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.

Here's to you, 2022

   Fuckin' hell mate... I don't post here nearly as much as I used to since being able to let off steam on so many other platforms, but I kinda miss it to be honest. An opportunity to rave and rant a bit without having to assault my friends with all of it.
   However, The Year Review is one of the few cinsistently remaining posts of the blog and so also this year. Here we go!

 

   Our Honoured Dead this year: The absolutely extraordinary Sidney Poitier passed. Rock legend Meat Loaf Aday left us. Ivan Reitman. Bernard Cribbins. The groundbreaking Nichelle Nichols. Our wonderful Angela Lansbury. Robbie Coltrane. Leslie Jordan was a shocker.
   Rest In Power and may you never be forgotten. Thank you.

   2022 started much the same way as 2021 - 'Rona did another victory lap around the globe and in it's wake parties, concerts, and shows got cancelled or postponed.  I was going to go see Henry Rollins together with a very good friend of mine, but no - cancelled. Amaranthe was supposed to play in February but postponed until November and by then I couldn't see them due to double-booking. As I Lay Dying cancelled their whole Europe Tour.

   February was holiday time for me, during which everything seemed to happen all at once; it was another end of covid restrictions, I tried new things (bouldering is fun!), parties returning (damned good fun), Galentine happening (damned good food with damned good company)...
   After that it was booster shot time - cue living with an arm for two days that felt like it'd been in a serious fist fight without the rest of me. Good times.
   Then came more "good times" (sarcasm y'all) with that psycopathic Russian trying to "take back"(?!) Ukraine by late February. Like I said: everything all at once. I'm so fucking DONE with humanity I'm almost hoping for a catastophic nuclear event to wipe us out completely - this planet will be better off without us, believe you me.

   So I donated blood to give at least something to someone.

   The sun started coming out properly by March and I felt like Wall-E soaking it in for energy. Which led to a lot of socialising, and unusual amounts of spontaneity. For instance: I wasn't planning on going to see Eivor live, but when I realised that hers was a concert I could actually attend I went for it like a dog after a rabbit. Her voice is fucking breathtaking.
   Having forgotten all the inconvenience that comes with romantic feelings I was also just about bouncing in my seat to get out there and meet more people, and I think I've been doing ok to be honest. 

   Starting off the first historical market season in two years was Ale Viking Market which I attended with gusto. A few hours was enough though, because people... people be people-ing.

   Russell Howard - a show for which I bought tickets in FUCKING 2019(!!!) and so by May 2022 the whole thing had already been on Netflix for nearly six months. My friend and I were livid, but weren't ready to just do a no-show when we had tickets. Russell's funny and my face hurt afterwards, but I'm still not sure it was worth the wait.

   Between May and when I finally went on holiday in July, I worked my ass off and had time for little else but schooling my new collegues in how not to piss me off. Wilful and strategic ignorance will always grind my gears, which was something they learned very quickly. And harshly. I'm not known to mince words.

   But in between my angry outbursts a friend dragged me along to the Medieval Days at Bohus Fästning just so I could run around and happily play dress-up for a while.

   My four week holiday kicked off with a Rammstein concert, holy hell. Yet another last second decision that, while I love Rammstein's music, it made me realise that huge arena concerts isn't my thing. Give me the smaller venues any day. We couldn't see shit from where we were standing and people in general are assholes. Another solid case of People Be People-ing.

   My first Medieval Week since 2019 brought me good friends, good ale and... COVID. Yeah. Stayed safe for over 2,5 years only to catch a light version while on friggin' holiday. However, my gastritis certainly didn't like being exposed to first massive amounts of alcohol and then antipyretics which meant I had to deal with that particular pain for a while. 
  But then it evened out a bit and I got to actually enjoy a week of holiday with my nearest and dearest.

   Back in 2018 I was furious with elections results but holy shiet...  This time WE ARE DOOMED. I mean, are you kidding me? Over a fifth of all voting Swedes chose to vote for literal nazis?! Fuck right the hell off. Ugh. There are no words for this kind of stupidity.

   Birfday #34 shortly after was a real treat though. Celebrate all the good things in style. 

   LEVELLERS YAY! Third time's the charm, they say. Amaranthe played another venue on the very same night but since I KNOW Levellers to be a good party I went with that. And I was right. A good night with good people.

   And then... Krimmus. Ugh.
   You should know by now how much I hate X-Mas. So I tried to do things a little differently this year: I spent one day with family, one day gaming with a very dear friend and then a one day absolutely decked out with a cold. Ok, so the cold was old hat, but gaming is new!

   New Year's Eve was spent as tradition required of me: with a glass of bubbly neck deep in a tub of bubbles. I've been doing this since 2018, but this year marked the first year since 2016 that I had any kind of company other than my furry ginger flat mate. I had a bath, and he had a post dinner nap (my human company, not the cat).

Best of 2022 experiences:

Movies: The Adam Project was a true Ryan Reynolds movie - tight, not too intellectually taxing and a good ride. I liked it a lot. I finally caved in and started leeching off of a friend's Disney+ and watched Encanto - it's quite lovely y'all. Don't Worry Darling with Florence Pugh was quite... disturbing... but chillingly engrossing.
Shows: Lets see, lets see... PEACEMAKER. Wow. So much better than I expected it to be. I want to put The Magnus Archives here as well, despite it being a mix between a podcast and an audiobook. An audio show, and quite brilliant at that. Stranger Things, OBVIOUSLY because friggin' awesomeness. HOLY SHIT, MOTHER OF FUCK - season 3 of The Boys! Season 3 of The Umbrella Academy was far superior to season 2. Aaaand, finally, the first Marvel show I've enjoyed since Daredevil; Hawkeye. *chef's kiss* Loki was ok too I guess.
Literature: As previous covid years, this year has gifted me many a literary experience, though because I could finally hang out with my people I "only" went through 75 books this year. I was enthralled entirely by 'The Testaments' by Margaret Atwood. 'The Fifth Season' by N.K. Jemisin was extraordinary. "The Past Is Red" by Catherynne M. Valente was an engulfing read. Someone handed me a copy of 'Daggerspell' by Katharine Kerr to read and WOAH did I enjoy it. Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse was bloody brilliant - exceptional - FANTASTIC. Sir Terry Pratchett's 'I Shall Wear Midnight' was equal parts sweet and brilliant, and 'The Blacksmith Queen' by G.A. Aiken was a silly romp. Recommended, all of them.
Events: I made some crazy good food y'all! Though I've never been a party gal I've enjoyed more than a few decadent parties during the year. I persistently tried building relationships in new ways to find a way working for me. I can't say I've found My Way yet, but I've also yet to give up. As a human species we've managed to grow food in lunar soil, instal enought solar panels to be able to power all of Europe and we've eaten more plant-based foods than ever before. Also we've finally mapped the entire humane genome and may have found a cure to most common cancers. There's hope for us yet.

I made my girlfriend a Chocolate Death cake
and she loved it.

   I'm grateful for the people I've met during 2022. I'm grateful for the things I've dared say yes to. I'm grateful for the changes I've been forced to make. I'm proud that I've made efforts to maintain friendships and relationships during 2022. I'm proud that I've dared open up to people and let them in despite being absolutely terrified. On a personal level, I'm hopeful for 2023 and looking forward to breaking through new walls.

   However! 2022 was also yet another sickening roller-coaster I can't wait to get off. Though I've had some emotional positive highs, them lows were real gut-punchers that left me gasping for breath (remember: literal nazi's in government). SO FUCK YOU 2022.

   Am now expecting nothing less than earthquakes, flash floods, vulcano eruptions, several cyclons and actual nuclear fallout in 2023. Will honestly be disappointed by anything less. But we've proved to be a sturdy bunch us humans, though we might break apart a little now and then. We've survived this far.
Bring it, Universe 💜 

Bubbly in Bubbles is the stuff. 

Happy Hobbit Day

   I have celebrated this glorious day all according to tradition by dressing up hobbit-y and preparing plenty of food. Admittedly, it was mostly lunch prep for work but it still counts.
   As a way of luring myself out of the flat I also went for a coffee with a new friend at my local nerdy café. It'll have to do for celebration, and truly, I don't think Bilbo nor Frodo would mind having their birthday celebrated that way.

   I myself have also reached a whole new age level, and am now... mostly overwhelmed to be honest. In the last year I've become romantically close to a select few people that has come to mean very much to me. Together with my best friend they decided that this was the year that I'd be spoiled rotten as a way of making up for the covid years of no celebration at all. I was wined and dined by friends the night before my birthday and as for my birthday I went from a dreamy breakfast in bed worthy of a hobbit with one partner (and my metamour) to a movie night drowning in cuddles and cheesy pizza with another person I'm dating.

   It feels a bit bizarre to be a reasonably functional adult reduced to some childish goo by the simple act of receiving thoughtful gifts. I've never been very good with compliments or being in the centre of attention because I keep asking myself about other people's hidden agenda, so birthdays are a strange lil' challenge for me. Don't get me wrong, I love being celebrated and noticing people making an honest effort on my account, but I'm still incredibly uncomfortable with it. I get awkward and act like I'm an embarrassed five-year-old.

   However, now as I wear the clothes, or read the books, eat the chocolate, or watch the movies I was gifted I won't be able to deny that there are people out there who likes me. People who made an effort for me. And that sure is a fantastic feeling.

The Hutt Recommends: The Past Is Red

 The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente

   A novella set far into the future when we, the Fuckwits of the past, have finally destroyed the planet with our constant consumerism and greed. The ice caps are gone and the oceans have swallowed everything in blue endlessness except for small patches of human resiliance. Our girl Tetley lives on an island of garbage floating above the ruins of cities that were once taken for granted the way Garbagetown will never be. Especially not by Tetley who's sacrificing so much for its continued existance. She will tell you that Garbagetown is the most wonderful place, that it's full of hope but that there are some secrets that are better kept secret.

I LOVED IT THOROUGHLY.

   Beautiful language and imagery for a future we fear. Phenomenal pacing; everything fell into place right when I needed it to. It took me three days to get through in the middle of a work week and I'll gladly sacrifice some more sleep to read this again when time's right.

The Hutt Recommends: The Magnus Archives

 The Magnus Archives by Jonathan Sims

The Magnus Archives is a horror audio series written by Jonathan Sims distributed by Rusty Quill and can be easily accessed through Spotify.

I usually get bored with horror podcasts, but after being recommended The Magnus Archives from two independent sources I was ready to give it a try. My expectations were as low as they could get, but I'm ready to admit I was hooked after the first episode; lured in by the bait of an angler fish in a dark alley in Edinburgh... Every episode is a manageable 20 minutes long and consists of interweaving stories of paranormal experiences - on the one hand there are the witness statements, but then what really happened to the old Head Archivist of The Magnus Archives? And what was she looking for in all those old statements? What's going on in the basement?!

I've gone through three seasons already and am going to start on season four soon. It's an excellent balance between suspense and pure creepy.

My favourite national holiday: BOKREA

 This tuesday was the start of every book worm's favourite annual holiday

 - BOKREAN, or THE GREAT BOOK SALE.

Once started as an initiative to pump up dwindling book sales figures and blowing air into the dying corpse of the book market. To think it used to kick around larger amounts of money than Christmas... But while I detest Krimmus The Great Book Sale is something I look forward to every year. This despite the fact that book shops these days seem to raid the same wholesalers for whatever 5 different thrillers and detective novels someone forgot in a dusty corner of a warehouse. Or some cook book that didn't do too well when first published.

If you're lucky though, like me, you live in a city with a book shop dedicated to all things nerdy which means you'll instead find an assortment of scifi, urban fantasy and fantasy books with savagely reduced price tags. They'll also cull "shelf warmers" to make space for new fun stuff.

I start with a budget. A reasonable amount of money.

And then I break that budget. With gusto.

I don't dick around when I get the opportunity to make new imaginary friends.

Just get the jab

 94% of all Intensive Care patients with Covid in Sweden right now are unvaccinated. 88,6% of everyone dying from the virus is above 70 years of age.

Get vaccinated you filthy animals. If not for you, then for your elders.

Have some fucking respect - show some empathy.

Edit 2022-02-17: Took the booster. Am boosted.

Save us 2021...

   ...you're our only hope.

   I'm not the first to admit that 2021 didn't have much competition from its most recent predecessor. The bar was set so low... and yet... here we are at the end of 2021 and what happened to that bar? Well, for the first six months of the year we certainly didn't go to any bars. (Well. I sure didn't. Because I'm not an unempathetic asshole.)

   Not wholly unexpected, we lost a few important people, such as Christopher Plummer and Helen McCrory. The legendary Richard Donner. The passing of Una Stubbs hit me hard. Ed Asner. Michael K. Williams - fucking hell, only 54 years old he was. Speaking of passing away way too young; Keiko Nobumoto. And then the very much problematic but nonetheless legendary Anne Rice moved on. As did the feminist icon bell hooks. BETTY WHITE ❤️  

   Thank you for all the good things you've given us.

• 
  

  Perdibird at Kryptonite made it pretty

     My intense series of tattoo sessions continued in January, carrying on work on another HHGttG tribute on mah butt. Well. It's on my hip out towards my butt... In February I let another artist at the same studio go crazy on my ribs. And again to finish the rib piece in April.

•    In May I had another two sessions booked - at first one more in Gothenburg to finish up that butt tattoo and then I went on an adventure down to Halmstad, just down the coast from my beloved city to start the painful process of getting my stomach decorated with something pretty.

   I feel like I might have officially gone from A Person with Tattoos to A Tattooed Person. A small but significant development by my standards.

   I like it.

•    By April I had already unlocked the achievement "10k in under 70min" I had presented as a challenge to myself at the start of the year; by which I mean that I actually ran 10 km in under 70 minutes. 64:30 to be more exact, which was way better than I'd hoped for for the first time I ever managed to actually run 10k.

   Believe me, I was as astonished as anyone.

   Surprisingly, I also went on a few careful dates with (unsurprisingly) varying results, but no results anywhere near the butterflies and pink goggles variety.

•    June was terrible. Thoroughly.

   People all around seemed to think covid was over just because restrictions were starting to get rolled back. People really are staggeringly fucking stupid, but I finally got that much wanted first vaccination shot in July - go me! and got nothing more negative than some headache and an arm that felt like it'd been through a fistfight all on its own without involvement from any other part of me.

• 

  Piece done at Bishop's Electric Tattooing

     By August I was exhausted and needed a week of being on holiday just to get the hang of being on holiday. August was also the month of not going to the Medieval Week because covid sure had a field day with the tourists on Gotland right about then (as it turns out the Medieval Week, funnily enough, was entirely spared the covid plague which goes to show history nerds learn from the past). So I didn't dare go and stayed on the west coast (Best Coast) for the most part, but also went up to the Capital for a bit to visit friends. Back on the west coast (Best Coast) I went to a few heavily restricted parties, read books, visited museums, finished my stomach piece, got stabbed in the arm a second time and was thrilled nonetheless. 

Halloween party like it's 1921!

   September was birthday month! 

   I'm finally a Hobbit of age!

   33 years old and still kicking.

   Woop!

•    Covid restrictions were completely lifted in September and while I stayed cautious I need to collect my nerds around me, so I started doing just that more and more.

   Autumn was strange and flew by in a blur while I tried dating again and I still think dating is the weirdest thing. Social anxiety just adds another spicy layer to everything, amirite? However, cinemas were opening up again which meant that I could finally dive back into the Marvel universes, and boy! Them universes be wild!

   December was as awful as always.

My dislike for Krimmus lives on unmoved.

And then Covid restrictions were reinstated.

   But I persevered. Until I couldn't. I was completely decked over the New Year celebrations. No covid, just the common cold, but it was my body's response to having been too busy for too long. 

Best of the year:

Movies: Because of covid I didn't get the opportunity to see 'Just Mercy' in theatres in 2020 but I caught it on HBO the second it landed there and holy shit I wish I'd seen it in theatres - SO GOOD. Once cinemas re-opened I watched 'Dune' and didn't even manage to finish my drink because I was so enthralled by the film. 'The Harder They Fall' was a Netflix premiere and it was AWESOME. The MCU delivered us 'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' and then 'Spiderman: No Way Home'.

Shows: I giddily discovered Letterkenny and The Rookie this year. The new seasons of The Handmaid's Tale and The Boys were a bit of a letdown though, while Fleabag was sweetly sorrowful, but also hilarious - a genuine recommendation.

Books: I've had a number of fantastic reading experiences this year. Continuing on the Newsflesh series with 'Feedback' by Mira Grant was a worthy ride, let me tell you. 'Monstrous Regiment' and 'Going Postal' by Terry Pratchett were fantastic. 'The Bear and the Nightingale' by Katherine Arden was lovely. I made time to re-read 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and for the duration of the first three books it's still the most hilarious stuff; beautiful nostalgia all round... just don't ruin your Guide experience by reading the rest of the series. Please? 'Cry Pilot' by Joel Dane was a 5 star-experience, as was 'The Starless Sea' by Erin Morgenstern. I adoooored 'The Vanished Birds' by Simon Jimenez. 'Karen Memory' by Elizabeth Bear and 'Queen of the Tearling' by Erika Johansen were both deep in the land of 5 stars. The classic tale by R.L. Stevenson about the duality of man; 'The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' is brilliant, and I was equal parts mesmerised and fucked up by 'The Echo Wife' by the amazing Sarah Gailey. I ended the year with the fantastic 'The Hollow Places' by T. Kingfisher and 'All Systems Red' by Martha Wells - both gifted to me by my best friends (oh, how I love you).

Events: Tattoo bonanza! Vaccination time! My ginger flat mate have learnt to put up with forehead kisses! The River Thames is no longer considered biologically dead! Experiments to neutralise nuclear contamination has been proven successful within the radioactive exclusion zone in Chernobyl. NASA has created oxygen on Mars which takes us one step closer to be able to bunch all narcissistic billionaires together and shoot them into space to exile them on Mars... humanely.

   The question remains; what happened to that low bar we set for 2021? I'd dare say that it got even lower for my faith in humanity. I know I said it last year as well, but people suck. I shouldn't expect anything good coming out of people with the past years' experiences to judge from, yet I persevere persistently to expect some basic human decency and receiving none of the sort. I am an idiot.

   But an idealistic leftist idiot I will remain. There is nothing else to it. I have no other choice.

   Next year is fucking election year and I already know deep within my bones that it's going to be beyond terrible. This fact obviously makes it even more important to gather my nerds around me and make good memories - long hugs, lots of kisses, grand movie experiences, delicious foods, nectarous drinks, hypnotising books...

   And guys, we survived 2021. I spoke to strangers. Those were my goals for this year and I made it.

We made it. We lived.

Maybe that's enough.

2021, in short

 

Review incoming...

The Hutt Recommends: The Diary of a Bookseller

The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell

"It is a strange phenomenon that, when customers visit the shop for the first time, they tend to walk very slowly through it, as though they are expecting someone to tell them they have entered a forbidden zone, and when they decide to stop, it is invariably in a doorway. This, of course, is incredibly frustrating for anyone behind them, and since that person is usually me, I exist in a state of perpetual frustration. Anthropologists insist that it is an instinctive human response on entering a new space to stop and look around for potential danger, although quite what sort of danger might be lurking in a bookshop - other than a frustrated bookseller whose temper has been frayed to the point of violence by the fact that somebody is blocking the doorway - is a mystery." 

   Shaun Bythell's diary of a year of his observations as a second hand bookseller in little rural Wigtown, Scotland, is both hilarious and, for me as another person working retail, very relatable. He's a lovely mix between the misanthropic Bernard Black (from Black Books) and an exasperated Giles (from Buffy) which is just my kind of dry sense of humour.

The Hutt Recommends: The Echo Wife

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey

   Evelyn Caldwell is devastated after her divorce from her cheating husband. It not just that he was cheating and it took her so long to notice, but he used her research in cloning to secretly create a genetic replica of her that is everything Evelyn is not. Martine is gentle, obedient and most of all the kind of motherly woman Evelyn could never be. That she promised herself never to be. 

   Evelyn would choose to just throw herself back into her research and put another part of her life in the deep pool of forgotten things, but now her cheating husband is dead and both Evelyn and Martine will have work together to bury the evidence or both their lives are forfeit. 

   You'll remember Gailey as the author who wrote about cowboys on hippos, which I absolutely adored thanks to it being humorous, intelligent and absorbing throughout. In the case of The Echo Wife "humorous" is most definitely not the word I'd use, but it sure made my head spin. I adore the way Sarah Gailey use their words - I was glued to the pages all the way through. It fucked me up, it did.

Hit a snag

   Lately it's felt like I've done nothing else but read. The words have been the kind of flowing escapist magic I need them to be, and I've pored through 25 books in just the last two months but now all of a sudden my brain wants nothing to do with books... but also wants nothing to do with anything else either.

   So now I guess I'm... stuck. Eventually it'll come back to me but it seems for now I need a break and I'm at a little bit of a loss.

   We'll see.

   Also, life man. Pandemic life sure is strange.

Holiday time

 FINALLY.

   I've been on holiday for a week already, but it's only now that I can actually feel myself starting to relax. I needed this so bad. My plans are to remain in my PJ's, read books, eat yummy foods, and meet friends. I might drink a beer or two. Run a few miles. Might not do that in my PJ's but will definitely return to PJ's once running and being in pubs is done with.

   No stress though. Because I've got three more weeks.

   Stay safe my friends. Be careful and get vaccinated.