Another yuletide poem

I paint the christmas lights
black and blue
and a questionably green shade of purple
But as I flick the switch
it all looks grey;

And I'm thinking of you.

-- December 2009

Happy Holidays!

I'm in my parents house in Ljusne right now. It's just Simon and I in the house. We're just about to make some supper. Just thought I'd upload some pictures from his stay with me as well as Christmas Eve at my older brother, Fredrik's place to Flickr, and I thought I'd put a link here, in case anyone wanted to see what my holiday's looked like so far... here you can see Simon's and my preparations for the Big Event. And here is the rest ofthe chaos known as the holidays...






We've pelted past the mountain's edge
like rain splattered over a windshield
It's the twenty-fourth and too grey to care
Unwanted and romanticised memories wafting through the speakers
like poetry on the radio, surely we're dreaming
slipping on the ice, with screeching tires
I meant to write you

Dinner and holiday spirits!

I just got back from the dinner, it was lovely. I had longer conversations with three different people that weren't Ann-Sofie (her brother in law, her son in law and either her children's cousin or her children's cousin's husband, I don't remember, but basically the two dads that weren't her son...) as well as minor greetings and pleasantries with every other person present, including the children. So I was quite the social butterfly, and still relaxed. I'm telling you, I'm really getting the hang of this. The food itself was lovely too. The others had lobster, but she'd made me a vegetarian lasagna that tasted heavenly. As well as a Västerbotten pie and a whole bunch of appertizers. All the drinks were really too sweet for my tastes, but of course I drank them anyway to be polite, first champagne, which I've never been a big fan of, then white wine with the main course and this typical swedish liquor called punsch that I've never tried before and really didn't care for at all, but it was sort of lukewarm by the time I tried it and they told me it tastes better ice cold and even then you only drink a few small sips of it, so I guess it's a required taste, but I don't think I see the point in getting used to it, though. I prefer bitter and spicy drinks.

So the little one is coming tomorrow. I'm quite excited. I hope we'll have a good time for at least a day before we start hating each other... fingers crossed that we survive the holidays!

If you don't hear from me again (wow, that sounded more ominous than I intended! I mean, if I don't get around to updating my blog again until after the holidays...) have a great holiday, enjoy the foods and the sweets and whatever company you're in, light a lot of candles and don't forget to put a bowl of porridge out on your porch (for the house gnome)!

Website up and running (no, make that "jogging") again!

My website is up again! [ http://www.ida.cananime.net/ ] Since Mike decided to keep the domain for a while after all, and I'm leeching space off of him... I've only done a new layout (go figure, I know) and the welcome page and the about me page (again, go figure, I know already) but I'll keep working on it tonight maybe, add some portfolio stuff and some links, we'll see how I feel when I get home. Now I'm off to a dinner at my friend Ann-Sofie's place. If I don't get lost on the way... or fall over and is buried alive in the snow... that'd be an Alice in Wonderland way to go, wouldn't it... death by upside-down snow angel-making.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know about the site.

The calm before the storm.

I've sort of cleaned me room a bit. Not nearly enough, but some. My little brother is coming to visit on monday and staying with me for a few days before the holiday

(I'm going to stop saying "Christmas" because the word for Christmas in Swedish is "jul" as in "yule" and is not christian at all, but as long as I translate it to "christmas" I just won't ever win that argument with my christian -- sorry, catholic -- friend, about being able to celebrate the holidays without being religious, because they're not necessarily religious at all, and at no time during my life span has this particular holiday (or any other) had anything to do with jesus in my family, so I am not being a hypocrite...)

and my room was messier than messy, and although my brother is even messier than that, I would still feel better if the place was nice and clean and tidy and homey for his arrival, so that I can be an awesome, adult, whatever, big sister and yeah... so that was the plan. I did most of the laundry, and cleared the desk and most of the little sofa, and some of the floor, and then I took a break to check my email, and then I just got stuck here... because I'm not very adult or awesome, really... I got him a birthday present and a yule present though, so I don't suck completely... although his birthday was in october...

Anyway. I've been having a great time at my internship, we've been casting mostly. We had a casting for zombie extras that we did as a big group and we did some improv exercises with them, it was pretty funny... and thursday was the end of term holiday inspired party at the school and that was pretty fun too, I danced quite a bit with some people from my class, and before the party a couple of us were at Tobbe's and on our way to the party Anja and I stopped to make snow angels on the ground. We lost track of time and the metro stopped running by the time we left the party, I had no way to get home, I left before the others, and walked around in the cold and the snow for a bout an hour trying to locate a place in the city where there was a night bus that was heading in my direction, but was out of luck... I managed to find Anja and Katta, though, and Katta pursuaded us to come home with her, and she cooked for us and then let us sleep in her room. Katta is amazing.

It's so weird having all this space on the desk...

Keeping busy!

I'm having a blast at my internship. I'm working as the 2nd assistent director on one of the final films of the 3rd years at Dramatiska Institutet, his name is Hugo Lilja, and he wrote the script and is going to direct it as well. Mostly I've been working with Caroline Holgersson who has been brought in by the school to work as AD. She's really cool. They all are. And the film will probably be awesome to shoot as well, because it's a zombieflick set in 2032. We shoot in February.

And then in January I'll be combining my duties on this project on another internship that I got yesterday working as an editor's assistent on one of the other final films, that is going to be shot in Argentina in January. Hopefully I'll manage to juggle both responsibilities without going crazy!

Today I got "time off" though, since Caroline was busy elsewhere and we didn't have any castings scheduled, so I could stay at home and if something turned up do that from here. But Caroline hasn't called, so I've been working on the treatmeant for my feature-length screenplay all day. I feel energized since I started working again. I think that might have been the root of my down this time, going from the high of shooting. So my solution: keep busy!

I went to the gym last night. I was supposed to go to my Wednesday night yoga session. But spontaneously ended up trying something new instead; it's called easy line, and it was the most fun, and exhausting thing I've ever endured. I ache everywhere today, but in a good way. And I can't wait to go back! I've planned a weekly work-out schedule for myself so that I can combine the harder workouts for condition and muscles of easy line and core with yoga and rest. So on a good week I'll be working out five days out of seven. But in reality I don't see that happening, because I'm supposed to go to yoga tonight, but I got a text from Kalle saying that he was available to edit tonight, so that has to come first. It's okay though, there's another yoga session tomorrow that I could do instead of easy line, and on Sunday as well.

I've been listening to Finntroll all day. That helps keep your mood light too. 

Some irregular streams of consciousness.

I was reluctant to going to Mireya's place yesterday, since I was still in a funk, and the first hour I was thinking of excuses for leaving again, but then I got out of my head and focused on my classmates around me instead and found that I actually enjoy their company, so maybe it's not a completely logical thing to leave it... so I didn't, and I enjoyed myself, and I got out of my funk, and by the end of the night, or in the early hours of the morning, it was just myself, Min, Tobias and Mireya left, and the atmosphere took on a more cozy feel I thought. Min fell asleep on the couch, so we went into Mireya's room instead to continue talking. I fell asleep on her floor and woke up this morning tucked into a blanket. I really liked Mireya's place. And I really like Mireya. Her room mate and friend, who is also her ex girlfriend, seem quite cool too, but we only saw her briefly.



The following paragraph won't make any sense to anyone and is a boring rant about people you don't know who they are:


Min phoned me and just wanted to talk. It wasn't annoying, I couldn't think of much to say, I'm not good at small talk, but I didn't completely panic. She keeps saying she's so happy that we've become so close and she really loves hanging out with me, I think she considers me a real friend. That's cool. And totally unexpected. I didn't think I'd hang out with anyone outside of school, and if I would I expected it to be Mireya and maybe Bam Bam, but so far the ones I've hung out with the most is Anja and Min. And Kalle but that's been fairly centered around work. I had a good chat with Tobbe last night too. He's such a character, but in a very good way!




This social behaviour certainly has its ups and downs. Tomorrow I've got a full schedule of social. First my big brother and his little brat of a daughter (she says in a most affectionate manner... :)) and then Ann-Sofie, and of course as always happens when I catch up with Ann-Sofie I get her whole clan as well, she's invited me to one of her daughter's advent celebration coffee thing, 6th of December, apparently it's a big thing in Belgium and that's where they lived when the kids grew up... but yeah, I get to meet a lot of social and cheery family members as well, which should be fine, her family is great, it's awe-inspiring, I've met them before, and they're so kind and welcoming, I just hope I don't get overwhelmed and zone out, that would be rude...

I'm dyeing my hair red again. The old red faded to a copper and then to an undistinguishable colour that could be really dirty blonde or some kind of watered down orange... I think I'll name it "Rotten Strawberry Cendre"

Soon to be "Fresh Strawberry Awesome"



What follows now is a rant about the movie "Easy Rider" / non-constructively critical review:


Oh, and BY THE WAY... I accidentally bought another DVD on sale for myself when I was getting another couple of DVDs for Christmas presents, and it was "Easy Rider", because I haven't seen it, but it's got Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson, motorcycles, rock music, and it's even written and directed by Dennis Hopper, and it's supposed to be a classic right... well, I started watching it today and I couldn't believe my eyes and ears! It was TERRIBLE! I felt like I'd tumbled down the rabbit hole of terrible tastes and disappointments! I mean, really? Has anyone actually found this movie to be decent? It's a B-movie! The acting is embarassing (I didn't get to the part where Jack comes into the movie, I couldn't stand watching it anymore, and I'm sure he was great as always even in this movie, but everyone else!) the script is, I don't even know... and the whole opening scene before the title sequence, with them snorting coke (and spiking the camera!) what was that? I started fantasizing about that actually being behind the scenes footage that the editor chose to put into the beginning of the movie to excuse what was to follow, because there is no way that this movie was made by sober people. I'm shocked. I'm shell-shocked. I don't know what to say.

Plans and finished business.

So I had a bit of a down trip (not in a drug-related way.) yesterday, I just felt really off and removed from everything around me. I didn't sleep well either, had the weirdest dreams. And the feeling held on into the morning, I'm shaking it off right now with coffee and positive thoughts, or whatever.. we'll see if it works. But on the upside of all of that, I finished my novel yesterday. So that's a relief. Now I can let it go

(well, I'll have to print it before I can mail it to a publisher, and it came to a final result of 317 pages, I'm not sure if the school will be too pleased with me printing that.. but if mum prints it at work, it'll take forever, since she'll have to sneak and do it little by little.. hmm, have to think of something..)

I bought a new calender for next year, not a Moleskin like the one I've had this year actually, because I fell in love with a dark red Filofax (but I have a Moleskin notebook instead, like the one you have Ana, yes, that's right, I copied you. Deal with it.) and I've already put it to good use. I think maybe that's what it is, all this planning and productivity, it's making me stress out.. anyway, I have swim school with my niece and nephew tomorrow, then a get-together with people from class at Mireya's place. Then on Sunday I might be taking my niece to a children's film screening in the morning and then I'm meeting my old friend Ann-sofie after that. See social Ida, you'll have to start calling me now!

edit.

So last weekend I dressed up as Thelma from "Thelma & Louise" and went to a queer feminist film festival / party with Anja from my class (who dressed as Louise), we had our pictures taken with prop guns and had a few beers, saw a hilarious short film called "Revolutionärerna" and that was about as fun as it got, but it was still nice. The evening ended at a bit of an anti-climax but we still had a good time, all things considering...

I published a post before going out, telling you about this, but I deleted it because some jackass left a whole bunch terrible "poetry" in a comment and I couldn't figure out how to delete the comment and it really annoyed me, so I deleted the whole post...

In my reply to your comment, Cesar, I said that I miss you a lot today, and let's see if you'll notice that I'm thinking about you.