Finished an original story
I finally managed to finish an original story. If I could only write every day (or rather night) I’d feel a lot better. I only wish I’d get round to finishing my novel. Why is it so hard? I suppose I’m afraid I’ll ruin what I’ve already written. All I need is a sort of start. A couple of sentences to set the right mood. Usually I manage to think of something much sooner. I’m afraid that if I don’t get it finished soon, it will never happen. It’s just going to be pointless.
Tomboys
I just read an interesting article about tomboys. It opened my eyes about a lot of things. Primarily one. I wasn’t a tomboy. Here I was believing myself to be one, and I wasn’t. Apparently, while I hate pink and frills and preferred to be friends with boys, I still like dresses – simple but pretty ones – and I like wearing my hair sort of semi-long. I’m looking forward to becoming a mother and of course – I love guys – not just as friends, but in every way.
What does that make me? A girl, albeit a less girly one? Of course in a way, this is great news. I’ve always felt I had as much right to be a girl, as all the pink, frilly ones. Just my type of girl, not theirs. And it seems I always was.
In fact, I think everyone should be who they feel comfortable being (naturally as long as they don’t hurt anyone else), without having to adopt one label or other. Genetically, we are one sex or another. As individuals, we’re just who we are. We should dress how we like too. Everyone looking exactly the same is such a bore.
The writer of the article suggests that these days no woman has to imitate men to achieve what she wants. I think we could go one step further – today it’s probably a requirement that women wear provocative, ‘feminine’ clothes or even pose in the nude to get anywhere. That’s sad. But everything else seems to be quite good, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.
Dogs refuse to play ball if they have been treated unfairly
This article describes a series of experiments. The experiments show that dogs, just like humans and primates, have a sense of justice and will react to being treated unfairly. Of course, this is no surprise to me. We’ve had dogs in my family since I was five years old and they definitely seem to be envious of each other and demand justice in their own ways.
The other day I read that another scientist claims cats don’t ‘care’ about their people. I wonder on what she bases that assumption. We’ve had cats since I was nineteen, several of them, and most of them definitely seem to care, but there are some who seem to care less. If no cats really care, and only put on shows to con us into believing they do, why bother, if other cats get fed and sheltered and taken to the vet if necessary, without faking affection? I think that would be overestimating their acting talent a bit.
Writing course
Last night I went to the last meeting of our writing course. It was a lot of fun, but I feel kind of sad too, that it’s the last time. We had such a great time together. Up until the afternoon of that day, I wasn’t even sure I was going to go, because I haven’t been well lately, and especially I’ve been feeling down. I’m glad I went though, because it was such a success. This came exactly at the right time, because for a while now, things have been really rough.
I really wish we could do something to keep on meeting and discussing our writing. There will be another course, of a kind, next semester, but it won’t be the same, because our ‘teacher’ – the writer – won’t be there. It’s someone else, who’s studying creative writing and that will be a completely different course. Even so, I’m considering going. Maybe some of the others will too.
Last night, we even got to do a little improvisation, led by a drama teacher who’s been taking this course too. We even discussed doing a drama course, but I’m not sure that was meant seriously. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, actually, so if we did it, I’d probably enjoy it.
Trolleys and trolls
Today, we went to the store to do our weekly shopping. The car isn’t working so we had to pull our little shopping trolleys along. It might not look very cool, but it must be good for the environment and it saves us a lot of money.
The trouble is, wherever we go, there are grumpy old women telling us we’re in the way. Yeah. We’re in the way. Not them with their canes, crutches and walkers. There are also a couple of moms with young children and that troubles me too. I really, really want a baby so seeing others with babies and big bellies upsets me a lot.
From now on, we’re considering doing our shopping at ten in the evening. That’s when we run into a lot of 20- and 30-something singles without kids. For some reason they don’t bother us and we don’t seem to bother them.
Thoughts in the Dark
It’s at night they come, the thoughts I’d rather not have. They whirl around in my mind, so in the end I can’t sleep, no matter how tired I am. It feels as if it’s never been darker, in my room and in my life. Worse, it feels as if it can only get darker and darker, not only because the autumn equinox has passed, but because it feels as if any chances I might have had, have come and gone without me being aware of it, and in any case I missed them.
‘How could you fail at…’
‘If you’d been any better at…, you would have…’
‘What guy would want a girl like you?’
‘Things keep getting worse and worse.’
‘What’s going to happen to…’
‘Everyone else has already…’
That’s how it sounds in my mind, night after night, until daylight comes through the window or I can’t take it anymore and I get up and turn on the light, until I sit down at my computer, or just starts doing anything, whatever, to silence the questions and accusations in my head. Then everything goes quiet, in the light, and maybe, if I get tired enough, in the dark.
Release party
Tonight I went to the ‘release party’ for our book – the book we, the participants of the writing course – have published. It was quite fun, and I think the guests enjoyed it. The only problem was that we had practically no books to sell. Somehow they’ve been lost in transit – somewhere between Uppsala and Stockholm and Göteborg…
Furious…
I’m furious. Today, my sister went to the job center, and the guy there had the nerve to suggest that she sell her part of our little house. Wtf? Surely that’s not part of his job description. Come to think of it, what is part of his job description, since he obviously can’t help my sister get a job. All those people do is swing the whip for the government. Here in Sweden, only 1-2 % of all jobs come through an employment agency/job center. The rest people have to get for themselves, if they have connections. Needless to say, my family don’t have any connections.
The second thing he said that caused me to fly into a redhot rage was a very personal comment about our mother. She’s retired, but not for health reasons. It’s just that most people here are forced to retire at a certain age (in their 60’s). If she insisted on continuing working, she’d miss out on all her work experience and get paid like a newbie on the work market. He said something like ‘in a couple of years time you’ll have to accept that she’ll get increasingly dependent on you (which is another reason it’s a great idea for you to apply for jobs far away from her) and confused, and won’t be able to deal with things on her own.
I’d like to say, for the record, that in my family, people don’t get that way until they’re somewhere between ninety and a hundred, so he’ll be a doddering old fool a long time before my mom will be, and secondly, again, in what way is personal comments about people’s family members part of his job description?
If I’d been the one to meet this old guy, I don’t think I would have been able to keep quiet. The weird thing is my sister just got sad, not angry, but then again, I guess that’s just me. I get angry first, then sad.
And, by the way, I’m still angry and still thinking of ways to report this creep to someone, but I guess nothing will come of it. I’ll just have to focus on staying calm. Getting this upset won’t get me anywhere.