book list (Updated)

I read Cath’s post and was very pleased that I hadn’t fallen out of a sail boat. Then I read in the comments that this did not work out as an excuse ;)

So, "list fifteen books that had the most profound impact on you - ones you can think of in fifteen minutes or less."

And as the discussion went in the commentaries, I can do the list in Swedish! (Don’t worry my esteemed readers, I will translate the titles later on. I just need to leave a chance for the challenger DuWayne to be able to translate...)

I think, in hindsight after seeing the books that were the first I thought of, that I might have been a tad bit influenced by the fact that there was a cold war going on when I grew up... and that my reading times began when I was 6 years old.

Den långa flykten (Watership Down by Richard Adams)- the story about the rabbits having to move and discovering the hardship of dictatorship (and yet, so stable it was). It made believe in true friendship (between Kronan och Femman for example) and exploring the world together and that saving is in trusting eachother and keep fighting for the good cause.

Tornfalken (Västmarkstrilogin) (The Kestrel, The Westmark Trilogy by Lloyd Alexander) - this trilogy was written to fit all my thoughts about the heroism of fighting against the evil dictatorship... and it was very real in its similarities to what I thought was “behind the Iron curtain”. I was also fiercly admiring Justin, a fact I was a bit ashamed of since Theo was so obviously the better man to like (Justin was blazingly insane...).

NIMHs hemlighet (Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert O'Brien) - I wonder if this made my science interest. After all, it must have been one of the first times I read about lab rats and tests by the scientist. Not to mention that these rats turned out to be nice to mice who needed help in the middle of the field when the farmer needed to plow and their house is in the way.

Trollkarlen från Oz - (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum) the whole 14 books. I remember telling my parents I loved the invention of the pearl who would turn white when you told the truth and black when you didn’t. Seemed like an easy enough way to make sure criminals were kept locked up and innocent people weren’t harmed. Then they asked me “what happens if the bad people get a hold of the pearl? What happens then?”. That got me thinking about truth and lies, and evil and good.... again.

Sagan om de två tornen (The Two towers by JRR Tolkien) - I liked the second book in the trilogy much more than the first. (partly because I never liked the part in the first book about Tom Bombadil, something I would probably change if I was to read the book for the first time now.) The descriptions of the orcs, the failure of Boromir and his struggle and not making it, the ents’ move....

Borta med vinden (Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell)- of course I liked Scarlet. Or liked might not have been the word. Dreaming with conflict thoughts might be more like it. I had a copy that was printed in two columns so I could practice speed reading the numerous times I reread it. I still have a hard time with the whole Ashley/Rhett thing.... i.e. choosing Ashley over Rhett. Something about that passion and pride that consumes Scarlet and Rhett.

1984 (1984 by George Orwell) - one of my first sci/fi books, or what to call the genre? it was a new world and I got fascinated. Thinking about what the world would look like in a few decades and how much would the robots and computers take over? (After all, when I was a small girl the tv was in black and white.) Still terrified of the rats in a cage and eyes.... and that words can mean what you decide they mean.

Kallocain (Kallocain by Karin Boye)- The first book in the genre I am not sure what to call. It made me weap and feel and explore more of Boye’s poems and another female writer, the Finnish Edith Södergran. It is also what would be called a dystopian but it made me think alot about “feeling” and “needing to feel to live”.

Pappan och havet (Moominpappa at Sea by Tove Jansson) - a lovely story about different hopes and dreams about life and thought about how to live it. The father who wants to live on an island and his wife who wants to grow roses (that can’t grow in the unfertile soil on the island). Other stories with Mumin, Late in November etc...

Den blå sagoboken (den gröna, oranga, rosa, lila, gula, bruna.... etc) (Andrew Lang's Fairy Books) - I read them over and over again. Reading all the different stories from all over the world. It was magical to resda what other people heard as children and trying to understand how differnet cultures percieve

Processen (The Trial by Frank Kafka) - before I read his diaries I read Processen and Slottet. I kind of like Slottet the most but the Process was what got me thinking about the illusion of right and wrong... (the common theme in my head I think when I read this list of mine)

Baskevilles hund and the Other stories with Sherlock Holmes (The Hound of The Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) - I really really wanted to become a detective like him. It seemed so wonderful to try and make sense and solve all the mysteries like he did. Especially the philosophical “when you have eliminated all the possibilities, the only one left is the one it is - how unusual it might seem”. The various different things I learned from the books were intriguing too. Lion's Mane Jellyfish, cipher with Dancing men (a huge challenge for the translator to Swedish and making it hard for me as a reader to try and decipher it before the story happened) and the elusive Miss Adler in A Scandal in Bohemia (I thought she was very cool).

Most of the Agatha Christie books with Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. I read all of AC’s books and even kept a list so I could tick them off. She wrote about 70 books... and the Mousetrap and other plays were in there. It’s the same thing as with Holmes, I tried to figure out who had done it prior the ending since I very much wanted to become a detective. And I started with the Murder on THe orient Express but I remembered the story about the researcher in Iraq much more , maybe because it is a almost Swedish anthropologist on a dig?

And lastly, Mangeln (The Mangler by Stephen King). It is only a short story by Stephen King but it made me terrified of ever walking down into the communal laundry room as a child. I was quite convinced that our mangle would start and whirr and go “ahh... a virgin to drink blood from”. I guess my imagination was a bit too vivid?

UPDATE: I filled in the English titles and some links. I also realise that I forgot the Dvärgen - The Dwarf by Pär Lagerkvist. We read it in high school and it was quite an experience discussing it and seeing correlations to evil, especially since it was written in 1944.

And I should've thought about Cherry Ames. I read the books at my grandmother's place and they were so vivid in my mind. I wanted to become an MD and save people, i got some pretty romantic views about war too.... and the heroic things of saving soldiers. In hind sight I wonder but at the time they were the books. Them and the Connie Blair books... The heroines were a bit older than Nancy Drew and there was a certain feel of "adulthood" in them. All very exciting for a 15 year old ;)

And

saturday night

....I never knew I could feel like this..... like I have never seen the sky.... want to be inside your kiss.... every day I am loving you more and more.... listen to my heart... can you hear it sing.... come back to me... and forgive everything... seasons may change, winter turn to spring..... I will love you to the end of time.....

....Come what may...

...I will love you until my dying breath....

.....and my eyes are filling up with tears. I am such a cry baby when I am not even loving the movie. Not really. But I adore Baz Luhrmann's tricky play with old songs, revamped and then new words. The scene with Roxanne that turns into a "three scenes at the same time with very big intensity that is scaring" is especially beautifully made. His other movie Romeo+Juliet is one of my absolute faves though. Especially when Mercutio dies - "A plague o' both your houses! They have made worms' meat of me" and "If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking and you beat love down". The use of the "swords" but they are guns... and the Capulets with John Leguizamo as Tybalt - "Romeo, the love I bear thee can afford no better term than this: Thou art a villain" and all the other good actresses and actors that are there. A very good movie indeed. Don't get scared by Leo and his young face. Or Claire Danes, they are shining and it is good to see young people play young, innocent love like that.

This brings me to remember "Titus" by Julie Taymor. A truly great movie too. (So, I like Shakespeare... maybe even having a slight obsession, ok... the secret is out!) Jessica Lange is .... I lack words.... great? amazing? And Alan Cumming makes his case as the Emperor of Rome. Hopkins is good too, but there are many good ones in this - a group effort to make a slightly strange play into a different movie. The scene with Lavinia (if you know the play, you know which one I mean) as the start of the true terror is breathtaking, with a swamp and the evil brothers circling like hawks on an innocent dove with a damaged wing.

I figuered I will give my list of Shakespeare movies that I have watched a bit too many times (and by no means are the ones made in black and white before 1970 bad - I just have a thing for these since they are slightly different). Nothing beats Laurence Olivier's Hamlet from 1948. The man was a genius.

The list>
Henry V (Kenneth Branagh directs and stars, together with Emma Thompson, Derek Jacobi and Brian Blessed. A very young Christian Bale is seen as the "boy" and the battle of Agincourt is one of the best done as far I as know.)
Much ado about nothing (Kenneth Branagh and a whole heap of the lovely ones... Brian Blessed, Richard Briars, Emma Thompson, Imelda Staunton and many others... this is actually a happy one)
Othello (Laurence Fishburne pairs up with Mr Branagh as Iago. A marvellous performance and Ms Jacob is good as Desdemona but really, you need to be very innocent - not too much more. Nathaniel Parker is good as Cassio, especially funny since I seem him now as "Lord Lynley")
Romeo+Juliet (as I spoke about higher up)
Titus (Jessica Lange, Anthony Hopkins, Alan Cumming and Colm Feore)

and.... Richard III (Ian McKellen teams up with Annette Bening, Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott Thomas and a heap of good actors in an "almost WWII Richard" that has paranoia everywhere.)

There are many others of course.... but if I had to pick and choose for people to realise why I love Shakespeare and the dramas I think I would choose those ones.

And if one could show one play it would be Macbeth, in London with Rufus Sewell. It was absolutely fab! Very toned down decor and many things that just were based on him and the dear Lady. She is truly the woman behind the man, the woman who instigates the lot of it. An interesting character indeed. Reminds me a lot about Iago, the other one who might not commit crime by themselves but creates the crimes....

With this I will go back to my Saturday night and see if I can find a good movie to watch. (Somehow I think I might end up with an episode of True Blood since I still haven't seen them and would like to know if it really is what all say it is.)

Christmas stress

So, my brain has (un)officially taken a break. I am suppose to work this week, apart from Thursday and coming in a short short while on Friday but my brain has already checked out (for the Christmas holiday!). I am staring at my notes “to do this week” and I feel like I just want to go home, like the rest of the people I know who have been off at least since Friday….

I’m not really whining, I chose this, I know. I am merely stating that it is a problem when you are supposed to work; actually trouble shoot two things and then clone a third thing, that your brain wanders off and isn’t focused on the task at hand.

What’s on my brain? Oh let’s see…..
* How to make Southern dressing…. (corn bread, chicken and celery. How hard can it really be?!)
* Cook a turkey (what temperature, which size, what kind of thing to you need… How hard can it really be?!)
* Do I really need a ham [for my own tradition] and in that case, where can I find one that is smaller than 12 pounds….
* Christmas presents, need wrapping, Do I really need to wrap Santa’s gifts to me? Maybe I should just never mind the whole present idea and leave it to be “a new Christmas with no presents and not too many expectations at all” (good luck with that.)
* Should I try and plan a trip to Church on Christams eve or Christmas morning? (I’d prefer morning, the trip at evening time messes up everything else, but all people I know are there on the Eve…. And really, is it that important?!)
* Calling people from home and wishing them Merry Christmas. (When? How? Why?)
* Should I send thos christmas presents I have bought but not really sent yet, and now there is now chance ever they will make it on time? (or just leave it til I go home and maybe even not give them then?)

But the main thing today is to stop the brain from going into repeat mode of “this was not really what I thought it was going to be and why isn’t it like I thought it would be and how can I make it what I [thought I] wanted it to be”. Complete waste of my time since there is nothing, absolutely nothing, I can do about this. It is what it is and more than half of it is the pressure from “people around who are asking a lot of inconsiderate questions or telling statements*”. I know, it is in them rather than in me but I am such a good internalizer that I start fretting and thinking I should do the same thing they do. The same thing they want. Funny that my Myer-Briggs doesn’t show that though… not really anyway. My work persona is slightly different from the Piglet-inspired-like Eeyore who dwells in the middle of me.

And by the way, who cares what other people think anyway?!?** Or if you get any Christmas cards or phone calls? And before you tell me, I know this is pity party and that of all the times in the world, Christmas week is not the time to ask things of other people (friends and family) but seriously, it is hard not to when it is so obvious being so far away from the lot of them and all by choice …. Let’s talk about that another day. The beating my body takes from my brain for “choosing to move and make things complicated”.

For now, I’ll focus on the cloning issues that I really need to resolve (Wake up Brain and smell the coffee) and of course, how much food do I really need to buy and can I make the dressing the same day (most likely yes) and the cookies I can bake tonight or tomorrow…. And the meat balls will be done on the 24th, since I need to find bread crumbs somewhere in some store around where I live. Seriously, it shouldn’t be as hard as it’s been so far.

With this lovely and seasonal stressful blog post I wish you all a Merry Christmas :). And don’t forget; it’s not about who has the most clean/decorated/fancy house or the most expensive presents, it’s about love and family and friends …. And all the other people in the world.


* One small example "Oh, it must be so hard for you not to be with your family for Christmas. You must miss them very much". well.... let's just go with "duh". Key thing for me the last couple of weeks have been to think, when these things are said to me, "this is in their heart, their deepest fear". I don't know if that is the "correct" way of dealing with it, but it has helped with some of the worst comments...

**if you can’t see Irony, I’ll let you know it is there. Dripping of this sentence like a pig on top of a fire pit. Huge amount of grease…

--
a little update on the pity party. This entered my mind; "It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything." I guess that would make it a bit easier?! But I don't really agree since it is very exclusive and you would have to have no relationships at all. And wasn't my whoel, whining about the "people around me" and "the ones I love"? Ah well, it's cloning time. Extra points if you can identify the movie.

Secrets are necessary

“She wanted to turn away, as one does if accidentally intruding on someone in a private moment. One says nothing, and both parties pretend it did not happen. It was the only way to make civilized living possible. There are things one does not see, words one does not voice, and if they slip out in a moment of heat, they are never repeated. Secrets are necessary.”

“…is that one’s person’s protection, may be another person’s imprisonment; or one person’s idea of freedom another’s idea of license. If we refuse to look at anyone else’s pain because it is different from ours and makes us feel uncomfortable – or because it is the same and embarrasses us – then we are neither a liberal nor a generous society, and we will slowly suffocate ourselves to death.”

From “Half moon street” by Anne Perry, “A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt” novel, set in 19th century London.

It is interesting to read these novels set in mid 19th century London where the author brings in lots of old history as a back drop for the crimes happening. Really, stating it is a backdrop is quite unfair since more than half or the charm of the novels is the fact that it brings the life and society of old times to mind. And in several of them the dealings with liberalism, voting for the poor and crucial happenings for women and their lives are the main frame and not unusually the actual motive for the crimes investigated.

I love reading books that make my mind work and challenge me to think about ideas and statements that we may or may not take for granted today, especially the lives of the wives and women in history. What things that were considered normal and “as a matter of fact” where indeed we now have come to discard a whole heap of them as “superstitious” and “discriminatory”, not to mention “cruel and very unjust indeed”.

It also brings a certain discomfort – in the light of previous discussions this week – that so little has changed in minds and lives of many people. That it is obvious that history still has a firm grip of us and our senses of liberty and freedom (or lack thereof). I guess it may sound pompous and pretentious but if nothing else it makes me understand why it is so important to continue and challenge (my own) preexisting notions and facts.

As said by a third character in the book: “The image that has the power to disturb is the only one that has the power to change. Growth is often painful, but to not grow is to begin to die.”

Although, I might not fully agree I think there is a risk in complacency and that stagnation sooner or later results in decay and turning back to the way things were when maybe they were not better but rather worse.

If nothing else this has been more and more obvious when I look at some of the laws and regulations that will be passed (or hopefully I shall say, will Not be passed) in the Swedish parliament very soon before the summer vacation. Namely the so called “FRA law”, which will allow a governmental agency to sift through and screen all electronic communications crossing the nation’s borders in search for whatever (that means general screening without a court order and general meaning anyone). The idea is for security reasons, and more than anything it reminds me of the proverb “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions” [and may I add, the naivety of trust in ourselves and the people ‘governing’ us to do what is perceived to be “the right thing”.]

I guess it doesn’t matter for the time being that I started out thinking about the history of “women’s liberation” and ending up with “people’s freedom”; it is two sides of the same coin. It might not be that all people are doing what they should do or even what is good for themselves but really, it might be better for everyone if we allowed the freedom to doom ourselves rather than protecting and suffocating the lives of a few who might be oppressed by the good intentions of what is believed to be the “right way of doing things”? Sometimes I feel like we exchanged the society ruled by nobility to a society ruled by “who ever holds the cash”, i.e. the power to do what they think is right for the rest of the people.

In the end, I wonder about the truth of the saying “Real [true] power is never given. Real power has to be taken.” I guess it might be in the lines of Machiavelli, Marxism or plain anarchy? Needless to say, I miss my old university nights with red wine and night time discussions about freedom, liberation and philosophy in order to keep myself from feeling alone and powerless about the boundaries of the world I live in today.

It may seem strange to say that today has been one of the best days for a really long time and I am still smiling and feeling something very close to profound happiness. Even I can’t phantom why, but I’ll be satisfied with keeping this feeling and moving on to the other chores I need to do. And of course, try to understand how much of this is based on the fact that last night turned out to be a marvelous evening in the lab… talk about being high on research.

The Matrix

As the geek I am one qoute sticks to me when I see the Matrix for the ummpieth time tonight (by the way, SciFi has really made my life in the States easier since it is the channel I really missed back home).

There is one quote specifically I am thinking of, when Agent Smith interrogates Morpheus he says, “I'd like to share a revelation that I've had, during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure.”

Really, a virus… although, I don’t really like the analogy the quote stuck.

Personally, I like the quote “what is real?” more seeing it emphasis the large question of what we are and what we believe is real etc.

Ah well, this is all just a distraction from writing my outline but seeing that the time is late I will accept that I have had a great Thanksgiving weekend and I have worked some yesterday and today but not tonight… I’ll just write the outline tomorrow and now enjoy the famous lobby scene in The Matrix.’ Too bad it isn’t the best music score in the movie (that’s the club scene IMHO) but still, I like it, after all it is Rob Zombie.

I know, I am a tad bit geeky but hey, I am a scientist so why not? ,)

Language confusion

As I suspected, being away from this place i.e. south of US for three weeks and being back in the mother country with its own language, has brought me back into “sorry, could you repeat that please” when it comes to fast conversation in loud pubs (or more work related conversations as well to be honest). I guess it will be better in a couple of days although it is a little frustrating to realise that my grammar has been deteriorating as well as the vocabulary. I am, I is or what is it really in some sentences?

Reading the latest Ian Rankin book have been a great help though. Not only that I picked up Scottish slang, or as I was told today ‘British’ slang really, like Geordie (someone from Newcastle, England) but also because it is a really good book. The naming of the dead is the title of it. Rankin lets the book deal with a week in July in 2005 and I realised that I completely forgot that the G8 meeting took place in vicinity of Edinburgh right before and during the bombings of London. Interesting that I forgot that, of course not the bombing but the meeting at the same dates. Can’t help but wonder just a little why the papers back home never made a though of connecting the two? Maybe because it was none? Or maybe because they just did not see the importance?

To go back to my original thought though, language and the trouble there is with switching between two of them all the time. Not really trouble but rather a quite interesting observation (introspective) from my own experience. It is true it took me about three weeks to start dreaming in English when I first moved here last summer. It only took me two days going back “home” to start dreaming in my own language. And now, being back here for four days, I am back to dreaming in English. I guess it is hard to explain how I would know the distinction but apart from sometimes remembering dialogue when I wake up, I wake up with a question in my mind… and right now the question has been in English. A little confusing every now and then. Especially when it feels kind of silly to write a diary in one specific language when dreaming and thinking in sometimes one or the other language is so switching and volatile. (Again, not really sure one can phrase it like that in correct English.)

Furthermore, I tried to explain things back home and realised it went much faster to say it in English – specifically when referring to things happened to me over here – although I should be able to find nuances very good in a language I have been speaking for over 25 years. Strange. Or maybe not? It is just that it can be a little unsettling sometimes to realise not only that I am living in another country on the other side of the world but also that sometimes it is easier and more accurate to express my feelings and thoughts in English. I also know that this is one of those things most of the people I socialise with here do not understand or can comprehend since they never have had that experience.

Well, end of rant for today. I really need to unpack my bags for real and put them away.

Morts sans sépulture - The Victors (Döda utan gravar)

Dead without graves as I think it would be called in English (although, it is called The Victors or Men without shadows) , maybe one of my favorite plays and also by Jean-Paul Sartre. I miss it. I have a copy on the other side of the ocean… not here. But at least I found a small part, the important part where they tell Jean he has to be quiet or they will kill him, just before Henry kills the young boy, the brother (forgot his name now), who will talk when the come to interrogate him. And the sister is torn between the love for Jean, turning into contempt when everyone else is braver than he is – or are they? He is their leader and yet he is the one that tries to be stay moral…

Jean: Les mains libres? Vous m'avez garrotté. Si je dis un mot, si je fais un geste: "Et les copains?" Vous m'avez exclu, vous avez décidé de ma vie comme de ma mort: froidement. Ne venez pas dire à présent que je suis votre complice, ce serait trop commode. Votre témoin, c'est tout. Et je témoigne que vous êtes des assassins. (Un temps.) Tu l'as tué par orgueil.

Henri: Tu mens.

Jean: Par orgueil! Ils t'ont fait crier, hein? Et tu as honte. Tu veux les éblouir, pour te racheter; tu veux t'offrir une belle mort? Ce n'est pas vrai? Tu veux gagner, tu nous l'a dit. Tu nous as dit que tu voulais gagner.

...nose bleed...

Funny how yucky it feels when all of a sudden, in the stillness in front of the computer, something wet and sticky starts its way down your face. The faces of my co-workers when I more or less moved quickly towards the paper towels in the common room (the bathrooms are way down the hall...) while holding a couple of fingers on the bridge of my nose, pausing for a second while the pain from the still slightly swollen cartilage (can cartilage really be swollen?) made my eyes fill with water (aka tear fluid) and finally I reached the wondrous paper to help stop the blood from being everywhere in my face….

Combined with the knowledge that my jar of Advil is almost empty, the memory of when I last had spontaneous nose bleeds makes me think a little more. Again, I can see why hiding is tempting, but still - it is going to be like Jack Torrence ‘Come out, come out where ever you are’ or Roy Batty ‘Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.’ - which makes the hiding quite irrelevant.

And as always, the rational cynic man (Gaff) sums it up: It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?

[quotes from The Shining and Blade Runner. I still wonder how it would have been to act against Jack Nicholson when his character is also called Jack. How could you distinguish them apart, when trying to explain “are you like that. No I am like Jack… Jack who?” Redrum indeed.]

1984, already gone and over with?

I kind of promised myself a while back that I wouldn’t write too much political stuff in this blog…or maybe I should say not too much nonscientific political stuff… I avoided commenting Mr Padilla, Guantanamo or Iraq although I had some thoughts regarding moral and the kind of actions people and their governments now assume one can do in the name of freedom and security.

I also avoided talking about things I found particularly frightening and annoying in the EU when the talk was mainly about the national parties gaining ground, Islam, Christianity, libertarianism and of course, the right not to be included in society.

Well, now I have to say something simply because this annoys me. In Seattle Times, and I realize now that it is an old issue from mid November, they report that “hunger” is exchanged for “low food security”. Sure it is only in the States, in the governmental papers, but still…. When talking about poor people. Sure I can see the somewhat need of distinguish between people having now food at all and people having almost no…. No I can’t. Sorry. Sometimes I feel that the need for new words and things really does not help with the real problems we’ve got. But hey, newspeak isn’t bad all the time now, is it?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003432992_hunger16.html

Better go back to the slides… they are beaconing me… (or rather I know I will sleep better once I make them)

Closer (Portman, Owen, Law and Roberts)

Remembered today that I saw Closer the other weekend. Interesting movie. It felt like a real grown up movie without that much "fluff" stuck into everything but rather just the story about relatioships and there problems/attractions. I had some problems with every character (indicating complex things which I like) and I felt sorry for some of them, maybe all, in the end. And it left a certain taste in my mouth that the most happy of them was probably Owen's character.... and he did some very questionable things as well as being the one who were determined but also the revenge guy. I resented, for a short second, that the character of Julia Roberts could be allowed to have a happy life after being so decieving but then I realised that that is the hope for us all. That we can rise above the mistakes of ourselves, as well as others, and forgive both ourselves and those who trespass against us.

(Yeah, going to church/thinking too much does this to me. Realising it is nobler (gooder? better?), mostly for your own good and sanity, to be forgiving than to turn into hate.)

On the other hand, I am not really there yet. Give me the bullies of my school years, only two of them nowadays, and I must regretfully admit that I have not fully forgiven them...

so this test was not completly off mark. Even though I thought I was better than this...

You Are 64% Evil

You are very evil. And you're too evil to care.Those who love you probably also fear you. A lot.

How Evil Are You?

Sandman and Preacher

It's on the shelf, right in front of me. And I am trying not to pick it up. Sandman, volume 1. I bought it last week, even though I know I read it before and got scared. I quit reading it after the first four volumes since I didn't like the way it was drawn but also since I read it during bedtime. Not such a smart idea.

And now it is calling out to me. "Come and get me. Read me. Enjoy me!" (Of course I am not hearing voices for real, then I would be in a psych unit.) But I think that would really be a bad idea.

I refused to buy Preacher at the same time. Good idea. It is drawn in a technique I like more but the stoy is even with less hope than Sandman... if possible...

So, tonight is about getting to bed and sleeping before going to church tomorrow. First time in a month. First time when I need to answer questions. And I will not know the answers to the questions at all. But I will try. All this is about trying to give up self control, pride and everything else that I feel are important right now. Honestly though, if you have nothing left but pride - it is hard to give it up and at the same time feel like you are worth it.

Again, I am looking into the abyss and as Nietsche said "when looking into the abyss, the abyss looks into you"... wanna come and play?

I might just wait and see what comes along...

Neil Gaiman and love

It opens your chest

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable.
It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.

You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...

You give them a piece of you. They didn’t ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore.

Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like ’maybe we should be just friends’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart.

It hurts.
Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind.
It’s a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain.
I hate love. "
/Neil Gaiman