“One day I woke up and I realised I was never going to be normal, so I said ‘fuck it’”

Rock'n'roll is coming out of a garage with a guitar and saying: 'I'm gonna tell normal stories about being happy, being sad, being drunk'. ~ Bob Mould

1. Penfold – Amateurs and Professionals

The first ever post on this blog, a whopping 7 years ago, was this video of Penfold playing ‘I’ll Take You Anywhere’ at their reunion show.

2. Joie de Vivre – Summer Months

I had the chance to see this band in Hamburg last summer and for an hour I felt like I was in the 90s.

3. Dowsing – All I Could Find Was You

This album has a song named after a Weakerthans line and it talks about hanging out with John K. Samson. Enough said.

4. Snowing – I Could Do Whatever I Wanted If I Wanted

‘Memo Yeah That’s Fine Man’ has been one of my alarm ringtones for about half a year and I still love it.

5. Youth Pictures of Florence Henderson – Small Changes We Hardly Notice

One of my favourite bands to study to.

Here I am, in all my mature glory.

- Driving: It’s not that I’ve failed at learning to drive, it’s that I haven’t even tried. I initially wanted to get my driving license when I turned 18, but my mother was getting hers at the time and said I should wait till she got hers…and I’m still waiting.

- Going to bed and waking up at sensible times: This used to be a lot worse back when I was a full time student, but I still have trouble with it because there are SO MANY THINGS TO DO that I never want to go to sleep. The internet is vast and appealing and I have many interests and needs that need to be satisfied. Then in the morning I am sleeping so well and I am so tired because I went to bed so late that I almost never wake up before it’s nearly time to go to work. I never have a quiet breakfast or read the newspapers or have the time to put some make up on my face because I am always running almost late. I expect to have conquered this area by the time I’m 40.

- Curling my hair with a hair straightener: I need an actual curler to do this. I don’t know how people manage it.

- Fastening my bra the right way round: I need to be able to see the hooks and then turn it around. I’m not stupid, I’m just left-handed.

- Knowing what to say when people have died: When I learn that somebody’s had a recent death in their family I often giggle like a fool. It’s not that I find it hilarious, it’s that I don’t know what to say, so I mutter an almost inaudible “oh, I’m sorry” and then I giggle. Later, when I get home, I feel bad about it and I have to resist the urge to pick up the phone and scream “I don’t actually find it funny, you know? I just don’t know how to react in this situation”. Can somebody teach me how to handle death?

- How banking and credit cards and loans and tax returns work: It’s a jungle out there and I still use a piggy bank.

- Dressing like an adult: There are many things I love about my job, and one of them is the fact that I can dress the way I always do, without having to present myself to the world as anything other than what I am. That’s cool. Back when I lived in England I worked in a very posh school where all men wore suits or at least formal trousers and shirts and women wore either skirts or those stupid work trousers that I hate. I hated it. I hated shopping for work clothes. I hated not being able to wear stupid coloured tights. I hated having to wear real shoes every single day. I hated not being able to wear jeans and band t-shirts. It just didn’t feel like myself, and my favourite moment of the day was getting home and being able to change into something more me. I try not to wear band t-shirts and trainers to work all the time, but I sometimes do it, and I love it.

- Ironing: Come to think about it…I can iron, I just choose not to unless it’s absolutely necessary.

- Thinking about large amounts of money: When I was younger — way, way, younger, before I knew anything about the real world — I always thought about my future self as some sort of super-business-woman who would have made her first million by now, not as an eternal student making just enough to get by (but loving it). As a consequence I can’t visualise any amount of money higher than 6,000€… because I’ve never had that much! I don’t know how much a car or a house are these days, but I know how many beers and records I can buy with 100€ (100 beers at a cheap place, 7-8 records without shipping).

- The fear of pregnant women’s bellies: Yes, I still try not to touch them, and when I do it I’m scared that the baby will burst out and bite me. If I ever get pregnant I’ll only ever touch the bump with gloves on.

But hey, at least I can use a washing machine and I can cook and bake and speak German and I never ever swear when I’m around children. Not bad, huh?

“I do not think we have a ‘right’ to happiness. If happiness happens, say thanks.”

 - Marlene Dietrich

Embracing imperfection

I am not happy with the design of the blog. The sidebar is incomplete and appears in unexpected places, there are links that lead to empty pages and I don’t like the categories. Usually this would have tormented me. I would have stayed up all night fixing it until it looked absolutely the way I want it to (this blog wasn’t named The Art of Staying Up All Night for no reason). But, the thing is, I really feel like writing. And what do you do when you feel like writing? You write. Simple as that. Of course this can be (and should be) extrapolated to more relevant matters, like accepting we’re never going to have the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect partner or the perfect body and learning to live happy with our imperfect life, but I’m not feeling very deep today, so we’ll leave that for another day.

Twitter

Twitter makes me happy. There, I said it. Why? Well, there’s the day when Margaret Atwood tweeted at me about being a celebrity.

And then there’s the day when JOHN MOTHERFUCKING CUSACK agreed to come to me to my friend’s wedding. I should probably quit twitter, because I doubt anything will ever surpass this. I mean, I wrote a thesis about the guy.

Highlight of my life.

This song

Do every stupid thing that makes you feel alive
Do every stupid thing to try to drive the dark away
Let people call you crazy for the choices that you make
Climb limits past the limits
Jump in front of trains all day

And stay alive
Just stay alive

Play with matches if you think you need to play with matches
Seek out the hidden places where the fire burns hot and bright
Find where the heat’s unbearable and stay there if you have to
Don’t hurt anybody on your way up to the light

 

 

Because when you hit rock bottom you gotta do whatever it takes to get back to your normal self. A lot of it is self-destructive, messed up and generally not the best of ideas. To outsiders it might appear to be absolutely irrational, and maybe it is, maybe it’s crazy and maybe the other you would never do it, but at times like those you would hold on to anything that drives the black dog away. I’ve put a lot of thought into this topic, and to see it summed up in such a beautiful song makes me very happy.

Music 

The feeling you get when you realise that one of your all-time favourite bands who broke up when you were still in school figuring out boys and periods* is going to play near you and that you are finally going to see them. And then your heart races and you can’t stop smiling and you spend the night listening to them and singing along and crossing them off every list titled “bands that I need to see but never will” that you wrote in the past decade. 2013 shall be remembered as the year when I saw Texas Is The Reason and Braid in the same week.

The right people

I’ve been guilty of taking people for granted, I think we’ve all been there. I feel really happy to be surrounded by humans who make me happy on a regular basis. In the past year I’ve met some incredible people who have easily reached the Friend-with-a-capital-F status, I’ve had the chance to get to know others better, and I’ve met a few who I hope will stick around. Some live round the corner, some live in the other corner of the world. Some I see every weekend and some I miss every single day. I have amazingly loving parents who have showed me again and again what unconditional love is, and sometimes I make my mum laugh so hard that she spits toothpaste all over the bathroom mirror. I have a big extended family, some of them matter and some don’t, but those who do mean the world to me. I work with people who were born with the word sarcasm tattooed onto their foreheads. How could I not feel happy about all this?

Some of the right people.

My job

When I am having a really shit day and I am explaining something to the slowest kid in the class and he understands English for what seems to be the first time. When I feel ugly and the kids say they love my nail colour. When we play and I see the excitement on their faces. When I am going through the worst and my first graders say they love me as soon as I step into the classroom. When I make the effort to sound excited about their little things and the biggest smile appears on their faces. When they understand really complex concepts in English simply because they appear in Back to the Future. When I get drawings with princesses and unicorns. I can’t believe there was a time when I fooled myself into thinking I didn’t like this.

I mean, I get to have monster contests.

Norma Jean Magazine

Running an online magazine is hard work. It can get tedious. It creates new responsibilities that sometimes feel almost like a job. You have to write, answer e-mails, plan, edit texts, make sure the website is running smoothly, find new content, treat your collaborators like they deserve, manage social media accounts…I devote a lot of time to it every week. Time that I could spend working to earn more money, reading, writing my PhD thesis or, hell, drinking a couple of beers with my friends. But I never wondered if it was all worth the effort, not even for a second. I am absolutely overwhelmed at the amount of people who read us, who want to share their stories with us, who feel identified with the articles we publish, who want to give us part of themselves and their valuable time expecting nothing in return. Every time somebody writes us an e-mail saying they finally found a voice that speaks to them I feel an intense happiness that makes me feel like we are doing something worthwhile. And it is awesome.

* To this day, I am still figuring out boys and periods.

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Ambar beer, churches and heat.

Photos taken with a Yashica Electro 35 and Lomography redscale film.

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No, I’m not in the red sea. And no, the title is not an euphemism for my period. In summer 2011 my parents and I took a boat to Tossa de Mar, a nice little town in the Costa Brava. I took along my trusty Yashica Electro 35 (which doesn’t seem to be so trusty anymore, since I am always getting these light leaks that I quite like) loaded with one of those Lomography Redscale films. I like playing with Redscale film, the results are sometimes horrible and sometimes surprisingly good. I think I prefer Rolleibird film to the Lomography one, even though the Lomography one is a bit more versatile. These redscale photos of Amsterdam are still some of my favourite.

In April I went to Valencia to visit my best friend and was amazed by the amount of cocks we saw.