LIFE COMES AT THEM FROM ALL SIDES

"For a long time I wandered aimlessly. It felt like a long time. It didn't feel aimless, however, or not in any carefree way. I was being driven by nessecity, by fate, like the characters in the more melodramatic novels I'd read in high school who would rush out into thunderstorms and lurk around moors. Like them I had to keep moving. I couldn't help it."

"I couldn't keep up my transient existence forever. I would have to end up with someone, sometime, someplace. Wouldn't I? But what if I missed a turn somewhere - missed my own future? That would be frighteningly easy to do. I'd make one hesitation or one departure too many and then I'd have run out of choices; I'd be standing all alone (...)"

"Why should being alone - in and of itself - be such a matter of derision? But it was. The alone - the loners - were not to be trusted. They were strange and twisted (...) They didn't love anyone, and nobody loved them. In my more rebellious moments I asked myself why I should care about being shut out of Noah's Ark of coupledom - in effect a glorified zoo, with locks on the bars and fodder dished out at set intervals."

"But I wasn't without social resources. I didn't take off my clothes and sing in public: I acted in acceptable ways. I smiled, nodded, made conversation, and so forth. I could do a good imitation of a competent young woman."

"She said nothing. She was spoiling things; she didn't want to. She'd been put in a false situation, and she hated that. But she had no other word to suggest - no word for herself that would be both truthful and acceptable."

"He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her neck, but she could tell that he was annoyed nonetheless. She was making difficulties where none existed. She was overstepping a line. But where was the line? She couldn't see it."

"My mother is in the middle. The names are written underneath: Jessie, Helene, "Me", Katie, Dorothy (...) In those early years of her photo-pasting, she always refers to herself as "Me", with quotation marks around the word, as if she's citing some written opinion to the effect that she is who she is."

"That was all quite long ago. I see it in retrospect, indulgently, from the point I've reached now. But how else could I see it? We can't really travel to the past, no matter how we try. If we do, it's as tourists."
- Moral disorder, Margaret Atwood

JAG ÄR EN LEDSEN MÄNNISKA MEN JAG ÄR GLAD ATT JAG LEVER

"Jag är min egen grupp och det är good enough for me."
"Jag bränner encyklopedin utan att slå upp ordet universitet."

Bought tickets to "Enligt Bodil Malmsten" today. I'm beyond excited, but since I don't wanna fangirl too much, I'll just put up Eldkvarn's "Blues för Bodil Malmsten" and the last episode of Skavlan which she's in;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWULFwbW_Lg
http://svtplay.se/t/102974/skavlan

And the blog, obviously. One cannot forget about the blog; http://www.finistere.se/blogg/

WHEN I WAS IN SCHOOL, I CUT CLASSES. IN ADULTHOOD, I CUT CORNERS

"I live on drama. I'm so used to being unhappy; I'd rather stay there than try to make things better. What things? I don't know. Sadness is a feeling I know. It has no strings attached. Happiness, it always comes with risks."
- The creativity of the mess we make, Julia Melin

"You left school at 14 and never went to university. Do you think this unusual path has been a help to your creativity?"

"Yes, it has been vey good for me on the whole (...) I know many writers who have been circumscribed by academia. When you're always being taught to compare, it does stop your creativity (...) I would never have survived a creative writing course! They savaged each other, and what they were creating were critics, not writers. I'm prepared to bet on that."

- Doris Lessing

I LIKE SONGS ABOUT DRIFTERS, BOOKS ABOUT THE SAME. THEY BOTH SEEM TO MAKE ME FEEL A LITTLE LESS INSANE

God, I haven't updated this blog in forever. Anyway, books bought;

Steve Sem-Sandberg - De fattiga i Lodz

Per Hagman - När oskulder kysser

Sara Stridsberg - Drömfakulteten

Céline Curiol - Utrop

Claire Castillon - Insekt

Doris Lessing - The good terrorist

Toni Morrison - The bluest eye

Scarlett Thomas - Our tragic universe

Books read;

Steve Sem-Sandberg - De fattiga i Lodz

Claire Castillon - Insekt

Carina Rydberg - Den som vässar vargars tänder

Johan Kling - Människor helt utan betydelse

Lukas Moodysson - Vitt blod

See, I'm finally back to reading in Swedish! After a two-year hiatus. Anyway, right now I'm inbetween books; in the meantime, feel free to read this great discussion about what really happened in Marisha Pessl's Special topics in calamity physics; http://mojomom.blogspot.com/2006/08/mojo-mom-book-club-special-topics-in.html

Oh, and also: I live in Stockholm now.

Seriously, could someone just buy me tickets to this? I'd give nothing in return, but I'd be forever grateful. http://www.sodrateatern.com/sv/Program-och-biljetter/Evenemang/Enligt-Bodil-Malmsten/

HAPPY NEW YEAR, MAY WE ALL HAVE A VISION NOW AND THEN OF A WORLD WHERE EVERY NEIGHBOUR IS A FRIEND

"Det var tre små barn som lekte på innergården till ett hyreshus, en flicka och två pojkar. Egentligen var det två som lekte och en som tittade på och så kom det ett till barn, ett jättelitet, kanske bara tre år. Så nu var det fyra barn och de två pojkarna började jaga den äldre flickan och hon ställde sig bakom en piskställning för att få skydd. Pojkarna började slå henne och en av dem sa "gör det ont? jag kan slå hårdare om du vill" och den lilla treåringen började härma pojken med sin bebiröst "gör det ont? jag kan slå hårdare om du vill" och hon slog flickan som var äldre med en liten liten pinne."
- Saker under huden, Linda Skugge