This one is looking out for my mum. Can't you see, mummy, he/she needs you!

Confessions of a hospitable heart.

I have tormented my host. Many times. At least he seems to think that what I am doing is tormenting him. Torment is not my intention. I swear. But it can not be helped. I am impulsive, I will grant you that, and underlying my impulses are all these emotes.
The emotes burn for expression, they long for embracing and sharing. It is their whole existence.

My function, among others, is nursing the emotes. I feed them a portion of the blood that flows through my chambers. I keep them warm. I entertain them. But they can only be distracted to a point. They have their own natural instincts that eventually burst forth.
Usually it takes an external impetus to ignite the bursts. But an emotive burst is beyond my capacity for subjugation. An emote bursts and I am subsequently taken over by the force, and impelled to express what the bursting emote functioned to express.

My host wants to calm me down. He claims it is too painful. The bursts.
But he is energized by the bursts. He acts. He embraces and shares. And he can not claim the pain he feels stems from the burst, because the burst is followed with a tingling; a collage of positives, goods and carings, an extension of purpose.
The pain, and the pain certainly is awful, stems rather from the inadequacy of the external impetuses to meet with the energized acts of my host.

It is a real pity. The loving energy created by these bursts is enough to fuel a passion and a passionate loyalty for lifetimes. How tragic, then, that these external few, who act as the necessary impetuses for these bursts, have been unable to requite them.

I get the blame. In my host's confusion the only real, or plausible, re-action to the disappointments is to look inward. To work on what is his to work on. His own being. And within his being I am the core through which his inward-vision can't penetrate. So I am to be tamed. This, he feels, is the only solution.
A tamed heart, he speculates, will limit and control the bursts, and only express portions, ready-made, that are never larger than what the externals are able to requite.

This is a predicament. For, as an integral part of my host's being, I can not resign. At the same time I can not be tamed, not truly. I will remain my impulsive emotionally subjected self.
My host will inevitably understand this. And perhaps even learn to be proud of it. Proud of me, and my hospitality. And one day, in the not so distant future, I believe, my host will be blessed with an external special, who will requite his amazing potential.

I confess, I am a hospitable heart. But I can not be larger than my host. He will just have to allow himself to grow to his fullest potential, which, ultimately, will then be in symmetry to me.

Beating for
..kH

The moments are frail.

The moments from where we stood to where we lie.
As each passes I know it can be the last. It chokes me. It chokes me the familiar choke that I have known for far too long. The choke that has taught me to relish, to linger. The choke that has cursed me and put defeat into each victory.

But I relish. I linger. I stay awake and watch. I want to love for as long as I can squeeze it in. I don't want to leave but I know I'll have to. And by the time I have left everything will have changed. I can not turn back to this, for these moments pass and never return. It chokes me. It chokes me so hard.

They are so frail. If I pull too hard they will tear.

So I try to caress them.
I run my finger down the silky threads of this moment of you and me, and the next. Trying to memorize each sensation, each feel each taste each breath and beat, but the more I try the more it refuses to fossilize. It is only in the most intimate spontaneous seconds that anything is set in memory. Memory objects control.

I can only try to be all there in the frail moments. I can persist but they will perish nonetheless. And my state of bliss becomes a state of mourning its imminent end.
You breathe in I breathe out You breathe out I breathe in
But each breath, inasmuch as it connects our beings, passes
Each breath is a moment
Each beat of your heart is a moment
But passes
It all
Passes

I can not hold on to it no matter how hard I try
It chokes me
If I reach out too desperately it tears
I know you will dissolve so I try to look harder
Listen closer
Breathe slower
Smell clearer
Taste longer

But the moments are frail

But they are our moments
and will always be ours
even if the memory of them will fade
they will have been ours

I relish but am defeated.

To you,
..kH

The above picture I snatched off another blogsite, because I knew this kitten was definitely waving to my mum for her neverending kindness to his/her feline brothers and sisters.
He/she says "Meouw" to Blíða and Bjartur too!

As the screaming reminded Hansi where he was working, he sat down and reflected.
He reflected on how happy he was to not be consumed with mental pain and anguish, to not be lost where a person never should be lost, within him or herself. The world of the self is a person's domain, a person's haven if ever there is one. If one is chained within the world of the self, tormented by fear or pain, there, at least, is no external haven to which one can run. There is no fleeing inner torment. Only dealing with it.

...
The screaming came from elsewhere.
Not from here.
It was terrible nonetheless.
I can still make it out actually.

The horror of mental pain.
The horror of a person's inner hell.
The horror of the inner which calls for disarray to the outer.
And the disarray caused by an inner manifests to be dealt with by outsiders.
I can still make it out.

...
Hansi felt truly bad, not only for the person screaming, but for the people doing their best at dealing with the screamer's despair. He did not miss these occurrences in the slightest, and hearing the screams rattled him both because the mere sound of them was truly awful, but also because it reminded him of the days where he acted as one of the hopeful outsiders, trying his best, as everyone did, to calm a despairing person in their acute suffering.
Here he sat, in the calmness of his current workplace, within which an occurrence of the kind could well be expected, but where nights seemed always to pass quietly. It made him feel safe. And at the same time he could rejoice over the fact that those sleeping under his care might not be suffering as much as some others, this very night, in this very building.

...
I try to let my mind wander toward the happy things that I have been experiencing.
I have been so lucky.
Here I have been at home for about twenty days. But it feels much longer.
Which is great, for it means I have managed to make the most of my time.
My time here, and I have a lot of time left, has passed slowly.
Every moment has been relished.

I have spent wonderful moments with wonderful people who have given me wonderful things.
Not in the material as much as in the physical and spiritual.
I have spent wonderful moments with my family, that I miss for such a big part of the year.
I have spent wonderful moments with my friends, that I miss for that same part of the year.

I can still make out the screams.
Happy thoughts..

Yesternight I celebrated with a large group of people.
We celebrated our existence.
A friend made me so proud.
A lover surprised me.
I am still surprised.
But it is a happy surprise.

Happy thoughts..
I can't make out the screams now.

...
Hansi was calm again.
And happy.

The night got darker,
..kH

I am still at the spot.
05 : 51 a.m.

I have counted, here on the spot, 5 hours and 39 minutes.
Does that mean I am half-way there, through the night, dayward onto morning?
More than half-way, aren't I?

What has happened at the spot this night?
Less reading than I expected.
More communication with angels of the night.
Angels of my life in the night.
Some for lack of sleep.
Some for celebrating time off.
Some from habit. Those were the more silent of the angels.

A diaper has been changed.
Coffee has been consumed.
So have bananas, kiwis, oat biscuits and cheese.
Water and apple juice.

Spot on, still
..kH

I welcome myself back to this spot.
The spot in front of the computer.
The spot where my working nights are spent.
The spot of spots.
The spot where books are read.
The spot of all spots.
The spot where I communicate without speaking a word.
The spot of mimes. The spot of chimes. The spot of slowly passing times.

It is at this fixed spot that I will now count the next 7 hours and 50 minutes.
I count them through reading, writing, and contemplation.
Perhaps I will change a diaper or two.
It happens.
Perhaps I will collect some trash.
It certainly happens.
Perhaps I will gather some dirty linen.
It usually happens.

The spot of spots.
This very spot.
At twelve past midnight,
..kH

It is very early morning. 05 : 39 a.m. local time.

Thought I might reflect on the past 24 hours. 24 hours ago I was sitting right here, right where I am, waiting for my shift to end. It ended approximately 2 hours and twenty-five minutes later. I went home, which usually takes about 35 minutes from here. Buses are slow transport, and they tend sometimes not to arrive at the most convenient points in time or space; either one will miss one's connections because the bus schedule is not fitted to one's needs, or one simply needs to get off at a place from which one has to walk for a while in order to get to one's desired destination. Weather, here, is crucial in relation to the lack or abundance of enjoyment and pleasure from the predicament.

I then slept. Attempted to. Took a while. I then slept.
I woke up to find myself facing the afternoon, and messages from two wonderful people. I replied to the messages. Several times in one case. While simply arriving at a quick and easy decision in the other.

I went out. Spent the early evening with a very important person. It was great. Made my day, so to speak, as without that very positive ingredient to the mundane flow I probably would have arrived back here, to this spot, feeling I wasted a day on nothing in particular.

Turned out the day was great.
Then I came back here.
Here I remain still.
It is 05 : 49 a.m.

Ticking clocks,
..kH

Nighttime sharpens
Heightens each sensation
Darkness stirs
And wakes imagination
Silently the senses
Abandon their defences

or something along those lines. Ghostly visions and macabre sounds abound within the fortress I have built around myself.. the shadows are closing in.
Take me away, darkness, sail me away on your silky cushions. Let my limp body bounce over the landscapes you hide under your cape.
Let this night forever be, and last longly..

I have conducted an interesting duologue with a creature that seems to stride around the ward during nighttime. I call, it answers back. I am excited by its unexpected existence.
There it is now. Glaring at me from the living room. Those glaring green eyes. And there it jumped! Where's it gone?! ..

I can hear its little feet tapping on the floorboards. I will hunt it.

Cuckoo,
..kH

I am quite currently working the Graveyard Shift at a psychiatric ward of the University Hospital of Iceland. I am sitting here.. not that much to do really.. and I started thinking of my b*log.

It has been nice, this first night of mine in the new job, calm and quieting.. I have had reassuring and positive communication with a handful of wonderful people, all through the Net. I am thankful for MSN messenger. What a device! And also I must extend my thanks to whomever downloaded the software onto the staff computers. I myself would not have had the gall to do it without asking permission I believe. Thanks.. whoever you are.. probably a nightwatchman like myself as it is us who most direly are in need of such modes of late-night communication on the job.

I love the night. I have no objections to staying awake through the most part of it. However, I do object to sleeping off a big part of the day. Can one be a night and day person at the same time? I seem to be. In the night I find a dark romance. In the day.. I feel more alive I guess.
A nocturnal admirer of the day, I am. I ought to start a club. Where art thou my brothers? Nocturnal lovers of days.
Tragic that it is almost inhumanly possible to experience the whole of night and the whole of day without losing grasp of reality. The body and mind are weak.. plus, I have heard (not sure how reliable my sources are) that by staying up nights one shortens one's life.
Can it be true? Is it worth it? Has anyone done a scientific survey of whether death rates at a young age are common among nightwatchmen?
Will I die young because of this one summer of nocturnal labour? (By young here I mean any age up until the age of, like, sixty I guess.. in our day and time sixty is not really that old, is it?)

I do prefer my nights to be dark though. June and early July in Iceland is not big on darkness. Midnight sun, fascinating.. but bothersome to those who like the silky embrace of the dark.

Zzz,
..kH

Hello all.

I have recovered. My injury now looks like a piece of art on my right forearm. Pretty colors, spanning from deep and dark blue to sunset yellow. Stunning really. I feel like one of those people who cover their body in tattoo. A walking picture. Beautiful being. An Artman.

I am home.. HOME .. in my enveiling and loving homeland. The land where I have loved the most, where I have the most memories, where I feel at home, completely at home. I am happy. Excited and glad. It is time to drink in every single passing moment, and diving head on into every single shared moment with loved ones. It is time.

I am here. And here I will remain for as long as I can. That gives me at least three months.

Glee,
..kH

Was in rehearsal.
Got injured.
Ouch.

Looking good.
Dress and tech today.
Performance at the end of the week.
And now it seems the process is cursed.
Ouch.

Well, pity me if you must.
I have to go on.

Wishing me luck,
..kH

Hello, faithful readers.

I have not yet gone mad.

I think.

This is real, right?

Of course it is

Thank you italics, faithful friend and critic. I can always rely on you for sorting me out.

Project? Getting there.

Karma? Being dealt with, quite successfully.

Back to normal self.

The self which is the result of all your definitions of who I am.

Yes, your

What am I if not what you take me for. Might I have a say in the what I am?

Of course

Thank you, italics.. faithful pseudomyxoma; the pseudome that the actualI keeps a distance from for the sake of self-critique and third-personified perspectives.

That's my lot in life.

Won't you join the ride.

Riddle me that,
..kH

Life is so confusing.

At many points in my life I feel so in control of everything. Of myself, my relations, my outlook, my attitude. Then there spring forth points where everything dissolves into disarray. Suddenly I am no longer in control, everything is washed forward and back by a big tidal wave of inner chaos and external circumstances. One should not let external circumstances bully one, but when the external circumstances are in accord with , or in a dramatic contrast to, something inner - with something on the inside of one's life, - then all hell breaks loose. . . or at least seems to break loose.
The state I am describing can be referred to, in buddhist terms, as karma. Everything in one's life is one's karma, there is the stuff one sees and deals with on an everyday basis, and then there is the latent stuff that one may not even be aware of, but can suddenly erupt forth with volcanic force. When this happens, usually because it is in accord with something external, one needs to be brave and in control. Or at least do the very best one can to make sense of what is happening, and then take action toward eradicating, and/or changing, whatever this suddenly manifested karma is.
It is at this point that I currently stand.

I am fortunate enough to get the chance to experience latent things from the inside of my life at this moment, things that I have yet to deal with. But now that I see them I am in a position to meet them head on, and purge them. Thankfully I have learned, through my practice of Buddhism, a method, or a means, to do just that. And I also understand that these things have only surfaced because I can, at this point in my life, deal with them. They should not have to hurt me or anyone else. These demons have manifested, and lined themselves up, to be shot down and moulded into a positive.

Well then, .. here we go. Sleeves up. Out on the battlefield.
And on to something not totally unrelated; I just had a magnificent weekend. Will it prove life changing? If not, at least it will certainly have been character building.

Thanks go out to those that deserve them. They know who they are.

Loading my karmic weapons,
..kH

Tiny update.

Still alive and fairly well. What has happened? Well, the big project has started, and I tend to it practically every weekday. After rehearsals and during weekends I continue my research work and try to handle everything as well as I can.

I have guests. Two extremely lovely people, who are staying with me and have both given me the opportunity to think of other things than my preoccupation, the project, and drawn forth from within me a big piece of my karma to deal with. Could I have better friends around me during this stressful period? So, it is absolutely great, and I am so happy they came over.

Apart from this, the project and my visiting friends, not much else is going on .. and if other stuff is going on I just can't see it for what is immediately in front of me.
Big trees to graze, but my forest, undoubtedly, is infinitely deep.

From the sweat of my brow and my pounding heart,
..kH

Okay.

Yes. I am in London now. Back to school. Or college. Or university college. Or whatever.. yes, - but I have not yet received my schedule. I am not quite sure exactly what it is I should be doing, so all I really do is sit and read and sweat, trying to prepare for the big directing project - which scares the living daylights out of me, to be relatively honest. Big endeavours petrify me, especially when I do not feel as if I know enough to deal with them. But then, that is what the project is for.. to study the procedure of directing.

For all I know I have this week off for preparatory work and research. And then, starting next week, I begin a rehearsal process, in which I direct three performers who will in turn direct me in their pieces. To elaborate> we are a group of four working together, each has to direct the other three, and be directed by the other three. See?
I have chosen a weird text to work with. Weird texts attract me. But thinking about it, weird texts are the harder to direct.. as working with the usual character relationships and conflicts of classical character dramas is fairly straight forward work, where one only chooses to be innovative or not. A weird text, on the other hand, enforces innovation.. and requires alternative methods. Which, of course, are the methods that I am interested in .. but I don't know them! Well go ahead and discover them then .. What? .. Coward .. Pardon me! .. Hen .. Yeah, very nice, how mature of you italics, how incredibly mature. Leave off! .. Whatever henboy .

Now then.. not much else. How I hope time will fly. The step from Bratislava to London is a step homeward.. not quite home yet, but on my way. Whichward is homeward then? .. Thatward! *points northwestward*

I am healthy and well. A bit agitated.
Truly,
..kH

My last day in Bratislava.

I am leaving. Done with Bratislava. Going back to London extremely early in the morning. There I will have about a week off, and then I resume my studies for just over a month. A big final project for the year awaits me there.

The VIPs in my life are hereby notified: the number I gave you for reaching me in Slovakia will be of no use to you after tonight, from tomorrow onwards, until I finally reach the shores of Iceland, you can reach me through the British number (which VIPs should already possess).

Farewell Slovakia, it has been nice. Ahoj for now, but I will see you later.. undoubtedly.

Packing,
..kH

Why is the Coca Cola company a company of monsters to be boycotted?
Here is material on which one can easily base that inclination. Further information can be found on the following websites:
http://www.CokeWatch.org ... http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk/cocacolacampaign.html

The official worldwide boycott was to last a year, running through 2003-2004. However, there is still every reason to remind the Coca Cola company that they are not rulers, that they can not get away with crime and dishonesty, and that people and places should be respected. They are fuckers, quite simply.

The International Boycott of Coca Cola started on the 22 July 2003. It was called by SINALTRAINAL (Colombian Food and Drinks Workers’ Union). It is supported by the World Social Forum, and by the CUT and the CGTD (principle trade union federations in Colombia), and numerous social organisations around the world.
Coca Cola stand accused of complicity in the assassination of 8 Sinaltrainal trade union leaders in Colombia since 1990. Many other leaders have been imprisoned, tortured, forcibly displaced and exiled. Of course, Coca Cola deny any responsibility for the murders, pointing out that 100s of union leaders are killed every year in Colombia. However, many of Sinaltrainal’s victims were killed inside Coca Cola plants while negotiating collective agreements. Coca Cola management were reported in the national press as meeting and contracting members of the AUC death squads to “sort out their labour problems”.

"The boycott is a means of sustained pressure and condemnation against the policies of the transnational company Coca Cola around the world so that the company repairs the damage caused, changes its policies and makes a commitment to respect the human rights of workers and populations. Our struggle is for peace with social justice and for the well-being of people and for this reason we embrace the struggle against the war, we contribute to the construction of a movement against capitalist globalisation, we participate in the fight against ALCA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) and we share the aspirations of the Continental Social Alliance, of the World Social Forum and all initiatives that enable peoples to achieve happiness, sovereignty and liberty."

Among the reasons, and there are many, are these:
Coca Cola should be reprimanded
For the violation of the human rights of workers and communities.
For the profits made on the back of assassinations, imprisonment, displacement, kidnapping, death threats and dismissals of trade union leaders in Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, Brazil, the United States, Venezuela, Palestine, Turkey, Iran and other parts of the world.
For the contamination of water sources with the waste from their bottling plants.
For racial discrimination against black communities and those suffering from AIDS in the United States and Africa.
For using coca to make its products and its support of the criminal policies of the United States against communities whose culture and survival depends on coca leaves, especially in Bolivia, Peru and Colombia. (imagine the hypocrisy!)
For its unfettered use of the world’s water and the criminal theft of water sources from communities in India.
For supporting the criminal oligarchy in Venezuela which is attacking the government and its plans to bring dignity into the lives of the people of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, as well as for its historic interference in the internal affairs of peoples.

"It also seems that over the past five to seven years, Coca Cola has lost control over product safety. Coca Cola has not enforced strict controls over processing plants producing its products despite a contamination scare that caused Coke products to be banned in several European countries and a string of recent recalls."

The following fragments of a report compares a Coca-Cola/Minute Maid processing plant in Auburndale, Florida with a Pepsi/Tropicana plant in Bradenton, Florida, during the period of 1996 to 2000. It was in 1996 that Coca-Cola turned over control of juice operations, in Auburndale and Leesburg to Cutrale, a Brazilian-owned juice company:

Recalls
Since Coca-Cola outsourced its Auburndale, Florida juice production,
Coca-Cola had three separate juice recalls
Pepsi had none

Safety & Heath Violations
Coca-Cola: Since Coca-Cola outsourced its Auburndale, Florida, juice production to Cutrale, the Occupation Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited the Minute Maid plant for 15 violations, including 13 determined to be "serious." OSHA penalized the plant on 10 separate occasions for violations during 1999-2000. From 1997-1999 OSHA also leveled three citations against Minute Maid's producer.
In the Auburndale plant, there have been many serious accidents, including:
an electrical accident that killed a worker,
explosions, and
two major chemical leaks that caused plant evacuations, shutdowns, worker hospitalizations and complaints of air pollution.
Pepsi: During this same period of time, Pepsi's Tropicana plant received no penalties from OSHA and had no explosions or chemical leaks.

There are also accounts of Coca Cola enforcing their products to be sold at new restaurants or other business establishments, for instance by threatening to open a bigger and better establishment across the road, as an example, that would put the young establishment out of business. Have you ever noticed how restaurants, movie theatres, cafes and bars, only ever EITHER sell Coke or Pepsi?
And a drinks company should not have political power. Did you know that Santa Claus is dressed in red because of Coca Cola?
Besides, Coke is bad for you .. so is Fanta, and Sprite, and Dr Pepper, who needs Minute Maid, or Bacardi mixers, or Aquarius? If you want to find a list of the products made and sold by the monsters in question, go to there ... http://www2.coca-cola.com/brands/brandlist.html

Fuck Coke.
..kH

A very short entry.

My time has been swallowed whole with all these visits. Will be waving my friend Fin Boy buh-bye in the morning.
Just came back from Wien, travelled in total 12 hours on a train to spend Saturday in Krakow. Poland is lovely. Wien is breathtaking.
Travel is amazing.

I am loving it.

Boycott Coca bloody Cola people! They don´t deserve to exist, the fuckers..
..kH

I am suffocating.
It is hot.
So hot.
Ég dey..

Sharp witted readers will have understood by now that weather here is warm, very warm.. which I generally regard as being good weather, but this is almost too good. It will take time for an icy hearted bloke like myself to get used to this, as it all happened so quickly. Just now, right before the weekend, this incessant and ever-growing heat struck the area, and it is not only here in Bratislava as I was in Wien (Austria) on Saturday and there the weather was incredibly warm as well. I am suffocating. Not only during the day, I sweat through the nights too.

I was visited by my mother and my friend Arnar on April 28, and they stayed with me until this afternoon. This weather (in addition to the prices of food, alcohol, and clothes) made them very happy. They melted the ice off themselves, sitting at every opportunity in the blazing sun enjoying meals and drinks.. I, on the other hand, preferred the shade. I understand them completely, they had just come from Iceland and found the heat here refreshing, but I have been living in the mid-European atmosphere for a while now and to me this heat was bordering on the unbearable. I also had a tough time trying to keep up with them in the consumption of alcohol. I found, as I usually find in the company of drinkers, that I handle less alcohol than the average drinker, and that the fun wears off drinking as soon as the state of tipsiness dissolves and becomes the state of drunkenness. Beyond that point suffering tends to step in.. tiredness, sickness, gloominess, and different kinds of different -nesses.
However, drinkers such as my mother, and especially my friend Arnar, are the types of drinkers that seem able to consume endless amounts of alcohol without it losing the fun, and it goes down seemingly like water. I know other people who are like them in this.. but I am very different, and this I discover again and again. And it seems to me that I have no chance of ever being able to handle alcohol like the average drinker, or enjoy its consumption to the extent most people seem to do.

It is not a bad thing. It just differentiates me, noticeably..

Melting,
..kH