Paving with good intentions

I'm pretty sure that you're all fed up with anecdotes about me failing at adult life so let me share what happens when I do the responsible and mature thing.

At the end of April I will be going to London. To achieve that I will most likely have to flash my passport to a surly British fellow with a stiff upper lip one way or another. My passport expires in march. This I have memorized. Being the mature and responsible man that I am I have planned to apply for a new passport this week. Go me! Planning!

Monday came around early this week, actually an hour early because of the Daylight Savings. If there's something I need early in my life it's not Mondays. Boobs on the other hand. Maybe we can have some kind of exchange program? Boobs for Mondays?

As I got on the bus to work I found that our CFO (Chief Financial Officer, the man with the dough, the man that keeps track of the economics) rather unexpectedly was sharing my public transport. Being a man virtually made for stealth I snuck up and sat down behind him without him noticing. He was playing with his iPhone. I knew that he had Facebook so I pondered adding him and sending him a message 'You really should pay more attention to your surroundings, Pähr'. But then I realized that I couldn't really be bothered. Instead we just had a hearty laugh when we both stepped off the bus at our stop.

As soon as I got into the office I realised that I had left my wallet on the bus. I called CaveMongo Inc* but unfortunately they had no way of contacting the bus driver. But they were really helpful and told me to check in with 'Lost&Found' today after lunch. So I began the tedious process of canceling all my credit cards.

'Yes, I left it on the bus'

'Because I'm a retard?'

'Yes, my ID was in the vicinity of the Credit Card'

'Because it's a wallet!'

'No I didn't keep my PIN there'

'Yes I will be needing a replacement card'

'Tell your sister that she has great breasts, I have some Mondays to trade for'

'You have a nice day too!'

I also cancelled my drivers license since it's a valid identification so someone who looks like me can go take out huge loans in my name. That's a 'bad thing', because I don't think that handsome fella would share.

See I did bad, but then I took my responsibility and did everything a normal functioning adult would do!

So today I called the Lost&Found of CaveMongo Inc. They've found my wallet. Greatness! I ride across town to reclaim my rather shabby wallet filled with an endless supply of useless receipts, (Don't give me that look, you all know what you have in your wallets.), cancelled credit cards, canceled drivers license and a bus pass that expires tomorrow. I'm still glad to have him back though because he's, you know, my wallet. We've been through shit together. We have a history, you know what I mean? I saved him from disintegrating in a soggy mess of instant coffee powder and blueberry soup. (Seriously I'm not making this up ask me some day). Besides he's a verification of me doing the right and responsible thing, even though I got myself in a sticky spot.

I returned back to the office and checked my passport. Expiry date March 22, 2011. Whaddya mean they actually specify the exact date of expiry? Not just the month?

'Hello, my name is Peter and I would like to apply for a new passport!'

'No I don't have a valid identification because my former passport have expired and I've cancelled my drivers license so people can't ,you know, take out new passports in my name and stuff.'

That's what you get for acting mature and responsible when you're really just a kid.

'Hello, my name is Peter, I'm going on 32 and have to have my father vouch for my identity.'

FML

*That's what I call västtrafik, the public transport company around here.Really you should know this stuff from before, why are you reading this?

Not an apology...

I can make a halfassed apology here for not posting for two weeks and claim that I've been busy and while that technically isn't untrue, you deserve better. Seven different versions of Solsbury Hill later, (I checked my spotify-playlist) I'm still ransacking my brain for anything amusing that might have come up since last. The guy I share an office with - of some blog fame - confessed today that he once again had caught a throat bug and was feeling miserable 'so with any luck you'll have caught it by the weekend'. 'DIAF'

I watched 'The kings speech' the other week as well. It was pretty darn good and very atmospheric.

I spent a couple of evenings watching season 2 of CSI:NY. Recognised all the product placement that our company and our suppliers do in that series. I suppose that's what they call 'work-related injury'. I have now added Anna Belknap to the not so exclusive list of women that I'd take to dinner and perhaps more after we've been appropriatly enebriated, but nothing kinky because she doesn't swing that way, but after a couple of drinks maybe and 'well, gosh darn it he seems like a really swell guy. Who cares if he likes ...' Thought I'd divulge my inner fantasies and perversions and turn this blog into a bad fanfic, did you?

I caught myself feeling bad for a couple of the victims in the show just like you're supposed to. My rational mind explained to my emotional mind that it's just a tv show and it's all scripted. Then I thought to myself 'There are people going through the exact same stuff and much much worse every day everywhere'. I'm usually not one for either doom and gloom or philosophical thought but for once I was disgusted at being human. Then I realised that I don't have to take responsibility for the rest of the human race, I was relieved. Just try to be the best that you can be.

Do you know how many versions of Solsbury hill there are on spotify? 27... 3 of which are Karaoke-versions.

'Is today really the correct day...?'

A thought that entered my mind a couple of weeks back. Not very deep or very philosophical. I can't exclusively think awesomeness, a mind needs variation. The drain in my bathroom from both my sink and bathtub has been a little 'unthirsty' lately. Fortunately working for a supplier of laboratory equipment has its benefits. Sometimes we have chemicals that pass expiry date. Sometimes those chemicals come in handy.

-Expired sodium hydroxide* meet drain. Drain meet expired sodium hydroxide. Hopefully you'll get along dandy.

Said and done. I removed the drain hose from my washer from the floor drain so it wouldn't get damaged from the drain cleaner(yes there's a logical leap here but I'm not always logical). However the day I put my nefarious plan into action was one of those days.

'So you missed the bus this morning, your lunch was overcooked and under-spiced, you paid good money for said lunch and lots of work came your way like that old friend that you have an absolute perfect reason to not call your current friend and that reason is that he just doesn't know when to go away...'
'... Is today really the right day to be handling corrosive pastilles without any kind of protective wear.'

I can see you from this side of the monitor going:

'Yeah this story ends with him getting corrosive burns'

Well, thanks for the confidence fucker, I do know my way around chemicals. I emerged unscathed.

It however got me thinking on making an update along the lines of 'Is today really the correct day...'

In the end it didn't seem all that funny. So it got ditched.

Today I got lots of things done at work, impressed people left and right made new acquantances. I did my regular 40 laps in the pool. Got a real good workout, kicked with the legs real good so I exercised the entire body not just the upper torso. I swam faster than I usually do. It was awesome! I was awesome! I was really really spent. After the swim I went to the grocery store. Picked up some Pastrami, some good bread, some Jarlsberg-cheese and 6 1,5literbottles of bottled water. (roughly 2,5 gallons for you metrically impaired). As soon as I got out of the store my arms were beginning to protest. I live on the third floor in a house without an elevator. There may have been crying.

'So you just gave your body the hardest workout in like forever...'

'...was today really the day to go buy a sumo pack of bottled water?'

I got inside and since I was still high on endorphins I used the momentum for something that was long overdue; my laundry.

I rounded up my clothes and fed the washing machine. However as I was feeding it the detergent my hand was so unsteady I spilled a non-zero amount of detergent into the compartment for the rinse. I'm not sure how your washing machine is constructed but I can assure you with mine it's physically impossible to remove detergent from the rinse compartment. So... 'I suppose rinse goes in here as well.'

The clothes I had decided to do first was my underwear. Every single garment of underwear in my apartment (I told you it was overdue, and yes I am indeed without underwear as I'm writing this). The thought of stiff and itchy underwear wasn't one I relished very much.

'Are you sure this was the correct day for doing your laundry?'

'Well now that you put it like that... but really there was no other option'

I sat down to do some chatting with friends, some listening to music and lo and behold writing a blog entry on the theme 'Are you sure this is the correct day...'. I also called my grandfather to see if I could borrow his car to go to Oslo this upcoming weekend for a nerdy card-game-event. Fortunately there was no problem with borrowing his car. For those of you unscholared in the arts of blinding flashes of obvious; this event of course takes place the weekend after this one. 'Was this really the correct day...' indeed.

Eventually I returned to the washing machine after it had quited down.

'HOW ON EARTH AM I STILL ALLOWED TO LIVE ON MY OWN?!?!?!'

'I SHOULD BE WATCHED LIKE MOST OF THE TIME SO I DON'T ACCIDENTALLY HARM MYSELF IN SOME COMPLETELY UNLIKELY WAY'

The draining hose from the washing machine that I foreshadowingly removed from the floor drain a couple of paragraphs up. I had cunningly left it on the floor, with a reminder in the back of my mind to make sure to put the hose back, or at least move it to the bath tub before I did any washing. Unsurprisingly my bathroom floor was wet all over.

My two stylish and very handsome bathroom rugs were saturated with laundry drainage. My clothes (including my wallet) that I had cunningly put on the floor in my endorphin rush were even wetter. Fuck you, I know what an oxymoron is. It's a moron that's so oxygen-deprived that he forgets his drain hose on the washing machine. By sheer dumb luck I actually went back and retrieved my iPhone from one of the pockets on the shirt that I had thrown on the floor before I started the washing machine.

'Was tod...'

'No... not at all. Not even close. There's a madman in Libya more correct than this'

Please note that I started working on this update before the drain-accident. Yes, my friends you get to experience retardedness in real time. I serve you nothing but the very best.

Today was the correct day for being today.

Have a nice correct today.

*Fancy chemist speak for 'drain cleaner'

I think this might be a big one...

You've read the blog now since its recent resurrection. Speaking of which, does that make this blog Jesus and me, as its creator, God?

As I was saying before I was struck with megalomania of Ghadaffi-an proportions:
You've read the blog and while I have provided lots of anecdotes about my personal life I'm not sure if I've let you all in on who I am. Most of you undoubtedly know me in person since I'm not that much of an internet-celebrity yet, a couple of you I've only met on a handful occasions and a few of you I've never met.

I am 31 years old going on 32. I weigh 137kgs/302pounds (yes I'm losing weight) stand 6'7/201cms. I don't do any drugs(prescribed or otherwise), I don't smoke and I only drink socially. I have no criminal record.I have a problem with lactose but not to the extent of lactose intolerance. I have developed an insulin resistance most commonly associated with type2 diabetes.

I work in marketing.

I subscribe to Richard Dawkins theories, but find his rhetoric unnecessarily provocative, especially when they're used by people who are just regurgitating for cheap points.

I'm at my happiest when I get to impress. Either be it when I pull out some random fact that I memorized or when I submit my writing for the scrutiny of your eyes.

I have a tremendous sense of duty paired with horrible self control. Yeah that leads to inner conflict and anxiety.

I have literary ambitions but am too lazy to get my work finished. I'm a storyteller and hopefully you all will get to read my story some day. I have a couple of projects in the pipeline.

I have one true fear and that is that I will lose the ability to make myself understood. I pride myself so very much in my ability to make people understand what I feel and what I mean.

I have been in life-threatening situations on two occasions, once in what was up until then the severest tram-crash in my towns history, and once when I was stuck under a fork lift.

The tram-crash was with my class mates in 4th grade (11 years old) and the driver of our tram apparently blacked out while driving on the part where the trams are allowed to drive the fastest. This day another tram had stopped there. I can still recall what I was thinking just seconds before the impact: 'nothing exciting ever happens in my life'...

'May you live to see interesting times', indeed. Yeah that didn't mess with my pre-adolescent mind at all. 4 of my classmates were stuck in the totally wrinkled mess that was the front of our tram. I wasn't harmed. I'm very happy that nobody died in that crash.

In 2003 I was once again in mortal peril. This time through my own accord. Without going into details a fork lift similar to the one shown on the picture had tipped backwards with me inside it. The toes of my right foot and the heel of my left foot was stuck beneath the forklift, which made the cap of my steel capped boot fold inwards and nearly sever my big toe and fracture my left foot calcaneus. That's basically the big lump in your heel. Everyone at work was superhelpful in getting me out from under there and I was convinced that I was going back to work. Paramedics and colleagues didn't agree. Because of complications in the healing process I was also gifted with infection and necrosis in the scrubs and scrapes that I got in the accident.

I use humor as shield to keep people from getting to know the real me. Not because I'm afraid that they won't like it, but because I'm afraid that there isn't a real me. I'm very adaptable. I fit in OK in most groups. OK being the operative word. I'm not them, I will always stand out a little. I will always be a _little_ strange to everyone. Peter Sellers once got the question 'What are you like in person' and supposedly he answered 'There is no me' or something to that effect. I'm afraid that that's me. Oh yes I did. I identified myself with one of the greatest actors of last century.

I have friends that I cherish beyond everything. I'm very careful with my privacy, not like I build fortresses around my home or anything. I just make sure to get good doses of me-time when I feel I need it. I'm afraid that it seems like to others that I'm shutting them out. Because I do care what people think of me. I'm very vain in some aspects. And no 'me-time' isn't a euphemism for masturbation. (this time)

I lost my mother when I was 17 and I wasn't ready for adult life. I jokingly say that at 31 I'm still not an adult and I suppose in some instances it isn't a joke.

I'd rather shut up than not know what I'm talking about which leads to me being silent in some conversations.

I hate clichés but use them far too often. Every now and then I catch myself with a cliché and it hurts every time.

When I publish my book, it will be under a false name. That way when I recommend a book to you, you'll never know if I'm self-promoting. And also because I like dramatic revelations. Perhaps even mostly because of that.

I pride myself in being able to see things through another persons eyes. As far as it's possible at least. I have a friend who's a real diabetic, not like us sugar-munching type-2 wannabee's. I can never put myself in his situation because I don't have anything at all to relate to.

I like piano music, I like rap, I like violins, I like heavy metal. I like good music.

I get romantic when I eat sugar. And believe it or not. I'm happy just the way I am.

It's been a long post, sorry for rambling. Now you know about me.