn.

It’s a food for thought that you could love two dogs (we will see), that when you divide your love in two, it doubles. (profound)

My mum hit her head on a spa of all places a few days or weeks back, which is ironic because she spends all her free time climbing scaffolds, driving ATV:s, using the chainsaw or the tiger saw, and basically any type of saw or power tool, just fixing things like a tornado (which is not a very good metaphor because tornadoes tend to destroy things whereas my mum fixes them). I find it some food for thought that it is while relaxing on a spa she gets the injury. (!!)

She’s fine now.

All is fine.

I think.

Most things are probably fine.

Today the moon was big and shone with gold tinted silver and it was a full moon. I saw it with my own eyes.

It was s big.

I’m having the best life and yet there’s something which isn’t quite right inside. Like a small stone in the shoe. Like I’ve been running my own company for years but now instead I’m employed like a regular person.

I used to be my own boss, answering only to God and the tax agency, but now I’ve got managers everywhere. Everywhere I turn there’s a manager wondering why I didn’t attend that monthly meeting, why do I never go? Or another reminding me to fill in the time sheet. Yet another asking me to fill in this other time sheet. It seems I’m in a room full of people, and they are all my managers.

Don’t know if I’ve ever been this managed before. That’s what’s been nagging me at the back of my head lately.

It’s still a bit of shit, the economy. There are many unemployed individuals. My friends. Some of them have huge mortgages and shit. It’s a bleakness of the world.

If WWIII doesn’t start next year, and the economy takes a turn for the better, then I shall once more venture into this world like my own boss.

There was a cozy night by the fire last week with the magical sky and the stars and the deep snow and the deep forest everywhere in all directions: dark deep forest full of mgical creatures.

We were spending some time with some friends drinking glögg and feeding the fire while looking at the mesmerizing embers and the mesmerizing fire burning right outside a type of lean-to. Close by the fire we sat. Warning the feet and smelling the burnt firewood

I was at peace then. Serene. It was a fine memory I will store it in the treasure trove.

I've got my sense of smell back, I am complete.

I'm a rich man

I was out with the dog again just now. One of the cats was out too. She joins us for the walks, and can be glimpsed in the corner of the eye as she jumps and runs in the ditches or whatever on either side of the road.

The moon was out today. 45% moon glowing interestingly behind a veil of gray clouds. Everything is very wintry and like I point out: it’s glittering everywhere. I know of nothing more beautiful than that scene outside.

I’m gonna get a camera so that I can capture how it’s really like out there. The one on the mobile doesn’t do it justice.

When I wake up. In reality I ought to be thankful that I’m not dead, and I am. I am. Just takes a while to realise. It takes a while and a few jugs of coffee.

I think that I drink way more coffee than most. I generally don’t do things in moderation.

But my engine is getting older and this massive beast of a body of mine is like that of Frankenstein’s monster’s; I need that big jolt to come alive and then some time of lethargy after that to boot all of the facilities.

I have been busy playing factorio this weekend. It’s very addictive. Got overrun after 20h and I’d just started producing plastics. Was picturing all off the exciting things to do with all of the cement I’d been creating, and then I got overrun.

I’m not a morning person. It feels terrible. I like and embrace the light from the moon and the stars and the dark blue evening hue of the sky but I’m not a night person either because after 22:00 I’m ready to sleep. So an evening person.

I love to sleep and yet death terrifies me.