Little Owl, Big Territory

My name is JP. I like owls. I am a globetrotting circus generalist, professional aerialist, MSc Sport Psychology, and hopeless romantic bent on changing the world by teaching anyone who will listen about how to express themselves physically. Hopefully this blog will boot back up into a travel and experience thing, because I'm landing in Norway very soon...

[jp-owl]

The short day

I worked a ten day week.

I’ve earned a short day.

Wake-up 10:44am. Bed: 9pm maybe?

I’m gonna get up early anyway to run 27km, but still. Love me a short day.

[jp-owl]

The wind is howling down the chimney

Fat flakes of snow change into raindrops with every gust

Det finnes ikke dårlig vær but i still don’t want to go out there even there’s a sauna the end of the trail

I’m wrestling with a language I want to be mine, to stay easier in a country I want to mine, et sted æ hører hjemme, må høre hjemme

I’m wrestling with a loss of trust, loss of sanity, i så mange som jeg pleide å stole på

Æ se på Romvesen: Jorden but that sounds better in English, as breaks between checking answers in the back of a grammar book, good to watch in daylight

[jp-owl]

So I am not an excellent xc skier. I live in a place where xc skiing is something everyone born here can do. I was okay at it once, when I was 9, growing in interior Alaska. Now I live Tromsø Norway and it’s way less cold (thanks Gulf Stream), and we get tons of snow and every local was raised on skis and most everyone who moved here had some kind of winter sliding in mind. I came here for the circus 🤡

I thought there must be others like me. In the summer I joined a hiking club (clubs are the only way to make friends here). I asked as the season ended if anyone wanted to start a ski group. We all thought it was great because we’re all slow and shitty skiers and skiing in slow and shitty company is much more appealing than holding up your Olympic level friends.

So I made the page, set the times, bought the logo. Max attendance 5. more often 1 or just me. The punchline tho is that I don’t care. I made this thing to get myself out every skiable Sunday. I show up. I made a habit. I made a few friends. And yeah I’ve ordered stickers and a logo. I made ski club for people who suck at skiing. I have missed maybe two weekends this season. I don’t suck nearly as much anymore. Mission accomplished.

And I’m willing to bet, because adults are simple creatures, that the first week I have stickers to give away, I’ll be absolutely overrun.

[jp-owl]

Why does valium work like Ritalin for me?

Like yes it helps my galloping brain stop doing that so I sleep, but the day after I wake easily, get shit done because I can and it’s not like pulling teeth.

(I don’t take it all the time, I just take the occasional 3 day soma holiday where I clean my house, change my sheets, eat well, do an art thing… oh shit that’s just like… thriving? *scribbles in notes*)

[jp-owl]

The clouds came in

The temperature rose with the wind

Gusts howling down the chimney

After days of biting cold

Finally used to it

-5c feels like springtime

I’m up too late and the meditation app shouldn’t have a streak freeze function, or a streak to freeze

There is, was, and ever shall be only now.

Let me open my hands, hold my peace and leave it the freedom to leave, transform, return new and better and different and have never left because when I notice it, it’s still now

The wind sounds like a promise

The sun is coming back

If you want things to change, wait a minute

[jp-owl]

Tfw you get the wood burner hot enough that it burns its window clean again 🤌

[reallyreallyreallytrying]

“average person eats 3 spiders a year” factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[professionalchaoticdumbass]

happy 10 years of spiders georg everyone

[mikkeneko]

“average meme lasts 5 years” factoid actually just statistical error. average meme lasts 30 days or less. Spiders Georg, which started on this day 10 years ago, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[realmarysue]

Happy 13th anniversary to Spiders Georg!

[jp-owl]

A thing I miss about the US:

The sound of a phone ringing. The beep tone over here always makes me think it’s broken.

[jp-owl]

Changed into my works clothes, leggings and trackies.

I wore the leggings yesterday.

I wear the trackies over until I need to demonstrate something because it’s so cold in Northern Norway right now that our wonderfully heated space is chilly inside.

I got in early to do some training.

45 minutes in, I notice the back of my right leg feels weird.

Was that weird feeling yesterday’s underwear?

Yep.

[jp-owl]

Serious resolution:

I will not apologize for my joy.

Fun resolution:

I will try more flavors of ramen.

Classic resolution:

Cut down smoking, lose 10 kilos without meeting Ana this time

[jp-owl]

I’m doing end of year rituals.

Deep cleaned the bathroom. Even the shelves.

Changing and washing my sheets tomorrow, so I wake up in a clean bed to start the year. Making sure all my bins are empty.

Putting things away neat.

Bought shave cream for my favorite thing. I’m not a big shaving person but in my first shower of every year, I shave my legs and armpits.

Burning sage incense tonight. Palo santo tomorrow. Purification to go through the transition. Then ensuring nothing follows me that I don’t want. I could take the power out of these things but I like it. Because they’re mine.

[jp-owl]

I just made a Port Fizz. It’s short of port plus fizzy water. I feel like I’m committing a crime but it’s so nice.

[jp-owl]

Swiftie bawling incoming:

Not me ugly crying all the way through the Majorie episode of End of an Era.

It cracked open something that I don’t think I’ve let be all way real before.

I lost my mom. She’s not dead but she’s gone and I’m free and but the good bits and the bad shadows stay and fuck I miss her and fuck I can’t tell if I love or hate what’s left and this episode and this just really let me open that wound and it just feels like infection is leaving my soul. “Every scrap of you would be taken from me”, I couldn’t rescue everything before she threw it away. The cruelty and the addiction and took so much of her away and I’ll miss those moments of light and try to let go of all the venom I tried so hard to ignore or bend or change. I don’t have to anymore and the relief is still grief and I just… get to feel this right now and drain that wound.

[jp-owl]

So here’s an experience I can’t get out my head:

A few days ago, a man explained to me how to stabilize my wobbly foot. I did not ask. He’s not my physio.

Do you think that I, a fellow circus artist and lifelong athlete, have not had every rehab tip under the sun? That I, who am attached to this foot, am not expert in what it’s doing?

Im not mad, im kind of amazed. The cajones on this one. I’m gonna ask him how to put in a tampon since I clearly cannot function.

I defaulted to «yeah I’ll try that» but next time I’m going to tell him his shiny new degrees can fuck all the way unless I’m paying to hear them or they’re vital to our mutual survival.

Smdh.,

[jp-owl]

About my day:

Wake up at 6:30 and decide to actually stay up. Research how to take the tests I need for permanent residency in Norway.

10:00am: run with the run club, run halfway home from run club bc I was running with the slow crew and still needed (wanted) to bag 16km.

Lunch: protein shake

1:11 (not even joking): go to the mall. Acquire two more Norwegian textbooks, a new tank for the fizzy water machine, and a bottle of port (bc Xmas)

2:30pm: arrive home, watch my friend’s latest YouTube, second lunch (piece o chicken a whole bag of salad)

1 hr duo lingo

2 episode of End of an Era

Read some new textbook

Dinner (fancy ramen)

Read more textbook

Alternate clone wars episodes with textbook breaks

Try two different practice tests, passing grade by guessing

8:30 meds

9pm: shower

10pm: estimated time of passing the fuck out

[jp-owl]

I live in Norway. I got out of the US four years ago and days like today I feel such survivor guilt. I just read the text alert that went out to Brown students, telling them to run first, hide second, and fight only if they absolutely had to. Crying at 10am on a Monday day because of the horror of it all.

[jp-owl]

Today in Swiftie brainrot:

I now know the names of two football players. I had to google who on the Chiefs got injured, and said, Out Loud, to my livingroom “not Mahomes, poor dude!”