If there is such a thing as a previous life, I'll bet I spent mine as a bear. I notice it every autumn: I spend the whole season trying to control the urge to EAT! EAT! EAT! And then, around this time of year, all I want to do is stay in bed under a warm, fuzzy duvet and sleep. Or, you know, do other things that one does under a duvet - read, cuddle, blog - so long as it doesn't involve anything even remotely resembling foot-floorboard interaction.

But, as it happens, I have a life. One filled with things that need to be done, like exams and coffee dates and wondering whether or not my bum looks big in this (the answer usually being 'yes, but in a good way'), activities with which hibernation does not mesh.

I really have no idea where I'm going with this, but I'll tell you: This getting-out-of-bed crap had better be worth it.

Goodnight!

Phonology will not get the best of me. I just hate that I need to study so much to avoid that happening.

So, 'sup people? I noticed you were much more keen on answering questions about your dinner than your personal problems, and I enjoyed your comments - or rather, having you comment - so much that I'll keep my questions on a superficial level for now. Oh, the sacrifices I make for my, what, fifteen-twenty-ish readers? God, how pathetic... Seriously, though: Thanks for commenting. Makes me happy, it does. (See? You blew Troubled Tuesday right there - no-one but yourself to blame, no siree!)

Speaking of Tuesday (again), I've noticed a slight change in my personality lately. I have always been the kind of girl who feels a lot. I listen to people's stories, and I understand their pain, I cry with them, that dress looks great on you, it's OK to wallow, honey, just let it out. 'Troubled Tuesday,' I thought, 'that'll be a breeze!' Well, that was before The Transition. Now all of a sudden I'm this extreme cynic - I'm no meaner to anyone per se, I just don't care as much - who would rather watch endless reruns of '7th Heaven' than listen to one more story about that guy and the mixed signals and that one time at band camp. At least then I wouldn't have to nod in that sympathising, head-tilting 'I feel you' way.

So I learned to say 'no' to people, meaning I finally got to call (off) some of the shots - go me! If I had felt anything at all, I'd have felt liberated.

And probably really, really mean. Because I know I'm one of them, I really do. I can whinge and moan and wallow in my misery like the best of 'em. But there is a fine, fine line between friend and psychologist, and when it is crossed too often I tend to lose the will to be either. Unless, of course, I get paid.

Hot chocolate. It's the only thing that will do the trick.

I despise colds. My usually rampant brain activity is on caffeine life support, and that doesn't do this li'l blog o' mine a whole world of good, now does it? Seriously, I give up, nothing good is going to come of me sitting here trying to be witty and brilliant when all I really want to do is sleep it off. And by 'it', I mean 'my life'.

Still, it's only polite of me to check in and let you know that I'm still breathing, even if it is mostly through my mouth.

So I'm not really in the mood writing, but having my last post as my most recent was a little too emo pathetic, even for me. Also, it seems there is a thing or two that needs clearing up:

This is a blog. More specifically, a Livejournal. A journal is a dynamic piece of writing that records moments in life, and as life changes, so will the content of the entries. This means, for example, that just because I write something that is not light and chirpy, this does not mean that you have to worry about me for days. I am not suicidal; I am female. I am also fine now - if I needed to talk, I would have phoned you by now. You should know that by now.

Secondly, just because I mention The F Word in a post, it does not mean I am going to develop an eating disorder. Also, if you had actually read the rest of the entry, you would have noticed that the point of that particular post really was something entirely different. I am rendered speechless by reactions like this, especially seeing as Julie is a close friend of mine and, again, should know me better than that.

Finally, I hate that I have to make excuses for myself because of this. I am a person. This is my blog. Just deal.

So I'm setting up some rules:

- No complaining that I don't write often enough. Really. The nagging does not work, and you know as well as I do that my moments of bloggy greatness are always spontaneous, and also unstoppable. You are not missing out on anything.

- I have to be allowed to not be happy all the time. I cannot edit away all the bad bits just because they make you uncomfortable. And, you know? That goes in real life as well.

- I am a woman of few, but precious opinions. Just as you have to be allowed to disagree with me, I have to be allowed to disagree with you.

- My life does not consist solely of handbags, shoes, makeup and bras. I know a few of you like when I focus on those kinds of topics, and by all means, I love my bras, but I don't really have much to say about them. They are pretty. They are expensive. They fit me. But if you want to know what will look good on you, just step away from the computer and ask someone who is paid to know that kind of stuff. I am not a trained professional, I just buy bras that fit. And you know how I learned what fit me? I went shopping. And besides, the exact contents of my entire lingerie collection is not going to appear here. A girl needs to have her secrets.

I think that's it. This is my journal. You choose yourself whether or not you want to read it, but if you do, you need to keep in mind the operative words, my and journal.

You like it when I'm strict, don't you?

I'm in over my head.

You see, I'm a bit of a control freak; I like things the way I like them. I like knowing what's going on, and knowing what will be going on a month from now. I blame my mother. Now, though? No control whatsoever, and I'm completely thrown. I don't know who I am, where I'm going, what I'm doing with my life, who I'm in love with (if anyone at all), where I'll be next term, who I can talk to and who I can't. I've started cutting classes again, which is ridiculous, because two hours of class save me four hours of reading. I constantly oversleep. I'm moody and stressed. My self-confidence is at an all-time low. I don't even like my hair.

And still, every single day I tell myself: 'Tomorrow, it'll all be better', even though I know it probably won't be.
I hate being sad. Such a waste of mascara.

My fingers have been itching to blog ever since I left for Italy. Ideas have been popping into my head at the most unexpected times (resulting in a couple of inappropriate laughing fits), and I have been yearning for my darling Macbeth like a  scantily clad Hollywood starlet for boob tape. 

I had forgotten that being reunited with my beloved would also mean a return to The Rest: assignments, deadlines, stress, washing up, Visa card troubles, an annoyingly lovely ex, laundry, parents, guilt and to top it all off, a drinking water bacteria which causes me not only to dehydrate, but also to be deprived of my double americanoes, the stuff that was born into this world to get me through times like these. Stupid.

So here I am, sipping my almost-cold Friele Breakfast Coffee (made from pre-boiled water), in my underwear and red felt slippers, feeling semi-creative, semi-awake and beyond pressured because of a certain morphology assignment due tomorrow. I'm telling you now: It is very, very unlikely that you'll find anything more entertaining here than a meme or two for the next week. I know there have several times before been more than a month between posts, but as you may or may not have noticed, I'm trying to pull myself together in the blogging department and actually give you all a reason to stick with me, if not through Hell and high waters, then at least through a silly little bacteria epidemic.

I suppose a quick retelling of the Rimini story is in order (Giss was right when he pointed out that it sounds more like a supermarket chain than a town!). Well, it was good, it was very good. Exhausting, though. We came second among the ensembles (less than 16 singers), and it felt great to have done so well, and also to have beat a couple of extremely good choirs. The winners were entirely deserving of their medal, and for a brief moment the world made complete sense.

Yesterday, when I was surfing about, trying to regain my pre-weekend energy level (and, it has to be said, failing miserably, thus resorting to watching downloaded episodes of Six Feet Under instead), I found an entry concept on Alyndabear's blog that I thought would be perfect for less-than-creative moments like these: The love/hate list. It's like the perfect mix between a meme (fill in the blanks...) and an plain old update (... with whatever you like), and is manageable even for me, even today. So here it is, my very first love/hate list, and possibly the last you'll hear from me for a week or so. Of course, knowing how I react to stress I'll probably end up blogging loads when I should instead be explaining the different aspects of locution, illocution and perlocution and providing my own examples, but at least now I'm making sure that won't be out of guilt.

'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.'

Almost two hundred years ago, Jane Austen chose these words for the introductory line of what was to become one of her many celebrated novels. Today I was reminded of it by my old friend, when she said 'You know, Sjokoladepiken, a single guy will never be looking for friendship first'.

This puts me in an awkward position. I'm in a long-term relationship, a happy one, and apparently that is the social equivalent to leprosy.

After a little research, I found out that the rules go more or less as follows:
1) Do not befriend a single guy. It will end in tears and heartbreak, and no, you do not have a choice in the matter.
2) If you do talk to a single guy, you must never seem even remotely interested in him or what he's saying, because he will get the wrong idea.
3) Always be clear about the fact that you aren't on the market. If possible, talk about your boyfriend all the time, so as to not get single guys' hopes up. Otherwise they will assume that you'll leave your him for them if you don't. Duh.
4) We've all seen When Harry met Sally. It's not going to work out, so you might as well not bother.

I'm sorry, did I miss a meeting? If I were single, approaching and getting to know new guys wouldn't be a problem, but now that I'm off the market I have to be careful as to what sort of signals I'm sending out, because all new guys I encounter will think I want to screw them (in one way another)?

I'm not sure about how to phrase this, but I think the most accurate I can come up with is this: Huh?

This makes no sense. Unless, of course, we assume that when a girl talks to a boy, there is a common understanding that she really just wants to have his babies. I mean come on. Seriously? Did feminism just take a really long lunch break?

I know there are at least one or two of you who are thinking 'She really shouldn't be the first one to bring this up', because a couple of my 'friendships' have morphed into something less appropriate. Then again: I've been there, and I've learned two things.

1) You do not want to go to the Land of Parallel Relationships. It's really, really bad, in the humid, hot, natural disaster sort of way. I can't believe the flights aren't being cancelled, because once you've been there you'll never want to go back. Ever.

2) Stupidity is not an uncontrollable urge; it is a choice.  This specific kind of stupidity inevitably demands a conscious (though often alcohol-assisted) choice from two people. It takes time, effort and loads of practise to really mess things up; it is an art which took me months to perfect, and I'm a really fast learner. This isn't something that just happens. You have to really work at it to be able to include all the nuances of pain, heartbreak, disappointment and misery. It is a talent reserved for a precious few of us, and we keep our secrets close to our breast.

You know The Rules? I've never been a believer in them. I don't have the ability to restrict my behaviour and play impossible-to-get like they demand, and yet my love life hasn't turned out all bad. My 'I'm going to let you know that I like you if I do, and then we'll just have to take things slowish and see how they turn out' approach has to have had something going for it, because now I'm past that bit.

Or so I thought. Every time I've met a nice, interesting guy with friend potential during the last year, even though the ground rules have been there from day one, there's been this 'You don't want to seem too interested, darling, he might take it the wrong way' coming from either my friends og my head. This causes the whole thing to fizzle out into a strictly professional relationship or a 'stop and talk in the street'-acquaintance, neither of which carry any promises so far as a future friendship is concerned. Apparently, once you've found your guy, you're not allowed near any of the others.

I wish we could all trust ourselves and be trusted to stay off the adulterous path, and to be honest with people so that nobody gets badly hurt. Unfortunately my rebelling mind does not exempt me from the norms. I too end up thinking 'ok, now it's his turn to make contact, I don't want to push it'. Since 'everyone else is doing it' I wouldn't want people to think my intentions were anything short of honourable. Things might perhaps possibly maybe once in a few years' time go wrong, and how could we defend ourselves then? I wish this all to be different, but I doubt it will change as long as there are millions of girls convinced that it's more inappropriate to make male friends when spoken for than when not. Ms. Austen had a point after all.

And seeing as Feminism doesn't have the power to do a thing, she is instead taking a long lunch break with her new friend Alan.

Emotional post down, rant to go.

Now, I know I'm being superficial, but one of the topics about which I could talk or write the most would have to be my morbid fascination for my co-workers' behavioural patterns, and in particular their outfits. Every morning when I step into the office building, I experience a jittery feeling of anticipation. My quasi-policewoman eyes wander in search of crimes commited against poor, defenseless waistlines and other body parts that have done nothing to deserve this kind of cruelty.

Offense #1: The shoes
I love shoes, I really do. I love them like I love expensive lingerie: They're tiny and beautiful, need special care and can make a girl feel like a million dollars without makin it look like that's what she spent to attain it. My love of shoes is but a side-effect of my love of feet, to whom one should always be as nice as possible.
But apparently, that's just me. In the real world, the rules are as follows:
- Shoes should always be black, because black goes with everything. If you want colour, dress them up with a nice, bright pair of socks.
- Trainers, though, can be any colour in the world, because they're trainers and go with everything anyway.
- DO NOT WEAR HEELS. If you must, let the shoes themselves be as orthopaedic-looking as possible. No heels higher than one inch. None that are higher than they are wide. If you can, wear the shoes down so badly first that the heels are crooked and make that unmistakably metallic sound of nail-against-floor. And above all, DO NOT enter a shoemaker's. Ever.
- To avoid sexual harassment (one prefers to stick to the other kinds), and conceal as effectively as possible that you've ever had something remotely similar to a functional sex life, nun's shoes are always a safe bet. No man will ever look at you again, and you get to be in the happy situation that you're entitled to complaining about it to absolutely everyone.

Offense #2: Eccentric knitwear
Where do I even begin? There is no hope of making any sense of this trend, passed on from ancient times down to women who are just old enough to overlook the fact that they're starting to look like their mothers. I'm sure you all know more or less what I'm talking about. Women, more often than not in their mid- or late fifties, more often than not with their hair cut unflatteringly short, with some odd, kind of artsy, vaguely fish-shaped object for a jumper. I know you know.

There are two categories:
1) Ethnic knits. These aren't necessarily universally unflattering in form, but always, ALWAYS, look uncomfortably unnatural on the women sporting them. You know, lots of earth tones, lama wool, strangely crafted sleeves/necklines etc. The women adopting this look are often divorcees rediscovering their true selves through pottery classes and charter trips to Morocco. Dark lipstick, dyed hair and BIG jewellery, just because 'I'm not afraid to be seen any more! I'm a WOMAN with a WOMAN's body, and I no-one can make me feel like anything less!' Calm down, honey. No-one's trying.

2) General menopause knits, for lack of a better name. These aren't as discriminating as the ethnic ones, and can affect anyone who isn't careful. We're talking thick, loosely-knit yarn in 'artsy' colours (purple, orange etc.), usually with some cutesy details that REALLY don't need to be there. But those aren't really the central flaws. You see, there is one thing that all pieces of clothing have in common: they hang. They seem to want to avoid touching the body of the person wearing these sources of visual evil (as, can I imagine, do their husbands). ALL articles in this category have that sort of A-line thing going, which means the only bits of the body that they cling to are those that stick out and get in the way of gravity. On mannequins, those bits are always a pair of neat little sit-up breasts. On the customers, there's ALWAYS a belly. The rest of the body is drowning in a sea of squiggly edges, long tops (often a little shorter in front because of the aforementioned belly factor - yikes), big scarves, pompoms and layers, and things like waistlines and sexy hip curves become a thing of the past. As a contrast to the ethnic-knit lady, the menopause knit woman is making a statement more in the lines of 'I AM afraid to be seen, but who needs to see ME when they can see this wonderful PURPLE MOCK-PATCHWORK KNITTED WRAP VEST with FRINGE DETAILS. I am no woman, but an INDIVIDUAL with no real personality other than MY PURPLE VEST and my CONSTANT DISAPPROVAL of EVERYTHING else other than MY PURPLE VEST.'

Welcome to Etaten.

The soundtrack of my ideal life would have to be 'Haustpop til ein sjokoladepike'. I can hardly stop smiling, and I suspect that's the point; there've been some ups and more downs this autumn. Each song on this comp is like a hug. And, of course, there are a few extra happy factors emerging nowadays that don't exactly do any harm...

But seriously:
I feel seen again. It's horrible, the fleeting feeling I've been having that no-one really notices my cheerful, though at times incompetent presence. And I can live with being a dumb brunette, if that's my only other option.

The upside of being overlooked in all conversations (bar the most trivial, unoffensive ones): There's no demand that I "either beat 'em or join 'em". No-one insists I refuse to work late, so as to up their own chances of pay rises, simply because I've been taught to do about three different things, each of which seldom takes me more than fifteen minutes. I occasionally smile, or make coffee. That more or less covers it. Nobody expects more of me, so I'm mostly left alone to think or work or surf the net for covetable lingerie/shoes (I WANT marabou slippers!). Instead of paying attention at morning meetings, I get to pretend I'm memorising who is and isn't there (very useful for the call-transferring part of my duties). The truth is, that pretty much takes me five seconds to see, so the rest of the time I gat to spend saoaking up the atmosphere.

Which brings back me to what I started on last night: The inexplicable mystery that is workwear for women over a certain age. No workplace can escape, I think, from this phenomenon that is slightly middle-heavy, severely ill-clad forty- and fifty-somethings. It doesn't seem to matter whether they're single, married, mothers or maids, there is NO WAY OUT of this labyrinth of sensible shoes, misplaced belts and 'ethnic' knitted jumpers that is 'Offentlig sektor'. Sweet lord.


Today's topic: Belt abuse

I'm curious to know who told the somewhat Venus-like (as in 'of Milo') R that the très now extremely-cinching-belt-at-the-waist-look would work for her. I don't stand a chance in Hell of pulling that one off myself, so imagine the person in question: Think Sandy from Grease. Then add thirty years of emotional overeating and heroin abuse, give her a shower but keep the hair EXACTLY AS IT WAS WHEN SHE WAS FIFTEEN (shoulder-length, limp, bleached with darkish roots). Et puis, add belt. I thought I could avoid mentioning this, but it does need saying: it's one of those really broad, embellished leather belts that looked fantastic two years ago on Kate Moss' hips. Yes, HIPS.

Then imagine the trend catching on.

So: How do these things happen? Do they not see? Do they not notice their digestion slowly failing? Do they not cherish, as I do, the ability to bend forwards?

To be continued, and boy will it be continued...