This is what happens when you’re bearded, watching a really boring movie and your hands are a bit restless.

A beautiful day outside. Sunny, clear bright-blue skies, just a degree or two below freezing. Huge white snowpiles. It’s wonderful. When it’s days like these I have no problems remembering why I love living where I do, and I have no trouble enjoying winter.

I took these photos yesterday, actually. But the weather today is the same, except a lot less windy. Yesterday it was gusting quite heavily – today it’s completely calm. Today you can feel the suns rays warming your face.

Jag känner mig väldigt vilse i mitt liv. Behöver hjälp, vård, omtanke. Jag känner mig som ett rådjur som tittar förskräckt in i lyktorna på den snabbt annalkande långtradaren.

Det jobbigaste är att jag inte orkar skriva om hur jag mår, för det känns för stort, och för att jag inte längre känner att jag har orden eller orken att skriva om det samt (och det här är nästan värst av allt) att jag inte längre känner att jag litar på min egen blogg.

Det är knappt jag orkar prata om det heller, för den delen. Jag skulle behöva nån som tog hand om mitt liv åt mig, medan jag återhämtade min styrka.

Efter nio år känns det bara så tröstlöst…

Idag har jag varit på utvärdering på psyket, inför min framtida behandling.

Det var smärtsamt, men skönt att få bollen i rullning.

The last week saw a large bit of controversy in the housing cooperative where I own my apartment. In Sweden co-ops are organized into something called “Bostadsrätter” and are traditionally organized into non-profit communities that act as a legal entity. This organization takes is responsible for the communal areas (laundry rooms, mowing lawns, etc) as well as making sure the property and houses are maintained and cared for. As with most organizations these have a board and the members vote and assign the members of the board. It’s not particularly complicated.

However, this last week two members of the board felt that they had the right to dictate how people decorated their patios and exteriors. The area I live in consists not only of apartment-housings, but also of duplexed houses in rows. These have exterior patios, and as with any place where people live they tend to become rather personalized and individual. People park their bikes there, decorate them individually with lights, furniture and flowers. Nothing special.

Well, apparently two of the board-members felt that the area needed a more uniform look and took it upon themselves to remove flowers, bicycles and whatever other ornamentations they felt violated the “proper” look and feel of the area. Flowers were thrown away without informing the owner of the unit it belonged to, bikes were moved away to other areas and furniture was removed without warning.

Essentially people woke up one morning to find that someone had removed their stuff. When it was found out that two members of the board had done this –with the arrogant attitude that they somehow had the right to do it– well, to call it a “shitstorm” would be quite an understatement.

I attended a meeting the other day where outraged apartment and duplex-owners asked why the board felt it stood above not just common ethics but also the law itself. The two board-members who had performed this heinous act refused to justify their actions with any response other than maintaining the attitude that the area needed a uniform look and feel to keep property values at the current (somewhat high) levels. They did not feel that they had broken any rules or laws, and maintained the opinion that people had themselves to blame for not presenting a uniform appearance outside of their homes.

When I asked if the two persons felt that they (as representatives of the board) were entitled to additionally step into our homes and start dictating how we arranged our furniture, what clothing we wore, or how we cooked our meals in order to maintain a certain “look and feel” of the community, I was met with very avoiding answers and a general stonewalling from not only the two members of the board – but from the entire board itself. Most other members of the community who attended the meeting agreed with me – where did the right to individuality and privacy end simply because the board-members felt they were entitled to arbitrarily throw peoples stuff away?

I left the meeting feeling that it was probably just a matter of time before board-members would use a master-key to enter our homes making sure we didn’t break away from the uniform look and feel they felt we should present to visitors.

—

Except of course, this never happened. I’m just feeling more and more that what’s happening in this country on (and the whole world!) is that individuality is less and less appreciated. Rather than encouraging individuality, we’re forcing people to conform to a homogeneous ideal. I simply used the concept of my housing cooperative to explore the concept.

We’re surrounded by politicians and corporations who feel more and more threatened by us and by the Internet.

The corporations (most obviously represented by the media-maffia) feel threatened since people now have the power to distribute their own creative works with none or very little cost. This threatens a business-model that’s built on not creating anything, but by controlling the flow of creativity from others. The Internet has rendered record companies virtually obsolete, since musicians now can distribute their own music.

Politicians feel threatened by the Internet since it allows limitless communication. No longer do we have to rely on the filtered and controlled information that they allow us through controlled outlets such as radio and television. Instead we can communicate endlessly, and with immediate reaction. Blogs and chats and direct interaction between citizens threaten to overthrow their empire of bureaucracy. This is unacceptable for them, since they want to maintain the status quo where they can use a system they control against the majority of the citizens.

Add to this mix a lot of greed and stupidity and you have a recipe for a dystopian future where the most amazing invention humankind has ever created (the Internet) is being used to control the vast majority for the benefit of a small clique of self-appointed elite.

One of the most common thing proponents of a draconian society uses is the phrase “if you’re clean you have nothing to worry about… ” which implies that if you’re a law-abiding citizen you should simply accept this invasion of privacy and loss of rights they’re trying to push on you.

Imagine a future society where everything you do is monitored. Not even George Orwell in his wildest imagination could’ve dreamt up such a horrible dystopia, and it’s all thanks to corporations and politicians corrupting the beautiful internet for their own hidden agendas.

It could start innocently enough. Think about it, virtually every computer today has a webcam – either built-in or attached through a cable. What if some politicians decided that every webcam had to be monitored via a government-installed piece of software? Just to make sure that you’re a law-abiding citizen. I mean, if you’re law-abiding you have nothing to hide, right? Just install the software and we won’t suspect you of anything. If you don’t install it, then that automatically means you have something to hide, and they will decide without informing you what kind of freak you are – even though you just wanted to maintain the right to privacy.

This is why you need to vote for your local Pirate party. If there is none, you need to start one. Before it’s too late, before commercial and political interests have corrupted our society into the one I describe above.

The summer is over. One of the minor annoyances with living this far up north on the globe we call home is that the summers are short and intense. Sure, we get high temperatures and can enjoy shorts-weather, but the window is limited. End of May until end of August.

Before the end of May there’s the neurotic and twitchy north-swedish spring. After the end of August the slow and dull north-swedish fall takes over.

Well, it’s not all bad. September is a great month actually. Leaves turn into sparkling oranges, yellows and browns. But October is a wet and dull month, at least here in Umeå. November, the snow still hasn’t arrived in full and that means an intense and very harsh cold until the snow might finally wrap the surroundings in white.

But now it’s September. It’s been an intense summer, and while I feel a slight pang of sorrow for not doing some of the things I set out to do, I’m trying to enjoy September for what it is. It’s a cool month, literally. I try to take a walk each day, and even if they’re not always of the long variety there’s always at least an hour or two when I’m not at home.

Today is the exception.

However, that doesn’t stop my beloved cat from enjoying the balcony. Even though she’s limited to the apartment she sure does enjoy the balcony. At least once a day –if the weather is bright– she scratches the door and insists on sauntering outside to sit in one of my awful plastic chairs for a bit. Every time I imagine that if she smoked, she’d have one of those yellow french Galois-cigarettes attached to a slender mouthpiece, like some diva from the 1920s might. She’d sit out there, enjoying the fall-sun, taking in the fresh air while ignoring the irony of how she pollutes the same with her cigarette. Because that’s how cats function. They accept the paradox. Just like I imagine a 1920s style diva might accept the very same paradox.

Idag är det på dagen ett år sen jag officiellt flyttade in här i min trevliga lägenhet. Egentligen är det lite plus också, jag flyttade den sista Augusti men officiellt flyttade jag in här den 1a September förra året.

Känns bra. I början var jag faktiskt lite osäker på om jag skulle trivas, men det precis som alla andra ställen jag har bott på under mitt vuxna liv har det bara tagit lite tid innan det blivit ett hem för mig. Tveklöst är det här också det finaste hemmet jag bott i sedan jag flyttade hemifrån, även om den förra lägenheten också var fin så var den inte riktigt “mig”.

Jag hoppas fler vänner hälsar på mig under hösten bara

I’ve just finished watching the movie based on the novel “Män Som Hatar Kvinnor” (loosely translated: Men Who Hate Women), the first part of the so-called Millenium-trilogy.

Now, I admit that I have very low expectations of Swedish film, but to my own surprise this one managed to engage me, and I’m actually looking forward to the next part. Not really interested in reading the books though, but who knows?

Anyhoo, one thing in this movie is the same thing that always annoys me when it comes to movies: Magic Computers.

I grow tired of movie-makers who use computers as a simple device to not have to explain their plot-advances. It’s literally a Deus Ex Machina where the director, writer and producer simply have to say “computers” and the audience goes “aaaah, right” and asks no more questions.

As a self-proclaimed hacker and computer-enthusiast this annoys me to no end. Sure, fine. I’m okay with scifi-movies in the far distant future which might bear little resemblence to computers today, but every time I see a brand-new Mac or PC or whatever that doesn’t behave like an actual computer it annoys me.

Especially if a contemporary computer appears, yet has been dressed up with magical abilities and sound-effects. $DEITY, does it ever annoy me! If I had a US$ for every time I see a magic computer in some movie, I’d probably have at least fifty bucks by now. They’re everywhere. If I ever make a movie, I’ll make damn sure to not include magic computers.

Rather than having the spunky yet mysterious heroine tapping away at a keyboard then triumphantly deliver a crystal-clear picture of the perpetrator, or calling in some low-life with “hacker skills” and less-than-impressive social skills who can break the [whatever], I’ll have her sigh in resignation and report to the other hero that it’s [whatever] and simply cannot be broken by hammering away at the keyboard.

Today I went to the beach. It was sunny, lovely and wonderful. Despite being a bit tired it was nice to lie there and relax. The sun was hot, the weather was nice and there was just enough people to make me a slight bit too shy to dive into the water.

Quite lovely.