Sunday 12 November 2000

Pic of the day: Theme Hospital - "It's a matter of laugh and death." Well, it beats the real thing. But it doesn't really satisfy. Not on a day where I ...

Read, read, whine

I had such high hopes for this day. A whole day off, I would write on my fiction. But I found no inspiration. It was just gone. I read some of what I have written recently, but had nothing to add to it. My characters are hiding, they will not come out to play. I did discover, however, that one instrumental MP3 fit quite well with a story I have. The melody is called "Circle of Light", some kind of ambient, New-Age like. I guess the title gave that away already. But even with that music, I could not write. That's an unfamiliar feeling. Usually I have to be sick to not write.

So I read online comics and then played Theme Hospital, a simulation game from Bullfrog. It's 4 years old, but holds up quite well. Even so, I got fed up with it. Too much stress. People milling around. I get enough of that at work.

The rain and the wind kept me from going outdoors either. So the day was pretty much a total loss. My itches (whose location I'm not going to mention in the presence of children) are itching so I just want to flay the skin right off and be through with it. Even my navel itches. And my haemorrhoids are back, and hurting. It is so humiliating! I feel so mundane. What happened to my Very Important Person status? Why can't I have problems like everything I touch turning to gold, or energy rays coming out of my eyes, stuff like that? I want to be a tragic hero! Well, actually I want to be a happy, successful hero; but I much prefer being a tragic hero rather than a tragic loser.

***

So I dive for something I am sure can cheer me up: Pathetic loser music. Obviously my Marc Anthony CD did not do the trick at all. I delved in my plastic bags of CDs not worthy of a place in the large CD holder. There's Bli blid with Ludvigsen from the (in)famous duo Knutsen & Ludvigsen. He has a couple of particularly willfully pathetic songs. All of them in Norwegian, I'm afraid, so it would be a bit unfair to quote them here, don't you think? A particularly amusing song, which I know I've quoted before but cannot find, is called Ingen er glad i meg (no one is fond of me). The singer laments his unprecedented lonelyness: His friendly ouvertures are rejected by everyone. Adults leave the room when he says "hi", and the children are scared. People are pointing at him and the bus drives off when he approaches. He tries with new clothes and soap but to no effect. Even his cat hisses at him when he gives it fish!

Following up the success, I insert a shameful secret CD: Bjelleklang, another all Norwegian group singing "a capella" (I think that's what they call it - basically it's a bunch of guys who for some reason don't use instruments). Now that's subculture with a big SUB. I bought it for their rather liberal translation into Norwegian of "Red red wine", a song that I have heard a couple times in English but are unable to find in original. The translation is horribly mangled, I'm afraid - I actually hope so - but the melody is beautiful. The beauty of the melody makes a powerful counterpoint to the pathetic text, about a group of drunken bozos trying to make their own wine at home. It ends up with more whine than wine, I'm afraid. But at least I'm not the only pathetic loser in the world this night.

I hear that some journal readers particularly look for "train wreck value". Heh. I don't think I quite fit in there. A tabletop hobby train wreck doesn't cut it. I have to agree with Dag Risnes: "It is required that one has gone far; otherwise no beauty in the humiliation." Anyone can have bad luck. When two compete, one of them must lose. No, for it to be truly fascinating, you have to lose even when you win. Like Al Gore, for instance... :)

"The genius of our presidential election method is that it produces a clear winner." (Slate contributor James Q. Wilson, Nov. 3 2000.)

***

To further compromise myself, I shall have to admit that I just connected my handheld PC and uploaded to it The Eternal Savage (a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs), The Journey (a free MP3 by Lagoona) and the color picture of Cindy and Lisa from the comic The Class Menagerie. What will come of this strange mixture is anybody's guess, but if I have life and limbs you should be able to find out more tomorrow. :)