Slice of Chaotic Life

The daily life of a celibate middle-aged man.

Asylum-seeker moves in

Posted by Itlandm on January 2, 2012

Actually I did not ask him if he was an asylum-seeker, but his physical features and accent place him deep in the Middle East, and we don’t have much work immigration from there. Besides, I saw the car of the asylum-seeker agency outside here a few weeks ago, so I was waiting for this.

He seemed genuinely surprised that I was Norwegian; he probably believes the agency owns this place. And why not, it is in the middle of the city so it is an ideal place for people who want to be around others from their homeland. It is not easy to be the only brown-skinned person for miles and miles, as could easily happen in the countryside. Here they can hang together with friends and mortal enemies day after day.

I am still looking for a cheaper place, but most don’t have a long duration. If I can only live in a place for half a year, the cost of moving will more than eat up any savings in rent. I need at least a year or two. Of course, it is anybody’s guess whether I can live here for that long. It depends largely on the sanity of my new upstairs neighbor. He seemed intelligent enough, so I don’t expect him to set fire to the furniture as long as his sanity holds up, far from home in a godless country where no one respects him. Wish him luck, I certainly do, if nothing else then for my own sake.

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Falling+ill

Posted by Itlandm on January 1, 2012

For the third day in a row, it did not rain, although a light snow was falling this time. As usual when it is not raining, I went for a walk of at least an hour. I have found a circuit that goes over a hill and down on the other side, then around it and back; it is about an hour and a quarter if I don’t make any detours.

On my way home, I slid on the slippery ground and fell backward. I slightly bruised my hands, but only the thick part between the wrist and the palm. I am not sure what it is called (in fact, I don’t even remember its Norwegian name, if it has one.) I believe my head did not actually hit the ground, but it hurt slightly, probably from the jolt to the spine. Apart from these things I seem completely unhurt, which is somewhat of a pleasant surprise. I am no youth anymore and out of practice with falling, and the ground was stone hard.

In the late evening, another health challenge has developed. My chest feels like pneumonia. I mean, it probably isn’t, but it feels the same way. It is not the feeling of lacking oxygen and having an iron band around my chest, which is more of a neurotic thing I think. This is simply the feeling you have right before a deep chest cough, as if phlegm has gathered in the lower bronchi. Which it may possibly have, since my nose has been stuffy for a couple days now. Still, it hasn’t been a real cold so I don’t see why it would settle in my lungs or bronchi. It is highly unpleasant, mainly because of my childhood history with asthma and the memories that evokes. Incidentally, I have taken asthma medicine and cough medicine (the latter being placebo, according to one popular science magazine, but I need any placebo I can get). There is no noticeable effect from either. Right now it is neither worsening nor bettering.

 

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Weather

Posted by Itlandm on December 8, 2011

We had a couple days below freezing, with even a dusting of snow, but mostly the snow melted and then froze again to ice. After a couple days, the rain returned. It’s been “green winter” for some weeks now, with temperatures hovering just above the freezing point, except for those couple days of cold. This has been the most common winter weather for the last 10-15 years, at least. Last year and the year before were exceptional: The temperature was like in a deep freezer, and it stayed like that for weeks or even months. All this began within a handful of days after the Copenhagen Climate Summit, by the way. Think of that what you will. It affected Denmark (where the summit was) and all the countries that border on it, including my native Norway (which lies across a stretch of sea, but not exactly an ocean).

I am a bit curious as to whether the Copenhagen Summit weather will return for the third winter in a row, or whether we will return to the green winters with a few weeks of deep snow in late January, through February and a bit into March. But at least this time the water magazines are much fuller, so the electricity should be less expensive.

Also, this time I don’t live in a 200 year old house where I had to stuff rags in the gap between the floor and the wall and under one of the doors.

The house I live in now is not nearly as old, but it is clearly lacking in insulation. The windows have only a single layer of glass pane, something that is almost unheard of in houses where people actually live in the winter. Most older homes replaced these with double or triple glass, because it quickly pays itself over the utility bill. I believe the state also gave loans for this a few decades ago, as well as insulating walls. Well, this just confirms my suspicion that this house too is one that will be torn down and replaced with a new as soon as the landlord finds a rich enough buyer. It is very centrally located in Mandal, so the price will likely be decided 100% by its location. Even so, I try to not leave it any worse than I found it, just in case. Plus it is a good habit.

I am not going to replace the windows though. Hopefully we’ll continue to get green winter. Although my walking routine is severely disrupted since it rains cats and dogs most days. My jogging shoes are quickly degraded by wading, and the weather has been such that I could not keep them even slightly dry. So I have taken up the exercise bike again. It is showing its age, and so am I: I cannot use it for an hour or more like I do walking, or my knees are shot. (Or as they say in Skyrim: “I used to be and adventurer like you; then I took an arrow in the knee.” It is not quite that bad, but the effect is somewhat similar if I don’t restrain myself.)

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Exercising something

Posted by Itlandm on November 29, 2011

An hour and a half of moderate exercise today, starting with indoors biking followed with a brisk trek outdoors. I was kind of inspired to make a tiny bit more effort after reading a popular science article. I may however need more science, and not quite so popular, to find out what happened next.

After I came home, my pulse remained 30-40 beats above normal for about half an hour. The heartbeats were also stronger than normal, so there must have been a lot of blood rushing through the body. However, I was not breathing any different from normal, so it seems it was not oxygen the body was screaming for. What then?

Exercising a bit harder than usual may have used more glycogen compared to fat, so I suppose the muscles and liver may have been busy rebuilding these reserves. However, a glass of sweet juice had no noticeable effect, although it should have caused a spike in blood sugar within a few minutes, sugar which the muscles could have absorbed to build glycogen.

Possibly protein, then. Muscles that are used more than normal will try to add more muscle fiber, and unlike fat and carbs, it doesn’t seem the body has much of a storage shed of unused protein. In all fairness, there is protein in almost all food (not just meat, as Americans seem to believe). Not in juice, though. But in vegetables, milk, egg, even pasta and bread to some degree. After a while I ate some yogurt, and 10-15 minutes after that the heart rate returned to normal. This could be pure coincidence, of course. I need to experiment more with this if I am to find out what causes this.

It is normal for people after hard exercise, like running, to be winded for a while and have a high heart rate until their breath returns to normal. That is not what happened here. I was breathing normally and the heart rate was not near maximum at any time, but it just did not return to much below exercise level for half an hour. So the body must have been doing something.

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Weird dream night

Posted by Itlandm on November 8, 2011

Some pretty weird dreams tonight. One in which I was a high schooler, but in the current time. I had brought my computer to a meeting in the computer club, and while I was sitting there, it just disappeared from my knees where I had it. I just looked away for a moment and actually felt the weight of it disappear. When I looked back it was gone. Only one of the other boys sat close enough that he could have taken it, but he did not have it. I was still a little unsure whether he could somehow have managed to grab it at very high speed. But we never found it. It was just gone. This made me quite upset in the dream, though it did not carry over into real life. I have heaps of computers in real life. Way too many. I need to disassemble most of them and hand them in to the electro return service.

In another dream I came to a house that belonged to an older female relative, I think, a grandmother or aunt or something. I wasn’t me this time either, or at least this was not one of my real relatives. The place was plagued by wolves, and one of them made it into the house so we had to club it with a sack fill of books, a surprisingly effective weapon against wolves! This was the last dream, and I woke up.

There was one before these two that I decided I absolutely had to remember, but that’s the only thing I remember about it now.

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Knees this time

Posted by Itlandm on November 6, 2011

This morning I woke up (which is good) and my knees hurt (which is not so good). The right especially is tender and sore. I am pretty sure I know why, though, and it’s my own fault. Yesterday I walked right into the shower after a walk, and my thigh muscles contracted pretty hard. I believe that is what pulled on the knee sinews. In fact, my right thigh at least is pretty stiff today, so that is probably it.

Although it certainly looks like a coordinated action by various circumstances to keep my from walking so much. Realistically, though, the circumstances are probably complexes in my subconscious, subtly manipulating me into behaviors and feelings that discourage all this healthy stuff. Why? Just out of spite? Trying to get sympathy? A more likely explanation is that I always was small and weak and sickly when I was a kid. It kind of defined me as a person. So there may be a big part of me, buried from my childhood, that feels really uncomfortable with me being healthy and strong.

Ah, perhaps if we replaced half our somatic doctors with psychiatrists, we would all live longer and healthier lives. Well, if they were really good psychiatrists. I have a vague impression that the field tends to draw in people who are already pretty close to it. Or to put it more bluntly, if you take an interest in psychiatry, it is probably because you or members of your family have had some serious need for their services in the past. Case in point, my brother works as a psychologist and I believe he has said that he chose this career because our uncle was a very strong case of autism. It is likely my (non-paid) interest in the field comes from the same source.

Well, I somehow managed to get back to all about me. This is meant to be my personal journal, with no health advice, economic advice or reflections on the world economy and comparative religion.

Speaking of which, I’ve repented again. Why does it always feel like I’ve never really repented before whenever I repent? This time I actually repented before I got disgustingly sick, instead of during or right after. So I guess that’s a good thing at least.

The muse in my head is very happy about my Tamriel-based fiction, but the Voice in my heart was sad, and I didn’t want that. There are other issues as well.  But that’s OK. People who are always satisfied with themselves tend to be dissatisfied with everyone and everything else, but we who are dissatisfied with ourselves tend to be more grateful for being allowed to live and enjoy many things we don’t deserve. Like knees.

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Vacation started

Posted by Itlandm on October 28, 2011

I guess my vacation technically started at 4 PM today, although I was actually sick and wasn’t at work today either. The left half of my head now has the head cold that the right half had first, and I am once more eagerly spraying viruses or at least leaking them in large quantities. My arm still hurts, although not as much. Especially after I went back to bed in the morning for some more hours. Sleep is good for healing. And of course the other way around – health is good for sleep. It is hard to get the same sleep quality when your favorite sleep position hurts like murder.

With my arm hurting too much to do a reasonable job, I could not justify spreading viruses to all my fellow commuters and coworkers. OF COURSE it’s them I was thinking of – you couldn’t possibly think this had anything to do with how I felt, could you? ^_^

Hopefully my arm will have improved further by November 1, because that is when NaNoWriMo starts, and I will probably once again need a couple attempts (at best) before I find the novel that will reach 50 000 words this year. But of course this is all in the future, if any, and as the Chinese say, when mortals talk about the future, Heaven laughs. (Actually one of the Psalms has a rather unpleasant rendition of this as well. I guess uppity mortals are universally looked down on from above, I guess that makes a certain sense.)

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Arm whine

Posted by Itlandm on October 26, 2011

New whine from the old skin! Starting this afternoon (around the time I left the commute bus, I think?) my right arm has been hurting. More as the hours went by. It hurts all the way from the neck now, the neck chiming in quite a bit later than the arm itself. There are only a few poses that hurt much less. Actually I can still type, but I probably shouldn’t.

I also have a head cold. And a sore throat. I am not sure that is related to the arm thing though. Perhaps. But it’s not flu season here yet. Still, if I can’t shave tomorrow morning, I’m not going in to work.

Usually my arm doesn’t start hurting until midway through NaNoWriMo. And it doesn’t feel quite the same as those.

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Paying bills

Posted by Itlandm on October 23, 2011

Usually I pay the bills on the 15th or so, but this month there were no bills at the time, so I waited a little longer. Also, some bills arrive after the 15th but fall due before the next 15th, so I have to log on twice a month anyway.

Anyway,  it is not exactly a problem to pay my bills, neither technically nor financially. Even though I am barely middle class by Norwegian standards, and pay a rent suitable for a whole house or nearly so, I generally have more than I need from month to month.

I have a credit card account that I pay into each month, and that I use if I buy something more than living expenses. I used it when I moved two years ago. Back then I paid double rent for four months, in addition to paying four months in advance for the new place, so I guess in a manner of speaking I paid triple rent for four months. That is a bit when you are renting a whole house alone (even a small house), so I ended up borrowing a bit back then. Also the moving cost a little – that was when I moved to Riverview, the move from there to Mandal cost me almost nothing. But anyway, I’ve paid it off. Or rather, I still have a small amount of credit card debt, technically, but also have more than that in the debit account most of the time. If I pay it off completely – and unless something very unpleasant happens, that won’t be far off – I think I will have a separate savings account instead. Less impulse for impulse shopping that way.

But I’ll probably be back in debt again next time I move. In the future I will probably need to hire movers, and those are hideously expensive here in Norway. So I won’t have a problem with getting rid of my money. And I do intend to move eventually. I am not in a hurry right now, but I may be if a larger family moves in upstairs. I was up there once and it seems there is no hot water tank there. Meaning that the whole house uses mine. Luckily the family with the toddler moved out and the place is empty now, but if a large family with small children moves in, that could get hideously expensive. And while the price of renting a whole house has risen a bit over the last year (Norway is still in its property boom with fantasy price growth), it may well end up cheaper to rent a whole house elsewhere. But not right now. Right now I rent half a house and the other half is empty, which is for me just as good as renting a whole house and only use half of it. ^_^

Anyway, banking here in Norway is done on the Internet. It is many years since last I saw a check, something like 20 years or so.  Most of my bills come in electronic form also, but a few come in the mail, so I have to fill in a few numbers on the screen rather than just press a key to pay. Still, it is pretty easy. I can see how this large gap of abstraction can make it hard to think clearly about money for those who have a lower level of cognitive development. But mostly I think people’s money problems are a matter of being unable to control their impulses. In Norway, I mean. In your flearidden and inferior nation, all bets are off. But here in the zeroth world, it is mainly a matter of not wanting everything you see.

I still want yogurt, though. Lots and lots of yogurt.

 

 

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Fighting the chimney sweep

Posted by Itlandm on October 20, 2011

There is a Christian saying that if you fight the chimney sweep, you get smudged even if you win. I am not even sure whether I am winning or losing. But we’ll get back to that. First other news:

Today was the first time in about two weeks that I took an hour’s walk in the evening. It felt good. Around the time my foot started to hurt, my heart was beating irregularly after less than a quarter’s walk from work to the bus. Now, there was no disturbance at all for an hour, including walking over two pretty steep hills. So I strongly suspect there is a connection between my exercise levels and this irregularity of the pulse. See also my less slice-of-life journal today.

In other utterly slice-of-life news, I found a sheet of paper in my mailbox again informing me that the chimney sweep is coming tomorrow between 9 and 12. One will remember that I got the same very short warning last winter in the old farm house, and in all haste arranged to take the day off from work, then waited ALL WORKDAY and neither saw nor heard anything, nor have I heard from him since, until now he pulls the same short warning stunt again. Like I am going to let him fool me twice in a row. Unless I’m sick or something, I intend to go to work as usual. (Besides, I don’t have any fireproof ash containers. Not that I would need them, I haven’t used the wood stove in this house ever, but they are supposedly required. Yeah, because I would totally go hunting for those in the evening if I even knew what he meant.)

Sorry pal, but not all of us have homemakers around to wait for chimney sweeps with a (so far) 100% track record of absenteeism. Hopefully next year the house will have a more cooperative inhabitant.

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