Rodriguez at Royal Albert Hall

Went to see Rodriguez at Royal Albert Hall yesterday. It was a last minute things since Kirsten and her new boyfriend Pete were supposed to take his parents as a belated birthday gift. He got stuck on a plane though so I ended up going. With Kirsten and her new boyfriend parents. We had a lovely time, you can call me the parent whisperer.

The concert was amazing and very emotional. Rodriguez was led on stage by his daughter but once on there was an abundant of energy and so much love from the audience. The normally pretty stiff English people kept screaming ‘we love you’ and R bashfully joked ‘its only the drinks talking guys’.

It wasn’t. He was amazing and padded out his set list with old classics like La Bamba and had people dancing in the aisles between the seat. He looked the part in a top hat and vest and got asked for his number even though being past 70. 

But it was with Sugar Man he got the whole audience giving him a standing ovation when the song was over. I got a tear in my eye and kept thinking how far he has come and how amazing it is that he got the chance to experience this.

The modern, safer, version of the lighter. Peoples mobile phones making the room dance with light and this rocking 70 year old in the middle making a room dance, sing and scream I love you over and over again.

Sugarman

Eurovision 2015 – we did it!

If anyone missed it, Sweden won Eurovision!! That made Elins yearly party even more wonderfully weird, drunken and crazy colourful. It was an all in, guns blazing, margarita soaked Eurovision party worthy of celebrating a winner. 

An Elin party in other words…

No surprises that there was mandatory dress up with Tommy making drinks in some white extravaganza and pizza and snacks being served.

I cant speak for the rest but I was drunk 1 hour in and then just kept dancing for the following 8 hours of amazingness. Go Sweden!

I invited Jennifer and Felipe from work and made Jacke go. He was reluctant until he realised he got to go as Roger Pontare. Everyone is happy dressed up in a kaftan and indian head dress (especially on the tube with people dressed in actual kaftans). Look at his little mischievous face.

Greece (cyclops of course, also the reason for ouzo. For that alone he deserves instant death) and some probably famous tv presenter.

Roger Pontare living it up at the party.

Jennifer and Tom talking coffee, they are both really in to that stuff. I love serious conversations in ridiculous outfits.

Elin running the voting with an iron hand. There was also some betting. You got randomly assigned countries. I lost.

Marielle had dressed Anthony up in her clothes and they were a slightly less glitz and glam version of ABBA. Looking fashion though and that is what counts.

There are a lot of these pics to come. The crew borrowed my camera, turned on the flash, and made everyone look FASHIOON (and ugly – problem is you kind of have to be Kate Moss to pull that shit off, not a 30 something…)

Garth and me taking some ‘we have newly broken up from our relationships and look fab’ pictures. Well…

That pony tail (with matching face) is epic. I adore,

This is where ouzo went in and mind went out. It all goes (even more) down hill from here.

Another ‘we are pretty awesome’ pic (dont mind the fact that I woke up crying on the sofa from having fallen asleep in the middle of the party. Im awesome when my mind dont catch up with me)

These guys – cant understand im marrying them off soon.

Yes. Let this picture sink in. A Swedish girl in some indian head gear, a Colombian guy being made to do (not just watch but actually do) Eurovision. A Norwegian guy getting his hair done and an English guy in girls clothes. Did i mention it was an epic party.

Tommy fading. He went to bed 1, we danced on his sofa until 3. You cant win them all Tommy.

If me and Garth were channeling fabulousness Elias and me are going for the Nordic gloom.He is from Sortland, the tiny little place that was the big village close to the tiny, tiny place i packed fish in. There is some serious gloom the be had where he is from. Me, im just born that way.

Nah, just kidding. We are having a PARTY!!!!

Yes.

Flash again (see – not Kate Moss = 40 year old latvian)

Bleurgh (im running out of captions and the be honest, this is kind of what my mind was saying around here)

These are the ‘Sweden Fucking won people’ pictures. Clever. And stylish.

Jacke was Elins wing man in the voting and chasing people. Look how happy they are.

The winning picture. This is the faces of happy swedes feeling like we are best in the whole wide world at everything (its also called drunk).

More posing from fashion crew

And ill end this with some very happy dancy pictures

Good thing the neighbors didnt complain since we kept on playing every eurovision hit ever until 3 in the morning.

That was it, I woke up on Tomlins sofa the day after but ill write more about that when i can think again,

2 months, 8 weeks, 60 days, thousands of hours

2 months today. This is when you start counting months which is better than weeks and even better than days. Time is passing, we become a memory. I still wake up sometimes turning to your side of the bed wondering, feeling the emptiness but I no longer fall in on myself and cry. I hug Woolly and get on with the day. Because you have to.

2 months when spring turned into an early summer. When nature have exploded in green and the sun warms my face in the mornings. 2 months of sadness, loss, emptiness and a feeling of ‘I cant do this, I give up, Ill never leave bed again’. But also of a tentative feeling of hope, of friends and of Oliver an me making this work.

60 days i never want to experience again but that needed to happen.

Now, to the next 2 months. I hope i’ll be less sad, have a bit more energy, take some decisions that means good things and that i will really feel this summer. And be happy. I really hope for some happiness and laughter that means something.

Wilder Mind

I was out with Tommy and Jon last night. As always with my wing man Tom I drank a bit too much and had loads of fun. Jon told me crazy stories about sleeping with half the company and now moving to Canada to be with a girl he met 3 years ago. Who lives in the States. His thinking is that Canada is closer. He barely knows this girl but think she is the one. Its sweet. And a tad bit crazy. And Canada is still a fair bit away from America.

My best thing with hanging out with Tom is that he always puts things into perspective. He never tell me what to do, or that i need to cheer up. He just tell me stories that makes me do just that. He has a never ending amount of cautionary tales about all of his friends that make me bend over with laughter and think ‘shit, at least im not stuck in that’ (if you ever meet him ask the one about the guy and the chickens). And he believes in me. Whenever i talk sad he listens, gives me a beer and tells me ill be alright cause im awesome.

Sometimes that is all you need.

Between friends like Kix that comes with helpful advice and an understanding of Shit, Filippa sending me little pepping messages, Maggie and Sanna telling stories about their lives, Tommy giving me a beer and cheer up sweet girl and everyone else in my life believing in me ill be fine.

Dissolve Me

Life is a bit weird on all of us at the moment. Oliver and me are trying to get some routines in the pick up and leave of Wool as well as finding ways of hanging out, Jacke is living on a mattress in our living room (sometimes I miss my sofa bad) and are getting used to London and Im a bit spazzed out generally and trying to figure out what the hell im doing.

So yeah, you could say its one of those cross roads in life and im gearing up for things to happen. I know they need to, I just don’t know what the answer is. Its like my whole body is buzzing for a decision to be made. I keep asking my friends but they tell me nothing. Some say I could never move back to Sweden, that I would hate it there, others that I should just come home. People think I should change my job but some say stay and collect the money from the options. They are as confused as I am, lets face it, there are no clear answer to this.

My problem is I don’t trust myself to take decisions to make me happy. I have a habit of second guessing and regret. That whole concept of ‘its best what happened’ is hard when you tend to not trust your own judgment, that is why i love when others take decisions for me. (yes, i hear how this sounds and i get that i need to work on this stuff).

For the moment I just want to kick back like Woolla and sleep my way through it all. To be a dog…

A black hole and some weird ass dinner

Jacke made me dinner, he warned me before that he doesn’t cook. ‘How bad can it be’ i thought to myself. Well…impressive. Ready made burgers in tikka masala sauce with naan bread. At least I said no to the pasta J topped it off with. The american/indian/italian mix didn’t do it for me.

This make me appreciate my own lazy but organic A&C cooking. Speaking of which, we have found a black hole around our flat. This morning 2 inexplicable things happened. First one of the A&C boxes were missing – the meat one. Either someone stole it, the driver didnt deliver it or the black hole stole it.

The theory of the last ones got supported by the fact that J managed to lose the keys in the 30 cm drop from the shoe bench. They slipped through the tiles and were gone. Poff. We turned every shoe upside down and looked everywhere.

Telling you – a black hole. Somewhere in an alternative universe someone just got a key and meat box delivery. Hope they enjoy it.

Inside my heart it echoes empty

I don’t really want to write about how im feeling. I’m trying to not think about it, to shy away from it, to watch girlie movies and turn off. I feel like im repeating myself and nothing good can come out of it.

I wasn’t prepared for this, i thought it would be easier. This is really hard and im sad. That’s about the gist of it. Just really, bone weary, sad. That kind that make you not smile when you see something nice, that makes you dread seeing your friends and pretend and the kind that makes drinking dangerous because there is nothing in you that are really enjoying yourself.

I catch myself stopping in the middle of things not being able to push it down any longer and getting pulled under. I try really hard to fight it. I think happy thoughts, see my friends and try and take care of myself. I keep thinking its time and it will heal.

But, there is something at the bottom of this im trying to reach. Its the fact that i haven’t been truly happy in a long time. Its that something that made Ol and me end it in the first place, that undefined reason that make London so hard for me to be in but made me leave Stockholm. I don’t seem to be able to find peace. I wish I could find what it is I’m looking for but it keeps out of my reach.

When smack mid in my depression I kept feeling i was stuck behind this glass wall looking through at everything not being able to actually feel anything else than nothingness. Now, im feeling it with all my heart. It bleeds out in front of my eyes and I cry. All the time. I cry for Oliver and me but also for me. I cry for these years of unhappiness and struggle, I cry from the fear that it will never get better, I cry because i think I deserve better than feeling this sad all the time.

Its hard to find a way to fight sadness, especially when you have tried most of it. Hanging with my friends feel too bright, I feel too brittle, like they can see through the facade. Being on my own is lonely. Meeting new people feel so hollow and meaningless. So i end up drifting, always drifting to find my place and what it is keep looking for.

Spacing it at Rugby Sevens

Saturday was Rugby Sevens. I had no idea what to expect, though it would be some funny hats and maybe some face paint but it was full on, all in masquerade party true English style.

Me, Lollo and her colleague Holly met at mine and got ready. It was silver face paint and champagne. It all felt very carnival at university. I turned into a space version of the british flag with blue and red hair chalk.

Once we came to Twickenham it was filled up to the brim. Everyone was running around all over the place and we soon left our seats to go sit with Holly’s boyfriend and his friends.

Lollo was super happy about finding this Lundaesque party place and kept talking about what we were going to do next year. I just felt ‘why didnt i find this 10 years ago, Im about 5 years to old for this’. Anyway, it was FUN.

A vision of pale flesh. Love spring time. Honestly though, there was enough cider in my system by this time to not care about much else.

We did watch some rugby as well. I didnt understand a thing.

We also stole all the discarded outfits we could and run around the arena looking for people.

Eventually we found Holly’s boyfriends cute but oh so young friends. (that didnt stop Lollo, she pulled this young handsome boy. Good work her. me I drank ciders like someone who is going kamikaze on her heart)

Your standard post rugby sevens fall down on the ground. Told you, exactly like Uni. After this we went to one of the football clad boys house and drank some more. I went rock and roll on the evening and did an all in dressed up party night were I found myself at some party at midnight with no one i knew and decided it was time to go home. The clock stroke 12 and acid cinderella had to leave,

Woke up with a ping and some serious hang over come down at 6 the morning after and spent the day eating some epic food, watched about 6 girlie movies and took a walk with Ol and Wool. Yes, things are going not so well at the moment so focus will be to take it easier over the coming weeks.

Tired doggies and glamorous girls

Met up with Robbo after work last night. He showed me around their opulent show room. Did I want to own those all dresses? Yes. Do I want to marry an Arabian oil billionaire that it would take to own those dresses? Well, no.

Even if there will be no dresses for me I walked around feeling glamorous (or more like a naughty kid sniffing her mums dresses). We had a beer in his office and then went to Pix for dinner and a couple of drinks. Home early Robin being a dad (!!) and me getting home for Woolla. Times have changed.

Robin gave me some sound advice on about everything and I felt a bit like a lost kid listening to my elders (do you see the theme of feeling like a kid?) but also like great things will happen. Because they will.

Came home and got some mega loving from my dog. Hadn’t seen him in 2 days so we had some him and me time which means W licking my face for 15 minutes, me throwing his ball around for 5 and then him falling asleep on the bed. Snoozy doggie.

‘What mummy, me tired? No bruv, dont know what you are talking about.’

Jag saknar dig mindre och mindre

Jag går i vinterskor på hösten
Alltid förberedd för storm
Jag kan tänka tills det knappt finns nått kvar
Jag har känslor utan uppehåll
Jag har förlorat en tävling
Men vunnit ett val
Har bestämt att stå helt utanför det där som jag blir ledsen av

Jag saknar dig mindre och mindre
Det kommer annat emellan och det är bra
Jag saknar dig mindre och mindre
Jag har glömt dig en vacker dag

När jag träffat gamla vänner har jag ingenting att säga dem
Dem ställer för många frågor och jag, jag bidrar inte med nån
Och jag kan ångra det lilla jag säger
Eller dra ett allvarligt skämt
Jag tycker mig höra vad dem tänker
Är hon sådär jämt

Oh jag saknar dig mindre och mindre
Det kommer annat emellan och det är bra
Jag saknar dig mindre och mindre
Jag har glömt dig en vacker dag

Jag kan sitta själv i parken
Tills solen har ändrat färgen i mitt hår
Jag kan offra allt jag har för ingenting
Jag sträcker mig så långt det går
Men jag behöver dig kom hit och rör om

Jag behöver nått att skriva om

Jag saknar dig mindre och mindre
Det kommer annat emellan och det är bra
Jag saknar dig mindre och mindre
Jag har glömt dig en vacker dag
Jag saknar dig mindre och mindre
Det kommer annat emellan och det är bra
Jag saknar dig mindre och mindre
Jag har glömt dig en vacker dag

(Melissa Horn)