How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons

Chatting over drinks at Tranan with the engaging and erudite Stefan Geens - beers for me, vodka lime for him - I seemed to get my mojo back, bloggerly speaking (blojo definitely does not conjure up the right images, so I won't try for any neologisms here). I felt downright born again. Though he might deny it, and it probably isn't intentional, the man is an evangelist. He's got plans, and he was talking all about New York blog cliques (for good and bad), and that he's changed his mind about thinking that it is silly and contrary to the medium for bloggers to meet in person, and that it would probably be better if George W. Bush got re-elected so he could really make things so bad that Americans would be cured of their penchant for the right wing (well, he admitted maybe it wouldn't be so good for Americans and a few random Muslim countries in the short run, plus there is always the possibility that it could cause irreparable damage supreme court-wise, for instance).

Talking politics was fun, of course, but I'm usually not into meta-thinking when it comes to blogging. But it got me chewing on how this huge public writing phenomenon will evolve, seeping into god only knows what parts of our lives, individually and collectively.

Agog with it, I felt like Tom Hulce in that scene in Animal House where he smokes pot for the first time and he's doing the "whole universe in an atom of my fingernail" routine.

Then again, the next day I realized it wears me out to think of all this stuff, and it humbles me to have to face the fact that my own intellect is rather sad, small and flabby. I guess I'll just leave it to the big brains.

The Swedish verb of the day is att tröttna. It means to tire of.

- by Francis S.