I was browsing modcloth (all items above are from modcloth.com) just to look around, try to get some inspiration, try to see if anything tickled my fancy. I encountered two problems.

1. I see things I think are cute, but the styles of the things are all over the place (as you can see from the above collection). It is like I have lost any kind of direction in personal style, and mix and matching stuff like this doesn’t always work. It is hard to wear a classy mad-men type of dress and combine it with a pug-party-ring. I don’t know what happened to my sense of taste (or lack thereof), but god, I can not seem to settle for any sort of style. And I have been feeling, maybe for the past two years or so, that I am getting to old for quite a few styles, and I feel that I need to grow up and not dress like a teenager anymore. And I am kind of stumped, because I still come across things that glitters like god and go “ooo! I want that!” even though the item does not match a single thing in my mostly black closet. So – how do you guys solve this? Settle for a style and keep to it?

2. The second “problem” I encountered is not really a problem; I do not feel inclined to actually buy things anymore. I look at things, think they are cute, but I don’t feel that yearning or longing for all sorts of items like I did when I was younger. I can easily walk into several clothing stores now, look through their collections, conclude that yes, certain garments are pretty, but I don’t feel like they are pretty enough to spend my money on them. After I have moved back and forth to Japan, I do not want to carry a shitload of clothes and whatnot with me, and right now I am living in a 5 square meter room, and I simply do not have enough space to keep a huge wardrobe. And it feels strangely liberating. Owning fewer things, getting by fine with fewer things. When I was younger I would keep closet upon closet filled to the brim, but going through old clothes now, I realize that most of the items are unnecessary, so I have thrown most of them away.  And you can do it as well! Clean out your closet, and just throw out all the old junk you are never going to wear again. There is no point in letting things clutter up your life. That being said – I miss that feeling of really falling head over heels in love with items. The only thing I have truly been wanting to buy all year was a pair of JC shoes. What do you do to get excited over items? Winter is coming, and I lack a couple of base garments, but I can not bring myself to go out and look for them, because most things are just so utterly uniteresting to me.

I have not read books for several years. Not because they do not interest me, but because I have been so terribly afraid of losing myself somewhere between the pages. I used to read a lot when I was younger, several books a week, plowed through both classical literature and quirky newcomers. I discovered Jon Fosse when I was 14, read through classical Greek plays, I loved it all, it moved something inside of me. I felt a lot, but – feeling – it is such a two-edged sword. Being able to experience so much emotion jumping off the paper, but not knowing what to do with it all once it hit me. So, I started avoiding books. Just like I still avoid movies, for the most part. It is too much. It is not enough.

For my Japanese course this fall, I had to read four novels by Japanese authors, and I chose Banana Yoshimoto’s N.P. and Kitchen, and I choose Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the shore and Norwegian wood. I have spent the last weeks evenings curled up in bed, gulping down the words on the pages, rediscovering reading. This is what it feels like to read fiction. I had forgotten. Upon rediscovering books, I realized that there was something about them which I missed immensely. I am not sure if it is the literary drought inside of me, the fact that I have not read books in such a long time, that made all of these four books so stunningly amazing to me, or if I just hit the jackpot and managed to pick out four amazing books to read in a row, but needless to say, I loved them all. Yoshimoto writes in such a clear and crisp way, so tangible and concrete about difficult subjects like death and complicated love (spiced up with incest and transexualism), and maybe just by pure chance, Murakami covers the same topic in Kafka on the shore, but writes about it so differently it is hard to think they cover any of the same topics at all. When Murakami makes everything surreal and floaty and you are not sure what is reality and what is a dream, Yoshimoto drags you down to earth and explain things in laymen’s terms. The combination of these books made my October evenings spectacular.

Random mobile / web pictures from the latest weeks! Speaking of – Any ideas how I am going to cut my hair? I have no idea what to do with it now. It is too long or too short…  Can’t quite figure it out. Growing it out is not really an option, because I am going back to Japan next month, and my hair turns flat and awful if I try to grow it long. Thinking about just cutting it back in the shape of a perfect a-line bob again, but haven’t quite decided. I am pretty skeptical towards hairdressers in this city, so part of me just want to wait it out and cut it once I am back in Japan. Oh first-world-problems, what to do, what to do…

The difference between being a student now and earlier? A prominent difference has been the increase in the size of the goodie bag. I remember the day, many moons ago, when I was offered a paper diary filled with commercials, a sanitary pad and a pack of noodles, I politely said thank you, but no thank you. But this year, oh boy, look at what was in the bag this year! Real products. I never cared about free handouts, because I figure there is no such thing as a free lunch, but I actually got excited about the amount of things they had stacked in this bag. I can not remember the last time I ate chocolate, but yesterday I finally did eat a piece. And it actually wasn’t too bad.

asdjhf; completely unrelated. I wanted to make sashimi for dinner, but I went to three (THREE, 3) grocery stores without finding cilantro (koriander?). I need it for the sauce. Where can I buy cilantro? I need the fresh kind. Cilantro isn’t that common in Tokyo, but I thought it was used pretty regularly in Norway? I feel like I have seen cilantro plants around, but I can not remember where. If I wasn’t such a klutz with plants, I would make a herb garden in my window. Sigh.

My little table at Raptus was a success, despite having a cold. I can buy myself a proper lunch now. (Quite a few proper lunches, actually.) A curious thought; where things have their home.  Almost all the items in the above pictures are sold, scattered around in new homes somewhere, stacked away in closets, hidden in kitchen cabinets and tucked away in jewelry boxes. Made in China, sold in Japan, final resting place; Norway. I feel both envious and fascinated when I realize that quite a few of my things have traveled further than I ever have, and seen places that I will never see. I often look at my clothes, or well, especially down at my shoes, and think that these shoes have been walking the streets of Tokyo, Oslo, Bergen, Toronto… And here they are. On my feet.

Jeg har blitt syk, men det gjør ikke så mye, for jeg har fått solgt så mange ting på fredag og lørdag at jeg ikke trengte å komme tilbake til Raptus i dag. Det var koselig å bli kalt “verdens snilleste menneske” bare fordi jeg solgte tingene til en rimelig pris, det var kjekt å se andre bli glade og få stjerner i øynene. (Siste resten av tingene skal jeg legge ut for salg på internett så fort jeg får tid (ja, jeg vet, jeg har jo aldri tid).) Det som var litt dumt med å bli syk akkurat nå er at jeg ikke fikk kommet meg på verken klovnefest eller karaokekveld, men jeg sier til meg selv at det er greit, sånn egentlig, for først kommer helsen, så kommer studiene, og hvis man har tid til overs kan man slå seg løs og ha det kjekt.I dag skal dagen brukes til lekser, lekser og atter lekser, halvveis under dynen med macbooken på fanget, og av og til er det fint å ha sånne søndager også. Ha en nydelig søndag dere, så snakkes vi snart.

(Og jeg fant ut at jeg må øve meg litt på norsken min, så dette innlegget ble plutselig på norsk!)

This is what I want to eat right now. This is not what I am eating right now. I bought a pizza, some sparkling water and a six pack of cranberry cider. Alcohol helps this cold weather. Never thought I would actually wear my winter jacket this time of year. It is incredibly hard to get into a good rhythm of blogging in this country, why I don’t know. Norway is good for novelty value, but I have almost been here for a week now, and that novelty value diminishing quicker than I would like it to, to be honest. Enough complaining, the show must go on, and days come and go no matter if I would like them to or not.

My poor dear neglected blog, not much love has been given to you from me during the past week, but I do have a pretty good excuse. This is what I have been doing:

• Packed most of my life down into a suitcase, and tried to keep it under 20kg.
• Spent a night at a hotel in Narita, watching Japanese game shows about how people lick the wrapping paper around their cake.
• Gave and got lots of real, heartfelt hugs, and kind of cried a little bit even, but not as much as I thought I would do.
• Spent 17 hours overnight at the airport in Moscow, which btw is far better than it’s reputation. They even have free wireless and restaurants open late, so all the reviews I had read on the internet about it being “hell on earth” was not true!
• Had an grumpy old Russian guy take my beloved window seat and refusing to move when I took the plane from Moscow to Oslo. It was only 2.5 hours, so I didn’t bother arguing. But I wish people would‘t take other people’s seats, it creates an awkward mood, no matter if they give the seat back or not.
• Almost got a nosebleed from the excessive use of perfume in Russia, especially on the airplane. Show some consideration in enclosed spaces guys!
• Met my wonderful friends in Oslo again, and currently staying with one of the most wonderful and smartest ones of them all.  Never a dull moment, she (and the people around her) are like walking versions of Wikipedia, and I learn something new every time she opens her mouth. Everyone needs a friend like that, it is good for both the head and the heart 🙂
• Felt cold for the first time in months. Norway is so cold you guys! Of course I knew this, but I had kind of forgotten all about it, with the result that I don’t really have many jackets with me. I am not sure I could ever live in this kind of climate all year around. This Norwegian summer temperature feels like Tokyo in November.
• I have eaten various Norwegian things, like good cheese and a lompe already! Other suggestions? I will get around to Ostepop and Grandiosa at some point 😉
• Spent more money in Norway in 3 days then I do in Tokyo in 30.

In any case, I am in Oslo for most of this week, so if any of you people who live here full time knows about good and cheap places to eat (any ridiculously cheap sushi in this town which is edible?), nice things to see (not the regular tourist traps) or fun things to do, please point me in the right direction!

It is hard. It is hard to start blogging after what happened in Norway. It seems pointless, unimportant almost, to write about my week, what I ate, post pictures from cute neighborhoods and tell you that I drank good drinks with my friends and ate sushi 3 times just because I could. At the same time, I realize that the world can not stop forever, but right now I am not sure when it will feel ok to blog about regular, mundane, every day things again. I am sure there are many people in Norway (and the rest of the world) that feels some kind of confusion or guilt right now. Am I reacting the right way? Should I cry about this even though nobody I knew was directly involved in this? Am I a bad person if I don’t cry? Can I laugh and smile and drink wine with my friends, and yet feel bad about what happened? I do believe that the answer to this is: yes. Yes you can. However you react right now, and what feelings might stir up inside you, it is the right feeling. (It doesn’t mean you should necessarily act on those feelings if they are destructive, but feeling them is not wrong.) It is what you are suppose to feel. No matter if it is anger, bitterness, sadness, numbness, chattiness or silence, happiness over everything you have or sadness over those who lost someone near to them, this is what you are suppose to feel right now. Don’t feel embarrassed about feeling too much or not feeling enough. We all react differently, and it is ok. This is what I have been doing this weekend to try to make things better, take my mind of things:

• I had a wonderful side-walk date. It is a little tradition we have. We buy a bottle of the worst cheap sparkling wine there is, and we sit down next to an intersection or a busy area and watch all the people passing while we talk about life and the future and small birds and other things that makes us happy.
• We took the train to a whole new part of the city where I have never been before, and just walked around looking at all the strange shops and finding new little restaurants.
• I found a mall in Nakano which can best be described as being a very particular mall for the specially interested. 4 floors filled with otaku-collectors-stuff, everything from Lolita fashion to cosplay and figurines and doll shops. It was strange, it felt like an instant holiday, 6 minutes away by train. The whole place felt like China, and walking around there, studying all the little tidbits made me completely forget the rest of the world for a little while.
• I ate what I like the best. Sushi, sushi and more sushi. If you can, eat something which will really cheer you up. Some people have chocolate and macaroons. For me it is eating sushi, lovely salmon that melts in your mouth.
• Hugs. Lots of them. Laying next to someone, smell their skin, be quiet together and listen to hearts beating in unison.
• Stayed busy, held a lecture, working on some illustrations I have to get done in a couple of days. Drawing and messing around with watercolor paint while the music is on full blast from the speakers. I tried to avoid the most melancholic tunes and put on Billie Holiday and Röyksopp. It worked.

Obviously, what we do to deal with this should not be about avoiding the horrible truth and ignoring the awful things that happened, but it is about taking care of ourselves in the middle of all this, and be grateful for all the beautiful things which are still here, both around us and in us. ♥

I have no words for what has happened. My thoughts go to those who are affected by this situation. It is so completely unreal to me, I am so far away at the moment, and it hurts to see little, beautiful Norway in a state like this. I wish I was articulate enough to say something useful right now, but I can not find any words. I am extremely proud of Norway’s prime minister: “We will retaliate with more democracy.”