I've Pursued Nothing - The Tossers

All the bottles of wine have ravaged my mind
Another day's gone by and I'm worried

And the night, and the night, it is bitter and short
For I know that a new day is coming
Another day, another day, all alone and blue
But for you I've pursued nothing

If you'd heard the song, you'd know it doesn't sound as moody and melancholic as the text hints. I've had a good day, and I do feel I've actually pursued something, namely trigonometry. Hey, there are worse ways to spend your days. In fact, basking in the sun on the balcony with a good friend is always nice, even when a Mathematics book is present.

I had an interesting morning too -- interesting in the sense that it all just felt so damned perfect. I woke up at nine, went up at ten, started the computer and went to get dressed. Halfway to the drawers I saw the absurdity in it though, seeing as that I was all alone in the house and the temperature actually was acceptable, there was little reason to get properly dressed. So, in t-shirt and boxer shorts, I fetched a few toasts with orange marmalade and a large glass of Proviva in the kitchen, and stood eating on the balcony -- still in my shoddy garments. This time it was me who was "lodis", so I'll be careful before I call Alex that again. It was nice though, standing in the morning sun and drinking the last of the morning juice and then reading blog-referrals about NHL-games for an hour. It was an entirely lazy and unproductive afternoon, but it was great and it was a nice whiff of a few of the things that are good in life.

There's not much more to say about the day, save that we now have started planning the feast that we will hold after my graduation. If all invited say yes, 31 persons will attend. That is a lot of people. Admittedly, I do not mind occasiosn with a lot of guests though. Plus, it will be rather interesting to see my friends interact with my relatives.

Now, seeing as that I do not have anything sane to say and do not know when I'll pop in again -- it's all down to mood and inspiration, really -- I'll reprise an old favourite. Remember the shuffle-game? Well, I did, and I figured that I wanted to do it again.

So here's me signing off for tonight.

---

1. Put your music player on shuffle.
2. Press forward for each question.
3. Use the song title as the answer to the question even if it doesn’t make sense. NO CHEATING!
(So this is a randomly spawned text on the internet giving me orders. That really requires some great cojones, considering I can erase him whenever I want.)

1. How are you feeling today?
Loch Lomond - Bryn Terfel
I have been thinking and talking about Scotland today actually. I've also been occasionally nostalgic, so it's not quite off the mark.
2. Will you get far in life?
Summerbreeze - Johnossi
Doesn't quite answer the question, but apparently I will spend many nights alone. Linus Glas.
3. How do your friends see you?
Oliver's Army - Elvis Costello
Given my rant when the Swedish army tried to draft me, I doubt any of my friends see me as a soldier in that regard -- even less, a British one.
4. Will you get married?
It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry - Glasvegas
Fuck you Spotify.
5. What is your life’s theme song?
The Wrestler - Bruce Springsteen
It's... I mean -- sod it. Yes. Now I got happy all of a sudden, somehow.
6. What is the story of your life?
Human Touch - Bruce Springsteen
That's two Springsteen-songs in a row, and I don't think this one is all too inaccurate either. Forsaking praise and pity for someone to talk to, and a little of that human touch? Yes, mister. Yes, without hesitation.
7. What was junior high school like?
Die Mauer - Ebba Grön
I'd expected this to be a good chuckle like last time, but now the bloody thing has started giving fairly accurate answers. Junior high was like a wall in many regards.
8. How can you get ahead in life?
The Eton Rifles - The Jam
Beating up brats from Eton? I'm on.
9. What is tomorrow going to be like?
I Wanna Be Adored - The Stone Roses
Shit, not again. I thought I'd had enough of heartthrob and longing for a few months.
10. What is the best thing about your friends?
Geraldine - Glasvegas
"My name's Geraldine, I'm your social worker." You've stood me this far and you listen when I want you to. By now I'm disregarding the creepy accuracy of the shuffle, because the answers please me. This one especially.
11. What is in store for the next weekend?
Cross Your Fingers - Laura Marling
Everton-Chelsea in the FA Cup final and exams right after the weekend. Spot on, again.
12. What song best describes you?
3:ans Spårvagn Genom Ljuva Livet - Eldkvarn
In my good moments, I do feel like life could be described like this.
13. How is your life going?
Uppgradera dig till Spotify Premium - Spotify
Hahahahahahahah--
Allright, another try.
Kom - Lars Winnerbäck
I don't think the world's judging me, at least not anymore. Rotting together with someone in lack of ambition is neither unpleasant nor unaccurate though.
14. What song will play at your funeral?
Lost In The Flood - Bruce Springsteen
I will, actually.
15. How does the world see you?
Ompa til du dør - Kaizers Orchestra
Ompa 'til I bleed, ompa 'til I die. Better run from the world, it seems.
16. Will you have a happy life?
Death - White Lies
"'Relax', yes I'm trying, but fear's got a hold of me". Well, shit.
17. What do your friends really think of you?
Double Yellow Lines - The View
If I make you realise you're high as kites, I'm content -- someone bloody well has to.
18. What song describes the person you’re attracted to?
Alison - Elvis Costello
I don't know an Alison. You won't get more than that out of me.
19. What message would you like to tell the next generation?
Kärlek Är För Dom - Thåström
Not even I am that bitter.
20. Do you have a deep dark secret?
The Promised Land - Bruce Springsteen
No matter what, I'm not a boy but a man and I believe in a promised land. Actually.
21. Do people secretly lust after me?
Magic - Bruce Springsteen
Am I magic, or should people trust nothing what they hear and less of what they see? Come on girls, I am nice!
22. How can I make myself happy?
Resistansen - Kaizers Orchestra
Finding likeminded people and playing Russian roulette in a basement seems like a neat enough idea.
23. Will I ever have children?
All That Heaven Will Allow - Bruce Springsteen
Aw, shucks.
24. What’s some good advice for me?
Moondance - Van Morrison
So it's a marvellous night for a moondance. Should I interpret that as that it's a good time to go all-in?
25. How will I be remembered?
Mr. Brightside - The Killers
I do hope I'll be remembered for more things than falling in love with a stripper.
26. What is my signature dance song?
Bodhran - The Young Dubliners
It's Irish. You know me well enough to figure out the rest.

---

So, it turned out a bit more creepily correct than I expected it to. Still though, this is Saturday night entertainment until life restarts again.

May I add that the readers are strongly encouraged to make their own trials of this in the comments when they find the time in between aliterations, aldehydes and algebra?

See you around.

/wellington.

Di Grind - Kaizers Orchestra

Ta denne ringen. Sett han på din fing
Kommer du til himmelen går du rett inn

Men en ting, bare en liten ting

Du er ikkje død, du er fortsatt min


Klapp dine hender. Klapp en siste gong

Tramp ditt trebein på golv av betong

Klokkene ringer, de ringer deg inn

Kom på mi side av di grind


Reis deg opp og kall deg for en mann

Nok er nok du snakker løgn, eg snakker sant
Om du har et siste ord får du drar

så spar de til du kommer ner til din far

Revision på riktigt, det får man väl säga att dagarna nu består av. Min krigiskhet gentemot mina skolämnen kommer dock i vågor, så jag växlar mellan att rasande mala mig igenom de matematikens tegelväggar jag trodde var omöjliga att ta sig förbi, och att sitta och slösurfa på ett internet där aktivitet tycks ha avstannat. Igår kväll var jag under en lång stund den enda från klassen som var online -- den sista att lämna det sjunkande skeppet HMS Verkligheten/Härligheten. Den sista av resistansen.

Men allt som kan sägas om examensproven och befintlig eller bristfällig oro gentemot dem har redan blivit sagt, så jag har ingen anledning att säga något mer om det. För att vara helt ärlig har jag ingen aning om jag har någon anledning att skriva här överhuvudtaget -- det skulle vara om någon av mina k. vänner tittar förbi mellan allt studerande. Om någon av k. vänner gör det får de gärna sätta en kort kråka i kommentarsspåret, ty om jag talar utan publik tillåter jag mig att göra det än mer irreguljärt och intrikat.

*

Jag drömde märkligt i natt. Jag var i Indien klädd som engelsk grenadjär, vilket vid tidpunkten kändes fullständigt logiskt -- jag var ju en sådan. I långa rader av rött, vitt och svart marscherade jag med kända såväl som okända kamrater uppför en kulle och vid det att man nådde krönet kunde man skåda över ett stort fält. Vid motsatta änden av fältet var en liknande kulle, nerför vilken soldater klädda i djupt mörkblått och vitt strömmade likt uppretade, förolämpade skogsmyror efter det att du maliciöst har satt din fot i deras stack.

Allt eftersom att vi passerar krönet börjar vi springa i nerförsbacken med bajonettandade gevär höjda, ur tusende strupar simultant "Huzzah!". Männen på andra sidan fältet skrek också, men larm och avstånd gjorde det omöjligt att urskilja vad de skrek, eller för den delen på vilket språk.

Vi nådde slutet av sluttningenoch gick på rak kollisionskurs med den motsatta styrkan. Jag undrade stilla -- samtidigt som jag var glad att jag inte sprang längst fram -- hur i hela världen jag hade hamnat där jag var. I en tidsmässig paradox undrade jag även vilken av styrkorna som skulle visa sig vara M/S Titanic och vilken som var isberget.

Impact, blod, larm och vrål av ilska, smärta och dödsångest. Efter att ha svingat min bajonett likt en galning en liten stund låg jag själv så småningom på marken och var lugnt medveten om att min röda rock var på väg att bli än mer djupröd. Larmet fortgick runtomkring mig. Likt en annan Riddar Roland hade jag dock gott om tid att tänka över liv, gärningar och öde och mitt drömjags tankar gick till hemmet. Via detta filmiska slut så berättades varför jag helt plötsligt var i Indialand i ett annat lands uniform -- vad annars än flykt? Flykt, från besvikelse. Flykt, från obesvarad kärlek. Flykt från verkligheten. En flykt med ett våldsamt slut.

*

Någonstans där dog jag, och vaknade alltså upp. Jag har börjat dö i mina drömmar oroväckande ofta på sistone, och att drömma sig igenom en perversion av Jobs Bok några gånger i veckan tar på krafterna. Hade jag trott på drömtydning hade jag varit mäkta orolig för omen om framtida djävulskap -- nu är jag istället smått orolig för min mentala hälsa. Att jag flyr från den gudsförgätna hålan i vilken jag bor, som jag har klagat så mycket på under två och ett halvt år att ingen i min omgivning ens tycks reagera längre, är uppenbart, accepterat och bortom allt tvivel. Så vad mer är det jag har att fly ifrån?

Jag har fler reflektioner, det brukar bli så efter märkliga drömmar, men de får vänta. De ligger på ett ganska personligt plan till och med för mig. Jag tar det när jag känner det som passande istället, beroende på hur kraftigt de pockar på.

Nog nu.

/wellington.

Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen

Beyond the palace hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard
The girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors
And the boys try to look so hard
The amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist
I wanna die with you Wendy on the streets tonight
In an everlasting kiss

The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive
Everybody's out on the run tonight but there's no place left to hide
Together Wendy we'll live with the sadness
I'll love you with all the madness in my soul
Someday girl I don't know when
we're gonna get to that place

Where we really want to go
and we'll walk in the sun

But till then tramps like us
baby we were born to run


The following post will not follow one coherent line of thought -- I'm rather emptying another bucket of thoughts and worries and reflections before it bursts.

It's intense days, these days. My tiny part of the blogosphere has gone eerily quiet for long periods of time as people, one by one, have left the sinking ship of reality and what we thought were our casual days for the gladiatorial battle that is the preparation for our exams. One of the reasons I'm writing here, now, is that I have no idea why I haven't yet. Another is that I was reading a post in Alex' blog about the exams and all things related to it, which inavoidably had my own mind snowball on me -- finally.

It's two weeks today. Two weeks isn't really anything. And a few of my more belligerent brain cells are screaming in uncontrolled panic at the prospect of exactly how much I need to have done before these two weeks are over, because this far I've done nigh on nothing. Some of the more quasi-bohemian brain cells are still longing for her, and have started drowning their sorrows by now. A few others want to play, or at least pluck, on the guitar. Most of them are in their normal want-mode: want to get out, want to drink beer, want to go to concert, want to meet friends, want life to be just a little more like it is on TV. The screaming ones are in a crushing minority.

I can't help but wondered what the hell happened to me. A few years ago I was an ambitious kid that was anxious -- no, scratch that, that wanted good grades. I was never anxious to get them, as they tended to show up anyway. By now I have my high school-grades looming at a burning horizon and I've got a hard time to raise any engagement. The good part is that my mind has not engaged in any heavier mindhumping yet; the bad is, of course, that I'm not really studying either. There always appears to be something else going on: window-washing, forcing sounds out of the guitar, writing, watching a movie, anything. Admittedly I'm not very encumbered by social activities though. The fact that almost all of my friends are facing the same vaguely defined Judgement Day as I am has lead to the social field resembling a scorched-earth Russia. Some activity is still popping up now and then though, and I'm cherishing every last bit of it. Admittedly, I chose a rather miserable time to start pursuing my social... pursuits, damned be my vocabulary. But such is life.

I can't help but think some about the future too. I bought myself some time with the decision to take a year of booze and brawling in Lund, but by the fall I will have to start making up my mind. Essentially there are two routes to go, namely Law or Politics. Salary or variable. Assured work or variable. Societal importance or variable.

Politics holds a little too many variables for me to feel entirely comfortable. In this very moment I'm leaning towards Law, courtesy of an hour-long rant I held at the dinner table yesterday evening regarding IPRED, the internet and file-sharing. It comes after a month-long lean towards Politics though, so I'm not holding my breath. Trying to choose between these two alternatives is like playing some perverted kind of ping pong, where the ball invariably goes back and forth beyond your control.

Indirectly, this brings me back to the issue of my ambitions. I wanted to change the world once but hey, who hasn't at some point. I'm immensely looking forward to university but I don't look forward to what's to come afterwards, as I just don't know what to do with myself. I don't care as much as before how the world remembers me -- if the world remembers me. I won't have had contact with a large part of it anyway. What matters in my legacy is how my friends remember me, and that I have a family that can remember me. A well-paid occupation comes with a lot of working hours, and that might be difficult to combine with giving your family the time it deserves.

Come to think of it, and I do now and then, that is all that I actually wish for myself: a family. A girl that I love who loves me in return with whom I live 'til the end of my days, a few children, a peaceful, although not necessary uneventful life. I could say "But I want to go travelling to!" but in reality, that will cost money I might not have. But if I've built a heaven for myself at home, it might not matter that I don't get to see the surrounding world.

So many decisions. So many stressful factors. So many dreams that want to be fulfilled, so many things to be done. I better be an endurable bastard, or I'll sink down gasping for breath halfway. Regardless of what path my life will one day take the exams seem to be the starting point of it: it is on those results that I'll get into a desired programme, it is with that programme I'll find an occupation, it is with that occupation that I'll define myself -- hopefully -- and earn money to shape my life with. The exams are indeed the starting point.

But come to think of it, they're not really any more than that. They won't say anything about me as a person, they will not in any way tell of what importance I will or will not be to the world. They are a tool to get into university and that's it. Junior high and high school are five years of grade craze and I'll rejoice having it out of my life. My final grade will of course matter, and if I get one I'm not content with I'll of course not be pleased. But it won't change me and it won't wreck my future, so it will affect me at most for a few months when I apply to Law or Politics. After that they fade into the obscurity of my memories. That is why I cannot be as anxious as I should be in order to get those fancy grades -- it just won't matter in a few years. The things I've learnt that matter to me have not been taught in school, I've found them elsewhere. I've found various interests, I've developed some talents, I've learnt a foreign language, I've learnt how to laugh, mourn and love. I've learnt what's important in life, and friendship is not dependant on grades.

As you might understand, my brain's not the best of studying buddies.

Two weeks... fourteen days. One of which I've now used half of. Two weeks, then the exams are upon us. And until then we'll be running. We were born to run, and we have all been running ever since we first entered the assembly hall as enpimpled, immature fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds to do the entrance tests.

We were born to run. Let's run the storm out and then let's run which ever direction we'll feel like. We are the broken heroes jamming the highway on our last chance powerdrive and we are the ones with no place left to hide, so let's just fucking run. Some day we'll have finished running and we'll get to the place where we really want to go and then, friends, we'll be walking in the sun. And the running just became a lot easier for me when I now realised that I'm running with the two and a half best years of my life in my back, together with people I'd gladly walk over both fire and water for. There just couldn't be better people to hit the street with.

Before I felt limp, now I'm actually starting to feel a bit belligerent. Born to run, baby, I was born to run and I was born to run for a long time after the end of the exams. Bring it on.

I was born for it.

Fuck it Springsteen, I love you.

/wellington.

Youngstown - Bruce Springsteen

When I die I don't want no part of heaven,
I would not do heaven's work well
I hope the devil comes and takes me to stand
in the fiery furnaces of hell
Någonstans i mitt undermedvetna undrade jag stilla hur jag egentligen hamnat där jag befann mig. Korridorer med luften tyngs av ångest över annalkande prövningar hade helt plötsligt bytts till flammande värme och sotflagor. Min stilla reflektion avbröts dock abrupt av att en sällsynt olägligt placerad hög granruskor plötsligt tog fyr bredvid mig, våldsamt och sprakande.

Ilsket svingande en enruska gjorde jag så gott jag kunde för att hålla linjen och inte låta elden sprida sig alltför nära skogsbrynet. Hade jag inte lyckats med det så hade uttrycket "hus i helvete" kunnat få en helt ny, rent filmiskt klar innebörd. Det löste sig dock, och jag hämtade istället en räfsa. Med ironiskt likartade rörelser spred jag nu istället elden: drev den emot mig, drog upp den till manshöga flammor, lät nytt gräs förtäras av infernot. I ett regn av sotflagor var jag djävulens trädgårsmästare med svett och adrenalin i mina tidigare blodfyllda ådror.

Till skillnad från mycket annat de senaste dagarna så var det här dock ingen mardröm - men de är en lång, trist och ganska obekväm historia som jag inte tänker tråka ut er med nu - utan en klar realitet. Att elda torrt gräs på en äng låter visserligen föga dramatiskt men det har sina poänger.

Att stå där när det var som mest intensivt och känna värmen på din hud så att det gick från att vara varmt till att svida till att brännas till att nästan spricka, alltmedan du kisar med ögonen och gör så gott du kan för att sprida det jämnt och låta hela marken få sin del av de slickande lågorna, gav mig en väldigt intressant känsla: jag slogs för min överlevnad, rent instinktivt. När du står där är du medveten om att det är du eller han, elden. Du är också fullt medveten om att det mycket väl kan gå åt helvete med lite otur eller om du inte sköter dig. Det överväldigande i situationen var att alla andra tankar var som bortblåsta: minnen av platser som Berlin och Skottland; tankar på vår, sol och vänskap; kärlek och glädje. Men ej heller stress över prestationer, eller brist på dem; ingen bitterhet över att ditt liv lett dig på vägar du inte önskar; ingen ånger över tavlan ditt liv har målat; ingen väntan på saker som emellanåt känns alldeles för långt fram i tiden; kanske allra mest, ingen hjärtskärande längtan efter sådant som är ouppnåeligt, orealistiskt och absurt, men som du ändå ägnar så mycket vaken tid att sukta efter. Det är du och elden, och det enda som spelar någon roll är din överlevnad, vilken allt annat är underordnad: såväl olycka och ångest, som en kvinnas vettlöst mjuka och sinnesförlamande beröring.

Vid elden, med elden, var jag mer djur än människa. I längden hade det inte varit så, men i det korta var det värt att släppa även allt som är gott, för att få slippa alla demoner om än för en kort stund.

Ibland undrar jag vilken riktning jag egentligen är på väg i.

/wellington.
 

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