RAW

The stage:

Eskilstuna, club RAW

The cast:

Most of Kattis’ friends and her mother.

The plot:

My first encounter with abovementioned.

The theme:

Bloc Party – The Prayer

The scene:

Sissela, a friend of my girlfriend, was to celebrate her birthday by throwing a big party – inviting friends near, far and dear.

She had rented parts of the club RAW and decided on a dress code for the evening: Black. I would be lying if I were not to admit my (justified) nervousness for the evening which was to come, as I had not met any of the people invited (and they were supposedly all very curious to see and meet Kattis’ new boyfriend).

I had a lot of expectations on me.

.

I had been looking forward to going there though, make no mistake about that. I had heard good things about the people I was to meet and it would also be my first time in Eskilstuna, the hometown of my teenage idol band KENT (which I’ll admit liking these days as well, even if I’m not fully in tune with the choices they made for change on their latest album).

I was thrilled.

On the train there we ran into a pair of the “men in black” (only the were not men, nor dressed entirely in black) and I got a chanse to get an idea of what the company for the evening was gonna be like.

Again; I was thrilled.

This was gonna be great.

Upon arriving we waited at the station for a moment to meet Kattis’ mom, who was in town. I did not accidentally nor intentionally knock her unconscious and the encounter went about as good as it could. She seemed like a good mother, judging from the 120 second impression I got (and all the good things Kattis has had to say bout her when telling me about her family, which is plentiful).

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We then went on a brief walk home to Masja to meet up with another bunch of friends and prepare for the actual party. Another pleasant, albeit not wholly unexpected, surprise when it turned out they were all kind and interesting people as well. Masha had some nice window-glass glasses à la indie which I had an instant crush on and got to borrow. We drank cheap wine of varying taste and color and listened to Nouvelle Vague, April March and Chick Habit, amongst others.

Then we went out for some

.

Obviously it was awesome.

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I had a lot of fun upon realizing how most people at RAW got their first impression of me while I was wearing those borrowed glasses.

Some of Kattis’ friends decided to have a bit of a questioning with me. They are all very concerned with her wellbeing and of course I do not blame them for it, considering how her past relationships have been and ended. It felt easing to know she had such caring friends.

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After all the dancing (and the dancing was plentiful, as I had been starving for way too long and couldn’t bring myself to stop even when my body was telling me it had had enough) we proceeded home to Sissela and Martin’s place, who were our hosts this fine night. We ate, freshened up, talked and inevitably slept. In the morning I effectively nullified all the friendship and trust I had struggeled so to build up by more or less throwing a wrestling technique on our soundly sleeping host and hostess. I’m not sure why I made that clearly-not-optimal choise, but on the other hand: Why not? At least it gives me the chanse to re-do the whole thing, right? (smiling).

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Feb’ 14. Valentine’s day. Sun was shining and we were trying to enjoy it with our hangover-gaze.

Feb’ 14. Niklas’ birthday. He would have turned 27, if I’m not mistaken.

I felt very malplaced, but tried my best not to ponder the somewhat bizarre situation too much. Resulting in me nearly passing out while looking at an exhibition. I then went back home to Örebro, while Kattis stayed in Eskilstuna to eat with her own and Niklas’ parents at a local restaurant.

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Later in the evening she came home and we took a warm bath, feasting on chocolate.

A good end to a good weekend.

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That’s how it is.

I hope you are all doing well and look forward to bring you whatever it is you keep coming back for. Untill then:

No pasa nada,

no te preocupes!

Unconquered lands

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So the exhibition in Stockholm was a bit of a disappointment.

The gallery was just the right size, my hanging felt representative and the artwork was well worth any attention the Swedish capital could possibly offer.

The only problem was that it did not offer a whole lot of attention.

And frankly put I cannot blame anyone, as the streets were more or less a paraphrase to a giant slushy. There were ankle-deep water-graves at the crossings and the chill went right into the spine. Who in the world would want to waltz out in the streets and stumble upon some art in weather like that?!

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On top of that I caught a cold which lasted for almost the whole week, so the few visitors that did come did not get to chat to me about the art as much as I had hoped to.

.

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Still, there are a lot of good things in my bag of memories as well – my stay at Carro’s apartment and hooking up with Sara being the best.

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Here are a handful of photos from the exhibition:

_____

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The bull and the red dress

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So Kattis sent me one of those hand-written letters…

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That tends to be a bad thing.

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Or rather, you can count on it being sincere.

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And it was. The sort of letter saying “If you’re going to try, go all the way” or don’t bother trying – she wanted us to jump in with both feet into this if we would keep seeing each other.

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I thought of it for a moment. Checked my heart, brain and body for any objections or traces of doubt.

It felt very clear that this was something I truly wanted to do, with all of me.

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I wrote a letter in return and then went to bed, as I had to get up at 5 am the following day. See, it would be my first time at the APU  of the medical education I’m attending, so I was both fairly thrilled and equally anxious.

While I can’t and wont share (m)any details of what was going on in the old people’s home I can share how it was a surprisingly pleasant experience – both thanks to the kind elders in my care and my ace co-workers.

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As I went by bike across town in the afternoon, to Kattis’ school, I found myself smiling and singing Håkan Hellström’s song Precis som Romeo in the sunshine. It was a fine day and I was set on setting things straight with Kattis and make her understand how I truly wanted to discriminate the whole world for her sake – treating them with less love than I would share with her.

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You know in movies and musicals where people are happy and the whole worlds just smiles at them and high-fives them as they pass by? That’s how it was.

Literary.

As I rolled down a narrow street some punks blocked the way. As they took note of me they tried their best to step aside, greeting me with a joy-filled “Lovely day, isnt it?”, raising their palms for me to press as I rode by.

“Indeed it is!”

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It all felt very filmistic fantastic.

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In the end Romeo got his Juliet and the morning after I woke up with her snoozing in my embrace, telling her how I’m hers now.

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(the bull in the diary is a shadow we made out to resemble a bull on a cliff, overlooking the ocean. Actually it’s some towels casting a shadow from a candle next to her bathtub. The title of the diary is the name of some poems I once wrote. Poems I am fairly confident will not make themselves reminded with her, as they are about something I need to overcome in order to commit to a relationship. I won’t charge relentlessly at just about anything henna-colored from now on.)

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Manhandling

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While I do not care to any degree worthy of mention about censoring my own private life I do feel obliged to show the genuine care I feel for the person with whom I share said “private life”, and as such; this will be the first “compromised” diary where I have chosen to blur parts of the text.

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Mina fingrar
smeker henne
- spelar -
som vore hon
ett instrument
uppspänt
framför mig

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Orkestrerar
hennes andetag

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väver in riff
av flämtningar
när mina naglar
rispar tunna,
rosiga fåror
för hennes svett
att söka sig
igenom

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Lägger basgångar
av tunga andetag
när mina fingertoppar
tränger in
bland hennes
blodkärlskransar

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En brygga
som bryter
när hennes våta läppar
öppnar upp
under påfrestningen
av min lätta
beröring

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Hennes toner når
ingen
annan
när hon fyller
min säng
med hennes sång
av lust
och åtrå

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Ett nocturne
för tvåsamhet

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To avoid any confusion:

No,

the picture does not portray Rosso, and in actuality “they” do in no way resemble each other.

Yes,

I have taken some “artistic liberties” with how I portrayed the actual person.

No,

there is no violence related to the picture.

(my knees simply could not handle the friction, and the rest of the body couldn’t care less about the knees!)

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All in all, this is a story most of you will never actually get to hear about, for once!

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