Saturday 24 June 2000

Pic of the day: Flowers by the roadside.

Return to Tangvall

As I was approaching home, I discussed magic with the voices in my head. Actually the pretext was my attempted novel, which has stalled at chapter 15. (Not that anyone is complaining.) But I am getting ahead of myself. It was half past two in the afternoon.

In the morning, after finishing a lenghty e-mail, I went to Tangvall, the county center recently upgraded to mini-town. I have written about the place in the past, this year one week ago. Actually I was not aware at that time that I had been there just a week ago. I knew I had been there and I remembered the cold fresh milk and the delicious-looking menu at the fast food outlet "Mett & Go". But I thought it was two or three weeks ago, certainly. I guess this past week may have been a bit harder on me than I have admitted.

I had only eaten a rudimentary breakfast, so I went first to "Mett & Go". There I ordered a hamburger with rice, bernaise and salad, and a bottle of Solo, probably the only soft drink that only helps for thirst. (And not very long either.) But the serving was so generous that I could not stomach more than half of it. It just said stop, and only with the greatest misgivings was I allowed to swallow what I had just shuffled into my gaping maw. That's just too bad, because it tasted delicious. I was sure I would not be able to eat anything again till late at night. It did not last quite that long, but then I've only eaten small pieces of chocolate.

Sadly dumping the rest of the delicious food, I took the soda with me and wandered around in the shop area. There is a shop called "Nille" which sells assorted cheap stuff, from shoes to chocolates. The only requirement seems to be that it must be cheap. Little known brands dominate, naturally. I guess that's one sad law of modern trade: To afford the cutting edge advertising, you either have to turn up the prices or down the quality, or both of the above. I can't offhand mention any product that I know of that is famous and at the same time has a good value for money ratio. Of course, being unknown is hardly a guarantee for quality either; but it is usually a guarantee for low price, because without it you are nothing.

I moved on to Kiwi, the cheap grocery chain with the ice cold milk and meat products. I bought some thoroughly chilled milk and yoghurt, and also some cookies and a small pack of chocolates. As I came home and immediately attacked the chocolates, I felt a sore spot develop on the side of my tongue. It is probably not due to the chocolates, though, but is more likely a cold sore from too little sleep for too long. This seems to cause an awakening of cold sores (oral herpes, not closely related to that other herpes).

(After writing the above paragraph, I fell asleep in my chair. I'm not sure it is a good sign that even the writer falls asleep, and I doubt a few minutes is enough to eradicate any beginning cold sores, but it's worth a try.)

I passed by the Interbok bookshop. They had some tempting CD-ROMs. There was an English dictionary, for instance, on sale cheap. But what I need dictionary for? I perfect write the english. There was also a Norwegian-German dictionary, but I don't write German. So I went home, as mentioned above.

***

"Magic is like prayer, only without the 'Thy will be done' part" said one of the voices in my head as I approached home. I had been discussing the stalled novel with myself, and myself came up with some random ideas. I thought this one was too cool to just hide in a novel, though. As I said so, one of the voices quipped that magic means skipping the hallowed be thy name too, and going directly to the daily bread.

Of course those are not real voices. I just call them voices to sound interesting. And because if I used expressions like "discrete sub-vocalized thought patterns" I'd have to color this entry gray. And we would not want that, now would we?

Actually I thought some gray thoughts on my way to the bus this morning that connect nicely with this. But they were inspired by a discussion on a mailing list. A mailing list about journals, so it would not be cool to mention it here:
"First rule of online journaling, you do not write about online journaling.
Second rule of online journaling, you DO NOT write about online journaling."
(No, I haven't seen Fight Club either. But I am likely to, if I ever meet SuperWoman again...)

Anyway, the thoughts were only inspired by the comments on that list, so I hope to include them in a future gray entry, if they mature enough. But in the most general terms, I pondered the connection between self awareness, conscience and guardian angels. (And there are still some people who wonder why I'm not married... Not wondering any longer, I guess!)

Oh, and I also tried to pay some small thing with credit card on Internet today. It did not work, probably because the "city" I live in (Søgne) contains a non-American letter. Heh.