The best laid plans of mice and Sams...

...gang oft doontoon to get shitefaced.

At least this weekend. Went to a lovely dinner at Inaki and Noellia's place on Friday. Ate, drank, discussed possible methods of converting a strange Jamaican "Ugli" fruit into leather of some kind, and was merry.

Instead of leaving it like that, I went downtown.

Spent the next day hangin' with the Embles, putting finishing touches on my rezzie and going through the hideous process of trying to look normal long enough for Embles to take a head shot for said rezzie.

Then went out and got wasted with Þórir.

Which I regretted all day Sunday as I fitfully tried to get work done on the apartment and fought against the certain knowledge that I was both feverish and coughing.

Its not that I'm even all that into being drunk anymore. Drunkenness generally gets dull for me at around 2-3am, at which point I've generally had my fill of dancing drunken repartee and just want to curl up in bed.

Its not even the oft-employed peer-pressure, which though effective does from time to time make me hate the people employing it.

Quite simply, its that I want to meet a nice single attractive person and get laid.

And for the life of me I have know idea how one does that in this country without the aid of booze and bad techno.

Argh.

Swim swam swum...

must not bitch about work...must fight rage...swallow the ranting bile...must not bitch....must not bitch!!!!

Be it further resolved...

...that I'm not gonna bitch about work on the blog anymore.

This has nothing to do with any improvements at The Children's Correctional Gulag #108. It has everything to do with getting Annageek to stop with the excruciating mocking of me.

You win, OK?

No seriously, you win!

Stop!

So now that that's out of the way, I've been enjoying my Xmas books immensely the last couple of weeks. I started out (literally on Xmas morning before I'd even finished opening the other goodies) reading Emma Goldman's autobiography, Living My Life.

Incredible! Inspiring! Fascinating! I love this book, love it love it love it!

Which, considering just how much I usually despise biography as a genre,especially the pretentious and utterly egocentric Icelandic autobiographies that every single Icelander is required by law to publish before or shortly after they die, is pretty surprising.

(Let me repeat it one more time: THE THREE VOLUME COLLECTED MEMOIRS OF AN INBRED SHEEP FARMER IN DALVÍK SHOULD NEVER EVER EVER BE A BEST SELLER!)

Oddly enough, the only other autobiography I've ever really like was also by an Anarchist and contemporary of Goldman's, Peter Kropotkin. His Memoirs of a Revolutionist was nearly (thought not quite) as good as Living My Life.

After Goldman, I indulged in a little brain-free fantasy, devouring For a Few Demons More, the fifth in a wonderfully fun series of post-(quasi) apocalyptic fantasy stories featuring bi-sexual vampires, bad-ass pixies and a the hottest (although unluckiest) red-head spell caster since Willow.

ahhh....Willow....

After that I tore through China Mieville's brilliant Perdido Street Station and his orgasmically good The Iron Council.

Yesterday I started Plenty, a book by two Vancouverites who decided to try a diet consisting of only foods produced within a 100 mile radius of their home. So far, its a fascinating read. I was hooked from the first chapter-heading quote, a bit of graffiti the author found in the city: "Man is born free and everywhere in chain stores".

Lucky for them though that they live in the hot-bed of C.S.A. that is the Cascadia. They may have a hard time getting wheat, but my ol' neck of the woods grows damn near everything else. I'm excited to finish the book.

All this reading, especially when combined with two other books I received Xmas and look forward to re-reading, E.F. Schumacher's enlightening Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if people mattered, and Kirkpatrick Sales' rowdy Rebels Against The Future have left me with a peculiar longing to go back to the States...or more accurately, to go back to Cascadia, and take an active part in the slow local revolution that's sprouting up from the home soil.

Not that I will. I just want to.

My ma, The Honorable Peggy, has been working with the Cascade Land Conservancy to protect and develop sustainable farming in the upper-reaches of the Carbon River Valley area before the last of its incredibly fertile soil gets paved over with ugly track-housing. The red-neck (not the cool I.W.W. kind, the Jeff Foxworthy kind) town I went to High School in has its own local brewery now, and the "eat local, act global" meme has even caught on amongst the folks who used to rail against "tree-huggin' faggots" and thinks that anyone who didn't like Bud was "a city-slicker snob".

I'd love to help her out.

Plus it would give me an excuse to visit my newest nephew (two in three months!!!) Nathan. Congrats Jen and Daryl!!!!

But the way things are at the mo', I'll be another year or two before I can manage anything other than the typical 2 week trip home.

Oh well...the women are better looking here....

That's all for now dear blogadytes...more on the flip.

Be it resolved...

that in this year of our Lord (hey ya gotta admit, that's worth worshiping) 2008, I Sma the ageing expatriot punk hereby commit myself to the following:

1: Quitting the current job (if my overwhelming disdain for it doesn't get my punk ass fired first) and finding gainful employment that meets the following criteria:

A: No Kids, No Mentally Ill, No Geriatric or Handicapped Clients. Not because I'm callous, but because I'm burnt-out and can't summon up the necessary empathy to do the work properly.

B: Pays more than my current position, or, pays the same but involves less stress and shorter hours.

C: Is something I like.

2: Finish the friggin' apartment. I need a kitchen and a shower and I won't feel like I actually have a home until I have both. Bourgeois of me as all hell, I know.

3: Write more. More bloggin', more letters, more short stories, hell, even take a swing at something longer. Also get back into making music more...which with the help/threat of Jimmy, shouldn't be an issue.

4: Save up some cash so I can finally go visit people on the mainland. Ying and Ragnar, Nín and Anna Magda, Tatja and Lasse, Andres and Claudia, Myriam and Riitta and all the rest.

5: Keep working out, but not to the point where I get all psycho about it. I get psycho enough being a kiddy-jailer all day.

So...

I'm not gonna say that his trip wasn't special. It was. I said my goodbyes to my grandmother, said hello to my little nephew, spent oodles of time with the Fam in South Prairie and Seattle and Surrey. I met up with Claire (though not as much as I'd have liked) ate (far far far in excess of what is good for me) drank (so much I'm pretty sure I'll have to declare my liver upon returning to Iceland) gave and received many gifts, and generally got back in touch.

Nothing remarkably bloggable, seeing as I've already covered the toilet humor ha ha of The Yule Logs, which were in full effect yet again.

American Me is so full of shit...

So I'll leave it at that dear blogadytes. See ya in Rvk on Saturday!

Call off the rescue mission...

....despite (and in part because of) one of the worst storms in recent Icelandic history, the last minute discovery of a 4-month-expired-passport, massive flight over booking, and Icelandair forgetting to re-book me out of Minneapolis...I made it home in time for Grandma's memorial.

Which was bittersweet and lovely.

More to follow...when the jet lag wears off.

Later dearest blogadytes...

Leaving on a jet plane...

...and barring being interned for thought crime, I know exactly when I'll be back again.

I'm a nervous wreck at the mo. Not only because I hate traveling by jet (flyin's fine, I just hate commercial flights), not only 'cause I've got the Cold of Doom (despite which I still showed up to work today, mainly 'cause I forgot my tickets here) which will make flying suck even more ass, but also because the DHS (Das Fascist Society) has apparently started cracking down on flights from Iceland.

So I'm sick and scared and stressed. What else is new?

Anywho...more when and if I make it home to the proverbial bosom of my family.

If I don't blog in the next 72 hours, start planning a rescue mission dear blogadytes, cause I'm off to the shiny new and improved value meal heart of darkness that is America.