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Friday, September 05, 2003
I haven't done a whit of homework. I'm at Mint Manor. We're going to Maryland tomorrow. I can't quite get straight what the occasion is... a convention? Something? But anyway, it's a road trip and a Goilfest.
A road trip during which I will be in the backseat of the car, Dramamined up and doing my homework.
"I hate homework," I said to Gina today.
"Everyone hates homework," she replied.
"Kitana doesn't," I whined.
"Kitana has a love-hate relationship with homework," Gina said. "Kitana is the wife, and homework is the abusive husband."
...
"I have to read Karl Marx," I complained.
"Poor thing," said Gina.
"Kitana is reading The Communist Manifesto for fun," I said.
"She's so smart," said Gina.
"She's a nerd," I said.
"Yes she is."
"I love nerds."
"Me too."
Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:15 PM | shower me with attention
A road trip during which I will be in the backseat of the car, Dramamined up and doing my homework.
"I hate homework," I said to Gina today.
"Everyone hates homework," she replied.
"Kitana doesn't," I whined.
"Kitana has a love-hate relationship with homework," Gina said. "Kitana is the wife, and homework is the abusive husband."
...
"I have to read Karl Marx," I complained.
"Poor thing," said Gina.
"Kitana is reading The Communist Manifesto for fun," I said.
"She's so smart," said Gina.
"She's a nerd," I said.
"Yes she is."
"I love nerds."
"Me too."
Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:15 PM | shower me with attention
Okay then. I'm in the computer lab at school, having just bought my textbook, and have finally retrieved my Country Logs from the disk I stole from Linn. I've decided to publish them here anyway. Whatever. But I STILL won't eat one ear of your filthy corn!
Friday
Substitute blog without internet. I’m not good at blogging without the instant release into the net-void. I think having it sit on a disk stewing will cause it to ferment, like Swedish herring, which I hear is very popular this time of year amongst old folks with rotten tastebuds.
But there are so many experiences at the country house here in Sm?land that I’m afraid to lose if I don’t try to capture some of them. So I’ll just do the recording like the good little addict that I am and hope that the words don’t rot without the life-giving cyberliquid to oxygenate them. I’m typing on Linn’s laptop-sans-modem. It’s very cute, a Compaq from the 80’s.
It’s Friday now. We got here on Tuesday night, me and Linn and Emma, and I collapsed immediately into bed. The last leg of the bus journey made me feel drugged, a combination, I think, of the Dramamine I’d taken three hours earlier, the jetlag and the few hours a sleep I’d been getting a night. I think they woke me for dinner and that I ate, but I don’t remember the details, except that Dr Phil was on tv. (They LOVE Dr Phil here.) Then I collapsed again.
Wednesday we went down to the family pier and tried to lure the sunshine out by waggling our variously-undressed limbs seductively in the direction of the clouds. This is when I truly began to come out of my drugged feeling and sense the poetry of this place. (Last year, my refrain: I’m IN the poems!)
The combination of nature and the Tom Robbins I’ve been reading, plus a healthy pinch of my overly romantic nature, had me seeing everything around me in awkwardly-constructed metaphors. Thus, when I lowered my toes into the bay, it was “two pale city feet bobbling in the green water like slices of banana suspended in lime jello” (seriously, I thought that very sentence, and I feel no shame, for the terrible simile was like fishfood in the dank aquarium of my heart). My feet were also “chunks of white cod, dancing in the cookpot”. Then I was in a fairy tale: “The troll maiden lounged at the water’s edge, dangling her heavy feet in the enchanted waters. Two fair elves lolled nearby, but she was unstung by their smooth beauty, feeling her rumpled body to contain a magic of its own in this Elf-wood.”
Despite the on-and-off of the sun, Emma and I were both determined to have a swim, our last (and my only!) chance to swim for the summer. But every time I felt ready to take the plunge, the clouds would return. Finally I untied my hair (to cover my body in the bathing suit more than anything—this troll wasn’t COMPLETELY unselfconscious yet, even in Elfland) whipped off my shirt and launched myself into the water. Cold. COLD. But, then, warm. And lovely. I started out towards the wooden raft, and eventually Emma worked up the nerve to follow (brava to her—she’s one of those zero-body-fat typed who feel the cold more than I do) and, to our surprise, Linn grew jealous and jumped in as well. The swim was incredibly energizing, and then exhausting, but our exertion kept our damp selves warm for the walk home. This is all alien activity to me, so rarely do I indulge in any form of exercise more taxing than a climb up a subway staircase.
Every night we’ve eaten the vegetables Linn’s mom grows in her garden. (You remember her sprite-pixie-brownie of a mom, yes? Sparkly as ever!) Every morning I breakfast on fruit and Swedish yogurt. Linn actually went out and picked blueberries for our yogurt the other day. And every evening I sup on the heavenly nectar, sent down from Mount Olympus itself, in the form of the greek yogurt-cucumber-garlic concoction that I fell in love with last summer. (Faerie-mom remembered my intense fondness for the dish and made a huge bowl for me, which was waiting here at the house when we arrived.)
I admit, I’m back on coffee. But not an unreasonable amount. I think I’ll be able to jump back on the wagon when I go home.
Yesterday, Linn and I tramped through the woods and saw the house where her mother used to live, and saw an eagle flying over the lake, and tramped some more and picked lingonberries. She was right: after a day of picking lingonberries you dream of picking lingonberries. And I found a four-leaf clover.
Let me say that again: I found a four-leaf clover. I have been searching for one my entire life. You've done it too. I flopped down on the vast lawn to wait for Linn to be ready to go berry-picking, and my eyes lazily roamed the clover, and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be funny if I found a four-leaf clover?”, like one always thinks, and scarcely had I thought the question when my eyes alit upon one. It’s pressing between the pages of The Blind Assassin as I type. I’m not overly superstitious, but I go through certain motions “just in case”- I wish on stars nightly, I say “rabbit rabbit” at the beginning of each month, more likely OCD-symptoms than superstitious actions—but, really. Finding a four-leafed clover in the most magical place in the world (save Epcot), this is too much for me. I must allow myself to take it as an omen, as long as I’m here seeing elves in the treetops and singing songs to berries… (I was Sleeping Beauty yesterday.)
Today it was rainy, and Emma departed for a DJ extravaganza in Stockholm. Oscar is supposed to come tonight, and I eagerly anticipate the chap’s arrival. I don’t feel at all third-wheelish, good indication that he is a male goil (some say “boil”). Linn and I have just made lingonberry jam. Yes: lingonberry jam from berries we picked ourselves. It is currently cooling in jars on the counter. If you can think of a better rainy-day-on-the-Swedish-countryside activity, I’d love to know what it is.
I guess that’s enough for the blithering now. I’ve captured the experiences sufficiently. I’ve even left out the complaints (do I really want to remember that my new sneakers don’t fit, and wore a blister into my heel, or that I’m here too late for the daisies?) So I’ll go have some more experiences and get back to you, blog. Chew on this for awhile—don’t let it stagnate until it reaches cyberspace. Thanks.
(P.S. I’ve lost weight and I feel pretty again, at least temporarily… Remember. Remember. Don’t let it go this time. What would Dr Phil say?)
Saturday
Linn and I biked to the lake yesterday. I made it up most of the hills but I had to walk the bike up some of them. I got to ride “Grandma’s old bike”, a tri-coloured, brown-leather-saddled affair that, if you could see it, you’d agree it’s exactly the kind of bike Tavie should ride. Linn showed me the crayfish pools, which were still and milky and presumably contained crayfish somewhere within. She showed me the cute little local restaurant, and we rode the see-saw and clucked at the chickens. On the ride back, Linn’s eyes grew huge and greedy for the blackberries she spotted just behind an electric fence. So great was her eagerness to reach the thorny treats that she bumped her shoulder into the fence, emitting an lightning-bolt yelp that I’m sure startled the cows in the nearby field.
We picked vegetables from Elfmom’s garden in preparation for Oscar’s arrival on the 6’oclock bus. I was blown away by the beets that Linn dropped into the basket, for I’m currently entrenched in Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume, a novel largely concerned with that sweet red root. (It mirrored my surprise a few days ago, when, as I was finishing Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, a book about, among other things, an enormous set of thumbs, we took a trip to the zoo at Skansen and I encountered an enormous painted thumb sign advertising the pygmie-marmosets (monkeys small enough to perch on your thumb). Am I living in a Tom Robbins novel? I keep encountering the signs… (Remember, last year, after I returned from this magical land with a headful of mushroom-picking and a bellyfull of fried chanterelles, and plunged right into Robbins’ Another Roadside Attraction, where the main characters were obsessed with mushrooms, and particularly with chanterelles.)
Oscar came, we supped, and we watched Conspiracy Theory on tv because it was in English and we’d never seen it before. It was thoroughly stupid, but entertaining enough, especially since the climax was not only filmed on, but actually took PLACE on Roosevelt Island. I love it. I can come out to the Swedish countryside and watch my home on the tv.
The day was full enough, right? With the jam-making, biking, electroshocks and cute Swedish boy? Not so, because after supper, Linn called me out to the balcony and showed me something that I’d never seen before: the Milky Way.
Last time I was here, the sky never got black. This time, oh my. Never so many stars. And I’ve been out in the country. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been in as black a country night as ever there was, upstate New York, for childhood weekends in Jeffersonville at Andrew’s family’s farmhouse and for Asti’s wedding. I’ve been on cruise ships in the middle of the sea. I’ve seen nights full of stars. But never this full. The sky was smeared with stars. White butter on pumpernickel. It was oleoed with them. I thought crazy thoughts, like, “You can’t really understand all the cliches you’ve ever read about stars until you’ve seen them like this”. Which most people have. Gina in her barefoot Ozarks childhood saw skies like these. But not me and my city-mouse eyes.
And remember that my eyes are accustomed to straining and stretching to catch a nightly pinpoint of light at which to direct my obsessive-compuslive wishing. I look for stars whenever I step out under an evening sky. But this was different.
I saw shooting stars. I didn’t even see those at the meteor showers at Sandy Hook that Gina and I have gone out to. I saw not one, but many shooting stars. I stood out on the balcony long after Linn and Oscar went outside, my neck freezing at a 90-degree angle, until Linn came back and coaxed me downstairs to have a look from the lawn. I flopped onto the grass, heedless of the dew (Linn laughed at me but I was going to change into p.j.'s later anyway so what do I care if I get dewy?) and stargazed until I was almost asleep. Every time I thought I should get up and go inside I thought, “Just one more shooting star, then I’ll go in”. I think what I secretly thought was, “The sky will never look like this again.” Even after I went in, I sat up at the window in my room and stared at the Big Dipper until my muscles were stiff. I finally coaxed myself into a slumber position with the following: “The stars have been there for billions of years. They’re not going to go away just because this is the first night YOU’VE really discovered them.”
Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:22 PM | shower me with attention
Friday
Substitute blog without internet. I’m not good at blogging without the instant release into the net-void. I think having it sit on a disk stewing will cause it to ferment, like Swedish herring, which I hear is very popular this time of year amongst old folks with rotten tastebuds.
But there are so many experiences at the country house here in Sm?land that I’m afraid to lose if I don’t try to capture some of them. So I’ll just do the recording like the good little addict that I am and hope that the words don’t rot without the life-giving cyberliquid to oxygenate them. I’m typing on Linn’s laptop-sans-modem. It’s very cute, a Compaq from the 80’s.
It’s Friday now. We got here on Tuesday night, me and Linn and Emma, and I collapsed immediately into bed. The last leg of the bus journey made me feel drugged, a combination, I think, of the Dramamine I’d taken three hours earlier, the jetlag and the few hours a sleep I’d been getting a night. I think they woke me for dinner and that I ate, but I don’t remember the details, except that Dr Phil was on tv. (They LOVE Dr Phil here.) Then I collapsed again.
Wednesday we went down to the family pier and tried to lure the sunshine out by waggling our variously-undressed limbs seductively in the direction of the clouds. This is when I truly began to come out of my drugged feeling and sense the poetry of this place. (Last year, my refrain: I’m IN the poems!)
The combination of nature and the Tom Robbins I’ve been reading, plus a healthy pinch of my overly romantic nature, had me seeing everything around me in awkwardly-constructed metaphors. Thus, when I lowered my toes into the bay, it was “two pale city feet bobbling in the green water like slices of banana suspended in lime jello” (seriously, I thought that very sentence, and I feel no shame, for the terrible simile was like fishfood in the dank aquarium of my heart). My feet were also “chunks of white cod, dancing in the cookpot”. Then I was in a fairy tale: “The troll maiden lounged at the water’s edge, dangling her heavy feet in the enchanted waters. Two fair elves lolled nearby, but she was unstung by their smooth beauty, feeling her rumpled body to contain a magic of its own in this Elf-wood.”
Despite the on-and-off of the sun, Emma and I were both determined to have a swim, our last (and my only!) chance to swim for the summer. But every time I felt ready to take the plunge, the clouds would return. Finally I untied my hair (to cover my body in the bathing suit more than anything—this troll wasn’t COMPLETELY unselfconscious yet, even in Elfland) whipped off my shirt and launched myself into the water. Cold. COLD. But, then, warm. And lovely. I started out towards the wooden raft, and eventually Emma worked up the nerve to follow (brava to her—she’s one of those zero-body-fat typed who feel the cold more than I do) and, to our surprise, Linn grew jealous and jumped in as well. The swim was incredibly energizing, and then exhausting, but our exertion kept our damp selves warm for the walk home. This is all alien activity to me, so rarely do I indulge in any form of exercise more taxing than a climb up a subway staircase.
Every night we’ve eaten the vegetables Linn’s mom grows in her garden. (You remember her sprite-pixie-brownie of a mom, yes? Sparkly as ever!) Every morning I breakfast on fruit and Swedish yogurt. Linn actually went out and picked blueberries for our yogurt the other day. And every evening I sup on the heavenly nectar, sent down from Mount Olympus itself, in the form of the greek yogurt-cucumber-garlic concoction that I fell in love with last summer. (Faerie-mom remembered my intense fondness for the dish and made a huge bowl for me, which was waiting here at the house when we arrived.)
I admit, I’m back on coffee. But not an unreasonable amount. I think I’ll be able to jump back on the wagon when I go home.
Yesterday, Linn and I tramped through the woods and saw the house where her mother used to live, and saw an eagle flying over the lake, and tramped some more and picked lingonberries. She was right: after a day of picking lingonberries you dream of picking lingonberries. And I found a four-leaf clover.
Let me say that again: I found a four-leaf clover. I have been searching for one my entire life. You've done it too. I flopped down on the vast lawn to wait for Linn to be ready to go berry-picking, and my eyes lazily roamed the clover, and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be funny if I found a four-leaf clover?”, like one always thinks, and scarcely had I thought the question when my eyes alit upon one. It’s pressing between the pages of The Blind Assassin as I type. I’m not overly superstitious, but I go through certain motions “just in case”- I wish on stars nightly, I say “rabbit rabbit” at the beginning of each month, more likely OCD-symptoms than superstitious actions—but, really. Finding a four-leafed clover in the most magical place in the world (save Epcot), this is too much for me. I must allow myself to take it as an omen, as long as I’m here seeing elves in the treetops and singing songs to berries… (I was Sleeping Beauty yesterday.)
Today it was rainy, and Emma departed for a DJ extravaganza in Stockholm. Oscar is supposed to come tonight, and I eagerly anticipate the chap’s arrival. I don’t feel at all third-wheelish, good indication that he is a male goil (some say “boil”). Linn and I have just made lingonberry jam. Yes: lingonberry jam from berries we picked ourselves. It is currently cooling in jars on the counter. If you can think of a better rainy-day-on-the-Swedish-countryside activity, I’d love to know what it is.
I guess that’s enough for the blithering now. I’ve captured the experiences sufficiently. I’ve even left out the complaints (do I really want to remember that my new sneakers don’t fit, and wore a blister into my heel, or that I’m here too late for the daisies?) So I’ll go have some more experiences and get back to you, blog. Chew on this for awhile—don’t let it stagnate until it reaches cyberspace. Thanks.
(P.S. I’ve lost weight and I feel pretty again, at least temporarily… Remember. Remember. Don’t let it go this time. What would Dr Phil say?)
Saturday
Linn and I biked to the lake yesterday. I made it up most of the hills but I had to walk the bike up some of them. I got to ride “Grandma’s old bike”, a tri-coloured, brown-leather-saddled affair that, if you could see it, you’d agree it’s exactly the kind of bike Tavie should ride. Linn showed me the crayfish pools, which were still and milky and presumably contained crayfish somewhere within. She showed me the cute little local restaurant, and we rode the see-saw and clucked at the chickens. On the ride back, Linn’s eyes grew huge and greedy for the blackberries she spotted just behind an electric fence. So great was her eagerness to reach the thorny treats that she bumped her shoulder into the fence, emitting an lightning-bolt yelp that I’m sure startled the cows in the nearby field.
We picked vegetables from Elfmom’s garden in preparation for Oscar’s arrival on the 6’oclock bus. I was blown away by the beets that Linn dropped into the basket, for I’m currently entrenched in Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume, a novel largely concerned with that sweet red root. (It mirrored my surprise a few days ago, when, as I was finishing Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, a book about, among other things, an enormous set of thumbs, we took a trip to the zoo at Skansen and I encountered an enormous painted thumb sign advertising the pygmie-marmosets (monkeys small enough to perch on your thumb). Am I living in a Tom Robbins novel? I keep encountering the signs… (Remember, last year, after I returned from this magical land with a headful of mushroom-picking and a bellyfull of fried chanterelles, and plunged right into Robbins’ Another Roadside Attraction, where the main characters were obsessed with mushrooms, and particularly with chanterelles.)
Oscar came, we supped, and we watched Conspiracy Theory on tv because it was in English and we’d never seen it before. It was thoroughly stupid, but entertaining enough, especially since the climax was not only filmed on, but actually took PLACE on Roosevelt Island. I love it. I can come out to the Swedish countryside and watch my home on the tv.
The day was full enough, right? With the jam-making, biking, electroshocks and cute Swedish boy? Not so, because after supper, Linn called me out to the balcony and showed me something that I’d never seen before: the Milky Way.
Last time I was here, the sky never got black. This time, oh my. Never so many stars. And I’ve been out in the country. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been in as black a country night as ever there was, upstate New York, for childhood weekends in Jeffersonville at Andrew’s family’s farmhouse and for Asti’s wedding. I’ve been on cruise ships in the middle of the sea. I’ve seen nights full of stars. But never this full. The sky was smeared with stars. White butter on pumpernickel. It was oleoed with them. I thought crazy thoughts, like, “You can’t really understand all the cliches you’ve ever read about stars until you’ve seen them like this”. Which most people have. Gina in her barefoot Ozarks childhood saw skies like these. But not me and my city-mouse eyes.
And remember that my eyes are accustomed to straining and stretching to catch a nightly pinpoint of light at which to direct my obsessive-compuslive wishing. I look for stars whenever I step out under an evening sky. But this was different.
I saw shooting stars. I didn’t even see those at the meteor showers at Sandy Hook that Gina and I have gone out to. I saw not one, but many shooting stars. I stood out on the balcony long after Linn and Oscar went outside, my neck freezing at a 90-degree angle, until Linn came back and coaxed me downstairs to have a look from the lawn. I flopped onto the grass, heedless of the dew (Linn laughed at me but I was going to change into p.j.'s later anyway so what do I care if I get dewy?) and stargazed until I was almost asleep. Every time I thought I should get up and go inside I thought, “Just one more shooting star, then I’ll go in”. I think what I secretly thought was, “The sky will never look like this again.” Even after I went in, I sat up at the window in my room and stared at the Big Dipper until my muscles were stiff. I finally coaxed myself into a slumber position with the following: “The stars have been there for billions of years. They’re not going to go away just because this is the first night YOU’VE really discovered them.”
Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:22 PM | shower me with attention
One night in Sm?land, Linn and I were pooped as petunias after a long day of frolicking through the countryside, and were about to go to bed when a strange movie started on the tv. We started watching it because it was so strange, and found that we couldn't tear ourselves away.
I can't stop thinking about this movie. It was very good and very disturbing. Almost two weeks later I'm still thinking about it.
Speaking of Småland, now I'm not sure if I want to post my country logs because someone made me feel self-conscious about my precious four-leaf clover. They will remain nameless. But I won't eat one ear of their filthy corn!
Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:45 AM | shower me with attention
I can't stop thinking about this movie. It was very good and very disturbing. Almost two weeks later I'm still thinking about it.
Speaking of Småland, now I'm not sure if I want to post my country logs because someone made me feel self-conscious about my precious four-leaf clover. They will remain nameless. But I won't eat one ear of their filthy corn!
Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:45 AM | shower me with attention
It's Ade and Rynn day. It's their birthday. They're not related, it's just a coincidence. Anyway, they're important to me. If you don't dig why and you're curious, you can check out my entries for the last couple years on this date.
There are a lot of birthdays this time of year. As a point of fact, this was also my mother's due date for my sister and me. Only she took a spill on the sidewalk in July of 1979 so she had us early.
I'm up at 3 am because I did a stupid thing: drank a lot of coffee so that I could sit up and finally watch The Ring with Andrew. So I probably have ruined my nice jetlag. Dammit. Now I have to go back to Sweden and get it fixed again...
Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:42 AM | shower me with attention
There are a lot of birthdays this time of year. As a point of fact, this was also my mother's due date for my sister and me. Only she took a spill on the sidewalk in July of 1979 so she had us early.
I'm up at 3 am because I did a stupid thing: drank a lot of coffee so that I could sit up and finally watch The Ring with Andrew. So I probably have ruined my nice jetlag. Dammit. Now I have to go back to Sweden and get it fixed again...
Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:42 AM | shower me with attention
Thursday, September 04, 2003
I be tired.
And now, the complaining:
Anthro Theory: This class is going to be a gigantic pain in my ass. Yes, I could use the refresher, but this professor wants us to hand in a paper for every single reading she assigns. There are usually two readings assigned per class (and two classes a week), and the readings are due one "business day" before class starts, meaning I'll just be writing a paper at all times. (And that I'll have to come in on Wednesdays and Fridays, my days off. Sonofabitch.) Every time you talk to me, I'll be writing something. And you know how I hate writing. God how I hate it. Four papers a week is gonna kick my ass. And tomorrow I have to go wait on that reeeeeeally long line to buy my textbook. The one that goes halfway down Lexington Avenue. Because the first paper is due this Monday. Sonofabitch.
Amusingly, the professor is 8 months pregnant, so there is some excitement with the possibility that she could go into labour in the middle of a lecture in October. That would be fun. I was mentally halfway to knitting her a pair of baby booties until I found out about all the papers we'll have to write.
Connectivity: I do have internet access via my phone from this room. Yay.
Music: Tiresome. Too much memorization. But all those years of piano, violin and music theory slowly start to trickle back and shall come in handy. Although my last music lesson was thirteen years ago, so I haven't retained that much. Still.
Professor is a violinist, Seinfeldesque. I believe she even used the phrase "yadda yadda". And the following was amusing: "That guy on PBS all the time... the violinist with the long hair and all the women in ball gowns around him? EWWWW! What IS that? I need to know. Someone explain it to me, 'cause I need to know. What IS that??"
Connectivity: Good signal. Internet access.
Latin: What was I scared of? The professor is one of those mad-hatter types. (My last mad-hatter professor was also in the Classics department. Maybe Classics attract mad-hatter types?) And the pronunciation stuff from high school all comes flooding back. And, yes, he was thrilled with my name.
Connectivity: No signal. But it's okay, I guess I should pay attention in this one anyway.
Why are you in Tavie's head? 11:00 PM | shower me with attention
And now, the complaining:
Anthro Theory: This class is going to be a gigantic pain in my ass. Yes, I could use the refresher, but this professor wants us to hand in a paper for every single reading she assigns. There are usually two readings assigned per class (and two classes a week), and the readings are due one "business day" before class starts, meaning I'll just be writing a paper at all times. (And that I'll have to come in on Wednesdays and Fridays, my days off. Sonofabitch.) Every time you talk to me, I'll be writing something. And you know how I hate writing. God how I hate it. Four papers a week is gonna kick my ass. And tomorrow I have to go wait on that reeeeeeally long line to buy my textbook. The one that goes halfway down Lexington Avenue. Because the first paper is due this Monday. Sonofabitch.
Amusingly, the professor is 8 months pregnant, so there is some excitement with the possibility that she could go into labour in the middle of a lecture in October. That would be fun. I was mentally halfway to knitting her a pair of baby booties until I found out about all the papers we'll have to write.
Connectivity: I do have internet access via my phone from this room. Yay.
Music: Tiresome. Too much memorization. But all those years of piano, violin and music theory slowly start to trickle back and shall come in handy. Although my last music lesson was thirteen years ago, so I haven't retained that much. Still.
Professor is a violinist, Seinfeldesque. I believe she even used the phrase "yadda yadda". And the following was amusing: "That guy on PBS all the time... the violinist with the long hair and all the women in ball gowns around him? EWWWW! What IS that? I need to know. Someone explain it to me, 'cause I need to know. What IS that??"
Connectivity: Good signal. Internet access.
Latin: What was I scared of? The professor is one of those mad-hatter types. (My last mad-hatter professor was also in the Classics department. Maybe Classics attract mad-hatter types?) And the pronunciation stuff from high school all comes flooding back. And, yes, he was thrilled with my name.
Connectivity: No signal. But it's okay, I guess I should pay attention in this one anyway.
Why are you in Tavie's head? 11:00 PM | shower me with attention
I woke up too early today. Far too early. 6:30. That's rooster territory.
Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:42 AM | shower me with attention
Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:42 AM | shower me with attention
Wednesday, September 03, 2003
Whoo, sleeeepy. Because in my body, it's almost three in the morning, but for the rest of New York it's not even nine p.m.
Tomorrow are my first classes. Like Goose, I am taking a Classical to avoid having to speak in a language other than English, so tomorrow will be my first Latin class in nine years. Ulp.
I got a lot done today. I unpacked and exchanged the rest of my kroner and bought ink cartridges and CD labels and a notebook and pens for school, and had dinner at that really good Indian place at Grand Central. Oh, and set up my Airport. So today was a good ole busy productive day.
Kirsten and I rented Comedian and The Ring (finally!) and Andrew is on his way over, but now I'm thinking I'm too sleepy to watch ANYTHING. Whoops.
Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:04 PM | shower me with attention
Tomorrow are my first classes. Like Goose, I am taking a Classical to avoid having to speak in a language other than English, so tomorrow will be my first Latin class in nine years. Ulp.
I got a lot done today. I unpacked and exchanged the rest of my kroner and bought ink cartridges and CD labels and a notebook and pens for school, and had dinner at that really good Indian place at Grand Central. Oh, and set up my Airport. So today was a good ole busy productive day.
Kirsten and I rented Comedian and The Ring (finally!) and Andrew is on his way over, but now I'm thinking I'm too sleepy to watch ANYTHING. Whoops.
Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:04 PM | shower me with attention
I am SO FUCKING CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET, BABY!
I gots Ethernet!
I gots Ethernet!
Because I GOTS AIRPORT!! I just set it up. I got back from the airport last night, fell asleep, woke up this MORNING (10:30 am, 4:30 pm Swedish time) and connected my ibook, with its brand-new power adapter, to the new Airport.
And here I am now with a computer that works in every way that I want it to.
Thank you Jesus thank you!
I miss Sweden, and I left my bath melts at Linn's parents' house. By accident. I also left my entire Elfquest collection there, and my gameboy, on purpose. Also 600 kr, which Linn is to use to purchase me vast quantities of excellent yarn at the excellent yarn shop I found. (Stickbutiken on St. Eriksplan. Go and buy.)
As it turns out, I don't have class until tomorrow, so today I get to spend time with my sis and those nasty kittoons that wrecked the apartment while I was gone.
I haven't forgotten my Country Logs, they're still waiting in stasis on the disk I brought with me but I can't seem to get it to work with my disk drive. So I'm gonna try to load it at Mint Manor this weekend.
Why are you in Tavie's head? 12:35 PM | shower me with attention
I gots Ethernet!
I gots Ethernet!
Because I GOTS AIRPORT!! I just set it up. I got back from the airport last night, fell asleep, woke up this MORNING (10:30 am, 4:30 pm Swedish time) and connected my ibook, with its brand-new power adapter, to the new Airport.
And here I am now with a computer that works in every way that I want it to.
Thank you Jesus thank you!
I miss Sweden, and I left my bath melts at Linn's parents' house. By accident. I also left my entire Elfquest collection there, and my gameboy, on purpose. Also 600 kr, which Linn is to use to purchase me vast quantities of excellent yarn at the excellent yarn shop I found. (Stickbutiken on St. Eriksplan. Go and buy.)
As it turns out, I don't have class until tomorrow, so today I get to spend time with my sis and those nasty kittoons that wrecked the apartment while I was gone.
I haven't forgotten my Country Logs, they're still waiting in stasis on the disk I brought with me but I can't seem to get it to work with my disk drive. So I'm gonna try to load it at Mint Manor this weekend.
Why are you in Tavie's head? 12:35 PM | shower me with attention
Monday, September 01, 2003
Happy SARAH day! I've known her longer than almost anyone else online and she's one of my oldest newsgroup buddies. I hope she has a magnificent birthday.
It's after midnight in Sweden so this post is timely, although the date stamp on my blog won't reflect it.
By this time tomorrow I'll be home. I miss my sis and my kittoons.
Why are you in Tavie's head? 6:21 PM | shower me with attention
It's after midnight in Sweden so this post is timely, although the date stamp on my blog won't reflect it.
By this time tomorrow I'll be home. I miss my sis and my kittoons.
Why are you in Tavie's head? 6:21 PM | shower me with attention
I've discovered all sorts of American shows that I never would bother to watch at home because at home we have so many choices. But there are only 10 or 11 channels here and like three of them are MTV :P so there are very limited options in the Engelska department. So you find yourself watching things you'd never deign to watch at home. To that end, I've discovered the magic of Dr Phil, and the Waltons. And may I say that I have learned so very much on Walton mountain? I might just start watching PAX at home...
And Dr Phil says that we're so busy matching OUR reality to other people's social masks that no one ever sees anything for what it is. He's so wise, Dr Phil. If only he didn't look like Jeffrey Tambor. And why is his wife so plastic looking?
(Who's that I see waiting to lecture me about watching so much tv when I'm on vacation? TV is vacation for me. I go out, too. I spent a week skipping about the countryside, I ambled the streets of Olde Stockholm, and I've also watched me some tv. And that, for me, is vacation. God knows there won't be much time for tv starting Wednesday... so leave me alone. Talk to the hand.)
Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:13 PM | shower me with attention
And Dr Phil says that we're so busy matching OUR reality to other people's social masks that no one ever sees anything for what it is. He's so wise, Dr Phil. If only he didn't look like Jeffrey Tambor. And why is his wife so plastic looking?
(Who's that I see waiting to lecture me about watching so much tv when I'm on vacation? TV is vacation for me. I go out, too. I spent a week skipping about the countryside, I ambled the streets of Olde Stockholm, and I've also watched me some tv. And that, for me, is vacation. God knows there won't be much time for tv starting Wednesday... so leave me alone. Talk to the hand.)
Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:13 PM | shower me with attention
I never did make it to the museum. I may be good on the Stockholm subway but I have a lot to learn about the buses. So I ended up getting on the first bus that came and just riding it around like it was my own personal tourbus. I took it to the last stop, then got on the same bus going the other way, got off at Slussen, stopped in at a children's bookstore to get my Pettson and Findus fix, and came home where Linn and Emma and I are fixing my farewell taco-salad extravaganza. Also we're roasting a bunch of the vegetables from Berit's garden and they are so damned yummy it makes me wish I had a garden. My hands smell like garlic now, though.
Yesterday was a low-key, relaxing sort of day, too. Oscar took me to meet his big, dumb blond bimbo of a dog, Nikar, and we walked Nikar around the neighbourhood while Linn made photocopies for school. Then Linn and I went back to Stureby and rented a video at the gas station. The gas station rents videos. I find that odd. So, we rented Bend it Like Beckham which was, dare I say it, the feel-good movie of the year?
Tomorrow I wake up and head out to the airport. Poop.
Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:07 PM | shower me with attention
Yesterday was a low-key, relaxing sort of day, too. Oscar took me to meet his big, dumb blond bimbo of a dog, Nikar, and we walked Nikar around the neighbourhood while Linn made photocopies for school. Then Linn and I went back to Stureby and rented a video at the gas station. The gas station rents videos. I find that odd. So, we rented Bend it Like Beckham which was, dare I say it, the feel-good movie of the year?
Tomorrow I wake up and head out to the airport. Poop.
Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:07 PM | shower me with attention
I'm all packed and ready to leave tomorrow. We decided I should spend the last night at Linn's parents' house in Kista (Linn lives here half the time anyway because it's closer to school) and we're gonna have taco salad with Gina's Kansas City spices as my farewell dinner.
I just lugged my heavy suitcase all the way from Linn's out-of-the-way apartment in Stureby to Kista and now I have just enough time to run out and see the children's museum before it closes. If I can find it by myself. I think it involves a bus AND a subway.
I know I should see some of Stockholm's many other great museums, as I've already been to Junibacken, but I just loved it so much I have to go back. It's not like I'll never be here again. Next time will be Museum Trip.
The guy manning the subway booth here at Kista won't stop flirting with me. I call him Chatty Cathy. He calls me New York. It was cute but very annoying when he wouldn't stop drilling me about Mayor Bloomberg when a line of annoyed subway-goes waited behind me to get their tickets stamped.
I must go, the museum's a-closing. More later!
Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:16 AM | shower me with attention
I just lugged my heavy suitcase all the way from Linn's out-of-the-way apartment in Stureby to Kista and now I have just enough time to run out and see the children's museum before it closes. If I can find it by myself. I think it involves a bus AND a subway.
I know I should see some of Stockholm's many other great museums, as I've already been to Junibacken, but I just loved it so much I have to go back. It's not like I'll never be here again. Next time will be Museum Trip.
The guy manning the subway booth here at Kista won't stop flirting with me. I call him Chatty Cathy. He calls me New York. It was cute but very annoying when he wouldn't stop drilling me about Mayor Bloomberg when a line of annoyed subway-goes waited behind me to get their tickets stamped.
I must go, the museum's a-closing. More later!
Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:16 AM | shower me with attention
Sunday, August 31, 2003
Oh oh. I figured out who I was last night: Long Duck Dong.
Why are you in Tavie's head? 8:41 AM | shower me with attention
Why are you in Tavie's head? 8:41 AM | shower me with attention
I have been wearing the same underwear for three days. Wassup? Can we go back to where my suitcase is, now? Crazy serendipity.
Linn is watching her girlfriend Missy Elliot on the tv and it's a very funny video. "I need a glass of wah-tah."
"Keep your eyes on my ba-bomp-ba-bomp-bomp."
Can't say much about yesterday. I think it would've been better if I'd drunk the damn beer. But it's bread in a glass, people! Bread in a glass!
Why are you in Tavie's head? 6:56 AM | shower me with attention
Linn is watching her girlfriend Missy Elliot on the tv and it's a very funny video. "I need a glass of wah-tah."
"Keep your eyes on my ba-bomp-ba-bomp-bomp."
Can't say much about yesterday. I think it would've been better if I'd drunk the damn beer. But it's bread in a glass, people! Bread in a glass!
Why are you in Tavie's head? 6:56 AM | shower me with attention
