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

first meeting

Through the moving darkness of drunken sleep a shrill ring tone broke through, insistant, almost desperate, panicked. Finally I tore myself from unconsciousness and stumbled into the hallway, as though familiar with this apartment, answered the door and it was her and it could have been a dream but it wasn't and I went back to bed and she was lying next to me, she was talking to me, touching me, kissing me, on my cheek and the corner of my mouth, and then I sunk into sleep again and the next thing I knew it was morning, I felt sick and she was gone.

And what have you done?

It's almost two in the morning. I was falling asleep in front of the TV a few hours ago and decided to go to bed but of course as soon as I lay down in the dark of my former bedroom I was wide awake again. So this is Christmas - I dread to face the inevitable question that follows that statement - I think I'm experiencing an assault of post-holiday gloom to my various senses, just wait until you see me around this time on New Year's Eve, must be all the fattening food and sugary sweets that have been force-fed to me by means of brainwashing and possibly red-suited telekinesis. It's so weird, I was having a staring contest with myself whilst brushing my teeth just now, yeah I'm weird too, but I barely recognize myself sometimes. Another year has gone by, still completely narcissistic. Well, almost completely. There are still some stray thoughts of interest directed at certain someones that are not part of the population of my own mind and on that note I think I am most definitely destined for a life of devoted celebacy. I'm here. The other day I was literally a wall away, when I was visiting Fredde who got an apartment in the same building, I was in the same building, and my being in said building was made known through text messages and telepathy, but nothing. I left the christmas gift with Fredde, figured you know, they're more likely to see each other first anyway...but anyway, I should get some sleep, or rest at least, or brooding even, done and yeah... wow, odd thought processes, i just thought of Lucy in the sky with diamonds and then on auto-pilot thought of an acronym for myself and came up with Ida in the desert with acorns, acorns of all things, I ask you,

yeah, the holidays are evil - but at least I got some nice pretty things, my family is still in one piece and I have not morphed into blue whale just yet...

The second letter

When I was eleven or so and I had one friend I remember telling her about my dream boyfriend. He had brown hair and green eyes. His favourite band was Metallica. I guess I still thought maybe there was a smidge of a hope for me to turn out normal, desiring the house and the lab and the 2,5 children and the valium, not just desiring to have the desire. Instead, here I am. I'm not perfect, in fact I'm quite fucked up. I'm in no position to be making any promises. What you see is what you get, if even. But I can tell you one thing, amidst the quirks and the phobias that fit into that one term "fucked up", including fear of intimacy, commitment and even conversations at times, an unhealthy view of sex and a cynical outlook on life, and the emotional capacity of the twelve-year-old I was when things went wrong, I have felt something akin to normal, healthy, sweet infatuation that could quite possibly lead to the real thing, once, for one person, and I don't mean to scare you but that's you, baby. That's what I have to offer. Take it or leave it. A piece of advice would be, leave it. Run for the hills. Because this girl's got a ton of baggage.

That's it.

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...