Teenage Dream

I think I have a crush on my Physics teacher.

I have not got a new teacher or anything: He's the same one I've had since the beginning of the term. He hasn't changed his hair, or his style of dress, or gotten contacts instead of glasses. But the other day, he was gonna demonstrate how to charge things up with electrons, and he touched my hair.

I'm sure it was unintentional. The comb he held was supposed to tear electrons from my hair and become negatively charged, which would be the reason that hair becomes electric.

Today I couldn't stop looking at him. The way his eyes crinkle when he smiles, the look he gets on his face when he's trying to figure something out.

I'm so fucked.

Just love

Reflections from the deeps of boredom

After a long night of nightmares, it was even more of a struggle than usual to get my bony ass out of bed. But love and behold, I succeded! Thus I find myself outside the chem classroom, waiting for our kick ass teacher to arrive and blogging to waste time.

On my way to school I saw a poster announcing that the In Flames guitarist Niclas Engelin will come here on the 16th of December to hold a clinic. I'm so going, unless it's just for High School students... In which case I'll pose as one and go anyway.

But yeah... Sitting here watching the younger ones of our species, I find myself so glad I'm not seventeen anymore. Yusch. Never again.

I'm trying to remember the point of this post, but... I guess there was none. Perhaps I'll remember during class. Anyhow, have a rockin' day, lads!

xoxo,
Einstein

RIP, Hickstead

My heart is breaking for Eric Lamaze and his beloved Hickstead, who passed away during the WC in Verona today. It was a shock to see it on tv, and I can't imagine what those closest to Hickstead must be going through.

Rest in peace, Hickstead.

Don't fall asleep to dream

It's hard not to have someone to talk to. Especially when you're used to having your other half, the person you can talk to about everything, on the floor above you. I've never really depended on my friends, and always thought it a bother when they wanted to hang out all the frickin' time. I had my sister: I never really thought about what I would when she wasn't around anymore.

Okay, she isn't dead, but she's not here, and it doesn't really matter that she's across the country in Stockholm; It doesn't matter that it only takes a few hours by train to get there, and it doesn't matter that I can call her. She's not here.

She's just... not here.

The truth is that ever since she left, I've been struggling with myself every day. The Fluoxetin doesn't seem to be doing its job anymore. I haven't been to school in over a week, I've skipped a really important exam and lied about it, I have two tests coming up next week I haven't even begun studying for, and no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to pull myself together. I feel like I'm losing control of everything, but I can't talk to anyone about it. My friends are busy with their lives: I know they'd come running the moment they suspected something was wrong, but I don't want to burden them. I can't talk to my mom, my dad, or my grandma, because they think I'm just playing it up. The looks they exchange behind my back hurt. The way they don't really have any faith in me hurts.

I even skipped band practice last week - the one thing that makes me feel better - because I felt slightly under the weather and thought I was coming down with a cold. Instead of hanging out with Joanna and Annelie, I spent my evening in front of the tv watching "16 and pregnant". Such a bloody waste of time.

I just... What do you do when you feel like everything you've worked so hard for is falling apart? How do you fight something you can't even see, something that seems permanently fixed in your mind, and that takes you down when you least expect it?

I don't want to be a whiny bitch. I want to be strong, and brave, and all those other qualities I admire in people I know and want to meet. I want to get into med school and play music and talk about writing lyrics with Rufus Wainwright.

I want everything to stop hurting. I just want the world to go away.
that I can visit her every once in a whilewhen you're used to always have people around you, and then find yourself without

the U of the S of the A: Summary

Helloooo Lovelies! What y'all been up to these past months?

Hopefully, your summers have been wonderful, and you've spent your days sleeping in and eating more ice-cream than your stomachs can bear. If not... Well, your loss, I guess.

As for me, I've been extremely busy running barefoot through the forrest, and staying up all night watching Criminal Minds. I've also made several attempts at figuring out what to do next, and after I had a breakdown at work and was told by my doctor that I was abnormal, I've felt much better. Of course, that could be thanks to the barbs I was put on, but hey, whatever makes life easier, right?



So anyway... I wrapped up my "Where the wild things are"-summer with a trip to the City of Angels, where I planned on riding the bus around town all day, camp outside Billie Joe Armstrong's house, grow a mustache and take a photo at the walk of fame, and last but not least, visit all the cool clubs and music venues I've heard so much about. Unfortunately, I didn't take into account that the legal drinking age in the States is twenty-one, and after several failed attempts at getting passed the security guards, I was forced to admit defeat. While my new-found american friends went out drinking and partying, I stayed in with a Milka bar and the first crappy Anne Rice-book I've ever read.

Another thing which made my US trip a pain in the ass was the fact that you really couldn't get around by taking the bus. Used as I am to people being to lazy for public transport, I honestly thought people were just being stupid when saying that you had to have a car to get around in LA. Sadly, I was proven wrong, and after spending two frickin' hours on five buses to get from Hermosa Beach to Santa Monica, I gave up and decided to stay in the vicinity of Hermosa, unless offered a ride. If I had gone to LA with a friend, I might have considered renting a car, but as it was, 29 bucks/day for a car felt like overkill.

So what did I end up doing, then? The short answer to that is three walks to Redondo Beach (where me and my friend Angelika was attacked by a seagull, which was pretty hilarious - Especially after she started referring to the bird as "Black Death"), one day spent at the beach, an acoustic concert at Fat Face Hennesey's (Sorry if I got the name wrong) and several trips to Fro-Jo. If nothing else, I'm nowadays a huge fan of Frozen Yoghurt!

Yeah... The trip didn't quite go the way I thought it would, but as I sit here writing this, it feels pretty okay. My main purpose for this first US experience - To decide whether I would like to study in LA or not - was realized, and it feels strange to admit that I no longer have any desire whatsoever to go to school in LA. The city is just to... much for me, I guess. I want something more artsy and free-spirited, a town where the public transport system actually works and a big fat dose of rock culture awaits 'round the corner. According to most people I met in Hermosa, San Fran should be my kind of place. So the next time I go to the US, I'm going to make sure I spend some time in Helena, Montana, first, before heading to San Fran, New Orleans, and New York City.

So, that's my trip in a nutshell. I'll make sure to post some pictures, and a hilarious video of Angelika trying to read Swedish, as soon as I get some time to spare. Now I'm off to watch the Dog Whisperer. Peace out,

Xoxo,
Jay

Gay marriage passes in NY State!

I have never expressed my opinion on gay rights in a public forum, and (so far) never participated in a Pride Parade either, but the subject is still close to my heart, and I think I did a little Victory dance when I was met by the following article on Yahoo's homepage.


"ALBANY, New York (Reuters) – Governor Andrew Cuomo made same-sex marriages legal in New York on Friday, a key victory for gay rights ahead of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections.

New York will become the sixth and most populous U.S. state to allow gay marriage. State senators voted 33-29 on Friday evening to approve marriage equality legislation and Cuomo, a Democrat who had introduced the measure, signed it into law.

"This vote today will send a message across the country. This is the way to go, the time to do it is now, and it is achievable; it's no longer a dream or an aspiration. I think you're going to see a rapid evolution," Cuomo, who is in his first year of office, told a news conference.

"We reached a new level of social justice," he said.

Same-sex weddings can start taking place in New York in 30 days, though religious institutions and nonprofit groups with religious affiliations will not be compelled to officiate at such ceremonies. The legislation also gives gay couples the right to divorce.

"I have to define doing the right thing as treating all persons with equality and that equality includes within the definition of marriage," Republican Senator Stephen Saland said before the bill was passed. He was one of four Republicans to vote for the legislation.

Cheers erupted in the Senate gallery in the state capital Albany and among a crowd of several hundred people who gathered outside New York City's Stonewall Inn, where a police raid in 1969 sparked the modern gay rights movement.

"It's about time. I want to get married. I want the same rights as anyone else," Caroline Jaeger, 36, a student, who was outside the Stonewall Inn.

But New York's Catholic bishops said they were "deeply disappointed and troubled" by the passage of the bill.

"We always treat our homosexual brothers and sisters with respect, dignity and love. But we just as strongly affirm that marriage is the joining of one man and one woman," the state's Catholic Conference said in a statement.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an advocate for gay marriage who lobbied state lawmakers in recent weeks, said the vote was an "historic triumph for equality and freedom."

"Together, we have taken the next big step on our national journey toward a more perfect union," he said in a statement.

ELECTION ISSUE

President Barack Obama, who attended a fund-raiser in New York on Thursday for Gay Pride Week, has a nuanced stance on gay issues. Experts say he could risk alienating large portions of the electorate if he came out strongly in favor of such matters as gay marriage before the 2012 elections.

During the 2008 election, Obama picked up important support from Evangelicals, Catholics, Latinos and African-Americans, some of whom oppose gay marriage, which has become a contentious social issue being fought state-by-state.

In California a judge last year overturned a ban on gay marriage, but no weddings can take place while the decision is being appealed. It could set national policy if the case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court.

Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage, and Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois and New Jersey approved civil unions. The first legal same-sex marriages in the United States took place in Massachusetts in 2004.

But gay marriage is banned in 39 states.

In New York a recent Siena poll found 58 percent of New Yorkers support gay marriage, while nationally the U.S. public is nearly evenly split, with 45 percent in favor and 46 percent opposed, according to a Pew Research poll released last month.

New York City's marketing and tourism group NYC & Company said it was gearing up to turn the city into "the gay weddings destination." "The new legislation is good news for the City's $31 billion travel and tourism industry," said NYC & Company Chief Executive George Fertitta.

New York's Democrat-dominated Assembly voted 80-63 in favor of gay marriage last week and passed the amended legislation on Friday 82-47.

A key sticking point had been over an exemption that would allow religious officials to refuse to perform services or lend space for same-sex weddings. Most Republicans were concerned the legal protection was not strong enough, so legislative leaders worked with Cuomo to amend his original bill.

"God, not Albany, settled the definition of marriage a long time ago," said Senator Ruben Diaz Sr., a Pentecostal minister and the only Democrat to vote against the measure.

However, fears of a slew of litigation arising from a possible religious exemption to New York's proposed same-sex marriage law are not borne out by experience with similar laws in other states, legal experts say."

Catchin' up with life, part 1

Hi y'all,

So, it seems this whole "at least one post a week"- thing's really working out for me... NOT! Despite the fact that I've had countless of hours on my hands since February (which is when I created this blog), for some reason or another I haven't posted a single thing.

Guess I should start with taking my hat off in remembrance of Gary Moore, who passed away earlier this year.

As those of you who know me (or read this blog...) know, I was dead set on starting at Tech Music School in March. I had so many hopes and dreams hanging on that course, and though I realize it might be hard for someone who hasn't been out of work for two years to understand the stigma of it, I truly viewed this course - and the move to the UK - as the one thing that could set me back on track. To kill my nervousness, I spent the time before departure with cleaning my room, boxing up all the things I didn't want anyone to touch (hell, I would've boxed up my bed, if it had been possible), and doing everything but practicing the guitar. It was really very typical of me - And I've always been this way. I do something for a few weeks, and I really go in for it, but then, once I've actually started to notice some improvement, I get bored and justify my not continuing the routine with having so much else to do. To my defense, there really was a lot of preparations to be made - like finding a place to live.

Because I've been out of work since graduating High School, and haven't been eligible to claim benefits (for reasons I'm not about to bring up here), I've been living off of my credit card and the occasional, parental hand-out for a pathetically long time. I've had no savings to speak off, and so when it came down to finding a place to live, I really found myself stuck between a rock and a hard place. While there was a sensible part of me that realized the stupidity of trying to rent something without viewing it (hell knows what I'd have to live with, and its not like you can demand a month-to month contract), the poor part of me was well aware that I simply didn't have the finances needed to stay in a motel for a week or two while looking for housing. I wouldn't be able to afford the deposit and "two months rent in advance" most renters/rental agents required either, and when there was a month left until the "move", and the only agent I'd been in contact with was unable to find anything cheaper than studios for £1000 a month excluding bills, I was beginning to feel desperate. I wanted to do the course so badly, but I couldn't head off without having a place to stay, and if there was something I refused (and still do) to lower myself to, it was asking my parents for money.

Then one day when I was checking my mail, I found an e-mail from two Finnish girls who was already doing courses at Tech, and who had an extra bedroom in their house which they wanted to rent out. Since the room looked just fine in the pictures and the rent was very reasonable - £350 a month with bills (Hey, it's London we're talking about - apparently, people pay £500 a month for a closet space and find that completely agreeable) - I made the (I realize now) dumb decision to move in with them. No required deposit, roommates that spoke swedish and seemed nice enough - It really did feel like all my problems were suddenly solved.

The next problem I had to adress was the fact that I had to bring my own guitar, and since my Fender Squier was broken - and I had this really moronic idea about not being able to bring such a cheap ass guitar with me to a music school - I decided to butcher my credit card and buy a new guitar. At the time, it made sense to me, and I remember thinking that if I had to buy a new guitar anyway, I might as well buy the guitar off my dreams: A Gibson Les Paul Studio in Alpine White with Silver/chrome hardware. They go for about 10.000 SEK (approximately $1200) at discount at my local music shop, and since I had seen the guitar advertised on their webpage for months, I waited until the very last moment to call the shop (Obviously, this had something to do with me not being able to explain the appearance of a new guitar to my parents...). It wasn't exactly the nicest surprise to hear that "my" guitar was out of stock everywhere (meaning all over Europe), and that I had to write myself up on a waiting list if I wanted any chance of getting one. According to the salesman, they had stopped making the white guitars in the 1990's, and only recently began manufacturing them again, so there was an extremely high demand. He advised me that I should prepare to wait for at least six months, maybe more. Joy.

So the only guitar I really wanted wasn't available, but since I knew I was going to buy one as soon as they became available, it felt like such a waste of money to have to spend a couple of hundred dollars on a guitar I didn't want anyway. All the shops I contacted though, both in Sweden and abroad, gave me the same answer: There was a several months waiting list, and there was no way I'd be able to aquire a new one before that time.

As it turns out though, "never say never" is quite a fitting expression, because a day later I stumbled across an ad on Ebay about the guitar in question, which was being sold by a guitar store in the Stated for $1100 including Shipping. Of course, I didn't have the money, and it was Ebay: Anytime, someone could put in an offer and snatch the guitar - My guitar! - up. My desperation knew no limits, and I raided every account and credit card I had, and when I in the end still came up $70 short, my grandma (whom I more than anything on this earth, and not just because she gives me money!) came to the rescue and loaned me the rest. Now, I have never bought anything on Ebay before, so I bugged the hell out of the seller with the most idiotic questions, before I finally put in an offer and managed to pay for the guitar (There was some more anxiety involving Paypal not accepting my payment, but yeah, it worked out in the end).

Since it seemed very unnecessary to ship the guitar to Sweden and pay to bring it on the plane to London, I decided to have it sent to an acquaintance of mine who already lived in London. Of course this tripped me up later, but that's a story for another time!

Under the weather

"I have two problems with the Christian faith: Christians, and faith".
- Anonymous friend, 2008

... And that pretty much sums up how I feel about having to practice on a regular basis, and not just be able to sit down with the guitar and write a hit song.

The past two days have been emotionally turbulent, and it kicked off with me waking up in a pissier than pissed mode on Wednesday, hating everything and everyone. Add an empty fridge, powerless sockets, and a stalker poodle, and you might realize I was not a fun person to be around that day. Since practicing is of such importance to me (not really) and I'm gonna have to practice day and night to feel like I'm enough prepared for Guitar-X (God dammit, I used to get soo good at things in just a week as a kid), I had no choice but to hunt down a working socket - which I so happened to find in my gran's bedroom - and drag all my gear down to her apartment. An hour later I was so sick of myself, my worthless playing and my evil fretting hand (It's cramping up just to spite me, that fucker) I all but threw the guitar out the window. Trying to reason with myself is also like fighting an already lost battle. While there's one part of me that's convinced there's no point to keep practicing when I can't focus on anything but being mad, there's a stubborn voice inside my head that counters with an incessant nagging about how Robert Smith never would have put the guitar down just because he was having a bad day, or how Freddie Mercury would have gone on stage to sing even if he had just had his tonsils removed. Finally, I end up becoming so anxious I just shut down for the rest of the day, wasting all those precious hours doing absolutely nothing.

Luckily, my thursday started out slightly better with the arrival of my Welcome pack from TMS. Though it was missing the Guitar-X catalogue (which I kind of assumed would be included, since it's a welcome pack and all), it gave me some joy to leaf through the pre-course information and fill in all the contracts. But as I sent off the last contract, I was hit with nothing less than hysteria. It all suddenly became so frighteningly real, and all I could think about was how I'd never managed to finish anything in the past. I worried, and worry, about absolutely everything - Not being good enough, getting kicked out, not making friends, not finding a place to live, failing my exams, getting hit by a bus (Do you also read the "look right" on the street and automatically look left?)... The list is endless. And since me and my "parents" aren't currently (or ever) talking, there's really nobody I can discuss things with.

Ever since I graduated from High School and became "stuck" at home, unable to get a job, I have been on the verge of breaking down every single day. I feel worthless, useless, like I'll never be able to accomplish anything, and most of the time, I want nothing more than to get a chance to move off and start my own life. And now when that chance - the right chance - is lurking just around the corner, I feel like a little girl who wants her mommy. I'm terrified that I'll let myself and everybody else (nobody really approves of this course - they think it's stupid and a total waste of money, but still) down.

I CAN'T FAIL. Not again. It has to work out.

It just has to.

Why girls shouldn't play guitar

The Copystrats (Ville to the left, & Sarah's Burswood to the right)

Although I'm aware that a Fender Squier isn't the most valuable instrument, my boy Ville has a great personal value to me. After I had finished practicing yesterday, I so decided to give "Ville" a quick clean, and since I wasn't sure I'd be able to get the strings back in place were I to remove them, I attempted to clean around them, which worked just fine...

Until I took a look at the guitar an hour later and realized that a piece of the nut was missing.

I admit it, I totally freaked out. I blame this on the fact that I have no experience with having my guitars repaired (aside from that one time when they told me at the store that repairing any guitar worth less than 500 bucks was a waste of time), and that practice is of such importance to me right now. If I can't practice, I can't go to Tech Music School: If I can't go to Tech Music School, I'll be forced to continue living at home and put my dreams on hold: If I have to put my dreams on hold any longer, I'll have no choice but to enroll at the local university to become a... I dunno, social worker or something.

And I swear, I feel like I'd rather die than have that happen to me.

Luckily, the situation worked out after a couple of hours, thanks to my best friend Sarah agreeing to lend me her guitar until I could buy myself a new one or have Ville's nut (add an "s" and it'll be hilarious!) replaced. I went over to her place today and picked the guitar up, which was in good shape, some dirt and a missing high E string aside. I spent the rest of the night polishing it up, and then I decided I'd try to remove the high E-string from Ville and put it on Sarah's guitar instead. This worked out great as well, until I tried to straighten out the part of the string that had been wrapped around the tuning peg and broke it off. This resulted in the string becoming way to short, so now I have to head into town tomorrow and pick up not just one, but two new strings.

Sometimes I kind of hate myself.