If you imagine the multitasking mind consisting of two (or more) sections then one of these sections has since been focused on her entirely. That’s an entire section of my brain that’s constantly thinking Where is she? What is she doing? Is she alright? Is she climbing the bookshelves? Is she feeling alright? Why is she coughing? Why is she crying? Is that her waking up? Is that her laughing? Is she happy? Does she need to be changed? Is that dirt on her cheek? Does she need another pair of pants? What more can I do to make our lives better? And so on and so forth….

And while other parts of my mind are focused on other things there is this part of me that’s constantly focusing on parenting. I guess it’s like people who have their minds on their jobs constantly except something tells me that the part of my mind that’s constantly on her is a primitive part of me that is assuring my offspring’s survival like my foremothers did before me. But this also means that my focus is always shifted. Focusing 100% on one thing has always been hard for me and now it seems completely impossible.

Life with a two year old is never boring. A while ago she started to show her strong opinions on things but since a two year old isn’t so skilled at communicating she, like most other two year olds, throws small or bigger screaming fits. Sometimes to test boundaries but sometimes out of plain anger because she can’t do something or isn’t allowed to do something. She can be furious one second, hitting me because I’m saying no to something and then the next second she is hugging me. She is rarely satisfied however until she’s got a hug after one of these arguments, which is sweet.

Life with a two year old is quite giving. It’s not easy. You constantly need to navigate life around her will (or through it) and think ahead to avoid (or be prepared for) major outbursts. And I believe my daughter is a delightful two year old. I believe it can (and will) get much worse before she will learn how to properly express herself, her will and her anger. Until then it is my job to navigate (well after that too but something tells me that the navigating will change a lot – it has so far). Mostly she is a joy. She is such a happy little girl, always quick to smile and laugh and so keen on learning new things it’s scary. May that continue forever and ever.

Some things are easy to do with a two year old. Most of these things require you to be active however. It’s easy to do the dishes, do laundry, organize closets, clean the entire house even but if you’d like to sit down for a cup of coffee be ready to have a children’s book in your lap (preferably about elephants) or a repeated request of “tower, tower, tower, tower” (which means you’re supposed to built a tower of some sort, this can entail lego, pillows, teddybears and other toys, books, DVD’s, etc). Sitting in front of the computer for any length of time is impossible. She seems to sense that I’m at the computer even when she sleeps and starts to stir (*knockonwood*). That also means that sitting down to write something is very hard, at best.

Any moment of peace (that is time you can sit down and focus on yourself) has become a precious commodity (stop wasting your time people! Effectivize or at least stop and enjoy the fact that you CAN waste your time). Fitting everything you want to do and everything you need to do into that time is hard, if not impossible because there are always things you want to be doing. Books to read, books to write, movies and shows to watch, friends to catch up on (forgive me friends!),… that list is endless. And so what do I do when a time of peace presents itself? These days I’m reading a book by Wayne Barlowe on my Kindle called God’s Demon (I love it). I am writing a new book (although the process has been mainly going on in my head so far), I am playing two PS3 games and reading several other books.

I guess that part of my mind that is now dedicated to her will continue to be so until the day I die. I guess these questions of how she is and what she’s up to will not quiet even when she’s 28 and doing her own things. I will need to learn how to multitask (I’ve always loved multitasking and I’m not bad at it) with more balls in the air than before. It can be done but it’s going to take time and practice. I’m guessing by the time she’s 28 I’ll have it figured out.

Until then I’m enjoying every moment.

I did however listen to a lot of Audiobooks thanks to the wonderful service that is Storytel. I listened to The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I listened to many books by authors Michael Marshall Smith, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Camilla Läckberg, Mari Jungstedt, Vivica Sten, Mons Kallentoft, Kajsa Ingemarsson, Theodor Kallifatides, Charlaine Harris, Karin Alfredsson and Liza Marklund. I also listened to the Millennium series by Steig Larsson and The Twilight Series (and The Host) by Stehanie Mayer.

A lot of crime novels and was delighted to find that both Camilla Läckberg and Liza Marklund write incredible things about normal women. It was refreshing. Stieg Larsson I was prejudiced against from the start and wasn’t impressed at all. The last book is such shite that I’d rather not talk about it. And the hacker babe Lisbet Sallander who struggles with and solves Fermats Last Theorem is just way to 90′s for my taste. I half expected her to mumble “I know Kung-Fu” at any moment in the books. And Michael Blomkvist is more Bond than Bond himself, getting all the women and …

It was very enjoyable listening to Michael Marshall Smith‘s books and I wish to get my hands on more. John Ajvide Lindqvist is the first Swedish horror writer that I find really good (are there more? or is he alone?) and The Book Thief was magical.

I wish I could talk about Stephen King’s novel 22.11.63 but I haven’t finished it yet as I said. I am enjoying it very much however. And as for my favrorite writer Murakami, 1Q84 is waiting for that perfect time to be consumed. I need to have my time with it and with a demanding two year old that time is limited.

I didn’t get to write much either. I wrote a few short stories at the start of the year but the activity is hard to get into the tight schedule of diaper changing, reading books and otherwise entertaining my wonderful little girl. I am hoping to get more time to write in this new and shiny year however. I need to use the moments I get and get the ideas down and not just have them huddled in my head until it explodes. It won’t be a pretty sight, brain matter and letters everywhere.

So what I wish for this year, as I suspect I wished for last year, is more reading, more writing and more running! And less sugar. More cuddles and a wonderful year for my soon to be two year old girl and a prosperous year for my entire family.

Let it be so! And a very Happy New Year to you!

p.s. I could say a thing or two about The Twilight series too but fear it would overtake this little post. Let me just say that despite the bad writing the teenager that lies deep within me understood and that I did think The Host was a good one. Would make an even better film.

So when I stumbled upon this blog entry by Nick Harkaway the other day obviously I started thinking about children and creation (it’s one of the curses you are dealt in my position, it becomes very hard to think out of the babybox you’re sitting in).

My little girl turned 20 months old yesterday. She is  lively little girl who is exploring everything around her at such pace that it knocks you over completely and leaves you breathless.

Harkaway proposes that coming up with ideas isn’t a single action but a “group of skills acting together in a concert so well-practiced as to appear inseparable”. And I think he is correct.

My daughter isn’t yet playing imaginary games to any extent. This doesn’t happen right away. First you need to learn about reality then you can start to pretend about it but there is a pre-stage and that’s where she’s at. The pre-stage seems to consist of mimicking what others do to learn how to do things. The grown up pretends to be a cat and  meows and the child follows suit (she finds this utterly silly and refuses to do it!) or you role a small car on the floor and pretend it’s driving around –  she does it because she’s seen you do it – not because she really understands the connection to real cars yet, I believe.

To be able to pretend-play you need to have a good long term memory and the first sign I saw in my daughter was when she  pretended to answer the telephone (she uses a remote control or her tiny little plastic phone) as she’s seen us do. You watch life and you do it too to be able to learn how to do the things grown ups do.

And I think a little part of the answer to the question “Where do your ideas come from” lies in watching the little ones learn about the world. Their curiosity is infinite and the world is such an amazing place (it seems) when you’re almost two years old. First you watch, then you mimic, then you live and then….. you write?

Is it the same curiosity that makes people write? I never saw myself as a creative child but I started to write at an early age (I found an old typewriter in the basement, I would give a LOT to still have that machine). I wrote simple, silly anecdotes and then long plays that basically were about things I wanted to be experiencing.

This doesn’t, of course, answer where exactly the ideas come from but I think Mr. Gaiman and Mr. Harkaway answer that question well enough in their blogs. However I think this tells us something about the process of making-things-up.

When I give my daughter crayions to play with I show her how to draw simple things (I’m a stick-figure drawer myself) she watches me and then she takes the crayon and rapidly makes a few lines before she throws it away and turns to the next color. She is more impressed with the lines on the paper than the figures you can draw with it (beside the hand-coordination has to develop obviously).

And isn’t that where we all get our ideas from? We see something, it fascinates and we want to know more about it. Writers and other artists they write it out, they play with it in their heads with words or colors on paper. The idea is often simple (a girl meets boy) but it’s the execution that’s fantastic. The drawing of the lines, connecting reality and the ability to imagine things that aren’t there and never have been that’s fantastic. We want to know more about the world and the possibilities it gives us.

I might have to fill in the blanks when my daughter becomes older. When she starts to spin stories of her own. We aren’t there yet. We’re at the basics of creation now. Creating real things, things that are there in reality, tangible. Later we move into the fantastic but I’m sure the key to these questions lie in the learning process. How we perceive the world and how we teach ourselves to learn about the world. We learn through imagination, we learn that a cat meows before we’ve seen a cat (at least in modern society!).

Now she points at everything and tells me it’s a “cat”. A dog, a waffle, a shoe – not because she doesn’t know that it isn’t a cat. She knows a cat from a dog and a crocodile from an elephant. She just does it because she can.

However I got an itch when my significant other got an iPhone 4. An apparatus that allows me to have all my Internet needs (94% anyway) in one movable thing. It’s a kind of magic, right?

It is. I can listen to audiobooks (storytel) while I tweet, play silly games (godville, sims 3 or sim city?), write silly blog entries or browse the news. On top of that I can easily keep track of my sleeping habits, budget and PMS!

A kind of magic.

What Apple has done is made a small computer with phoning privileges. What the thing is lacking though is what the companies that have actually been making phones for decades have down.

One of those things is the easy aspect of handling your calls. As far as I can tell there is no way to make a list of callers you’d like to let through when you’re not in the mood for salesmen or other prank callers. As far as I can tell Apple claims to have invented the video calls (I’ve had the thing in my phones for years albeit never used it- still not convinced apple will get that ball rolling) but forgotten to ‘invent’ all the other fine tuning the other phone companies have in their simplest phones.

They have made a basic OS and then rely on others to make the fine adjustments and to invent the apps that make this device so great. Some things the developers can’t access though. Meaning that when you download a more complex camera album app you get your images copied, wasting precious space because third party doesn’t have the access to the camera roll. I understand it’s good to limit the access but sometimes that is on the expense of the usability.

I’m sure there are more examples than the camera roll and the calling/contacts options too but so far nothing that has bugged me.

I do love my iPhone and wouldn’t dream of having any of the other smart phone droids as replacement. I love browsing the app store for new ways to use my phone and for new camera/photo apps. I love having audiobooks, music, Internet, camera, phone and everything else in one ACCESSIBLE place!

And I love being able to write an entry like this while chasing my almost 14 month old girl around the house! Not to mention that the baby games and shows (YouTube). I wouldn’t change to another phone for the world.

Not today – who knows what happens when Microsoft decides to play this game for real!

P.S. I must add that I was impressed with the wordbook options in the phone. I have 3 languages installed (English, Swedish and Icelandic) and it corrects two of the languages – even recognizes a word I’ve written after changing between dictionaries mid-word. That is impressive – believe me. Windows does NOT do that!

“I knew there were magic spells for THAT. I just never imagined buying one off of Ebay.” She ran her fingers through her graying hair and sighed. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t even know Ebay existed until I was told I could get everything I wanted off there. But that was a long time ago.” She stood up and started to make coffee. Her hands were steady and she moved gracefully around the coffeemaker as if she’d been dancing with it all her life.

“You want some coffee? It’s what keeps me alive…” she hesitated, laughed and then corrected herself, “actually no, that’s not true obviously but it does keep me sane I believe.” When the coffeemaker started to purr in its corner of the kitchen she sat down again opposite me and started to shuffle tarot cards that had been lying on the table. She moved her hands easily, despite obvious arthritis and the cards played with her hands. It seemed to be an unconscious move, like it was something she did a lot without thinking about it, perhaps to calm herself.

“My mother didn’t drink coffee, bless her soul. She claimed she didn’t like warm drinks. My father drank coffee though and I learned it from him. As bad habits go I guess drinking coffee is better than most. It’s not bound to get you into too much trouble with other people, just with yourself and that’s fine. That’s ones own right I suppose. What we do to ourselves is our own business…”

She lay four cards down on the table in front of her. “Nine of Cups” she whispered and smiled. “It’s the only constant. The others vary, obviously, but I always get the Nine of Cups.” She hesitated, looked at me and sighed. “Do you believe in tarot readings?”

I shrugged my shoulders, not knowing what to tell her. “I believe in magic” I then said, diplomatically. She smiled.

“These days I get the Death card more and more. I used to think it was a good card, I saw it as a sign of new things, new beginnings but I know this card is the sign of an ending and nothing more.”

She picked the cards off the table and put them aside “Forgive me” she then said, “I digress. I was telling you about the spell. Once I knew what I was looking for and where to look it wasn’t that hard. What was hard was paying what was asked. I have all I need” she said and looked at the coffeemaker. “But money has never come easily to me and I’ve never had much need of money. We can say we tolerate each other but we don’t like each other. I managed to come up with the sum finally asked though”

She seemed like such a regular grandmother in so many ways. The way she kept her hair bundled in a knot in the back, the way her dress flowed over her body concealing whatever knots and wrinkles might be there and the way she made things come alive in her language. There was something about her though that wasn’t very grandmotherly although I couldn’t put my finger on what that was.

“I first heard of the existence of this spell many years ago. My mother didn’t believe in such things but she had a friend who did. She was called Raven and she was a free spirit if I ever saw one. Free as a bird. The life of a bird isn’t easy though and hers wasn’t either but she made the most of it. She was telling my mother about something once and I was sitting there quietly in the corner listening to them talk like I had done as a little girl. I was half grown but this was a habit I had. I liked listening to them talk and they always forgot I was sitting there, listening.”

She got up to check the coffeemaker but as it was still grinding away she sat down again.

“Raven was having a crisis of some sort that I remember little about and she said that this spell would solve all her problems. She said these spells would make all your wishes come true.”

The old woman sighed and smiled a rather sad, yet not unhappy, smile. “If we only knew what our hearts wish for, if we knew we wouldn’t be so keen on …” she stopped herself, looked at me and cleared her throat.

“I do think mine is the last one left though. I haven’t heard of others for a long time at least but back when I bought mine there were a few circling the sites. I didn’t think much of Raven’s words at the time, mind you. A spell… the thought was a bit silly. I wanted to believe in magic but I felt it was wishful thinking, that I had my head too much in books and fairyland and not in the real world. Later when I met your grandfather…” she looked at me as if to check if the mention of him made me flinch or upset me somehow but when she saw it didn’t she continued. “when I met Joe my whole world turned upside down. What I had thought was just fiction and fairytales was real, some of it anyway, and I had to rethink my whole life.”

She got up and started to pull coffee cups and spoons out of her cupboards. “It’s not like you automatically know what’s real and what’s not just by being sucked into this… this kettle of  black and white and gray”. She laughed.

“It’s not like reading Harry Potter will get you anywhere”.

She served coffee in two black cups silently. She put sugar and milk on the table along with a well organized tray of biscuits.

The coffee was bitter but had a nice brisk aroma that served to keep me alert.

“I don’t know how long you’ve been poking around in this” she said, looking straight into my eyes. “And I don’t much care. The spell is yours for the right price. However…” she hesitated and I saw a glimpse of something wake in her eyes.

“However” she repeated and looked down into her coffee, “I don’t want the money you’ve already coughed up through Ebay. The money is just to make sure that the one who wants it the most gets it. I’ll return it to you when the time comes…” she looked at me. At this time I was obviously gaping with surprise.

“You see I bought this spell many years ago from Ebay, back in the days when it was new and magic slept for the most parts. Your grandfather, or is he your great grandfather? I loose track. Anyway he had had it for a very long time. He was gray and …” she laughed. “As gray as I am now I guess”.

She took a large sip of her coffee cup and looked into my eyes again. “What I need from you instead of the money you paid is a favor. It’s not something easy but it is something I have to insist upon. It’s none negotiable.” She sighed and grabbed a Magdalena cake from the plate.

I didn’t say anything but urged her to go on with a hand gesture.

“Right” she said, “you’re too the point, that’s fine.” She smiled and ate the cookie in one bite.

“I’d like for you to kill me” she said looking me in the eyes. “It’s a simple request. It isn’t easy though and I will understand if you back out. I’ve had young men come here before looking for luck … or for their wishes to come true but when push comes to shove they weren’t ready to pay the price. The question is, are you?”

I broke the eye contact and turned my gaze into my cup. I hadn’t expected this. I had expected something, something that was out of the ordinary. I had expected that I’d have to do something for the spell of the Genie.

“I bought the spell in 1998” she said, “long time ago. Times were different, sure there were people who believed and practiced but it was different back then.” She smiled at me and continued speaking, to give me time, obviously.

“I was lucky to get the thing when I did. When the pharmacies started to sell spells things changed. I lay low. I advice you to do the same, if you’ll become the bearer. It’s bad enough that the word got out, the world is not ready for this spell to become official and if it does it does not benefit you at all. I hope you are selfish enough or selfless enough to understand that.”

I nodded my head. She smiled and was silent for a while.

“Well…” she then said, “I know this isn’t what you came here for but you can think about it if you like. You can go and come back tomorrow. Not later. I don’t want to feel like there’s a piano falling on my head for too long but you can think about it until tomorrow.”

I shook my head.

“I don’t need time to think about it” I told her, “if you are sure that this is what you want I can do it”.

“Quick and painless” she said, “that’s all I ask for, then the spell is yours, the scroll is yours, you do the ritual with a bit of my blood in the mix and you will be singing and dancing for the rest of your long life.” She sighed.

“Three hundred and fifty years, do you believe that?” she shook her head.

“But now I want it over with. I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough.” She smiled sadly.

“It’s not easy, having all your wishes come true so be careful. You don’t have as much power over what you wish for as you might think.”

I nodded my head.

“I don’t have many advices to give you. With the scroll you’ll get there is a diary. It’s not just mine but kept by people who have owned the spell, the scroll, before me. You will keep a journal about what’s important too if you know what’s good for you and it comes with the territory. I suppose you can keep whatever you’d like from the apartment as well. I don’t have any relatives left alive. Few friends and certainly no will. I have a cat and I would appreciate it if you took care of it, either by adopting it yourself or by seeing to it that he belongs somewhere. He’s sweet and cuddly, my Tiger. And when you’re finished with me, burn what’s left. The chances that you’ll get caught aren’t great but your conscious might catch up with you”.

I nodded my head, it felt heavy, like I’d been holding it, nodding for three hundred years. I felt a sting of sadness come over me, tears formed in my eyes and spilled down my cheeks.

“It’s as simple as this?” I asked her and she nodded.

“It’s all yours, for the price of your soul” she laughed, it was a bit of a cackle. She handed me a pistol. It was an old fashioned one. Made long before the gun laws came into being, before they became obsolete.

“One shot in the head should suffice, the rest is up to you” she said.

“And you’re sure?” I asked her one last time. I held the gun, my hand was shaking.

“I appreciate your concern” she said, “but I don’t need sympathy. This is what becomes of us. This is where you’ll be in time…”

I shrugged.

“All my wishes?”

“All your wishes. But be careful what you wish for…” she stood up and placed the chair she’d been sitting on in front of the stove. Then she sat down in it and sighed.

“One last cookie” she said and smiled, and then she stood up and took a cookie of the plate. She ate it in one bite, cackled and sat down again.

“Just pull the trigger, don’t think too much off it. Everything you need is in the kitchen and you have all the time in the world. It’s a messy business having all your wishes come true.”

“And if I wish it undone…” I asked.

“Then I’m back on square one” she said, “now let those be my last words”.

I pulled the trigger.

Blood spilled.

I cried through the entire ritual but I did what I had to do. It was easy enough once the shock of the grotesque woman lying on the kitchen floor subsided. She soon looked nothing like the old woman I’d talked to. She slowly morphed into a black skeleton, like the one I suppose she would have been had she not been in my shoes many moons ago.

I cried as I said the words on the scroll.

And I felt the wishing power run into my veins like a drug. The feeling in my gut, in my heart grew and swelled and I realized that it would soon run over its brim… the first wish would soon be out there in the world, in the making.

How do I harness this power? How do I keep from spilling over? There are so many wishes in my heart. So many … and yet there is one that keeps me on the edge. Keeps me alert, sleepless, listless…

I shall not have it undone. I whisper to myself as I go to sleep at nights. I shall not have it undone I tell myself as I go through sleepless nights. I shall not have it undone and I keep myself in check.

And in the meanwhile all the wishes of my heart flow into the world.

Become one with it.

And are fulfilled.

What a world I will make. What a world…?

The Truth Behind The Smile: Leo and Mona

“Why do you think she’s smiling?” He asked Mona as she walked slowly away from the painting. She shrugged her shoulders, stopped to contemplate the Mona Lisa one last time and then she turned away again.

“Honestly who cares? She looks like a self righteous bitch who thinks she knows everything best. It’s probably an ‘I told you so’ smile.”

He walked after her laughing, “you don’t think it’s a come-hither-smile then?” he mumbled.

“No, surely that woman was dry as a desert” she laughed a bit contentedly. He had hated that laugh once upon a time. An elderly woman glanced their way, she was holding a leather purse that once had been black but was now white from use and a pair of goggles.

Mona raised an eyebrow and smiled at the woman.

“Dry as a desert” she repeated.

“Perhaps it’s simply a polite smile, an ‘I’m being painted by this strange, crazy, dirty old man’ smile” he offered.

“No, that’s not a polite smile, it’s a smug smile if I ever saw one” Mona countered.

“Right” he said, “so that’s that then”.

“I’m bored, can we go?” she asked pretending to pout.

“You’re learning from the French girls, are you?”

When they got outside she pulled an Evian bottle out of her bag and took a big clunk from it before she offered it to him. They sat down by the pond where there was no shadow and therefore little people. He glanced at Mona.

“So …?” he started.

“So that was an anti-climax if I ever felt one” she moaned. “Can’t we do something orgasmic?”

“Like what?”

“A club? A party? A coffeehouse with music? Anything that looks like it’s had a pulse in the last fifty years give or take a few?” she took the bottle from him and put it back in her bag.

“Sure” he said, “there are clubs but there isn’t much life until after dark”.

“Right” she said, “so a coffeehouse it is then?” she stood up and they started walking. After a few steps she stopped, took her camera out of the bag and offered it to him.

“I should have proof that I was here” she said.

“Right” he said and took her picture. She had the sun in her eyes so she squinted and the curls danced on her head with the wind. There was a smile on her lips. He figured it was a polite ‘I’m being photographed’ smile but it could just as well be a wicked grin for all he knew. He couldn’t read her more now than he had been able to read her when they were going out, five years ago.

He handed her the camera back and they started walking again.

“So do you like it here?” she asked him. It sounded like she’d been avoiding the question.

“I guess” he said, “it’s a great city and my job is…” he didn’t finish the sentence but gave her a thumb-up.

They walked quietly for a while. Occasionally she would stop, pick up the camera and photograph something, a bird in a tree, an old woman crossing the road, a kid holding an ice-cream cone with his face covered with ice-cream or something else that caught her attention.

“So you don’t think Mona was giving Da Vinci a come-on smile?” he asked her. She pulled at her bag as if it was getting heavier suddenly and gave him a glance.

“I don’t know” she said, “maybe”.

A man wearing blue suit and a briefcase strolled past them in a hurry, he looked like he was sweating.

“What do you think this guy would see in her smile?” she asked him.

“Money” he said quickly and they moved on.

They stopped in a small coffee house not far from his apartment. They sat down outside with view over the Seine. He was getting more and more nervous and it showed. When their drinks came he couldn’t help himself.

“So why did you call me?” he asked in a low voice.

“I just wanted to see you” she answered quickly, as if there was nothing to it.

“You just wanted to see me” he repeated her answer but and although she seemed to realize that he hadn’t meant it as a question she answered it anyway.

“I haven’t seen you for five years, we are friends, aren’t we?”

“I don’t know” he said, “I don’t know if we were ever friends” he looked away.

“Well then we should be” she said stubbornly. She was pouting, for real this time, staring into her drink.

“Why?”

“Because we are good together, we are interesting together” again she answered quickly, as if she’d had time to think about the answer.

“Isn’t that to late now?”

“Are you seeing a Parisian supermodel who doesn’t want you having female friends?” she asked him.

He shook his head.

“Well then?”

“I don’t know if I can take you” he said. “You were a handful as a girlfriend and I’m sure you’ll be an even more of a handful as a friend” he tried to smile but it was crooked.

“Well if you’d rather have me as a girlfriend…” she smiled at him.

“If only I knew the Truth behind that smile…” he said.

She took a large sip out of her wine glass and stared over the river ignoring him.

“I think she was bored” she then said, “Mona Lisa, I mean, she was sitting there with her hands in her lap not knowing what to do and she was bored to tears.”

“Is that why you’re here? Because you’re bored?” he asked.

She shook her head, then shrugged her shoulders. “I wanted to see Paris” she said, “so I’m here. I wanted to see The Mona Lisa, so I did and I wanted to see you, so I called. End of story”.

“You haven’t changed your hair” he said to change the subject.

She shook her head, making her curls dance again. “I’ve tried, but what do you do? The only thing more stubborn than me is my hair, it refuses to be anyone’s bitch”.

“Perhaps that’s what’s behind Mona Lisa’s smile“ he contemplated.

“Well she sure succeeded, all these years later and people are still discussing her expression. That’s one wicked expression… I guess”.

He smiled and slowly his smile turned to laughter. She laughed with him, tentatively.

“Where are you staying Mona?” he asked turning serious again.

“Some hotel somewhere” she said.

“The truth behind the smile…?” he said, “is that she just wanted someone to know…” he stopped, thought for a moment, then carried on, “you know… her”. He smiled apologetically. He felt embarrassed.

“I guess you might be right, too bed nobody ever will” she said.

“Don’t you think he did?” Leo asked her.

“Who?”

“Da Vinci?”

“I don’t know… possibly” she looked at him, hand on the table.

He covered it.

“Let’s go and see if we can find a club somewhere” he said, “you can stay with me”.

She smiled. There was satisfaction in the smile.

The Serpent

He was wearing a top hat and swinging a walking stick when I first met him. The knob on it was shaped like a serpent and all his clothes were white, as white as the well trimmed beard that decorated his face.

“Do you juggle?” he asked me grinning. I was shivering, not from cold but from fear and excitement.

“No but I can walk a line real well” I told him, “and I’m very bendy”.

“Bendy?” the old man asked laughing. “What will I do with bendy?”

“I can balance a ball while standing on my hands” I stammered.

“We’re not a regular circus, little miss” he then said seriously. “We’re not just an amusement act. We live and breathe our roles. We are our masks, we have become one with our masks. Are you prepared to become one with whatever mask you are dealt?”

“Yes sir” I said without thinking about it for a second.

“So you say” he said, swung his stick in circles and signed me to follow him.

We walked through the city silently. I followed him like a hungry puppy without taking in my surroundings. He walked slowly and I followed, through the streets, over bridges and finally into a house. I couldn’t have traced our steps if my life depended on it afterwards and I guess that was his intention.

He took me to a cellar which appeared, at first, to be quite small. There was a bed, a bookcase and a small table in the corner. He didn’t stop though but walked straight to the bookcase and pulled out a book.

And the bookcase moved, opened like a door and revealed a much larger room. It was filled with people but not regular people, not people you saw on the streets of the city but strange people. Clowns wearing red curly wigs and wide grins, slim women wearing silvery, revealing uniforms, large bald men with white knuckles, red stern faces balancing large stones on their backs, dark haired woman stroking a large lion, a man covered in dragon tattoos, a woman wearing a large snake around her neck, a woman and a man with pointy hats and the longest fingernails she had ever seen. They were too many to count, all minding their own business.

“I have a girl here who wants to join us” the white bearded man said loudly over the crowed. Everybody stopped moving and stared at us. My face turned red and I realized I wouldn’t be able to say a word were it required.

“She says she is bendy and that she can walk on a line” the white bearded man said.

“Everybody can walk in a line” a woman shouted and laughed. The crowed laughed with her.

“Show yourself girl” the man said to me and waved me forward. I took a step forward and bent my knees in a curtsy. The crowed laughed some more.

“She’s a polite little girl” the man said, “but despite appearances I think she might have potential. I think she might have what it takes but she has to prove herself, like we all did before her”.

“What is her thing?” someone shouted.

“A temptress” someone shouted.

“A line dancer” someone else sniggered.

“A whore” someone laughed.

“She may look innocent” the white bearded man said but looks can be deceiving, which works in our favor. Show your teeth girl.”

I bared my teeth instinctively, unquestioningly although I did not understand why he wanted me to.

The crowed ooh and awed.

“She will need to be trained, she needs new manners and you all know I hate polite people. Especially when they’re murderers but she will be perfect in our midst.” He continued.

I looked at him, surprised.

“We don’t need another weird-one” someone said. “She brings us nothing”.

“Everyone brings something” the white bearded man said, “and she brings us more than most. She brings us the tainted blood. She brings us life. Never again will we have to suffer loss. She brings us eternity”.

A hushed whisper went through the crowed.

“Is this true?” someone at last answered.

“She knows it not but it is true. You can see it in her eyes and on her pale, broken skin.”

“But she is so tiny, so weak”.

“Not weak, just de-nourished” the white bearded man said. “Lovely Love-Lou will you offer a drop or two?” he turned to a little girl who had been standing behind him, sucking a lollipop.

“Sure” she said and walked towards me but before she reached me she bit her thumb hard. She stopped, sucked a few drops of blood and then offered me the finger.

I looked at the bearded man surprised.

“Do as you will” he said, “join us… or not”.

I took the girls finger and smelled it. Sweet, sour, pure but not innocent. It tasted like nothing I’d eaten before. It tasted heavenly, like the nectar of the gods must taste and I felt a surge of energy go through me.

“Ahh” the white bearded man smiled. “See, she is one of us, will you share your power with us?” he asked me. “Will you become one of us, share with us and we share with you?”

I said nothing. Just nodded and took another sip of the little girl.

“You’re my new best friend” she said and smiled, sucked harder on her lollipop and popped her finger into my mouth for the third time. “Just remember that I am not one of your offers or your victims”.

“Victims” I whispered, “offers”.

Later the white bearded man showed me to my room. He walked beside me and even patted me on the back.

“You will get used to all this” he said, “you will get used to who you are too”.

“Who am I?” I asked quietly.

“Don’t you know?” he smiled, “or does my serpent fool you? Are you wondering if you were this person we claim all along or if you became this person when you entered our fine establishment? Let me warn you, before you go looking for answers … eternity does not lie in the answer. Eternity lies with us. You are welcome here. You are needed here. You are the vampire.”

I bowed my head and nodded.

“And stop with this politeness, it makes me ill” he said and touched my head with the knob of his cane.

“It truly makes me ill”.

Since then I haven’t changed my mind. Pushing stereotypes on girls or boys is not the right thing to do. It pushes children into corners and makes their view of the world narrow and their choices few.

I have a little joyful girl who became 9 months old last week and we roam the different playgrounds in our neighborhood to meet other children and to have some fun. Life is such a fun game at that age.

Now to the point. I don’t mind when people think my little girl is a boy. It doesn’t bother me and she is too young to be bothered by it. It doesn’t touch us at all … BUT…

I have noticed that the way I dress her is directly connected with how people see her. And I’ve experimented a little with this. She has, as an example, a new winter overall in green with smaller areas that are blue. If she is wearing this overall with her black moccasins on her feet and her purple (white, pink but mostly purple) hat and a pink pacifier in her mouth, she is mistaken for a boy by everybody.

Once I even heard someone say “why does she buy pink pacifiers for her boy?” I normally wouldn’t but I couldn’t help but to turn towards her, tell her that my baby was a girl and that even if she was a boy pink would not be such a catastrophe.

She looked ashamed and left without another word.

If my baby girl is wearing a black body with the words “AC/DC for those about to rock” written in white letters on the stomach, gray pants with pink bands and letters on the side (most of the pants are gray) and gray socks – she is mistaken for a boy by most.

My girl doesn’t look more like a boy than a girl. Not at all. In fact I think it’s very strange people mistake her for a boy at all. She does have very short blond hair as babies do at that age and it is very hard at that age to know one way or the other.

Again I want to stress that mistaking a girl for a boy or a boy for a girl is not a catastrophe. Not at all but it is interesting to see when people mistake her for a boy and when not.

When she’s wearing her pink jacket and her purple hat nobody mistakes her for a boy. Wearing a red pants/t-shirt combination last summer people mistook her for a boy but more often than not people understood she was a girl.

I’ve found that green, blue, orange, black, gray and brown gets her mistaken for a boy more often than not. Wearing red, yellow or white she gets mistaken for a girl a little. However if she’s wearing pink she doesn’t get mistaken for a boy unless the pink is just a splash and her overall outfits is dominated by the “boy” colors.

I find that unless I have her in pink people often mistake her for a boy. It’s almost as if  ”boy” is the norm unless the baby is wearing pink or fairies, “Hello Kitty” or something that is obviously a “girl” thing.

I myself mistook a girl for a boy – she was wearing a dark red overall with small blue stars. She, as all babies, did not look more boyish than girlish.

I guess we tend to take MAN or in this case BOY as norm. Even when it comes to gender. In a few months (year?) this won’t be an issue and she will surely correct whoever might think she’s a boy in the future but until then I point out that my baby doesn’t have to be a boy just because she’s wearing an AC/DC body.

Still I find that when her wardrobe (as now) is not dominated by the color pink I tend to miss it. Still I try to mix it up. “Boy” colors (gosh I hate writing that) with “girl” colors (*shrug*) all the colors of the rainbow for her.

I was delighted to notice recently that Zara has wonderful baby clothes in rather “neutral” colors. White pajamas with yellow figures or white bodies with brown or gray text. Like this body. A lot of brown, gray and then colors mixed in. The girl clothes are obviously girl clothes though because they are often skirts, dresses or feminine coats. Online you browse into “a girl” section or “a boy” section. Their choices of  colors are more “grown up” than the other boutiques around me.

I guess if it bothered me that she was called a boy sometimes I would dress her more in dresses, skirts and outfits that were “obviously” a girls outfit. But I like being practical in these things and body and pants are so much more practical than a dress.

Early we are put in a certain catagory, boy or girl. And even before it matters at all we are faced with all kinds of gender-based choices. We can obviously push the limits and not let the “norm” bother us. Push the limits and let your baby wear blue body with a robot or a car on the front, I’m guessing most people would still frown though if you’d put a boy in pink “Hello Kitty” pants.

As long as we are conscious of our choices and conscious of the way we later explain these things to our children it’s all alright.

Pink is good though. I like pink. I am proud of being a girl. I am very proud of my little girl and although I think it’s sad we have such limited view of the world around us I happily make  her wear pink until it is her own choice to do so or not to do so.

A point? I lost any point I might have had a while ago…

… but next time I’m on the playground I am going to think twice before I assume the sex of someone’s baby depending on the clothes they are wearing.

Asking first is always a good idea.

I can’t believe I’m doing this. But it’s something that I need to do.

Let me just first tell you this:
I am a big fan of the Final Fantasy franchise. Final Fantasy VIII was the first game that I really, truly liked playing. The first game I stuck to and was good at (I’d stuck to games before but I sucked at them). And Final Fantasy X and X-2? I would file those games under “religious believes” if there was any point in doing so.

So even though Final Fantasy XII wasn’t a huge thrill I was still very excited to hear about the first Final Fantasy game being released for the PS3. I waited for it. I even bought the big, stupid collectors edition of it.

And I’ve spent hours, precious hours, hours I could have spent cooing with my daughter, reading or playing something else, anything else.

Can you tell this is not going to be a rave? There is nothing worse than a woman scorned.

What a load of horses patoot. When I started playing I was so optimistic. Because usually even the “not so great” Final Fantasy games have been very much worth playing because of the fantastic world you get to explore, the scenarios and the colorful surroundings have been enough. A good battle system and a challenging, varied game were just big pluses.

Final Fantasy XIII did so not deliver. You start of getting a bit annoyed when you realize the limits in the battle system, the fact that you have little control over the other characters and that changing “leaders” (the character you do have control over)  is a hassle rather than a joy.

I can live with that. I shrug my shoulders and move on.

And after an hour or so I was still optimistic, Final Fantasy XIII started of well. It had potentials. Sure, there were just corridors after corridors cut up with short video clips of good quality but it still had potential.

But it never seemed to end. Corridor after corridor, drab surroundings, boring fights that never seemed to end – even the fights that were just run & go seemed too long and boring. Slight change in scenarios here and there but no freedom of movement and nothing but fight after fight… nothing else. No silly puzzles. No nothing.

And it never ended.

Until I came to the great outdoors. I believe I exclaimed “AHhh finally it begins” when I got there and saw the giant dinosaurs roaming around on the brought, wide field. I truly thought that now the fun would start.

And then I was suddenly there again. In corridors. With no choice but to move forward and all I wanted was to go back to that place that I felt I had (not by choice) skipped over. And all I was faced with was more boring fights, longer this time – and a corridor after corridor, never ending.

The fights are boring. The easy ones take too long. Leveling (which has always been fun in Final Fantasy) is so boring you sigh when you realize you have to do it. And there is no freedom of movement.

I haven’t finished (I’m nearly there though). I don’t know if I will. I guess some day I will. I realize that when/if I do I might get to go back to that bit of the game that seemed to have a HINT of what the Final Fantasy is all about.

I realize that I might have missed it, somehow skipped the best part but that should not be possible, none of Final Fantasy should feel/be this crappy! Where is the joy? Where is the FUN? Where is the color?

I don’t know how this could have happened. A game that has always been varied, fun and surprising has suddenly become more boring than watching Tennis or GOLF on TV.

I fear that while trying to meat the Western market (the game is Japanese and should remain so, heart AND soul) they lost what was fantastic about Final Fantasy. XIII certainly doesn’t have what the other games have had, even XII!

Final Fantasy XIII is a waste of money. But mostly a waste of time! The characters are mediocre and rather boring, most of the scenario bored me to tears and the fighting system (which is all this game has to offer because there is nothing else!) is shit.

I was hoping for something spectacular. Final Fantasy has always been the Playstation flagship and now that there is a new console I was hoping for something big. I even dared to hope that this game would be ground breaking, instead I now hardly dare to hope that Final Fantasy will recover.

I surely won’t be buying the next game unless reliable people tell me that the game will be worth it.

So even you die hard Final Fantasy fan, if you haven’t been disappointed by this game already keep your money, don’t waste your time. Play something else… play VII or VIII again. Play the new version of Monkey Island, it’s fun, or just play with your kids/parents. This game is NOT worth your effort.

]]> http://moonsith.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/review-final-fantasy-xiii/feed/ 2 Eygló Daða http://moonsith.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/the-squid-named-paul-a-short-story/ http://moonsith.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/the-squid-named-paul-a-short-story/#comments Fri, 09 Jul 2010 15:28:41 +0000 Eygló Daða http://moonsith.wordpress.com/?p=1080 ]]> I wrote this short story today, on the 9th of July, and felt it only right to publish it right away as it might become obsolete very quickly. You can see where I’ve found my inspirations for this. Enjoy!

It was the year Holland won the World Cup, the year a volcano from Iceland stopped the air traffic in the entire continent of Europe, the year two devastating earthquakes hit, one in Haiti and another in Chile and it was also the year Dennis Hopper died. It was a bad year for me.

I think I read On the Road by Kerouac that year and Kraken by a guy named China, I can’t remember his last name. It started well enough for me, I got my first novel published and later I met an outstanding woman in Amsterdam who called herself Starbucks. She introduced me to things I had always been too afraid to try, some of which I later regretted.

But what’s life without regret, right?

I remember the summer as being very warm. I spent it watching football, drinking cold beer (Nuns’ Delight I heard they called it) and writing my second novel on an old, orange iBook that I hated. It was the book about the death of the girl with the diamond eyes, one of my best if you ask me but I haven’t found anyone yet who agrees with me.

Right before the semi-finals my writing came to a sudden halt. It was like hitting a stone wall. I guess my brother’s decision to sleep with my girlfriend had something to do with it. But I’d had writing blocks before and had found no good remedy for it. All I could do was get up in the morning and hustle through the motions. So I told my brother I forgave him, I kicked my girlfriend out of the apartment, I bought more beer and gleefully anticipated every football game as I sat in front of that mollusk-like machine and squeezed out words that seemed to be coming out of my rear end.

When I was in bad shape I called a friend, or my brother, hoping to be saved from my dilemma and lead towards something else for a while, to forget the ice-cold, gargoylic novel I was working on.  And when I had thoughts of abandoning the project altogether or start from scratch I stopped what  I was doing and dug up a few travel brochures I had lying around. I sometimes went as far as to choose a trip online and stopped short of clicking the button to confirm the transaction.

Sometimes I chose a Greek Island, sometimes a major city like Paris, New York, Tokyo or Amsterdam. I had the money for such expenses but I couldn’t very well afford the time so I struggled on.

Those were the days, easy and somewhat delightful but I always felt like something was lacking, like a part of me was waiting to burst and as much as I wanted it to I was terrified of it as well. I never told anyone about it, these were just silly ideas I put in connection with my macabre writing and usually I got over such ideas when I finished a project.

Then I was drinking my morning coffee, which was particularly strong, when a headline changed my life. I was wearing dirty boxers that had seen better days and hadn’t shaved in a few days. The beard itched and I was scratching it when I read the headline on the orange wonder:

“Paul the squid predicts Germany will lose the semi-finals against Spain”.

The squid had predicted all the German matches correctly thus far, even the loss against Serbia. I remember thinking who names a squid Paul? I didn’t think much about it but started my word-struggle which ended up in a pub with my brother were we had a few ales and watched the game.

I don’t know what it was. I drank carefully, aware that I needed to get up and continue with my word count and hangovers never help with anything.  I’ve never been able to understand writers who claim wine helps them to be creative but for me it’s only destructive, it mutilates any hope of structure and although it sometimes gives new inspiring ideas I’ve rarely been able to execute an idea that sprung to mind via alcoholic philosophizing.

It was humid and the pub was rather rowdy, a group of Germans were loud from the start of the game and became increasingly worse. Still we managed to hold a conversation and I told my brother about the squid, and that it had predicted the outcome of the game.

My brother, who had heard of the animal, laughed and after a bit of discussion which I can’t for the life of me remember we decided that Paul the squid should decide the outcome of my book. If the squid would be right about the game I was going to keep the novel as it was and get on with it but if it was wrong I was to scrap it and start a new, perhaps with a new project.

The squid was right. Germany lost the game sending Spain to the final.

It was silly but as good as any other idea so when I woke the morning after I decided it was going to shape my life. And so with only a two games left for the squid to predict I decided that if it was wrong about the game for the bronze I was going to commit suicide.

Don’t ask me to explain my reasons. I cannot but the idea haunted me and instead of mulling over it I decided. That would be that. There would be no going back. I would finish the novel and then I would do it. It all hung on that game.

On a sunny Friday Cthulhu’s little brother predicted the outcome of the two games. Germany was going to win third place and Spain would take the cake.

The game about the third place was on a Saturday evening. I watched it alone drinking a cold beer, shouting at the television. Nothing works better than a wager to get the blood boiling. It had been a warm day, humid and uncomfortable and when the evening rolled in it started to thunder violently. The streaks of light lit up the city, boasting thunders sounding louder than the buzzing of the Vuzuvelas coming from the television.

The squid had predicted a positive outcome for Germany, so in my infinite wisdom I cheered the Uruguayan team on. I shouted as the offside rulings came, I shouted louder when the penalty ruling came and I screamed when Germany won the game 2 to 1.

So on Sunday morning I woke up as I always did. I had my coffee and I sat down in front of my computer browsing the headlines, decided that if the squid was wrong about the final I would kill my brother and then I went on with my work.

And it was as if a dam had been broken. Instead of writing thousand words only to delete them all again I wrote the entire day without a hitch. I wrote until I realized that the game was about to start.

And I wasn’t even remotely nervous.

The weather was splendid, it had been warm during the day so the cooling breeze that came with the evening was welcomed. I opened the balcony doors, made pasta salad for dinner and readied the potato chips and the cool beer I had stacked up. I called my brother and invited him to join me and he told me he would be right over.

It was Spain against Holland. My brother cheered for Holland.

I watched the game with quiet calmness. Reluctant to take sides as it became more and more intense. I watched with anticipation but couldn’t decide one way or the other what I wanted the outcome to be. As the game evolved I came to certain realizations about my future, about my life and when the 90 minutes were up I was almost hoping Spain would win.

In the last minutes the score was even, both teams had scored a goal. Spain was on the offensive, shooting at the Dutch goal relentlessly but nothing seemed to get passed the goalie. And somewhere deep down inside I was glad that I would be finishing my last novel soon and life could go on as normally.

And then Sneijder ran across the entire field with three Spaniards on his track, they weren’t able to stop him and neither was the formidable goalkeeper.

With only seconds left of regular time Holland had scored and then the whistle sounded. Holland won the World Cup. The English squid, the expat in Germany named Paul had been wrong.

by Eygló Daða