martinemonster

I'm unwrapping porn today and the strangest thing is happening. People have started lingering by the counter after coming up from the basement (where we have all the porn that's for sale, over 6000 titles), asking if we're going to get new titles. I tell them the truth, that all the new titles have already been presented in the "new"-section downstairs. They eye the box next to me. I tell them that these movies are old titles that have already been shown downstairs. They linger. I tell them that they can feel free to look through it and they throw themselves at it as if it was the holy grail of porn. As if this one box will hold something much greater than what they were able to find downstairs.

They then buy the movies they brought up from the basement. As I told them, these movies are old.

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.

I was going to write a long post about how nice it is to walk to school in the morning. It's a 45 minute walk, and I always go to school while most regular people drive, or ride the bus or tram to their work, so the streets are all mine. This means I can walk as fast as I want and not have to worry about bumping into strangers or ending up behind moziers (people who like to walk really slowly, called "tuslere" in Norwegian). But, since I've lost the recharger for my creative player, I'm instead going to focus on the fact that I've stopped having the patience I had when I was little.

When I was young, I would be prone to walk all by myself, exploring woods and streets and apartment buildings for hours on end. Every part of the world was an exciting new adventure and I needed no company or music to keep me from being bored. I tried to duplicate this feeling my taking a different route to school when I used up the last precious minutes of batteries left on my player, but instead of being an adventure, I found it to be a tiresome and time consuming way of reaching my school. I started trying to walk faster just to get there earlier and not having to spend more time in my own company than strictly necessary. And it's weird because normally I like spending time with me. But normally I also have something to occupy part of my brain, like music.

So my question to you guys is: Do you feel that as you grew up you lost the ability to enjoy just walking by yourself? Do you need constant entertaining to keep yourself occupied enough to enjoy the simple joy of walking (or studying)? And if so, why do you think that is? I'm seriously curious...

This icon is called "oh bloody hell"

So far, today has been a day of subtle weirdness. It started off nice enough with [Bad username or site: ”akselwestlund” @ livejournal.com] I have no idea why my lj keeps on assuming that some of you guys have bad usernames. This is akselwestlund making me breakfast, got worse when it turned out that the bus I heard was leaving at 7.45 actually left 7.35. I had to run, in my unpractical pretty shoes, waving my arms about and generally making a fool of myself to keep the bus from leaving without me. And that’s when the weird occurrences started. First, I’m sitting on the bus with my eyes closed but not sleeping and the bus voice announces that we’re at Lysaker station, I open my eyes and sure enough, that’s where we are. A bunch of people brush past me on their way into the bus. We drive on. About five minutes later the bus voice announces that we’re at Lysaker station. A little perturbed I open my eyes and see the same station once again, and once again a whole bunch of people brush past me on their way onto the bus. Weird neh? I get to work, have my coffee and start the day. But when I walk down to the eight floor to collect coffee mugs, suddenly, all around me is the sound of wind blowing. You know, the sound the wind makes when it’s blowing so hard you start fearing trees are gonna fall on you? That sound, but no actual wind (which would have freaked me out more since I was inside a stairway with no open doors or windows). Freaked out, I quickly got out of the stairway. When I walked back up, everything was normal. Okay, so this is not actually subtle weirdness, this is actual weirdness. What’s going on people? *actually a little freaked out*

Because I’m writing this in word and then posting it when I’m done reading my flist (so as not to bother you guys with a myriad of posts in one day), you’ll have to bear with the jumpyness of themes in this entry. Now, I’m annoyed! Why, oh why does the power point organization chart I’m trying to make refuse to work for me? I’ve managed to get the squares the right size and amount, but now the little connecting lines refuse to work and the color scheme refuses to change. Stupid retardo program! Gah!

( ”meme” )

As I am sure most of you already know, IKEA is both a place of wonder and of dark and mysterious things. It is not a place one enters without good cause, but since I had a quest (furniture and curtains) I believed that this would be enough. You see, a trip to IKEA holds many dangers, and not only to ones pocketbook, but also to ones mind. I have found that there are three stages in the lures of IKEA: First, Stage one, "wonderment". The questing agent will be overcome with the sheer size and amount of things actually there. If one does not catch oneself and make sure one keep focus already at this stage, it might already be too late, for stage two is harder to fight. Stage two, "euphoria". The questing agent gets side-tracked from his/her quest by all the easy, cheap, beautiful, funny (and so forth) things inside this seeming wonderland and starts buying randomly. This leads our hero to lose sight of the target and will keep him inside the beast that is IKEA long enough to have to face: Stage three, "panic, confusion, desperation". I must confess gentle readers, that I let myself succumb to stage two of the IKEA experience, and was trapped in there as so many others. Suddenly, nomatter where I tried to go, I ended up in the Markethall, seemingly like being trapped inside a video game with no save function so that every time you take a wrong turn, you end up at the beginning again. On the second floor I realized that they had marked the way to the exit with arrows on the floor, but before long I realized the truth; this was IKEAs way of mocking me. Of trying to get me to go through every room I had already visited yet again. I left the path to find my own way out of this maze and ended up in the self-serve warehouse. Now, the signs told me that this was the way to check-out point, but since there was only one way in there, and four ways out (I kid you not, that place is like a magical maze), finding my way was even more difficult now that I had hopes of survival. As my hopes slowly gave way to my final resignation though, there they were. The final frontier. People who were going to take my money and let me walk out of this hellhole. I got there, I was in line, when my friend turned to me and said "I still haven't gotten that lamp," and I had to turn back with her. For, gentle readers, we all know that the saying "leave no man behind", is most important in situations like these.

No more IKEA EVER! (or until next time I have to move probably)

I had a really freaky dream last night, in fact, I'm still freaked out. Could anyone help me figure out what its really about?

At the start me and my roomie, Marthe, was talking about hairdressers. She was trying to explain the way to the nearest headdresser from where I would be living, since I was a nine year old girl whos parents and siblings had all just died. I took the tram to the orphanage, and when I stepped in the door, I became this 9 year old girl with very blond, very long hair and blue blue eyes. I pretty much looked like those little girls you see in barbiedoll commercials, you know, cute as cupcakes. In the orphanage there were 6 kids (me included), a middle-aged man with a cowboy hat and an old lady. The old lady was the boss. Of the kids there was 4 undistinctive ones, me and a boy of twelve named Robert with black hair. I knew "Robert" was really Marthe, even though he clearly was a boy.

I was standing in front of the grown mans desk, when suddenly four indians appeared behind him. I knew they couldn't be real indians, because real indians don't live on Carl Berner (the place I was in my dream) and naturally deduced that they must have been demons. The man in the cowboy hat disapeared, and I knew I had to find him, since the demons got him. I started looking through cupboards, but the only thing I found was a blood drenched suicide note saying that he couldn't take it. I opened the door, and tried to look into one of the closets, but even though I knew I was standing in the hall, I could see my own legs as I was looking out from inside the closet. I slammed the door shut and whent to see the old lady.

I told the old lady everything that had happened, including the man with the cowboyhat's blood drenched suicide note, but the old lady just looked at me with a strange smile and said: "I've never heard of anyone who could talk about the demons and survive." I went back to look for the man, but as I was walking down the hall, suddenly, right in front of me, three copies of me as a 9 year old girl appeared. They were talking in scary voices and I couldn't understand them. Then, suddenly, all the children were gone and I was all alone in the big house. I managed to drag Robert/Marthe out of the closet I'd stared out of before, and we started saving the children together. When finally we'd gotten allmost everyone out and I was carrying the last two in my arms, Robert/Marthe stopped right inside the front door, turned towards the hallway closet and said "I have to go down to the unsinging lakes". He opened the door and whent inside. I spent only a second making sure the other kids got away before following him inside, but even so there were noone on the steps (that shouldn't even have been there) leading downwards. I followed after.