Filed under: Uncategorized
The first time that something American looked foreign to me was in London, when I went to see an American movie. There was a close-up shot of someone pulling bills out of a wallet. The pretty green dollar. I had forgotten about you. Or, more accurately, forgotten your familiarity. Money is something so common, so everyday, that your “mother” currency is both heavily symbolic and easily replaced. After months of seeing, feeling, and searching for 1-pound coins and 5-pound notes, I had forgotten what casually pulling out a dollar was like.
This forgotten casualness is a little like the way you feel about exes. You know you were together with them. You can remember romantic evenings, laughing, and the annoying “cute” voice you used to use with each other. But you cannot for the life of you feel it. And then one night you have a dream about your ex and suddenly you experience all those feelings of a passed normalcy again. And you remember what you and him were like. It’s a little like that. Minus the grossed-out feeling when you wake up.
Today, it was pizza. I use my long train ride home in the afternoon to relax – often through TV. I download American series and watch them on my computer. I’ve watch Big Love, My So-Called Life, and am almost finished with the HBO series, In Treatment. Next up? Maybe The Wire.
On today’s episode of In Treatment, the main character got a pizza delivered to his house. No big deal right? I must have seen the same thing on a million shows. But today it was a big deal. Possibly because I have plans to eat pizza tonight. And my plans include walking in the cold to pick that pizza up. Today I could not get over DELIVERY. Delivery. Why do I not think about the fact that I miss delivery more often? Why, considering all the crappy, embarrassing things that America has exported, has delivery not really taken off in these parts?
It exists, in the weird half-assed, hushed way that Halloween and Brazilian waxes exist. You can find it if you’re looking, but it’s a little weird. In New York, I’d get Chinese from a place five blocks away delivered. Pizza from around the corner. Here, I have never gotten any food delivered. And suddenly, the pizza guy, the warming box, the tip, it all seemed so fantastic. So ridiculous. Pizza to your door. I wanted to hug the whole idea. Cuddle the society that says, “life is better when pizza (or Chinese) comes to you.”
This “oh yeah, that!” feeling never comes when I’m in America. As soon as I step off the plane, I revert to a self where pizza delivery, dollars, and cheap manicures are the norm. Home only feels foreign from afar, when I see things represented as everyday in the middle of my apparently different everyday.
That’s when I’m taken aback. I think about the big stuff all the time: family, friends, politics. But it’s the tiny, quotidian things that can jar me. Oh, America, with your dollars and your pizza, sometimes I really miss you.
Filed under: holidays
I’ve always loved my birthday. In America, at least where I lived, March 21st was always hopeful. And mild. I remember clearly an outfit I wore one birthday, I must have been around 12. Heather gray legging and t-shirt with a cream colored cardigan. In that outfit — and nothing more — I walked to CVS with a friend. But the days of birthdays with just a cardigan, or even a light jacket, are over. At least as long as I live in Sweden.
Here? My birthday pretty much sucks. Instead of landing at the most hopeful time of year, it rolls around right when you’re about to pull your hair out due to the wind, the cold, the gray, and it gives you even more of it. There, March 21st is a beacon. Here it’s a harasser.
Take today. After a snowless, barren winter, Mor Natur* chose this week to cast her wintry spells. We’ve had snow and and freezing temperatures. I suppose I should have learned after 4 1/2 years in Sweden that March 21st might not be the best time to plan a little getaway to the coast. But I haven’t and I did. Earlier in the week I was disappointed that my vision of Erik and I walking on the beach in Österlen in spring jackets was not to be. Then I started thinking how cozy a little hotel on the beach would be in the snow. Not spring-like, no. But pretty and peaceful. Except that I woke up a half-hour ago to rain. Rain, relentless cloud cover, and no snow. (Pulls hair out).
There is one good thing about March 21st in Sweden, though. The light. It’s back and by this time in March, there’s a feeling that it’s fastened itself to the sky and won’t go anywhere for another six months. This light is not to be confused with “bright.” Bright is a rarity, indeed. But when I walked home from the gym at 6pm last night and woke again at 7am, there was light, light, long-longed-for light.
And this morning, there’s also a husband who was planning something sneaky for me yesterday, a pile of cards to open, a big package from America that apparently contains perishables with lots of preservatives, and in two hours, there’s a breakfast date with friends at the bakery. After that there’s a car ride to the hotel, where we’ll be greeted with a drink and massages. So from this vantage point, even through the rain, 29 is looking pretty good. And I suppose if my new spring jacket hangs on the hook until April, I’ll be less sick of it come July, when you know I’ll still need it.
*Mother Nature, my translation
Filed under: Uncategorized
Today I got an email from apple with the subject “itunes receipt.” I almost deleted it since the last thing I bought from itunes was an album a few weeks back. But halfway up from my desk, on my way to a meeting, I opened the email. Oh yeah. Actually, that album was not the last thing. The last item I purchased was a single song.
“Paradise by the dashboard light.” At around 2:30am on Saturday night.
I have lots of excuses. We had spent the night watching melodifestivalen, listening to bad, bad Eurovision-ready music and my taste was rotted. It was playing in the taxi on the way home and Erik, who had never heard the 8-minute ditty, didn’t get to hear how the “story” ended. We were a little drunk. It was ironic.
All those points are true, except for the last. Because whatever else it was, however lame it may have been, my quiet duet with the taxi driver, my dancing and singing and theatricating in our hall, it was none of it ironic. I sang every single word with glee, like it was my solo in my high school musical. And however much Erik and I cracked up at the Bat Out of Hell cover, I know that at some point, on some drunken night in the future, that batty ballad tucked into our itunes library between McCarthy and Men at Work will be clicked on again. Worth every krona I paid for it.
Filed under: hungrig
I just cut up what must have been the most melancholy onion of all time. When I was done slicing the rings, tears were streaming down my cheeks and my nose was running.
That was ten minutes ago and I feel exactly like I feel after having a big cry — fragile, raw, lightheaded, and relieved. I think this was the first onion that ever gave me post-cry emotions.Or maybe I’m just moved by the fact that I’m actually cooking. A real meal. For months, I’ve been stuck in a food rut. Disinterested, uninspired, and consistently disappointed by our weekday fare. I better snap out of it soon. Malmö doesn’t have enough good take-out to sustain such an attitude.
Tonight is different, though. I have a dinner and Top Model date with Celia. Celia, who never fails to cook me a delicious vegetarian meal. Who almost never repeats her recipes. Who always makes dessert. Tonight, for Celia, I’m cooking. And when I say tonight, I mean of course, all day; because shit, cooking a full meal with dessert is time consuming. I seem to have forgotten that in my weeks of “So should we just have some pasta?”.
This morning I made a lemon cake. After that, the mixture for bulghur-tahini patties. On the phone with my mom, I chopped broccoli. I made lemon glaze while I spoke to my brother. And now, I’m doing a potato gratin. Whence came the sad onion.
Um, did I just use whence? Did I even use it correctly? Must be the melodrama from the onion infecting my writing. I better go before I wax rhapsodic about the mache salad that’s waiting to be washed. Just quickly, though, mache + me = in love. It’s a recent addition to my salad life, bumping aside rocket with it’s gentle little leaves, and is one of the few things that has upped the quality of a string of otherwise blah meals.
Now, I’m off to finish cooking my meal, which I suspect for all my effort will be just okay. Or is that too just the onion talking?
Filed under: weekend mornings
This is the drill. Friday night, I fall asleep in the middle of an English detective show. Saturday morning, I wake up perky between 7 and 8. I talk to Erik for a few minutes before finally giving up. I go to the computer and check Perez Hilton.
This is a Saturday like any other except for the fact that instead of crawling back into bed with a book after getting my fill of gossip, I crawled onto here. Because the first entry after a two-year break from blogging has to happen eventually.
And while I was here, instead of back in bed, I ruined a pot of coffee. That’s one of the many things that’s happened in the last two years. I went from a “coffee on the weekends” latte girl to an “at least one cup a day” wife. So does ruining the coffee bode badly for my new blog? Possibly.
Here we go. Let’s see what happens.
