Belgian Heat Strikes Sweden

Sweden has been hit by the Belgian heatwave I posted about yesterday. The heat in combination with my usual problems with falling asleep allowed me only four hours sleep last night so I am going to bed now.

Take care of yourself and the ones you love!

I hope to see you all tomorrow.
XOXOXO
"The hotness that is Bock"™

Progress

Today I took out my vacuum cleaner from the cleaning cupboard for the first time since March 12, 2010. I even used it and cleaned up the living room. It felt very good!

Art by Eugène Jansson  - "Male nude, sitting model" - 1906-1914

The antidepressants I started on shortly after Ars´s death made me able to function well at work, but when I came home I was mostly extremely tired and only able to cope with the most essential household chores.

Since that day I have only been doing the bare necessities to be able to exist, go to work or move around other people. I have been maintaining my personal hygiene, doing laundry and using the dish washer when the kitchen sink was too full or I had no plates or cutlery left to eat from or with. I have however managed to keep the toilet and the washbasin clean - or sort of, my mother wouldn't approve - but no one has been let into my apartment since that day.

Before the depression I was a rather fastidious and tidy person, an inheritance from my perfectionist Lutheran parents. I thrive in ordered and clean surroundings, so the growing clutter and dust around me has not been helpful. Not since I lately started noticing it, which I did not do the first years. So during my last vacation I slowly started on decluttering, step by small step.

Slowly but surely now my home is starting to come back to normal. There is still very much to do, but I have set a generous time limit for myself. Everything should be finished and my home presentable again by mid-December, because then I intend to have a get-together at home with my team at work.

Please, keep your fingers crossed for me!

"I Am So Hot!", He Said

It is not easy to be a single parent - and a stepparent at that - to a young man in his zesentwintig weer (26+), when the hormones are carousing wildly in his veins.

The cuteness that is Guyke™
Photo by Kent Hutchinson of KH Photography

Yesterday when I was in Instant Messaging with my son he suddenly blurted out, "I am so hot! My beautiful tan skin is glistening with pearls of salty, sweet, sweat."

Red alert! Red alert! All the warning signals sounded off in my mind. "Uh oh, what is wrong", I thought to myself, "is he really making a pass at me? Better pretend you do not understand and play it down!"

"Well, yes of course you are hot! What do you expect with Ars´s genes running in your genetic makeup." ("Good one!", I thought this would remind him of his father and my relationship to him.) "Besides, I already know you are hot, I have know you for close to five years remember?"

Guyke started laughing at me, can you imagine? "I was talking about the temperatures in Belgium", he said, "We have had a really warm day."

Sighing with relief that it was a misunderstanding I laughed with him at myself and my paranoia.

Biking With Ziggy

I reentered SecondLife today. The main reason for doing so was that my buddy Ziggy Starsmith had promised on his blog to open up a keg of beer and I was in a good mood so I thought, "Why not!"

Well, once I got inworld our plans changed. First I looked around at the work Ziggy had done at his home, as you can see here it looks fabulous.

After a while Ziggy asked me if I would like to go for a ride on his bike. Of course I jumped on the chance to get a bike ride around the beautiful Second Norway in the safe hands of Ziggy.

At the behest of my son Guyke I asked him, "Do I need a helmet?" Ziggy answered, "No, I will drive carefully and slowly". When I told Guyke his response he said sardonically, "Yeah, that's what my brother told me - and then he didn't!"

Anyway I started out without a helmet and felt quite safe.

The feeling of safety and after the first sim-crossing when we were both thrown sky-high and after a bit twirling around were stuck in the sky and had to re-log to get anywhere.

So, for my personal safety's sake, I donned the first helmet I could find in my Inventory before rejoining Ziggy to continue the ride. Not because I did not have complete trust in Ziggy´s skill as a driver, but because he after all did not control all aspects of our ride.

 I had a great time and enjoyed myself all lot with my charming and always so sweet-talking buddy!

Photo by Ziggy Starsmith

For more pictures from this thrilling adventure please visit Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life: Fighting The Lag Storm With Bock McMillan

The Ecuadorian Farce

Rafael Correa, President of the Republic of Ecuador

The concepts of "political asylum" and "political refugee" are relatively well defined in International Law and precedence. The concepts are to be used for persons needing protection from persecution due to race, nationality, religion, political opinions and membership and/or participation in any particular social group or social activities. Sexual persecution has also come to be accepted in some countries as a legitimate category for asylum claims, when the person can prove that the state of origin is unable or unwilling to provide protection.

The Ecuadorian interpretation making Julian Assange, suspected of rape and other sexual crimes in Sweden, a human rights activist and offering him political asylum on the grounds that he would be wrongfully persecuted if he were sent to Sweden for inquiry and possible trial for his crimes is an abuse of the concepts.

It is not at all strange that this decision has now caused a diplomatic farce between Ecuador, on one hand, and Sweden, United Kingdom and Australia, on the other.

So with this decision Assange now prolongs his voluntary house arrest another few years, possibly even longer than the prison time he would have gotten if he had been tried and convicted by a Swedish court in a timely manner without all the obstructions.

Memory Failure

This snapshot was secretly taken on October 30 2007, but I didn't get it from the photographer until my brief visit inworld yesterday.

I am the brunette with the deep California sun tan. Those of you with good powers of observation will recognize the pride leather bracelet on my left wrist. It was made by Wesley Spengler, the DJ, and it was one of the first things I bought after I had plugged in my credit card to SecondLife.

The blond man is the photographer (who´s name I will withhold) is still a good friend. The reason he gave me the picture was that I actually denied ever having sex with him. In my memory, we had just gone through the preliminary motions before we were interrupted by his roommate arriving to the house they shared.

I have always known that my memory is capricious, but it seems it is even more erratic than I thought. How can I actually have had sex with someone, still have them as friends five years later and totally forget we ever f***ed?

Even with the photographic evidence presented I cannot recall the occasion although I do remember how my friend looked at the time and even the deck we are on.

When the picture was taken I had already been stalking Ars around during his sets at the gay clubs, but I thought that he did not notice me at all. Not long afterwards I would learn that he actually had seen me and liked me. Less than a month later we became a couple. 

Flowchart for Homophobes

(From Meme Center via J.M.G.) Click the image to enlarge it for easier reading.