Daydreams and Doodles...

Sometimes I wish I was just a tad less creative.

Take today for instance. Because I came up with a method of creating rather serviceable and professional looking drums, which can be put together by a child using only a pair of scissors from materials that are totally free for the taking, I've spent all this morning walking around town picking up said materials (which are neither light nor compact) and then sludging through the spring snow with said crap over my shoulder and hanging from both arms back to the AST, where I proceeded to cut the carpet rolls into the correct lengths.

This would ideally require a good table saw (cardboard or no, they are hard as hell) or at least a workbench, clamp, and a good sharp saw.

What I wind up using is a beat-up, bent, dull old saw, with two chairs to balance the thing on.

So its no surprise that the back of my left hand is all bandaged up after said old saw jumped right out of the cut and raked it's way across the back of my hand.

Creativity got me injured.

It also drives me nuts that given a few minutes of peace and quiet, I can come up with oodles of blog-entries far more interesting than this, projects I'd love to try (like a group blog site devoted to foreign resident's/immigrant's takes on Icelandic society and politics), stories I'd love to write, snatches of song lyrics or a new melody, it goes on and on my brain it does.

Sadly, the only time I seem to get peace and quiet without being either exhausted or hung right the hell over is on the bus, or walking to work, or something along those lines. Something that precludes me from actually doing anything about my ideas right there and then. Which means I try to store them away for that happy future when I'll have the time and energy to tackle them.

Which means I forget them, or they decay in my over-addled brain and end up being kinda lame.

I want more peace and quiet gentle blogadytes.

So I'm job hunting again.

The life of an Increased Income Facilitator is far to rife with I.C.S.I.E.'s*, bad pay, unbelievable demands, double standards, bureaucratic bullshit, and namby-pamby child psychology that is fast raising a nation of drooling morons and sociopathic uberyuppies.

Anybody know of anything that pays about 160-180.000 ISK a month, where one works fewer than 52 hours a week, and doesn't have to clean up bodily fluids or be assaulted by people you're not allowed to hit back?

If so, please pretty please let me know.

I'll sell out. I'll clip the 'hawk right off. Maybe even buy a suit.

Just get me out of here.

Anyways...screw it, I have to go change the bandage...

Flirtation Situation

So the plan since January has been to work out like a mofo and hopefully give birth to a bouncing baby six-pack.
As of Friday morning, I'm officially expecting.
Now, I know there are those who will call the Sma shallow for being as utterly thrilled as he is about this, but I can't really be bothered to care. Its just so damned cool to see actual evidence that all my gymventures are paying off, that now little defined colonies of muscle are slowly forming where the Terra Incognita of my belly once read "Here there be flab".
The gymventures have been kinda enlightening. I've discovered that I am an even simpler creature than I once thought.

Case in point:

Thursday evening I climb onto the orbital-runner thingy (bad knees preclude the treadmill) for my 30 minutes of boredom and sweat (none too fond of the aerobics). I persevere, get about halfway done, at which point one of the vapid little personal trainer chicks (you know the kind, they show up to the gym with flawless make up and designer sweat pants and seem to be utterly incapable of saying anything more noteworthy than "Kommsvo!") gets on the treadmill in front of me.

The booty! Oh my sweet sweaty blogadytes, the booty!

With that spandex-clad carrot jigging and jiving away in front of me, I fell into total hungry donkey mode and spent an extra 15 minutes on the orbital thingy. I would have kept going to. I would have ran until my heart exploded, my knees shattered, ran until my body sweated out every last drop of moisture and my dessicated mummy ass would still lurch after her.

I am a simple simple creature.

Not to mention that the highlight of my Tuesday workouts is getting to watch the freakishly muscle-bound dwarf/little-person (whatever the PC appellation is these days) doing pull-ups.

Funny shit.

So I'm actually starting to get into a shape that isn't round. This is great. Great for my health, great for my mood, great for my possibly longevity.

But mainly, I'm doing it so I'll be pretty and get laid.

And it should work. It would have worked. Increased sex appeal meets increased self esteem should equal some sweaty horizontal fun.

The problem is I've forgotten how to flirt.

I mean, like completely forgotten how to flirt! This is weird. Once upon a while ago, I was a total charmer, a silver-tongued wit that could, would, and did chat folk right out of their knickers and right into a situation where tongues and lips were used for other kinds of communication.

No longer.

For reasons I cannot really fathom, every single time I try flirting these days, its either a) so subtle that the object of my affectionate lust is left utterly unaware that they are being flirted with, or b) so patently over-the-top-obvious that it doesn't count as flirtation and instead warps it's wicked way into flat-out propositioning.

Friday night was a prime example of problem a). The Hottest Co-Worker in the World, now an ex-co-worker, had her last day at the AST, and we decided to go out and get hammered to commiserate/celebrate. Started off at my place drinking up alot of the leftover bolla from the moving in party, and as there were only three of us actually inhaling the stuff, we got well lubricated.

Then it was off to Belly's for cheap beer, where Co-Worker of Utter Hotness was charmingly requested to have three children by an old bum. Sadly, this was the most charming bit of flirtation I witnessed that evening. I know she wants me to flirt with her.

She told me.

Hell, it turns out that The Coal Black Giant was planning on setting us up on a blind date back in the day.

But was I charming? Did I make my intentions clear without coming across as creepy?

Nope. I held up the wall and pulled a too-shy-to-talk-to-prettiness.

Complete failure.

And I like this girl. She's multi talented, engaging, kind, and all kinds of desirable. Seriously. You should see her dance. Its like getting a sneak peek at what Valhalla looks like on a weekend night. So hot its practically a combat sport.
Poop.

Anywho. Last night was a prime example of the other extreme. Of course, it didn't help that I spent the even surrounded by hot bi-sexual women in a full-on hotty frenzy.

But this time, rather than charming the thongs off of 'em, I just turned into an annoying creep who was obviously leading with the wedding tackle and letting the big brain take a serious back seat.

But I'm not gonna let it get me down. Eventually I'll regain the flirtation imagination. The charm will return.

In the meantime, a frustrated libido make for a very inspiring work-out partner.

So enjoy your RHOTW. My frustrated ass is gonna do laundry.

Thursday-itis

I seriously don't get it.

Every Thursday, regardless of how well I've slept the night before, what I've eaten or not eaten, how healthy I feel or how relaxed I am, every friggin Thursday morning finds me assaulted by random aches and indigestion.

Every damned time.

Gets on my last nerve.

I mean, yeah, Thursdays are long and annoying days in my work schedule. Have to take the kiddies to the pool, and have to actually go into the pool with the first graders thanks to an unlikely amount of special needs in that particular class. And yeah, I have to deal with the tossabekkur fifth graders, one of whom started today by demanding (not asking mind, demanding) of the bus driver that we detour to his house because he forgot his juice box. When I 86ed that suggestion he pulled a total pre-teen temper tantrum up to and including calling me a "damn foreign faggot". And of course, this being a school run by people terrified of destroying the dear sweet little children's self-esteem, I couldn't do anything about it.

But seriously, do I really have to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous Thursdays every fucking week?

Yesterday was fun too. Got a new member of the Ted Bundy Jr. Psychopath club. 7 year old boy who's already gotten in trouble for spitting on, feeling up, punching, kicking, and biting another staff member, all the while screaming at her that she's a "stupid foreign whore who should go back to her shitty country where they eat each others shit". Yesterday he was forcing his "affections" on various girls in his class, trying to pin them to the wall to kiss and dry hump, and if they fought him off, as one did, he'd kick them. He also kicked a teacher, filled up a bottle with scalding hot water and then used it like a fake dick to spray H2O all over some of the first graders, and tried to smash in the front door window with an apple-sized chunk of concrete.

Kid got issues.

His mom, bless her, is actually trying to nip this in the bud. When informed of the first incident, she was genuinely shocked, especially at the racism angle, as her current boyfriend is foreign.

It doesn't take my considerable intellectual powers to then surmise that little Ted Jr. has been picking this shit up from Daddy, who is undoubtedly less than thrilled with his ex's choice in male companionship...

I think I've figured out the cure for Thursday-itis. Soon as I'm done with my labyrinthine taxes, I'm looking for a new job!

Curls

So last Saturday was St. Pat's, and also my Pop's B-day, and after days of feeling horribly ill and hawking up blood, I was as down as a depressed beetle under the boot of suicidal hobo.
That is until the ever-enchanting Helga showed up with two Guinness's for poor little me, along with some much needed ego-stroking and silly fun happiness.
The thing about Helga is she can be just a tad overwhelming. So affectionate, so gung-ho to the party scene, so energized by beer, and oh-so-incredibly-hot that she has no problem what so ever bending mere mortals like myself to her Demi-goddes will.
Which is how despite my best intentions, she wound up hauling my sick little tooshy down to Boston (a kinda Indy/Artsy bar in Rvk) through the cold and rain.
We get to the bar and La Petite Croissant does her bar-butterfly thing, flitting about kissing cheeks and generally charming the undies off of everyone she meets, while I, now sickly sober and feeling like ass, stand and check out the room full of cuties I know I won't be flirting with that night. Ran into the lovely Ursula, she of the perennial flirtation from Switzerland, chatted a bit. She gets a big thanks for me for responding with "that's great!" when I finally told her where I work. The usual response to someone finding out I'm and Increased Income Facilitator is "They let you work with children?!?!"
But I must admit, the whole time I was there, I was distracted by this dark-haired brown-eyed girl with a ragamuffin outfit and sly little smile chatting with some friends at another table.
This would be my first Icelandic girlfriend "Curly" (long story that).
We haven't talked for years, in fact, the last time I saw her I was hobbling home on crutches (bum knee) rather heroically pissed, when she, rather remarkably heroically pissed, ran up to me on Laugarvegur laughing like a maniac, kicked the crutch out from under me, fell on her ass, and ran off with her friends.
Previous to that, she'd made "distant" into an entertaining little understatement, she'd literally pretend I wasn't there if we happened to meet, cross the street in traffic to avoid me, or Embla, or Anna, or any of the crowd from the exchange student days.
Back in the day, we had an odd little relationship. Not passionate, but full of strange little dramas. We were both very young, very inexperienced, very full of ourselves.
I was naive and over enthusiastic, manic with the possibilities that my exchange trip had opened me up to, pretentious with my teen aged ego, and completely smitten with her.
She was damaged, wildly eccentric, armored in pretense and cynicism, creative, and wild.
We talked about art and music, created our own pigeon language of references and weird catch phrases ("pots alot" "fog chickens" and "south of France pants" for instance) so much so that we drove our mutual friends insane. She introduced me to Leonard Cohen, which I'll be forever grateful for.
We planned to Euro rail around the continent when my exchange year was up. I would be a writer, a poet, she'd paint, we'd drink red wine in cafes and learn better French. We walked in the rain, kissed at bus stops, wandered Rvk looking at old houses (except for certain neighborhoods, which she absolutely refused to walk through, citing the fog chickens as her reason for avoidance) and being artsy.
It never worked out. When I went home, drama of a scale that forbids me from discussing it raised its head, and the dream was over. We stayed friends for a few years, until one return trip to Iceland, having gone to meet her in a cafe, I said something that offended her, something about art, and we haven't spoken since.
I hear through the grapevine that she's married now. Lives in Sweden, works in sculpture, has a kid. Good for her.
Even though she snubs me, even though it all went really really wrong, she remains the biggest "what if" in the life of the Sma. I think about her from time to time. Not in an obsessive sort of way, but with a melancholy mixture of regret and remembrance.
For her part, well, the most I can hope for is that (with apologies to Mr. Cohen) she remembers me well in the Chelsea Hotel, but that's all she just don't think of me that often...

Back in the Day

I'll get y'all updated later tonight, but to tide you over, here's some snaps from my first year in Iceland...be afraid!

By the rising of the moon...

So in the last few days I've pretty much refrained from smoking, tasted no alcohol, eaten sparingly, and sweated my way through all of my work-out clothes.
For those of my blogadytes that haven't caught on yet, this is in no way due to my recent health-kick.
The only thing kicking round here is the bug that's taken up residence in my tonsils, and its the ass of me that its kickin'.
Seriously, when you're so fever-ridden that your 300 inspired dream about an army of tiny Spartans guarding the tiny gap that is your throat in order to prevent the "army of water" from getting through makes perfect sense to you, you know the bug is kickin' your ass. And yeah, my subconscious is really that trite.
Thing is, I think I might just have this thing on the ropes now. Because if I don't get to go out tonight and raise a pint, there is going to be some HELL to pay.
See, not only is it Saint Patty's, its also my Papa's B-Day, and tradition demands that a pint of Guinness be consumed in his honor. Throw in the happy news that I'm soon to be an UnkaBo (Congrats Val and Jeff!) and I have every reason to raise my glass of cheer.
This is one of those times when I really wish I could just pop home for the weekend. Little sis Ish has prepared a massive corn-beef and cabbage Guinness bash at her place for the whole fam and friends, and I'm not there. Bugger! The least I can do is hit RVK's Irish-Themed-Drinkeries and hoist a few.

I'll be damned if some lingering kiddy ebola is gonna get in the way of that!

That being said, I also don't want to wake up tomorrow with the bug back in ass-kickin mode. So I've gots me some planning to do.

Ok, just for the record, not really a drop of Irish blood in La Familie Levesque. Hell, ma gran mere is still pissed at the Irish for "stealing jobs from the Quebecois", she nearly blew her top when big sis married her first husband, a ginger-git with the last name of Wahle. The fact that my Pops and all his siblings are named after saints isn't all that surprising, but the fact that Pop's name isn't Patrick is, considering he was born on said saint's day! Anyways, long story short, somehow all these things have combined to make a family of mad Irish-philes out of a formerly respectable clan of Quebecois. So we do St. Paddy's with style!

Later, dear blogadytes.

Raise a pint for me Da!

Itty bitty bloggity bit...

No real bloggin for you tonight, dear blogadytes. Got sick as hell at the work place of doom. Throat is swollen, head hurts, sweaty, the usual...damned little Ebola monkeys.
Last night was good though, worked out like a mofo, went home all endorphined and happy. It almost makes up for the ass-hatness of the Ebola plagues.
So hopefully I'll be throwing weights by Saturday, when the Embles and Anna and I will geek-fest.
That is all.
Sleepy.
Lame blog huh?

Hmmmm....

Just checking something. I noticed last night, whilst lazily deciding not to blog (it is the nearly daily rant of the aging expat punk after all) that for the second time since I started said blog, Blogger has gone and disappeared one of the images I posted. That makes two. An comic illustration and this weeks RHOTW, which was an acrylic painting, originally. The common denominator: Breasts. Now, I don't know if Blogger is actually an Amerikkkan server or something, but it would explain their apparent distaste for even fictional nipples. After all, if the Janet Jackson Super Bowl Massacre taught us anything, its that the 'Merkan media, and public apparently believe that the single most harmful thing to children is a bare nipple.
So I'm posting another fictional nipple. Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" to be exact. I dare you puritanical prudes to censor this!

This is me blogging...

So we had a moving party last night, fuelled by truly epic amounts of illegal moonshine spodie.
-Note to non-Cascadians: Spodie is alcoholic punch/bolla-
Very swimming it went to...up to the last batch that I, the mix-master of DOOM, whipped up.
I had run out of mixers, and attempted to make it drinkable by throwing more fruit at it.
Long story short, I quickly got hammered, flirted with everyone in sight (special apologies to Þórunn Sóley and Eden), then got maudlin and whiny (sorry Sigrun!) then passed out on the couch, as my narcolepsy-inducing intoxicant had already filled my bed with two passed out partyers.
Oddly enough, I awoke with less hangover hell than I deserved, and hence made a humanitarian run to the shop for coke and nibbly bits to drive the dread drunken away from my roomies and Ingþór, who eventually crawled out of my bed.
And since then, I'm doing nothing.
I intend for my ass to put down roots in this couch.
It is the Sabbath, and godsdamnit, I'm taking my day of rest!

Now, this sofa-spudding is not entirely due to the party-hardy of me. I've had quite the time since my last post (not counting the drunken poeticness previous to this). I've moved into the new digs (which took way longer and way more effort than I had expected) and its proving to be blissful. I am a very happy third wheel in a very nice apartment.

Oh, and the Cutest Couple in the World, whom I set up, are now engaged! I have the mad Yenta-fu!
They're all joyously happy and cute. Its nauseating, really.

Speaking of nausea, I wound up in the hospital last Saturday. I was stressed out and exhausted after the move, and somehow convinced myself that I was having a heart attack.
So I haul myself to the ER, fully convinced I'm going to die. They take my pulse and blood-pressure, run an EKG, listen to my heart and lungs and run some blood tests.
The result being that, yes, I am gonna die...but not for a very very long time.
Turns out thanks to my incessant working out and latest health-kick, I'm in better shape than I've been in roughly a decade. Cholesterol's down, blood pressure is great, pulse is steady and strong, hell even my liver is working perfectly! My liver! The second most self-abused organ I have! Who knew?
Well, not me apparently. I mistook being healthy for a heart-attack.
My official diagnosis is hystericus hypochondriaus idioticus.

Stupid Latin.

Other than that, not much else is new. Went to see 300 which was the coolest thing ever. That movie is so good I wanted to take it home with me, light some scented candles, heat up the message oil, throw some Barry White in the stereo and make sweet sweet love to it. The only thing that marred my otherwise blissful evening of beautiful half-naked people commiting acts of choreographed violence was the utterly incompetent corporate security running around with their matching goatees, shaved heads, black suits and useless little ear-pieces who so thoroughly bungles the phone-check (thanks to the mad Geek-Fu of Gisli from Nexus we got to see the movie the night before the world premier) that everything started an hour late and no one got to use the bathrooms. Stupid stupid security. Its not about being big and strong and intimidating, its about being loud and bossy and controlling the crowd. Seriously, we Increased Income Facilitators could teach these guys a thing or two.


But I ramble gentle blogadytes, I know. So enjoy your RHOTW and know that I'm back to the daily ranting. Ya missed me, didn't ya?

This is me breathing...

Passive aggressive diplomacy pays off, and my boss is reminded that I've done her job for the last few weeks and I get off work early.
I find myself listening to music I haven't heard in far too long in the company of my friends, drinking beer and dressing up (they have something to celebrate after all).
I get cleaned up and haul myself out to a function, a thingy, a do, because they want me there, so I've been told. Just ain't the same without me and so on.
And out I go into the lengthening twilight.
The reason I go is simple. Someone tells me they really miss "flirting" with me.
Several beers, and a chorus of drunken Scots songs later, it becomes apparent that despite the mutual mother tongue we have very different definitions of "flirting".
I waste time.
I waste time trolling for love amongst pre-med hyper-achievers, whilst the blond barnacle I picked up along the way demands that I find her a "future husband" amongst a crowd of drunken doctors-to-be.
Finally, I meet up with a wilting-violet newly-web who offers me the blissful embrace of escape.
So I'm downtown.
First in an honest pub, filled to the brim with immigrants drinking their benefits-free wages while arguing about the politics and, more importantly, football, back home.
I should have stayed there.
But no.
Back out into the freezing slush and suddenly I find myself helping the horribly friendly Lebanese restaurateur, who has just finished making me a plate of exquisite food in his empty restaurant, write up a sign explaining (thanks to me) in perfect English and broken Icelandic (once again thanks to me, but nowhere near as shattered as his) that he is closed.
Because the boss and only employee (which is him) is sick as a dog.
"I don't understand these people" he says.
"I offer them lamb, the best lamb, the Icelandic lamb, best I ever had...and they won't pay for it...They throw money at beer, but not at the lamb..."
He's right.
But I'm fed, and full of beer and caffeine, so I roll out on there, the smell of marinade and some beautiful Jordanian women singing in a language that I can't begin to fathom on the flat screen (he was nice enough to make Entertainment Tonight go away, we agreed that if there was ever a reason to issue a fatwa of jihad against the US, it was Anna Nicole fucking Smith).
I hit a club.
Mostly men (its that kind of club) dancing the dance of competition and dominance.
You know:
"My pecs are bigger than yours"
"My face is prettier than yours"
" I like Madonna more than you"
"I'm gayer than thou"....
The music sucks. I listen to the sound of my breath. The one constant I have. The crap music fades and I try to dance.
I can't.
Even my steady breath can't stop a DJ from trying to be creative, twisting and tweaking a good song into a 14min long monstrosity full of mindless scratching and beats that just never ever fit.
I try again,
The bar I chose seems to be reserved tonight. "Rich men in their 40's only, no one without feminine genitals over the age of 20 allowed to enjoy anything".
I get tired.
Just another rainy, slushy night in RVK.
Now, as my two roommates prepare to cuddle up in the blissful matrimonial bed I made for them (Yenta, heal thyself!!!!) I'm drunk and alone and
tired of looking for one-night stands, in the rare hope that one might last more than two.
I'll bring your attention back to just how well the "flirting"went.
I'm going to go to bed now.
Listening to myself breath...