Summer in Sweden

I went with my family to our little island (that sounds really luxurious.. it's nothing grand or anything, it's a small island outside the coast that my grandparents got fairly cheap back in the day and it's got a little red cottage and that's about it, very swedish indeed..) and I just got back from a swim in the ocaen (to west-coast people ours is not "technically" an ocean since it's a mix of salt and sweet water or something, but whatever. it's the body of water between Sweden and Finland and it's not a lake or a river..) and now I'm sitting outside, borrowing my brother's laptop quickly and we're just about to kill each other, i.e. play a board game. Today feels like summer. I cut my hair again (or rather I cut some of it and then bullied my mum into cutting the back of the neck.. you can see my tattoo now!)

1st of May

So the police called my mum and a early last night. My little brother and his friends had been caught with the alcohol and been forced to pour it out. And apparently it wasn't just beer but heavier stuff as well. I think the police catching them was the best thing that could have happened. Hopefully my brother learned some kind of lesson... his friend's dad certainly didn't. As we were driving home from town (they came and picked me up from my friends' place as my mum got the cal on her mobile) they actually saw him and the wife in a pizza joint and pulled over to go and talk to them. Mum told him that she didn't tell the police that she knew where they got the booze but if it happened again she would. He didn't like that too much. He got a bit flustered and said he only bought the six pack of beer for his son and never meant for him to share and he didn't see why my brother would get a mark in his record and stuff. It was obvious to me that he was lying about the hard liquor, but at least, hopefully he won't offer my brother any to try any time soon (or my mum will report him to the police - which would be pretty cool, I have to admit!)

My brother phoned home this morning (he spent the night at his friend's place as well) and it's clear that the guy has been talking about mum, and not in a good way, because he was muttering about her getting involved and being hysterical.. but he can mutter all he wants as far as I'm concerned. He's fourteen, so it's illegal, end of story. And if he's going to try and test limits and get drunk, 1. he can wait a couple of more years, being athletic it would be stupid of him to throw his only interest (sports) away so soon, which he will if he gets in with that gang (it's always the same, every new generation in this village, there's always a group that starts drinking and smoking and destroying property and that stuff and it never ends well. I hate to see that happen with my baby brother..) and 2. he can get creative and get his hands on his own booze and not have some poor excuse of a responsible father figure adult buy out for him and the guys. That's just low and if he wants to buy booze for his own kid as illegal and stupid as it is, that's his thing, but he has no right to go making those calls for other people's children. Especially since both my parents are teetotalers because my dad's entire family are alcoholics and he's a sober one, not a good idea to start drinking until you're old enough to understand your own limits and until your body and brain have finished developing.

So, that's a cliff-hanger of the soap opera that is small town life, which I will keep you posted on.

I was supposed to hang out with friends down by the seaside today, barbeque, play this silly outdoor game involving sticks called "kubb", drink and be merry. And, the sun is shining, the others are waiting for me to show up, and I don't feel well at all... so I don't think I'll end up going. I'm going to force down some tea and see if I feel better (doubt it) and then I might go later on, but right now I don't feel well at all. Which sucks, because I was actually looking forward to this one. Because it's something different that we don't (well they might, but not when I've been around) usually do, usually we hole up in someone's apartment and drink and smoke and listen to music, but now we're doing the whole swedish summer thing and it sounded really nice and cozy.. ah well, the summer is long, I'm sure there will be other opportunities..

No demonstration today. Not even my parents, which I think has never happened in my entire life before, it being the 1st of May and all, I guess my mum's really fed up with the old owls in town and really want to get out of politics.. Seems like everything is changing. I guess that's a good thing!

Somewhat writing again

I was in a cluster yesterday and I had this wave of disconnected ideas for the thriller script I've been semi-working on, and I just had to put everything else aside and focus on this before the ideas went away, so I've been cutting and pasting in my mind and used up half a rain forest worth of post-it notes, and I now have a story. And I think I might write it in Swedish instead of English. I figured, now that I'm here to stay for at least a while and want to work on some projects while I'm here, it makes more sense to write a script in Swedish and try to get it made. But at the same time I think there's more of a market for scripts in North America. Plus everyone and anyone who would be willing and able to give me feedback on it, speak English, not Swedish... so I don't know yet.

I'm working on getting myself re-located to the Capital. I might have found a way to make this happen. I just have to work really hard and hope for a bit of good luck. Shouldn't be too impossible. (At least not the Good Luck part...)

I just spoke to Ana on the phone!

I sneakily neglected to tell her about the post card I wrote to her this morning, so it won't be "old news" when it finally finds its way to her, unlike last time... not that it contained much news to begin with... not much has happened. I'm about halfway through the novel I'm editing. Tomorrow I have the kids' theatre group thing again. And I'm finishing up the application for the film course at the end of this week. Still unemployed, still living in my parents' basement, still had it up to here with the Swedish negativity. But things are looking up, I think. Possibly.

I have some loose ends that I need to tie up, like canceling my mobile phone plan and terminating my Canadian bank account, telling Claire I won't be going to Emily Carr after all, telling Emily Carr I won't be going there after all, what else... I'm sure there's more...

I was up all night and designed a website - the stupid codes were not very cooperative, hence the "whole night" part of that sentence - the actual layout took no time at all, I'm quite Photoshop-skilled, it's the html and css and whatnot that makes the whole thing tricky... I also discovered that the codes work differently depending on your whether you use Explorer or Firefox, why do they do that, I don't get it, I hate technology, it's fickle and spiteful and just won't do what I tell it!

It's monday, what do you expect?

No video today I'm afraid. Just plain old-fashioned writing (it is what I do best, after all... and so modest!) I'm positioned at the old kitchen table, procrastinating and marvelling at the shortage of hair on my head (it's liberating to chop off your hair, okay, I'm not over it yet, give me a break!)

My mother got a parcel from Nova Scotia today, from Tony's parents, for some reason. We're all puzzled about it, I wanted to respond with a witty (and mean) "Romeo & Juliet" quote, but the mother had a visit by Jiminy Cricket and the parcel has been left unresponded to at this time.

I put together another little short in Windows Movie Maker (this stuff is addictive, it seems! although... I can get addicted to anything and everything, so maybe it's just me...) this one is even artsier and uncomprehensible than the first one I did, mostly symbolic and mainly pretentious, but there is a cool scene where I chop off my hair that makes it worth while to watch at least once (I said give me a break!)

Dad is fixing the hall. Brother is adolescent. Mum is at work. So that leaves me and the cat and I think I'm going to go for a walk once I've finished my coffee.

My 2nd video blog (surprise surprise!)

Trying something different (this is for Cesar!)

What do you know... two can play this game!
Okay, I'm not good at it... but I can play it! :)
/ from Hell with love,
Ida

Girl in desperate need of some advice

Okay, here's the deal...

I got into Emily Carr University, the course starts in September, I already have a ticket booked for late August, I have somewhere to stay when I get there, the program allows you to apply for a work permit on top of your study permit (apparantly) and finding a job is much easier over there than it is here, i.e. it's not completely fucking impossible... I'd be in a creative enviroment, I'd be close to my best friends, I'd be able to work on my own projects with my friends, maybe get the production company started, plus I already have an agent who really wants me to come back... Basically, what I'm saying, is that I have a life, for sure, in Vancouver just waiting for me to come back to it...

So, why am I doubting, why am I even considering other options? I was so certain that this was the right thing for me, that it was in my path, my destiny thingy, or whatever... but now I'm not so sure anymore... It could be due to some subtle brainwashing I've suffered from my mother and that I've been soaking up the overall negativity that is polluting this town... but it just doesn't feel right anymore...

I missed all the deadlines for applying to swedish acting schools... but there is one course. It's the Dramatic Institute in Stockholm. It's a year long Basic Film scourse where you get to try everything, directiing, script writing, photography, producing and all of it... It's free. No tuition. Plus you get a grant from the gouvernment to cover your living expenses. Plus student accommodation is available. And this is what I really feel like doing.

Except I wouldn't be in Vancouver. I would be on my own and by myself and I'd be risking everything. That's what it feels like. I'd be risking everything I kind of almost have.

Mike just told me via MSN that since I have a life already established in Vancouver I can always come back to it and take my time... but Emily Carr is for this september, and who knows how long my agent is willing to wait for me, and all my friends (all one of them, okay that's an exaggeration maybe...) will all have moved on by the time I get my arse over there probably, I mean not literally whereby they've forgotten about me or anything, but they'll have started their projects and careers and everything, so I'd be on the side, I'd be that swedish friend that can come and visit their lives and go for coffee or a drink with them and it'd be good to see me again and everything, but it wouldn't be the same, because I wouldn't have walked the miles with them, I wouldn't have done the time... that's what relationships are, and love, essentially, it's not fireworks and highlights, it's suffering through the seasons together, taking a stand side by side as life throws you one obstacle after another and being there for each other through all of it and then looking back at the whole spectable and say "Huh... well, look at that. We survived that. Together." and that's the thing. You have that. And that'll forever link you together. You did the time, your relationship passed the test, you didn't fall apart.

I kind of stole half of that theory from Alan Rickman's character in "Dark harbour"...

That's a great movie, you should see it. I've seen it 17 times. I maintain that it's a thriller, but Ana and Cesar (who both agreed to watch it with me since it was my last night in Vancouver!) say it's a very slow drama. Whatever. It's good. You need to watch it at least twice.

Any advice anyone have to give me, would be nice. Mike, I got yours already but if you have something to add, feel free...

In the land of the Living Dead

Like everything else, blogger was working against me when I first got back home, and I couldn't get the entry to post. This is what I wrote:

"Almost exactly twenty-four hours has passed between the cup of instant coffee in Ana's kitchen area and the strong brewed one in my parents kitchen. I ache everywhere, arms and back mostly, but as much as it annoyed me somewhere between montreal and frankfurt and pissed me right off between frankfurt and stockholm, now the pain is rather soothing. It distracts me. It didn't quite feel like coming home, and yet it did. All my energy drained out of me the minute I entered the house. Like I'd been going on auto-pilot up to this point and now, fully planted on the ground, my engines turn off. All those options and possibilities I was reviewing for the future kind of fell away in that instant. My mum told me, "Well, first thing on Monday you'll have to go and report to the job office so they'll give you unemployment support and benefits. You're not on holiday now, you know." (Note, she didn't say 'start looking for a job', but 'report for unemployment support', that's how impossible it is to get work here. But that's probably a good thing, I can't afford to get stuck here, I just can't.) I'm already feeling depressed and hopeless. It'd better me jetlag, because I can not afford any self-pity right now. I have so much stuff to do. It's my dad's birthday tomorrow. I completely didn't know that. I'm a terrible daughter. "

Now, today was a new day as well as week, I went into town with my dad first thing and registered at the job office - she gave me a piece of paper with three dates for meetings with introductions to the job market and courses in how to write a CV and such, the very same meetings I've suffered through twice already in my life and really don't feel inclined to suffer through again, so with the first one being on the 31st I aim to get a job before that so I won't have to attend. I say down and wrote my CV as soon as I got home, then I went for a walk in the snow storm, I took my mum's camera with me and took some pictures in the woods and at the cemetery. It's become my daily ritual: when things get to negative and mind-numbing at the house I go for a walk and end up at the cemetery (ironic, I know) and as I was telling Ana, in Vancouver I would go to the nearest or nicest coffee shop and spend and few hours there, do some reading or writing, but here... well, we don't have a coffee shop. We have woods, deserted factories, the frozen sea side and the cemetery. Oh, and the grocery store. But I don't want to go there, I might run into some locals...

Ana actually called me today, that was great. So uplifting to actually speak to someone who speaks my language (and I don't mean english) I know it's only been a weekend but it feels like a month. Anyway, I'm going to do the dishes right now, then cook dinner, since there's no point in trying to do anything creative until They have gone to sleep, and I need to keep myself busy doing something.

Ana, Cesar, I miss you.

Letter for Cesar #1

Hi my love.

If you're thinking I'm going to be this awful at keeping in touch with you the entire time we're a part, then worry no more! It will all change as soon as my hostages release me into the real world and I can go back to my life in Van, which I still have by the way, a co-worker of mine emailed me and told me I'm on the schedule for next week, so at least I won't be unemployed and homeless when I get back so that's a good thing.

I had quite the new year's eve with a good Cabernet Sauvignon and kisses from the beautiful girl of my obsessions, but unfortunately it had a very disappointing turn of events right about the time of "Happy new yeeeeaaar"s and came to a quite anti-climatic ending when said nymph took off to a neighbouring in-the-middle-of-nowhere-town to go to a party together with her personalized prince charming who is currently studying to become a pilot in Germany but was also home for the holidays, and I was left to resort to the good-old pub where I stood in the corner with my best friend, sipped on a pint of swedish beer and watched in mild disgust as girls all dolled-up in gothic attire who looked to be all of thirteen years of age rock out to such heavy tunes as "Womanizer" by your darling Ms Spears and "I kissed a girl" by whatshername...

Cesar, the sunshine of my existence, so far, I regret to announce, 2009 sucks...

I've been a wreck these past few nights, if you thought I was bad the night before I left Vancouver, you should see me now. I've been anxious about the future and obsessive and manic and depressed all at ONCE and finding my precious precious copy of "Recent Forgeries" (and before you make the outrageous mistake of asking "What's that" I suggest you do some research because I will not tolerate that sort of blasphemy right now) and re-reading it over and over didn't even help to calm me down and for your information that's very bad because ever since my mum gave it to me for my whatever birthday (20th I think) it's always done the trick, always! It's calmed me and inspired me and made me positive for so many years of sleepless nights. But this time it's like my surroundings are working against me. There are so many things around me, especially in the bookcase and closet in my old room, that remind me of past moments. And it's like i'm stuck in a museum dedicated to a former life that is supposed to be familiar to me and it is but I just don't fit in it anymore and that scares me but more than anything it makes me dangerously nostalgic, and you know me, when I start to reminisce... It's like a black hole. Anyway, I've got my coffee and my laptop and my family's not bothering me for once and now I am going to write! because one thing that's been positive is that I had some major new ideas for the film!

Also I have discovered the joys and conveiniences of drinking coffee from a cup with a saucer!

love you miss you
ida

Taking a breath in the capital

It's another world, not another corner in the one world, but another one altogether. It's familiar but foreign at the same time; it's familiar, it's home, but I'm foreign, an alien on a visit, I come in peace. Some times I have to think of something to say, and I come up with the most mundane pleasantries, or I come up with nothing at all. It's all about adjustment periods. You get used to anything given enough time, even things you used to know and then forgot along the way. It's all about time and presence. I try to be where I am now, I try not to drift off anymore, but that too takes practise I guess.

There's no snow in Stockholm. A bit of a disappointment but not much of a surprise. Spend enough time away from Sweden and you start to believe the universal stereotypes: we're all long-legged, blue-eyed blondes who live in igloos and ride on reindeer as we go hunting for whales and polar bears. It's nice here. I look at my brother's family, their little everyday rituals, their language, their love and I can't help but to wonder why I'm not cut out for it, it seems perfect, why doesn't it fit me, or rather why don't I fit into it, the picture, this way of life, this world, why do I stand out at all the wrong angles?

Well. As you might have guessed, the aeroplane did not crash. It ate up my suitcase somewhere between Chicago and Stockholm, but other than that the flight and the aftermath of it was somewhat painfree after that initial first impression in Vancouver. I've just fed my seven-month-old nephew Theo and showed my soon-to-be-two-year-old niece Milou "Gnomes and trolls" that I have downloaded onto my laptop. I like children, but just like normal-sized people they make me vary in the beginning, but we're all warming up to the idea of each other fairly quickly. Plus, no-one speaks your name like a child who has recently learned how to form words...

homeward bound

So, I've finally landed on the other side of the Atlantic ocean. It's quite odd being back home, although I haven't been home home, yet. I'm still at my big brother's place in Stockholm, and will be driving up with him, his girlfriend and my beautiful almost-one-year-old niece Milou whom I've had the privilege to meet at last. I baby-sat her last night when my brother had a meeting. She's a doll, for real. So social and adorable and plain (relatively) flawless by baby standards. We hit it off instantly, thanks to said social skills on her part, which counter-balanced the lack there-of on mine...

It's really nice being in Sweden again, though. Especially this time of year. And I don't been to sound snobbish or anything, although when it comes to this subject matter, I'm sure I am, but the north american take on christmas decorations... I'm sorry, but it's just too tacky for my taste. Here, you don't see any multi-coloured, over-sized, blinking (oh my goodness, the blinking!) christmas lights where-ever you turn or any creepy, flourescently lit plastic santa claus models or huge snowglobes (I swear, I saw one, on someone's front lawn, it was almost bigger than their porch!) Here, christmas lights are either golden yellow or snowy white, the bulbs in modest sizes and unblinking and delicately strewn across balcony railings and tree tops so as to resemble fallen stars which has stuck to the branches as opposed to... I don't know what! I can't think of any analogy, there's just no comparison on this whole earth!

Stockholm has yet to be covered in snow, though. So it doesn't quite feel like christmas yet. But I'm sure we'll have a white christmas, we always do in the end.

I've talked to my family and my best friend on the phone several times already and today I called my dear friend Ann-sofie who lives here in Stockholm and we decided to possibly meet for coffee tomorrow adternoon and then on friday evening she invited me over to her and her husbands flat for a big family dinner, all her children but one daughter will be there with their respective families, so that will probably be nice. (she said she considered me her fourth child!)

My brother and niece are home again, so I should probably go and be social. And maybe help prepare lunch (the whole routine things is apparantly huge when you're dealing with kids!)