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Now that I'm back in Sweden again, my stage name seems a bit out of place. I originally picked a stage name because people generally can't pronounce my real name very well. But being in Sweden, I'm most likely going to be doing most of my performances in Sweden, so having a completely anglicized stage name just seems pretentious. So I renamed my MySpace page, and shall from now on be associated with the name "Rainhat" instead whenever I do a show. Not so much a pseudonym for myself personally, but more of a project name for my musical endeavours.

I've written some new music, and my fingers are really itching to record the stuff and put it up online, but unfortunately it seems I can't do that with any satisfactory result at the moment. First of all, I don't have access to the kind of instruments I would need. I bought myself an electric bass that I'm really happy with, but the guitar I have is really not something I want to use for a recording. It works, it's easy to play, but it just sounds bad. There is no life or body in the sound. I pluck a string, and the result is just a vibrating string. There is no resonance of any kind. It sounds... dead. Dead and flat and lifeless, as if I was playing a brick with strings. Of course, I could make do with what I have and use this guitar anyway, but I would do so quite grumpily.

The second obstacle, and the one that really stops me, is my throat. I've been having problems with my throat lately. I have always had large tonsils, ever since I was a kid. The doctors kept saying that it was perfectly normal, and that they would shrink as I got older. Well, I'm 28 now, and they haven't. In fact, they have only gotten larger and larger, and quite rapidly as of late. Now they are large enough to make it difficult for me to breathe when I sleep. I have apneas and wake up at night with a pulse of 180, gasping for air. They are literally the size of eggs. That also causes some problems with my voice. I can't articulate properly and I sound nasal and stuffy, kind of as if someone was constantly trying to choke me. Try it. Grab your throat just under your jaw. Now squeeze and press upwards at the same time. That's how I sound. I don't want to record any vocals as long as I sound like this. My throat also feels incredibly unpleasant. I'd do anything to get rid of this feeling right now.

I went to see a doctor at the local clinic when I started having trouble breathing. He sent me to the hospital with a rush order, so I went there and met an ear nose throat specialist. He was quite impressed with the size of my tonsils and decided that they need to be removed quite soon. I didn't get a set date for the surgery yet, so I'm waiting for more news on that.
Having your tonsils removed is a pretty minor surgery, but I've heard that it's incredibly painful. Gin's aunt said it was like swallowing needles every time she drank something for about a week and a half after the surgery. Oh, well. I'd rather swallow needles for a week or two than have a throat like this for the rest of my life.