Stuff

I started.
The move.

Well at least I emptied four cupboards in the hallway and divided the stuff into different piles in the house.

In 2 weeks time I have an inspection of the apartment where I have lived for the past 3 years. So before then I need to sort of tidy up and move stuff away from the walls n floors. So they can check for damages like if I’ve scribbled on the wall or carved my initials in the wooden floor in the living room.

At first I was so eager, happy and excited about moving out.

Ok, I admit sending off the resignation of the flat was very heart breaking and getting the confirmation of it by post the next day felt like a nail in my coffin.

But I was still happy.

At night I would picture myself decorating our future bathroom or how I would renovate old furniture in weird unorthodox ways or just see myself reading by an open window with a different life and culture happening outside. My new life would become so much more colourful and better than the life I am leaving in Sweden. Much warmer, much brighter and happier that’s what my picture is like. I had butterflies flying around in my chest when I fell asleep and they would still be fluttering there when I woke in the morning.

Then I started to look around the flat.
Seeing all the stuff!
STUFF!
Collecting dust making everything stuffy!
What a hateful word - stuff.

Let me give you a description of where I’m sitting now:

It’s a big ugly but amazingly comfortable settee of light blue velvety fabric. To hide the ugliness of it, I have draped it, with an equally ugly and dust collecting dark blue Indian bedspread. Behind the settee are a large number of pillows and blankets, hidden by my sweet sister who hates stuff. To my left - a small sewing table which belongs to a friend – on top of it a huge stereo and hundreds of CD cases - mostly empty. Inside the sewing table a few packs of cards, dice, and more empty CD cases. Underneath the table a big wooden box with no real purpose in its life; a colourful kitschy tray full of candles that have burnt down into one large mass of candle wax and maybe a hundred or so vinyl records. Etc etc this goes on for ever, I have just describe one square meter of my living room.

So there I sit in my ugly comfortable settee and stare at stuff and think “what?”.

It is so sad and so scary to just get rid of it all and how does one get rid of it all? I can’t throw half the stuff I have cause they belong to friends who have loaned them to me (ugly Indian bed spread, sewing table) or they are too big to carry by myself the 500 m to the garbage room (the ugly settee) or I just simply can’t throw them away, games, cards and CD’s that are practically new or have some sentimental value like - this is the CD I bought when I was travelling with the Irish or this is the CD I listened to when that guy and I had passionate sex or this is the CD I listened to ALL the time when I broke up with that boyfriend.

Instead of dealing with the move I have played solitaire on the computer for hours every night.

It became harder and harder to move out of the settee and DO something. The butterflies disappeared and instead I had nightmares about moving and playing solitaire till my fingers bleed.

But then yesterday I started.
I did the hallway - two big cupboards and 2 smaller ones. What was once inside them is now sorted into different piles of my life:

“Daddy pile”
“Mummy pile”
“Garbage pile”
“Israel pile”
“Flea market pile”
”I don’t know- pile”

Every pile full of stuff and a piece of heart.

And last night I didn't have nightmares.

"Foot In Mouth" Disease

My stupid bad behaviour didn't stop there yesterday. What started out as fun, turned sour. I think I’m too nice to be mean cause soon those little angels who like to give you bad conscious, crept forward and danced around, telling me “Hey, the guy is maybe actually nice! And maybe his friends whom you know were a bit upset by your harshness”

It is so hard you know, when it comes to a different culture, even though people from a country and culture which is very similar to ones own. There are always misunderstandings, body language, wording and phrasing can easily be misunderstood.

So I wrote to this mutual friend of ours and told him, sorry if I had unintentionally in the process of insulting his friend ended up insulted him as well. I also explained that I had been very provoked by the pictures of uniform and gun and that maybe some girls are turned on by this but for me I just felt disgusted and got an urge to run as far away as possible when I see a uniformed person with a huge gun.

Two hours later it suddenly hits me.

This friend whom I wrote to, is one of those army types who had a very important job in the army (and maybe still has) and is extremely proud of it. I suddenly recalled a very heated discussion between this friend and another who is a pacifist. And here I was declaring to him my disgust of guns and uniformed people!

OUCH! Not so smart when I will be seeing very much more of him and be living in his country and culture shortly.
Oh why can’t I just shut up!

But it is much harder than one can imagine culture difference and it doesn’t really hit or hurt you until much later.

Body language is one such a cool thing and also can be so easily missed.

Once in the beginning of our relationship I was sitting and reading the paper with my loved one. I started to talk to him as one does, about something I read. He did something with his hand and I just kept on talking. The loved one was reading something at the moment and he did the thing with the hand again. I kept on talking. Suddenly he looked up angrily and nearly shouted “Wait, I tell you. Let me finish the page!!” I was stunned…

A few days later I was reading a Lonelyplanet Hebrew phrasebook and I found this: “When asking someone to wait a moment, an Israeli might place the thumb, index and middle fingers together and squeeze, with the palm facing up.”

My mind rewound fast to the café and me talking whilst the loved was reading. His hand fling thing was exactly this! DONG! The revelation was like a sledgehammer hitting my head making a very hollow dong sound from the vibrations of my head.

Other times it can be worse, life experience can be so different for two people of roughly the same age, and when you talk, party and have fun, it is something that can be easily forgotten.

Once we were talking to a wonderful person, having tea and just chatting. He had just burnt himself on a stove and he was talking about how disgusting his little scab was under the plaster. I started to tell the story of the Irish Red Lobster. A friend of mine who in Oz was so badly sunburnt on the back of his legs that when his friend accidentally kicked his shin under a table the skin of his shin peeled off as thick as an orange peel. Yes, it was very disgusting! But anyway after telling about this my friend - this wonderful person was very quiet for some time and soon after he left.

My loved one, then told me gently that maybe it wasn’t such a very good story to tell a guy who was inside a burning tank during a war recently and where most of his friends were burnt extremely bad or even killed.

Holy fuck! Did I run head first into a concrete wall?

I wanted to.

Facebook Frustration

It is dieing down a bit now, the Facebook mania that ravaged my life for a bit. Thank you God!

All kinds of stuff has been in the media about it, the amount of time and money all companies are losing now that their employees are Facebooking all day.

That all the pictures and texts that are published in the community can be sold i.e. we have signed over the rights for Facebook to do what ever they want with the pics.

There is also a huge conspiracy thing connected with Facebook which is quite fun: http://www.albumoftheday.com/facebook/

But I can’t be bothered anymore. I was sort of excited about Facebook for a while, as long as I was finding long lost friends with whom I hadn’t seen in 5, 10, 15 and even 20(!) years. That was great. But after the initial “WOW! How are you?! What are you doing?” things die down a bit.

Then I started to realise that people at work could actually see everything I wrote and did. Writing stuff like “Caroline is pretending to work” or “Caroline is trying to figure out an excuse so she can leave work early” in the status field might not be so smart of me, especially when I am already being completely shunned by my work mates and boss.

But then the hatred of Facebook started to seep into my heart. All the zombie, vampire, Super wall, X me, Aquarium, Film quizzes and other bullshit applications! What the fuck? Go away! Throw sheep and world wide travelling teddy bears at yourselves - if you think its so fun! Just leave me alone!

Just a few days ago I met a girl who told me she got weird guys wanting to add her just because she had big boobs. Now this has not happen to me yet (I can’t figure out why?!) but yesterday the first stranger tried to add me as his friend.

I got the request from a guy I didn’t know or had ever met. I was confused, thought for a moment that my memory was even worse than expected and that I actually had met him. He did know two other people I knew. So I had to ask “Do I know you?”.

The answer was: “No, but I saw that you knew two of my best friends so I thought I would add you too :)”

I had a look at this guys profile.

His profile picture was of him gobbling down whiskey or something like it directly from a bottle. Some other pictures of him depicted him posing in a police (?) uniform with a huge automatic weapon of some sort.

ARRGHH! (Sound effect of allergic reaction)

Ok, I know a lot of girls get turned on by uniforms and maybe I am strange cause it disgusts me. Police and military uniforms make me feel sick to the stomach and an urge to run as far away as possible hits my legs.

So I politely answered him:

“What's with the gun and drinking straight out of a bottle? Is it a description of the size of your dick and brain? In other words – tiny.

Your best friends are very nice people and maybe you are too, but so far I don't know. I have a thing about adding people I don't know so maybe you shall try your luck somewhere else. And if we happen to be introduced and you turn out to be a misunderstood nice guy, then I can add you later.

Sorry.”

Maybe a bit harsh.
But fun.

Red Leaves

Writing

It's tough to write.
I mean I write all the time and some of it is good but most of it is extremely personal. I know that that bearing it all, undressing myself in front of everyone would probably be best. But knowing that people read the stuff I write and then I know some of the people who read which makes it hard.
There are times I am so upset about something or someone that I just want to rip their hearts out online but then there is the nice side of me thinking "Oh no be nice!" If I wrote a sarcastic exaggerated but slightly truthful story on every person I knew which is what I would like to do, I would end up with very few friends.
Sometimes I have troubles I want to share and to get help with but I then am too proud to receive the pity or the love from friends.
Now I have a secret that very few people know of, every day that passes it gets harder to tell the people who don't know.