This was me, 2023

 I entered the year with one single thought screaming though my brain like a man on fire: "I HOPE TO ALL THE GODS THAT THIS'LL BE THE YEAR WHEN THINGS DON'T GO TO SHIT. PLEASE AND THANK YOU."

...well. I'm not dead. So I'll say that's a win at least.
Whatever. Lets get down to business.

   We mourn the loss of the incredible Sinéad O'Connor, Tom Wilkinson, Andre Braugher, Tina Turner, Ryan Siew, and Barry Humphries. Thank you, you'll be missed and you'll be remembered.

   As for the rest of this Year Review I'm going to keep it short and sweet because this year has been somewhat of a mental car crash with some glitter sprinkled on top to make it look appetising.

Two gingers in a mirror

   During the best annual bookworm event, Bokrea (book sale), a total of six new friends joined the ranks of the home library. However, because of how the economy seems set to starve us of everything beyond the bare basics of surviving, these literary friends are very nearly the only books I've managed to aquire this year. However, since I haven't had time to read as much as during the 'Rona Years this might actually be a good thing - it forces me to read what I've already accumulated.
   This doesn't at all mean I haven't treated myself to experiences that'll take my mind off of how terrible the world is.

   Henry Rollins was punk rock personafied when I saw him perform his spoken word show, but sadly, Dylan Moran lived up to the Drunk Irishman prejudice.

   2023 was the year of me experiencing a wide array of my favourite bands; Faun, Raised Fist, Electric Cowboy, Mimikry, Ice Nine Kills, LOK, Perkele, Fit For An Autopsy and Whitechapel were all guests of my wonderfully ugly home town of Göteborg. For the first time since 2019 I was finally feeling physically safe enough to travel which meant that I not only went abroad but also went to my first ever music festival - GRASPOP. It was huge. And amazing. And fantastic.

   For Midsummer my best friend threw a Hobbit Party, and what a party it was! We ate ourselves rotund, played games and laughed all the while enjoying each others nerdy costumes. As for all other national holidays, and my birthday, they were nothing out of the ordinary. Still hate Krimmus.

   This year I've ended unsatisfactory relationships and made way on other, hopefully more felicitous ones. I've discovered more about myself in relation to others and taken a hit or two to the heart along the way. Honest communication and expressing my needs have been both supressed and forcefully unearthed themes that'll have to live with me and seriously develop further in the next coming year.

 
Best of 2023 experiences:

Movies: I haven't been to the cimena even once this year but I've paid through the nose for several streaming services and so I hereby give you my favourite discoveries - Bullet Train, and The Gentlemen.
Shows: "Last of Us" has had me gasping all year. Pedro Pascal is a treasure.Books: I read 53 books during 2023 and managed my goal of reading more litarature by non-male authors than the other way around. I was gifted Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree for Krimmus last year and the story was so sweet and tender and just lovely. "The Girl With All the Gifts" by M.R. Carey had me reading at all hours of the day in anticipation for what was going to happen next. I continued the Between Earth and Sky series by Rebecca Roanhorse with "Fevered Star" and I loved it. I was absolutely in awe of Brian McClellans "Sins of Empire". The continuation of Wayfarers; "A Closed and Common Orbit" by Becky Chambers was fantastic and by the end a real tear-jerker.

Events: I've drastically upped my amount of social interactions; parties, concerts, dates, several beer festivals, Graspop, the Midsummer Hobbit Party, a book expo, all the while also managing to consistently work out. I bettered my personal best time running a 5k and feel stronger than I've felt since I was in my early twenties.

My hopes for 2024 are legion,

but I would like it if things just worked out.

A very Hobbit-y Midsummer

   This year, for the first time since I was in my early twenties, I had enough time off from work to be able to attend some sort of Midsummer festivities without stressing myself to bits. My best friend arranged a LotR-inspired potluck in her garden for which ten happy nerds turned up. 

     In proper hobbit fashion we were absolutely drowning in good food and good drink. Pictured below is most of the food we had to choose from (key word: "most of"). After all the food it's Swedish tradition to play games and be silly which we obviously did with gusto and to our great joy one of the nerds had created a LotR-themed game especially for the evening - a version of "Toss the Dwarf" obvisouly. 

I'm eternally grateful for my best friend for lending us her garden to meet up - it was lovely seeing friends, dressing up and stuffing my face with good food. Some of these nerds I haven't seen since High School, but we're all still basically the same lil' nerds/misfits as back then.

This fucker right here

   This past DecemberI was looking around for conserts to attend during 2023 because like so many others I wanted to make up for the Covid years when we couldn't attend... anything. In particular, I was looking to see Amity Affliction or I Prevail and LO AND BEHOLD - I stumbled over Graspop where both bands were planning on making a performance.

   Seeing as I've never been to a music festival I found it ludicrous that I would even consider going to an event not only abroad but also attended by over 200 000 other metal heads. Going through the rest of the line-up I realised that I actively listen to nearly 20 of the performing bands.

   Did I want to go? Yes. Did I hesitate? Yes. Did I finally buy myself a ticket? Also yes, with a whole lot of encouragement from my friends.

   Did I go? Hell yes.

Did I enjoy myself? HELL YES.

Do I want to go again? Also yes, but with a few but important corrections to my luggage and food plans. Lunch and dinner was never a problem at Graspop, but pickings were slim when it came to breakfast for us vegans...

   Favourites included Architects (basically a religious experience), Hollywood Undead, Motionless in White, Fever 333 and Amity Affliction. My camp gets a bonus gold star simply because it was nowhere near as nasty as I thought it would be. Four day festivals are brutal though and, as expected, hella expensive... 

   ...I wanna go again.

Go home, you're drunk

 

  Yesterday, my best friend and I went to see Dylan Moran. This'd be the third time we did that, but this time we changed it up a bit by having good food and great cocktails beforehand. For what followed I really needed those cocktails.... and then some.

   Because as Dylan Moran drunkenly writhed around on stage and started wailing off tune to the clinking of a keyboard we could just look at each other in pure confusion.

   It was awkward as hell.

   I feel like I might have needed to be at least as drunk as he was to enjoy his We Got This. I'll willingly admit to enjoying him so much more when he was searingly bitter but sober. At least then he could remember his script.

I love me some trash

    Bookworms, read yourselves some Trash.

   You heard me. I will defend reading trash literature 'til the very end of my last breath. 

   You can read yourself blind with all those well written tight stories or the literature that will widen and deepen your mind, but if you don't let your brain rest once in a while you might end up losing that love of reading. I've been there. I know it well. I spent years reading course literature for university classes and for the longest of time (what felt like hundred of years of tragedy) I couldn't enjoy literature like I wanted to. Like I used to. Reading made me exhausted because I kept reading like someone was going to make me take a test.

   Sometimes we need simplicity. And familiarity. And that's why we need trash. The stories we already know even though we might not have read that particular title.

   I love the dark fantasy stories with so much intrigue I have no idea how it'll end or that incredibly inventive science fiction that'll bend my imagination every which way. Or even that romantic nonsense that'll make me weep with joy when the protagonists finally admit their love to each other. 
   I still read factual literature. I enjoy diving into history, politics, and philosophy but I need my trash in between. This is the very reason I keep several books going at any given time.

  I will still judge your trash, because there's Trash and then there's TRASH.

   I love me some Trash.