TKWL's blog

Something I found in the depths of my google docs folder. Don't know if anyone wants this but I'm putting it up here anyway. Oh yea and it's all true.

Background: I'm wrote this one day because I had too much on my mind and too many promises to never tell anyone about secrets I've been told. I'm one of the persons, the others are people I know.


It sets early these days. As I close the doors and switch on the alarm, walk the few steps to the car and then sit down in the driver's seat it is all around me. To feel the natural heat seems so far away, and yet it is only a tiny few months the wait. I close the door, take of my sweater and lean back to relax. Twist of the key and the v6 roars onto life, quickly settling down to a nice, calming sound. I close my eyes for a second, and the images comes again. They fill my vision, blocks out every other sense, and it flickers like cellar lightning in a bad horror movie - or a good one.

I'm fourteen. I'm sleeping at my father's house, and as usual he has been drinking. His girlfriend is scared because he gets angry and violent when he drinks. I am in bed, hiding behind the blankets and wanting to sleep. He walks in. I can smell the familiar alcohol on his breath. I expect him to lean over and make something resembling the sound of "good night". But it is different. He lays down beside me and starts stroking me. He puts a pillow over my head, and I have no clothes. I cry softly as he does the unthinkable, and in one drunken act destroys everything I was, am and might become.

I'm fifteen. My father, the big, horrible man, makes a speech about how proud he is of me. He is sober now, and he, the big man, cries about how he never gets to see me. It is as it never happened. As the single act that changed the very essence of me is something he has burried and never wants to speak of again. I smile at him, my soft innocent smile, but as I do something breaks inside. I still smile. Nobody knows but him and me, and because I can't deal with it I chose to leave it. He is my father, and I want to see him.

I'm eighteen. Last year of college, and I am a different child. I come home from school and a nice hour in the city with my friends. I am happy. As I walk down the three stone steps and onto the grass, I look for what seems like the first time at the steps to the door. There is something about them. They seem longer, darker, taller. Walking them is a chore, and as I walk my god spirits slowly ebb away. I can't explain, but somehow I feel it. I put my hand on the door handle, and it is ice cold. The sun shares 30 degrees with us, but the black metal door handle is ice cold. I'm still here, but in the woods a mere mile away hangs the ghost. The ghost of a loving, caring father whom only knew how to do good onto others, but missed the importance of doing good to himself. He leaves behind a broken heart, a crying family and a scared child.

I'm eighteen again. I have a great friend. A great, great friend with whom I can share anything, and who always listens. Like you want a boyfriend to be if you are a girl. I'm not. I celebrate my birthday at his house, a few other friend are also there. We go sleep, I sleep on an inflatable bed. I'm very much under the influence, and sleeping soundly. As I wake up I have the weird sense of a hand on my ass. I look around in the partly lit room, but there is only him in his own bed, and me in mine. I shake it off as a dream and quickly go back to sleepland. And wake again, the same feeling. I lay awake the rest of the night.

I'm ninteen. I punch my former friend in the face. Not for being gay. For feeling me, his best friend, up in my happy sleep. For not telling me. I never speak to him again.

I open my eyes again, let out the air I've been holding. Hands are firmly placed in the ten to two position, seat position adjusted and I drive away. Slowly at first, then as the roads get better and the people fewer, I speed up. My todo list is full. It's a young day still.

We've seen them before - last.fm, what.cd, fire.fm and who knows how many more. Welcome, Spotify.

Spotify is a very cool, Swedish program (that makes about three cool swedish things so far - the other ones being pirate bay and Koeningsegg) that basicly streams music. They have contracts with major record labels, and with notable exceptions The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Metallica they've found something from every artist I've tried so far.

You can also make playlists, send them around or share them with other spotifyers online. The best use I've found for it is a laptop connected to the stereo at parties, removing the need for everybody to download the songs they want.

The difference between this and other similar web-based solutions is the ability to get the exact artists and songs you want, and the fact that it is a program. The quality is good, buffering is non-existant. It has pretty much replaced my mp3 collection.

Spotify is available for OSX, Linux thru Wine and Windows. You'll need an invite if you are in Europe, a proxy if you are in the US or Canada, and nothing if you are in the UK.

Get spotify @ www.spotify.com , get invite @ http://spotify.mikromann.net (write "ja" in the box and click) or @ irc-quakenet #spotify.

Have Fun

Picture by cine

My Marla. The mischivious women, girl and child. The stepdaughter of a suicided father, the dancer, alcoholic, drug user, smoker, philosopher. Marla drives drunk without a licence, takes whatever she can find, whichever boytoy is available or whatever life throws her way in the moment. We can solve the riddle of life in an instant only to lose it in the next. Marla is the perfect child of the modern age. A free soul, a strong exterior, a sad story, the ability to drink twice as fast as anyone. The inability to express love and the desire to do so coupled with the unforfilled need to be a child, a loved one, a unique person in a world where we are all born and live life as monkeys in a zoo, as monks in a monestary.

We are empty shells, forfilling our eartly duties to the society we have built, catering to our own needs to feel fullfilled. We chase money, happyness as Angelina and Brad teaches us, self-improvement to spend time with our kids. Kids who, like us, will grow up longing for Steve's apple-branded white toys, spend 15 years in school and 40 years working 9 to 5, live most of their life between 4 walls and searhing for the feeling of usefullness. Our happyness is created by paid robots whose own false joy is based on the sense of accomplishment a 6-digit salary and a red italian sportcar gives.

I could love Marla. In the Hollywood, walking hand-in-hand in high grass, kissing under the stars, sitting by the ocean kind of way. In the unfortunate ways of my sex, my eyes have since I was a child been groomed to accept one kind of beauty. I, in my semi-abstract awareness still find myself drawn to the californicated, fake kind of women with their perfect tans, teeth and boobs picked off a store shelf, personality traded for long lush hair, their ability to think long since removed by the clensing ever-destroying aftermath of white powder, green grass, pink pills, blue drinks, pointy needles. An accelerated life under the influence, expending the body twice as fast and leaving the soul stranded in the first slope.


* * *

I want to have a real conversation. No cell phones, music, tv, jokes, stimulants. I don't want to share the attention with anything, because I am selfish. The dying art of listening. The rudeness that we accept from every angle. It's normal. Your fucking cellphone has nothing to do in our time. Youtube should die along with somethingawfull, internet porn and cable tv. You never have as amazing a conversation as you do with a joint between your fingers. Give me your full attention and I will give the same. A lost art is just old and boring, however the ability to single-task is rapidly dwindling from our collective gene pool. We can't be bothered to remember even the names of the people we meet. We wake up naked next to people we never bothered to know. We need drugs to interact with our own species. It's 2008 and we are dying.

* * *

This is just a short sample from a project I'm working on. I'm looking for some feedback.

Thanks.

I had sex about 20 minutes ago. An girlfriend came over. It lasted about 5 minutes. I felt like I was 15 again. With some experience comes enough confidence to laught if I come too early. It happens. I did just that. I'm pretty sure she has some kind of STD. I should be worried. Am not.

A lot of writing about this rape victim in one of the larger newpapers the last two days. The police can't find the guy who did it despite a crystal clear photo and dna. I'm 99.9% sure I know who he is just looking at the blurred photo in the paper. So rat on a good friend or pretend that he is not a rapist? Am I the the worthy member of the increasingly tight modern society, or am I the guy who puts his friends before everything else and leaves the 19-year old victim to find her answers alone? My mind is too slow to deal with it. Help me, Johnny!

My Marla called yesterday. It was late, she wanted me to pick her up at a party. I got lost on the way, found it eventually, and drove home while she complained about my music as usual. "You don't fit". She told me. I don't understand and I'm not following the crazy current that is Marla. I'm not even trying. There's girl drama and I'm to blame, but I'm not that guy anymore and I'm not caring. I hold her for a while before I leave. She's my gamine.

It's the opposites. The drinking and the workout and the healthy food. The job and the love and the drugs. The random sex and hurt, the nice you know and love. The serious face, the laughing eyes. A face smiling with eyes blue and cold. It doesn't fit.

Marla will never be ordinary again, I don't think. She's honest and brutal and nice and evil all rolled into this little woman who wants someone to hold her but can't dare to admit it to anyone but me. I don't tell anyone.

***

I'm still here. The things with the young girl came to an end, and it hurt, but not as bad as expected. It's weird now that I've gotten some distance. I'm slowly taking control. And I still want to lose myself, let everything go and walk away. I'm not.

32 hours nicotine-free right now. Cleaned up around me. There are still about 10 unanswered job listings printed and neatly stacked to the left of my keyboard. Have to do them, because my job is so boring I can't even gather the energy to write something while there. It's the perfect place to display the slow lazy fog that is killing us. I don't have to think because the computer does it all. I have very little responsibility because every decision is taken by the computer. I come to work awake and lively and leave 7 hours later tired, cold and bored out of my mind.

It's over in a week plus tomorrow, and I have to have a new job by then. Better use of time: sending my resume to as many as possible right now.

Thanks.

18 bottles of beer. One bottle of vodka. 3 white stripes. About 50 blue Camels. I'm wearing a suit, pressed shirt, tie and worn-down Puma sneakers. Seems like everything I've consumed over the last two days are kicking in at the same time, and I'm at work.

Sitting at home with Nick, Bg and Marla, drinking beer. Her stepfather just killed himself, and her mother has been gone for about a month. Perfect company today. Pop-philosophical conversations occupies us while mindless entertainment in the form of Californication keeps our ears and eyes filled. Guys are the new girls. As of 2008 it is official, we are the ones wanting endless conversations about our fucking feelings, we care more about our looks than the ladies of yesterday, we want to cuddle after sex and we are so unsure we can't deal with the current generation of female liberation. And you know it's true, girls.

Marla downs beers, vine and vodka like she wants to get away from everything. Her emotions changes so fast I wonder if the crazy is getting her. I find myself staring at the ceiling, sitting there between the empty beer bottles in the sky of smoke. Bg and Nick are discussing .. something completely crazy. The rest of the evening is a haze of bad tv, guitar hero battles and stupid converations. I go to bed with Marla, because she needs someone and I am a nice guy.

I wake up feeling fresh and uplifted. I kill the feeling with a cigarette and a glass of Johnny. Black Johnny, my favorite. Marla is still sleeping in my bed. My cellphone shows text messages. Girl wants me to visit her that evening. I don't bother to answer untill way later. More interresting, this fucked up guy I used to know is in town for a few days. He always has something good. I go for a drive, partly drunk. Lots of police but I keep to the speed limit so there is no way they are gonna stop me. My friend offers me snow. Seems smart. I do some, then drive home. I'm driving way too fast so I can get home before I really get going. Well at home there are more people. I don't care about them. Mia is there as well, the nice girl who is a virgin. Virgin at 19 years of age. I'm impressed. I don't know a single girl above 16 who is.

We end up at this rich girl's house later. Cool people there, the hostess is beyond and gone, and she has one of those annoying friends who takes control, cleans up constantly, watches over everyone. Some dude is a douche so I tell him to fuck off. He gets mad, because he is an idiot, and wants to fight. Goes badly. This rich kid tries to impress girls by telling everyone how much money his father has. After listening to him for about 0.5 seconds I ask what he ever did himself. How sad is your life when you have to talk about your fucking father to get some tail? The party goes to poop and we move into another house. Marla keeps naggin and wants some snow. I tell her she can't have any because she is wasted and walking on the edge. So she goes to bed with Nick, who spends most of the night holding her. I fool around with Mia. bad idea, but I'm too wasted to give a crap.

Thanks.

note: all names are false. c'mon, Marla?

Photo by brilliantchocobo

“Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes” - Oscar Wilde

I try to live my life without regrets. I do the things I don't really dare to do. I pick up the phone and make that call. I jump when I think it's too tall. I do the things that leaves others behind to talk about it. And I have very few regrets.

I'm gonna label it as living without limits. There are of course financial and practical limits, but those are not the important ones. The highest walls are all inside yourself. It is you who don't dare. It is you who settle for average when you were made to be great. Don't be one in the crowd just to fit in, be yourself or be whoever you want to be.

We have a lot of fear in us. I have a lot of fear in me. Not crawl into a corner-type fear, but fear of leaping. Fear of jumping. Fear of rejection. Fear of doing what we want to in the moment. It's useless, limiting and quite frankly nothing you should waste your time on. When I'm out in public and feel like everybody is watching me, I think about how I'm never going to see any of these people again. Or so what if they will see you again - do you actually care what they think?

Think about the things you regret in life. Chances are, unless you murdered someone, that those regrets includes something you didn't do rather than something you did. Maybe you should have taken that job in Europe? That girl you spent the entire year watching, why didn't you talk to her? Why didnt you visit her at home and asked if she wanted to hang out? You should really have went on that trip with your friends, the one they keep talking about all the time. That thing you always wanted to do. Why aren't you doing it? I mean the real reason.

My example is simple. For 3 years in college, I watched a girl. She was never anything but friendly. Sometime right after I was drunk and told her ... the day after she came up to me and said "Why didnt you say something!" with tears in her eyes. She had a boyfriend by then. That is probably my biggest regret, and one of the reasons I decided to live free.

So do the public speach. Take the job. Jump into that ocean. Sing loudly in the street. Take everything that you have and channel it into the thing you want. Today. You might fail, you might be the talk of the town, and you might have to move back and work at McDonald's after your million dollar idea turned out negative. If you give it everything without restriction, I promise you you will have no regrets. Live. Today.

I have no regrets. I wouldn't have lived my life the way I did if I was going to worry about what people were going to say. - Ingrid Bergman

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