Back in stock (me. words. things. you never know.)

So, my dear fellows, I do believe I’ve got some words back in stock. I’m not quite sure exactly how many words I’ve gotten back over the past couple of months but some, for sure. Let’s hope I’ve re-stocked enough of them. I guess this has been an overwhelming year for the majority of us. Mind-bogglingly weird for the lot of us, without a doubt.

Pandemic times.

Snowy road.

Can you believe that we’re part of a huge historical event? I thought about it the other day, how I’ve always thought about history as a thing that passes through, over, and under us, without us really paying any attention to it. I don’t believe that the people living through the 15th, 16th, and 17th century was like ’oh, this is gonna be the renaissance one day, you know!’ for example. Nah.

But 2020 has certainly felt like a historical event. Wouldn’t you agree? Like a true historical event, something that people will remember and talk about for a long, long time. Then again, we might just be that unlucky that this is just the first pandemic of many. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that’s not the case.

A historical event – or time – for sure, but when I lay in bed for an extra three hours, unable to get up, not because of any illness but because it felt like the world had suddenly fallen down on me, weighing me down into the mattress as if I was a piece of microwaved marshmallow, that was not what it felt like. 

It didn’t feel like a historical event when I suddenly jumped into a store shelf because I desperately wanted to avoid walking into a group of kids, who absolutely did not care about any virus.

And it didn’t feel like a historical time when I realised I’d come halfway down a bottle of wine with my sweatpants still clinging onto my legs and calling it an after work – with my dog and a bottle of hand sanitiser for company. (Where was my gf?? Maybe in the shower? See, I can’t even remember. The months blur together.)

Things went dark for a while and I’m sure many of you have felt this too. I’m sure, for many of us, the dark times will linger for quite some time. In Sweden, the expectancy for the virus climax is that it will hit us somewhere between right now and sometime over Christmas.

They delivered the news as if it was inevitable as if humans are so predictable that for sure the culmination of covid-19 is gonna happen. And, I mean, who can blame them? They tell us not to travel and we still simply have to go to our beach house in a warmer country or to our mountain cabin to go downhill skiing. They tell us to stay home when we don’t feel well but the pressure for staying employed is just too heavy to ignore. 

Did this get dark pretty quick?

I definitely need to make a happier post about hobbies I’ve picked up during this year. They are quite a few, I’m not gonna lie. Plants as always, of course, but also cooking, knitting and, hey, I’m even trying to play the harmonica. Oh yes. 

Stay safe.

Happy Friday! (It is Friday, right?)

Selma with ger stick.

Wait what? This isn’t Wednesday!?!?!? I know right, totally unaware of the weekday’s order this week. It’s like I’ve skipped two or three days.

Woke up yesterday completely convinced it was Tuesday for example. You can imagine my surprise when I got a text saying that because my contact was: ‘ill today, we’ll have to cancel your Thursday meeting’.

‘Why that was good planning! Telling me two days in advance and all!’

It took me almost all morning to figure out why everyone was claiming it was Thursday when it clearly was Tuesday.

Anyway, I’m so glad it’s Friday and I hope you’re too. My plants are finally catching up and are beginning to pop up here and there. My wonderful Gruvfrun made savory biscuits yesterday (it’s one of my staple foods now). And Selma got to take her branch to the balcony – even though we have a very clear no-sticks-on-the-balcony-rule – a few days back, which she’s still gnawing on happily.

Selma with ger stick.

This is one of those in-between posts that really doesn’t mean anything but that involves cute puppy pictures. I just wanted to check in and say happy Friday!

Take it easy today if you can or, as we (I) say in Sweden: simma lugnt, literally: swim calm. I know I will. It’ll be me, a book, my puppy, and a glass of rosĂ© in the sun on the balcony. Now that’s how you kick off the weekend!

See you next week đź‘‹

Life Without Coffee (Filters)

coffe_and_sun

Yesterday, something absolutely awful happened. 

Did somebody die?

Did somebody get hurt?

No, my dear, dear friends, something much worse: I was out on coffee filters. Also, we’re back to one week, one post, but you’ve already noticed that.

The day started happily enough, I woke up from my regular nightmares (which is a good thing as soon as you wake up – the real world is so much better than the nightmares), took out Selma, and got inside to brew my morning batch of coffee, only to find myself staring down the empty carton. It was so very empty. So very, very empty. In fact, it was so empty that I could visualise a fly circling up and out from it.

Thereafter: ‘NOOOOOOOOOOO!’

I quickly turned around to catch Gruvfrun before she headed out for work (on her bike that she insistently keeps in the hallway, by the way, but that’s another story for another post – you see, for numerous reasons, it’s a subject to be approached with extreme care).

‘WHERE ARE MY COFFEE FILTERS!?’

Gruvfrun, ever so tired of my lack of planning, said: ‘Babe, I don’t drink coffee, how would I know?’

I, on the other hand, completely ignored the fact that she hasn’t been drinking coffee for years and got furious with her lack of empathy and, as I recall it, I ran around the flat with my hands up in the air – not in a happy way – whilst cursing. Heavily.

Gruvfrun rolled her eyes and biked her way to work. I glared through the window as she pedalled away and rounded the corner of our neighbour’s house. ‘You’re going? But what about me???’

Well, this got me (briefly) thinking about my need for coffee. Those who know me taunt me for it, those who don’t know me think they can relate to me regarding it, and those that – supposedly – love me are dead tired of my coffee addiction. As Gruvfrun said in one of her more bitter moments: It’s just like any other addiction, maybe it’s milder, but still: an addiction.

At times I understand what they mean, but mostly I don’t. You see, when everything runs on smoothly, my intense relationship with coffee goes unnoticed. And everybody’s happy.

Coffee and I spend the mornings together and don’t separate until noon. By then, we’ve done most of our creative work and I treat myself to lunch. Then we usually meet again around one o’clock and kiss each other goodbye around three in the afternoon. By which time, we’re almost done for the day.

But say this strict routine gets interrupted by, say, NO COFFEE FILTERS (sorry, sorry, *ahem ahem*, I’m cool now, sorry) then, Houston, we have a problem – a problem of the more serious kind. Serious, because I can’t do anything; Texts lay unwritten, emails go unanswered, and I simply can’t focus on anything work-related.

There are times, of course, when I think about how a life without coffee would be, but I won’t quit. Not even without coffee filters, it turned out. Because there I stood, bending over the coffee pot with a tiny tea filter filled with coffee in one hand, and a kettle filled with hot water (obviously) in the other.

Did it work? Well… I got my coffee but in the end, I dropped the filter into the pot, screamed in frustration, poured water over it anyways and drank my coffee as I tried to separate the fluid from the coffee grounds.

And we got a heap of work done.

Totally worth it.

A Very Red Productivity Lamp (And An Imaginary Pirate)

cheese-plant
A flashback from less need-to-be-productive times in Brighton ⤴️

Productivity is a strange thing, wouldn’t you agree? When the productivity lamp goes green, everything seems easy enough, no obstacles, only flawless effort. And before you know it: swooooosh, there you go, a finished project.

But when the light goes red, everything that was easy shifts and all of a sudden that effortless mode has been completely demolished and turned to ash. Nothing gets done, nothing’s even remotely on the way to get done.

In that way, productivity means two very different things, depending on whether the light’s green or red.

It’s just like my imaginary pirate friend once told me: ‘aaaargh, when it’s wind in the sails, aye, not even the sirens can get to ya’! But the wind can also turn the sea into a maelstrom, me child! Aye! Aaargh!’

The reason that I’m bringing this up today is that I don’t feel like being productive at all. I shun the idea of productiveness. I just wanna sit on my sofa with my puppy and play video games all day (and tomorrow).

Now, for several reasons, I can’t do that which, honestly, only makes my red productivity lamp shine even brighter. 

‘Noooooo’, it screams, ‘saaaaave meeee!’

It is weird, however, that the very same task – say write an important email to the woman that I really need to write an important email to – can feel so much fun and you can feel so productive for doing that on one hand, and then feel like the world’s practically ending on the other.

And this is when my avoidance behaviour start (if there is such a thing):

Am I not feeling a little bit ill today?

Didn’t I work so very very hard yesterday?

And what about time? I have plenty of it, right?

For all of you fellow procrastinators out there: This is a foul, foul path full of werewolves, dragons, and princesses that need to be saved – only to reveal themselves as evil child-eating witches the second you do. (Yes, I recently read an old children’s book, bare with me.)

Today, my sea is a maelstrom. But, quite frankly, I don’t have time for it to be a furious sea – I need to get things done!

I’m thinking that maybe I can trick the productivity lamp? Paint it in an excentric green colour to cover up the red? I only need it to work for an hour or two, on the most critical subjects, then the illusion can be shattered and I can go back to my imaginary pirate friend and have a glass of rum on deck, as the sea devours us.

One and a half hours, productivity lamp, please? Two tops!

For your sake, I don’t wish a green light for you, I hope you don’t even need a productivity lamp today. Although, I do acknowledge it’s Wednesday and a lot of people (most) probably need to work. But for those of you that don’t: have a good time for all the rest of us! 

aye aye captain