How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons

It is amazing how a little 12-pound human package that basically drinks, sleeps, shits, cries and smiles can create so much work while simultaneously making you fall profoundly and hopelessly in love. And I got the worst case of uncle-tourettes, saying my two-month-old nephew's name over and over (Owie, Owie, Owie!) just because it cracks me up, and repeatedly telling his parents that he is going to grow up to be a cowboy (on account of his initials are O.K.) while doing that really annoying thing where you point your fingers as if they were guns and then blowing away the pretend smoke.

In between perseverating on my nephew's name, feeding the boy countless bottles of breast-milk (those breast pumps are pretty scary devices) changing a diaper (I only had to do that once when I was babysitting alone), eating dinner at two very fancy schmancy restaurants, freaking out while sitting in Washington Square Park and eating a falafel from Mamoun's (it was altogether too much like some creepy drug-induced flashback to my college days at NYU), going to the doctor so Owen could get his first vaccinations (which was a big deal due to his hemophilia, but which came out fine), attending a naming ceremony at the gay synagogue that my beloved little brother and his wife belong to (why they belong to a gay synagogue is a story for another time), watching the Oscars at an apartment on the upper east side somewhere because my brother doesn't own a TV (we left before seeing Brokeback Mountain lose to Crash) and taking Owen for his first big art experience, the Met, through which he dutifully slept while my brother and I checked out room after room of Greek urns and drinking cups, (while being checked out ourselves by countless fellow artgoers who obviously had decided that Owen Has Two Daddies), I managed to have drinks and dinner and more drinks with the marvelous Mr. Justin Kerr Sheckler, who instantly became a friend (it was a case of extreme like at first sight), and having a brief coffee in Union Square with Eric, who is not only a high-quality individual, but wonderfully like his writing (I somehow never got around to telling him he really should try to write for money) and has scary stories about Danes.

New York has definitely not lost the ability to boggle the mind (You can get any food you want delivered just about anytime you want it!) The only bad thing about the whole trip was that in my mad rush to get to the airport (after an afternoon of walking around and last-minute shopping, we arrived home ten minutes before the car was due, and I hadn't packed yet), I somehow managed to leave my phone at my brother's.

The Swedish word for the day is parenteser. It means parentheses.

- by Francis S.