Hello Dear Zagars

Two of my great uncles in Detroit. 

Bachelors4life.

When life was carefree

Ha. No, it never was. But, the day that this picture was taken was a rather lovely day. I wish I was then, because today I lost my keys, and tracked them the fuck down in the middle of the snow/gravel/slush-covered sidewalk. Don't get me wrong. I am very happy I found them. But back when this picture was taken, I'd never thought I'd entertain thoughts of St. Zita, the patron saint of lost keys.

It's not so much that I don't want to think about St. Zita, but that in searching a list of patronages, I found that:
Clotilde (what a fucking name)
Louise de Marillac
Matilda
and
Monica

are the patron saints of disappointing children.

THIS EXEMPLIFIES EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD AND MAKES ME HATE PEOPLE. herregud.

please, let me go back to the day from the picture above, where sour-ass perverts and biontches hadn't corrupted my brain with the knowledge that there are patron saints of "disappointing children."

Usch, usch, usch.

90 days of challenge. 90 days of 90 days jokes.

Today I started another blog with a friend of mine. I haven't decided yet if I will post a link to it here. Anyways, we are doing a 90 days challenge, which I had thought to start this past Monday, but didn't manage so well. Then I met my friend for a trip to the planetarium (saw jupiter's belts! and 4 biggest moons!) and told her about it, and she was so damn excited, that we are doing it together and it began today with an hours exercise walk early in the morning. Which right now is 7:30. But since the days are rapidly increasing in length (almost 7 minutes per day!) we will hopefully be getting up even earlier to do the daily walk.

So. 90 days challenge to live like we wanna live, to turn those desires into the habits of a healthier lifestyle.... or so we plan.

I also 1) applied for swedish citizenship today, which cost 1500 kronor, and 2) bought a new (used) bike. Even though spring has come waaaaaaay to early for 63 degrees north, there is still a lot of ice all over the ground, and I am totally scared biking on it. So much so that I might actually start wearing my helmet. 

I love my kitchen.

There is something to be said for moving out of an apartment you hate into an apartment you love: as much I'd like to say that I would be happy anywhere, it's a damn lie.

Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed Plus

Today is my birthday. 31 years old and not much to show for it, however you measure. But that's okay! Before me came the likes of Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed. I often think about the woman's uniform, and how strange it must be, if I could realize it, to not be skirted my whole life - unlike the daughter of Captian Sir St Vincent Hawkins-Whitshed, 3rd Baronet, who mountain climbed in style (From the Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum):

And aaah, such elegance! When you are thirsty, you're thirsty. From National Geographic, by Kenneth D. Smith. Taken in New Hampshire, and not Mzzz. Hawkins-Whitshed.

Getting ready.

And listening to my new favorite podcast: Lexicon Valley.

And there's also this:
Play nice.

Hello, Dear Zagar!

Hello, Dear Zagar!

Cabin Porn

Gaaahhh, I am obsessed with Cabin Porn

Uncle Darrell

I made this a few weeks ago, and then forgot about it. *Sigh* I should have released it out into the webosphere (well, via facebook) when it was still relevant. Hard times in the 3 day memecycle.

My Moment of Zen

A broken heart feels like a heart on a grill. When you have a broken heart from love, the flames are really high and crazy and the heart gets burnt to a crisp relatively fast, and then it becomes a lump of hardened carbon which eventually turns into ash. The process is a lot slower when you are broken-hearted over a diminished friendship. There are no flames, just coals. The heart is grilled slower, but more thoroughly. The change to ash may never come - and within the change to ash resides catharsis. Ash can be blown away in the wind. So, since the heart never gets turned to ash, in the case of a broken friendship heart, it instead just stays in its hardened, slow-cooked state forever. Until it slowly rots and breaks down.

Friend, I miss you. My heart aches for you, as it's roasted over the coals of what's come between us.

Please don't stfu

I was sort of thinking, as you can see by the long pause, that maybe I should retreat into myself. However, for a person like myself this is a particularly bad idea. It is far better to allow one canal to exist, like a stent in the heart, to keep the blood flowing. Or rather, in my case, in the brain. My problems are thankfully not in the heart, just in the brain (just and just!). So, I guess I will continue this blog, although, I sort of wish that instead of a blog this was a communiqué written over several decades, in blank verse. Maybe it would have been sent to a relative, a cousin, say, back in the old country.


Finally, this first post in months deserves some food.

Here is my best lunch in weeks:

Whole wheat rye round with turkish yogurt, fresh mint leaves, an egg fried with paprika and cayenne, vegetables, and green harissa. Would that I could eat this everyday.

It is important to keep things in perspective.

Today I got to go on a tour of my university's book bindery (is that what it's called in English?) which made me realize that I might just try to get a job there instead of being a librarian or whatever.  I say "whatever" because it is basically impossible to get a job as a librarian here.  Anyways, it was SOOOOO completely awesome.  About 10 years ago I had a great short term job in the art department for Colorbok, making prototypes for the stationary and little bookies and funny little things there.  This type of work is like, the less silly and more official version of that, so I would love to work as I book binderer.  Bindist?
Next up, a really interesting lecture about the evolution of preserved writing/press/books, where we got to look at old ass books from the 1400s to the 1800s.  Including a Gustav Vasa Bible (above), which was the first version of the bible in Swedish.  Even my heathen and generally bible-hating heart can appreciate the word of god in this form (I mean, I do love books).  Apparently this thing cost about 7 horses when new!  We also got to look at several other books, including a little mini book about 5x3x0.5 inches in size, (or maybe smaller), about Cicero, from the 1700s - one of the first "pocket books" made in Sweden and another book worth about 200,000 dollars, made in pre-chapter and pre-paragraph indentation times... some time in the 1400s.  The man who donated it to the library bought it for about 50 dollars sometime in the 1940s, and it was by far in the best condition of all the books we looked at.  I got to feel the paper, and it was so sturdy and... fresh looking.  The print job and the paper combined looked like something bought from a really expensive paper shop nowadays.  It was fantastically made and preserved.

The lecture ended with the following piece of work - a job announcement from the University of Göttingen, 1748.  I'll try my best at translation.

Competency requirements under the hand-press era could be very high, which Matthias Gessner, a librarian at the University of Göttningen in 1748, gave expression for:
"He (the librarian) must have a noble and generous heart, which can overcome his avarice, and who is able to put the library's interest above his own.  He shall have a kind attitude towards library borrowers/patrons and the ability to give them good service.  He shall also have a feeling for beauty, accuracy and cleanliness.


He must have mastery of Latin, Greek, French, Italian, English, Spanish as well as the other biblical languages.  He must be able to understand the nordic languages and be able to work with documents in German dialects, middle-ages Latin and the Slavic languages.  Yet, most important are  abilities/understanding of the history of learning.  The librarian shall not merely know author's names and titles of representative work, and know which editions are best:  he shall also be able to show that he has knowledge within all branches of science.

Beauty Saturday

Warning!  This post has to do with my skin.

This is take-two after the first picture I placed here was a bit ghost-facey.  But look at my hair!  Although it looks lightened, this is really just a product of two things.  First, the shitty light sensor in my webcam, and second, a cheap beauty product diy bender.

Let me explain.  Every once in a while I read about all the toxic chemicals in beauty products these days and some of those times, I feel determined to take matters into my own hands.  I never do it, that is, until today when I checked the health rating of my face lotion here.  This prompted me into a google chain-search from home made face lotion to "the oil cleansing method" to castor oil for keratosis pilaris, a skin condition I have.   So out I went into the world, to buy a bottle of castor oil and a jar of coconut oil (my new remedy for my skin condition), and the ingredients to wash my face with oil - the "oil cleansing method."  Health toxicity craziness aside (I really tend to not give a shit after the first 5 minutes of thinking about this stuff. I mean, while I don't want my future kids to develop a third eye from too much ingestion of whatever, trying to live without absorbing crazy chemicals is completely futile), while a good chunk of my practical behavior would seem to say that I don't care or don't like to take the time to care about how I look, there is a good 35% of me that wants to try to care.  And I would also like to try to care in the cheapest way possible.  This led to:

Regimen


Oil swishing of teeth with sunflower oil - is backed by research actually using the scientific method!  I read several pieces of source material this morning, but I mostly wanted to try it because it seemed so weird.  I did, however, gag and almost throw-up approximately 6 times.

Oil wash of face with olive oil - meh

Oil wash of face with mix of coconut oil and castor oil - very sticky

Hair wash with only cider vinegar and baking soda (bikarbonat) - like washing with sand!

Lotioning myself with coconut oil/castor oil mix - almost painfully sticky

Results

Can't really say anything about the bacteria count in my mouth, so I'll hop over the oil swishing.

Oil wash with olive oil - I didn't really do this right, so I was naturally a little underwhelmed.

Oil wash with coconut oil and castor oil - actually pretty amazing because my face feels clean and not dried out, but doesn't feel greasy at all.  I even put on a light patting of the mix on my face after I showered, as my face felt a little dry after wiping away with a towel (google "oil cleansing method"). No visible blackheads on my nose (where I usually see them), and no shininess where I am usually shiny from oil production after washing with soap.  TMI?  Sorry.

Hair wash with vinegar and baking soda - see above picture!  I had been wanting to do this for awhile mostly just to see but also because all the harsh sulfates in shampoo make me itch like crazy (i use very simple soap without lathering sulfates for this reason - although I have a few shower gels I really like and use occasionally for their smell).  SO, my hair feels all light and fluffy in a good way, and is not at all dried out even though it sort of looks like it in the picture, and most importantly, it is not greasy or dirty feeling in any way.  It basically feels great.

Lotioning - this was rather difficult.  It felt like I was trying to pull my skin off because the castor oil is so thick it creates a load of weird friction.  But the oil soaked in rather well, I'm not greasy, and I assume it will take some time to help with the keratosis pilaris, so I'll have to get back about that later.  I did rub pure castor oil into a scar I have on my shin, which is about a year old.   Maybe I should take before and after shots to see if the scar really does fade over time.  The most important thing is: I am not itchy!  I am usually always itchy after showering from getting dried out, even after putting on regular lotion.

Conclusions 


While I'm down a lot of money from recently buying a new jar of regular face lotion on top of today's purchases, today's purchases were still cheaper than the regular face lotion and will probably last 3 times as long.  I am super happy that I do not feel greasy or itchy, but this whole process took more than an hour, which is a lot to ask of someone who only can seem to care about 35% of the time.

Don't ask me for a definition of "the time."

UPDATE:  I really feel like I should add that I was particularly not-clean before all this.  I hadn't washed my hair in maybe 4 or 5 days (whereas I usually wash it every 3 days at the most) and had also sprayed in dry shampoo earlier in the morning before I went out to buy this stuff.  My dry shampoo, although it works, tends to make the hair feel dirtier, with a coating of weird chemicals, even though it looks better.  I also hadn't washed my face with soap in probably 2.5 days, although I do frequently wash with just water and a wash cloth.