As long as I have one ass instead of two...

To use the words of Erin Brokovich in the movie with the same name: "Well, as long as I have one as instead of two, I'll wear what I like if that's all right with you".

The daughter of a friend of mine once told me when I was wearing pink one day: "You're too old to wear pink now". She said she was joking, I do hope she was, since the whole idea of colours being gender or age limited is ridiculous. Who came up with all that nonsense of pink for girls and blue for boys anyway? It's gotten to the point where entire colours are off limits for boys. What's to say a boy can't wear pink? Just because somewhere out there, a long time ago, somebody decided that this just wasn't appropriate?

Well, interestingly enough, researchers are actually discovering that girls being inclined to like pink is actually a biological preference. These findings are relatively new, so who knows.

Anyway, about age and clothes. I will never let myself be defined by my age. I don't see why I should. Why should I give up on certain colours and clothing styles simply because I'm a certain age? Until the day I feel like dressing frumpy, or am forced to because of the laws of physics, I will continue to wear what I like. I've never been into mini-skirts and tight tops, so don't worry, I will not become eyesore once I'm 55, flabby and overpowered by cellulite. But I refuse to start thinking of certain colours as too young for me, and I don't plan to succumb to wearing dowdy clothes just because it's expected of someone my age group. Naturally, I will not wear clothes that are unflattering, and I except my taste to mature as I get older, but I'll never allow society to place me in some sort of age bracket when it comes to what I wear.

This goes for everything, not only clothes. We should be allowed to be as childish and youthful as we want without people frowning on it. Does being a mature, responsible adult have to equal being dull as dishwater?

Fake feminist

For a long time I've considered myself somewhat of a feminist, but I've suddenly realized that I'm not a real feminist. I'm all for equality between men and women. I will always support the basic thoughts of feminism. Well, I don't really think of it as feminism, it's more like basic human rights. It's stuff that should go without saying. There shouldn't be need for any fuss, protests or men-hating groups to achieve equal rights for women. Naturally guys should share all the household chores, wages should be the same for men and women, women should be given the same respect as men and not be treated as animals or objects, women should never be regarded as inferior to men etc. etc. This goes without saying for me.

I call my best friend old-fashioned and anti-feminist because she expects the guy to make all the moves. She will never ask him out because she considers this the guy's task. I've always disagreed with her, but to be honest I realize that I agree with her up to a point. I don't think it's automatically the guy's duty to ask the girl out on a date. That's sort of like saying that the guy is in charge. It's also putting some pressure on him when you expect him to be the brave one, the one to take the initiative, when in fact he might be just as insecure and afraid to be rejected as you are.

But, I don't want him to treat me like one of the guys, I want to be treated better than that. It doesn't matter if he's romantically interested, a friend, a colleague or just a stranger, I want to be treated like a woman. I don't need him to open doors for me or pull out chairs, but I don't want him to slam them in my face either. This is what I mean when I say I'm a fake feminist. I want total equality yet I want men to behave like gentlemen. I don't expect much, just some politeness.

Maybe this is a cultural issue. Before I left Sweden to move to North America I had never had a boyfriend. As far as I knew, no guy in Sweden had ever been interested in me and I had never been seriously interested in anyone either, not really. I was beginning to think I was totally unattractive to men. Then I came to Canada and suddenly I discovered that I was in fact a female, and that there were men out there who found me attractive. When North American men are interested in you, they let you know. And even if they're not into you in that way, they still treat you like a woman. I'm talking about men in general here. Maybe it's simply that Swedish men and I have never clicked? We never have. I lose patience and interest when they act all stand-offish and snooty. I suppose I come across that way too. Perhaps I'm speaking from inexperience here, since I literally have no experience with my countrymen when it comes to the romance department. I have been hit on by Swedish men a couple of times but only drunk ones. What does that say about me? What does it say about them? Either I'm totally unattractive to them or they only have the guts to make a move when they're drunk. Maybe it's both. Maybe I'm not perky, cool and cheerful enough. North American men don't have perky, cheerful and cool as a requirement. One time in a club in Sweden when I was visiting for Christmas, and I was feeling invisible to the opposite sex as usual in Sweden, some guy was looking at me and suddenly smiled. For just a split second I thought he was showing interest, but it quickly hit me that he was actually hinting to me that I should smile, and his smile was sarcasm. I put on an exaggerated fake smile and his smile disappeared, and he looked away, as though his task was done. I had not been smiling, and apparently that wasn't allowed.

Anyway, since I'm already in a relationship, with a North American man who appreciates my neuroticism and bitchy side, it doesn't really matter. The point is that I can't really call myself a true feminist if I want guys to treat me better than they do their fellow guys. My boyfriend says I shouldn't say I want equality and then expect a guy to be a gentleman. But there it is, that's how I feel. I want to feel like a woman. I'm difficult, I want to be allowed to be a bitch and I want total equality yet I want him to treat me like a lady.

Unpleasant dreams

For the past two nights I have been having scary dreams. Last night I dreamt that a mother was living in an apartment with her two teen-aged daughters. One evening the youngest daughter and the mom came home and found the apartment covered in blood. They discovered the eldest daughter on the couch, but only her legs were visible, her upper body was covered with clothes. Needless to say, she'd been murdered. All of a sudden, I was the younger sister. I went into my bedroom and crouched behind my bed and called 911 and told the operator that my sister had been murdered. I was trying to be quiet so my mom wouldn't hear me because she was in a state of denial. My mouth was so dry that I could barely get the words out. The operator couldn't hear me.

Then I woke up. I hate having dreams like this. I blame it on the movies.

"The goddam movies. They can ruin you. I'm not kidding." In the words of Holden Caulfield.

I think there's a bit of reality in there too though. The knowledge that this kind of stuff does happen in real life. I think I'm going to stop watching those real life crime shows. That stuff is way more scary than any movie in the world.

Anyway, I was awake for hours after this, and when I finally went back to sleep the dream took an odd turn. Dolph Lundgren walked out of a bedroom dressed in some kind of bright blue patterned, wide silk nightgown with half-long sleeves. The rest of the details in this dream are all jumbled up, but I remember the Dolph part very clearly.

See, I don't mind strange dreams at all, in fact they're quite fun, but when I go to bed tonight I'll be praying that there are no disturbing dreams tonight. I need to get some sleep.

Random reflections and complaints

1. Why do some brides and grooms in the U.S smear wedding cake all over each other's faces? Seems like a waste of good, not to mention probably expensive, cake. And if I was a bride and had just gotten a facial and makeup and hair professionally done at a dayspa, as a lot of brides do, I doubt I'd want my face and hair full of cake. Cake goes in the mouth, not all over the face. What an imbecill tradition.

2. Why are women in soap operas always so stupid and needy? They'll bend over backwards and scheme to get a man and allow themselves to be part of a triangle where some clueless dope of a man who is waffling between two women. Both women will do their best to be the one he chooses, no matter how they have to humiliate themselves. As if any woman in her right mind would even consider a man who can't make up his mind if he wants to be with her or another woman. If even they have children or a successful career as a doctor they prioritize this man for crying out loud!

3. I'd like to give an extra large turd to people who perform unnecessary surgery on dogs, such as cutting their ears, tails, vocal chords or any other part of their body, just to suit their own vanity or convenience. Oh and let's not forget these sociopathic morons who enter their dogs in dog fighting contests. Although for them, a turd just isn't going to cut it, so I'll tie them up in a chair and force them to watch the Eurovision song contest semi-finals for 1 week straight. After that I'll set them loose somewhere in the middle of the northern Swedish mountains and let them find their own way home.

4. Why are some people so down on Susan Boyle? Yes, shows like Britan's Got Talent are not exactly the cream of the crop when it comes to intellectuality, but who gives a flying fig? Please people, don't be so cynical and snooty. She's a good singer. I don't particularly care for having pop-culture sensations crammed down my throat either, but the fact still remains that Susan Boyle is talented. I don't care if it's cool or intellectual of me to think so or not. I get it though, the reason why people are becoming anti-Susan, and I don't think it is so much her as it is that people are just over-fed with Susan Boyle. It doesn't matter how good a singer is, or an actor, if there is too much of that person, it's a huge turn-off. Even Celine Dion said that she didn't want people getting tired of her voice.

5. Why do so many professional athletes have blonde or bleached blonde girlfriends/wives? Never is this more evident than during a hockey or soccer game when they show them sitting there on the same row, side by side, watching their hubbies play. Hey, has anyone ever done research on the correlation between inhaling a lot of peroxide and the improvement of game performance? Just asking.

6. How come those wireless headsets that singers wear can make anyone look professional?

Strange dream

I have to write this dream down before I forget it. I just had it last night.

I was in a grocery store, and the characters from the T.V show "Friends" were there. I suddenly morphed into Rachel, and we were all chasing each other around the store in competition over this large bucket of gummy bears. Suddenly, Chandler was trying to reveal something inside his mouth. To the surprise of everybody, it was an orange cat, and it was alive. It emerged from his mouth covered in saliva.

Then all of a sudden, there was a wedding inside the grocery store, and I was still Rachel. I stole a bottle of alcohol which was meant for the bride and groom, and ran out of the store, with the groom chasing me. I was suddenly in the town of Östersund, and it was in the middle of the night, but not quite dark. I ran through the empty streets, still being chased. I ran towards the library, but for some reason I cut through the church park by the old church, which is odd since it wasn't on my way. I remember thinking as I was running that it was probably not a very good idea to run through this park at night since the drunks in town hang out there. It was twilight and the branches of the trees were all bare and pointy.
I was able to reach the library unharmed.

For some reason, the front of the library had been turned into a kind of shrine for women who had been dumped in the past and wanted to leave flowers in some kind of symbolic gesture of letting go. I was still carrying something but it wasn't the bottle of alcohol anymore, but the bucket of gummy bears instead. I was still being chased. Now I and somebody else, I don't know who it was, escaped into the library. In this part of the dream, the library suddenly turns into a luxurious, white, modern villa. I and this other person are trying to close the front door, but the person who has been chasing me is trying to get in the door. I think he stuck a foot or an arm in, blocking us from closing the door. We finally manage to close the door, and this is where the dream takes a rather nice turn.

The villa now starts to move, like an airplane on a runway, and suddenly it takes off and leaves the ground. We start soaring above ground, passing beautiful mountain tops. Östersund is located close to the mountains. I open the front door slowly and mountains with patches of snow on them, and we're so close to the ground that you can almost touch the peaks.
The villa is filled with these white beds, one after the other, in a row, all the way over to a very large panoramic window in the opposite side of the house. We are very comfortable during our flight.

Then, yes the dream continues, we hover so close to the ground that we actually land somewhere further up north, right smack on somebody's yard. While we're there, a charlatan out to steal money from us, tries to get in to our house by telling a lie.

This is where I started to wake up. It was a very vivid, colourful dream. We so often forget our dreams that I think I'll start writing them down. This one is full of symbolism.
You may very well wonder, "What did you eat before going to bed?? The answer would be "Feta cheese", but that's irrelevant.
This is nothing out of the ordinary for me, my dreams are always this strange. I don't really know what that says about my psyche, but I like the dreams. Going to sleep can be an adventure.

I love The Golden Girls!

And I'm not ashamed to admit it! I don't care how much flack I catch for it.

The best way to deal with annoying commercials

There's this marvelous invention called a mute button. It is so enjoyable to simply press that button whenever a particularly annoying commercial comes on. It feels so liberating, almost like personal vindication.

"Take that annoying L'oréal commercial!!!"

Almost as though they can see me and hear me. Almost like I'm cheating the system by turning off the sound, or flipping the channel. Of course, all channels tend to have a commercial break at the same time, to prevent us from attempting escape by going to a different channel. This is where my magic mute button comes in! Try it sometime. It's great! You know what's even sweeter, turning the T.V off and enjoying the silence.

I hate seeing some skinny model piling on the lip gloss. It looks revolting. Are we supposed to look like barbie dolls?

What makes a good friend?

There are different types of friendships. I believe that each person that comes into our lives have some kind of function, some purpose.

There is the kind of friend who you may not see or talk to that often but to whom you are still bonded by something, such as a past, childhood, adolescence. If this friendship has lasted several decades, you can be rather sure that this is a person who will always be a part of your life, in some form or another, even you don't see each other for weeks or months on end. This is the kind of friend whose presence at your wedding is a given, but will most likely not be your matron of honour/best man.

Then there is the kind of friend who isn't there to stay, and it seems to me that these are the most common. Classmates, roommates, acquaintances, people that you meet in some certain situation and that you would not necessarily be drawn to otherwise. I've had more roommates than I care to think about, and sometimes we became friends and sometimes we didn't. Either way though, you do tend to share rather intimate moments with roommates, if you think about it. You don't sit around in your pajamas and discuss intimate details of your life over tea or a beer with just anyone, do you. So in a way, it's rather odd, and sad if you think about it, how we can seemingly have close moments with someone and then never see them again when one of us moves out. We appear almost like a family one minute and the next we're like strangers. I have in my life, stayed friends with two roommates after we both moved out, and I am still friends with one of them, even though we haven't been roommates for years.

What's even more sad is when we lose friendships, especially after years of being friends. This can happen because of a lack of effort from one or both sides, an argument, a misunderstanding, or simply drifting apart because you grow apart and move in different directions. Whatever the reason, I find it very sad to see people leave my life, yet I've become very lax when it comes to keeping them there. I figure, if someone wants to leave, let them leave. For me, I tend to start to let go once I start to dislike myself when I'm around a person, or if I feel like a phony.

Then there is the most rare form of friendship, and the most valuable - the kind of friend in whose company you like yourself. For me, this is rare, since it's very hard for me to let my guard down and let people in. I feel like I'm always putting on a show. It's so rare for me to meet people with whom I feel comfortable enough to just be myself, who will accept me, warts and all. This type of friendship transcends the ordinary, mundane things like sharing a common interest, having the same kind of hobby. Naturally, this might be how you meet this person to begin with, but the friendship grows into something beyond that, something much more fundamental. Friendship on a deeper level, the meeting of souls, if you believe in souls and don't find it too corny. "Kindred spirits", to quote Anne of Green Gables.

I'm not sure what I believe about destiny or fate but it's interesting to consider what our lives would look like if certain people hadn't come into them at all. Would it be different in some way? Even the most seemingly insignificant contacts can play a part in the outcome.
I do think that what defines family isn't just blood relation. I think family is more a feeling of belonging. Some families we are born into, some families we acquire along the way, and both are equally important. To only care about "blood family seems shallow". How much we care about people shouldn't be determined by sharing the same DNA or being married.

Sweden's wonderful healthcare system

A man broke his left foot on Christmas Day and is still awaiting surgery. Sweden's reputation as a world leader when it comes to its welfare system is rather outdated. It's going down the tubes. Swedes are still fortunate enough to have free health care, but at what cost? I would rather pay a monthly medical insurance fee and know that at any time I need medical care, it is readily available to me. I felt more comfortable living in Canada, since even though I had to pay $50 every month for my Care Card, I felt at ease knowing that if something happened to me, even if it was just a runny nose, I could seek medical treatment for it.
Of course, Sweden is still advanced in comparison to many other countries. It would be a lot worse. But I'm sorry, I don't care what the circumstances are, there is no excuse for this, not in a country as developed as Sweden. The picture of his foot speaks for itself. This poor man's situation is disgraceful, especially considering the high taxes that he has probably paid throughout his adult life.

Follow and they will flee...

I was encouraged by a good friend to write down some advice to girls who are desperate to find love. Although I'm no wealth of knowledge on the subject, I have experienced enough to be able to make a few suggestions:

1. Don't stay hung up on someone who's clearly not interested in you. Why waste your precious energy and time on him? You can bet he's not devoting any time to you, so do yourself a huge favour and just let it go. It doesn't matter if he's a great guy or a total loser, the point is if he's not interested, he's not interested. If you find it hard to let go of your fantasy of him, just remember that he's probably not nearly as perfect as you think he is. While you're lying in your bed thinking of him he's probably out at some bar with a bunch of his buddies, checking out hot babes. Not that there's anything wrong with that. The point is, you're spending all this time thinking of him while he most likely thinks of you as a friend, or worse, doesn't think of you period. Doesn't that turn you off just a little? Odds are he's probably not the brooding, sensitive guy with a gruff exterior but a heart of gold that you think he is. It's mostly in movies and romance novels that they're like that. Lastly, remember that while you're wasting time on him, you're not opening yourself up to meeting someone else, because you're too wrapped up in him.

2. Once you get dumped, accept it and move on. It'll be one of the hardest things you've done, but something most of us have to go through at one time or another. Call it a rite of passage. You'll come out of it a little bit wiser and a lot stronger. In the end, your self-respect will be intact and you won't have to look back at your old self 10 years down the road and shudder in shame. The truth is that the more available we seem, the less desirable we become. "Follow, and they will flee, flee and they will follow". Find other things to occupy yourself with. Take up a new hobby, join a book club, start a grueling exercise regime, spend time with family and friends, do whatever you can to get your mind off him, even if it starts to border on the manic side. Whatever works.

3. Don't fall in love with love, fall in love with a real person. If you're not in love with the guy but just afraid to be alone, learn to rely on yourself instead of degrading yourself in a relationship that's probably bad for both parties. If he treats you badly, you should definitely end it, and fast! Don't be afraid to be alone. The more self-reliant and independent you become, the more interesting you will be become to others.

4. Don't lose yourself, it can take years before you find yourself again, if you even do, and in the meantime you'll be fumbling around in the dark.

5. Always hang on to your self-respect and dignity. I wish I could reach into the past and slap some sense into my past self, she desperately needed it.

And now I'll get off my soap box.

Fight the power!

My dog has a vendetta against any appliances and tools that move. This includes brooms, vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, shower heads...you name it. She'll do a drive-by biting on the vacuum head, a quick but effective attack. With the broom she takes her time. She sinks her teeth into it and hangs on to it, chewing like mad, while making odd whimpering sounds of excitement. It sounds amusingly enough as though she's talking, like she's lecturing the broom.

"Don't try anything with me punk! *bite* There ya go broom! You like that, huh!"

As far as the lawn mower is concerned, its wheels are particularly targeted whenever the thing is in motion. She'll stalk it and make little surprise attacks when it least expects it, barking while she's doing it, as though she's telling it off, letting it know who's boss.

For some reason she also has it in for the shower head, although that's partly because she likes to play with the water stream. She bites the water and puts the whole shower head inside her mouth. Like I said, anything that moves.

Need I mention that my vacuum cleaner head has holes in it, and the handle of our broom looks like a Swiss cheese?

The Funhouse

They had just sat down to a simple dinner, the emphasis being on simple, since it consisted of nothing but buttermilk and hard rye bread with stale butter. The mood was sullen, as it often was in the summertime, particularly on a warm, sunny afternoon when the neighbours were preparing a barbeque and they themselves had nothing to feast on except buttermilk and bread. Kirsten had made a feeble attempt to go to the store but had promptly been chased back into the house by some young hooligans that had ventured into the yard. At the sight of Kirsten, they had started running towards him, while calling him every name in the book. At first, Kirsten had bravely faced them, standing there with his hands firmly planted on his sides, glaring at them, daring them to come near him. When it was painfully obvious that his scare tactics weren’t going to work he did the smart thing, he ran. Or rather, he staggered. He took off on those old, ratty clogs as fast as his skinny legs could carry him, stumbling and cursing, slipping on grass still moist from a light shower in the afternoon. It looked pathetic. That frail, mangy body. Those large clogs that resembled two potatoes that had been mauled by a dog. His crooked glasses with one shattered lens. He was a rare sight. No wonder those hooligans couldn’t keep up with him, they were too busy cracking up at the sight of him. As Kirsten reached the stairs he could hear them in background, that hysterical, sadistic laugh they had. Like hyenas on the prairie.

Guess who's coming for dinner

I've been thinking about that old question, "If you could invite any three famous people for dinner, alive or dead, who would they be and what would you serve?"

It's a tough question, since there are so many people that I would like to invite over for dinner.

I think though, that the first person on the list would most definitely have to be Elvis Presley.

For the simple reason that I find him breathtaking. It might be a bit unusual to refer to a man as breathtaking, and yes I may also risk sounding a bit corny here, but that's the only word suitable to describe Elvis. There has never been such a charismatic man since him, in my opinion. I only wish I could have been alive to see him live in concert. His earlier music is great, and I will never tire of it, particularly not hits such as "That's alright mama" "Good Rockin' Tonight" and "Mystery Train". Also, from what I gather he was a very polite person with a great sense of humour. What would I give Elvis to eat? Why a cheeseburger and fries of course.

The second person that I would like to invite to dinner is Astrid Lindgren, the author of many children's books, among others Pippi Longstocking. She had a tremendous influence on my childhood, with her books and her narration on tapes and records. She was not only an author who created magic for children, but she also seemed to have been a very nice person, very warm, playful and with a natural understanding of children. I would make her freshly fished, pan-fried perch from the archipelago outside Stockholm, served with fresh potatoes and dill.

My third dinner guest is one that I have to ponder some more, because I have several names in mind. Perhaps Cesar Millan, because he seems to be a good person, and he's funny, and most importantly he loves dogs. He might be able to give me some pointers in how to get my Kelly to stop barking at the doorbell and at other dogs. Best of all, he's Mexican and must be very good cooking Mexican food, and since I love Mexican food I'd let him show me how to cook an amazing meal.

Yu-Na Kim

I feel compelled to say something about this amazing figure skater. Figure skating is always mesmerizing to watch and she really makes it extra enthralling. I love the way she moves on the ice, with such ease, as though she was born on the ice with a pair of skates strapped to her feet. I also like her gracefulness. Kudos to Yu-Na Kim.

(Sorry Di, I just had to mention it ; )