Wednesday 25 August 1999
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Pic of the day: Newest book by Margit Sandemo, Fra toppen og
oppover (From the top upwards). The 17th book in the legend of
Lysriket (the Kingdom of Light). A book of romance, magic,
romance, aliens, romance, mafia, romance, ecology and romance.
In these stories, Sandemo combines the worlds of her breakthrough
success series Isfolket (The Ice People) and
Heksemesteren (The Warlock). The main characters are,
as usual, pretty ordinary people who through birth or circumstance
have come involved with extraordinary events. The supporting cast
is this time (as so often before) dominated by Marco, son of Lucifer.
No wonder the church hates Sandemo. Marco, by the way, is a nice
guy, an ageless magician who cannot fall in love. Or at least could
not ... I'm not going to spoil this for those who haven't come this
far in the series. :)
Supergirl's father called this afternoon. He had had his computer upgraded and now it did not work. For instance, the only color that worked was blue. Now, that's impressive. I've found it sort of hard to work without red, but a few years of practice has taken the edge out of that. (On my old monitor - the portable has all colors. Yet.) Also Internet was gone, and his printer drivers. Stuff like that. Not much I could do about it over the phone, except verify that it was a hardware problem. We also talked about Supergirl's supposed homecoming. He had been warned about my impending visit. (Health permitting.) The man took that well enough. God knows what the man really thinks about this relationship (for special values of relationship). God knows, but does not tell. Or I may not be able to listen. Anywhat.
I don't like to plan ahead. I don't mean shopping lists, though I
rarely ever use those either. I mean planning my life way into
the future. It feels wrong. It feels very sinful. It feels like
hubris. I don't know if I'm alive tomorrow. (And that's a general
view, not just based on the fact that the inflammation under my
right eye is flaring up again today.) And even permitted that we
be alive and reasonably healthy, all manner of things may happen
that renders our plans worthless or worse than nothing. So my thoughts
about the future are rarely more than vague dreams.
Speaking of vague dreams, here I sit playing an old hit from the 80es. It's an unabashed romantic love song. I like those. They fascinate me. "I see a picture of a young and happy couple..." Like the twosome on the book cover? In the real world, how long does love last? I read it recently in the newspaper. I think it was 18 months. Somewhere around there. And yet it changes people so much. I wonder what goes on in those heads. It's a mystery. There are but two great mysteries to me, love and death. I know them technically, but I feel that their true meaning elude me. One thing I dread, is to die in my sleep. I have never died before. I sincerely wish to be as alert as possible when that happens. I will obviously not be able to report it, so it is perhaps a conceited wish. Perhaps it is terribly confusing and I'd prefer to have skipped it all. Still, it is a one-shot thing. And no, I am not going to force it. I abhor the idea of suicide. On the contrary, I'd do almost anything to survive as long as possible. But I'd like to have a deal like the boy in On a pale horse, where Death promised that he would wake him before fetching his soul. I bet I, like that boy, would sleep better at night then. (On a pale horse is by Piers Anthony.) While I regretfully accept that a deal with Death is impossible, I am even more confused about the possibility about a deal with Love. Oh, I can love, and I do love. But there's love and there's Love. It's probably vastly overhyped anyway, just like sex. In fact, it probably is sex. Do you think people would hang around and kiss and kiss and kiss if not for sex? Hah. One thing I've learned from watching couplecams on the Internet, is that couples don't cuddle much. I don't mean sex. I'm not that innocent / ignorant - I know that you can only have so much sex before you are fed up for some hours, just like food. But I'd expect people to cuddle a lot. Like, touching each other, playing with each other's hair sometimes instead of the Playstation, holding hands (or other body parts with good tactile feedback). Stuff like that. After all, it is FREE! What's going on? Don't tell me cuddling stops being fun too? I want to believe in a benevolent Creator. I would have a serious crisis of faith if I found that cuddling wasn't fun either. |