I'm going to start on my next project even though it's after nine p.m. It's always easier just to keep going once you've started. I'll do an hour or so tonight and make it easier on myself tomorrow. I'm writing this while I'm waiting for the file to open, it's a gigantic file. Gonna take me till next Thursday to translate. It's a manual about equipment at a nuclear power plant. A little bit nerve-wracking. Usually the quality of my translation is not a matter of life or death.

Lucy-cat is relaxing on a pillow on her chair next to me. The sky is grey and the tile roof of the building across from me is wet from rain, but birds are singing outside.

Last Friday I went out for "after work" with my partying neigborette and her partying aunt (who's the same age). Seven ladies and one guy had dinner, a few drinks and a lot of dancing. The ladies were good-looking and attracted some attention. A handsome gentleman from Ghana danced with me, bought me a beer and wanted to romance me all night and for the rest of my life. But he might just have been angling for a Swedish green card. Not that I'd blame him, I think people should be able to move freely across the world, but for someone from Ghana to get into Sweden permanently and legally is almost impossible. Best bet is to marry a Swedish citizen.

Saturday I took a road trip with mom in her little car. We drove half an hour into the countryside around Jackdawtown to a stately, oldfashioned villa where we saw a theater play in the garden. Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest was performed by the student theater group that Charles is in (Annie's guy). They looked so good in period costumes and big hats, and did such a wonderful job. A pleasant afternoon of tamed natural garden beauty, cultured giggles, and champagne in the intermission since it was their last performance.

I've had four colds, so I feel like I'm lagging behind, and I'm still very short of money, but otherwise things are looking fine. I finally felt like I could afford a haircut again, so I'm back to blonde and short haired. I left the co-op board and the feeling of freedom is just amazing. Freedom! What a relief. Should have done that long ago. I did two tarot readings last week and that always makes me feel good, gives me spiritual energy. It's funny, people always thank me for doing readings for them and they want to know if they should pay me (which I always refuse) or whatever, but in reality, they're doing me a favor. I try to tell them so but I don't think they believe me.

I'm keeping this entry short but hopefully I'll be back in less than seven weeks next time. :)

Last week was hell, so this week is bliss just by comparison. Last week I contracted what I will technically have to call a "cold," I guess, although in reality it was more like a horrible noisy debilitating lung consumption. I couldn't go grocery shopping because I was afraid I'd get faint and literally have to sit right down on the sidewalk. (My mom bought me groceries. Josie made me soup. Sweethearts!) At the same time I had to work like crazy to make a Friday deadline. Didn't make it, so I had to work the whole weekend too and just barely managed to deliver on Monday morning.

This week: healthy and stress free. And the sun is shining. Life is great!

My sister's husband Matt got inducted in the Tolkien Society. He joined my own people, the hobbits. As it happens we're arranging the next party in a few weeks. He's thrown himself into it and is clearly loving it. It's fun to see – aw, at the age of 40 he finally gets to play a little fairytale dress-up. About time!

Matt is a lot like me, a lot more so than my sister. Maybe that's one of the reasons she likes him? :) That's a nice thought, I'm keeping it.

We had this great Call of Cthulhu campaign, for years, me, Eve, Andy and three more people in the Tolkien Society. Now Andy has moved away to a village outside Jackdawtown and is married with a little daughter, two of the other people have moved to the same village as well, and Eve lives in Colorado and hates my guts and loathes the third person who was in the game. And still, even so, Andy wants to revive it, and I do too. That was such a great campaign, we had such great characters and our imaginations just clicked together and created a wonderful story. So he's setting it up on an RPG web site. I'm doing it. It will be interesting to see if Eve will go through with it too. The ways of the world are strange, eh?

I had a full work week and a great weekend. I hung out with Annie all day Saturday. We drove to the lake and dropped Charles off, he was going skating on the ice that was thick on the lake, and we drove on to an old mansion in the country that's now a cafe in beautiful surroundings by the lake with nature walks and horses. My family used to go there all the time when I was little. Lots of kids (and adults too) were sledding down the slope towards the frozen lake. People were ice skating with kids and dogs. It was a perfect day for it, cold and sunny, at least for a while. And we had perfect timing! Annie and I met up with Charles as he came in from the lake, and all three of us went for a walk on the wide, open floor of ice. The sun was shining but the sky was cloudy and looking very dramatic. The ice and snow reflected the light so the whole outdoors was like a big light therapy session. We saw lots of animal tracks, I'm guessing from roe deer and foxes.

Feeling very self-satisfied and rosy-cheeked, we headed back to town for afternoon lunch and coffee, just as it started to snow. Charlie was off for the evening so Annie and I hung out and lazed around, and actually got a couple of things done. She was supposed to nominate him to the Tolkien Society months ago (the only way to get in) and she had asked me to remind her to do it, but she just wasn't getting it done, so I decided to get it done on that day. You wouldn't believe all the trouble it caused her! Recommendations have to be in the form of a snail mail letter to a Society official. Well, she had no paper. What, are you kidding? No, apparently there really wasn't a scrap of paper in the entire apartment. Not even printer paper or a little pad for shopping lists. So I grabbed a paperback novel from a table and tore out one of those empty pages in the back (with her permission). Then she didn't know what to write. I just took a pen and wrote out the letter for her. Then she had no envelopes and no stamps. So we went over to my place, I put the letter in one of my envelopes, addressed it and put one of my stamps on it. And then we went to the mailbox and mailed it. God, what a production!

I slept late today and took it easy all day, and yet I managed to get stuff done today too. I love it when life works like that! I did laundry. Backed up files from my PC, freed up space on it and started defragmentation. Took care of some co-op business. Registered on that RPG web site where we're hoping to resume our Call of Cthulhu campaign. My mom came over and we had coffee and one of our meandering, interesting, whimsical, wayward discussions. The sun was shining outside for a little while. In the evening there was a pale new moon in the dark sky.

It's snowing. It's so great. We're getting a real winter this year. People are out skating and falling through the ice and sledding and skiing and stuff. I don't do any of that, I walk and ride my bike as usual, I don't change my habits and winter sports require such a lot of equipment. But I love it when it snows. You never get bored with the beauty of a snowfall.

This place has gone so quiet. Autumnhour disappeared months ago and now moonflowerz is on a long hiatus too. I worry about rayem. And I miss the people I left behind at GreatestJournal. Is it tapering out? Are we near the end? I know nothing lasts forever. Doesn't mean I can't feel sad about endings.

Josie has complained about guys before. They don't respect her boundaries and make her feel violated. To me it's obvious that strengthening her boundaries has been her main life project for years and that she's very easily emotionally violated by guys. It was slightly different this time because the guy in question, Greg, was someone that we both know equally. Neither of us knows him, we both met him at Joanie's party three weeks ago and then again at Annie's party last Saturday. He followed me home from Annie to have a therapy session with me, talked and talked and boy he needed to talk, there was no hanky-panky of any kind and he left at 6-7 in the morning. So while he did come on to Josie, I got to know him as a person a bit better than she did. So this time I couldn't quite accept her version of the story. "He came on too strong and literally screamed for her attention" - sure, he's desperate and not very sensitive, but Josie should know, like most grown women, how to handle situations like that. "She felt uneasy about what to do when he demanded a date from her" - what's the problem? Just say no. "She worried that he would think she's a bitch" - again, what's the problem? Lots of people I don't give a damn about think I'm a bitch. Doesn't bother me because I don't give a damn about them. "Guys like him can get threatening when rejected" - excuse me, Greg might be obnoxious but like I said, I got to know him too, and there was absolutely nothing to suggest that he would assault a woman physically. "Well no but you don't want to cause a scene at someone's party" - oh please Josie, come on. He was a bit loud and insensitive, but very far from causing a scene, and even if he did - his problem, not hers. His goof, not hers.

I guess she really does have a boundary problem, like she keeps saying. Why else would she assume responsibility for someone else's behavior?

I don't know. What kind of animal is she? She attracts men like flies to sugar, at least to hear her tell it. She dismisses them, picks a couple of them up, chews them up and spits them out. No one is good enough for her, and I really do get the strong impression that she doesn't WANT to be with anyone. So what's she doing? Guys going after her is all she can talk about. But it always sounds like a big problem and hassle and the worst, most stressful circumstance of her life. Was she sexually abused as a child or something? It's starting to feel like she's processing something very big and traumatic in her past.

She seems completely unable to relate to men as individuals, as people. Take Joanie's hubby - if he wasn't married she'd definitely be interested in him. He's goodlooking and a bit of a challenge, just her type. But since he's off limits, it's like he's dead to her. She never talks to him or about him. He holds no interest. And yet she thinks it's the men who are unable to relate to her as a person. I just realized this today - it's because she projects her own inability onto men.

It got a little weird today. She needed to process her intense sense of feeling encroached and threatened by Greg, and I, for the first time in our long experience of those kind of conversations, argued back, because I just couldn't accept the image she painted of the guy. She noticed too that something was off.

My friend G, who I travelled to Venice with in 2007, called a few months ago to tell me she'd been in a pretty bad accident. Today I went to see her for the first time since the accident (she lives in Stockholm). She broke her legs in several places and is in a wheelchair now and living in a care facility. When we were face to face she told me that it wasn't a traffic accident. She jumped down on the subway tracks.

She had psychotic schizophrenia or something like it many years ago and got better, but I realize now that I was too optimistic thinking that all her troubles were over, and that she can be smiley and happy and open and talkative (like today) and yet suddenly take a bad turn and start hearing voices and want to kill herself. This wasn't the first time she'd tried.

And yet, it was quite a nice visit. She seemed genuinely happy and fine, not in physical pain, very relieved to be alive. She's getting better all the time and I don't see why she shouldn't get out of that place sometime this year (but then again I have optimistic tendencies). She loves the staff there and sees the whole thing as a timeout in her life. I'm glad she was able to be honest with me about what happened, the fact that she jumped. She doesn't tell everybody but she chose to tell me. I'm glad I'm able to handle stuff like that now. When I was younger I'm not so sure how I would have reacted.

... I was working at my last place of employment, with the psycho bosses, and the problems that would eventually lead to my quitting had just begun.

... I had known Joanie for three months.

... Jen and Eve were my best friends.

... I was living in a dark, ground-floor apartment with a bedroom, a living room and a kitchenette.

... I had a black and white cat, my dear Old Kitty.

... I was starting out on the pagan path.

... I was already a translator.

A whole week without Internet connection. Several different unconnected problems happened at once, apparently. I appreciate my broadband so much now.

Today mom and I went for a drive to a castle in a nearby town with a huge, beautiful stone barn that's been turned into a big Yule market. There's a glassworks there too where you can blow your own glass, with lots of help from a pro of course. Mom's been wanting to do that since last time we were there, last Yule, so this time she did. She created a big round Yule tree decoration in grey-blue and orange, it looked very cool. Actually it had to cool down for two hours and then it was still warm to the touch. We philosophized a little over the fact that her breath was enclosed forever inside that glass ball, and if it doesn't get broken future archaeologists can use it to analyze her DNA and find out all about our air pollution.

We had a great day, I enjoyed it so much. It was a smart move going there early in the day, on a work day. No crowds. I got lots of stuff for my Yule party and a few Yule gifts too. A pair of Yule tree/window decorations with blue frosted glass hearts hanging inside thin silvery squares, they're for my sis and her hubby. A glass bowl from the castle glassworks, filled with quality chocolate, for dad and his wife. I know the chocolate's good because the guy who sold it made us each take a piece the minute we came to his stand. Everybody who sold something edible or drinkable did the same, in fact, and it was all sooo good, real quality products. Such a great place, I'm so glad I found it! And reasonable prices too, and some of the stuff had been marked down to become real finds. I got a golden Yule tree bauble and some Swiss chocolate for Annie. She's having a big tree this year for the first time since she moved away from home, and she's been buying decorations for weeks now.

Mom paid for the Yule party stuff, have I mentioned that she agreed to fund it this year? And I paid for the Yule gifts. I'm proud that I managed to keep up my embargo and got nothing for myself. Aaaalmost nothing. I have a tradition of getting a small marzipan log to reward myself with on the evening of Yule Eve, and there was this chocolate-covered, orange-flavored marzipan log that was SO DELICIOUS, I had to buy it. But that was it. I think I did pretty good! Next year I'll try to have more spending money on my trip there. :)

It's been tough financially for a while, but I'm seeing the light in the tunnel now, and the crisis has really brought a blessing too. I am totally on top of my economy now, better than I've ever been. I totally know I have no money. ;) No, I know exactly how much I've got, what bills I have to pay when and how to prioritize them, when more money will be coming in and how much... totally on top. Which is a bit complicated for someone who's self-employed and bills customers. My economy doesn't have the regularity of someone with an employment. This super-structured efficiency strangely takes away all anxiety about money and brings peace of mind. Sure, I'm poor, but I've examined the situation completely, taken all the steps I could take, and made a plan for the foreseeable future, and I know what's going to happen with my economy for the next few months. There's nothing more I can do and at least there will be no surprises. So I don't have to worry about it.

I will definitely try to keep this up when I get richer again. I want to keep this peaceful feeling.

I am loving the Yule spirit as always. My rowanberries are still soaking in vodka, I have the ingredients ready and I'll make the liqueur before Yule. I'll probably bake my own bread for the Yule lunch the day before. A long time ago I used to bake all my own bread because it was a real money-saver and because baking is a nice piece of magic around the house (which I enjoyed instinctively even though this was before I became a witch). Nothing fancy, just plain white wheat bread, always the same kind. I hadn't baked for years, though, until yesterday when I made sweet saffron rolls to take to the hobbit Yule party. It felt good to discover that I haven't forgotten the art. I easily got the dough exactly right, with just enough flour not to stick, and got a kick out of picking up the entire dough and tossing it between my hands.

So what's happened lately? I've shot a painting, danced to Kate Ryan, had Josie bleach my hair... I ate veggie garlic rice quite a few times, yummm! Been handling my work and my finances extremely well, hooray for me, and I've actually enjoyed November for probably the first time since 1998 when my mom and I went to Florida Keys. I work out three times a week and love it. It snowed a whole lot starting last weekend, and it looked completely Winter Wonderland for a few days, but it's all melted away now.

Last Saturday I woke up to a magical morning. It had snowed in the night and the morning light was painting the street and the sky in amazing, fragile pinks and blues. I happened to get up before the bell rang even, and when I looked out the window I had no thought of going back to bed. It was too wonderful to miss. In the afternoon Joanie and hubby had a mulled wine party at their cottage, Josie and I caught a ride there with Annie and Charles. The snow and the sun and the trees and the fireplace... I had a roasted marshmallow for the first time in my life and it was all great. And, oh yeah, we shot a painting. That's another one of those ideas that, apparently, Josie and Joanie and I had hatched sometime between four and five a.m. at Josie's infamous party. Josie had this painting of her and her previous boyfriend. The boyfriend was a complete louse, I've heard quite a lot about him and I've started to think he messed Josie up a lot actually, and the painting itself was really awful. How do you make someone as pretty as Josie look that fugly?? No artistic value whatsoever. It was done in connection with her work at University or something, I'm not sure. Anyway she hated it. So we decided, with that early morning party wisdom, to take it out to Joanie's cottage and kill it! Execute it six ways to Sunday! So many choices – they've got an airgun and an air-rifle, hatchets, fireplaces, saws... In the end we just peppered it with air-rifle bullets. All the adults at the party took a shot at it. I aimed for the sorry SOB's crotch and hit it dead on. Strangely exhilarating! And then Josie left the painting in Leo's playhouse.

I was supposed to visit a friend's birthday party between afternoon and evening, but when I got there they had moved, apparently, and I didn't have their new address or a cell phone. I'm living a cell phone-less life now because my old one stopped working and the new one that I ordered NEVER GETS HERE. I ordered it TWICE, no less! So I managed mostly by luck to find a bus stop and had to wait there for half an hour, but I actually enjoyed it because it started to snow again. More snowflakes falling from the black, silent sky, joining the pure white covering on the ground and glittering like only snow can... Just so beautiful!

I had dinner at Blue Moon Bar with Sylvie from my glee club, a guy she works with and her sister. After dinner we danced to DJ music, I love to dance and don't get to do it often enough – luckily for me it turned out both Sylvie and her sister love to dance too, so we rocked the place. Eventually Kate Ryan got on the little stage with two dancers and some singback equipment and did her hits, Voyage Voyage, Ella elle l'a, Désenchantée, and we, eh, we danced. Cool that a pretty well known star like her performed in this tiny bar in little Jackdawtown.

Sunday was beautiful, it snowed some more, and I took it easy. :)

It kept snowing Monday and Tuesday. It caused a lot of problems for people needing to get to work or school. Me, I had no trouble getting to work whatsoever. Seeing all that snow from my warm cosy apartment was very poetic and nice. Why in the world do people complain so much. ;) By Wednesday I had almost two feet of snow on my balcony. Lucy-cat was fascinated. She made leaps in the snow and tried to work out how to walk in it. My little snow leopard.

And on Thursday it all melted away. Bye bye snow. Wonder if we'll see any more of it this side of new year.

Oh, and a Jen update! Didn't think you'd hear more of those, did you? Sometimes it seems like a neverending story, even though the end is proclaimed at regular intervals. Wednesday I realized I really really needed that money that Jen owed me from way back, so I bit the bullet and wrote her a message.

"Hey! I hope you're doing fine! Normally I wouldn't bring this up, but my finances are really crashing, and you do owe me 520 SEK that I could really use right now. I'm not counting money that I spontaneously "loaned you" and never counted as loans – this is money that you explicitly asked to borrow at various times and promised to pay me back. I always put down in writing what I borrow and what people borrow from me. I think it was travel money and some other stuff, don't remember exactly, and the last note was from 23 April 2005. Of course your finances might be just as bad as mine :) and if so I don't require you to do the impossible. If you are able to pay the debt or part of it I'd appreciate it, otherwise it's just the way it is. I hope you're doing well and enjoying life. Me, I'm pretty happy except for the fact that my wallet is full of spiderwebs, but hopefully that's only temporary."

I really didn't know what response to expect. I thought the best I could hope for was just a deposit of the money, or some of it, without any accompanying message. I honestly thought she'd get upset.

She replied later that day:

"Hey! :)
I transferred the money already, it's no problem even though I'm poor too. As usual. ;)
I'm going home for Christmas so I'll be getting free food anyway. :D

In other news everything is OK, I'm getting some work training after Christmas, hopefully some some kind of park-keeping but we'll see. ;)

Think I'll be moving back to Jackdawtown eventually or at least not staying here, it's boring as hell. :P

Merry Christmas! The money should reach you tomorrow or Friday. Check it and let me know it went well! :)

--Jen"

She sounds almost happy to hear from me, don't you think? Even though my message was not exactly the most fun for her to get. So we exchanged three more short messages after that, just unimportant friendly stuff about Yule plans and our current favorites on YouTube and books. It's nice, it's like the ice of boycott has been broken and we could have some contact now, if we wanted.

Every night I go to bed around midnight even though I'm not tired. I'm just wired wrong. I always want to stay up longer and then sleep longer. A 28 or 30 hour day would suit me perfectly. I always lie on my right side to begin with, and Lucy-cat always goes to sleep between my arm and my body, half on top of me, half on top of the pillow that I always lean forward on. It's nice and warm and it's a sleeping cat, what's not to love, but I don't fall asleep that way. She sleeps like that for a couple of hours usually before I have to pull my arm out, and then I can pet her a little so that's nice, but after a while of that I really have to turn my whole body over. So she leaves the bed in a huff, I find a new comfortable position lying on my left side, and she comes back after a little while to sleep on my legs. (I have no idea why she finds that comfortable.) And then, finally, I sleep. Strange routine.

I got a nice compliment today. Hannah said I'm good to be around because I give her energy, cause her to get going and get stuff done. We had some tea downtown and talked about the gym I go to, on the street where I live, and then we walked over to the gym so she could get a membership right then and there. She had a baby earlier this year and wants to start working out again. She's got three kids and a husband and a job and tries to find time for friends and Tolkien activities and witchy stuff, and now gym as well. How do people do it?

I had a very lazy day today. I was going to just have a little afternoon coffee in front of the TV and then make myself useful, but Lucy-cat snuggled up on my lap and went to sleep. When that cat falls asleep she STAYS asleep. She will lie motionless for hours. So of course I had to suffer in silence and just stay on the couch. Most of the day slipped by without any job offers, something that makes me nervous at this time because I really need the money right now plus this business is very dependent on the general economic situation, and I live in fear that work is going to just dry up. But I did get an offer in the afternoon, so yay.

Got an email from Josie. Apparently I agreed, in the small hours of Sunday morning at her party, to let her bleach my hair. Now she's researched it and decided on a product and a method and seems raring to go. Give Josie an assignment and she will get it DONE. Apparently this decision included Joanie. Apparently I was supposed to return the favor somehow, but neither one of us can remember how. We're hoping Joanie does.

The weather is depressing, the worst face of November. Dark, it's been dark all day and pitch-black since four, rainy, a raw chill in the air. And yet I think I'll go for a walk. There is a full moon above those dreary clouds. Must be beautiful up there, the tops of the clouds lit up by the moon at her most powerful. Cold, but silvery.

My finances are totally crashed, in spooky communion with the world's, but I don't worry about it. It's just a liquidity crisis. I can borrow from my kind parents to get me over the hump, and since I've started working again and am loving it now, everything will fix itself over the next few months. And I've learned a few things from it. Like, always plan my vacations so I don't have to take emergency vacations whether I can afford them or not. I've decided to standardize: 2–3 weeks from just before Yule, and 3–4 weeks starting on Midsummer each year. Also, always consider myself poor and avoid all spending if I don't have 100,000 SEK sitting in my account. It sounds like a lot, I know, but being self-employed means my personal economy is quite different, and when I do get in trouble the amounts get quite large quite fast. I need that buffer. 100,000 SEK is the floor; everything above that is for spending. Also, I learned to keep a detailed economy log that must always be current, i.e. updated every time I receive or pay a bill, or receive or spend money, or send out invoices.

So the log is current, I'm not spending (not even buying songs on iTunes Store, just making a list of the songs I want), and I've got my Christmas vacation planned. :)

I made sloe liqueur today. The berries had been in the vodka for a month and this evening I mixed the brew with syrup of sugar. A few times in the past I've gotten a bit sloshed in the process, but this time I actually got it right straight away and hardly had to sample at all. Aw darn. ;) I filled one bottle for me, one for dad and his wife (dinner tomorrow) and one for Josie (birthday party). Great gift, always very appreciated, and goes perfectly with my no-spending policy. (Of course it's not free since it requires vodka, but I bought that before the policy!) Clear bottles to show off the lovely, deep purple color. I was careful not to shake the bottle while the berries were in, so the liqueur was completely free of gunk. Making liqueur is such fun. Mom and I were out picking rowanberries yesterday, so I should have that ready by Yule. God I'm looking forward to the Yule season!

I hate November, but this year it's unusually survivable. The reason is threefold. (Always love when I can use that word in a blog.) 1) I've discovered St. John's wort. Poor man's happy pill (doesn't require prescription). 2) There's an illumination project in Jackdawtown this month lighting up the city in new and fun ways. Makes a big difference actually! 3) I'm using the pink handbag that I bought months ago specifically for November use.

Joanie turned me into an ice hockey hooligan last week. I love watching hockey, but I've never been to an actual game. She has though! Her team, the Leksand Stars, came to Jackdawtown to play our own team, and we decided to go. She put on her Leksand Stars shirt and we went to stand with the Leksand supporters, of course. A great cheering section that was never quiet for long, and yet never chanted anything offensive or insulting. I had a blast! Now I'm a total Leksand fan. We decided to go to more games. Joanie hadn't been to one for three years and had an absolute blast too. Rarely seen her so excited. :) Oh, Leksand won the game, by the way. They're top of their division and usually win.

In other news, I went to a Tolkien party last Saturday where I had the rare opportunity to twist a dwarf's ear clean off. :D

Hmm, so what's going on? The projects started coming in again, so I'm working. Working right now in fact, on a weekend! I really try not to do that anymore, I feel happier keeping my weekends free, but I could name my own price on this one as long as they got it on Monday, and I really need the money right now, so... I'm making a bundle sacrificing my weekend.

I think I need a walk, though. The autumn evenings are starting to close in. Dark, cold, rainy... I feel trapped inside my apartment, restless... But the minute I go outside and smell the earthy air and feel the cool mist, I feel fine again. That prison feeling only exists behind closed windows. When I go outside into the night, it's not all that dark.

Wednesday evening Josie came upstairs and had some tea with me. She's dumped the guy from late summer and gotten involved with someone else. Oh, Josie. *eyes skyward* Oh well, everybody's gotta have their hobbies I suppose. I played some of the happy music I'd compiled for Joanie. Josie didn't think it was all that happy and volunteered to get some happy music of her own together. The more the better, I said, so when Joanie got here later in the evening there was a whole pile of music waiting for her. Josie's music was more silly disco, not to my taste, but I don't really know Joanie's taste and variety is the spice, they say.

Friday evening Amy and Joey came over to my place. Sis wanted the apartment to herself because she had people over from work. She's never chucked the kids out like that before and apparently eased her tender mother's conscience by letting them buy loads of snacks and candy, something she REALLY does not allow on a regular basis. So when they got here, they unloaded their loot, put Ghostbusters in the DVD player and pigged out. Later we went for a walk and rented Beetlejuice. (Which I could very conveniently return on the walk I'm about to take now.) So 80's ghost/comedy movies was a theme for the evening. Beetlejuice was weirder than I remembered.

I slept way too late today. The fact that I was supposed to be at my sis's house by two o'clock with a birthday present had sort of registered in one part of my brain, but apparently not in the part that was actually responsible for planning my day. The two parts didn't meet until sis rang and woke me up a few minutes after two. She didn't sound upset and said I could come another day. But I feel very silly. Have to make it up to her later. How embarrassing! I don't do things like that often these days.

Okay, off to take that walk now.

I'm back in the groove, ready and eager to work, but my timing is cataclysmastrophic. In August there was tons of work and I turned almost all of it down. Now there's nothing, not a peep. Riiight. *drums fingers on keyboard*

Just have to wait it out. In the meantime I got all my invoicing done. Installing Office on my new iMac would be the smart thing to do tomorrow, if there's no project in the mail.

I'm hungry! Maybe I'll make some garlic veggie rice, haven't had that in a long time. Joanie may be coming over later, she wants me to burn a CD of happy music for her. I sat all afternoon yesterday selecting music. I have no idea if she'll like it, but it's music that makes me happy anyway. :)

Affirmation – Savage Garden
Anywhere Is – Enya
Barbara Ann – The Beach Boys
Biology – Girls Aloud
Blame It on the Boogie – Jackson Five
Comfortably Numb – Scissor Sisters
Cursum Perficio – Enya
Freedom – George Michael
Good Vibrations – The Beach Boys
I Get Around – The Beach Boys
I get knocked down – Chumbawamba
I'm Still Standing – Elton John
It's Raining Men – The Weather Girls
Jump (For My Love) – The Pointer Sisters
Kyrie – Mr. Mister
Let Me Entertain You – Robbie Williams
Like a Prayer – Madonna
Om – Niklas Strömstedt
Personal Jesus – Depeche Mode
Poppa Joe – The sweet
Praise You – Fatboy Slim
Spirit Of The Hawk – Rednex
I'll Be Loving You Always - George Michael & Mary J Blige
This Is the Way – E-Type
Walking On Sunshine – Katrina & The Waves
What Have You Done – Within Temptation

I just realized another Swedish word that has no direct equivalent in English: duktig. To be duktig means to be a good boy or girl, to do your duty, to get things done that should be done. Practical Pig in Disney's Big Bad Wolf was named Brother Duktig in Sweden.

I need my inner Brother Duktig to wake up and get cracking. Each day it's my goal to do at least one duktig thing. Today I've done two! I delivered a project in the morning and applied for a loan in the afternoon. God, what a relief. I actually feel a little physical tingling in the skin of my face as the tension drains away.

Before the international financial crash the loan would have gone through without any trouble at all. My timing sucks. I expect it to go through, but if it doesn't I'm truly in for some interesting times here. Shudder... No, no, it will go through. And it's only money anyway.

Whoa, that whole loan application really took it out of me, mentally I mean. I deserve a reward and I need a break. Think I'll take a walk to the store and buy some of that extra delicious, extra expensive chocolate and have a long afternoon coffee break.

Swedish bachelorette parties usually involve lots of activities and surprises. One bride to be was driven to a street corner and given a map to follow, all alone, with directions to ring the bell at a certain door when she found it. An unknown woman in a witch hat opened the door with a "Welcome to the gingerbread house." The bachelorette was offered a cup of coffee and a tarot reading. She'd never had one before but had thought about it. The reading took an hour, was thorough and powerful and gave the bride to be some things to think about. The witch also learned a few new things from it. I usually do when I get to do a reading.

It was Josie who asked me to do the reading for a friend of hers who's getting married in two weeks. Fun idea and I think it worked out great. The bachelorette had already had a pretty fun-packed day when she came to my door. She got to sit down and get into a different mood for an hour, while the other girls got a breather to organize the evening's dinner. And I got a rare opportunity to use my witch hat. Heh. The poor girl had no idea what to expect when I opened the door, and I had made an effort to dress the part... She looked a little apprehensive. :)

Jen – you remember Jen, my former best friend who emailed me last September saying, put in the most diplomatic words, that she didn't want anything to do with me anymore? – Jen sent me a virtual rose for my birthday.

Hmm. Okay. That's nice of her. I sent one back.

I bought cake and made coffee. Didn't have the energy to make a big deal, but mom came over, and sis and her family, and Joanie with hubby and sister-in-law, and Lee, the widower after Joanie's sister. Annie and Charles couldn't come because of a theater production they're involved with at their student nation.

So few guests and yet they brought a whole pile of gifts. Lots of chocolate and fancy booze (Frangelico). An antique, beautiful blue glass bottle from mom, that one's going straight in my blue glass collection in my living room window. "Karma soap" (with a smiley face!) from sis. A little comic book about feminists, titled "Men are animals", from Lee. He's got a twisted sense of humor. He stayed behind when everyone else left to talk to me. He's intensely smart, a bit closed and shy, and sort of questing for meaning. His wife died 18 months ago and he's raising his little boy alone. He needs to reach out and communicate and connect. I enjoy talking to people like that. I think it helps him to do it.

It was a wonderful evening! But for reasons beyond my control, I had gotten way too much cake. Scary level of leftovers. Excuse me while I go have some afternoon tea with lots of cake.

So, will Barack Obama get assassinated?

From American Internet friends I hear some extremely disturbing news about the republicans' frame of mind. Rally attendees booed their own candidate John McCain for saying that Obama is a decent man and would do his job as president if elected. One republican has been quoted as saying that if Obama's elected, it will be the shortest presidency in history. Republicans are saying stuff like "kill him" and "traitor" and "danger to the country" and McCain and Palin aren't stopping it.

Martin Luther King... John F. Kennedy... Barack Obama?

You know, I think my mom is rather cool. Yesterday I needed her help. I asked her to come by around elevenish and just sit here for an hour or two, read a book or whatever, and make sure I got down to work instead of just wasting time. Many people would have questioned that with all kinds of, "Why? How can that help? What's the problem? What strange work habits do you have anyway? Maybe you shouldn't freelance? Maybe you should see a doctor? Maybe you should do this or that or change your life around in various ways?" My mom just said okay, turned up around eleven and did exactly what I asked. And it worked, just like I knew it would. I told her I thought she was cool for not questioning me, and she said she did wonder how it could help but she just trusted me to know what I need.

Last week Annie and I hatched a plan to do a little surprise party for Joanie, just because she's having a drab life lately, no complaints exactly but no fun either. We wanted to cheer her up. So we conspired with Joanie's hubby, went grocery shopping, spent Sunday morning cooking in Annie's kitchen, and then drove out to Joanie's cottage and lay in wait when Joanie and hubby got there Sunday afternoon. Turned out to be a great idea. Joanie hugged us and then became one with the couch, munching finger foods and holding out her glass for more bubbly at regular intervals. It was windy and rainy, we had a fire going, later we had Annie's yummy mincemeat pie, goofed around and relaxed.

My vacation is over, alas. This afternoon I finished and delivered the project that mom helped me get started on yesterday. Feels good. But really I would like a whole sabbatical year right about now.

My friend Hannah, the one with the birthday party who wanted to get to know her totem animal(s), was so eager to explore the spiritual that she spent over an hour apart from her 7-month-old son for the first time to come and have a talk with me. It went great. She comes from Christianity originally (the Church of Sweden variety which is quite different from many US varieties) and had the same basic views as me, as it turned out. I gave her a visualization exercise to do on her own later, lent her a couple of books, talked about drum journeys and trances and ceremonies and the basic correspondences (compass points, elements, meanings, colors, symbols). She discovered two totem animals of hers right then and there. I felt very satisfied and I think she did too.

And I did manage to convert Josie to Torchwood after all. She borrowed my DVDs last weekend and watched the whole two seasons over the week. She doesn't adore Captain Jack quite as much as me but she likes the show. Heheh. I caught one. :)

The sun was shining today and with protection from the wind it was warm enough to sit outside, which Joanie and I did on our regular lunch. She and hubby had been energized by our little surprise party, apparently, and actually started looking for a place to have the very, very belated wedding party that they've been promising for a couple of years now. They got married the summer before last with only family members present, so they've been promising to make it up to everybody by having a big party for their friends here in Jackdawtown. On the whole Joanie was in a much better mood than last week. She kept making very inappropriate, butt-related jokes that were really funny and really inappropriate and made me choke on my latte. Ahh, Joanie at her best. ;)

For several months I've been low, then in August I had an artificial high because of Torchwood, then low again. This is what happens to me when I get unbalanced: I get paralysed. Apathetic. Unable to get anything done. And that's where I've been for a long time. But finally I'm struggling out of it. I'm starting to see the light again. Just another week, and if I keep going in the right direction, I'll be fine.

That's a good thing, because I'm heading towards a financial collapse. I'm supposed to pay tax and VAT on the 12th of every month. It's the 27th of September now and I still haven't paid all the money for September, quite a lot of money... and just about now I should also pay all my bills for the end of the month and I have no money to do that. There will be a little money coming in at the end of October, and after that nothing unless I start working and invoicing pretty soon. So there's a financial crisis building up here.

But. I don't worry about it. I've been in this situation before and it's not so bad, as long as I know I'll be able to keep working in the future. I can always catch up. I might have to mortgage my apartment a little more to deal with this situation, but there's no worry. It's only mortgaged to about 50% of its market value right now so I should be able to get another loan without any trouble at all.

The important thing is how I feel, and I feel like I'm breaking through the surface. I feel like I'm finally in tune with the greater influences. Next week the moon will start to wax again, and I'll be right there with it, gathering energy and getting ready to go back to work.

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day, and I called mom so we could go on a mushroom expedition.

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