moif world update

January feels like an endless 7 am. The sun never appears except to shine briefly through the odd crack in the clouds like some celestial search light. All is grey and grimy. The roads look like Siberia, black and shiny wet. Glistening with grit. Sparkling rain drops in the glare of the car lights. Very moody. In Denmark the law states cars must always have their lights on, all day long, regardless of the weather. The red tail lights glow and flash in the haze like pulsing magma.

I've been at Proremus for two and a half months now, and its a great place. Really interesting and nice people. Whether they can afford to give me a job, or whether I can stay there after January 30th remains to be seen. I have a meeting later this week about it. In the mean time, sitting at my desk with an ancient I-mac (a really awful computer that makes photoshop feel like I'm swimming in porridge) I've been playing about with CS3 Flash, making small animations for web pages. Its not like anything I've really done before (except classical animation at school and with Mette's brother Kristian one time in 2000) but its interesting.

The place itself is an old school so the main room is a cavernous place where silence descends as every one gets on with the job. At first it felt oppressive, but as people loosened up it became more tolerable and now it feels natural. I listen to my play lists on You Tube whilst I work, nodding my head enthusiastically to Static X, the Manic Street Preachers and the only track Oasis ever made that I like.

Freja grows ever larger and she truly is 'the Destroyer' now, wrecking things like some demonic force of nature. She stole a play phone from one of the kids in the kindergarten today and I had to tell her that was wrong. Grappling with a three year olds concept of ownership feels like struggling with a malignant eel. I think she understands, but the way her eyes glide away from mine as she answers doesn't inspire confidence. Fortunately she's a fairly well behaved child, at least that's what the grown ups at the kindergarten told Mette. I see scant evidence of good behaviour when she freaks out in the street because she wants a sausage bun. The way people stare when she does, one would think I was inserting red hot needles under finger nails!

Mette is due in 17 days. If this baby follows the trail blazed by Freja, it may be ten days over due. Poor Mette is suffering though so she is hoping for a few days earlier. We have no plans (and no money) for a third child so with luck she'll not have to endure it again. I have to say, the way the skin stretches so taut in the final weeks does look horribly painful, especially with the fresh stretch marks. I try to cheer her up by telling her she should saviour the sensation as it will never happen again, but that's easy enough for me to say I guess. A part of me loves it though, even though I know she's uncomfortable and often in pain, she nevertheless looks utterly beautiful to me.

We still haven't thought of a name for the little fellow. The problem lies in associations. All the names Mette likes sound awful to me and vice versa, and the names we can agree on are all some what ambiguous. At this rate he's going to end up being called child_02.