Spring is on with a boom here in Oslo, after a long, hard winter. Seems like nature is making up for lost time, everyone who survived the frost is budding, flowering, chirping and nesting like there is no tomorrow. Each morning their is a new, fine layer of gold on my blue balcony chairs, and the wind is eager to cover my face in the love life of local greenery.

A diligent pair of thrushes have built their nest and are speed-raising a hungry brood in the tree next to my north facing window. Trying to keep the worms coming while keeping a watchful eye out for the opportunistic gulls and crows who patrol the rooftops, eager for food for their own family projects. It's an exciting drama far better than television.

I find it easy to empathise with the confused and anxious fledglings outside my window. They mirror my own confusion and anxiety during the past year of starting to stretch and test my wings as a psychotherapist in training. I have almost completed my third year (out of four) at The Norwegian Gestalt Institute, and am now working with clients in private practice in addition to my work as an advisor and coach for The University of Oslo, and my poetry and music-making.

My recording work has crawled along at a snails pace because there are too few hours in the day. The slow pace of recording frustrates me, but I am happy I have managed to stick to my regular practice sessions, played quite a few gigs locally and written some new songs. None of which I have managed to write about here. Facecrack (Facebook) is useful for promoting gigs and shit for my capacity to update my own web lair. Not sure yet what to do about this.

This has been a year of ups and downs and shake-it-arounds, both professionally and privately. There has been a lot of ungainly flapping, teetering on brinks, scrambling back into the nest to analyse and adjust, and the occasional proud moment here and there of "aha!" and "ooh, we did good work there! Maybe there is hope yet!"

In short: The confusion and anxiety of learning by doing, which I find that theory and practice can prepare me for, but not protect me from. So hard to let go of my childhood fantasies of confident expertise and infallibility, and accept life in all its brutal sensitivity and glorious imperfection!

It has been a bigger challenge than I like to admit to not get discouraged. So I am looking to those scrawny little chirpers outside my window for inspiration and encouragement!

Money is an issue these days, and I want to make a new relationship with it. One that is more matter of fact and pragmatic. Bills growl menacingly in my inbox as I fret over my empty account near the end of each month - and yet in the bigger scheme of things I am of course incredibly privileged and lucky to have a roof over my head and the chance to study and practice new skills and worry about life goals, spiritual callings and core purposes and whatnot.

One of the next items on my "to do" list is to make a short presentation of myself as a therapist and link my page for that to these pages here, so I can let the world know I have capacity for a few more clients. And book some studio time again. And nag.. err... I mean politely remind someone that they promised to send me live recordings from a recent gig.

And... and... breathe while I watch the leaves dance and flutter in the breeze. Yesterday I hiked through the woods to swim in one of my favourite local lakes - a moment of pure (freezing) joy when all ticking clocks stopped and everything was as it should be. Wide open inner landscape and the rushing song of tall pines sweeping through and putting my house in order. Thanks, Gaia.

...of some months, I will be updating my pages more often again. A long and fascinating story featuring visits to strange lands, jets of boiling water, biblical floods, exile, temporary housing, impressive teamwork and of course love, death and dogshit. I will bore you with snippets of it next time I play a gig in your neck of the woods.

Speaking of gigs - will update events with details soon, but will be playing in Oslo on May 14th at Blitz, May 28th at Maksitaksi, June 14th at Sound of Mu, aaaaand in Horten on June 21st at a roots and reggae festival...think I will have to claim roots - I love good reggae, but I'm not sure I'll be making anything like Willy Nelson's reggae album soon...

See you around!

Right, I just posted all the songs from Trojan Gift Horse (2010) under "listen". Not downloads so far, but I hear there is a CD you can get that has the songs, the lyrics, the credits, the cover art and everything...

If I may say so myself (which I shamelessly may), I really like that album. It sort of surprises me every time I listen to it (don't listen to my own records that often), in a good way. I might have made different choices on some songs were I to record them now, but mostly, listening to it today while uploading the tracks, it makes me want to play them live with a couple of other people adding instrumentation and harmonies. Maybe make a live set of the whole record, or at least most of it, plus a few newer songs. That could be a lot of fun!

Especially if I could recruit some friendly ravens to croak on "Fragments" - I could pay them in cubes of cheese. We could arrive in town in a zeppelin shaped like a Trojan horse, that when you land it, has a small fold out stage. At the end of our set we would toss a golden apple to the most bearded lady in the audience - unless she would prefer to be tossed a pair of our well-worn long johns, with extra holes in for your viewing pleasure, in which case the band would have to draw straws on who had to strip down. You would come to that show, right?

Performing Sheman and the Dollfaces as part of the Circus Village at Torshov has been a lot of fun - thank you everyone who came to the show (though why you keep cheering for that inflated poseur Sheman is beyond me! Hrmph!). The circus is still happening this weekend, so go and see the remaining shows while you can!

One of the best things about performing at that sort of event - apart from getting to perform at that sort of event, I mean - is that I get in to the other shows for free. A sweet deal for a circus lover on a tight rope...er...I mean, budget. Last weekend I happily grinned my way through Jeanne Mordoj's stripped down and brilliant "La Poème", and Frida Odden Brinkman's weird and wonderful "1 1/2", and of course whooped it up for the hard working fakirs of Pain Solution and their visiting guests - once again giving true meaning to the expression "painfully funny". If you are in France or New York in the near future, check Jeanne Mordoj's webpage, and GO SEE HER SHOW. Really. Do it.

You can still catch a performance of "1 1/2" and/or the sideshow in Oslo this weekend, and I highly recommend both. I will also be going to see "Footnotes and handspun" by Ilmatila tomorrow - who can resist the combo of a giant trapese and a live cello score?

In other news, it's time for an orgy of queer film, at Skeive Filmer. They've already hosted a hypnotic performance by Benjamin Dukhan at Black Box Theater (last Wednesday & Thursday), and tonight the film festival itself opens with a bang and a ball, as it were, with "I am Divine" and another performance by Dukhan's alter ego "Burger Girl" at the party at Revolver after the opening film. I will see you in the ticket line and/or on the dance floor - and then tomorrow for a juicy late lunch with Buck Angel and "Sexing the Transman"! WOOF!

One last thing for now: Next chance to hear me howl with a pack of other lovely forest creatures and engaged activists is Sept. 28th, in the café at Blitz (me, Redwood and Sangre de Muerdado) and at Maksitaksi (Ohnesorg, David Rovics). Come and be serenaded and/or sing along!

Sheman and I will be performing the family version of Sheman and the Dollfaces at the Circus Village in Torshovparken, Oslo, this weekend and on Thursday next week. Bring your children or just your inner child and come boo and cheer for whoever you want to see come out on top and clutching the prettiest doll - that stinky poser Sheman, or the cute, angelic Koyote...