In school I made excellent grades, sat toward the front of the classroom and got things done. I had my tricks. I had my ways. I was successful in not revealing the tiny fact that I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see the chalkboard for sure. In fact, I couldn’t really see past the desk in front of me. But man was I good at making it work. A middle school kid with braces doesn’t want glasses on top of that, am I right?

That’s when the world decided to out me with that softball. After sitting in the emergency room for what seemed like ages (bloody, broken noses are understandably < gunshot wounds), we were brought to an examination room. Initial inspections occurred, followed by everyone stepping out before the doctor came in, everyone but me that is. Having heard they would check my eyes to make sure nothing was wrong there, I panicked. NO! I WILL NOT START WEARING GLASSES NOW! I had a way out. The eye chart was attached to the back of the door. I stood behind the door, attempting to commit each and every letter to memory. I was gonna beat this doctor at his own game. Except not. Because they came walking in – doctor, dad and mom – having essentially caught me with my pants down, eyes focused on the door. Clearly, the doctor had seen this pathetic attempt before. That’s when the shame hit, when dad started to feel like a bad parent because he didn’t know his daughter needed glasses. Nobody needed to know. Things were working! Oops. (Happy early birthday, dad. I’m still sorry about that!)

Anyway. The unorthodox way I went about, uhh, revealing my vision problems hasn’t made me a person who gets excited about the eye doctor. After that hospital visit, I wore contacts all the time, except maybe here and there before bed when I wore a pair of glasses with a several years old prescription. But since moving here, my contacts have given me trouble in the strange season called winter. My eyes get dry and cranky, especially if I sleep on the train. Still I didn’t want to get tested. The problem with eye tests when you can’t see is that most answers you give are wrong. Is that a B? S? H? P? Fuck if I know and I don’t like being wrong. Don’t mind the fact the doctor is just trying to help, I don’t have access to the correct answers! This is problematic, especially when the language you’ll be tested in has crazy vowels that are hard for you to pronounce individually like å, ö and ä. What if those are on the chart and I say the wrong thing? All the fear and unease amounts to procrastination. It’s enough to make you live with pain in your eyes.

But then you realize you have to grow up. You should stop experiencing pain. You should remember the shame you’ve caused. And all your fears are in vain, anyway, because it turns out Sweden doesn’t put funny vowels on eye charts. Whew. And who cares if you look even more like a nerd. Swedes are a pretty nerdy breed who embrace glasses. It’s all easier than you think, it just takes some time to psyche yourself up.

What this means now is 1. I bump into people more and am much more nervous crossing the street because I can’t see out the corners of my eyes. 2. When I wake up on the train, I can see without putting drops in my eyes! This is how I noticed this week on an early morning train that the normally empty forest landscape was full of people, hidden people, people waiting to kill. It’s moose hunting season, y’all, and the orange hats are out. 3. I have to plan accordingly for my vision needs. Like recently, I’ve been pleasantly coerced by workmates to zumba and do aerobic dance classes at the gym. It’s not the time nor the place for sweaty glasses that would certainly tarnish my (internal) image as queen of the dance floor. It’s trickkkkkkkkkkyyyyy.

Glasses aren’t the only grown up thing I’ve been doing lately. There have been two trips to the dentist. At one appointment, said dentist asked if I was German. Hooray! Sometimes people read last names! I’ve also rented a room in Almhult to occupy once or twice a week so I can get more sleep, bum around, write, etc. Karl and I have also been keeping busy on the weekends with things like weddings (not ours, people), mushroom picking and going to Denmark to see a band. Check out Alcoholic Faith Mission if you’re so inclined. But wait, you’re remembering that I hate mushrooms. Correct, I do. But I do love me some word searches and I also have laser eyes (according to former boss/editor Tom). Hunting and picking mushrooms is like nature’s version of a word search! There are photos in the slideshow and there’s also a video of this nasty mushroom that emits a puffy cloud of spore/ash grossness when you step on it. I suggest you turn the sound off as the odd noise I emitted during filming is embarrassing. Nonetheless, the short clip is HERE. We’ve also plucked the last of this year’s harvest from the garden, but need to head back there soon to wrap our fig in a snug little blanket.

I’m ready to get into my own snug little blanket, so I’m off soon. That should be enough to tide you over for a bit. As a last aside, I’ll be getting some WordPress education this week through work. Here’s hoping that will also translate to a facelift and better options for this little blog fellah, too. And yes, eventually I will share more work stuff with you. I’m collecting links so I can curate a good show. But work = good in general. Had a job chat with the boss last week. What were some of his observations about me? Well, I’m hard on myself, am not the best about asking for help and like to be self-sufficient. He got that right, huh? See all examples above and you know, welcome to MarissaLouiseville, population: 1. Anyway, maybe these external observations will change a few things in the internal me department. We’ll see.

In the meantime, be appreciative of what you can see. Click me and the new frames for the photo slideshow. Remember to click ‘show info’ so you get captions, too. It’s a shorter show this time as Flickr won’t let me upgrade right now. There’s always something!

Click me and these new bad boys for photos.

Ohh what satisfaction I saw before me! Froot Loops! In a Toucan Sam bowl! Ohhh life is grand. I ripped open the bag, did the shake/shake/shake to slide everything down into the bowl….and like a disappointed Pavlovian pooch, I grimaced. IMPOSTORS! Where’s the electric blue? The unnatural yellow? Why are there only three colors of loops? Where’s the white glow around the ring? And why are they so washed out? My friends, this is what happens when America exports things. The formula goes through the ringer, removing the Americanosity.

This is why, when I visit home, I pay the extra bag fee to haul back a suitcase full, essentially, of crap. What’s inside? Ranch dip powder packets, chocolate chips, annie’s mac&cheese, hundreds of drink mix packets, community coffee, slap ya mama, cornbread mix, monjunis sauce, brianna’s poppyseed dressing, uncle ben’s, granola bars, goldfish, sweet tea vodka, etc. Some things you just can’t replicate and when others attempt to, the result tastes like the responsible taste testing party just took the day off.

Buying my grocery list is a part of every trip home. Other parts include eating out more than I can stomach (literally…every time I go home my stomach goes WHATAREYOUDOING?WHAT?WHY?ICANTBEAREVERYMEALOUT!), laughing as much as possible and attempting to fit everyone into a tightly woven schedule. It never works completely, but I keep trying. Having brought Karl along for the ride this time, for an extended three weeks (and not just one crazy 10-day Mardi Gras period), it was sweet and charming to see things and experiences through his eyes. In an unorganized list, here’s what he experienced that struck me (among other things): withdrawing money from an ATM while in a vehicle; seeing his first seahorses and alligators (normal and white); driving in a torrential downpour so bad he couldn’t see the road; rushing to eat a snowball before the heat disappeared it; fogging glasses when going from air conditioning to outdoor humidity; getting into a car so hot you can’t touch ANYTHING; kayaking through mangroves; betting on greyhounds (and winning); being a racial minority; swimming with glittering yellow and white fish; double rainbow on a stormy beach; riding a zero-degree turn radius lawnmower; going to a baseball game; seeing the world from the  heights of a bucket truck; finding surprise meat in his restaurant side dishes; watching cops point their shotguns into the woods on the hunt for an escaped convict; drinking a frozen daiquiri, sleeping in a variety of shotgun houses; eating a po-boy; seeing the Manhattan skyline, etc.

Action-packed? Yes, yes it was. He met a lot of people, some new, some familiar. He was overwhelmed at times. Wouldn’t you be? Hell, I’m overwhelmed at times and most of it’s old hat to me. When I get back to Sweden, it’s even worse. It’s all just gone. No more family. No more longtime friends. No more little baby nephew. No more puppies. Sure I can blame the jet lag for the nights of maddening, incomplete sleep. But I don’t believe that’s really what it is. It’s not my body readjusting; it’s my innermost. OK. Yes. Those people are here, but not here. Deal with it. Let’s go. Get back to where you are.

And then a little while later, I do. Last week, I went to Copenhagen to interview a designer about an upcoming chair. Already happy enough to be going (That’s one of my favorite parts of this job — the one that feels like yes this what my silly master plan was for. It worked.), I took special delight in passing the crowds of exchange students on guided tours. Not only did I know my way around, I knew the way to my favorite bagel place, several grocery stores, free public toilets and to various stations.  I haven’t met my ghost yet, but I imagine that’s what it’ll be like — an approving, pleasing nod to where I was, am and the choices I have made. This, people, is where I’m going to be for a few years. I’ll keep on keeping you in the loop if that’s where you enjoy being every month or so (ish), explaining the oh so solid plan as I go along. I hope you like to be here with me. And if you want to keep me in the loop, I’m a big fan of that too.

For those of you who like photos, just click me and my muted Froot Loops for a bunch of vacation memories. Remember, please click ‘show info’ so you get captions, too. We weren’t using my normal camera, so the quality isn’t mind blowing, but oh well. Until next time, I hope you’re happy where you are.

Click me and sad Froot Loops for photos.

She was right, I guess. Rapidly approaching the three-year mark, lately I’ve been noticing that things do feel different. Maybe it’s the job and a second family of sorts. Or maybe it’s not being so/as lost in conversation. Probably it has a bit to do with Karl and I having a place of our own. But the main force, I believe, is seeing other people.

No, not in the way associated with Swedish sexual liberation. Not like that.

You all know by now that I have a thing for faces and seeing them everywhere. Now in Sweden it’s finally come to pass that I see faces I recognize, people I know. There goes an art director on her bicycle. There’s a web guy standing outside the gallery. There’s my old professor who gave me that questionable grade. There’s Karl’s little brother waiting for bus No. 5. There’s my best friend’s girlfriend on her way home from school. People! Look at em!

A groundbreaking discovery this isn’t, but it has been making my ground that much easier and more pleasant to walk. When you live in your hometown (or anywhere long enough), these connections are effortlessly taken for granted and often unwelcome. Seeing a long lost friend at the grocery store? Good. Knowing which bar your friends will be at without asking? Awesome. Seeing an old flame with a new romance? Not so much. You get the point. Starting somewhere new with zero whopping connections, you forget how long it’s going to take.

Then one morning, a face I recognized (though the face’s name I do not know) taps me on the shoulder and wakes me up. It’s time to get off the train and go to work. This familiar stranger knows my face. I know his. He always sits on the aisle of a two-seat row, leather bag in the empty seat. He reads. I sit on the inside of a two-seat row, my oddly angled airborne foot encroaching into the empty seat. I sleep. Disoriented as I was after his polite wake-up tapping, I was happy. I had been seen.

As you remember from reading my master’s thesis (POP QUIZ!), part of the philosophical meat was realizing the existence of other people (namely yourself) through a product. Give the toaster eyes so that perhaps you understand there were humans involved in making it, thus you should care about it a bit more. Faces also meant that you had a self. The products could see you. Physicality. Being. You. There. Seeing and being seen.

I’ve never been one for the spotlight, that’s not what I mean. I’m just glad that I’m here, existing. And this week, I was able to return the favor. I tapped another co-worker awake. I don’t know her name, but I know what she does and that she’d probably be disappointed to end up at the train’s final stop, late for work, wishing someone would have just seen her.

On that note, I’ll be seeing most of you real soon! OHMYGODIMSOEXCITED. My three weeks of summer vacation begin tomorrow, where I’m hotasshumidmotherfucking weather bound! (Today it’s about 50 degrees, which is a relief to you, but I’d like it to go ahead and be summer already for more than two days, please, before October comes again. I’m tried of wearing a damn sweatshirt.) It’s Florida first for a week. Then Louisiana for two. You know where to find me. I’ll do my best to find you!

Enjoy this installment’s photo slideshow. It has nothing to do with the above, since I’ve managed to avoid telling you all about what I’ve been doing. It’s a real mishmash this time. But there’s Karl’s graduation and party, a fantastic mustache, some nature, a giant ant, midsummer celebrations, sad panda, a work trip and cornflakes, among other awesomeness.

Take a look for yourselves by clicking my Lady Liberty photo below. You’ll come to a slideshow. Please remember to click ‘show info’ so you get the captions. Glad sommar!

Click me for a photo slideshow. Whee! Liberty!

I sometimes think if people knew more about Louisiana, they’d ask me instead, ‘What took you so long to leave?’ It’s hard to walk away from your home, your people, your comfort. It’s hard for some of your people to understand they’ve done nothing wrong.

When Baton Rouge or New Orleans makes the news here, it’s a bad sign. Either someone is doing something terribly wrong, or something terribly wrong is happening. The first year, Gustav. Last year, Deepwater Horizon and Katrina’s anniversary. This year, the great flood (does it have a short format news name, yet? I haven’t read one.). A few weeks ago at a goodbye dinner for a colleague, the conversation came around to trash talking various states. My boss commented that he didn’t hear anyone dissing Louisiana. I replied something along the lines of  ‘Nobody likes kicking the underdog.’ Louisiana always gets the short stick, that’s for sure.

But there’s the short stick we’re dealt and the short stick Louisiana has whittled itself over the years. It’s not you, the people I know and love who have done anything wrong, it’s everyone else. Let me share some choice events that happened since I’ve been living in Sweden. You can agree or disagree that these are pathetic events. They’re just my take on things, in no particular order.

• Gov. Bobby (born Piyush) Jindal said he’d sign a birther bill if it came across his desk. He then released his birth certificate, just in case he ends up running for president.
• Jindal also signed into the law the ‘gun-in-church’ bill, authorizing persons (who qualified to carry concealed weapons and had passed the training and background checks) to bring them to churches, mosques, synagogues or other houses of worship as part of a security force.
• Then there’s the new law that increases ”conscience protection” for healthcare workers beyond abortion, where employees can refuse to perform various services, based on moral or religious reasons, with assurances of job protection and legal immunity. Such services include distributing emergency contraception, working on human embryonic stem-cell research or cloning, and participating in euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide.
• The State Superintendent of Education resigned this year. The East Baton Rouge Parish School Superintendent said he doesn’t want a new contract when it expires in June 2012. Meanwhile, every employee of the EBRP school system received a letter that they might be laid off, since the school system needs to cut $39 million somehow, somewhere.
• This was in 2009, but a big annual art event removed a black-and-white photograph of a nude woman, without consulting the artist or thinking about the implications.
• An Oklahoma woman was shot and killed during a KKK initiation in Louisiana, after asking to be driven back to town because she was homesick.
• New Orleans continues to have the highest murder rate in the nation: 52 per 100,000 people (174 murders in 2009. 2010 numbers aren’t out yet, but should be 212 or so.). Baton Rouge is sixth in the nation with 34 murders per 100,000 people. After a 10-month investigation, the Department of Justice released a report on the New Orleans Police Department “that describes in chilling detail a department that is severely dysfunctional on every level: one that regularly uses excessive force on civilians, frequently fails to investigate serious crimes and has a deeply inadequate, in many cases nonexistent, system of accountability,” according to the NYT.
• Oh and yesterday, in the year TWO THOUSAND ELEVEN, this gem surfaced. ‘Legislation designed to define what constitutes bullying among school students died in the Louisiana House on Thursday amid complaints that it would promote gay lifestyles.’

I could go on, but I think you get it. What’s even weirder than all the above, is that despite all the above I’m still fighting the urge to want to be there. My move here was supposed to be temporary, two years and then back to the States. I was never sure where I intended to move back to, but it was probably going to be New Orleans. So more than two years later, some days are filled with longing and confusion. Why am I so damn far away? And for how much longer?

Much more so, how far diverted from reality will I be when it’s time to choose? Because when you’re homesick, you start to live in figments and fabrications. You walk around every day, torn between the life you’re in and the life at home you know doesn’t exist.  Since everyone moves on with life, even while you’re off living yours, memories become increasingly obsolete. It’s the state of still being in love with an ex, replaying only the memories of what attracted you to them in the first place, not what made you leave or how they’ve since changed. I know Sweden isn’t perfect either. But which one do you choose? Who really has the short stick? And does it matter if the stick is short as long as it makes you happy? (That’s what she said.)

I don’t knoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow.

I’m thinking about this, particularly now, because I went on a work trip to London this week. We went to the Design Museum and to IDEO, a bad ass design consultancy. Going anywhere else puts your life and choices into question. What does Malmo have on London? What does Malmo have on New Orleans? Coupled with that, it spit me into thinking about what it was like when I moved back from Brighton to Baton Rouge in summer 2005 after six months of living abroad. Granted, ALL shit hit the fan then, so maybe it’s not a fair thought….but even after just six months, it took me at least six months to find my feet again–to stop constantly running my mind through the streets of Brighton. What happens after more than two years away? What happens if those two years turn into seven years?

I don’t knoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow.

I’m not any closer to having answers, even after writing all of this, I just wanted to share what’s going through my head. If anyone’s got any tips or suggestions, you know where to find me. Until then, maybe let’s try to lift ourselves from this funk with a photo slideshow! It’s got a few photos from my normal view on the way to work, Stockholm and London.

By the way, since the majority of this post has been about Louisiana, you’ll be pleased (I hope) to know that I’ll be there July 22 – Aug. 6, give or take. Karl’s along for the ride, too, so you can all acquaint yourselves better with him in a non Mardi Gras environment! And anyone who’s reading from NYC, we have a long layover on Aug. 7. So let’s get a beer or something. Sorry for being a tad negative and depressing with this entry. I’ll try to be more upbeat next time!

Click me and the deep thought turkey hat for photos. It’ll open a Flickr slide show. I’ve finally made the switch! If you can’t see the captions, click ‘show info’ at the top right. Click ‘options’ to change the speed. Or use the ‘previous’ and ‘next’ buttons at the top to click through the slide show. Enjoy!

Click me and the turkey for photos.

One guy, you see, was telling the other about how he had been to Copenhagen last night to see a concert. Which concert? Ben Folds. That’s right…Ben Folds played on my 27th birthday in Copenhagen. For those of you unaware, Ben Folds is a musician. Ben Folds was the musician I so loved in my teenage years that I harbored hopes of marrying him. Needless to say I was a SUPERFAN who sufficiently stalked him. Mom and Margot took me and a friend to Voodoo Fest in 1999 to see Ben Folds Five, just before they announced their break up. Mom subsequently took me to the House of Blues (using Margot’s driver’s license as guise that I was of age when I most certainly was not) to see him sans his former band. I followed all the fan forums. I was on the Magical Armchair Mailing List. I traded bootleg cassettes. I videotaped every instance he was on TV. I bought every magazine. I had the T-shirts. I flew to Michigan to see him. I got the setlists. I met him several times. I even met his mom. I drove him around during one of his shows in New Orleans, eavesdropping as he talked to his wife about their twins, “the monkeys.” I honestly could go on for several more paragraphs about all the Ben Foldsness of my yesteryears. Mind you, it’s not like Ben Folds was some teenage Justin Bieber or of Lady Gaga fame. He was in his mid 30s by then, already fighting a losing battle against a receding hair line. But I loved him so–I even cut him out and inserted him into one of my winter formal photos (pre-Photoshop days, mind you) and proudly handed them out to friends. He was, essentially, my gateway drug into a lifetime of musical appreciation. And well, err, my penchant for dating musicians. But yeah.

Yet after I heard he played on my birthday, I thought, ‘Well thank fuck I never got a tattoo about him.’ More kindly put, it’s a good thing your teenage aspirations can change. Sometimes this is for the best. I wouldn’t have imagined as a 17-year-old that 10 years later I would be anywhere else BUT at a Ben Folds concert on my birthday. Conversely, at 17 I wouldn’t have imagined that in 10 years I’d be stepping off a train in Sweden to go to work. This is what life does with you on your birthdays: It gives you happy reminders of your thankfulness to be just who you are, right where you are. At least maybe it does this with age, when sad song lyrics don’t pierce like they used to. Like this Ben Folds Five one: ‘Here I stand/sad and free/I can’t cry /I can’t see/what I’ve done/no god what have I done?’

Well here’s what I’ve done: I fulfilled a different teenage aspiration of the architectural nerd variety. There’s an issue of W magazine from 2001 with an article about Dutch architecture. In it, there’s a photo of a senior living apartment complex called WoZoCo designed by Dutchies MVDRV. Since seeing this photo way back when, it’s been on my to-do list. This complex is multiply cantilevered, covered in wide wooden planks and has brightly colored glass balconies in orange, fuchsia and turquoise. The balconies randomly jut out, like a library card catalog with its drawers out of whack. And did I mention it’s just for old people? Come on, look at it. Well, in 2005 while studying in England, I took a trip to the Netherlands partly to see a band (not Ben Folds) and partly to see this building. After not fact-checking very well and misremembering the photo’s caption, I hunted for the building in Rotterdam, not Amsterdam. Whoops. That’s why it wasn’t on the map and also why nobody I asked could tell me how to get there.

A five-year detour later and ta-dah! I have seen the building. I have been there. I have done that. I did it very, very hungover, but I did it!  (All the photos I took are blurry because my body gets hangover shakes. Boo.) But hoooray! My Jamaican/Irish/Dutch friend Bryan from Lund grew up in Amsterdam and was in said city for a course. When he invited Karl and I to come on over for a weekend visit in close proximity to my birthday, we obliged. Thanks to Bryan’s generosity, car and kind heart, I got to see my building in the suburbs of Amsterdam. How I ever thought I would get there on a bus is beyond me. Sometimes it’s good when plans and goals fail. I no longer want to marry Ben Folds (though he has married twice since the beginning of my superfandom) and I’ve seen my building. Not too bad for 27 years!

Aside from my self-actualization, you probably want to know how things are. Work is good. I keep quite busy. Eventually I’ll show you some things I’ve done, but since what I work on is done far in advance, you can’t see it until the public can. People seem to like what I write and they’re coming around to liking me, too, I think. Karl is good. He recently had an article accepted for publication, got accepted into a PhD program and has interviewed for his residency spot. So in the coming days we should know if he’ll be continuing in Malmo for his residency. And last but way, way not least, I’m an aunt! Margot and Joel welcomed Grayson Luke into the world just after midnight on Feb. 22. We’ve been introduced via Skype and I can’t wait to meet him in the summertime sometime. Yep, I’ll be home in the summer at some point. I’ll let you know when I know.

Until then, click me and the amazing Dutch cheese that comes with perforated shapes (a sword! a tiny cheese sword!) for photo funtimes. The photos are still (publicly) on Facebook, which I continue to regret but have not had the time to alter. My apologies.

Click me and tiny cheese sword for photos!

Our driveway was always so much more than cement. It was the limit of where we were allowed to play. It was the welcome mat after a long vacation. It was a multi-purpose sporting court (baseball, basketball, evy ivy over, volleyball, whatever we created). It was mean, causing who knows how many bruises and scrapes and breaking my collarbone. It was a canvas for water and chalk. It was a storefront when we had our annual garage sale. It was an indication of who was home. It was a place to have parties, park cars and lay out to soak up the sun. Perhaps it should have been called a runway, given we most likely ran on it far more than drove on it. Nonetheless, it was a way–a way to be somewhere else, someone else. A way of life.

Now that I am somewhere else, it’s one of things I find hard to explain. When you’re not from wherever you happen to be, you get these questions. (Often within the first 10 minutes of meeting any stranger.) What are you doing here? Why did you come here? Where does your family live? Is your family OK with you living here? How often do you go home? Do you like it here? What do you miss? All such questions are posed with good intentions. They’re part of the (dis)integration process. Yet I think very few people get it. They’re partially pleasantries like all else. Because I can’t very well explain to someone I just met at a party that I miss having a driveway. Cement. I miss CEMENT. If I did, they’d probably assume by ‘I miss my driveway’ I really mean ‘I miss being American and having a car.’ Oooooaaaaffff. This is one of the things I deal with on a weekly basis, if not more frequently. For those of you who haven’t experienced this, just imagine basically justifying your existence with every new person you meet. It’s tiring. I just want you to know how it is in this life over here. That being said, everyone has a story, wherever they are. We’re all curious human beings. So these questions won’t end anytime soon. I get it.

Having started the new job, this process was expected. Somehow it’s different though. The questions get more to the point: What’s your story? Are you here for love? My particular department is semi Swedish, semi everywhere else. America. Ireland. UK. New Zealand. Australia. People get it. They’re mostly in the same boat. They’re tired of explaining too. So the pleasantries get taken care of quickly and you collectively move on to having conversations. This is refreshing. This is being able to be more of myself. This is being proud of (and being paid for) my awesomeness with the English language. (Awesomeness makes it seem like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but I do. I be adroit at writing.)

What I’m saying in all this is I’m so thankful for my job it’s uncomfortable. It gives me a place to be. It gives me another reason to be here. It gives me people who get it. It gives me worth for all these choices, years, feats of endurance. It gives my brain stillness. It gives me, of course, a paycheck. Like most jobs, it’s not a cakewalk. It started out rough, with too many days where I ate lunch alone, trying to bury my shame in a magazine. (I chalk this up somehow to karma. There was one time Erin and I sat down in the middle of the cafeteria floor. Two bites later came the resident blind kid with his full tray of food. We were the unexpected obstacles. Everyone lost. I’m still sorry about that, kid. So sorry. I’ve reaped the seeds.) Then there’s the 1.5 hours I spend on the train to work EACH WAY, which explains my lackluster internet presence as of late. But on the occasional morning (Jan. 27, to be specific) I see a MOOSE out the train window and life is appeased. My very first moose! On my way to work! Have you ever said that?! Which brings us to the million-dollar question: A driveway or a moose?

There is no answer to that question, at least not yet. In the meantime, I’ve got a photo album full of holiday randomness for you. I went home for Christmas and New Year. I didn’t get to see all of you as I’d hoped, for which you have my apologies. For those I did see, I hope you found it to be as lovely as I did. You’re all my saving graces. I really hope you know that. And you surprise me every time. I love how much you grow when I’m not looking. I hope you realize that too. Now I must stop before I weep all over this keyboard.

Click me and my homemade year of the rabbit ears for photos.

Click this crazy rabbit for photos.

Then there was this one time I moved to Sweden and saw plans for Malmo’s ‘CityTunneln’ to open December 2010. Too bad my master’s would be done in June 2010 and I’d go home. So long Glass Hall addition to the old timey brick-and-mortar Central Station. You’ll certainly look pretty.

THEN THE FUTURE CAME.

And now I’ve ridden in what is surely the world’s newest underground transit system. Work began in 2005, costing more than $12 million US, but now people can travel at futuristic speeds to Copenhagen or Lund or wherever. Just like that and POOF there’s a whole new ‘Triangeln’ station under the earth of Malmo nearby the hospital, major shops and 15 or so minutes from my door. (There are other new stations too, nearer to ‘suburban’ Malmo and plans underway for a more encompassing ring. One new station even has indoor bike parking facilities with showers, changing rooms, etc.) It’s not a major, full-fledged ‘subway’ system, but life is slowly more interconnected and functional. Pardon my political aside here, but blah blah blah Baton Rouge. What was that about a loop? For all your cars? Anyway, all this futuristic presence excites me. Many years from now when tourists plow through Malmo and are dazzled by the transportation, there will at least be some public documentation that I realized the future is awesome. It’s like being in one of the world’s oldest subway stations in Budapest and thinking, ‘Man I hope people were impressed.’ So dear world, I’m impressed. I never thought I’d live to see a underground transit system exist where it hadn’t existed before. Consider me pleased.

You know what else happens in THE FUTURE? It snows. A lot. And I walk in it every day. The snow causes people to: A. lose things (gloves, most commonly); B. pull their children along behind them in plastic sled bathtub things; C. stay indoors and drink mulled wine; and D. sing carols (like Karl does). It also causes me to notice that when police tape comes out in Sweden, it’s probably to indicate there’s risk you’ll slip on ice or be stabbed by a falling icicle the size of a cow’s leg. The police tape probably doesn’t mean dead person and/or crime scene. (Unless you’re the guy in Stockholm who blew himself up. Then the tape is real.) File this under ‘Things Aren’t What They Seem’ or ‘Everything You’ve Learned Doesn’t Apply Here.’

Also here in THE FUTURE, I have a real person job that begins in January! For six months (maybe longer, who knows), I’ll be writing English text for a Swedish company’s website(s). Actual job description is a bit fuzzy as it’s a new-ish position that will evolve and engross various tasks. But you can call me a ‘content writer’ and I like that. I’ll continue to pursue freelance articles as they come like this one about musician Theresa Andersson and this one about blunders in Baton Rouge. Right now I’m trying to track down an 80-something-year-old Danish painter to talk to him about his house. P.S. I don’t speak Danish. It’s a long story that hopefully you’ll read one day.

In THE FUTURE, I’m famous. Not really. But myself and my superfriend James Jones were interviewed for a brochure about Lund University. Look see. I’m on their website. No, my hair doesn’t do that on its own. We’re also in their PDF majig, which if you want to see how fabulously windblown my hair can be (and apparently how big my crow’s feet are), download and fast forward to page 31/44. Note to the reporter, I don’t say ‘very’ and I know you were taking (fallible) notes by hand. Also, my Swedish teacher liked one of my essays and sent it to our school’s online newspaper. So if you Swedes want to read something silly or you non-Swedes want to Google translate and make fun of me, download the PDF here. It’s on page 3, ‘En helt vansinning historia.’ There’s no byline. They don’t roll that way. **None of this actually makes me famous.

Most importantly, in THE FUTURE, I might be standing in front of you talking at you face to face. I fly into New Orleans late Friday night, will stay there for a couple of days and be in Baton Rouge sometime the 20th or 21st. Then I fly out Jan. 5. So be in touch if you want to see me. You may quite possibly (read: probably) have to give me a ride. I’ll have a cell phone (thanks mom and dad!). If you want the number, I bet you know how to ask me elsewhere cause I’m not going to throw it out here on the Internet. Mwa ha ha!

Click me below to enjoy a slideshow about THE FUTURE, losing daylight, things people lose in the snow, a turkey losing its life and other things. For the record, I’m displaying Sweden’s only answer (once a year at that) to refrigerated cookie dough. It’s store-bought pepparkakor (gingerbread) dough, cut into AWESOME animals. I didn’t mean to make squirrel and hedgehog kiss, but that gives them even more ‘aww’ factor. Yes, cheese is my middle name. Thanks for thinking that.

Whee. Click me for photos.

Forgive the blog pause, there’s been a shift in life compounded by a broken laptop, moving boxes, furnishing requirements, mysterious illness, Swedish courses and overall feelings of stagnancy/inadequacy. Such is the business of having a life (or at least pretending to have one). Karl and I have officially moved to our new place. On Saturday, Sept. 26, we assembled a crew of friends, family and even two small humans to help make the move go smoothly. And we rented a moving van. Here you’re pretty fortunate if you know someone with a car. Knowing someone with a truck, van or other couch-friendly vehicle is downright blasphemous. You have a what? Why do you need that? Us organized fools had everything in well-enough order to make the whole process last less than 4-5 hours, including lunch. No broken bones. No broken boxes. An overall success. The results are in this installment’s photo portion.

We’re so moved, in fact, we had an ‘inflyttningsfest’ or moving in party this past weekend. Which means, in the meantime: we’ve unpacked everything; painted a bedroom, a table and a desk; bought and transported a TV table, sofa table and a rug; returned all the borrowed moving boxes; been to IKEA three times; hung all photos; had a house guest; and threw one awesome party that, duh, included introducing some Swedes to Jell-O shots. Needless to say, I’m tired. This doesn’t sound as exhausting when you’re used to hopping in the car and hitting up whatever big box store at whatever hour of the day for whatever you need. When you must plan time with a rented vehicle so intricately, the brain hamsters scream mercilessly. The exasperated brain hamsters cast sickness on the rest of your body and give you nightmares about sleep paralysis.

So for your information, here’s what it’s like to go to the doctor. You’re all curious as to the future of Obamedicine and this could be it. Read with caution knowing this is just one experience. First, I’d been sick for more than two weeks before I could see a doctor. I hadn’t registered with a “primary care” facility in Malmo yet, so I had to wait until I got into their system. Day of appointment, I go to the office, take a number, pay when my number’s called and wait for the doctor to call me. Forty-five minutes later, it’s my turn. I go into the doctor’s office, which eerily resembles an office. Doctor man sits at his computer while I take a seat in a regular, four-legged chair. No death-penalty looking pleather recliner. No crinkly wax paper of faux sanitation. Just me and the man having a chat in Swinglish. All routine ear, nose, heart, etc. inspections are done right there. He decides I need a spot of blood work to test for allergies and other detectable infections. I go to the other side of the waiting room, take a different number. When it’s my turn, then comes the padded recliner. The lady of the lab locates all her necessary tools and makes me explain when and where I was born to double check she’s draining the right person’s blood. Cotton ball and bandage, there I go to sit in the waiting room again. Fifteen minutes or so, doctor man requests me back into his office. The allergy results will come in several weeks and yep, I’ve got a virus. He clicks around on the computer and within 10 or so seconds, I can go pick up my cough medicine from any pharmacy in Sweden. Doctor visit about $20. Cough medicine about $20. Ta-dah. Remember kids, I’m unemployed.

As for that unemployment, I’m working on it. I remain mum until there’s something to tell you. In the meantime, I’ve finally started intensive Swedish classes. So for 20 hours a week (gradually up to 25 when they find classrooms for us), I’m absorbed in learning new words, trying to understand various dialects, writing with proper funny vowels and failing to communicate. That’s a lie. I communicate successfully, but there’s a marked difference in conversing with other non-native speakers versus Swedish friends. The school’s library even has an easy-reading section for books (like A Tale of Two Cities or Pride and Prejudice), whereby eloquence cedes to understanding and chapters dare not exceed three pages. I get this is where I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m singing. I’m dancing. Sometimes words even make me laugh or give me ideas for children’s books. Until the magic of fluency, I’m still grumbling a bit, chalking up Swedish vs. English wins and losses. Tempus, in Swedish, is a noun meaning tense, as in I have to learn how to change the ending on Swedish verbs according to tense. But in English you get a noun, an adjective and a verb all from one word! It’s a linguistic, shapeshifting bargain. Another victory for English! Maybe it’s going to take me 26 years to appreciate Swedish like I do English. Oh my, I hope not. My childish love for worksheets may expedite this process. The illustrations! The blanks! The sense of fulfillment! Ironically, the time I dislike the most in my classes is when we go to the computer lab. Boooooring.

In other news, I’m now a godparent. I even held said godchild throughout the whole ceremony (longest baby-holding for Marissa on record) without dropping him! We’re still reaping the fruits of our garden labor, but colder winds and days are near enough that we’ll be lucky if we have another two weeks with our veggies. A thief stole a laptop from a university in Northern Sweden and was nice enough to put the professor’s personal files and documents on a USB stick. A Swedish grandfather was trying to be helpful and pick up his granddaughter from daycare, only to mistakenly bring home the wrong girl. Don’t say it. They don’t actually all look the same!

AHH. I didn’t even tell you about how these people eat crawfish. Most of you know I don’t eat crawfish anyway (yah yah I’m weird, shut up), but I’ve been to enough crawfish boils to know the traditions involved. The crawling critters trying to claw their way out before they’re boiled alive. The potatoes. The garlic. The corn cobs. The seasoning. The newspaper-covered picnic tables. The mountains of crawfish carcasses. And isn’t there lemon in there somewhere for your fingers? Well, we had ourselves a kinda sorta crayfish party (or kräftskiva) when Swedes gather round to eat crayfish and drink schnapps. There are crayfish in Sweden, but coming across them isn’t quite as easy. Difference No. 1 – The crawfish don’t beg for mercy. They’re already dead. And boiled. And frozen. You thaw and serve cold. Difference No. 2 – Swedish crawfish are boiled with dill and served with fresh dill as a garnish. Nothing remotely spicy about that. Difference No. 3 – Sometimes they put the crawfish meat on bread with cheese/butter/whatever to make an open-faced crawfish sandwich. Difference No. 4 – If you’re lucky and your Swedes are drunk enough, they’ll sing while wearing hats. Here’s some video of strangers and a crayfish party.

All right already. Click tense me and my chapter on tempus for photos. Using evil Facebook again. I’m working on a better Flickr system. Patience please.

Click me for apts, craw/y/fish and more.

And any of you current/former hippies will know communal living has its ups and downs. For the past two years, I’ve lived with no fewer than 14 people in an ever-changing cast of characters. Dorms aren’t unfamiliar to me–Tulane, LSU, Sussex Uni–but none of those really prepared me for this. When 15 people share a kitchen with only two sinks, things get ugly. When these people come from different cultural backgrounds, standards of cleanliness, domestic upbringings/skills, conflict resolution techniques, etc., things get really disgusting. I’ll spare you further details just in case you’re eating. Perhaps I get the point across if I tell you the amount of filth and peoples’ indifference toward it made me cry on more than one occasion, frequently eat alone in my room and once witness birds in the kitchen pecking away at leftovers. People suck. But on the other hand, people are wonderful. I have fond memories of waking up with my friends and eating long breakfasts that extended into lunches. I’ve spent many holidays and celebrations here, not feeling too far from love and comfort. People are always around to share, teach and laugh. Most of all, people who’ve found their ways onto this corridor have likely maintained parking spots in my life. I’m not entirely sure I’m moving up from this odd variety show of sorts, but I am at least moving out. Moral of the story in any communal space: Just act rite and clean yer shit.

And hurrah! I’m definitely moving up in the ranks of legitimacy. Six months after the initial application and about three months after the strange test, I’m a temporary Swede! Karl and I are official sambos. I have mixed feelings about the concept of marriage, but not having to say I have a ‘sambo’ might be worth it. Not sure if I’ll ever shake the sense of inappropriateness. Regardless, I’m now allowed to stay in Sweden for two years. (Or in my case until my passport expires before then when I’ll do some bureaucratic hula hooping for reapplication.) I can work, pay taxes, get health care, etc., etc. Plus I’m also waiting in line (imagine that!) for a spot in an intensive Swedish course. Apparently there are some 1,700 students learning Swedish in Malmö through the commune’s free schools, so I’m not alone. But the ball rolls. Annnnd I’ve been applying for a couple English-based office jobs, with some hints of promise. That’s all you get to know in case I fail miserably. If all these balls in the air aren’t enough, I’m also trying to pursue freelance story ideas I’ve been kicking around. So if you see my name in print, tell me. I should make sure I’m getting paid! haha.

That’s about all the news you may or may not have been missing. Other highlights include a mighty fruitful garden and various recipe experiments so zucchini, beets and beans don’t get too boring. A stay-ishcation to Copenhagen for a bit to get a better feel for the city. A visit to the BRIO toy museum (they make the wooden train sets like these). A day trip with Karl through a national park area at Stenshuvud. And attending my first Swedish wedding (two of Karl’s friends from a sort of singing/theater group thing). I kept wondering and asking what Swedish wedding traditions would be, but that’s kinda the thing. They’re not so steeped in tradition like American weddings, so everyone essentially does their own thing. Swedes are quite fond of giving speeches though, so there’s much more of that during the reception dinner. No tossing the bouquet, garter, chicken dancing, separate groom’s cake or bridesmaids/groomsmen. And if people start clinking a glass when the bride is absent during dinner, women run around and kiss the unattended groom and vice versa. Heteronormative, yes. Different, I guess so. And in a final dose of news, I’m gonna be an aunt to a little human from Margot and Joel! Clear your social calendars in early March, cause that’s at least when I’ll be coming home to meet the newbie. And cha-ching, that’s pretty close to Mardi Gras annnd my birthday. Well planned!

For the required photo component of the blog, click HERE or on me and my zucchini dude below (with a face courtesy of my younger self and dad/mom’s regifting). The photos are unfortunately hosted via Facebook right now, though publicly for any non-Facebook people. My other slideshow program decided to suck today. Until next time, keep your chins up and keep moving–in whatever direction.

Click me and non-GMO zukeman for photos.

By the end of this entry, you’ll know! Har har. Patience is a virtue, folks.

First thing’s first, I went to Budapest as you remember. If you’re listening, hip kids, this is arguably the new Prague. For those of you not hip to geography, Budapest is in Hungary. I flew to Budapest with Karl and Martin for a short reward vacation post-thesis time. Budapest was hot, cheap and captivating. It’s got the Danube River slicing it in half, essentially dividing the city into Buda and Pest. Buda’s got the castle and whatnot. Pest has, errr, the other stuff. There are also vending machines throughout Budapest and well-stocked refrigerated sections in grocery stores filled with Turo Rudi. It’s basically sweet cottage cheese rolled in chocolate. What’s not to love? Perhaps what struck me most about Budapest were its insanely elaborate doorways–each one vying to trump the other with ornament. (This artist has a series of photos documenting various doorways around the city.) There were also plenty of kerts to go around–or courtyard/garden bars. Some of Karl’s Couchsurfing friends took us to one that’s part bar/art studios/cafe/everything, all under one used hot air balloon rooftop. Also high on Budapest’s claim to fame are the presence of baths, remnants of Turkish times that exist thanks to natural hot springs. We went to Gellert Baths, where we bought admission in the form of an activated Swatch watch of sorts that served as our key cards to the bathing areas we paid for. They have thermal hot baths and all that goodness, but nothing stood in the way of me and the outdoor pool! Hoohoo! I think it’s the first time I’ve been in a pool since 2008 sometime. And surprise, every hour or so it turned into a wave pool. A fish in water is a happy fish. We also visited Memento Park, or a sculpture park in BFE, home to “saved” statues from Hungary’s Communist times. It was a bit like going to a underfunded zoo that’s slightly depressing but educational. The nerd in me got to fly my freak flag in Budapest in two ways. I got to meet an old J-school professor, Perkins, for a beer or two. And earlier that day, I went to the library! Budapest’s Szabo Ervin Library is a public library that used to be an aristocrat’s palace. This library has chandeliers, winding wooden staircases and reading rooms that used to host diners and smokers. Visitors like us had to fill out a card to even go in. To take photos, I had to sign a waiver majig, which means no photos for you. So I direct you HERE, where they got permission to publish their photos. Not kidding. Look at that spectacular shit. That’s enough of Budapest I guess. There are photos of Budapest HERE.

Then there’s been Midsommar, which more or less marks the beginning of when Swedes stop working. Most offices and such close for July, hence why I don’t anticipate hearing any news on my sambo status for some time yet. Karl’s family goes to the summer house of his mormor (mom’s mom) to celebrate with aunts, uncles, cousins, cows, trees, etc.  His grandma was born in this wee house, which the family bought in 1905. So we’re talking old. We’re talking procuring water from a well, using an outhouse, sleeping in a barn sort of old. I found it all rather endearing for a weekend though I don’t think I’d survive for too much longer than that. Me likey hot water. Me likey Internet. Every attending family member is given a task from the daily schedule (breakfast, lunch, fika, games, etc.). Karl’s duty was to create the forest round/walk, where the family divides into teams and goes through a path in the forest, completing tasks along the way. So we made them compete with water balloons, identifying objects shoved in various foods, solve word puzzles, answer trivia questions, etc. Karl had much patience with me in trying to come up with competitions, as every Swedish kid has done a gabillion of these forest walk things and I had done zilch. But now I get it. We ate and ate. We played games. We chatted. And Saturday evening when I approached the barn to ready for bed, I saw a herd of cousins all standing outside. I thought they were all waiting on the outhouse. But no! They were all brushing their teeth, because that’s how it works when there’s no running water. Everyone stands around brushing their teeth simultaneously. I did use the outhouse, by the way, which included two “holes” for varying butt sizes and/or extremely cozy couples. And while we were away, a new edition to the family was born. Karl’s older sister gave birth to her second boy, who I met the following day. He’s the youngest child I’ve ever met/touched. I abstained from holding him because I’m still working up to that. Me and my butterfingers probably shouldn’t go near people that tiny just yet.

Since it’s summer, that means it’s reduced price travel time around Skane! Surely you remember all my adventures from last summer–vodka, shipping towns, etc. Well so far I’ve been to a giant pile of wood, Nimis. It’s more than that though. It kind of looks like a bonfire on the levee in Lutcher. It’s a micronation called Ladonia. It’s a sculpture made by Lars Vilks, i.e. the man with many enemies who made the Muhammad cartoon. This wooden wonder sits on the coast of Sweden, in part of a nature reserve called Kullaberg. This lovely nature reserve, however, does not like to acknowledge that Nimis exists. But in Kullaberg, I did see my first mole! He was so blind and so cute. So blind, in fact, that he was dead. But oh well. Cute regardless. Anyway, armed with James’ trusty GPS device, we walked around Kullaberg first and then barely managed to find Nimis! We had to stealthily make our way down a steep incline of rocks down to the wooden sculpture. How to describe Nimis? Well, if I were a squirrel, Nimis would be heaven on Earth. You walk along makeshift walkways that dangle ever so scarily above the slick boulders below. With each step, you’re rather certain it could be your last without crutches. But somehow, this insane dude has made a safe and remarkable oasis from the mundane. Not wanting to make the trek back up the “mountain,” us weary travelers decided to keep walking along the coast, hopping strategically from rock to rock. I preferred this, since mosquitoes were absent and I like to leap with abandon. But after an hour or so, we decided to try to find a way back up. When we found a man lounging in rocks instead, he could tell we were lost. This stranger, this Swedish gentleman, offered us a ride in his little boat to Arild, the neighboring village we were headed for. Hurrah! The kindness of strangers indeed. En route, he gave us all sorts of tid bits about the area, like how back in the day, the other town of Molle was scandalous for co-ed bathing, so people would send their mail to Arild instead. And how the exact place we found him was once a ‘straggler port’ or sorts. Because it was hidden from the view of Arild, boats could dock there and unload various contraband goods that people hauled up the side of the mountain. There’s even a tiny house in Arild that Arne Jacobsen designed.

For pictures of Midsommar, Nimis and other Swedish shenanigans, click HERE.

As for life in general, well, it goes. I have not “met” the Swedish police. (Did you guess correctly?)  I’m spending summer in slow motion, making lemonade, perfecting my own veggie burgers, swimming, sunning, reading and trying not to fear unknown roads ahead. The garden goes as well! Do you see the evidence below? Yep, that spinach is as BIG AS MY FACE! We even hauled in a bunch of (free) pavers this week, with help from Karl’s parents and his sister, Hanna. Soon we shall have walkways. Moving on up. Yes, I’m also applying for jobs–trying for “real” ones, before embarking on applications for dishwasher, toilet cleaner, etc. And I take my Swedish course placement test in a few weeks. Then after that I should be going, somewhere, somehow. There’s plenty to keep me entertained and busy during these sunny days, with a couple of free festivals coming up in Malmo. I’ll pop back in with news in a month or so.

Until then, Happy Fourth of July! Don’t hold the punk too close to your mouth. I burned myself once that way, thinking I could blow it out. Silly me. Plus, apparently there’s poo on punks (sometimes at least)!

Click me and my spinach photos of my latest Swedish happenings. If you want Budapest photos, click HERE.

Click me and super spinach for Swedish photos.