So I got tumblr.

After much brain washing from DeathShrike (not really, he mentioned it a couple of times) I got around to getting myself a tumblr account, but I'm still going to keep this blog since I've had it for so long, and it's got all my old journal entries. But I might not update it for a while (or at all, who knows) So if you want to keep reading about my boring existence, you might want to update your bookmarks... http://idathomasdotter.tumblr.com/ would be the new address, then. Hope to see you there. (Don't you just love that word: tumblr... well, tumbler, would be the word, but isn't that cutely (?) spelled as well... Okay, I was sarcastic on the last one but not on the first one, I actually do like that word.)

Feverish thoughts

I've had another long chat tonight, and we dug a little deeper still I felt, and I'm quite overwhelmed right now, mentally and energetically, I feel feverish, like I do sometimes when my energy is on overdrive or whatever it is. I''ve also had plenty of food for thought on an intelllectual and spiritual level. Perhaps I'm not an atheist, after all, but still an agnostic. The desire to believe is so strong in me that I can physically feel it in my skin and pulse. (It Mulder and I...)

New chapter: writing in Sunne

I got on a train and ventured into the great unknown of Sunne in the middle of nowhere Värmland in Sweden to meet up with my new class on Thursday. As usual when starting something new and meeting a new group of people, I hated it immediately, started to doubt the whole idea and just wanted out. There was one person that I had a positive inkling about at first "sight" but other than that I was overwhelmed by the oh-so-familiar sense of not belonging, and spent most of my energy on staying afloat. And so I met up with my class on the second morning, way too early, feeling low, anti and decaffeinated, but when we reached the destination of the day, everything changed. We spent the day even further away from civilisation (close to what I'm used to, woods and fields and water and a couple of barns) in the most inspiring and beautiful place imaginable; the place is called Alma Löv museum, it was started by our course leader Sara Broos' parents in the 70's, and her dad told us the whole story as a very entertaining and inspiring fairy tale almost, and that, combined with her mother's amazing paintings and the coffee, were worth the trip, not just to the museum, but to Sunne (which was hell, by the way, with all the shit I packed, as usual) and then we got to wander around and look at the pavilions that were spread out across the plot, that each of them were a work of art by a different artist, some had installations, some were filled with drawings, or sculptures, and they were all unique and genuine and inspiring. Then we had an intense workshop with actors Amanda Ooms and Peter Eriksson, who performed our texts, and that was amazing too.

It got a little easier throughout the day and evening to spend time with certain people in the group and talk to them, which made the experience of being in a group a lot easier to handle for me, even though I'm feeling strong rejection and negative energy coming off a few people, it balanced out a little more and now I don't feel quite as isolated and alien as I did yesterday. The inkling I had about that one person proved right as well, today I felt we connected on a deeper level, not just energy-wise, but intellectually, we had a long chat that revealed we have a lot of things in common and are very alike--who knows what, or if, it'll lead to anything beyond that, but it's still nice when something like that happens, it's like being lost in a foreign country and all of the sudden you hear a voice somewhere in the crowd that's speaking your language--and I've warmed up to a couple of other people in the group as well, in a more light-hearted way.

Tomorrow we get to pitch an idea to a producer, just for fun, and fun is not the word I would have used, but I'm going to wing it and see what happens--I'm so out of my league in this place, and this group, everyone else are like working professionals in the business already, it seems, and I'm the only one with no real experience or anything, but--I'm hoping for some good feedback and inspiration from listening to the others, before we do the real thing at the Gothenburg film festival .

(also, I have a crush on a "teacher" again)

Gudrun Schyman and other beacons of light

So elections are coming up in Sweden, and things are just ridiculous right now. We used to have wide (-ish) range of different parties that you could vote for, but last election the right wing (affectionally referred to as the "bourgeois" parties, although the translation is rather iffy) along with the center party formed an alliance and won the election, this year the left wing (consisting of the Socialdemocrats who aren't all that left anymore, but is supposed to be party for the common workingclass person, anyway, and the left party, formerly communist now socialist, basically) and the enviroment party has formed an alliance as well, and so the election is really between these two extreme opposites, that are looking less extreme by the minute as the debates continue, since both "blocks" are inching towards the middle in order to gain more voters, and so instead of debating about all the crucial questions that the public needs answered, it's seems that the entire election has been stripped down to the one difference that the two "blocks" can honestly stand up for, and that's taxes: to lower or not to lower the taxes is, apparantly, the question.

Never mind the statistics of unemployment and outrageous injustices in our public sector. The right wing is addressing people's greed, of course we have to care for our young, our sick and our elders, but in politics you always have to prioritize and at the end of the month you want to be able to have enough money left in your bank account to nurture a healthy savings account as well as afford to indulge yourself some additional pleasures and enjoyments... no mention of those who don't have any money left at the end of the month, or those who don't have enough money to even last them all month, no mention of the unemployed, the poor, the sick who can't pay their medical bills because apparently health insurance has become synonymous with economic support and aid that can be doled out selectively, as opposed to a fucking right.

But you know, I'm just so sick of it. My mother's a part-time politian, she's stubbornly fighting the fight, speaking for the those who can't speak for themselves, she's marching for this and that, she's debating and rolling that heavy rock up that cliff, and I honestly admire her stubborness or gullability or whatever it is, I myself gave up on that particular game when I was about fifteen. Because the truth is, the human race is a herd animal cursed with an ego and consumed by greed, so as much as it kills me to admit this... there will always be a class system, there will always be wars and there will always be injustice in the world as long as we're around.

The whole idea behind solidarity is like a childhood fairytale that we day dream about in moments of nostalgia, but when it comes right down to it, it's every person for themselves, and we only need a couple or so other people in our herd so fuck the rest of the planet's population. I used to want to save the world too, as a kid, and I used to believe in the possibilty of peace on earth and equality, I used to believe in human rights and that all people were created equal and born with equal rights, opportunities and a fair chance, but... let's face it. That's just not the reality we live in, is it?

Well, I'm not completely giving up. I have one -ism that I still feel passionately about, that I'm still willing to fight for - feminism - and there are beacons of light that keep me going and keeps me from throwing in the towel completely. My mum being one. Gudrun Schyman being another, spokesperson for the fairly new party called feministic initiative, that I'm voting for (although, there's no F! in my hometown, so I'm still voting for my mum in the county election)

The other night she wiped the floor, as always, in a debate with a representative from the Swedish Democrats (a xenophobic party that seems to have one issue they're passionate about and that's to stop immigration) and it was pure awesomeness. She talked circles around him and wasn't fazed once, while he started blinking and spluttering and stuttering more and more as it became clear that he had nothing against her arguments. At one point she actually said that he was so ignorant about the issues he was trying to debate that it was getting embarassing, and she was right.

It reminded me of a debate she was in years ago, when she was still leader of the left party, when she was supposed to be grilled by the host and the other guest, and she just wouldn't be fazed, she had a logical, brilliant answer for everything and she delivered it in her professional, calm yet still quick-witted manner, whilst the person who was brought in to grill her kept getting redder in the face and eventually was rendered speechless. (He had a heart attack after the show and had to be taken to the emergency. He survived though, so it's okay to laugh. Kind of...)

I've been staying in my childhood home, visiting my parents for the past week, and sort of loading my emotional batteries. It was well-needed I think. I'm starting to feel alive and less depressed now. I also cut my hair again, and then I found my little brother's razor and went a little crazy. But I'm happy with the result, I feel like myself, more than I did before, which is weird because I never had this type of butch rocker haircut before. I guess it was about time I tried it.

Been generating some new ideas, but haven't been doing a lot of actual writing, but I think I'm about ready to in a bit. I just need to think a bit longer, then I can get down to it.

The following entry is me letting out some steam in Swedish...

Jag funderar på att starta eget företag, eller enskild firma som det heter, tips från kompis och kollega Min, i första hand för mitt kreativa arbeta som författare, filmskapare och skådespelare, men även för andra småsaker till exempel design och försäljning av smycken, och mer down-to-earth extrajobb som barnpassning, så att jag kan fakturera och tjäna pengar vitt. Det här med barnpassning kom upp eftersom jag hoppat på verksamheter Kreativa Barnvakter nyligen, men också därför att en arbetskamrat till Min som är ensamstående mamma skulle behöva barnvakt framöver och Min tipsade henne om mig, så jag skulle behöva ta reda på lite mer om vad som gäller med lön och så vidare tänkte jag och Googlade på det... fann mycket bra information på Passagens debattsida, men innan dess så fann jag två forumtrådar som gjorde mig så himla ilsken att jag var tvungen att sammanfatta det här.

Först och främst, väldigt kortfattat, på en hemsida som heter Allt för föräldrar, var det någon som startat en tråd och kastat ut frågan "Vad är rimligt för mig att betala barnvakten?" och det första svar personen får är från en kvinna som kallar sig EllaNora och hon säger då: "50-60 kr i timman tycker jag är en rimlig svartlön för en barnvakt..."




För det första, vem sade något om svartlön? Visst, om det rör sig om att sitta barnvakt ett par timmar varannan vecka när föräldrarna vill komma bort från hemmet och slå klackarna i taket så spelar det ingen roll eftersom slutsumman inte kommer upp i den mängd att tjejen skulle behöva skatta på det ändå, men den informationen fanns inte tillgänglig i det öppnande inlägget, så det skulle lika gärna ha kunnat handla om barnpassning på del- eller varför inte heltid i brist på dagisplats, det vet varken jag eller EllaNora.


Men det som verkligen "tog tårtan" var den forumtråd som jag fann på en hemsida som heter Flashback, ungefär samma öppnande inlägg, fast här var mer information tillgänglig, vi fick veta att flickan som skulle passa småknytten gick i nionde klass, föräldrarna var schyssta nog att erbjuda middag och skjuts hem eller eventuell övernattning om det blev sent... men lyssna till de här utvalda inläggen:

H.E.L: 
"80 kr i timmen? Skall hon även städa, lägga tak och kakla badrummet?
Nej, 40-60 kr i timmen svart. Inte mer. Hon får ju dessutom käk."

Skrt^: 
"Snåla inte nu för fan! Ge henne minst 80 och om hon har potential att bli snygg; punga ut med mer vid sidan av!"

Spår av nötter: 
"Väldigt generöst med taxi och allt. Men att åka taxi är väl inget hon uppskattar som betalning direkt. "Var barnvakt åt ungarna så får du åka taxi för femhundra spänn" -Inget till värde direkt.

Nej men 250 per kväll tycker jag låter rimligt... om hon är snygg. "


mosplhcb (som startade tråden):
"100 kr i timmen känns lite för mkt för oss. Då kan man ju iofs säga att det bara är vad två stora starka kostar, vilket vi antagligen drar i oss x flera under samma kväll, men ändå. Vi är som sagt inga höginkomsttagare, både jag och min sambo jobbar inom den offentliga sektorn, och det skulle resultera i att vi anlitade henne mer sällan.

Jag kan tänka mig att kompensera henne även i annat än pengar, t ex om hon behöver hjälp med något, skjuts någonstans och liknande."

encap: 
"60-70 spänn räcker gott och väl. Det är skitbra betalt. Hon får fan käk, taxi hem, och slippa allt skit hemma, det är nog tillräckligt för en 9åk-are.

Lycka till!"


Alltså, jag blir så förbannad att jag inte vet var jag ska göra av mig själv! Det här är en människa som utför ett arbete vi pratar om här, dessutom en ung och lätt-utnyttjad människa som med initiativförmåga och god tro försöker tjäna ihop fickpengar på ett hederligt sätt, plus att arbetet i fråga heller inte är vilket arbete som helst, det innebär fullständigt ansvar för det mest heligaste och dyrbaraste i dessa människors liv, nämligen deras barn, och här prutar de med sina egna bristfälliga samveten för att se hur pass mycket pengar de kan lura henne på!

Och sedan, som om inte allt det vore nog, så spelar det helt plötsligt roll hur flickan ser ut! Är hon snygg? Som om det handlade om att träna upp en framtida älskarinna åt herrn i huset eller jag vet inte vad! Vad fan spelar det för roll om hon är snygg eller inte? Är man bättre barnvakt om man ser bra ut? Borde hon få mindre timlön om hon har oturen att vara ful, eller vadå?

Gaaaarrrgggghhh!!! säger jag bara. Hela jävla mänskligheten kan ta och hoppa i sjön, tycker jag. Jag bjuder på taxin dit. Svarttaxi.

Book "Review"

Marble Skin by Slavenka Drakulić

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is not a book, it's a stream of consciousness that envelops you, even after you've put it down it haunts you, and it should because it's a haunting, beautiful, terrible tale, told not so much in words but images that bleed together, there is no obvious structure, no square frame to keep the story in place, to keep you in place, in the story, there's just you and the pages and these two women, and they're not characters for you to observe, they're flesh and blood (under the marble skin) and you are one with both of them and they are one, and there's also the man somewhere in your peripheral, just a by-stander, this is not about the man although he plays an important part, he's just someone to see and touch and thus bring out the body, your body, so that you can understand it, and then he's gone, he's served his purpose, and all that's left is you, and the silence and the memories, and whatever comes next.

View all my reviews >>

Nothing important happened today

I'm reading this amazing book, I don't remember if I told you that already, but it's called "Marble skin" and it's by Slavenka Drakulic. I'm loving every page of it so far, I'm on eighty out of a hundred and eighty-eight.

I worked in the indian restaurant last night, it was actually busy for once, but not in a good way. It was stressful, things went wrong, not big things like I'm used to from the previous place I waitressed in, but enough to be annoying. I also worked later than usually and missed the bus and the train that I usually take to get home when I've worked in this place, instead I had to take another bus, the tube and then a second bus, and of course there was lots of waiting and walking in the cold rain in-between those, which did wonders for the building cold I felt that previous morning, I can tell you. I was meant to work tonight as well, and I really should have because I really need the money (if I even get paid, which remains to be seen), but I sent my boss a text message and told him I felt too ill to come in, which was an exaggeration but not a complete lie, because I am feeling rather under weather, and last night undid the magic my last yoga session performed on my body and posture completely, and now my back and shoulders hurt again. Plus I woke up not too long ago and just finished making my coffee (the old-fashioned way, in a pot on the stove!) and if I were to work again tonight, I'd have to leave now, since it's Sunday and it'd take forever to get into town. And it still looks like rain. Not the refreshing kind, but the cold "I'm going to eat away your bone marrow" kind.

I also went to the theatre with my friend Min the other night, well the night before last actually, and saw "Inception" - I'd seen the posture of that film the night before and really didn't feel like I wanted to watch it, but when Min suggested it I figured there was hardly another movie showing that would be remotely better, and it did have two of my favourite actors in it (Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard) so I agreed to it -  and we were both pleasantly surprised, it was a lot better than we had anticipated! I especially loved the different levels to the story, and I'm not saying anything else because you I think you should watch it, it's entertaining if not nothing else, so you'll most likely enjoy it even if you don't think it's a masterpiece or anything. One thing though, towards the end, that I just didn't buy (not in terms of the actual story, more like the telling of it) and after you've seen it I'll tell you what and why...

When I got home from work, all shivery and miserable and aching, I didn't go to bed as I should have, I warmed up the meal the boys in the kitchen had made for me (I didn't even ask for it or remind them I was avegetarian this time, which I thought was really cool, they just made me something vegetarian and put it in take out containers and gave me the little bag before I was leaving.) and sat at my computer until seven this morning, watching Cesar's youtube clips and browsing facebook and blogs and my own pictures from my time in Vancouver, missing him and Ana and Mike and Emmanuel and Brett and Stephen and the good times in VFS, even some of the bad ones, and feeling generally nostalgic and lonely. That could have had something to do with today's morose pity party as well, I guess. I need a yoga session. And a place to live. And an original idea. And an acting gig. And a future.

Well, as always, this has been a rewarding conversation... what do I owe you for this session? Same time next week? Okay then.

P.S. obsessing over The X-files again. This is the fourth time around. Which means it definitely in the top five of the most recurring obsessions, still after seventeen years, that's quite cool, don't you think.

Script-writing and Flat hunting

The feature screenplay that I wrote and then decided wasn't really right and had to be made into two different stories and further developed and then written again, well I've written one of them now. So, again, I've written a feature screenplay. But it's not completely done because I'm still not sure if it should have a parallel narrative with past events, or if it should have actual flash backs, or just leave it to the dialogue in present time, actual dialogue and subtext, to tell the story of the past, the way it is now...  Basically, I don't know if I'm telling a "Beautiful Kate" or a "Margot at the wedding"...

Did I tell you I chopped my hair off?


Other things from the boring reality we're confined to:

The flat that Min and I thought we would get is no longer an option, which means we're both back to square one and potentially homeless come September. This situation is always fun. Never gets old. Really.

The job situation looks about the same way. The woman at Pocket Shop will get back to me in three weeks, when she gets back from her holiday, and I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for that, but that doesn't feed my bank account during the rest of the summer, though. So I'm going to head out with another batch of CV:s and see what happens.

Burning

I just put a pot of chickpeas to boil on the stove and forgot about them. And the people I live with discovered them before the smell of something burning reached my room. Quite embarassing. They joked about burning down the house now that we're not allowed live there for much longer, so they weren't angry or anything. Although I think I might have ruined their pot... I blame the heat. I can't think, let alone function in this sauna of a house, and I would go outside to cool off, if it was actually cool outside, which it's not.

I had a great time on Sunday, I went to Min's parents house, and Min showed me, her friend Rasmus and her boyfriend Pedro how to make these Chinese dumplings, it was quite fun once you got the hang of it, very therapeutic, and then we ate them. Another one of Min's friends showed up as well, Becka, and together with Min's little brother Sean (I don't know if he spells it that way...) we all played a game of Kubb, and then we played charades for a long time. The girl's won, both games, obviously. Ha-ha.

And the couple that I live with currently came back from their holiday last night. They gave me a gift certificate for the movie theatre to say thank you for keeping their birds alive (it would have been bird and plants, but I actually managed to kill two of those, but thankfully they never mentioned it...)

I got a text message from the owner of the indian restaurant this morning, or afternoon, asking me to come in to work tomorrow. I really have a bad feeling about this job, especially since I told me brother and sister-in-law about it and my sister-in-law went all passionate about quitting it immediately because it seemed obvious I was being exploited... but I took some literature and lists with me home last time I worked, so I have to give those back anyway, and it doesn't feel right to show up and drop those off and not stay and work. Besides it's not like I have another summer job lined up, so I might as well, at least I'll get a bit of pocket change in tips and a free meal. And I can ask him if he doesn't need my bank info to be able to transfer me my wages and gauge his reaction to it. Maybe I'm being paranoid, I shouldn't jump to conclusions. But even if he pays me, I'm still not going to take responsibility for that bar of his that he wants to open, the whole thing is just too unprofessional and chaotic.

My words fly up, thoughts left on the ground

Yes. You heard me. It's that kind of day.

No, it could be worse. I'm just feeling under the weather and I have to go and serve posh(ish) people in this indian restaurant downtown. I had my first night yesterday and it went fine. I mean, every item on the menu is as good as gibberish to me, I have no idea what the difference between this and that is and which is milder or hotter, but there was enough people coming in so that it didn't get boring, and still not become stressful, and compared to my last experience as a waitress (/barista/shift supervisor/dish washer) it was heavenly. For one thing, we weren't out of ninety per cent of the items on the menu, in fact we weren't out of any items on the menu, and nothing broke down, no fridge, no freezer, no toilet, no employees...

So, yeah, it went okay. The boss said I did a good job and that I could come back tonight, he also told me what my wages are going to be and that in the summer I'll mainly be working extra, which means he'll call me up if someone gets sick (which is a little less okay) but toward the end of summer and especially in the autumn I'll be able to work loads (still not okay... because) I wanted it the other way round, work loads this summer, then extra when school starts.

Also I have this job interview for Pocket Shop on monday that I'm really excited about because I always wanted a day job working with either films or books! So if I get that, I won't be working in the restaurant at all, because the book shop is a more permanent position, either part- or full time. So I'm starting to feel a great amount of resistence to even bother with the waitress gig, especially since I don't know if he still considers me a trainee or whatever and if he's not planning to pay me until I know the menu by heart or something. We'll see, I guess. At least I'll get a free meal by the end of the night (That sounded just awful, like I'm toeing the edge of the cliff and am about to fall and hit rock bottom, and next I'll be dining with the Salvation Army or something... no offence to the homeless, but the day I have to pretend to accept Jesus as my saviour in order to get a hot meal from the Salvation Army, I'll consider myself sitting on the rock bottom, but that's just me.)

So the movie "Gerry" is really bloody cool. I watched it again last night or this morning or however you want to look at it and it's incredible. It's not even movie. It's an experience. I love when those films get made, because I'm so sick of everyone who've crammed themselves into this little box labelled "How to be a successful film maker" is throwing all these stupid rules at me about what I can and can't do, like I don't know how to build a commercially successful concept, like I haven't inadvertedly seen a thousand examples of it, I'll just pick a script at random and change the details, tadaa!, but it just so happens that I don't want to do that, call me pretentious or naïve, but I actually want to bring something a little different and a little new to the table, because otherwise, what's the point? So, Gus Van Sant, definitely an inspiration.

Off to refill my coffee mug. (Graduation gift from my mum, it's ceramic and it says "There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in", I thought it was perfect, and when I told Anja she loved it too, the quote I mean, and then I told Min and she frowned and said, "That only works if you were to break the mug and get a crack in it...", just a prime example of the difference of perspective between people! And that's why you need a Min to tell you're story ideas to, because if anyone is going to push you to know your story inside and out and be clear, it's her! I don't know if irony is somehow related to that, or if that's just my writing. Min has a hard time getting irony, it's really amazing, I've never met someone who doesn't pick up on irony before... it really keeps you on your toes in conversation, and it brings to your attention just how ironic and sarcastic you really are, and by you, I mean I.)

Midsummer's Eve in Stockholm.

Yes it gets hot in Sweden. Min's brazilian boyfriend who is visiting the country right now would and have disagreed with me on this on several occasions already, but everything is relative...

So Midsummer was a success. I had a great time. It was relaxed, albeit too hot at first but then it got cloudy and perfect, we went for a swim in the lake, participated ironically in the traditional Midsummer festivities, well didn't so much participate as join in with a little singing and laughing at participants, but the I entered into the spirit of the thing, especially considering I couldn't find any sun block and for part of the day the sun was scorching... or warm at least...

We had a very random, impulsive get-together with a couple of people at the train stop while we where waiting for the train back into the city as well. They offered us strawberry cake and we offered them red wine in return. We also played frisbee with them and jumped with a long skipping rope. Good times.


Funny anecdote:

On my way home just now on the metro, at half past two in the morning, I'm sitting there, opposite this slightly weird but safe-looking guy in his mid thirties who could have been occasionally talking to himself, but I'm not sure (you never can be these days, what with all the crazy technology like handsfree... haha.)

And with all my make-up washed off, hair all tangled, plus wearing a baggy long-sleeve and jeans shorts... I'm a contrast to the other dolls present, right, and I'm thinking, well at least no-one will bother me, they'll think me a bum or something with my huge VFS backpack and so I put my ipod ear pieces in and crank some Dimmu Borgir...

When lo and behold, this guy plops down in the seat next to mine. In my peripheral I can see that he's turned around to stare at my profile point blank and is attempting at conversation... at first I play unaware, but he's still mouthing in my general direction, so I do the whole, glance then turn and look politely surprised and take one of my ear pieces out and say "I'm sorry what?" (only in Swedish) and then the conversation went as follows:

The guy next to me: *slurring* YoubeentoTanton?
Me: What was that, sorry?
The guy next to me: You been to Tanton?
Me: yyyeah, yes, I've been at a friend's place.
The guy next to me (nods, almost smugly, for a very long time, then...): Hadagoodtime?
Me: Eh yeah, yeah...... Yourself?
The guy next to me: Yeah.

(Pause, with awkward - for me - stearing and possibly leering - from him)

Me: Okay then.
The guy next to me: YougointoTcen?
Me: What was that?
The guy next to me: You going to T-cen?
Me: No?
The guy next to me: Mörby Centrum?
Me: Oh! Yeah. I mean, no, I'm going to Enebyberg, but yeah.
The guy next to me: Really. I wouldn't have guessed that.
Me:...No?
The guy next to me: Would've thought T-centralen, that's where you can take all the trains... and the tubes, those too...

Then the guy opposite me joins in: Not anymore you can't, the trains, they stopped running now, I think.
The guy next to me: Really? There aren't any trains anymore?
The guy opposite: I hope so, I need to catch one, I'm going further south- That's great that you guys had fun tonight. I didn't.
Me:...You didn't?
The guy opposite: No, not particularly, no.
Me: Why is that?
The guy opposite: Well the girl I'm interested in is sort of promiscious. And my closest friends have turned their back on me.
Me: Oh... no...
The guy opposite: Yeah, but that's how it goes sometimes, you just have to accept that sometimes you have bad nights out, I'm hoping tomorrow will be better, I'm going to a picnic.
Me: With other friends?
The guy opposite: Yes, other friends, that's right, yes.

The guy next to me takes out his iphone and mumbles something to regain my attention, once again I ask him to repeat himself and he asks me for my number.

Me: Why, what are you going to do with it?
The guy next to me: Dunno. Text you or something.
Me: There's really no point to that, I'm not interested.
The guy next to me: Not interested? In me?
Me: In anyone... I'm already involved, actually.

Speaker's voice: T-Centralen.

The guy next to me gets up to get off the tube, he puts a friendly hand on my arm and says good bye and take care. Meanwhile the guy opposite has also got up out of his seat and is standing there, and waits until the guy next to me has left and then waves good bye at me and says: "Good luck with you relationship" and then he also gets off.

And then I sit there by myself, trying not to laugh aloud and to figure out if that just happened.

And yes, Cesar, I know you think I'm "so mean". Which is complete and utter bollocks of course, I was a true gentlewoman to both those... people. So there.

Happy Midsummer's Eve everyone!

It's too hot. I have the window open on the other side of the solid dark brown curtain that is supposed to keep the light out and only half succeeds and it's still too hot in here. I'm dreading going outside, I'm only doing it because where I'm going there'll be a lake and I'll be going into it and it'll be heavenly. Midsummer's Eve, I'm spending it with Min and Tobbe from my old class, Min's boy toy (just kidding) Pedro who's visiting from Brazil and some of Min's friends from before, we're having a potluck picnic (I've made budget salad for the occasion and will be supplying the the beet's salad, the biscuits and the strawberries as well.) and not to forget, swimming in the lake. My only concern is that I can't seem to find any sun block anywhere. I'm not terribly worried about tanning this year, but I realy don't want to get burns.

Also, I want one of those flashy modern mobiles that takes really good quality photos and can hook up to the internet, because as it is now, my internet access is too limited and I don't have a camera at all, and the whole idea with me even owning a twitter account is just laughable all things considered. Mind you, twitter is rather pointless, with or without an iphone, I think. But any means to remind people of ones existence is vital, and in this day and age, if you don't update you Facebook status, well you might as well not exist. Speaking of which, I'm now following Barack Obama on Twitter. And Jared Leto... yeah.

Between purposes.

So after the second and final screening I went into hiding, or hibernating, for about a week. I skived off the graduation spectacle, and the class brunch, and shut myself in my room and watched movies and wrote a feature length screenplay. I've become something resembling a human being again since then, actually hung out with Tobbe and Min from class two days in a row, and now I'm relishing the fact that I seem to have internet at home again, for however long it'll last.

And I'm also itching to set up a web hosting account and rebuild my website more professionally or at least seriously but that is a very bad idea since I haven't got a job for the summer yet and won't be able to pay next month's rent, not to mention the mandatory get-together with the new class at the new school for the first few days which means I have to get myself from Stockholm to way off somewhere else in the country, pay for housing and feed myself whilst there. I had this half-baked naïve notion that I wouldn't have to get another grant for this year since it's mainly study-from-home and I'd be able to have a job and make some money at the same time, haah, yeah right! Well, to be honest, what with all the buzz at the end of (previous) school and then going MIA for a week, I haven't really had the time to put my back into looking for a job, but I'll get started on that for real first thing monday. But I think I'll apply for a grant for the first term anyway, just in case, and if I do happen to find enough work during that time, I won't apply for a grant for the second term. Not that it matters either way. I'm up to my eyeballs in debt already and there's no way I'll be able to pay it off, so what's another year going to do...

Possible good news on the film front, though. I might have a job on a novella film being shot this summer. Caroline, whom I did the internship on the zombie film with, has asked me to help her out with the casting, and maybe I'll get to tag along for the shoot as well, probably as an extras co-ordinator since that's what I mainly did on the zombie film. And unless they're shooting when I need to be in my new school. I really hope not because I'd really like to come, they'll be shooting at least one scene in London (at Gordon Ramsey's restaurant!) and that's just cool.

Things are coming to a new beginning.

Last night we had the screening at school, tonight we have a bigger one (if more people show up, at least) out in Subtopia outside of town. Last night was weird. My parents, my big brother and my friend Annsofie and her husband came to see mine and Anja's (and the other's) short films, there was a heavy sense of anticipation-mixed foreboding in the air, at least within the class, at least I felt so, like something was about to drastically change and we could all feel it and it made our skins prickle but so far everything was exactly the same so we had to stall or hide our reactions to it, so we were stomping on egg shells and making eye contact like it was nothing and pretending like it didn't feel like it was the last time we saw it others, which it wasn't, but it sort of felt like it anyway. We had a toast and chaotic talk afterward with our professor and mentor Maria, she'd bought champagne, I was listening to the others talk, some tried to keep it light, others wanted to make speeches, Tobbe was drunk, Maria was hard to read as usual but smiling more than ever, I didn't say anything.

Earlier in the day Anja and I went to the screening of the third year's final productions, amongst them the zombie film, although we had to leave before the last film because our photographer sent us a text message and said there was something wrong with the files and she couldn't convert the film from the program to a Quick time, and later we heard that the last film was the best one by far. But at least we got to see the ones we'd been involved in. The zombie film turned out great!

I'm in school again now. Min and I are printing and folding more fliers for the screening tonight. The weird feeling from yesterday is still here. But it's not like I'm anxious about the future, not like before, because I got an email from the school I've applied to for that scriptwriting course for next year and I got in, so I know what my next step is, so it's not like I'll be thrown into an abyss as soon as the doors to the school close behind me.

Deadlines and a newfound muse

I made it to the third and last step in the admission for the scriptwriting course for next year. It's an interview on the third of June.

Meanwhile, we're getting closer to the deadline for our short film "Vargens timma" and we've got a lot to do yet before it's even closed to finished, so I'm guessing we'll be working around the clock for the rest of the week. Although I have a couple of other things that I need to do as well, for one I still need to find a job. Also, I want to apply for a summer course in norm-criticizing theater performance at the theater school, and that deadline is the first of June. I have the interview that I mentioned. I need to work out a solution to my short/novella script and to do that I need to visit a funeral company and do some research.

Plus, I just had an idea for a really short short film that I need to write down as soon as possible so that I can get some feedback from my teachers before this course is over - I think this will be a perfect project to start with, because it's simple and short, it's got two characters and it's just one scene - I need to make a few shorter film projects that are cheap to get done, that I can show when I apply for funding for my larger projects down the line. And I usually have a really hard time thinking of shorter story ideas, all my ideas tend to involve complicated relationships and long character developments and stretch out to feature length, so I was really surprised when this idea came to me, practically finished, just like that, from a clear sky. It was like I'd been struck by a bolt of inspiration from a muse, and that never happens to me, ever! 

Right now, I'm waiting for Anja to get to school so that we can start working. She's already found one job and has been working three hours in the morning every day this week and I've been doing other stuff, and then we've worked on the short film in the afternoon and into the evening. And today she had a meeting as well, so it's going to be a late night tonight. But that's the business we're getting into and I'm not complaining! At least I'm not starving anymore!

Tedious everyday stuff.

Uploading my CV to different groups of retail companies' websites. I rather work in a café, especially over summer and autumn, but I'm in no position to be picky. Besides, one type of store that would be almost ideal for me and would be my dream job if making films weren't already... book stores! So, keep your fingers crossed for a position in one of those lining up for me. Looking for work is tiresome and discouraging. But now I'm going to replace my "new" pajamas (I got another bag of clothes from my sister-in-law, including a lovely pair of pajamas!) with something more respectable and head for school. Anja and I are working afternoons and evenings for three days now, because she already got a job and started this morning.

The scriptwriting course admission's third step will be announced this wednesday too. It's just an interview, and it's in Stockholm, so I'm actually hoping that I passed step two. So there's another reason to keep your fingers crossed.

Twenty-four.

So my 24th birthday came and went fairly quietly. I'd almost forgotten it myself in the morning. And then I was in school working wkith Anja. I'd got a bunch of Happys on Facebook that I only just saw and responded to now. And I got a text message from both my brothers respectively. And a phone call from each of my parents. And a proper birthday card in the mail, also from my parents. And Anja bought me a cup of coffee when we were taking a break from editing.

I can't believe I'm twenty-four. I'll be twenty-five next year. That's irreversibly and unquestionably grown-up. I don't feel very grown-up. I certainly don't act it most of the time. I guess those cliché quotes about age being a number and a state of mind and all that is true.

I've run into a pickle with my script. I don't know what to do with it. I have a strong mind to just discard the whole thing. But that would be giving up, and I'm trying not to do that as much any more. But even the post-it note thing isn't working out and I'm out of ideas and patience. 

Well, I should get some sleep. Got my nephew Theo's birthday party tomorrow, and my parents and little brother are taking me out to lunch before we're going over to my big brother's place for it, too.

Back

So by now we've finished shooting the short "Vargens timma", I'd meant to blog during the shoot and keep you updated on the process, but there wasn't time to, nor energy. One night we kept going well into the morning, and Anja and I stayed the night in the flat where we were filming, and that was the good day because it meant we got a few hours of extra sleep. But the shoot went well. The team was amazing. We got some great material. A couple of images in particular are awesome, so stay tuned for teaser trailer or film clip! So far we've only started syncing the images to the sounds, which is simple enough but takes FOREVER, and therefor we haven't been able to start editing yet...


We also had the pitch for 360 grader on friday. I'd given up on composing some sort of script for it and just had faith that I knew what my film was about and how I wanted it to look and I just went up and improvised. It went swimmingly. I felt really confident, even though I was extremely nervous before-hand. Same thing for Anja. In fact I think everyone were blown away by the fact that we both "took the stage" with such ease and confidence, no longer playing the insecure little shy girls that people have seen us as, and it felt really liberating. And even if I faked the confidence when I first went up, I found it for real as I stood there. And afterwards when Anja and I were congratulating each other on a job well done, a classmate of ours did this subconsciously patronizing thing that happens so often, he laughed and commented in the sort of voice you use to talk to kids or puppies and said we were cute, and both Anja and I instinctively put him right and told him not to say stuff like that, and he obviously felt bad because it wasn't his conscious intention, but that's so typical. When a girl has a victory she's "cute" but when a guy has the same victory he gets a heartfelt slap on the shoulder and a "Good work" that isn't high-pitched at all.


I've also applied to a scriptwriter's course for next year, as you know. And I moved on to stage two in the admission. We had to analyze a script of our choice and write down our thoughts on it in relation to our own writing, I chose "The indian runner" and started out praising the strong lead characters and their complex relationship and the plot as a whole, but ended up criticizing  it for its stereotypically two-dimensional female characters put into the story only to accentuate the male characters further (made a parallel to Lars Norén's female characters, for those of you familiar with his plays, as well as the female characters in the Bible) and ended the whole feminist manifesto saying scripts like this made me not want to, but feel the need to write my own scripts, just as powerful but with the paper dolls a.k.a. female characters taken out and replaced by actual three-dimensional human beings with minds of their own, because I can't relate to the two female leads in The Indian Runner at all, I can relate to Frank (played by Viggo Mortensen) and even Joe (played by David Morse) because they're stereotypically human, as opposed to stereotypically male. Maybe I came on a bit too strong, but as I told Cesar in an email a few hours ago, if they end up accepting me into the course, they might as well be prepared for what they're taking on, right... We also had to write a scene between 2-3 characters with the theme jealousy. So I struggled with that yesterday and managed to convert it to pdf as well and got it sent off just in time for the deadline!

Going home for the day now. Should be doing yoga, but don't think I'll make it in time. Should also eat something, but don't think I have much food left in my cupboards. I have rice, I think. And soured milk, some at least. And salsa. All very yummy! Especially combined!

Saturday, and clearly spring.

So I woke up at six o'clock this morning, at first feeling pretty good, but I think that was a reaction in comparison to how I normally feel when I'm up at six in the morning. I got up, and started to feel dizzy and faint. I also had a killer crick in my neck so I must have slept too curled up... I went to make coffee, planning to get som writing done before going to Vårrullen film festival where I was supposed to promote Baskursen at Dramatiska Institutet with three guys from my class. But I started feeling nauseous so I went back to bed. I couldn't go back to sleep so I watched two and a half movies (Saw 1, Killer deadline and From dusk till dawn) before I dozed off. My mobile ring tone (which is the song my little brother and his band recorded when he was like 13...) woke me up at noon and it was one of the guys, they were heading towards the place. I still felt like death reheated in a microwave, plus my throat was started to get sore, so I called Tobbe to make sure he had the stuff and that he was going, and then I decided to stay home and take it easy. I feel bad about it, since now our course is being represented by guys only, since I was the only girl who signed up, but I can't afford to get sick before the shoot, in case I'm coming down with another cold or something... I did discard my winter jacket the other day and yesterday it was pouring down rain...

Positive things, though! We now have a beautiful, perfect flat to shoot in, it was like walking into my own script, the only thing I could think was "This is where Maj (the main character) lives!" so that's taken care of, beyond expectations. And yesterday we heard back from the photographer, and she said yes too! I'm clapping my hands and giggling whenever I think about it!

The plant I got from mum when I got into D.I. has resurrected again. It's even got a new leaf amidst the dried-up old ones now.

After I met up with my old friend Annsofie for a coffee and a chat a while back, I wrote three poems on the ride home, just straight from my subconscious, no editing, and I put them up on this poetry website, and one of them ("luftskjul") were selected by the editors to be on the main page, they have a place for poems they want people to pay attention to, and I never got one of my poems noticed like that before, with my edited poems, so maybe poetry works the opposite way from scriptwriting for me, because my first draft of a script is incomprehensible to most people and I need to edit like crazy before anyone gets what it's about, and I rely on loads of good feedback to get the story where it needs to go... but apparantly in poetry, I should just wruite from my "creative unconscious" as the mother character in "Running with scissors" kept saying, and not edit too much...

I feel better now, just got a mild headache and a mildly sore throat (but my neck still hurts like a thumbscrew!) but I'm glad I decided to stay at home, I think I need the weekend to focus and recharge my batteries, plus I have to write a new version for Vargens timma and start editing Brev till min mamma (which needs a lot of work, the main plot was lost on Maria, so it's as unclear as can be, pus she said it was too slow in the build-up, I needed to start where the "action" starts for the main character, and she's completely right, of course, she's actually really great at giving feedback!)

Jam jars!

Growing out of my skin. The future is a kaleidoscope of confusing thoughts and maybe-options. Dreams. Realities. Not really terrifying, at least not today. Possibilities. Hope. Self-confidence.

I just compiled an application package for scriptwriting course on distance (is that what you call it, I don't think so... I don't know what you call it. But you work from home, you don't go to a school every day, you only meet up about three times per term, the rest of the time you keep in contact with mentors and course mates via internet and work on your own projects and give each other feedback. I thought that would be a great option, because then you can work at the same time and earn your rent, plus work on your film projects on the side as well, if you have time.) and mailed it. I also mailed a letter to Mexico.

In a bit, Anja and I are meeting up with a photographer we hope will want to shoot our short. After that we have a script meeting with out teacher Maria. After that we're going to look at a flat we'll hopefully be allowed to shoot in.

The date of our first day of filming is getting closer. Both Anja and I are rather stressed out. But we also had a meeting with the photo professor at the school yesterday and told him about the script and what we wanted to do (show the world as the main character sees it when she's experiencing anxiety with distorted perspective, tunnel vision, shadows moving around her, and then as it gets really bad, we want to embody Anxiety itself as this shadow creature watching her from the background and slowly moving closer to her) and he gave us loads of inspiring and creative tips and ideas, like us, he's all for old school tricks as opposed to the newest, most expensive technique, and that was a relief to hear. For example, instead of a 35 mm adapter and different lenses to achieve these effects like distorted perception of the room, he said he used film through different see-through objects like jam jars and the glass part of a paraffin lamp. And he also said that he filmed in a studio once and they literally made the room bigger and smaller by moving the walls, and said that would be a really effective way to make the walls close in on the character... but we're filming on location, so the walls are immovable, but then I thought of a way to achieve that same effect, if you go in for closer shots so that you don't see the whole rooms or more than one wall, you can move a piece of furniture closer, or move the actor (that would be me...) closer to the wall! So yes, we're stressed out, but we're also really excited now, thanks to the inspiration of this teacher! Old school tricks seem to be one.) more effective and creative, and two.) way more fun!

Well, I should get going. Just wanted to check in.
Peace, love and respect

fucking tea and stuff

Drinking tea (red) even though I haven't got a cold. Am feeling cold though, as in chilly. I'll blame it on that. Hi by the way, long time no update, I know. I haven't even been busy this weekend, I haven't been doing anything, not even writing, or working on my social skills, just been in bed all two days and nights, sometimes dozing, sometimes watching something...

for example "Brideshead Revisited" which I bought on DVD recently, for two reasons, 1.) Jeremy Irons, 2.) homoerotic subtext, oh and I suppose 2½.) it was voted the best english TV show of all time... well, it was good for about two and a half episodes. Jeremy Irons was good all through out of course, but his character was like a watered-down version of Heathcliff in that he went from sympathetic to outright awful by the end, and the storyline tumbled quickly downhill in my eyes as well, I could never read the book... unlike Wodehouse's writings of Jeeves & Wooster there seemed to be no satire about it at all, quite the opposite, it painted the upper class world out to be this Paradise to revere and, in times of war, protect... well, I'll have to agree with my mum on this one - but I still maintain that P.G. Wodehouse is awesome and that she would like the books if she gave them a try *hint hint*

I haven't been bedridden from exhaustion either, which is the annoying thing... but I've been in physical pain. For one, I've managed to hit my left shoulder really hard, so that it's not only bruised but I'm only just starting to regain full mobility in my arm... same thing with my knee... and the icing on top would be the most excruciating after "working out/having slept on Stonehenge" muscle pain you can imagine in my entire back, shoulders and neck, neck so much so that I've had next to no sideways mobility in that department either... must have been from sleeping in some awkward position or something, because I haven't been working out, I've only been dancing a bit at the class party on friday! a few of us stayed behind, fought over which music to play and danced around for a bit, it was fun, except the part where I fell down and hit my shoulder, my knee and the back of my head in a chair and part of a wall... and I wasn't even drunk! ah well... bruises are cool, and pain lets you know you're alive.

I've also been reading this.

And in case I didn't mention it before, working with Simon Norrthon has been one of the best things that's ever happened to me, the work shop in general has, but getting Simon Norrthon as an actor on top of that, him being absolutely lovely, and amazing, and me not making a complete arse of myself, and learning quite a bit, and realizing for certain that directing is fucking amazing and it's definitely something I want to be doing more of, yeah... definitely one of the best things ever. So many things just sort of... clicked, in those days.

And I've been re-watching the film that I first saw him in when I was about nine, "Pensionat Oskar" which has been on second place of my top favourite films list for years (since I watched "The Indian Runner" and it got bumped down to second from first) but since watching it again lately (about ten or fifteen times, I'd say would be a fair guess, by myself... then once with Anja, once with my parents, and once with my little brother only we only got halfway because dinner got ready and he didn't like it...) and it's now bumped "The Indian Runner" down to second and reclaimed first place. Susanne Bier whose directed it is also one of my favourite directors now. And Peter Jackson isn't anymore. ("The Lovely Bones" being the reason. I can't even go into it, but.... even worse than the trash "literature" it was based on, completely commercial, sappy, predictable, pointless, etc etc etc.... yeah. DISAPPOINTED.)

The zombie film had its wrap party too. Weird. Nice. Weird. Sad. Fun. Awkward. Lovely. Yeah. I tried to "pitch" my novella film project to Rebecka, the producer, and she said she would love to read the script. I didn't even pitch the project to Caroline, I just sort of told her I wanted her with me if I got to make it, and she agreed. The pressure on writing this stupid script is therefore... yeah.

Going to bed now. Good night everyone.

Want to know what my world is like at the moment?

The other day I made a compulsive visit to a grocery store on the way home when I was only supposed to be changing trains, and since I needed some groceries because I've been running out of options at home, I figured it was probably a good thing. Until I walked out again with a bag of crisps, two pairs of sun glasses and three DVDs... Oh, and a jar of pesto! That was dinner. Yeah. I'm a terrible shopper.

So we had our first day with Eva Dahlman yesterday, without the actors, just her, myself, Ragnar, Anja, Arsen, Katta and Bam Bam, talking about the two scripts and then each of us got to talk about the particular scene we'd chosen to do and explain what it meant to us, how we wanted to see it performed and staged, and so on. And then Eva Dahlman gave us a lot of tips on how to go about, first continuing the preparatory work on our scenes, then preparing for the meeting with our actors, and how to approach the scenes with them and how to direct them.

It's so scary. I got Simon Norrthon, whom I'd wished for from the beginning, he's amazing and I've admired him since I was a kid, even though I haven't seen him in much since he's mostly been doing theatre and I haven't really been to any theatres in Stockholm. But he was in one of my favourite films that I show with my mum as a kid, Pensionat Oskar, and he was also in Hugo's midterm film, Altona. And Caroline's told me that he's great, both to work with and as a person, but I'm still terrified, what if what I say doesn't make any sense to him, what if I don't have enough grasp on the text and the play, what if I do anything at all (which is very likely when it comes to me) that makes me look stupid? Etc, etc, etc... so those are the regular jitters. Here are the more pressing, and more justified, ones:

I've chosen a scene which is a dialogue between the main character and her doctor/shrink. I'd decided on the scenery and the blocking and the, everything, basically, based on the fact that there were two characters in the scene, talking to each other, and would be performed by two actors, on the stage, talking to each other... well, guess what, I get one actor. So my whole prep goes out the window as does half of my text analysis, because unless I want the poor actor to behave like he's suffering from dissociative personality disorder and be both characters and talk to himself, the scene has to be performed like the main character re-telling the story of how the conversation with her shrink went when they convinced him/her to start taking medicine, so then everything in the dialogue, including the shrink's lines, are told by the main character, and are then subject to his/her interpretation, judgement, censorship, you name it, it's not objective. For one, it's from her memory, and memories in themselves are not reliable, and her thoughts overall aren't reliable as it is (This is Sarah Kane's Psychosis 4.48, by the way!) and her interpretation of them is very likely coloured by her feelings for her shrink, so biased, to say the least. This makes the most sense to me. And it took me half the day and then the entire ride home and browsing for a bit in another grocery store like a crazy lady muttering to herself with the script clutched to my chest, to figure this out. He is re-telling the story of how he ended up taking medicine, against his better knowledge, and what do you know, I was right, kind of thing... so the second problem then would be, since this is not happening in the now as I'd planned it would be from the beginning, it's already happened, where is he now and why is he re-telling this story and to whom is he talking? He's not talking to himself, he's not sitting in his room muttering under his breath, he's not repeating anything, he's teling it like a story, like he has an audience... so is he actually talking to the audience, and is the audience representing the world, whoever is listening, whoever cares, to whom it may concern... if this is a chapter in his suicide note, I guess that would make sense... but most of the text is addressed directly to the shrink, like the suicide note is written for her/him, so is he really telling all of this to the shrink? Why? They were there, they know what happened. But what if they forgot? What if they think they can just forgot and move on with their lives and shake off any feelings of guilt and pretend they were just doing their job and this was just another unfortunate statistic? No way, and this is why I'm writing this letter, this is why, to let you and the whole world know that this is your fault, all your fault, and my father's fault and my mother's fault, but I blame you, because I loved you because you got me to love you and you got to me and you touched me deeper than anyone ever has and no-one is allowed to touch me but you did and then you betrayed me and lied to me and you abandoned me; my last hope, the one who was going to save me, you didn't and that's why I'm dead. So fuck you if you think you're moving on and sleeping soundly next to your partner at night. I want you to feel bad. I want you to feel bad for the rest of your life. I want you to know what you did to me. You and all the world. I'm taking full responsibility of my own actions, I took my own life, I don't deny that, but you helped, and I want the world and you to know that. You helped kill me... Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. But it's one thing to think it. How do you show it? How do you stage it? Is he standing in the middle of his room at the hospital, walls closing in and all that, screaming at the ceiling, or has he conjured up an image of the shrink before his mind's eye and is spitting the words into their imaginary face, or is the shrink just outside the door, somewhere nearby in the corridor, or are there other doctors outside, that he's trying to reach out to, to actually make himself heard, or is he addressing the audience in a sort of out-of-body experience, the actor embodying the voice of the character in their handwriting of the sucide note?

Questions, questions, questions...

It's a great play though. I can't believe I've missed her and never heard of her before. Sarah Kane. I'm going to read everything about her and all of her plays now. She was brilliant. The whole thing is really sad and morbid but beautiful at the same time. Because this play, Psychosis 4.48, is the last thing she wrote, and it is her suicide note, and shortly after she wrote it she hung herself in her room at the hospital. And of course, knowing that, it makes the whole experience working with the play all the more eerie, like it means more, not because she actually did do it in the end, but because every single word is true beyond doubt, and you know that she's poured out her heart and soul, the very last remnants of both, out onto the page and left them behind, and now you're holding them and can only hope to get anywhere near doing them justice... and of course that adds to the jitters as well. Another scary thing is how much I can relate to so much of it. I've never had a psychosis and I've never had electric shock treatments, which by the way, I didn't know they still used, and was really shocked (no pun intended) to find out that they do, in Sweden even, and is that even safe, and how do they know, but that's besides the point... I can relate to everything she's feeling and thinking. But then again, I think most people can, at least if they analyse the text, because the circumstances may be extreme, but her thoughts and feelings are every person's thoughts and feelings, they're human thoughts and feelings, human weakness and strength, human complexes and complexities, human hybris, human despair, human humour as a self-defence mechanism; and that's what I love most about Sarah Kane and this play, her sense of humor, through it all, even her darkest moments, she still has a sense of humor about it all, and herself, gallows humour. I love it. Like in my scene, she says (and I'm translating from the Swedish translation of the play because I've yet to find the original, so I'm sure it's better put initially...) "I dreamed I went to see a doctor and she told me I only had eight minutes to live, and that's after I'd been sitting in her fucking waiting room for half an hour."

Check out Simon Norrthon and Sarah Kane. And look after yourselves.

---

4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
How do you review a suicide note? It's beautiful, it's dark, it's funny, it's tragic, it's morbid, it's complex, it's to-the-point, it's hopeful, it's hopeless, it's logical, it's chaotic, it's there, in your face, it's the truth. She has, had, a beautiful way with words, an amazing sense of humour even in her darkest moments, she writes with such clarity, even when nothing is clear to her, she writes in rhythms and images and it's like poetry, or music, and every single word is important, means something, symbolically or directly, it's what's left of her heart and soul, poured out and smeared across a page and it's ruthless and mean and vengeful and, maybe, forgiving at the same time. It's not the words of a victim. It's not a plea for sympathy, or empathy, or forgiveness, or even to be understood. It's a farewell speech, it's a declaration of love, and hate, and it's a statement, she's taking full responsibility of her own actions, but she's not letting the others, who share the blame for why this happened, she's not letting them off the hook either, she's brutal, she's desperate, she's honest, she's waving at us from the space in-between, or she could be flipping us off, or she could be doing a peace sign, it doesn't matter, she was here, now she's gone, these are her parting words, and they're what they are.

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One of those mornings

Couldn't sleep last night. Got caught up with Supernatural, even though I'm sort of over that show now, just to have something to focus on as I was trying to sleep, which I eventually did (but by that time I was back to old episodes of Touching Evil, which I know by heart so it's easier to watch it with my eyes closed and thus easier to lure myself to sleep.) But I was basically undead when my alarm went off this morning and looked it too. And I managed to be running late and everything. Only to get a phone call from my new teacher as I was on the train and discover that I wasn't even supposed to show up, only group 1 was supposed to, but I might as well come into school anyway so that we could have one of our meetings (she likes to have meetings with you.) so I figured I'd go get a nice big coffee and relax, print my scripts and proof read quietly until she was done with group 1... well, I realized I'd forgot my wallet at home. Yeah. So here I am, the living dead, no coffee (or teacher) in sight, running on empty as far as caffeine and any other form of energy goes, and it's only nine thirty. What do you suppose my chances are of making it through the day?

maah.

Don't know quite what to do with myself now. But at least I've rested a bit. Tomorrow I'll get some serious work done.

Saw Min today. She got back from Brasil yesterday, we went to Skärholmen and had coffee and talked some.

Then I went to my brother's since I'd been invited over for dinner when he phoned me yesterday. Vegan pancakes with vegan whipped cream and blueberry jam. Got to see the kids and then they went to bed and I had coffee and watched some telly with my brother and Annelie.

Then I went home and attempted to permanently curl my hair with this foul-smelling toxic stuff that I bought, I don't think I did it right or it doesn't work very well, but we'll see what it looks like when my hair's dried...

Watching Wire in the blood now, and falling asleep sitting up. Should probably crawl into bed. 

Sorry. I'm too knackered to compose interesting or witty sentences. I'll leave off here and talk to you again later when I'm more... you know... into it.

The last of the exterior shots!

I'm stuck where treasures of childhood litter
the sounds of almost innocense linger
like a stuttering wail &
yesterday's morning was broken with a fist
These marks will also fade
(but I'll never be that smooth blank whole
again.)


About 16-hour day today, shooting outside, on the plus side we didn't have -18 degrees like we had the other day when we shot under St. Eriksbron (bridge) but on the downside it was really wet and damp, so it still got cold and it got in your bones, and my shoes and socks got soaked early in the day so I've been walking around with cold, wet feet all day and night. (You get used to it after a while.) Oh, and I had to get up at three in the morning to catch the night bus to get me into town and to school to co-ordinate extras at half past five, but the bloody bus just drove on right past me, so I was about ten minutes late anyway, so I could just have slept another half hour. But it was fine. I got some coffee from makeup and things went relatively smoothly, as did the rest of the day. Now I'm knackered, but that's a good thing since I'm heading to bed! Up (not quite as) early again tomorrow, which will be a holiday compared to our previous days since we'll be shooting in a studio at school, which means no having to find a location, no co-ordinating extras from and to bus stops and waiting areas and bathrooms and set, no scurrying around in ice-cold puddles all day, no fog or drizzle or snow storms or cold or rain, not getting lost, no confusion about who drives what car where... it'll be heaven! I just have to wake up, get to school, and then I just have to stay there all day long. And there's a 7-eleven just across the street. With proper, good, wonderful 7-eleven coffee. No more awful, toxic, (and in the case of outside shoots, iced) coffee you usually get on set. Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration (not about the ice, you left your cup for more than five minutes, you could turn it upside down and the coffee would stay in the cup) coffee is still coffee, it could never be awful (unless you put anything in it)

But yes, anyway, sleep! and tomorrow: massive zombie shoot out extravaganza with real stunt men and fake weapons and cool special effects! woo hoo!

By the end of this shoot, the film crew won't need makeup to jump in as zombie extras...

Another crazy day on the zombie film shoot, and it's (definitely) not over yet. I actually left the team, cast and crew (we we've been shooting in three different ext. locations today, and when I left they were filming in the very central part of Stockholm, as central as you can probably be, on a roped off stretch of street just above Sergels Torg) to go into school and phone all the extras with call-times and meeting place for monday the 1st, something that my assistant was supposed to do but couldn't and he's also unable to help me out tomorrow, so instead of doing just my job tomorrow, I have to delegate and do both of ours, but I don't think it'll be a problem (and by that, I mean it's not literally impossible)

It's just that I have to, yet again, get up at four o'clock to catch the night bus to the tube and head into town to be at the school before half past five, which is when our first group of zombie extras will be arriving, and basically my task is to co-ordinate them between makeup and costume and then to the car that will take them to set, and then the next group will arrive at seven and after I've greeted them and shown them where the makeup artists are, I'll have to run to catch the tube which will take me to the meeting place for all the other extras that are coming tomorrow but who aren't zombies, and I have to gather them around me and herd them into whichever car the team can spare at that time and make sure they get driven to set...

I can just picture those of you who know me, or knew me, I should say, before this production, how I was then with structure, schedules and organizing things... I'm learning so much on this internship! I call people up on the phone left right and center, I keep track of names and dates and times and tasks, even without my notes, I keep notes, I even have a huge binder with all my papers in one place... no little crumbled up post-it notes, no scribbles on the back of my hand... I know!  

Okay, back to work! The only reason I had time to update this blog is that I was still waiting for the address of the location for monday and the call-times (we do everything, literally, at the last minute in this production... it's just how we roll!)

Det är ni som e de konstiga, det är jag som e normal

The most amazing thing happened the other night. I was working late on the zombie film and Anja phoned me, she was at the train station about to go home to Värmland for the weekend, and was just about to buy her ticket when her brother had phoned and said he had two extra tickets for Thåström! So obviously, since she loves Thåström just as I do, she decided to delay her departure until the next morning and phoned me! So more impromptu than ever I went to a Thåström concert with Anja, her older brother (also the dad of my darling child actor in my short film - that I've finally come up with a title for, by the way... "Vi stannar här" - We're staying here.) and his, slightly toasted friends. It was awesome and magical and fantastic. I love Thåström. When everyone else listened to Backstreet boys and Spice girls, back in the day, I listen to Ebba Grön and Imperiet (which is funny, because apparantly Anja's brother had said the exact same thing to her, except instead of Backstreet boys and Spice girls it was Per Gessle. The previous generation. And Thåström's still standing!)

I'm in the production room of the zombie film right now. People are going mad with stress. We start shooting on Saturday and nothing is done! It's still fun though.

Vitamin water, the new cigarettes?

Hello everyone, once again, it's been a while, I apologise. That's the thing with blogging though, when you have things to write about you don't have the time to, and when you have time to update your blog you really have nothing interesting to say so you ramble on about your cat, the weather, cornflakes and quote music lyrics that really speak to you for some unearthly reason to pass yourself off as deep. But anyway.

I got a crash course in Avid from editor on the Argentina film, and then I started my second intership, which it'll only last a few days total by the looks of it, I've been doing it for two days, and then when the remaining material arrives it'll probably be one more. What I do is that I get the footage up on the screen and find the frame where the clapper comes together, then I go to the sound file for that take and listen for the sound of the clap and time them together so that the footage and sound are in sync with each other. When you've done that with all the material, you cut it up into clips, starting after "Action" and ending before "Cut" and categorize them. This so that it will be easier for the editor to start editing the film. Basically the dirty work of the editing process, although the editor has been working simultaneously with me, so he didn't take me in so that he wouldn't have to do it himself, but so it would go faster and he could start editing sooner. He's also editing the zombie film, and I overheard him talking to a class mate about a script he's written, so he's pretty busy by the sounds of it.

As am I, because beside these two internships, we've also started an evening course in sound editing now and we're starting to plan our next projects, whilst finishing up our previous ones. So plenty of irons in the fire! (and I love it!)

My next project is a short film, a drama, I've already written the script and I also want to direct it, and this time, act in it as well. It's called "Vargens timma" (The wolf's hour. Not to be mistaken for Hour of the wolf, which was my initial idea for the title, until I realized it was already taken by Ingmar Bergman in 1967...), after that I want to do a novella film (which is in-between short and feature length, and is half an hour, which I think is pretty Swedish, or at least I never heard of it in Vancouver... but bascially it's like in literature you have short story, novella and novel... only in Sweden there's no term for novella, which is pretty ironic, but anyway, I'm getting off the topic...) which I've also written the script for, "Brev till min mamma" (Letter to my mother) and after that I have two feature length ideas and one idea that can be either a novella or a feature, I haven't decided yet, but it's inspired by the (not so good) movie "Two girls and a guy" with Robert Downey, Jr. but in my film all three actually get together like a triple (as opposed to couple) and don't just talk about it for two hours, and I think it'll end with one of the girls getting pregnant and the trio deciding to raise the child together and continue living like a family. What do you think? That's my romantic comedy, by the way. The other two features are much more gruesome and extreme. Lots of sex and violence. And sexually confused and deviated characters. And bad language. And good music. And smoking, lots of smoking, because even though I'm starting to dislike it more and more myself in reality, whenever I write something, my characters turn out to be smokers, because I still have some semi-subconscious notion that smoking is cool. Well, it does look cool on film, especially with the right lighting. Like the opening sequence in "A guide to recognizing your saints" with Robert Downey, Jr. It's just him, sitting on a dark stage, holding a lit cigarette, and steeling himself to start reading from his book, and the lighting is sort of golden, and the smoke is blue. It's really quite beautiful.

Speaking of beautiful. The footage from Argentina is gorgeous. The photographer is really talented. I love it. I forget her last name now, but her first name is Iga, I have to get back to you with her last name, because you'll want to keep track of her in the future.

A quick update!

First of all, I'd like to apologise for being MIA these past weeks. I've been sort of busy.

We're still casting for the zombie film, but we should be done with that by the end of this week. It's been really fun. We've been casting regular actors for the human roles, groups of extras as zombies, children as zombies being lobotomised! Yeah, I know... and today, there is a cup of maggots in the office! a sample for the maggots we're going to need for all the dead bodies in the film, you know... regular white ones, and dark red ones as well, I didn't even know there were red ones, they're really cool-looking!

Monday night I went to the Guldbaggegalan after party with Anja, and Ragnar and Tobbe were there from our class as well. It was sort dry at first, people crowding the place, sipping drinks and mingling (my favourites) and lots of B-list (and some A-list) celebrities looking past you like you were a ghost and making bee-lines for other celebrities and comparing current CV statuses, basically, not fun, very on the surface and high-brow, but then, magically, at two o'clock, things changed, they started playing fun dance music and people started letting loose and loads of people were dancing, and for the last hour, Anja and I had a blast dancing, it was so much fun. I crashed at Anja's place afterwards. Then but into the frey the next day, which was twice as long as usual, which it'll be today as well, because our sound course has started, and the lessons start at six and end at around ten at night.

Okay, our advanced extra, a miss Maria something, is here to audition for the priest! Have to go!

Up the rabbit hole.

So I'm sitting in school now, and I'm the only one too, besides some staff members, and it's getting light outside but I got here when it was still dark about an hour ago, only to realize I don't actually have anything that I can do, because what I was supposed to do was call around to a bunch of strangers that have shown their interest in being zombie extras in the film and book about 160 of them for group auditions for monday and tuesday next week, but since no studios seem to be available for booking, I can't very well book any zombies because we won't have anywhere to put them and it's not like we can have the auditions in the hallway... and despite having slept on and off for three days, I'm getting tired already, can you believe it? I didn't sleep any this morning, which is probably why... I woke up at half past nine last night and I've been up since, so I guess, that's twelve hours, yeah it makes sense that I'm getting tired doesn't it? or does it? how long do you usually stay awake in a normal day if you're a normal person? you get up at like seven, you go to bed at what eleven? ten? no that's fifteen-sixteen hours, I shouldn't be getting tired yet... which means that in three or four hours I'll probably krasch. Great. Then, since there is no-one here to keep watch over me and make sure that I'm being productive, I'll cave in and go home and fall asleep and then wake up at midnight and still be stuck in this upside-down day rhythm... Great.

I feel like I'm not really real. And this is a deleted scene from a Roy Andersson film, or something. The bleak light. The falling snow outside the window next to me. The quiet around me. Except for the very annoying tick-tock of a clock somewhere.

My teacher Hanna had left an envelope for me at reception with my letter of recommendation that she's written for my grant application, though, and it was really flattering. So that made it worth while to show up here this morning.

Back in my room.

Four walls, the smell of candles, sweat, dust
Empty notebooks prop the desk
My coffee cooling in a cup on top; it's got butterflies on it
I'm chasing the tail end 
of a woken dream

*

Back in my room, and you won't believe me, but this is the first time I've been properly awake since I got back, I've literally been in bed, sleeping on and off, for three days... guess I was exhausted. The worry still has its claws in me, be at least I've been properly rested now. And I've been watching some Disney Classics from my childhood, it started with Basil Mouse, since I'm harbouring a Sherlock Holmes obsession ever since the movie premiere, but then became a Disney marathon with Mulan, Beauty & the Beast, The sword in the stone and Robin Hood. All in Swedish, of course, since these are copies from my old childhood VHS collection. Nostalgia at its best, are VHS tapes. And cassette tapes. Casette mix tapes. I've been meaning to start doing mix CD:s but I never got around to it. Now it's all digital, you make fanmixes and you make a back and front cover images in Photoshop as though people are actually going to burn a CD out of the files...


Awesome movie: "Mannen som slutade röka".

2010

So, 2010. A decade since the new millenium started. Time flies when you're having a decent time, right. So tomorrow this intermission will end, I'll go back to Stockholm with my parents. My niece Milou's birthday is on the 4th and they're having her party tomorrow, and then I'll get a ride home afterwards. Back to reality (funny how the definition of "reality" is subject to such wide interpretations, when you work with film for example, the definition is almost contradictory to the true meaning of the word, if you think about it...)

So guess who fulfilled their two new year's resolutions for 2009? (they were to quit a certain special someone Brokeback-style, and to finish my book, for those of you who don't remember or haven't been told...) I think that's the first time that's ever happened to me... I'm making it a bit easier this time around in order to achieve some sort of winning streak; I resolve to make a film, no specifics on the length or budget or success, only that it should not be part of my curriculum, i.e. not a school production, so either a project I'll do in my spare time if I'm still in school, or after this course is over. My second resolution is to get my fourth tattoo, because I couldn't think of anything else on the spot.

News for today: snow, lots and lots of snow. About a metre of it, and not the good kind either, that you can make things with (we call it "hug snow" - not really, but directly translated, but it comes from "hugging" the snow into a snowball kind of thing, but yeah, hug snow, and  I always loved that name for it as a kid) but the flimsy kind that gets everywhere at the slightest touch of a breeze.