mocking the mock-ups

I looked through the new IKEA catalog. It took me about three hours, for the same reason I enjoy walking through their showrooms.

Not that I'm in love with their stuff. It's just a source of never-ending fascination to me, to see rooms that are designed and arranged for photo shoots. To think that every single item has been placed in that exact position to mimic reality and make people covet that room.

Like that throw "carelessly" abandoned on the bed, the books chosen for their cover, the mandatory plant included to add a splash of green. The bedlamps asymmetrically arranged to prove that this is a place where real people live (they have just stepped out for a moment).

And the kitchens - endless amusement in the way the too-few utensils are arranged on the shelves. Always a couple of plates and mugs, rarely matching but chosen to offset one another beautifully. Some odd item as well, such as an ancient key hanging on a hook. Colourful fruit.

I snort in mocking delight, but deep down inside, I do want to live in these rooms. The minimalist in me envies the person who can get by with so little stuff (and apparently afford a cleaner too).

concrete plans

In a bizarre twist in my bizarrely twisted career, I'm back in the clothing business. Well, half of me is. The other half is still in the subtitling business. Am I the first person in the history of the world to combine these two?

The boss who fired me a couple of years ago is my boss again, the job is more or less the same (but I have very effectively managed to forget how to do it), most of my former coworkers are gone, the office is new. I mean, brand new in a brand new building with brand new furniture by an up-and-coming Danish designer. My desk is made of smooth concrete. I love it. Will be good to bang my head against in despair later.

sand love

There is nothing better you can do on a hot summer's day than watch the beachvolley championships.

Except maybe play beachvolley.

Especially when you have friends with you who like strawberry drinks as much as you do.

being of a sound mind

Sounds on a summer night when you look out on the world and drink something green:

* laughter
* outboard motors
* male shouts
* high heels
* the pop of hot metal window sills cooling
* thump of a baseline
* dogs barking
* people going places
* seagulls
* hum of streetlights starting up

And I think I can hear the earth turning, too.

cut from marble, smoother than a storm

The sea was as still as a mirror, the sunlight golden and tender on the skin. The peace of the open horizon was disturbed only by the birds flittering around me as if I wasn't even there, in their paradise. It was perfect. Perfect beauty, perfect summer.

And I had only a few precious hours to experience all this before summer was over and I had to return to the city to face another long winter. I couldn't stand the pain of knowing this. It broke my heart. So I packed my bags, gave up those few hours and left paradise early.

I have so much here in the city, I know. The sun is still tender on my skin, I can see the sea from here and it is still like a mirror. There is a warm salt lamp illuminating my safe harbour as the sky slowly darkens. I can hear the pulse of the city and the response inside me, my blood heating up for new adventures. I'm strong and free, I have a life to make the most of.

But the memory of paradise is still aching inside me.

"...so I just try to keep up with the red, orange, yellow flicker beat sparking up my heart..."
 

(quote from "Yellow Flicker Beat" by Lorde)

colour-coded day

Walked through a carrot-coloured part of the city.

Later, I painted a table white and the sun made everything white hot.

The indigo of a night walk with the moon was my favourite.

houses on the go

Traffic was unusually slow the other day. That's what happens when four houses apparently have decided to go for a little road trip.

Eventually, all four of them and their escort cars squeezed into a tiny lay-by to let a queue of impatient drivers pass (or for other reasons - one of the drivers was apparently desperate for a pee, judging by what I glimpsed as I drove past). Just another day on highway 8.

shadows and pink grapefruit

I sit in the shadows, as I so often do in the evenings. A flickering candle, the glow of a laptop, the soft velvet light of twilight sky and sea outside.

What else I do nowadays: paint my furniture white, smell of pink grapefruit, take all my boring greying plates and mugs to the charity shop and return with odd pieces of crockery in blood red, buttercup yellow and petrol blue, bemoan the lack of creativity everywhere (including my own life), put in my mouth anything that has the word "strawberry" in the description.

stirs up

"Coffee brings warmth and comfort to my life. Part ritual, part relationship, part hope, having a cup in my hand feels as natural as holding a pencil. It stirs up memories and gratitude inside me."

(Nicole Johnson) 

end-of-summer habits

As summer draws to a close, I instinctively hoard candles and scented tealights. I think a lot about clothes, like cool scarves and heavy boots - because I seem to be able to handle all the challenges of autumn and returning to work if I just feel good about what I'm wearing.

I get excited about courses I could take and gyms I could join, then get depressed about how overbooked my free time will be, then get excited again.

I alternate between desperately squeezing all I can out of the last summer days and longing to get back to TV and the internet.

This afternoon, I dawdled around in the summer heat in bare legs and silver sandals. This evening, I'm pulling a blanket over me while listening to the chilly rain. I'm in between.

a dancer from the past

You know the kind of friend you have at uni, the one who was secretly in love with you back then (or at least you told yourself he might be), brought you icecream, told you stories that made your jaw drop, danced with you, kissed you as part of a fairytale, broke your laptop, went off to run a motorcycle club in Jerusalem.

I just reunited with that friend. His life is quite different now. He has kids, a Porsche and a terrible story. My jaw dropped again.

I won't kiss him again, but I do love him. (Not just because he let me testdrive the Porsche.)

I wrote this (can't think why)

From the cutting room floor of my blog, here are a few weird sentences that thankfully never made it to publishing (until now, when I'm desperate enough to post just about anything):

"Trendy toy she absolutely insisted on having: Monchichi."

"... a dismal autumn day, from the perspective of a shop entrance ..."

"How to tie somebody up so they can't get on their feet."

"There are lots of little flies, big mosquitoes and even the occasional hairy spider."

"A chameleon has a tough life."

"Having my home invaded feels like being violated in the worst way."

"New York is a symphony. A galaxy."

"I glimpse a girl who is so pale-skinned that she might be a ghost."

"... too anxious to please God..."

"Today was downright hypnotic."

"Could it be that I'm at the heart of the world after all."

"Volleyball. Forever and ever the love of my life."

"Je voudrais parler à mon père..."

"His latest toy is a large excavator, in which he happily spends hours digging a ditch."

"Forced myself through French lessons despite feeling useless at it and hating every minute (would I do that now?)"

"... a man of mystery, rarely seen outside the kitchen..."

"Too cold and tired for living."

"Finns moan about the ever-lasting darkness."

"All because I got the sack."

"My friend is explaining how to travel across the frozen sea."

"A dozen selfies from various angles of some airhead with nothing to say..."

"... a few more years of this, I will no longer be capable of thinking with concentration on a single subject..."

"I write about Stinissen and the spell check suggests: stinsen, stinnaste, stinknäsa."

what her heart sounds like

"Call your mother. Tell her you love her. Remember, you’re the only person who knows what her heart sounds like from the inside."

(pobredreamer, Tumblr)

hotstepper and night air

Improvised a halloumi-clove-basil omelet. It tasted like egg.

The rest of the day consisted of a flea market, chartreuse green and boho jewellery,  "Here Comes The Hotstepper," blueberry liqueur and intervening in a fight between a cat and a dog.

Oh yes, and I tried to define the concept of groove. It seemed important. Which led me back to one of my favourite songs, Jamie Woon's "Night Air".


I don't need those car crash colors
I control the skies above us
Close my eyes to make the night fall
Comfort of a world revolving
I can hear the earth in orbit
In the night air