SPEAKING OF

Ewan McGregor.

Aren't grown men cute. With their little games and toys. I love this.
It kind of reminds me how "Growing old is inevitable, growing up is optional".
And thank goodness for that.

We can be us

Moulin Rouge is one of my absolute favorite movies.
For multiple reasons.

I've met people who think it's a bad movie because it's "just pop songs". I guess they think it fails as a musical because of that.

I think that's one of the great things about it.
Having been raised on music, and being a apart of the social group that I am (The "I'm SO not a hipster"-group) where 60% of our interactions and entertainment revolves around cultural references; I find this a brilliant movie.
How satisfying to sit and get reference after reference!
And how fascinating to discover the ones you didn't know!
I love that.



Also; I do hold a fascination for cover songs (as long as it's done in a respectful manner, art is supposed to be interpreted and shared). Maybe that's why I enjoy the movie. Besides being a cute love story (/tragedy) in a sparkling wrap-up it works as a tribute to so many good artists.
That's what I think.


I recently watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
Partly because I wanted to see Emma Watson as someone else than Hermione (She did good).
Mostly because I've seen the book in the stores and heard people recommend it. I picked it up time after time, but never brought it home. Being caught in the atmosphere of High School through a whole book didn't tempt me, but I can bear it for an hour and 43 minutes (and I don't regret it).




Anyways, my point isn't really the movie itself or ms. Watson. What struck me was how Heroes by David Bowie became such a meaningful song for the characters in the movie and gave me an equally meaningful feeling. It took me back to my discovery of David Bowie when I was young and my daddy would play his concert-DVD and praise Gail Ann Dorsey's beautiful voice (which deserves praise; it really is out of this world. And that version of Under Pressure really is the best one). And it reminded me of how I fell in love with Ewan McGregor during the Elephant Love Medley in Moulin Rouge the first time I watched it.

It's a good feeling, remembering feel-good moments and being reminded of good music.

If you garden them and water them

As a kid I was utterly useless when it came to houseplants. I once killed a cactus in less than a week. (Because I decided that this time I wouldn't forget to water my plant ...It drowned).

15 months ago I found a tiny Saintpaulia. It looked so lovely I decided to give plants another shot. And, worst case scenario; I would at least have some fun while it lasted.

I still have it, it is thriving and occasionally blooming.

My grandma loved houseplants. Her window sill would always be full of them. She and Mum would regularly go on shopping sprees dedicated for plants. And even though she liked lots of colors and would go into the shop with an open mind to what she'd get, she always came out with a pink one.

I have discovered a sort of ceremonial behavior within myself. When someone dies I want to do something that to me hold a strong connection to my image of that person. When my grandfather died I surprised my boyfriend by asking for a cup of coffee, which I usually didn't care for (now I kinda do, it's been two years), and when my grandma died I told my mother I would go out and buy a pink houseplant.

I didn't buy one; I inherited one of my grandma's (a Kalanchoe). And I still have it; It's growing at the speed of Alice and blooming merrily.

Watering my plants now, knowing it's been over a year, I can't help giving it some extra thought. I inherited two more plants of my grandma's and I've bought myself some more. They seem to be thriving, which makes me happy.

I guess as you grow older these things happen. You loose things. And you learn to take care of things.

Synesthesia

Maria Mena was on Skavlan (a Norwegian/Swedish talk show) some weeks ago. And she has synesthesia.

Hers is not the same as mine, she can actually use it to make her music; by putting the right colors, corresponding to musical notes, together. I just associate a color to each letter in our alphabet and numbers. And to the weekdays and the months. I also have a strong visual perception of abstract concepts like years and weeks.

But by listening to her talking about it I managed to finally catch the name of this condition (even though I've known about it for a while, I've never managed to remember the name of it), so I wikipedied it.

On the top right corner of the English Wikipedia article there's an image illustrating how a person with synesthesia might perceive the letters of this word.

This is when I discover that my Grapheme → color synesthesia might be stronger than I thought. 'cause I found this image somewhat uncomfortable to look at.
All the letters are the wrong color.
(Which is fine if there's some aesthetic reason and the colors match, but this combination of colors was just a mess and to me without reason or order).

Maybe it's my ocd colliding with my synesthesia. ...XD

For those curious, this is how I perceive these letters:

Does this make anyone else uncomfortable like the Wikipedia image made me?
I find it quite fascinating that people with the same condition will assign different colors to different concepts (even though it makes perfect sense; we are different persons after all).


Oh, and while we're at the subject. Some weeks ago I was chatting with some friends (my boyfriend and my girlfriend's boyfriend) and I mentioned that I like some numbers better than others without knowing what determined if I like them or not. We wondered if the ones I like might be prime numbers, but when I reflected on this later I quickly discovered they were not (not exclusively).
Then, while researching synesthesia I got the idea that it may have a connection to the colors.
And it does!
I really like the red or otherwise warm-colored numbers. The blue ones are ok. The yellow ones are kinda special and fun. I don't like the pink ones and the white ones are neutral. And then there's 11, which is sort of a light beige-gray and one of a kind and (therefore?) my favorite of them all.

Then again, this doesn't answer why I like the ones I like 'cause I do not know why they got their respective colors...

(Isn't it weird how specific numbers got a different color than their contents? Like 10 being yellow even though 1 and 0 are both white. And 20 (being blue) is a greener shade than 2.)

So.
Synesthesia.
Anyone else?

This is a blogpost.

First, an explanation regarding the layout:
I thought the green and red layout was ready, but after launching it I discovered several things that still need adjustments and, seeing as I had already put down quite the time, energy and effort into it, I don't have any time, energy or effort left to spare when it comes to blog layouts. It will have to be saved for another time.
Meanwhile. I took the time to customize one of the templates provided by Blogger.com and am quite pleased with the colors at least, so this will be my layout now.

Then I want to apologize to anyone that might feel neglected, forgotten or ignored by me. My Bachelor is due in just 10 days and I'm not even halfway done. I am stressed as hell and will break down in tears by the silliest things. That is why I'm difficult to get a hold on these days. I am truly sorry.

Furthermore; Allowing myself some distraction I thought I would share with everyone my new crush in music. Then! while wondering which of their songs to present I discovered that they just released a new album! And although I didn't care that much for their last one, this one is kinda lovely. So comfortable, uplifting sounds!

So, ladies and gentlemen. Born Ruffians is a Canadian indie rock trio. They are super cool. And this is my favorite song from their newest album.

With Her Shadow





And this is the song I chose for you before discovering the news. Barnacle Goose (From my favorite album right now; Red, Yellow & Blue), because it's so much fun.




Post-punk revival must be one of the best things ever to happen. :D
(Well of course I would say something like that, being a person who names The Cure's debut album one of her all time favorites XD
...But seriously.)