On books and smells and other things I love

An old friend of mine gave me a chocolate scented Bodyshop spa kit for my birthday, and I just can't stop smelling myself, it's ridiculous. What's even more ridiculous is me going around going "Here, smell me!" (obviously not with random people, but you know). I tried it on Puppy on Friday, completely forgetting (like I always do) that he doesn't like chocolate. I don't know what kind of madness not liking chocolate is, but as Puppy said: "Well, would you rather that I walked around smelling you all the time?" and then proceeded to sniff me very demonstratively at the café we were at.

As this week off is coming to an end, I feel refreshed and alive again. It may sound overly dramatic, but I really needed time to myself. Pony agreed, stating that I'd been miserable for six weeks, and I don't think I'd really realized that that much time had passed. But yeah, I've been more or less cranky since mid-December. I don't like being cranky. I especially don't like when I don't notice I'm being cranky, so I'm being a bother to everyone else.

Having rested up though, I feel invigorated. I do things now. Not in that automated kind of sense when it just sortof happens while you go around your daily business in some sort of haze where you're not really aware of what's going on and you don't really care either, but I'm doing things in a determined way, taking deliberate steps towards reaching goals and getting things done. I made preparations for getting my Bachelors degree on paper this week (which I've been meaning to do since forever), and signed up for a Japanese job hunt site. I'm going to write a letter to T tonight, which I've been meaning to do for almost a month, and pay all my bills on time. All these things sound insignificant, but when you've been too exhausted to do anything other than mope around, it's a liberating feeling to be able to do something. During the week, several people have commented on how good it is to see me happy and full of energy, telling me how tired and worn-out I looked before, and that should serve as some sort of reminder for me to not do this again. Working myself into the ground because of some sort of feeling of comradeship won't lead to any form of gain for me.

I've spent a good deal of this week reading. Actually, since New Years, I've been reading nearly every day. Yesterday I got hold of a newly translated version of a short story collection by my beloved Haruki Murakami, and I've taken a break from re-reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicle and dove straight into these short stories that affect me in a way that can't really be compared to any other author. On my way home on the bus I read a story called On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning, and in just a few short pages it grips your heart, twists it and tosses it between feelings of hope and regret in a way that's profoundly touching. I can't compare it to anything else. I think the man's a genious.

My brother and his family gave me a collection of short stories by Nobel literature prize winner Alice Munro, and while I've read a lot of good things about her, I just can't seem to be swallowed up in the same way as I am by Murakami. Maybe I should finish all of his books first, so my thirst to read anything that man puts on paper is quenched for long enough to concentrate on another author. I almost feel a little sorry for her, even though she's in no way aware of my inability to allow her works to grip me in the way I wish they would. I feel like I'm being unfair in how I'm dissuaded by her simply because she isn't him.

Kinda the same way that nothing compares to the person you're in love with. I think I'm in love with every single Murakami book I own.

Reading short stories I'm reminded of how much I loved to write when I was younger. I would get high marks in English and Swedish all through school, especially when it came to writing fiction. There was this well of ideas inside of me. I could clearly see locations and people in my mind's eye, and apparently I was pretty successful in translating that into text for others to read and take part of. I don't know why, but I think  that well dried up during high school, possibly because I kinda hated life in Liverpool and stopped caring about pretty much everything. It's been almost ten years. I miss that well. Maybe, if I tried it again, I could get around to writing something, but it's hard when the words don't flow anymore. I mean, technically I'm writing almost daily when I write here, but these are mostly just incoherent ramblings that probably don't serve to further a story. I just don't really know where to start with fiction again. Maybe one day I'll be able to look back at my thoughts and feelings that I'm writing now, and rework them into something more compelling than me whining about my everyday life. I kinda like that idea.