busy bee.

This morning, on my day off, I had to get up at the ungodly hour of seven and literally drag my arse to the other end of Vancouver to go and take a stupid stupid TOEFL test, which, by the way was the least fun I have had, most probably, in my entire life. I finished up and got out of there two hours before time, but still. That was three hours of my life, three hours which could have been spent right here on this couch and... yeah okay, when you put it that way.

After I finished the mundane, idiotic, time-wasting, could-you-make-the-questions-any-less-interesting test I walked, despite it being overly sunny out, all the way down Broadway and into the heart of Granville island to pick up my portfolio. And, I'll have you know, I held my head up high even as I claimed ownership of the bubble-wrapped spectacle posing for an art portfolio and carried it with some pride from the establishment and to the bus stop with every intention of going home, curl up on this couch and unwind and do some emotional damage control (I didn't even have time to wake up before taking off this morning, let alone emotionally prepare to go anywhere! Which usually takes about an hour...)

Walking down (or up, or whatever) Lonsdale just know, it struck me, though, that I got more things done today than I usually do in a week, and all of it before the time I usually get up in the morning. It made me feel quite productive and grown-up. So I stopped by the bakery on my way home and purchased a loaf of freshly baked bread, because that's what grown-ups do when they treat themselves as we all know, or at least I think it's freshly baked, I'm not sure...

Oh. And the efficiency as of late doesn't stop there. Oh, no. Yesterday I sent to an audition at the last minute, it was for a commercial for cancer awareness thingy something, and to quote the audition breakdown (they're the horrible people, I'm just the messenger!) since it's a charity commercial, it's great money. So it would be nice to book that, and maybe then I won't have to starve this spring. But I doubt I'll get it, there were loads of people there. The audition went by really quickly and was done in groups, all improvised and kind of silly. But it was fine, I had fun with it, I was relaxed as opposed to my last audition, so that's a personal improvment.

After my audition I went straight to work, and after I got off work I went to Ana's and brainstormed her script with her over a beer.

And now I'm having coffee and might-be-freshly-baked bread.

Lesson One In How To Make Your Job As A Sales Associate Fun.

So I went and got another bottle of wine, declared my love for this Swedish girl who broke my heart all over her Facebook wall, drunk dialed some people, blacked out, then passed out, and the good news is that I'm not hungover, I'm still tipsy. And I have to get ready for work in oooh about an hour, so this will be a fun day!

I just drank a bottle of red wine, Sangiovese, and watched Fyra nyanser av brun, (Four shades of brown) one of the best movies ever made, Swedish, 2004, with Killing gänget (the Killing gang) directed by Tomas Alfredson (he directed "Let the right one in")

I'm writing on the treatment of Flesh and blood right now. I wish I had more wine. But I have work in the morning and if I get another bottle I'll finish it and that's not a good idea...

Happy times.

So I had today off. I met up with Ana and Rob downtown, I was an hour late, but they didn't seem all that surprised. We had coffee. It was happy times, and no strings attached to the happiness either. That's out of the ordinary for me.

Sometimes it just clicks into place and you settle into it and things just makes sense for the moment and there's no anxiety, no drama, just light conversation, inappropriate jokes at the appropriate places and you're just laughing like the world isn't weighing down your shoulders at all and maybe never did.

It's amazing the connections you make in life and what stays with you and the people who stick around for the long run and those who just sort of fall away along the way. Sometimes I can't help but to wonder if it's all random, but I guess it really doesn't matter. It's life right. You just have to go along with it and let it take you places.

Like I was telling Rob after we'd walked Ana to her bus, as much as I had being in limbo, I always seem to land there, it's like this particularly annoying airport where I'm stuck waiting for my connecting flight, snf I know things will work out in the end, they always do, it's just getting there that's Hell. But I guess that's the price you pay for taking the scenic route in life.

"No reward without sacrifice", Rob said. It was one of those rare moments when he's actually managing to be serious.

Other things: I've semi-started on another screenplay, it's a psychological thriller, the working title is "Flesh and blood".

I think I'm also experiencing some warped form of post-traumatic stress after my New Year's Eve heartbreak in that I am compulsive listening to sappy music recently, like "Lady in red", or "Love hurts" or Roxette's "Must have been love" -- and I realize that revealing this fact will do major damage to my reputation, but the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem so, Hello. My name is Ida. And I'm a Romantic.

Now onto the second step: Iron Maiden.

I just kneed myself in the nose! rthe fuck..

and it's raining

I went to Ana's after work. Her and Luis were helping me pick pieces for my portfolio. And then Ana and I watched the movie "Priest" (one of a bunch of brilliant movies I lent her because I wanted to redeem myself after forcing her to watch the embarassment that is "Devour" just because Jensen Ackles is far from hard on the eyes, I'm bad, I know...)

After the movie all three of us, well the two of them more so than I, I kind of soaked their words in for most of it as I'm wont to do, entered into this discussion about religion and the Catolic Church, and as I was walking between buses on my way home just now I got to thinking...

How do you challenge a system of belief that seems to allow or overlook Evil when the belief is in Good? How do you seperate the belief from the structure? And for that matter, who decides what's good and what's evil in the first place? Man makes the rules obviously, society, religious institutions, even history as a learning example, and we change the rules as we go along, each time more passionate about them than the time before, desperate to believe that this time we got it right. And we reject, hurt and kill one another in the process of this recreation, or redefinition, or whatever you want to call it, and for what exactly?

And then I got to thinking... Is it anarchy that we fear so much? To have no guidence, no higher power be it devine or another human being in power to look to, that looks out for us, that knows our own good, that overlooks our flaws and forgives us and loves us anyway, that walks alongside us holding our hand so that we don't stray and get lost? Are we that unsure of ourselves? Are we that terrified to be alone? To accept the fact that we entered into this world alone, and when the time comes for us to check out we'll do so alone, and if we do the math, if we really stop to think about it (putting aside society, friends, family, whatever souls happen to be walking this earth at the same time as us) what you do with the time in between is entirely on you, so essentially... you're on your own. Alone.

So is that it? Are we just scared, lost and lonely, waiting for the angels to land, for Peter Pan to take us back to Neverland with him?

Religion fascinates me. My family is not religious at all, my parents left the church of Sweden (which is protestant christian by the way) and let us kids decide for ourselves when we were at the age of confirmation whether we wanted to join or not, so I don't have that in my luggage from home the way most people do, so for me religion is a very foregin concept, but it has always intrigued me. I actually was christian for a whole week, but that's when I was seven so it was way before I had to make my decision and when the time came it was an easy one, but yeah, I prayed every night before going to bed for seven days. I don't remember this, but my mum has told me, well mocked me rather, about it.

My spiritual journey was fairly simple in a way. I could see the pros and cons of each religious practice, but it didn't make sense to me that the structure for faith or belief would even have a pros and con system, so it didn't add up. At one point I thought maybe I was an atheist, but then that didn't make sense either, because it feels like there should be more outside of the frame and like I'm just missing a piece of the puzzle. But the piece wasn't religion, because as far as I was concerned you can't pick and choose what details you like and dislike, it's a package deal. And as with everything in life, you just go with what feels right, that's the only thing you really can do, right?

Now it makes perfect sense to me. I refer to my instincts the way others might refer to their faith, and as far as I'm concerned I'm meant to be missing that piece. We all are. Think about it, why would you enter the world with a complete puzzle?

tiny little clusters of tumors in my brain

I met up with Mike downtown the other night and we went for an epic walk-and-talk which was nice and much needed, I think for both of us, and I felt like I could just relax and forget about the clusterfuck that is my life right now at least for a little while. I'm faced with one obstacle after another it seems. Still more problems arose today, so hip hip hurrah. I'm just going to ignore them for the time being and just focus on putting something resembling a portfolio together and then I'll deal with the boring grown-up stuff tomorrow, or y'know, the day after that maybe...