martinemonster

I've always considered myself to be a good consumer apart from those silly youthful years when I was an anticonsumerist, politically leftist vegetarian and so naturally I want the new awesome iphone. And by want I mean to say that a small part of me feels that my life would not be complete without one. But they're fucking expensive.

So, my American friends. If I were to buy an iphone in the US, how much would it cost me? Would I be able to ship it to Norway directly and would it run with a Norwegian simcard? How much taxes would I be expected to pay? Can anyone figure this out for me?

Do you ever have those moments where you look at yourself in the mirror and suddenly realize your entire outfit is a complete failure? I had one of those today. I was looking good at work: my hair accidentally stylishly messy, my baggy 90s pants hanging from my hips and my sweater understatedly showing off my tits. And then I got home, had sex, took a shower and decided to put on comfy clothes before bed. Tha-ta: instant failure. I put on a comfy shirt and a long, dark blue skirt (no bra). Happily walking around, the boyfriend not mentioning my outfit at all, I suddenly look in the mirror and see that I've gained about 500lbs, my tits seem to be sagging down to my stomach and my hips have magically disappeared, mostly because my tummy seems to have grown outrageously.

This needs to be remedied. Only problem is, I don't even know where to start looking for sexy yet comfortable clothes. Somebody has to help me here. Help flist?

I had a sad moment today. I was at work and one of the patients mentioned that they had a sale on roses in the local flower shop downstairs (the clinic is inside a mall). Oh, I thought, I can buy roses for myself and put them in my lovely vase in the living room. And then it hit me: In my wee goth-days I never bought roses for myself. I got long stemmed red roses, black roses, even a blue rose once, but nowadays, nobody buys me flowers. The only flowers I've received for years were the ones I picked out of the local grocery shop garbage disposal last year.

Is it because I seem like the type of woman who would frown upon getting flowers? Or is it because people have stopped buying flowers for each other? Or maybe I've just lost my charm...

When I was little, I wanted to be a public speaker just because every time my mom had held a lecture or a course for someone she'd get a bouquet of flowers and I was always dead jealous. I hope people don't view me as someone adverse to flowers. Believe me, I'm not.

As most of you know, I grew up in a lovely little town right outside Oslo, where the grass was greener, the birds sang more cheerfully and whatever else one says of the countryside to try and convince oneself that kids grow up to be happier and more well-adjusted if you keep them out of big cities. And though we lie about a lot of the good stuff about growing up outside of Oslo to make ourselves feel better about it, one thing is for certain: it makes me grateful to live in the city center now.

In Holmestrand everyone knew everyone, and that meant that there was very little wriggle room for any anti-social behavior. Everyone not only knew who the drunken bastard who hung out at the docks, but why he started drinking and what happened to his wife and kids. But in Oslo, there is room for the crazies to just be crazies. The drunken old weirdo who lives across the street who I'm quite sure likes to stare at me either because he's seen me running through the apartment naked or because he wants to kill me, is just that. I don't know his family or go to school with his sister. It's the same with the crazy guy who dresses in something in between a dress and a sheet who rides his bike to our local shop to buy his food every day. Sure, I have to interact with them, and they're definitely weird, but at the same time it leaves a lot of room to be slightly weird without anyone noticing or caring about it. Nobody's gonna mention to my mom when they meet at the grocery shop that I went shopping in a bathrobe, for instance.

I started thinking of this when I was on my way home this morning. I was walking down the street, minding my own business, when a middle aged, clearly high/drunk guy presses himself up against the wall to make room for me to get by him (mind you, this was a regular sized pavement with room for at least 3 people to pass each other comfortably with nobody having to brush up against any strangers). "Ladies first," he smiled and gave me a bow. I did the only thing I could think of; smiled back and said thank you. "Well, it's soon to be the 17th of May," he said in way of explanation as I kept walking home. And hey, it made my day feel a little better. I like the crazies.

Exams are approaching and as always, I end up not eating anything that takes more time/effort to make than a few minutes. It usually results in me either not eating, or eating obscenely unhealthy food. But, this year, just to top it all off, I seem to have developed an intolerance for cheese. And since all my secret recipes, not to mention almost all cheap/easy food to buy ready-made includes cheese, this limits my options severely.

So today, I convinced myself to make actual food. You know, with meaty goodness and healthy vegetables and all that. It was based on a sudden urge for moussaka, but since I haven't eaten that for ages and frankly could not be bothered to find a recipe (also, I think it includes cheese), I made my own version of it. I call it moussakish.

Basically I made a version of my pasta sauce with lentils and put loads of pieces of eggplant on top of it instead of a layer of cheese and left the thing in the oven for 20 minutes. And it tasted delicious. *dances the sweet dance of victory*

The best part: it is really healthy and I made enough for four people. So more food for me tomorrow!

This may not shock you guys, and it didn't really shock me either. What did shock me however was how unbelievably, intensely, mindnumbingly, I suddenly wanted to go eat at TGI Friday's after seeing their commercials for ribs. My God do I want to eat that. Fatty good food.

Someone come with me? They're not dreadfully expensive...okay, so I don't really have money, but I still wanna go eat ribs. I've saved up some money for this summer, why not spend it on food.

Who's with me?

I was challenged to write about what runs trough my head when I can't sleep at night, so here I go.

Option one: If I'm stressed out, I'll lay in bed thinking of all the things I need to get finished, planning them out in my head and organizing my life in the hopes that that will make me more likely to succeed in getting done. Of course, this does not help me fall asleep, but some of my best ideas for rpg characters or other creative stuff have come to me this way, so I'm not too sad about it.

Option two: The rest of the time I think about books I've read and insert myself into them. It works with tv-shows or movies too. It always starts with a "what would I do if I was Sarah Connor"-scenario, and then I work my way from there. Soon I'll be running across rooftops or jumping over cars all the while shooting at the terminators hunting me down. I also spin my own tales with no basis in other things, where I'm (again) the main character. Yet another favorite is to go through a gaming session from an rpg (usually cyberpunk) again and keep it running through my head, figuring out what one should do after we ended the session, or how we should have acted during it. It works like a charm, and it's fun to do.

What do you guys do if you cannot sleep at night?

I have a passionated relationship with coffee. I remember the first time I tasted it. I was 13 years old and on a cabin trip with some friends of the family. They said something about how only grown-ups like coffee, and I, being the stuck up child that I was, naturally retorted that of course I drank, and loved, coffee. Surprised, they poured me a cup too, asked if I took milk and/or sugar, I of course said I preferred it black, and sat back to take a sip. And it was love at first sip. I never really got into the milk and/or sugar thing, but I fell in love with everything about regular black coffee.

I love the way I can nurse a large cup of it between my rather cold hands in the mornings. I love the way that first sip of slightly too strong coffee tastes. I love that refreshed feeling I get after that cup. I love the way you can mix it with chocolate and make it even more nummy. In short, I love most things about coffee.

So this is what surprises me. Usually, I've found that the people of the world can be split into two factions: then ones who love coffee, and the ones who don't like/drink/haven't tried it (some of these do drink coffee, but only to stay awake, or not so often). And I know I can squarely place myself in the first faction. But most people who love coffee with that fiery passion that I do, have perfected their love for coffee in a very fancy way. sandchigger has a fancy coffee maker that grinds the beans before making the coffee, bubble_the_fish have spent what I would call a lot of money on a fancy espresso machine. Now, I'm not one to argue here, I agree that these thingamabobs do make great coffee. It's just that even though my coffee maker is old and cheap, and even though I lost my measuring cup so I just pour a dash of pre-ground coffee into it, never quite making the perfect cup, but usually ending up with a bit too strong or ridiculously weak coffee, I just love the coffee it makes anyways. I even like the nescafé coffee, and will usually make that in the mornings if I'm a bit late. I got no quarrel with it, usually I just pour a bit of that into a cup, making it either ridiculously strong or damnably weak as well. I just like the regular, old-fashioned coffee, with no extra stuff like fancy names or fancy machines. Just coffee. Plain black coffee.

(Getting back to work now. Next time, I'm going to try and blog about secret recipes, the ones you only eat by yourself and don't share with other people.)

I'm so tired today. I feel I'm moving at a snail's pace, and my throat and lungs and head tells me I should have stayed home today. that's right, I'm getting a cold. Bugger.

On the plus side, we played cyberpunk 2020 again yesterday, and it was awesome. And I actually went to my yoga class, and it relaxed me for at least half an hour after the class. Yay for making me remember what it's like not to be stressed out of my mind. Of course, now I miss it.

And today it's sjokoladepikens birthday. I can't wait! :)

Oh, and me and 45hasle are gonna go get the oven fixed today as well. Though I'm not changing my plans of getting through a year's worth on newspapers, I'm still gonna be happy with my own effectiveness for actually getting up, going down here to the eerily empty microfilm hall, working and then fixing the oven, getting a package from the post office and going to a party. Good Friday!

What are your weekend plans? Read: comment please, though I'm doing my best to focus, it's kinda hard...

I hate it when I get a critical botch on my lunch roll (said the über-geek). Today, I first managed to spill half the hot water I put in my soup bowl all over my lunch tray. Then, I realized I should have put in the instant soup mix before the hot water (doh). 7 minutes of stirring later I gave up and ate thin soup with big chunks of disgusting powder that exploded in my mouth. It tasted so awful I almost ended my regime of healthy/cheap living of bringing lunch to the library right there and then and bought the expensive salad instead. Bad day...