You know the code

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Not gonna lie, I've had a bit of a crap week. No specific reason (general happy fun PMS/rejection letters related times). Watching a documentary on the beauty pageants in Columbia does NOTHING for my mood.

So fuck it. What DOES make me happy? Like, right now? Well.

• The whats app-group conversation with my beloved friend-family, which has been going on daily since  I left Scotland.
• That I get to SEE andf HUG above mentioned friends in like 3 months time!
• That after THAT visit it's only about 2 months (of summer) until they come over for THE RETURN OF THE LADS: summer edition. Also known as a few days holiday in Sweden.
• It's almost the weekend and I've found the perfect gin cocktail. which I will be sipping on come tomorrow night.
• I'm so goddamn good at my internship that they never ever want me to leave.
• It's warm enough to ride my bike.
• Saturday will include an art show, a bbq, sparkling wine and general unexpected good times.

If things don't start to change soon I'm quitting humanity and joining a pack of wolves

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You should know I'm writing this after 3 cups of coffee and fuelled by a lot of justified rage about the world.
I've always been a feminist. I've mentioned this before and to me it's as natural as breathing. It's a part of me, it always has been.
But still I find myself shocked and appaled at the examples streaming in through the Everyday Sexism project's twitter account. It makes me realise that in spite of my firm belief in the need for feminism, in spite of gender studies and reading book after book on the subject I've become numb to the little things which happens everyday. Maybe it's because I used to work in a bar. Heck, maybe it's because I was once a teenage girl and the sexist, violent and often abusive comments raining down on you in the school corridors and at parties made me think that it was NORMAL.
It's not fucking normal guys. IT'S HORRENDOUS.

To be honest I'm so angry I can't even think straight.

When I was working as a barmaid I once had a customer advicing me that I should "earn my tips on my knees". And when I reacted with a death-stare he had the nerve to feel insulted. Apparently I should learn how to deal with the "banter".

I wish this was an isolated incident, but it's not. Working in the hospitality industry you have to develop thick skin, because you essentially turn into a piece of meat. I have had customers grab me, comment loudly on my boobs, slap my ass, try to pull me down onto their lap.
At this is just at work. Outside of work I've once had to physically KICK a drunk man out of a cab after he didn't appreciate that my friend turned down his advances. He spat at us, called us whores, threatened with violence. Funny, really, how NOT WANTING TO HAVE SEX WITH HIM turned us into whores.

No. It's not funny. It's sad. And why is it still like this? Why is there still people who claim that feministm isn't needed, that we live in an equal society? Who say that maybe women should just learn how to ignore it, laugh it off?
I don't want to laugh, I want to punch someone in the face.

I was raised to believe in myself. My parents did a prettty good job. But still, I was also told to ignore the comments, to avoid confrontation, no not walk home alone after dark, to not get too drunk around boys at parties.
How come we raise girls to avoid situations where they could get abused and raped, instead of raising boys who WON'T RAPE? I can't imagine any of my male friends or relatives ever doing anything as degrading, soul crushing, violent and horrid as that, but to be honest, the Steubenville trials really did decrease my faith in humanity.

I'm sick and tired of it. I'm fed up with being numb and with trying to laugh it off. It's not banter. It's sexism. I'm sick of a legal system which puts the rape victim on trial, and not the accused. I'm sick of it all.  And I still, really, really, really want to punch someone in the face.
But I was raised bettert than that. So I suppose I will just have to channel my rage into something more productive than my right fist.

I got my hair, I got my head, I got my brains, I got my ears, I got my eyes, I got my nose, I got my mouth, I got my smile.

Today I have loved and hated my life in equal meassure. Prayed for change, cursed my choices, beaten myself down, picked myself up and loved my freedom. All in a days work people.

"It used to be a lot less complicated when I was younger"

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Don't you ever expect the heart to be rational.

Dance, dance, dance

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I admire people who have natural grace and know how to move. My style of dancing is stuck somewhere between glowstick twirling goth and awkward 70s dad (unless I'm drunk because then I'n NATURALLY the dancing queen).
This is why I don't trust men who hit on me at nightclubs. I mean, WHY would you want to get with someone who looks like an embarrassing uncle at a wedding, being repeatedly zapped with a cattle-prod?

"You have to be willing to get happy about nothing"

I worry a lot. Worry about not being good enough, worry about money, worry about the future. I worry about the state of my heart, the state of my mind, the state of my teeth.
Worry about my student loans, about my eye sight, about my skin, about my weight about my health.

Worry about my friends, worry about my family, worry about the state of the world. I worry about winding up alone, I worry about being with the wrong person. I worry about the enviroment, about politics, about walking home alone when it's dark outside.

It's exhausting.

So in order to cancel out all that worry I also enjoy the little things.
I enjoy the fact that the sun has been shining for weeks. I enjoy my morning coffee and listening to the morning radio while walking into work. I enjoy writing lists and ticking things off, one by one. I enjoy feeling like I'm actually really good and what I do and I enjoy feeling like maybe, just maybe, the jigzaw pieces are falling into place.

You have to enjoy the little things. You have to laugh. Because even if the world might feel truly fucked at times there's still so many things to smile about. Like videos of kittens falling over, drinking coffee on the steps in the sunshine, songs which makes your heart beat faster and people who care and try to make a difference.

If we don't try to focus on the good stuff we'll all go mad. And not the good kind of mad, just plain sad, down in the dumps-mad. And we don't want that, do we?

On taking a break from life and being still being torn

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Sometimes you have to travel far in order to get home.
At least that's what I've been told.
And I have travelled, perhaps not in the vagabond-asia-backpacking sense, but in my own way. And I'm still not entirely sure of where I'm meant to wind up. As always I'm torn between two countries, several cities and loads of people.
Is this a bad thing? I'm not sure, because it all stems from a lot of love. Love for different cities and love for several friends and family members. I had the privilige of a safe haven to return to, and I had reached a point in my life when I could forgive, forget, move on and learn to love my home town and home country for what it is, rather than to despise it for what it used to represent to me.
I'm happy for that chance. I'm happy for the bike rides, the beer fuelled walks through Gothenburg, the nights out in Stockholm, the cups of coffee in Copenhagen.
The salt water, the sea air, the friends who knew me then and still want to know me now. The family members who are my solid ground and my reason for being.


I took a break from life.
But now I'm starting to feel like it's time to get back into the game, I'm starting to feel like this game I've been playing (the long haul kind) isn't satisfying enough for my impatient soul. There's a weird energy, maybe it's spring, sunshine or my normal fight or flee instinct kicking in, but something is a'brewing.

F. Scott Fitzgerald might be my favourite person to go to for a bit of faith in love

Oh, Mr. F. Scott Fitzgerald. If only I could have a "midnight in Paris" adventure and let you boost my faith in true, mad love. (Pictures from here and here).

The sun was high

Oh Easter-weekend, you were good to me. The dancing, the sunshine, the dinners, the friends, the bike rides, the feeling of flying and the plans for April.
Life. It's quite exciting.