On this fall

I am not keen on making this, my blog, a place where I wring myself and all my innermost feelings inside out and put them on display.
I am not keen on how this, my blog, has become a pit of the darkest of loneliness, cold feet and doubt.
When it was supposed to be a profound and burning masterpiece on all things fair, femme, crip….

Well, the truth of that matter is this. I am not really okay these days. This has been one of the most bizarre falls in my entire life. I have made progress, at least on the map. I relocated from A to B, from the rural to the anti-rural from roads made from grovel to the Capital, and people told me it was brave and mature and that I was doing something extraordinary, and under my breath I muttered… fuck you… kindly but sternly… fuck…fuck you..

And I made my way, from close proximity with a very fiery landlady and her bratty cat to my own chilly and draughty apartment, made more and more my own, and less and less and anonymous set of walls.
I struggled; I can’t say I didn’t do that. But I kept my head up. And they said I was brave again, and they wondered how I was doing, like really doing…and I whispered fuck….fuck you…kindly but sternly fuck you all…

For a couple of weeks all was blissful between my new four walls. My very own room. Katarina came from Oslo and we indulged in food and drank beer and laughed till we cried like we always have. And she went away again and I was strong, I kept my head up and I was fucking going to make this…kindly but sternly I said fuck…fuck you…

I got straight B’s, I read all my books, wrote all my papers. Drank rivers of tea. Marvelled my own work as in throbbing words on paper, as in striped backs, as in smiles on other peoples’ faces. And I dreamed of lifting that very strong butchy chin and whispering kindly but sternly…fuck you….please let me…

Slowly but steadily and not at all kindly, confinement dawned on me. I was still brave, I was still strong and determined and I still knew how to do it they said.
I remember calling her, telling I could never do it, that they would never pick me amongst thousands and thousands…she laughed in that sniggering manner and said she would have to humbly disagree with that.
But it’s true, the deadline is creeping up, and I am not even halfway there and I am not sure, I am not ever sure I will do it. I worry deeply that I just can’t.

There is only a tiny sea between us, it’s not even a sea it’s a lake. And she came to visit, and she left me a shivering, shattered mess of girl. And it’s pretty much downhill from that, I couldn’t make it out. They said I had been too nice, that I’d given too much, I said I should have listen to my mother…and I still dream of plucking up the courage to say. Fuck you, perhaps a bit unkind and maybe not all that stern, but fuck you…

I don’t remember December much, confinement hogtied me. I remember the 5th of it. A bunker, razzle dazzle, short short skirts, silk blouses, crosses, laughter, shivering knees, success.
Then I think I just slept and slept, and sometimes people visited me. And I made my way out and up on that stage, and transfixed my gaze on to her and her striped shirt was the most gorgeous shirt I had ever…. And she said, were you nervous? And I said no… and they said I was brave, and I was strong and determined and I filled my lungs with victory and held my tongue…fuck…no …bless you, kindly but sternly…bless you.

Now I am back at point A and last night I was snowed in at my cousins house, and all was warm and funny, and we spoke of my grandfather who would have been a 93 years old yesterday, and I told them how much I worried and they didn’t understand why, because people very rarely do… and didn’t care about they fact that they didn’t get it….

I am back up tomorrow. Because I am always back up, bouncy me, right? And I am not giving up now. Because that would mean that this fall the most odd and heart-sickening of falls would be it, and that’s not fair! I am worth a lot more as any last chapter of anything….

On this evening

Blue days, as the sunlight leaves this place even before I get out of bed.
I am really, really tired today. It comes from physical strain, the strain of three and a half carless hours shopping with butchy PA. But it has made me gloomy. I can’t push it back now. The Blue. It’s November and resistance is futile.

I didn’t think I would get these feelings again, these fall depressions, these feelings of being caged in. I called a very dear and old friend last night, you know one of those you once said you’d marry, if things had just been right. And as I spoke to her I felt the tears welling up.
I am a bit sad now, I said. I feel it, I feel left out even though nobody is leaving me out, as such.

And I felt it today as well, you know as a sledgehammer right between my breasts, a little below that spot where the bra rests on the bone. BAM!, it said. You’re confined it howled.
It hits me now and then, that I actually am in this city, but I havent thought about it for a while.

It’s tricky. I don’t want to be needy; I don’t want to be that person that grows sad from the thought of hanging up the phone. Last time it hit me it was that. Just that.

She said: Bye…
I said: … yeah… bye…
She said: Are you okay?
I said: … No….

I am kind of hoping it’s just November that makes me cry now. I don’t want this to be permanent; anyhow I kind of know it’s not. I was alright; I was more than alright today when I strolled that mall and bought those things.
Still, I came home, I slept, I ate and it hit me.

Swedish works better to sum it up today….

Något gräver ut sorgens tomrum, ekande, under bröstbenet.

On paralysation

This is not what I have been intending to post here. There should have been a fabulous post on my mother life, or more so the way I picture my mother’s life, a couple of weeks ago.
But then I had to study really hard for this exam, and while doing so let other things slip (i.e all that wasn’t my exam).
And recently I have been feeling quite down from being so far behind on my paper, I feel like I haven’t written shit, it’s true I haven’t and the deadline is Tuesday.

I don't know how I ever got to be in this pit, I was pretty chirpy about this all last week. I felt like I was getting my life together finally, I even got the flu shot.
And yes, due to that I had fever and couldn't get out to bed for my Doctors appointment on Thursday and then I was right back on the slope.

Today I experienced, even though I don't like writing it I must, angst. Real angst. I went to lie down for a bit and had set my alarm on my cell phone in order to get up and continue my reading for the paper. And the alarm rang and rang over and over again and I just let it do it. I couldn't make myself to get out of bed. I wasn't tired, and I knew very well indeed how much I needed to write that paper and read those articles.
I felt a sensation I haven't felt for years, that one when you feel like there is carbonic acid in your chest. And I just laid there and felt the tingle of angst in my chest, and there was nothing I could do about it.

So having tossed and turned for almost two hours underneath my duvet and having serious thoughts of just giving up and going to bed for real right then and there, I got up and hade a real late dinner (well, at least by Swedish standards..)


I am intending to make this an early night and try my best again tomorrow. I am not getting a B on this one people. Let’s just pray I hand it in.

I think it’s the theory that gets in the way. I could write a hundred thousand papers on clothing and external objects worn in popular culture that restricts the human body and their influence on the performance of their wearer, if it wasn't for feeling the pressure of always having to reference the most adequate theory that deals with that. Bloody academia, set me free!
Maybe that’s the way to do it, just ramble my heart out and look up theories that fit that later…God, I don't know.

I just hate myself for having procrastinated this so much, this is insane. Truly. I did have an exam for sure, but I have had five days!
I am going to pull it off, of course, I pull everything off. And furthermore, this is just the way November is, and certainly the way it is right now. I am just going to do it.
But I just can’t help but hate the fact that I am not doing as well as I could be.

And I wonder, this city, this new life. It’s has only been a semester and I try to convince myself of that, things will pick up, things will be working later. Still….
Ah, never mind, never mind. I should go to bed now, and try not to be paralysed by the mind any longer.

Saviour visit Thy plantation
Grant us Lord a gracious rain
All will come desolation unless Thou return again
Lord revive us, Lord revive us all our help must come from Thee

Keep no longer at a distance
Shine upon us from on high
Lest oh Lord of Thy assistance every plant shall droop and die
Lord revive us, Oh revive all our help must come from Thee

On lovely PAs

I took a walk in the campus park today; I had to go to University to pick up sickly expensive literature on folklore and dress, which I am sure I will sell as soon as I have finished the exam on this part of the course.
Anyhow, I was accompanied to University by my new butchy PA, I call her the butchy PA as to distinguish her from all my other PAs, and she is indeed a butch.

I am actually quite swoon by her; she is gorgeous and has just that right bulky aura around her. Although she has only worked with me for a bit last weekend and then today we have really bonded. I guess I found it so nice to have a PA that would understand all the queer quirks of my constitution that I just rambled.

We spoke a lot about the notion of passing, I showed her pictures of my butchy period in life and called it my butch-fail, she laughed in shock. She said she was a bit bummed by the fact that everybody assumed that she was trans, that being this butch could only mean that she wanted to transition. She spoke about girls freaking out whenever she went in to the ladies room in a restaurant or at the movies, about being referred to as “the boys” when she was out and about with her brother. The awkwardness that manly-men felt around her, not knowing what to say or not…the many heavy taps on her back, the misogynist jokes and laughs.

I felt that I was such a femme with her. Even though I am swoon I do not ‘want’ her, still I could feel my movements growing to be slower and more assertive, I was conscious about my legs and how they looked in my short skirt, my fingers around the locks of my hair, my cleavage, my perfume.

She hung a heavy door back on its hinges for me and changed my light bulbs, I dreamt of a butch valet to open my doors and carry my purses and shopping bags. I dreamt of strong shoulders and glistening blue eyes.

Today I might have had that; although she was still my PA (and I doubt she will be anything but that…) she did all the things that above mentioned butch valet would have done. And as we went walking back to the tube through the autumn colours and crisp winds of the park I couldn’t help but smile. I pondered what other people saw as they saw us. If they saw two girls, if they knew the saw a femme and butch, did they think they saw a man and a woman?

She’s funny, she laughs when I make jokes and apologies ever so sweetly for even the slightest mistakes. Can I clone her?


Just to illustrate, a photo by Catherine Opie from her exhibition “Girlfriends” found in an article on AfterEllen.com

On laziness...

Instead of getting to that read-athon I had planned for now, I figured I would have some more of this delicious brown sugar-cinnamon coffee and write a blog post.

I realised I hadn’t blogged in quite a while. There has been a couple of rushing weeks, I needed to study for a written exam and settle a few PA related issues, as well as hang around with great people and have some great talks and so.

But nowadays I enjoy solitude in my own apartment on Cherry Road, in the middle of the upper-class area Östermalm. It’s rather silly, these apartment are not jolly at all, and if I had a choice I would live further out of the city and enjoy a bit more of good grocery stores and green areas. But I love how close my apartment is to University, and how I walk by these beautiful 19th century houses just when I go out to by milk. Buying said milk is not as cheap as I would have wished though. My plan for now is to look around and see where the closest and cheapest store is for further life in this up-town hood not to ruin me.



My PA’s are so far a very good bunch of brainy and sweet girls. There is one them who still haven’t worked with me, the gorgeous butchy one, I am not sure about just how I will react around her. My God she is hot!

From my “kitchen window” I look out over the lovely yellow and terracotta 19th century houses with massive poise and French balconies they sigh under blushing evening skies as I write. This morning I so smoking coming out of it’s chimneys, I assumed there was a stove being lit. My mind wanders to my writing and the semi-Victorian realm. I have neglected that a lot lately, but I am thinking I will get to it tonight.

After I have finally read through all that I need to read through. It is a good thing I am a good reader when apparently I am an incurably lazy schoolgirl. Next week is going to be a bit of rush too; I am having lots of lovely visitors. So I will really need to read through all these texts now in order to be able to spend time with them.

The rural matriarchy has paid a quick visit too, my mother and my aunt came here for Thursday day and evening, it was lovely to see them but I really wished there could have been more time.

Even if so, I still don’t feel isolated. Being just by myself is lovely for now. It gives my imagination the space it needs to twist and turn and wobble in my mind. To stretch itself and widen as think about what to do with myself.



Time moves really quickly here though, it feels like I have only just got here and it feels like I have been here for a hundred days. But I guess I live here now, for real.
My aunt asked me on Thursday, how long I would live in Stockholm? I said I didn’t know, but I couldn’t see myself having kids in this city.

So ‘til I get knocked up I’ll be here. Inshaallah!

Now, even though I really don’t want to. I must read.

On northern livings and stories, and muses...

Yesterday morning, or day since I don’t get up in the mornings these days, my actor-wifey-muse My had written a great comment about this blog on Facebook.
I was so touched seeing that she reads my words and that they have an impact on her. It made me miss her madly and I spent most that day reminiscing about the time we spent up-north.
Rambling about the poor quality of our education at the moment, opening up like we had never done before, outlining the future and realizing that there were no ‘plan b’s’.

So, fröken Ström, this is for you:





I miss you.

I miss the miserable sate of our kitchen; do you remember that pan that everything stuck in? Do you remember how the heating system used to howl, that sofa with that iron piece in middle of it, how my back used to hit that as I threw myself down a bit too bravely?
I miss your cooking wifey, I miss that wasabi-lime spice, do they have that in Finland?

I miss the times when you stopped smoking. How the sparks would fly around you, how your green eyes would burn deeply. And I used to giggle. I am sorry.
On that black floor we shaped our dreams. And we spoke about them in that sofa, in that grimed kitchen. We frowned upon the exercises we did, we reached deep within our aching, acting souls…

We marvelled all our odd neighbours, I wonder what happened to them, like Anders? Is he still there, does he still look like he was brought back straight from the 80’s? Has he found love? Does he still eat that crappy food?
And why did he really move back from Australia?

I used to wait up for you when you were at taekwondo practice. You’d come back all bulky, in that white suit and eat with a passion. I had never met anyone which such a sense of routine. I could never beat you to that “let’s break it up, I need my sleep…” thing. You’d eat noodles and I’d ramble, ramble, ramble.

I shaped myself through those ramblings with you, if it wasn’t for those talks that we had I wouldn’t know half that I know about myself now. If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have written all that I wrote. It was because I could share it with you that it broke out, that river, that flood of words.

You were my mirror; you were the actress on which I could base my ideas about directing. On that black floor, in that kitchen and that canteen, I saw a vision in your acting. I saw a fire under your skin, and you made my knees weak and my skin shiver with joy as I saw you.

Do you remember the Tudors, the cinnamon rolls? How we fattened up when you could practice and we just ate and rambled.
Do you remember all that red wine that would make our hearts widen? Do you remember my speakers and your mp3-player? The chilly winds under our coats as we smoked on the balcony? The drunken kisses.
My notes on your door? That I made coffee while you crept out through the corridor, your brain shattered by that hang-over?

The snow. The silence. The Nordic light. How I used to read you scary stories from the Bible.
My name is legion, ‘because we are many….

Spring. Dreams of Finland of, dreams of leaving. Your cargo pants. My dresses.
“Oh wear that one your daddy brought, the chequered one”
(Haha, aww! Sweet you!)
You brought me back from that ‘acting is dirty’ crash. You told me that it was beauty, pure beauty.

I missed you when you returned to Malmö to do those tests, I was sure you were back in bad habits when you got back, all skinny and sun-kissed and happy. But love had touched ground.

I still keep that poem you wrote me, as you studied me on the floor, do you remember that night? One of the best, we played cards. You wrote about me, you wrote about the veil that covered me. That my beauty was only for certain people to see.

Do you remember you used to unzip my dress when I couldn’t do it myself?
The manly men would give us puzzled looks as you’d follow me to that. Do you remember you’d say that hugging me made you feel huge and tiny at the same time? Do you remember you and me and Isak all those nights?
You two were my test, and you assured me I had done well. That I actually could make words into flesh.

You remember we still have stuff do to, don’t you? We still have projects to work out; I still want to direct you again, and again, and again. You still need to cook for me again. I still need to share cigarettes and sips of deep red wine with you. I still need to look into your eyes as they glisten from sedation. I still need to see you on stage ‘til I die.

I know you’re busy, and calling is expensive. I hope you take care. I have mailed that letter now but it will take a few days. I hope you feel you’re doing all the best you can in a good place. I hope your fire burns as deep as ever.
And if you ever feel the need to quit smoking, please tell me and I’ll tell all your new classmates what they can await. ;)

But more importantly, fröken Ström, remember I love with all my heart. Remember those days of work and evenings of talking; remember the yogi-tea and the chocolate. Remember what we made then, the land that we measured and mapped, the rooms we built, the stories we shared, and the stories we wrote and acted.

The stories we lived.

On making it here and everywhere...

It’s eight minuets past midnight. I should go to bed since I have been getting very little and odd sleep lately. Landlady is dozing of in her bed beside me, there’s some odd film on the 1920’s depression on TV.

I have been up reading through old diary posts. I have done that a lot lately, reading through writing in Swedish since I feel like I need to regain some kind of power over that language again. Hence, writing this blog in English right now might not be constructive. But I think it’s cause I have moved, extended my roots to an environment I don’t know if I’ll find my place in after all, that brings me to expressing myself mostly in a foreign (…but perhaps not as foreign…) language.

My progress in this town has been great. I now have a fully furnished apartment which I move in to on the 21st. Next week I have a meeting with two girls that will hopefully be my new PA’s. I feel like I am on top of Uni for the most part. As always I struggle with my body but it seems alright even though I am in rough state right now.

I get along surprisingly well with Ulrika, my landlady. I have come to see so many great qualities in her during the time we have spent together. And I am getting quite sad about the fact that I am moving out and won’t be seeing her as much.
Still, I know it will be great to have my own place. To try and make a routine that will work for me and to spread my winds in this city.

To return to what my initial point was with all this though. As I have read through my old diary posts I have come to see how determined I have been about all this. Of course there were a couple of projects that I had to get rid of this year, for example that monologue didn’t happen. But it is alive and well and I will play it.

But over all I managed to write a lot, I worked my ass of as an artistic leader for a group that was so messy I tore my hair for the most part and didn’t think they liked me. Then I met a few of them in a clothing store up north, just before moving here, and they were ecstatic about my work. Telling me I had lit fires, opened their eyes, made them feel safe!

I long to do that again. I long to work and it feels good that I have been able to keep certain ideas and projects running in peoples minds even though we have been far away from each other. At a distance I have tented to what I know call my ‘home’ in this city. A social sphere of people I know cherish me, and I cherish them. Due to everything being a bit hectic since I got here, I haven’t had time to see them all. But I am really longing to see all of them soon. And bringing them together in my new home.

I guess I mostly started writing this post because I needed to spell it out for myself. To wrap my head around the fact that I am actually here, and I have made it possible to stay here. It is not a spur of luck, although a few things might have to do with luck or more so things coming together at just the right time to make my life work. I did, and I am keeping on doing it.

Anyhow, I should get that sleep now.
And for the record.
I did it- STEEEEINWWWAAAAAY!

On doubt...

I wrote this while waiting to attend a lecture at University. I guess I was not so chirpy yesterday.

Recently I have been feeling so shattered, and recently it has been so slow. So far from what I imagined it to be.
Recently my skin has been giving up on me.
Recently I have been existing solely in English.
I have fenced myself in by everything that is foreing.
There is a vacuum, I don't know when and how and why.
There is very little respite for me here. I am often just tired, sluggish, slow and feverish. I should get some engery, I should get some chocolate, I should get some love.

I worry about ending up outisde of the system. I worry about becoming lonely- isolated. A shattered piece of glass shivering in bed while the forever ongoing sounds from the road right outside my window just keeps pounding and pounding in my templates.

I worry I was not built for this kind of life after all. That there is a rural failure, built in from birth.
It has soon been a month, I have neglected the fact that I am behind on so many things.
It is fall, and I am detergerating, dying.

Moody, why am I so moody? What is this drive that forces me to exist outside my own cultural frame? There is a certain alienation that comes with posessing these 'abilities'.
I worry that I am fake, nothing but a fraud. Nothing but a dreamer.
Am I only good with words? Only good with the internal and what goes on inside my own head.

I must learn to become a maker, a doer.
I am wondering wether I am only an academic person because I have been forced to. If I read and wrote out of necessity rather than interest.
Where is my body in all this? Where is the validity of physical experinces this? Where are the people, the sweat, the blood, the tears, the laughter - the wailing.
Do I fit here?

On life just now...

Clear your mind, just be real shallow.

Alright, here is the thing, I am struggling a bit with my other writing and I haven’t written a real update about my life in the city in a while. So, that’s what I am going to do now, for whomever it might interest.

I still share generous landlady’s Ulrika’s one room apartment. It has been very good indeed. I thought it would much worse, and that we would nothing but quarrel. We haven’t had any serious quarrels, but I don’t know how much of that I should credit to not speaking about certain matters.
Even though it has been lovely to stay I think that the close proximity is taking its toll in a somewhat subconscious manner. I sense that I tense up, since I feel constantly monitored and I am quite sure she does too. It’s not that we don’t like each other, just that one needs privacy.

However it’s only a matter of another week I would hope, since I now have my own apartment, a tiny tiny place on something called Cherry Road. It will not be large, but I hope that well furnished and lived in it will at least be mine.
I am looking forward to some kind of refuge there a place were I can rest and reach out from. Where I can schedule my own time and making things work for me.
I long to invite people to my place and drink tea and ramble, I long for winter there, smells of saffron and cinnamon. Christmas cards, decorations, laughter.

I am going there to look at it tomorrow. And moving all my stuff on Wednesday, I hope I have calculated everything right so my things will fit.
Babylon proved to be kind in the end so I am hoping to meet a new PA soon too. In a broad sense all is fine. I am happy about what I have managed to make in the short time I have been here. It has just been a little more than three weeks, so a lot has happened even though I haven’t thought about that so much.

There has been a refuge for me. An apartment with more than one room, where one can eat meat, and were a deep blue sofa, like my Sistah has, will swallow you. The newlyweds Mrs and mrs Krieg have taken me in, and I am so, so happy and grateful for that.

I look forward to make art in this city. I am writing, but I am always doing that, I long to work on my words and that shared reality with above mentioned mrs Krieg. I am thinking it will be fabulous more than fabulous; it will be strong, vibrant, and glorious. Once we get started…

So that’s it. I have cleared my mind. I have other posts planned for this blog soon but I need more time, and some kind of solitude again.

Love people, bless your hearts.

On the joys of writing and "other" languages

Having picked up on blogging again just now, and through it being given the joy to move on with all my other writing which I haven’t taken time to write recently. I have come to realise again just how much I love writing. And I have realised just how important it is to have a space like this blog, where even though others can read what I write I am free to ramble as much as I want.

I am writing a new Fiction for the FFF project, or more so a new chapter to the initial story that made that project up. It has been resting for quite a while since there have been too much stress around to really get the chance to write. But as I write on it now, I see it might have been just what I needed when things were the most stressful, to escape in its purest form into a world that I know and that I create as I go along in it.
However, I know my process of writing is not like that. I need a pretty long time span to build up a world within in me, a world with places, rules and peoples that I can explore once I sit down to write (writing happens mostly in stream of consciousness, which is in itself a form of escapism) hence, I can’t write before I know at least something about what I need to find out while doing so.

While attending my creative writing class in Bollnäs (reminds me that I still haven’t told my teacher I can’t follow trough with that as well as University this autumn…must do that) we were often given tasks to write quickly, in ten, fifteen minuets or so. I always managed to do really well then and it’s puzzled me. It wasn’t that I went around with a mapping for several stories in my head just waiting for that ten minuet chance to spit them out. Usually, when being alone in front of my computer that approach wouldn’t have worked.

Then I realised it was about being forced to write. That when not given any escape route but rather a very blunt entrance into the world of words my mind was made blank. And through that blankness other thoughts, those I hadn’t planned and hadn’t thought about for nights on end when laying awake in bed, had the chance to emerge.

Having done it often enough while in class I now do it every day. Take ten to fifteen minuets to clear my mind and just write. I have found that there is a theme to all of these writings even if they shift with my mood for the day. Sometime I might look through them and make something of it.
One of them have already become a stage piece entitled “Är det där min kvinnlighet…ska jag betala för den?” (”Is that my womanhood….will you charge me for it?”) and was preformed early this spring. (See the blog post entitled “On absolute identities”)

I feel like I am wandering off. I wanted to say that having found that blank space in my mind is really such an advantage. Now I find I plan as much as before, but then enter that ‘blank’ space when I actually write. So that I have all the ideas within but make no deliberate choice about what comes when and where, the process of that is a true delight and such escapism it makes my heart flutter. Also, I find it gives me a much stronger lust for writing since I too want to know what will ‘happen next’, so to speak.

In this space, as well as in the fiction project, I write in English. I am a self-proclaimed linguistic anglophile, that is to say English as a language is my biggest ‘turn on’. The English culture not as much, mostly it puzzles me or makes me laugh nowadays. But written and spoken English has a very special place in my heart.I don’t fully know why it is so. I guess it has a lot to do with being born on the 4th of July and being told America was awesome when growing up because of it. But I think it lies even deeper within, that it is one of those things that perhaps I shouldn’t know the reason for. That it’s a quirk in some sense, something that constitutes me but on the other hand shouldn’t be looked into in search of “why’s” and “how’s” since there will likely be no reasonable answers. Other than it’s that escapism again. That English served well in a time when I daydreamed a lot (like I am not still…) that it created a parallel to the well known, but yet a space which I could learn to master.

I think of the two languages as two rooms that mirror each other. I find the two ways of expression very similar and in some ways I find that they mirror various sides of me, my thoughts and feelings. Usually I know if a feeling serves best to be described in one language or the other. I know some thoughts and feelings are only good in Swedish and the other way around.


Anyhow, it doesn’t matter how much pretentious rambling I build up around my fascination of the English language
(I wonder where the need to do that comes from. I suspect it come from an inherited idea of rural inferiority, a feeling of shame and guilt, like I am possessing something that is truly not mine and somewhat above me, when I speak of the English language as a part of me. I find I justify my likening of the language and my vivid use of it whenever I do, saying things like ‘it’s not cause I want to be cool, it’s a soul thing’. And it is…) when it comes down to the nitty gritty it’s all about pleasure. I love the sound that the English language makes when someone speaks it. I the love sensation of it as it rolls of the tip of my tongue. I love how’s it’s composed and how its words look when printed in ink or on a computer screen.

Mostly I love to try and tame it, to make it what I want it to be even if it’s not my mother-tongue. To be frank Swedish as I know of it now is not my mother tongue either, it’s a language full of “ô”’s and “he”’s and “je”’s.

“Je kan’t säga va sûm gjer Äng’skan tä ett tôcke vakescht språk,e. Me je vät att ho ä he.”

”I couldn’t say what it is that makes English such a beautiful language. But I know it is.”

On my brother, Warren Zevon and I

Below is the song ”My shit’s fucked up” by Warren Zevon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2aUJF3gdog

I heard it on the radio yesterday and it instantly stuck. It is by far the best song ever written about having a body that (by age or other reasons) doesn’t work the way you would like it to…

“Let me break it to you son your shit’s fucked up… the shit that used to work it
wont work now.”

Recently as I have been planning my move to the Capital, which has been a very emotional ride, I have spent a lot of time crying in the bath, but equal time being picked up and pepped by glorious friends and family, I have come to think more and more about my body and the illness that it inhabits.

I have found that they way I speak and act, the articulate and verbal mind I have worked hard to gain and take pride in using often clouds the real state of my body. That my physical lacking gets shadowed by the way I express myself… It puzzles me that it doesn’t seem to be obvious that I am disabled. I wonder if my crooked legs and tensed hands are overpowered by my seductively unbuttoned blouses and pink lips. If my frame and my shaky way of walking doesn’t show cause I tell people I believe in

“a Theatre that resurrects and builds a community… that through the
juxtaposition and commonality of words and flesh aims to give all people a sense
of strength and pride. A Theatre that rattles as well as it dazzles...”

Today I met with my brother. We were born three months too early and the lack of oxygen through our underdeveloped lounges to our brains marked us permanently. It gave us a brain damage known as cerebral pares made our legs spasmodic and stiff and our balance poor. Growing up we never dwelled on this. Even though we spent months in hospital and hours after hours in sweaty gymnasiums with out physical therapists. We were happy, smiling and safe kids. Brought up to believe that we lived because of a reason but never sheltered from the injustice that come to those who are different but taught to fight through it. Taught that everybody has a something that is painful in their life, and that it didn’t have to be physical.

My brother is one of those intentional beauties. He’s hot- I can say that because he is my brother. Well groomed and casually smartly dressed in a way that I can only aspire to become. When I saw him today, sheltering his stepson in his tattooed arms and kissing his forehead, I came to think about how we view our disabilities and what it has come to do with the way we view others.

I have often been told I am very ‘Zen’, that I accept all that come my way are not very easily aggravated when thinks are not what I want them to them. I think this has a lot to do with my inability to move freely while growing up. Acceptance of the status quo was crucial for my survival – if I had blown every small thing that wasn’t the way I wanted up and become angry about it that would have taken so much energy.

Being this mindful also made me very aware of my own body. I wonder if my brother and I share that. If he too knows exactly where every stiff spot is, where every joint is when it aches and what every muscles does when it spasms. If he wakes up in the morning feeling run over, with pain rushing through like waves hitting the white sands of pain.

The paragraph above is also something I have been told I do a lot, I write about pain. I write about bodies and dirt and blood, other people say it’s icky and strong. I never see that. Sometimes pain is like an axe splitting your backbone, sometimes is like a pair of hands pulling the joints of your elbow in separate directions until it clicks. It’s not my fault; it’s the way things actually feel.

I have thought I didn’t dwell on my disability. But I have realised now how much of the work that I do that really is body centred, how my disability has given me a fascination of the able-bodied body and what it can do. How that has driven me into directing and acting, how my exploration of my own body and it qualities has given me a greater sense of what is perceived as normal and what is perceived as deviant, and what I ascribe to these two concept. My body has forced me into being still but given me a vivid imagination and an understanding of the written word because of it.

Because of my disability and the way others perceived me due to it, I felt the necessity to well articulate and driven. To rise above what other people saw as the sweet disabled girl. But it’s only recently and from others telling me about it, that I have begun to see the juxtaposition between these two images an how well I use them and thrive on using them. I like to think of myself as a mindfuck. I thrive on not always being what you perceive me as. I love how my awareness of my body and its sensuality succeeds not only in drawing people in, but also in rattling the close-mindedness that I too often meet while out and about.

But recently I have wondered. When being told I am too well to be given a PA when I move to the capital and having to tell people that I assumed knew what my disability meant for me in real life, once again, that I cannot mange on my own. I worry about passing as able-bodied even though it is very very visible that I am not. It puzzles me, and I don’t know what to do. What to change about my appearance and the way I act in order for them to give me what I need to survive. Of course I know that the answer is nothing, of course I know that it’s not a disadvantage that I am this verbal and driven. I know I have fought hard to become that and that it what has made me me. Still I wonder what they want a disabled person to be, who they see when they think of one, and what that person’s everyday life is like.

I wonder if my brother worries about this. If he too worries about the rapid decay of our bodies and if our liking of fitted clothes and dressed up appearances is an act of resistance against death. I know we could do better, exercise more, eat healthier, and sleep better. But we’re not like that, at least not now. Now is all about fighting the decay best we can anyway. It’s about unbuttoning the top button on my blouse before I meet with the municipality’s disability conslour; it’s about marking our beloved deviant bodies with needles and ink, about sheltering the kids that are important in our lives. To tell them what others taught us. Your body is only yours. Your mind is solely your mind. And your life is worth living.

Dearest beloved brother, my darling beautiful.

We know of pain and monotony we know of dread and bondage in its true sense. We know of deep fires and heavily beating hearts. We know of scars and casts and plastic tubes. But mostly we know of love. We know of laughter you and I. We know of freedom and rushing speed. We know that bodies are but bodies, muscles are but muscles. We know that weakness is needed in order to be strong and stillness is needed for there to be force.

As Miami Ink’s Ami James put’s it “WE FOUGHT TO MAKE, NOW COMES THE FIGHT TO STAY ON TOP!”

This day has been really really odd. I think it has much to do with last night future despair, I sat around in this empty manison looking at my messages from Uni realising they wanted me. I looked at all the forms for apartments and PA's that I had printed out and I worried, worried, worried. I worried about not getting an apartment- that all the benefits I had been told I had due to my disability wouldnt do. I worried about the fact that there is pretty little time until the courses start and I know just how tricky all these kinds of things are. It will take time, and I will likely just have done before I start.

I don't talk much about this, but it's true- right now things are unfair. And only unfair because I am a disabled. I can not go down to Uni thinking it will work out, there is no such thing as
"it's okay I can stay a bit with Jane Doe and then see what I can do about that once I get there. For me things have to be:
"Okay, I need an apartmen that is set up to work for me, it needs to be close to Uni and the tube. I need a PA (or several) that work for me and listen to my needs in order for me to study well. I need a taxi card
...and I need money...what if I cant study full time, can I fund my life in the city by other means?"

Because I dont talk about these kinds of things alot with able-bodied friends I dont think about it much myself either. Therefore, I think it has just now struck me. And it makes me so nervous. To think that all these things might not work out and my courses start at August 25th.

I have been in touch with all kinds of people (who of course are on vacation an will return on Monday) and I have done what I can with all of this for now. But still- I am known for worrying a lot and this really eats away at me.

Making vain attempts to put my mind elsewhere I have been trying to write a new chapter for my Fishy Femme Fiction, pretty needless to say it hasn't worked out well.
And that's also why I wrote this post. I needed space to ramble and I refuse to stare at that more or less empty Word document for much longer.

I really do have faith that all these things will work out one way or another. Still, I hate this feeling of being hog-tied by my own disability. I just want to able to crash down into this city and take it by storm.

Now I'll see what I can do about the state of this kitchen, and enjoy another night of freedom in the rual mansion. And I want do write. In opposite to- I will write