How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons

I'm slowly but surely working my way toward writer's block, posting less and less, writing things over and over in my head but unable to put them to paper. Or screen. It's a sad state of affairs, being reduced to writing about being unable to write. The absolute lamest of the lame, the bottom of the barrel when it comes to writing, right up there with writing about referrer logs and breakfast menus.

And yet, I refuse to give up. There are in fact things to be said about my birthday dinner last night, with the fashion photographer's children discussing the war and Swedish reluctance to make a fuss with the guy from the Goethe Institute. And today's coffee with the priest and the policeman, cooing over their 5-month-old daughter, the priest teaching my husband how to knit and telling us "this year, I'm not growing flowers on the terrace. There will be 15 kinds of grass instead."

The Swedish word for the day is tom. It means empty.

- by Francis S.