● 18 Speaking of ... Exactly what you wanted to hear. Again.

Today I had dental surgery to remove a wisdom tooth. I’ve been dreading it, and was rather shaky as I sat in the chair. The dentist pushed four shots of anaesthesia to my lower jaw and chin, and the jaw and tongue was starting to have that tingling sensation as it dozed off.

I brought my headphones and plugged them in to try to shut the drilling and cracking sounds out. Lucky, lucky me, the appointment was in the afternoon, and P3 Christer was playing! I zoomed out, and it really felt like Morgan and Christer, the two hosts, were sitting on each side of me just stroking my hands, making me feel at ease. Within minutes, they had turned my fidgeting to this surreal feeling of enjoyment, as I found myself giggling at the stories other listeners called in. The dentist was busy splitting my tooth in half and stretching the corner of my mouth so far it felt he was going to button it behind my ear. I could see the whole scene as a Japanese manga story board as my face was pulled in all directions like a rubber mask… And after only one hour, the stitches were made, shaving a whole half hour of the estimated time. Yay! I hope that the next days of healing will go as easy. I guess I’ll keep the radio running.

☼17 Speaking of ... Exactly what you wanted to hear.

I've been thinking for awhile about what comes of making things public – facebook ... marriage ... other stuff. So I was a bit excited when at a wedding not so long ago a stranger came up to me out of the blue and started talking to me about pretty much exactly this.

Not sure how it started - but at a wedding, being unmarried but attached it's a short, obvious route to the 'why aren't you married' discussion which I try to turn into the 'why are you married' discussion, because it's only ever married people that ask. The man, a sailor, hesitantly told me of what happens to love over the course of a long marriage. He was hesitant like you might be uncertain if you should tell a small child their first ghost story. Eventually he told me, though only if I promised to keep it between me, him and this ocean that we were standing next to outside the restaurant that night. Anyway, it was something he talked about with a great sense of loss, but even so, he was still passionate enough about the importance of the public declaration of love through marriage that he offered his house for us to have a wedding barbecue at :-) and he talked on and on about how wonderful it was that the bride and groom were declaring their love in front of everyone.

We argued for ages over why people should do the public ceremony and as he talked, I remembered this stuff I'd been reading about, all that ask the universe stuff and it will deliver, so I was pretty excited that I'd been thinking really, really hard about this idea and then suddenly late one night, a stranger would start talking to me about exactly this. I kept thinking, 'Holy crap it's working! I asked and I'm about to get the answer!' And then it was over, we had to go back to our tables for dessert. I was still so excited that it was only days later when I sit down to tell you that I realise he'd never really answered why making public declarations was important, he'd just said that they were important ... shitballs.

● 16 Speaking of.... nicer ways in Swenglish?!

The answer is sadly no. Herding cats is what I have been doing the last months, but noone would understand my point if i said I was busy "valla katter"!


My latest cat to herd is definitely a bossy one... My boss. She's the kind that makes a point of always working late, looking ash-grey and stressed, while putting her energy on all the wrong details instead of actually doing her own job instead of ours.
The other day, as I was preparing to leave, she showed up, hair-on-end, and asked me "how do you write mobile phone numbers?!!" and when I asked why (tired) she explained, we have to agree on how we type in the dialling code when we register customers in the new business system. Again, I asked why...!??
"Why, in case we someday want to sort the customers by phone numbers, we have to decide if we write the dialling code with 3 or 4 digits before the dash!!"



Why, of course. Silly me!

☼ 15 Speaking of ... Finding a nice way to say it

“I'm sorry, I've just been so busy.”

Yawnsville! Who needs that to be said more often? Not me. I draw blanks when I hear it.



On the other hand, when I tell people that I'm sorry but things are up in the air this month...



Or that I'm herding cats right now and can we push it back to spring, well then ...



Do you have even nicer ways to say this in Swedish? The english ones seem especially nice for those situations where you do have time, but it's just difficult to tell where it will be in advance.

☼ ...

I actually picked up a book last night! It was just a rather old cookbook but I'm hoping it means I'm on the way to posting something here soon. Phobia of words, it's been strange! Sorry for the long intermission.

● 14 Speaking of.... a pedagogical tone

My 2-year old nephew O, lately got into the age of "bang-bang".
His mother corrected him, and explained that it doesn't sound nice.
His older sister, age 4, assisted by very pedagogically telling him
- No, O, it's not nice. Just imagine if someone wanted to kill you. That wouldn't be nice, now would it?

☼ 13 Speaking of ... I'm Where??!!

I was pretty worried when she told me how I could get a cup of tea. I'd been to one of the two or three kitchens on this floor, one of many floors in this big company's huge building, but I'd found only bare cupboards. And then she told me that if I wanted a cup of tea then I needed to bring my own cup and my own tea bags. The thing that worried me was that she didn't even laugh when she told me.
I needed a cup of tea because I'd been sitting for 7 hours each day, ears open, learning to listen as a sound engineer added 'texture' to this project I was working on. The amount of detail that went into building an atmosphere and leaving one place to enter another, wow!
It was a wild, wild ride. And then she started describing what she was hearing, using words that were really something else. 'Heavy' and 'light' I got, but then she started calling sounds 'strident' and 'insipid.' It totally blew my mind away (that's why I'm so late, aiya! And sorry!)
There was so much pressure, so much to take in. So on the weekend I found a tiny bit of time to head to the second-hand store to unwind. I once told someone that I practically meditate when I'm wandering around these stores. But this time I really found out how much I can empty my mind. I'd looked on every shelf and basket in the shop and on my way heading out I stopped at the counter. I started thumbing through some old papers there. And then suddenly I went 'Woah!' I looked up and (damn) the young girl minding the store was watching me. I laughed a bit, and tried making some excuses about my mind being elsewhere. But she just looked at me, leaned forward and pointing at the papers I'd just been looking through, she said slowly, 'We use this to wrap up some of the fragile things we sell, like crockery.'
'This.' She said carefully trying to make sure I understood. 'This is just old newspaper.'
I didn't try to freak her out any more by trying to buy some :-) It seemed like a good time to head home, and quickly!