The little bluegrass group

 We were sitting in a music room, a few of us newbies on our instruments and some very skilled. The latter were taking the lead on the first verses but then left gaps for us to come in and try our wings. I was vamping on two strings, striking chords aggressively with the long pauses in between, occasionally bluesing up the lower note.

One of the guys clearly expected me to start singing on the next verse and went ahead himself to join me, but I was focusing on playing so he went by himself. I got the upper string to vibrate maniacally and got a "snyggt!" from one of the guys behind me. The mandolin started smoking by the string attachment and I blew on it then played the next chord. It was still smoking a bit into the verse, until I put my finger on it. I was playing it cool as if I knew exactly what I was doing.

It was a nice groove and felt pretty awesome to be in a band again. Made me wake up wanting to play. 

My pharmacist in Hazbin

 I was called to a meeting with the casting team for Hazbin Hotel. I knew them well, since I'd played a minor part of an eccentric and melancholic pharmacist in the first series. They were very excited and we all talked about how thrilling the show's success had been so far. I mentioned that Damien, who also had played a small part, was a close friend of mine and they praised him and his many ideas.

She got very excited and leaned over to quietly confer with him about something that had just struck her. I pulled down my trousers with excitement and let my penis hang out for a bit. We were on the upper floor of my mum's house. It would seem as if they'd either want me to reprise my role, with it playing a slightly more significant part in the story this time, or to keep it small but also add a new one. It was all terribly exciting.

My Chemical Romance at Superbowl

 I was at the Superbowl and it was going to be the opening matches or whatever they do. The pitch was a park with a fountain and I sat at the furthest forward down to the right, just about two meters from where My Chemical Romance suddenly showed up, three of them, in white lab coats. They started the opening piano bit of The Black Parade and instead of singing, Gerard was playing the bassoon or some such instrument. He did so very poorly. They seemed a little nervous. After they'd just done the opening they told the disinterested crowd that they were gonna keep playing on a tiny stage out in the corridor. 

My little girl and the boy who wasn't there

 I had a little girl who looked much like Ilma. She'd sit on my shoulders as I'd drive slowly down the street in my top-down car in the pouring rain. We both loved going under the streetlights, where the streams of rain were particularly heavy and they smattered against our heads.

I had a little boy who liked to play with small toy cars. We'd play out on country dirt roads, where we'd meet another family who were less fortunate than us. I didn't want that to stop my boy from making friends so I wanted them to play with their cars together, only my boy wasn't there, so instead it was me playing with their dirty boy, like some sort of placeholder.

They had an angry, mostly black German shepard who jumped and snapped it's jaws at me. I'd chosen to wear fancy driving gloves just to get a little protection. When I complained about it (or told my son who wasn't there to be careful), the mother of the less fortunate family was quick to point out that my cat was killing all the foxes.

I wanted us to leave their house and kept talking to my boy who wasn't there about how we had to go around the upper floor and close the doors for their dog. As we came around to the stairs I went up on the railing, as the dog was jumping below, trying to bite at me. 

Hating my ADHD

 I was renting an apartment with Valeria, who wasn't there, somewhere in London. It had the look of a storefront and all my stuff was packed into glass shelves and spread outside on benches. Karsten was over and we played a bit of what looked like Heroes of Might and Magic.

I realised that I was sharing the apartment with about seven young and very beautiful East Asian women. As me and Karsten was about to finish our session of gaming I struck up conversation with one of them, asking if they were taking photographs or why they were all scantily clad, lying on beds. She said that they weren't, but they were on their way into town to a kind of mall and she showed me photos of some awesome orange boxer shoes that I wanted to buy. I ushered Martin to get ready, because I wanted to join them.

As they were leaving, I realised I probably didn't need a winter jacket, so I ran back to get my orange summer jacket instead. It would, after all, match the shoes. I came back and they had almost left and I realised that I still had my winter jacket on. I screamed in frustration about how much I hated my ADHD and threw my phone away, ruining Mia's mushroom band that was attached to it. I then realised that I hadn't locked my little storefront apartment and scattered all kinds of clothes outside of it that I was going to look at to see if I wanted them packed down. Among them was a top of a red Jinbei that I really miss right now in this instant. 

I asked myself why me and Karsten shouldn't just stay in and play all day, but saw in my calendar that me and Maartens had planned to go see a Japanese play and have beer afterwards.

Robyn's hotel key

 I and perhaps two more guys were hanging out with Robyn, sitting on the floor, just chatting and perhaps playing around with some sort of scrapbook accessories. I told her how I liked her saying that it was important to do things your way and don't listen to others or what you think might be appreciated. I might have repeated that in my being shy and not thinking of something else to say.

I found a sticker and decided that it would be cute to give it to her, but as I tried to separate it from the other stickers I tore into it a bit and got stuck. In the meantime, Pontus (or Wictor) got the same idea and gave her a sticker he had pulled free. I felt a bit bummed as I'd thought of it first and failed.

Then Robyn smoothly gave me a little folded paper. It was quite casual, as if we were all just giving each other small things, but as I opened it, I found a hotel key. I looked up at her in a bit of shock, just to get confirmation that she meant what I thought I meant and she nodded sneakily. I was invited to her room!

Red Moon in Baldur's Gate

 We were playing a DnD session, lead by Mattiaz, in some sort of visualisation engine. I was a dragomborn Fighter/Wizard and kept forgetting to put on my headphones, so I didn't hear Mattiaz narrate anything but instead focused on the visual game. The first round we already faced about 20 enemies in our party of three. 

Me and Craig had picked up a third player, some Eastern European girl that had convinced me (but not him) that she was quite capable and worthy for the podcast. Her English was great but Craig found her expression a bit lackluster and asked her to retake lines with a bit more gusto. I was embarrassed as I didn't think she was that bad, as we rode a carriage on our way to the session. Before that, I had gone into Craig's house, where he was having dinner with his parents, and got to take a look at his room and his recording set-up.

It all looked very small and temporary and I remember navigating on some sort of map in there, taking photos of at least his room. When I told him about it, he did ask why I had taken photos of the place.

I was going through my spellbook, feeling I was taking far too long time for the podcast listeners, and Mattiaz mentioned that I could cast a spell called erratic wisp, though he described it, with gestures, as being quite chaotic and just buzzing off between the enemies. It was my highest spell, though, so I tried to read its description, thinking it must at least do some damage. It was hard to read and after having gone back and forth in my spellbook, seeing that I could also summon a golem, I chose a spell called Golem Skin, to try and last as long as possible in the fight. It seemed to do something completely useless, like giving me extra vision, and neither Craig's nor the girl's characters did anything to put a scratch in the enemy population that now doubled.

I moved to protect them and we kept pushing each other away in this clumsy interface and the next round the enemy had tripled. They came through different portals, firing at us, and seemed to represent different universes, planes or Disney films. We were all down at 1 hp.

Then we were in a room high above the city, probably Baldur's Gate, jumping about and being silly. I was wondering if I should take some levels in Barbarian but maybe the rage would be useless and I didn't have enough hp. We got the quest to smash up the baddies in the town Square and I soared out the window like I was hanggliding, trying to activate some sort of ground smash down on the plaza. It didn't want to work but I still despatched the little black kittens that had gathered there. 

I looked over my spells, as things were a bit more quiet, and I realised that I had a lot of slots and tried to diversify them. A lot of them were centered around druidry and I picked one called Spring's Dawn, which would clear the sky and let the sun rise. We were told that the people on the part of the square where I had killed the kittens would fall asleep come day and that our quest was to have them wake up confident by entering their dreams.

I announced proudly that my Spring's Dawn spell would indeed let the sun rise and everybody approved of me and my spells. I cast it, a gorgeous big fiery sun rose, and the creatures fell asleep. We went over to them and I got drawn into the dream. Mattiaz needed to end the session but wanted to give us a go at this quest.

I was in a game full of slot machines, people, casino-like games and prizes. Madness. A counter was ticking down for me and I needed to find out what would make the dreamer feel happy and confident. I went from machine to machine and kept winning grander and grander prizes as my avatar gained new outfits; shoes, sweets, clothes, accessories, et cetera.

Craig and Mattiaz were observing and thought I was doing great. I, however, felt like losing it all was just around the corner and there had to be some bigger meaning to the game and how this dreaming teenager would gain her confidence. I kept looking around as the timer kept going down, though anytime I won something new, which I did wherever I went, it went up by a little and I got a chance to explore more. 

Deep into the game I found an entrance to something that wasn't a casino machine. Other players went there as well and as I entered, the timer froze. Apparently this is where you go once you've accumulated your stuff. First was a shoe area and I figured out that this was the birthday party of the most popular kid.

This is what we had to do; get all the right stuff, in order to impress and fit in at the party. Our shoes just didn't cut it, so I went back out again, trying to figure out what else we needed. I got new, awesome, big and booming shoes, some random wands, snacks and stuff we might be able to use. 

Back at the party I now got past the shoe and snack area and it seemed the place in here was a bit shorter, you could spend all the time in the world outside, winning useless stuff, but all you really needed in order to proceed were the right things for the party. The third check was, of course, the gift for the birthday boy. He was a bit like Christian Frej and the people around him like other teenage boys from that time in my life. I felt insecure but was suddenly forced out of the avatar as the girl started asking herself. They approved of her style and things seemed to go well. 

Until they didn't. I was standing on the side as they started to ridicule her gift. I couldn't to anything as her newly gained confidence started to slowly shrink again. I tried poking a silly extendable wand rod with something attached to it (it kind of looked like a sausage holder that one of my High Chaparral colleagues had) in the birthday boy's eyes, but I couldn't affect the dream so I just stepped aside. It turned out that was exactly what was needed. The girl, who had had enough, stormed up and beat him up herself.

She had gained her confidence and it turned out that the last bit was her own to do, not mine. I could only help her build it up, not put it into reality. My mission was accomplished.

The IIIEE Coup

 I was working extra at the International Institute of Industrial Environmental Economics, where my mum was running a programme. It had turned out that the leadership had become corrupt and with the help of what might have been Marie Stenlund we were able to secure evidence on an SD memory card.

I had the challenging task of convincing a colleague working there that I needed to access my files on her desktop (I didn't have a personal one since I worked part time). She agreed and I inserted the SD card to upload the files and keep them secure in a separate location for my mum to share. Marie had named the card "ASSASSSIN", which didn't help my case. I tried explaining that it was from when I was working with the Assassin's Creed: Valhalla video game and while the woman I was borrowing a workspace from seemed to buy that bit, she must have recognised the files being copied.

I got back to my mum and she was fuming. The plot to reveal the nasty secrets had been discovered, she'd been let go and the programme they were running had been put down to a mere symbol of what it used to be. I realised that I still had the memory card in my pocket. 

The Horror Film

 I was editing the soundtrack to a film, the way I usually do it for the podcast, probably using a fair bit of Atrium Carceri and making it all creepy. It was a nice bit of music that grew slowly and the started to pulsate, so I tried to make that sync with the intensity of the scene.

The film was about a guy, let's call him James McAvoy or Gustav Söllscher, who seemed normal but we all knew something was wrong with him. Initially it was just a bit of coughing, though us being around him knew that wasn't everything. I was showing him the film and my editing of the music, so far. There wasn't a smooth cut between the previous bit of music and what I'd just put in but it wasn't too bad and we all sat with him as we watched and the intensity of the music arose.

We were going fast in a convertible with the top down. He was out of his episode for a bit but couldn't drive as he might have a seizure. We knew the end was near now, so we let him sit lumped with the driver in the driver's seat with one hand on the wheel, pretending he was driving for the last time. He let out a laugh, calling us idiots, then tugged at the wheel and the whole car veered out of the camera.

Things were burning. A store was smashed. The police was there, interviewing the deteriorated James. They realised that he couldn't be held responsible as he wasn't mentally stable. Some big guy with a white jumper came over and tried to converse with him, trying to meet him on his level, but James just took him for a ride, being intentionally silly and seemed more like a bully than someone who needed help.

I was a big bone crab/bone horror chained to some wooden boxes. All I could do was to walk slow or quickly a certain distance away from them and then I'd be pulled back. I typed noises in the chat, hoping someone would engage with me anyway. No one did, so I started writing "Hjalmar", hoping someone would recognise me and realise it was I. No one did.

So I started being increasingly naughty, trying to just walk into people who were around me, turn things over, break stuff and set things on fire by knocking over candelabras and braziers. A duo of Source Hunters came walking past, conversing with the Troll King, who was inviting them to sit down with his kin. No one paid me any attention, even as I tackled into them, breaking boxes and setting the entire company on trolls aflame, as they were scripted to go down some stairs where I couldn't follow. Whatever happened down there turned sour for them when suddenly the Troll King realised that all his friends were burning and so they stormed out, source hunters in tow, and he cast a high level spell that disintegrated them with fire. They had to load their game.

They didn't load far enough back though, as they were now just entering the passage below with the group of trolls still burning. Up they popped and got obliterated again. Load game. Same place. Burning trolls. Down in basement. Pop. Furious Troll King and Fiery Annihilation. This time I had the chance to look at the combat log and apparently his spell was called World Eater. Seems like the party of Source Hunters were doomed as they couldn't load further back and I couldn't undo my mayhem of turned over braziers that set the trolls ablaze. I felt a bit bad, even if they were just level 4, as they might have slowly roleplayed their way here and starting from scratch made them have to start from that cursed beach and either speed through things or make entirely new characters. Goodness knows I wouldn't want to replay that bit again. 

Kenneth, the ATM and I am a Woman

 We were at a winter summer festival, where alcohol needed to be ordered. A Japanese woman was helping everyone collect their orders and came over to me to check mine. It felt a bit like she was checking a ticket and at first I wasn't sure I had one I wanted checked. When she persisted I brought up my order, which I wasn't sure that I had sent in, and as we looked at it, the only way for it to come through was to pick it up at 16:00 at Systembolaget in whatever town this was. It felt Italian but could also have been Söderköping. She'd been standing quite close to me and at least I liked that bit. Think I might be starved for physical contact. 

Kenneth Kas came over and showed me his gloves that he was so excited to have bought. They were knitted in yellow, black and gray and looked a bit like a Krösatåg. He explained that these were the official ticket controller gloves and if you had these on your lap, they would know not to check your ticket on any train, so you could go anywhere without buying a ticket. He'd bought them at a cheap store recently.

I lost him in the crowd and started heading back as the show was about to start. On the way back I found similar gloves but without the black bits on, lying on the ground next to a kid's hat. I figured some poor kid had left it all there and would find it again. I won't take their gloves. Then, just a few more meter's ahead there was another pair of gloves on the ground, looking exactly like the one's Kenneth showed me. I figured he'd left them there to come back for them later. I won't take his gloves.

Getting back to where the show was, I dropped by the ATM, which was on a walkway about two or three meter's up. It was filled with Iraqi or Iranian bills that someone had tried to copy, somehow using the ATM as a copy machine. It seemed to have reacted to the attempted fraud and shut down. I figured it was Kenneth. I didn't take any of the copied bills. All this starts to feel like a picture of how honest a John I am.

I finally got to the concert and sat at the front. A girl that I had seen before; and gotten completely smitten by, was singing something. I pretended or tried to be as smitten as before but then Amanda Duveborn threw her hand around my neck and drew me in as she was using her other to sing a song called I Am A Woman. Again, I liked being clung to, though she had me singing along but since I only knew that very line, I didn't do very well.

Somewhere in all this, me and Mia woke up in the middle of the night and there were several mosquitos on us. I smacked some, closed the windows and went back to sleep.

The Winter Ferris Wheel

 I was dressed like Willy Wonka, and because the place was crowded and I couldn't get past people and the shelves, I was instead running through the air above them in the department store and puffs of purple confetti exploded out of nothing where I put my feet. A little boy running across a shelf looked at me and then kept running. He won.

Out across the inner sea there was a ferris-wheel and because I worked for TUI I needed to be strung up and hung in cuffs on the outside of the capsules and go all the way around like that, much to the pleasure of the sadistic lady who ran the wheel. I used my telekinetic powers to strung up the lady that ran the wheel instead. Some rats who also went on the wheel wanted the cheese I was eating as I went around so I finished it, threw the wax into the water and then, as they dove after it, I shot one of them, then I electrocuted some other guy I didn't like. He was important to the story in some way and needed punishment. 

To compensate for being evil I magicked up Ubers for everyone to go wherever they wanted and warm up, since it was snow and ice, in the middle of the winter, and I'd made them swim in the icy sea between the ferris-wheel and land. The beach they all crawled up on was covered in snow. I went and accidentally bought myself four pairs of semi-expensive headphones of various brands and something else techy in a vending machine and came back to the stunning white beach where it now was pleasant summer, palm trees and people enjoyed themselves. I felt bad for buying so many, so I gave away a pair then tried one set from Sony that apparently worked under water and turned into a breathing mask that I could also use for watching films. 

I tried to start a film that I could watch under the water but it was difficult and I couldn't quite figure out how to see the screen and simultaneously keep the breathing mask waterproof.