Kælan Mikla

Ermahgosh, do they have an opening for a fourth? I'd go forth with them ALL THE WAY!

http://grapevine.is/tv/2014/11/07/post-set-breakdown-with-kaelan-mikla/

Okay, and just read this review from the Reykjavík Grapevine on their Track Of The Issue: Kælan Mikla’s “Ekkert nema ég"

With its loud and gnarly thumping bass, “Ekkert nema ég” starts off filthy great. According to the band, the song’s lyrics are all from a long text message drummer Sólveig Matthildur Kristjánsdóttir wrote her friend while drunk. Vocalist Laufey Soffía Þórsdóttir renders the drunk-text beautifully, softly singing: “I will smoke the world / swallow its remains / so there will be nothing left but me,” before screaming at the top of her lungs: “I am God!”

Meet Kælan Mikla, a trio of avant-garde punks whose lyrics are poems (indeed, you may read about them in our poetry feature), delivered on top of loud, quivering bass lines courtesy of Margrét Rósa Dóru- Harrysdóttir. They capture Millenials’ melancholy, displaced sense of self, and narcissistic worldview down to a tee."

I mean, like, really? Where do people get off with names like 'Sólveig Matthildur Kristjansdóttir,' 'Laufey Soffía Þórsdóttir' and 'Margrét Rósa Dóru-Harrysdóttir'? I mean, and they, like, ...

Gah! I'm in love ... lust ... whatever!

Just give me more of that thumpin' bass and screamed lyrics and I'll thump some bass and make somebody scream some kinda lyrics ... for a looooong while. If you know what I'm sayin'

Sandwich Bar

So, I finally saw "In a World," and it's about ...

It's about me.

It's about this crazy, crazy, LA-crazy family, where the Dad totally dominates the family, wrecking everything in his wake, particularly his daughters, because ...

Because he's the Dad, and that's all he can do. He has to be strong, and he's forgotten that the reason he's strong is to be strong for them. So, instead, he's so strong, that he just rolls over them, hurting them in big ways and in bigger ways ... because getting hurt by Daddy is never a small thing for a little girl, no matter how old she pretends to be.

And that's the whole movie. How hurt we are by Daddy, and how much we just want to be loved by him, but instead, when we reach out for that, he's so strong, and so right, and so ... angry.

Well, one scene, the girl's sister ... doesn't almost cheat on her husband, her plain , ordinary, average-joe husband with this movie superstar.

She doesn't almost cheat on her husband, who's always there for her. But she taped an interview this guy, and her husband finds it, and she comes home that night, just so full of work, and all the stuff she's dealing with on her job, just totally oblivious, until he puts the tape on the table, and walks out.

And then, ladies, then it hits her, and no matter how much she begs and screams and cries, he's not going to stay now, not any more, and she realizes what she had, when she loses it, when she's losing it, right now, and there's nothing she can do to get him back. Ever.

And she learns, right then, how much she's taken him for granted, how much a bitch she's been, and how she doesn't deserve him, how she never did, just plain, ordinary, steady hubby and his sandwich bar for supper, because that's all he knows how to make, but he does make it, for her, and she just breezes past him and takes him for granted but no more.

And now.

And now it's over, because she can't ask for him back, because she no way deserves that, a second chance. She's screwed it all up royally, and there's no getting him back. Why would she inflict herself on him anymore? She can't stand herself, and she wouldn't want anybody to have to deal with her, so why would she ask him?

I was her.

I was worse.

Christmas day, I cheated on Saga, ... as Saga's world was falling apart, and I had no idea why, I just knew it was, and I tried, and I tried and I tried, and I couldn't help her, and ... I wasn't helping, as much as I tried. I couldn't go away, because she had her distance, and I couldn't force her, so I just tried, and I failed.

And then ... I cheated on her. It was an open invitation, and ... I took it, just like that. And...

For Saga, it was the worst thing I could do, but was I thinking of her...

And the sad fact was, I was thinking of her. As soon as I ... did ... it. I ran right to her, and told on myself.

And she was like: okay ... fine with it. Oh, it's okay, live a little, you should go out and see other people and she was actually ...

Until she found out who it was.

And then everything went to shit.

And she tried after that, but she couldn't ... anymore. She couldn't ... with me ... anymore because ...

Because ...

Because ...

And then she said 'Let's be friends,' and ...

And I scream, and I cried, and I wailed, and I lashed out, and I ... hurt her, with my words.

And she said 'I deserve it. I deserve your anger. Hurt me.'

And I couldn't. And I couldn't beg her to stay with me, my heart, my happiness, because she wasn't happy anymore.

Love isn't 'my happiness is more important than you, so you stay with me, no matter how it makes you feel, because I'm happy with you ... sort of, so you be miserable with me. I mean: you stay with me.'

I looked at myself, wanting to beg her, to force her, to make her stay with me, and I said ...

I said.

"I will love you forever, Saga Louise. I will love you forever."

And I knew what I lost. I lost Saga.

I lost someone who knew how to press my buttons. She would say one word, baiting me, and I'd fall for it, and tease her, and play with her, and come to find, she was playing me, playing with me, and so loved watching me spin up like a top, all phfina-righteous, all phfina-smart and -funny, and -smexy, and she would do that to me, watch me spin up, and just smile her simple little knowing smile, so full of warmth and wisdom, and I'd stand there, flabbergasted, just amazed at her, and how smart and beautiful and sweet she was, and could any human being be like that?

And I'd write something, and she, having taken literary criticism, would read more into what I wrote than I knew I had put in there, and more than anybody else had ever seen, and she would model for me, and let me write her stories, and she would be the heroine, the star, and I would be the knightess in shining armor, riding in to rescue from whatever dragons wanted to gobble her up.

And we were so, so happy.

It was a little bubble of happiness. We floated along, me, in my little yellow sun-dress, and her, feeding me lingonsylt, giving me little kyssar on the cheeks to lick off the mess she made, feeding me, and wondering wherever in the world I made up the recipe for 'Swedish Chicken' because there was no such dish in all of Sweden, and she knew.

In the movie, the husband comes back, and, he surprises his wife, he's set the table with candles, and a sandwich bar, and when she comes in, expecting to find nothing: just emptiness and loneliness, but he's there, and t...

She just throws her stuff on the floor, then she grabs ahold of him and throws him on the floor and fucking ...

She goes a little crazy on him.

Just a little.

But that's the movie, and it was so sweet, and so endearing, and so empowering to women, for women to find their own voice, in a man's world, not need men, to be themselves, but also not trampling over them. To be a woman, and to have your own voice, doesn't mean you have to scream, or step on, or coddle. It means you can be yourself, and be confident in that, and also let the man be himself, with or without you, and if he wants to be with you, if that's his identity, his happiness, and you want to be with him, then that's okay, but if you want to be who you are, and you don't need a man to tell you who you are or allow you to be you or anything. If you want to be you, then you can be you, and that's fine.

The women in In a World, are so strong, or come to be, without losing an ounce of their femininity, without losing an ounce of their inner beauty.

And that's that movie. It's beautiful and affirming. Watch it.

Saga.

Saga was thirty-two, and she worried she was too old for me.

But the thing is, that wasn't it.

I'm older now, too. Four years older.

But I don't feel older.

I feel like I'm still that fifteen year old girl they carted off to the hospital in an ambulance, heavily sedated, because she lost it. The girl that everybody was looking at, then, six months later...

Six months later when I got out of that hospital, everybody avoided, because she might just go cray-cray again.

And I'm stuck there. I don't feel like I'm a strong, independent woman with her own job, in charge of a department and the people who work in it. I don't feel like that at all. I feel fake; phony. I feel like I'm faking it, and that somebody will find out, and ask me to leave, in front of everybody, and I'll have to walk out, my head held high, because if I don't, then they'll cart me away again, and I won't let that happen again. I'll kill myself first.

And that's where I teeter, balancing on the knife's edge with the abyss to either side of me, and Saga's left me, for good reason. For good reasons. I didn't deserve her. I never did. And the two years she spent with me were two blessed years of laughter, and love, and trembling fear and anticipation, and a zest for life, and a joy of being with someone who knew me more than I did, who looked up to me, as I looked up to her, who was my strength in my weakness, who was vulnerable so that I could be her strength.

Saga Louise.

Thank you.

Thank you for being you.

In a world where I am surrounded by the abyss and the only thing I could lean on was the knife, you were the only light, the only breath of air for me for a long, long time, when I couldn't breathe and I couldn't see but darkness.

I wish I could have been a better person for you. I'm praying for you. I'm praying that you find your health and happiness, right where you are, right in your home, with your family, with those who love you more than the sun and the sea and the sky.

In a World ... where nothing makes sense, you were the only sense. You were my eyes that saw me as I see me, but saw me as somebody sweet and smart and feisty and lovable, and you loved me, your little kitten, din litten panter, and held me, and let me scream and scratch and cry, and loved me to health and happiness and self-fulfillment and all you asked for was ... nothing. Your love was sweet and fierce and selfless. You were my Sun, and I was blinded in your light that warmed my dead soul back to life. You were the grown up, so strong and firm and sure, and I was a little baby. I could be. You let me, and you loved me, just as I was, and, at the same time, you never, ever let me get away with my shit. You held me ... you held me up to the person you knew I was, not the self-indulgent person I let myself be.

And now ... you're gone. And now, ...

I'm afraid.

I'm afraid I'll have to grow up, and face the world, and be mature and responsible, and drain the joy out of my veins and see everything in greys, and marry the right man, a kind man, and have children, and raise them, and fall in love with them, and be ... satisfied, happy, even, content.

I'm afraid I'll just fade into the person I'm supposed to be. That I'll just have to grow up and square my shoulders and face the world: a strong, independent, responsible woman.

I'm not afraid of that. Which by what I mean is, that will happen or it won't, and I'll be that eccentric spinster-aunt, just like Emily Dickinson.

But I'll look back at my life, this ... married woman with kids and grandkids, or this spinster-aunt, and ... I'll wonder where that girl went, who was me. I'll wonder when she died, and why she died so quietly, so quietly that nobody noticed, not even me.

And I'll go to me grave wondering that, or worse, not wondering that, because I'm so caught up in the craziness of this world, and won't even realize it when I fall off the bus, because I'll be crossing bradlick road and just be another fatality statistic that week when another SUV slams through the red light, again. 'Body of young woman; identity uncertain due to disfigurement from force of impact.'

Doesn't even make the news anymore. I was walking and then, BAM! I heard the crash of cars exactly where I had been, thirty seconds ago, and I would've been a goner, if not for those thirty seconds, and my guardian angel watching over me, hurrying me along through the intersection before the two cars smashed into each other, both of them running the red at high speed.

But why is my angel saving me?

I'm afraid that I don't know that why. Saga knew, but now she's gone, so I have that responsibility, now, for myself.

I'm not a very responsible person. I was just a girl looking for her daddy and mommy to love her, and ... I just never grew up. And try as I might to pretend I am that grown-up person, I just ...

I'm just not.

I wish I had that bubble.

But the world doesn't wait for bubbles for girls much too old to be blowing them now.

Agnus Dei could not kill the Metal ...

Okay, my Monday was just made. Someone favorited my little Agnus Dei one-shot. So... all you haters our there, that savaged JT for publishing it and me for ghost-writing it? You can just ... read another story, I guess, because someone who likes Metal liked my story.

OTOH: Zombies LIKE brains...

I just got a PM from a girl where she writes that she likes our PM exchange, particularly because I have brains behind my PMs.

"Brains behind" my PMs. Huh.

... ;)

Here was my response to that:

OH, NOES! OH, NOES! ZOMBIES found out that I have brains behind my PMs, and the ZOMBIES ARE EATING MY BRAINS! HELP! HELP! ZOMBIES MUNCHING ON MY LITTLE BRAINS!

Zombie A: Yum, `phfina's brains! Pretty good eatin'!

Zombie B: Oh, I dunno, Joe (What? Zombies have names?!?! When did this happen?), I've had better.

Zombie A, aka Joe: Eh, a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Munch-munch.

Zombie B: Yeah, I guess you're right. Munch-munch.

OH, MY POOR BRAINS!

(`phfina snickers)

;)

Move over Max Brooks, your World War Z ain't got nuttin' on me.

Can't touch this!

The 'benefits' of friends

So, last week, four people, out of the blue, PMed or emailed me and said, 'hi,' and 'how are you?'

I don't know what that means to you, but what it means to me is how brave each of these people, my friends, that I haven't heard from in a while, for some, more than a year, to just *boink* get up one day and say 'hi' and see how little `phfina is doing.

And now, it doesn't matter how I was doing before. How I'm doing now is wonderfully! Thank you, my friends, for being brave, for being kind, for being thoughtful, for ... caring. For caring about little me and how I'm doing.

And you, my dear friends reading this little note, having not written me.

It's okay. It hurts, but it's okay. I understand that it can be a scary thing to write to me, because I'm a scary person, and you never do know if I'm in a fit of desperation and depression so deep you won't know what hit you when I savage you back with my: "How am I doing? Who the fuck are you to ask me how I'm doing? I just fucking tried to kill myself because I fucking hate my life, and you ask me how I'm doing?"

Yeah. 'Bitch' isn't a word to describe me, because bitches fear me. That's a known fact.

And other times I'm so full of love and understanding and sweetness you say 'well, who needs heroine?' Really! And you just float in my love, and you offer to get me hitched to you so you can drag me away to your bedroom and have your wicked ways with me only stopping for pee breaks and supper so you can explain to your parents you have this new live-in pet you're keeping forever.

You never know what you're getting with me, and so I understand that it's hard sometimes, or all the time, to write to me, because you've read my stuff and who can talk to somebody who writes this stuff, and what do you say to her when you write? "Hi. How are you doing?"

That's sometimes hit or miss.

That's me, a hit or miss kind of girl.

But something that hits it out of the park for me is ... you.

"You. Can I hug you?"

When you reach out to me, with your heart? I read that. I feel that. In my bones.

And it gives this little girl one more reason to live one more day.

And maybe even 'update soon' that chapter. ;)

I love you.

"Do you believe in ghosts, `phfina?"

A reader asked me, out of the blue, "Do you believe in ghosts?"

Here is my answer:


What an interesting question!

No. I don't. Credo in unum deum (which is an entry in my blog ;)

I don't believe in ghosts, nor werewolves, nor vampires, nor ... anything, really.

Can you believe that?

I believe we're given what we're given, and we make what we can with what we have.

I was given words, and a wild, wild, WILD (smexy) imagination, and I write my words down, and some people like reading them, and it makes their day, and that makes me SO happy.

Do you believe in ghosts? Do you have a story to tell? A ghost story? Is it scary? terrifying? or is it sad? or sweet? Nobody will know your story, or laugh or cry or EEP! until you write it down and share it. I think you have a really good ghost story. Tell it?

Window to your soul

Okay, seriously?

Yes, seriously.

Your review is a window to your soul.

So, okay, here we go again. You write your review to try to impress me? SERIOUSLY? Like you need me, or anybody else who reads your review, to be impressed by what you wrote?

Okay, seriously?

Yes, seriously.

What I write, my stories, are windows to my soul. I have more than thirty of them, by they way, so there's more than a few windows here on ffn and on literotica that you can get nice little peeks into House `phfina.

Question for ya. You think I'm writing my stories to impress you?

No, I didn't ask 'do my stories impress you?' I already know they've impressed the fuck out of some people, thousands of people, so do you think impressing little you matters to me?

In a sense, it does. Yes, my stories are grammatically-correct, and thank you the several dumb-fuck reviewers who mention grammar in my stories as their compelling reasons to read what I've written.

"Dear `phfina, I like reading your stories because your grammar is mostly correct."

Oh, really? Then go read a fucking math book: it has grammar that's mostly correct, too.

Dumb. fucking. fucks.

And thank you, dear reader, for trying to impress me, and all your friends, by daring to write a review to the dread `phfina saying that my story is 'different' and 'interesting.'

I'm glad you like reading different and interesting stories.

So read the 9-11 report. It's long, too.

No, seriously, read the 9-11 report.

But you're not gonna. You're reading my stories.

Why? Why the fuck are you reading my stories? It's not because they're grammatically-correct (they are) nor that they are 'different' (they are) (but how?) nor that they are 'interesting' (they are) (but why?)

You read these stories because they are one hell of a fucked-up ride, and you know why? Because these stories aren't 'windows to my soul' (nice platitude there, buster), but they are walls over which I rip my heart right out, and throw it into your hands.

'OMFG!' you scream. 'Nobody writes like this! Nobody!'

Yet, you have the evidence right in front of you. You're reading it.

So.

Your review. Your little window into your soul.

How do you respond to what you just read?

In kind?

Yeah.

If you have the guts to.

You pick one fucking thing that floored you, you mention it, and you say how it floored you, and fucking why it floored you.

"Your story is interesting, because it's different and it has good grammar."

FAIL.

Try again.

"`phfina, (note the spelling) (and the capitalization), this chapter rocked. (why?) I really, really liked when Rosalie opened up to Bella's mom. (why?) Because I never, ever opened up to my mom, and I see this strong, strong mean girl being weak, and I said, "FINALLY!" Finally, when Rosalie was weak, she was strong. You don't have to be strong to be strong, you have to be strong to be weak, and open up, and really risk showing somebody else you care, and risk getting stomped on, but Rosalie DID open up and DIDN'T get stomped on! She got what she wanted, and that payoff was so sweet, because I have never opened up to my mom, never saw it as a possibility until I read this strong girl here, being weak, and that gave me hope that maybe I can do that, too."

Maybe even say HOW (specifically) your relationship with your mom is now better, and WHY (specifically) that's important to you.

But that requires OMG! sharing specific details of your personal life.

You mean, like I do, with every chapter? Yeah.

But that also means, you actually have to live your life, and not just watch it pass on by. Like most people do. Like you're doing, right now.

You see, one way of looking at life, a way that works for me, is that life is a game, and you're either a spectator in the stands (or worse: a referee) or a player in the game on the field. You can 'enjoy' the game as a spectator: "That was a nice game." "Yes, yes, it was, shall we have tea now?" but do you affect the score? Does anybody else care?

Be a player and go for the goal. Put your heart on the line, and play to win. You may not. Case in point: I may not. But I'm playing with all my heart, and as I play, people read my stories, and come away saying: "nice story, made me cry a little bit." And I get to walk away knowing I've affected 10,000 people this month.

When Saga wrote a review to one of my stories in Swedish, she put her heart on the line, and although she's never written word one of a ffn story, she got 5k hits that month from her review. From her review. Your review opens up a window to your soul, and people read it ... will they care that you wrote "Nice story. It's different. Update soon." Will they be impressed? Perhaps. But in all likelihood, probably not.

Are you living your life so that other people are impressed by you ... or 'eh'd by you? From your review I can tell, either way, dear reviewer.

So, are you impressing people? Maybe. But ... I'm not impressed. What impresses me is when a reviewer tells me what (specifically) they liked in my story, and why they liked it. "`phfina, a Lauren fic (for Bitter). Never gonna read it, then I did. I care about her, you showed me she has heart, and for you to write a Lauren fic that I WANT to read? You are the best writer on ffn."

You don't have to go to hyperbole; this reviewer didn't, either. But you don't have to write platitudes to impress. Write. From the heart. What touched you and why?

What touched you in this chapter of Ridden, and why? And why is that important? To you, not to all the sucky stories out there on ffn that nobody gives an s.h.i.t. about: to you.

I cried writing this chapter. Your "update soone" review didn't make me cry, but it left me hurting. I put in all this effort to get a "My compliments to the writer. Good show!" review? Gee, thanks, glad to receive your condescension!

You're better than this. WAY better. You know it.

So, now you know you just wrote a shit review. Now what?

Can you try again? Can you dig 1/4 as deep as I did? Can you try? Can you pick one thing in this story that floored you and say why it did, and why that is important to you and your life?

And if nothing floored you ... are you playing at the game with all your heart? Or are you in the stands, commenting on the plays: "He shudda thrown the curve. If I were in there, I wudda thrown the curve! Jeez, these players suck!" "Yes, dear."

If nothing floored you in this story, please, go find something that does, and be floored, for goodness sake! Please don't be bored with life, huh?