Tuesday 18 July 2000

Pic of the day: There is something ugly, bordering on scary, seeing myself divided like that, recognizable yet somehow distorted. Good thing that's not how I usually see myself.

Bits & pieces

I've finished reading the 4th Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). I'm not going to give any spoiler here now, really, I just want to say something to you parents. Read it, all of it, if your kids do. You may want to talk with them about it. It starts pretty much like a children's book (though in a slightly Roald Dahl like meaning of children's book) but it is not nearly like that at the end, in my opinion. Now, Harry has been in some tight spots in earlier books too, but those books sort of had a resolution at the end. They were wrapped up, though some threads were left dangling. This time, it is not like that. There is a lot of bleakness left. (Of course, if you have let your kids watch television, they may already be callous and inured to human suffering, so the above may not be important.)

***

The beautiful blonde was at work today. Don't worry, she is safely married. But she had met the Super-Midwife, the Great Earth Mother, the one in SuperWoman's family, the one who is just so incredibly goodlooking and cool and funny and ... well, anyway, she's been HERE, here on the South Coast, in Kristiansand, in the very town where I pretend to work! And she is avoiding me. I can certainly understand that. She probably thinks that I am only interested in her body. With a body like that, it's only reasonable to assume so. But really, I think she is just cool. Her dry sense of humor, her slightly cynical observations of society and human nature, they really click with me. But obviously it's a one-way thing.

Unrequited admiration.

***

My clock radio kept blabbering for about two hours before I woke up. Approximately five minutes before I had to go for the bus, or I would not be there before lunch. No time to shave, and little enough else. Managed to download the e-mail, though. Must have priorities! Socks, trousers, shirt and e-mail.

***

My mind has been horribly lazy the last few days. Hardly exercized my willpower at all. Been reading or playing Master of Magic hour after hour. I'm not too worried about that, actually. I am a fad person. I will do something for a few days, then stop, and start on something new. Usually a bout of M.o.M. lasts for around a week. Then I get fed up - typically with some bug that corrupts the savegames - and don't touch it again for months. At which time I decide it's the greatest thing since the lightbulb, and the cycle repeats itself. I should be at the end of the current mind fever.

I hope I get a writing fad next. I have some stuff I would like to write down, that's currently just drifting around in my head.

There are simply so many different things I'd like to do, and I only have one body. So I skip from one to the other. Task switching. Not multitasking. Well, I can walk and think at the same time. I can even walk and read at the same time, though I rarely do that anymore. But that's about it.

***

I hear psychologists today pretty much accept that our souls are not like pearls, uniform and equal all the way through and seen from all sides. Instead, we're more like a mosaic. Now that doesn't mean that we all have multiple personalities, or dissociative something or whatever is the politically correct name this year. (People, there will never be any lasting acceptable names until we accept the thing we name. Learn that. Learn it now.) But the thing is, there is not a few strange people and then a large mass of perfect, pearl-like souls who are always the same. No, the common human (and some uncommon and rare ones too) can be very different before and after morning coffee. I don't fluctuate quite that easily, though. I rarely even have grumpy days. But I have fads. And lots of them.

In the same vein, have you noticed that some people are wildly different depending on where you meet them? They have one personality at work and one at home, for instance. Or one personality before they marry and one after. Like they're two or more completely different persons. Me, I tend to forget all job related things as soon as I go out the door, and I consider that a good thing.

***

The drunk sheep was in national broadcasting today. Well, not personally, but the story. With commentaries about Norwegian alcohol politics.

Coincidentally, a survey showed that ca 60% of Norwegians would like to spend part or all of their pensioner life in southern countries (presumably meaning southern Europe, or at least that's where those move who actually do something about it). The quoted reasons were the weather and the alcohol prices. Made me wonder if alcohol really is that important to the elderly? I find that thought strange, almost funny. I imagine this conversation..

"What you gonna do with your life, kid?" "First I'll get a good education, so I can have a good job. Then I will work hard for most of my adult life, until I grow old. And then I will be drunk till I die."