Until B. broke up with me in the food store parking lot last weekend, thereby ending my winning streak, our breakup score in the past quarter had been 20-0, my advantage. Now it was 20-1. Frankly I found his behavior annoying. Each of my breakups had involved weeks of prior anguish, hours… Read full post »

Did you write as a teenager? Do you remember writing texts other than those assigned at school? At the age of thirteen I latched onto my first diary like a leech to an exposed wrist, carrying it with me always to prevent others from finding it and reading it. Writing down… Read full post »

Logically there must exist a computer game where the objective is to shoot and destroy incoming hostile objects, let's say UFOs for argument's sake. If you can't pull the trigger fast enough the UFOs build up and fill the screen and then the game is over.

That is what conversatio… Read full post »

Daughter on subway: "My assignment is to describe a utopia. What would yours be?"

Me: "That is such an interesting assignment! Let's see. The variables that one usually has to take into account are a feeling of happiness, personal freedom versus state power in that society and the levely of equality.… Read full post »

The guy on the bench opposite could have gone to work as a beekeeper without needing more protection.  It was impossible to make out his body shape under the expanses of black denim. The hat was pulled down deep over the face, saucer size cushioned headphones covering his ears. The only ski/… Read full post »

A man had a wife.  He was a young man. Just when he had become a man and should decide for himself suddenly someone had the right to tell him what to do again. The man loved the woman who had become his wife but he also loved being his own/… Read full post »

A man had a wife and two daughters. His wife was much too strong and much too weak. His wife was too strong and she yelled at him. This made the man feel like a worthless earthworm. Each day the man was hunched over on the inside like he was standing… Read full post »

A man had a wife and two daughters. He was not a bad man. The man liked people. He liked to be liked by people.

The man was well liked. The man liked to make people laugh.  “Your daughters resemble you.”, people often said to the man. “Yes from the/… Read full post »

A man had a wife and two daughters. He was not a bad man. The man did not believe in being sick or moping or feeling sorry for yourself. The man had found that if you ignore weaknesses in yourself you can forget them. After a while the weakness may as well never… Read full post »

A man had two daughters. He was not a bad man. If, during a weekend visit to his office with his daughter, he put on a gorilla mask to scare her, then he did it for only a few minutes and only because fear is an invigorating emotion. The daughter was… Read full post »

A man had a wife. The man’s wife came from a good family. Until he married her, the man had not known that he came from a bad family. The wife’s family was so splendid and the ways they did things were so superior that it was obvious that his family… Read full post »

A man had a wife and two daughters. The man’s wife did not like going outside the house. Each day she did the same things as on the previous days: she cooked, she laid the table. She cleared the table. She did the dishes. The man was not content to let… Read full post »

As always when due dates for school assignments approach my presence was requested. This time Daughter was finishing an essay on evil. To prepare for the assignment, the whole class had traveled by train to Germany and Poland to visit a concentration camp. The homework support role has two shift… Read full post »

One of the two main Swedish daily newspaper ran an article today about 34 particularly useful iPhone apps. I looked through the list quickly but found none of them useful. What I really need is an app that will automatically delete text messages. If it could delete them before they reach my… Read full post »

There is a particular type of experience that I have only had a handful of times in my life. Though the circumstances beetween these incidents differ,  each event elicited the same reaction in me. The intensity of the reaction was enough for me to being able to immediately identify it as… Read full post »

Daughter returned from week-long school trip to Germany and Poland yesterday. I strung up a bunch of ballons in her room in preparation for her return as she turned 18 during the trip. The destination of the school trip was to visit Auschwitz and Daughter forced the organizers to change&nbs… Read full post »

Dear Blues Blub, 

While flipping through some blues magazines which litter my girlfriend’s coffee table recently I noticed that you are starting an advice column for your readers. What a strange idea! Listening to blues seems much like any other hobby, yet I can’t imagine the mo… Read full post »

My ride for the Airport has left his house and is on the way. In retrospect, finishing packing rather than spending two and a half hours in the movie theatre watching Inception might have been the right thing to do. The pile of books which MAY accompany me to England aren't… Read full post »

As I was planning what to pack for my trip to Cornwall I realized that I did not have a purse that would be right for the occasion.

As a rule I am a bit fastidious about how much stuff I can tolerate in my life at one time. For… Read full post »

Attention: All crew members, all levels

How this affects you: This Addendum pertains to the recently announced dictate regarding musical talents. All crew members are to print out the Addendum and insert it into their personal copy of the Ship Regulation Manual. This Addendum should replace page 25 i/… Read full post »

I read somewhere that entrepreneurial ability runs in families. If your father and mother had a business you are more likely to open one yourself. It seems logical that what you observe your parents doing when you are growing up becomes a possible and natural way of maneuvering through your own… Read full post »

As Boyfriend came into the bedroom after a stint in front of the TV last night, I said to him in English: "Hello, what's up?"

We never speak English with each other, and why should we? Sweden has its own perfectly functional language. In fact Boyfriend does everything he can to avoid… Read full post »

[Bb]

One of the areas in which my life feels extremely rich is that of ooks. Sorry that did not come out right. The b key on my keyboard stopped working last night. Pressing ctrl+v each time a b is needed does not yet come automatically. I could not figure out… Read full post »

There aren’t many aerobics classes to pick between in July. One per day is not unusual. There are none on weekends. Classes are so few that the ratio of instructors to regular folks is almost one-to-one. The instructors attend each other’s classes to stay in shape over the summer even tho… Read full post »

Several of the things I like to do with my boyfriend or alone in my spare time have some connection with plants and gardening. We like to work on our allottment gardens, we like to go to botanical gardens and greenhouses to admire the work of other garderners. We also like… Read full post »