/// i was on my way i swear

MEW BEACH from martin de thurah on Vimeo.

/// angel come home

sometime in winter this year, at the roslagsbanan with cristina who took this photo. she said "angel come home!"

/// lief

Lovers' weekend!!!

/// bff

I think more than a year ago. When I just met Android the Pandroid and I was working as a full-time sidekick to Mardin Hyelmy. We bought some cinnamon buns, I remember Andy had some coffee in a thermos bottle. We went to Obsan, don't remember what we talked about, I think some TV serie (as always). Leaves were just starting to fall. Awww I miss you both.

/// lamp man

Laughed so much tonight skyping with Mardin. Don't really know why. He said "Are you on crack?" Mardin is crazy for lamps even if he won't admit it. He always talks about lamps and his latest acquisition, like a real furniture-loving Swede. So here he is, a really fitting screen shot of my favorite lampman.

BFF!!!

/// go go

/// those white flowers

/// seven samurai

/// i flit, i float, i fleetly flee and fly

The Von Trapp Children - So Long, Farewell

The most beautiful, most haunting goodbye I've heard: the last chorus, after Gretel's part and before the guests said goodbye. Ahhhhhh The strings. That's how the long drawn-out goodbye sounds.

/// i'll take care of you

dear rolf. stop. don't stop!

/// to be free

/// supermooi

Vrijdag

The train from Utrecht to Arnhem, looking out to the forests. And seeing Max sitting in front of me, Max from The Book Thief. Sleeping in basements and remembering that the war was just sixty years ago, that everything I see now wasn't a good place to be in then. You never know, anything can happen.

And standing in wonder, a place where I feel love was once a place where there was almost nothing. Parkstraat: the cream white apartments, the grey blue sky, the rain and my heart.

And walking home to you. Fire alarms. Dentists and Mayo Clinic. Legos and Polly Pockets and childhood memories. And reminding me to be careful.

And the morning, Donkey Kong Country and remembering how amazing it was the first time we saw it. And playing Streetfighter with the best gamer in the world. Mushroom soup and sugar bread, strawberries and Coke.

Zaterdag

Supermooi and a room full of jumping Dutch guys pointing their fingers in the air, boom boom boom! Always that rhythm, always that beat. You know you're in the Netherlands when you can hear that one-two-three.

And when people are not afraid to speak in booming voices, louder than the person speaking. Lennart whispered to me "It's because here, if you're louder, then you're right."

And I thought of the extreme individual space and loneliness and wanting to be left alone and people jumping in front of tracks at this time of the year. And maybe this is also why I can't get in.

My presentation spiel is getting longer and longer and harder to explain with each passing month/city. I sort of got tired by the end of the night and just said "For love" when asked why I was here.

And the night ended with fist pumping and jump dancing in the middle of the dancefloor to Electric Six, pepernoten flying in the air and two lovely simultaneous three-cheek kisses.

Ik ben van alle markten thuis.

Zondag

A hang over, the U.N. and not much else. :)

/// a year ago, and from now

Plentzia, more than a year ago, by Arrate.

"We are stray girls because we looked for it. We throw our stray girl arms around the tiniest bit of kindness in the world. And in the meantime, the pain now only means it won't hurt this much a year from today. Becoming stronger, happier, not because things around get easier or smooth, but because we realise that, each time, we're laughing louder at the same joke." -A

/// the world is waiting for you angela

/// 09.22.2008 Manila to Frankfurt ///

/// 2004

/// je ne trouve pas mon billet

a: this is the DOM!
jj: it looks like lord of the rings!
a: which one?
jj: sauron's tower..
a: you mean... MINAS MORGUL?!?!?!

/// bloodbuzz ohio

/// two words

be brave. be free. the national. my nation. the philippines. the netherlands. not bad. biking raining. hello po. much more. not me. ikea sheets. pink plants. my family. a home. very interesting. work permit. long term. short term. full time. part time. my time. some space. hello you. plans tonight. central station. dames herren. niet fietsen. the beginning. not ending. your hair. i'm here. be brave.

stand up
straight at
the foot
of your
love. i
lift my
shirt up.

/// can you carry my drink i have everything else

Be still for a second while I try and try to pin your flowers on
Can you carry my drink I have everything else
I can tie my tie all by myself
I’m getting tired, I’m forgetting why

Oh we’re so disarming darling, everything we did believe
is diving diving diving diving off the balcony
Tired and wired we ruin too easy
sleep in our clothes and wait for winter to leave

Hold ourselves together with our arms around the stereo for hours
While it sings to itself or whatever it does
when it sings to itself of its long lost loves
I’m getting tired, I’m forgetting why

Tired and wired we ruin too easy
sleep in our clothes and wait for winter to leave
but I’ll be with you behind the couch when they come
on a different day just like this one

we'll---------------stayinside---------
-----------til--------------------
somebodyfindsus--------------------------
-----------------do-------------------------
---------------------whateverthetvtellsus
stayinside---ourrosy-mindedfuzz
For---------------days----------------
We’ll------------stayinside-------------
tilsomebodyfindsus-------------
-----------------do------------------------
---------------------whateverthetvtellsus
stayinside---ourrosy-mindedfuzz


SO WORRY NOT.

ALL THINGS ARE WELL.

WE'LL BE ALRIGHT.

/// i wanna hurry home to you

The National - Slow Show

/// in search of lost time

Listening to The Loving Sounds of Static by Mobius Band, and remembered a rainy night in Ostermalm, just right after you left. Pinning away and floating in love. I also remember a grey dusk, and making Pancit Canton and deciding if I should go to Tradgarden or not, walking back and forth the top floor apartment. Deciding the last minute that I should. Then you were there, sitting under the bridge. Pingpong in the rain and the tingle of my skin. Oh Midsommarkransen, oh the pink lights.

It feels like a decade ago. Why do memories, especially my own, feel that way? Sometimes, even when I am still in the moment, I already miss it.

Android sent me a postcard, I got it a few minutes ago. It was written from one of my favourite happy places, SP, and I could hear him drifting away and pinning over memories of us too: breakfast for dinner, building cameras. That was August, that was July, but it could also have been 1901.

Proust and his madeleine cookie.

Memories, don't fade away. Stay.

/// arnhem, the song

we made a song with your guitar when we woke up, it goes like D-A-G-A, a sweet melody that paints a picture of crisp blue autumn skies and big windows, punctuated with the melancholy notes of the toy piano. last night was domino's pizza and ik hou van holland and falling on the floor. and then sunday subways and coffee and cola.

/// albert heijn my love

1-2-3!!!

/// meisje

Rembrandt - The Night Watch (1642)

/// the stray boys and girls

Saw my favorite flowing cardigan, looked at the Stray Boys tag. Our special club. It's like an unspoken rule, a secret ID card, I've noticed that the Stockholm gang has at least one Stray Boy item in his or her wardrobe, strange. Carol's grey vest, Suzy's shopping bag, Viktor's black jacket, Andy's white jacket, my flipflops and everyone else's cotton bags. I looked up the grey sky, in Utrecht that is, sitting here at the library and realized yes I am a stray girl, jumping from city to city, following what my heart says, sitting in libraries and trying and trying and trying.

We are strays in some ways, but I know and I believe that we are also following a path that we already know deep in our hearts. An inherent compass. It always knows the way. Even if I can't see it now, doesn't mean there is nothing there. Even if things are not working so well now, that's part of it, doesn't mean it will be like this forever.

/// first night

Koen took this picture, Mark and him comparing their android phones' respective fancy picture apps. I was woozy with red wine. First night, Utrecht, the city led by your hands. This was the day I came, the heart and the trams and seeing you! I remember sitting by the trams, bursting with anticipation, letting the setting sun warm my face. Looking everywhere, and when I wasn't looking, suddenly, there you were! Walking, crossing the bicycle warpaths, the Dom and the Lord of the Rings magic illusion! We had some really spicy chicken. Piri piri fail! A secret place by the canal. Then Koen came with his bicycle. We went to 't Oude Pothuys, got some wine and tripples. Musse called. Then the pictures and laughing and bliss! Then catching the train to Arnhem. <3

/// by her crush on him

/// They were the pinup fantasy couple of Boston’s alternative-rock scene (she still lives there): both pretty, both damaged—he by drugs and she partly by her crush on him—and both experts at bohemian iconography. ///

http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/encounter/68806/

/// love, love is a verb. love is a doing word. fearless on my breath.

fearless on my breath.

the art nouveau mc donald's in the middle of the best inner city of the netherlands, hearing it on the speakers while going down the steps, and fifteen minutes later on the television, before house started falling in love.

/// let the right one in

/// walls, morse code love, winter ///

/// mornings

/// like totally

Gold Panda - Like Totally

/// MJAU MJAU

/// star eyes

/// A, B, C, E and T :)

Take care, until we see each other at the milky way. :)

/// the ultimate elation

That's how it felt like, an ultimate elation. "Pure happiness" I called it, so close! And I've seen them do it in Primavera Sound last year, the tightening up towards the end of the song. It's something that gets stamped in your mind forever, absolutely incredible. I remember standing there smack in the middle of the front row, just overflowing with pure happiness, and it rolls over you the guitars, and the pink lights, the feeling bursting inside you, fold it fold it fold it!

/// get in here!

I survived the bicycle warpath which is Kanaleneiland to Utrecht's city center today! ACHIEVE! It made my nerves stiffen up for a few hours, but I was happy to be sitting in the main library in the Oudegracht and receiving a surprise phone call from Moomin Eveline! "I am in the tram crossroad in Amsterdam deciding if I should go to Dordrecht or Utrecht!" Aaaaaaw I love spontaneity, like Comviq Kompis calls, like Studentpalatset fika breaks, how you can just meet up a friend, anywhere, anytime. And I haven't seen her since a year ago, it's surreal just seeing her standing there under the Dom.

You've just landed.

You've been working here? WHAT!!! GET OUTTA HERE! (GET IN HERE!) WE'LL GIVE YOU A VISA, A VISA VALID UNTIL FOREVER. TWO OF THOSE! :)

/// jij bent lief

This morning: "That is sweet and gross at the same time." Hahaha!

When I'm watching Kiss Me from Youtube, an ad for Thuisbezorgd.nl is on the screen as well, hihihi! Mmmm ordering food from the black couch and chicken pasta and Greek Olympias and Dutch television and you!

Du är min sötnos.

/// YOU

Gold Panda - You

From Ghostly International: Gold Panda’s debut Ghostly release, the You EP, is the stuff dreams are made of. Walking on the sunny side of the instrumental hip-hop street, the UK producer drapes the title track’s deep, crunching beat in slyly sliced-up vocal samples, a hint of nostalgia, and just a touch of shoegaze ambience. The track’s anthemic chord changes, meanwhile, sound positively world-changing. And if not world-changing, then certainly summer-defining.

Hey you. :)

/// fall be grand

Fall Be Grand // Gold Panda - "Quitters Raga" from Cody Bralts on Vimeo.

Let it be, then! :)

/// warm and cold chocomel

/// gold panda

Snow And Taxis from Gold Panda on Vimeo.

/// sunday morning at vrijdag

we had brunch today at cafe vrijdag just around the corner from parkstraat. the sun was shining gloriously, it felt like summer again. summer in october! we met up with marcel, mark's best friend living in rotterdam and we talked about gothenburg, crazy guitar freaks, moving to utrecht and september 9's. a crazy dog started barking beside us and i remember how sweden only have polite dogs, like their extra pleasant introvert owners. mark made this extremely funny face and made as if he's going to throw coffee at the dog, it was insane!!! HA HA HA

the guy next to us wearing the green jumpsuit and how he just started talking to mark. funny upstairs neighbors playing crazy loud music. how to get bicycles in utrecht. old coffee biscuits and dipping them in my coffee. and how it would be nice if everyone just lived in one place. is there a magic bus here?

i'm listening to belle and sebastian's "i didn't see it coming". this is the perfect mornings i long for.

of course, there will always be something, the grey clouds hovering in the distance. but there is also these things, and this is more important, the things that make up the sunniest of all sundays: the perfect stolweijker cheese on your brunch sandwich, the sweetest lamblegs with your morning coffee, you and your best friend beside me.

sunday on friday, summer on october, make me dance, i want to surrender.

/// milk for your morning macchiato

Things normally work out the way they should.
And more often than not, for the better.

/// i didn't see it coming

This is how I feel like right now. Like throwing my arms up in the air and dancing to sweetness. Perfect, like basking in the warm sun. Also the bit about the money! :) Haha!

Real People: Holland

Beirut - No Dice
From the Real People: Holland album, which is also where I am now. Hitting all the right notes, eating chocolate hagelslaag, jumping to happy hard core, criss-crossing trains, riding on the back of bicycles, basking in the sun, and love.

A love that is so easy to reach and hold. We are building fortresses and I will always see this forever in my head: the glow of yellow rooms, big windows and the smell of your hair. Arnhem.