So last night we went to the Swedish premiere of "Minority Report." We rarely go to these things, but this time the husband wanted to actually see the movie, and it sounded pretty interesting to me, plotwise.

So we stood in line behind a, er, television personality and then had to wait a bit to get in while the tabloids took pictures of her and her escort. And then of course we ran into all sorts of beautiful people inside: the husband's agent, an up-and-coming fashion photographer who lives across the street from us, a crazy model.

So we listened to Peter Stormare introducing the film fast and furiously in his sunglasses in the dark theater. And it was appropriate that he was there in person to present it, because he was the best part of the movie. And it turned out that it was also appropriate to see the movie in Sweden because there is a part that is actually in Swedish. An extremely bizarre part, which includes a nurse with a huge mole on her upper lip singing "Små grodorna." But she changes the words, which are in Swedish in the movie, singing: "small frogs, small frogs are funny to see. No eyes, no eyes, no tails have they..." (The real words are no ears, rather than no eyes.)

So the movie deteriorated significantly after this over-the-top Swedish interlude. Someone kept putting thicker and thicker coatings of vaseline on the lens (Tom Cruise isn't that old yet, is he?), which was very distracting. The ending about made me spit up. And the moral of the story beaten into us with brutal force was, uh - I don't know.

So the popcorn was pretty good.

The Swedish word for the day is besviken. I think this has been the word of the day before, but that's just too bad. It means disappointed.

- by Francis S.

My summer extra-intensive Swedish class began this morning at 8:30.

Just after the second break, the Chinese woman sitting next to me, Y., said to me that she assumed I lived with a Swedish girlfriend or wife. I told her, no, I live with a Swedish husband.

She was rather taken aback by this. After a brief look of astonishment and silence, she asked me why.

An odd question. I didn't really know how to answer, especially not in Swedish. I sputtered a bit. I suppose I should have said it was because I was in love. Instead, I launched into the story of how I met the husband. Y. recovered her aplomb, and politely asked a few questions. Me, I was a bit red in the face. I desperately wanted to act naturally and matter-of-factly, but I'd slipped a little on my statement and it took a little while to completely regain my composure.

I hate when I turn these things into a big deal, because it wasn't a big deal.

For Wednesday, we have to write an essay on why we are taking the class.

The Swedish word for the day is därför. It means because.

- by Francis S.

Last night we sat up late eating caviar on toast and drinking white wine. Swedes prefer löjrom - whitefish roe, the best coming from Kalix up in the north of Sweden - to Russian beluga caviar. Our neighbor L., the chef, had styled food for a shoot with various caviars and while she'd given away the expensive Russian stuff to the photographer, she had saved the löjrom for us to have together.

We got to talking about self actualization, as we seem always to do with L. and her boyfriend P.

"When I moved to New York," L. said, "I was a bitch and stupid. I was such a perfectionist." She had worked at a renowned restaurant in New York. "They prepped the food way ahead of time on the weekend, and I would come in and say it wasn't good enough and throw it away. And this was to people who'd been working there for three years."

She was all of 21 years old when she had arrived. She had argued with the chef, who is well-known in Sweden because of his restaurant in New York. She had argued with everyone, and no one liked her.

Now, at the ripe old age of 27, she's learned that she was crazy when she was 21.

"I was crazy," she said.

She believes that she had too many unresolved inner conflicts then.

She believes that one of the problems with the world is that people expend too much energy trying to change things they can't change instead of fixing things inside themselves. That they worry about the Palestinians getting a fair deal, or a man getting stoned to death in Nigeria, instead of making their beds in the morning.

The husband wasn't buying this because in fact I make our bed in the morning, not him.

I told L. that I kind of agree with her; and yet it's sometimes hard to say how far our responsibilities to others extend.

And then we ate strawberries, without sugar.

The Swedish word for the day is ansvarig. It means responsible.

- by Francis S.

In one breath I claim I belong to no culture, in the next breath I'm getting all hot and bothered about religion rearing its ugly head yet again in America: the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of government subsidies of private - mostly religious - schools in the form of vouchers for parents who send their children to such non-public schools.

Does anyone else find it ironic that the Supreme Court has just decided that a bunch of priests and nuns deserve government handouts to molest, oops, I meant teach our children?

The Swedish phrase for the day is nu kan vi få betala, tack. It means can we pay now, please.

- by Francis S.

I got those little-brother-left-for-Paris-yesterday blues.

The Swedish word for the day is bröllopsresa. It means honeymoon.

- by Francis S.

"How do you find it living here?" asked F., the freelance art director, as we sat at a table or under a tent or on a rock sometime during midsummer.

After three and a half years living in Stockholm, people still ask me whether I like it here in Sweden. I always answer with a yes. I like it because I'm happily married, no doubt. And I like it because I have an interesting job and a life of my own outside my marriage. These are probably the three biggest factors.

But I also like it because Swedish culture agrees with me, or rather I agree with Swedish culture. Which is not to say that I am really a part of the culture. I feel rather outside the culture, but not in a dismaying or alienated way; I'm just not a Swede, and never will be. In fact, I feel outside American culture as well by this point. I'm a man without a culture, but I think being a homosexualist rather prepares one for living outside a culture (regardless of whether one believes in a gay culture or not, the vast majority of gay people live much of their lives as outsiders in many key ways).

Being without a culture certainly allows me to be lazy - I don't feel I have enough of a toehold in the culture to be able to make accurate and fair judgments about political issues, for example, and so I'm not burdened with having to make the effort of finding out more or trying to change things one way or another, something I most definitely felt when I had a culture. It makes me sound like a bum, though, doesn't it?

So, how do l find it living here?

Well, it's like, uh, life. (Apologies to Lorrie Moore.)

The Swedish phrase for the day is svårt att säga. It means difficult to say.

- by Francis S.

On Sunday, we had paella at H.'s apartment out in Stocksund, a well-to-do suburb of Stockholm. Eating paella beside us was Sweden's answer to Barbara Walters - a bit more intellectual and far to the left of Barbara, she has interviewed everyone from Moamar Qaddafi to Leonard Cohen.

She had just gotten back from the States, where she was doing a story on Steve Lofton and Roger Croteau's fight to adopt their foster child, and a follow-up story to one she had done 11 years ago on a family of white supremacists in Georgia. Eleven years later, it had hardly changed.

"I think racism is getting worse," the Swedish Barbara Walters said.

I am an optimist on the issue of racism. I've always felt that, slowly but surely, two steps forward and one step back, we move in the right direction. Yes, it can be discouraging sometimes, with right-wing parties gaining a foothold in Europe because of their anti-immigrant stances. With the U.S. Department of Justice using the current climate of fear to do away with due process. And yet, we move forward, things are better than they were 20 years ago; it's just that positive change also brings out the worst in some people.

Am I wrong, is racism on the increase?

The Swedish phrase for the day is jag vet inte, faktiskt. It means, I don't know, actually.

- by Francis S.

Midsummer was what it was supposed to be: alternating downpour and sunshine, one meal ending only for another meal to start, endless conversations in English or Swedish or French about soccer and Palestinians and where to eat in Paris and how expensive it is to buy a flat in London. We even managed to learn and sing the chorus of a nonsense song in Bengali, which an Indian guest quite effectively made into a drinking song. (We couldn't come up with an appropriate American song - "A Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall" just seemed a bit, well, long and puerile; at least the English and the Swiss who happened to be there failed to come up with English or Swiss drinking songs, so we weren't alone in our dereliction to sing.)

My beloved little brother earned his midsummer chops by standing in rain that was coming down like bolts of cloth unfurling, one in a group of four people soaked to the skin and desperately fastening birch boughs to the midsummer pole so that we could all dance around it later. Which we did, eight hours or so later, with great gusto and like little children.

I managed to scrape myself up good, stepping at 1:30 a.m. out from under the tent erected in the front yard of the farmhouse and sliding down a ditch and coming up the other end and smashing into the pavement. Oh the blood, oh my poor hands, oh my sore ribs.

The Swedish word for the day is fest. It means party.

- by Francis S.

The dog days of summer are here:

1. My friend K., who lives in Boston, has become a pawn of the puppy Internet trade. She is now the proud mother of an adopted baby boxer named Alice. There was a chubby little boy in all the pictures of Alice that K. had been sent beforehand, but interestingly enough he was not in the cage with Alice when she arrived. K. was relieved.

"I guess he could have slimmed down with a lot of games of fetch on the beach," K. said.

And, K. did an evil thing that I told her not to. She sent pictures of Alice to the husband's e-mail account. I told her that I would remove all traces if I found them, but I wasn't diligent enough.

"I want one," the husband said when he read the e-mail, his voice all dreamy and wistful and full of pleading.

Me, I was raised by parents who grew up on farms, parents who believe that animals have a job to do, and that job is outside, be it a cow, a pig, a dog or a cat. I like animals well enough, but I've managed to inherit my parents rather, er, distant love of animals. I am not big on the idea of having a boxer in an apartment in the city.

"Hee hee," K. giggled when I confronted her. "It's just a good thing that he can't see Alice in person, because believe me, she is so cute he would need psychiatric care."

2. My beloved little brother and his wife the Rebel arrived last night, 30 kilo suitcase in tow and bearing pictures of the wedding (I liked them so very much because I looked so nice and thin even though I'm not nice and thin. Oh, and everyone else looked pretty good, too, especially the very photogenic bride and groom.)

As we sat up late, drinking wine and sipping gazpacho, the Rebel told me about her friend Karen and Karen's girlfriend Susan.

"They love their dog," she said. "And now it looks like they're going to pay a big wad of money to have one of the dog's lungs removed. The dog looks just fine but apparently this is not so. One of my friends said 'that dog is circling the drain.'"

Circling the drain?

The Swedish word for the day, of course, is hunden. It means the dog.

- by Francis S.

On my way to pick up the husband from work, I passed through Humlegården - the bumblebee park - the park that surrounds the Royal Library. The park was filled with numerous groups of Swedes drinking beer and playing boule or kubb - an ingeniously simple game from the Swedish island of Gotland - under the trees.

All life has moved outdoors, and the nation can't decide whether or not to believe the weather forecasters who are predicting rain for Friday, which is midsommarafton - midsummer eve, arguably the most important holiday of the year.

My beloved little brother and his wife the Rebel will be arriving tomorrow night, and on Thursday we will make our way in the afternoon to Ornö, an island in the southern part of the Stockholm archipelago. Ornö is the site of the summer home of P. and E., the parents of the Swedish photographer who lives in London with his English wife.

P.'s grandfather was the schoolmaster on the island at the turn of the century, and P. still owns the farm that his grandparents bought in the twenties. There are three or four small houses on the land, and I think we'll be staying in the one that is haunted by the ghost of Mor Anna, who will only let you open the door to the house if she likes you. (She likes me, evidently, because I had no trouble opening the door when I was there last summer.)

P.'s grandparents moved up to Ornö from southern Sweden for some unknown reason; and sometime shortly after, the island became an arts colony of sorts - Strindberg lived there at some point in his life. The island has become more of a summer spot these days, although there is still a grevinna - countess - of the island, who can be seen buying ice cream in the small market down the road from the farm of P.'s grandparents.

As for midsummer, it will be a mix of some 25 English, Americans and Swedes, and I suppose that all who are familiar with the traditions of the holiday will have to do his or her part to train everyone else - the toasts, the singing of "små grodorna" and dancing around the majstång - maypole, the eating of herring, herring and more herring, the toasts, the wearing of midsummer wreaths, the OP and beskadroppar, the toasts, and the playing of games, for example.

So, what are we waiting for? Let's get on with it.

postscript: my friend A. tells me that the word for bumblebee is humla and not humle, which is hops. But bumblebees are so much more picturesque and appropriate for a park than hops are. I think I will start calling it Humlagården instead of Humlegården.

- by Francis S.

I don't do memes, not usually. I hate the word, it sounds so Doctor Who-ish.

But it seems that Nancy, über-dyke and proprietess of jillmatrix.com, is trying - god only knows why - to win this blogwhore contest. And, well, I'm a sucker for Nancy.

So, here goes. A meme for Nancy:

"Five things that pick me up when I'm feeling blue. Now, how 'bout you?"

1. Saffron ice cream from Gunnarson's konditori down the block.
2. "Nur Ein Wink vom Siene Hände" from Bach's Weihnachtsoratorium, sung in the crisp and clear voice of the late Arleen Auger.
3. A big sloppy kiss from the husband.
4. Re-reading "When I Was Thirteen" by Denton Welch.
5. A hot bath, a la Blanche Du Bois.

- by Francis S.

You'd think that being queer, I would escape seeing Sweden lose to Senegal in the latest round of the World Cup. But no, the husband roused us at 8:15 this morning to watch the match, and then M., the t.v. producer, came over during halftime and watched the rest of it with us.

Oh well. Senegal did play a tougher and tighter game. They certainly deserved to win.

I hope I haven't just jeopardized my future chances at dual U.S.-Swedish citizenship.

The Swedish word for the day is förlorare. It means loser.

- by Francis S.

In Europe, men wear perfume. Or in Stockholm at least. It's not considered a great big homo thing here. Plus, there don't seem to be any people in Sweden who find perfume abhorrant, demanding fragrance free zones, and suing people for wearing too much Eau de Love.

I never used to wear perfume in the States, but now it's Issey Miyake for me. The husband wears Bulgari.

The Swedish verb for the day is att dofta. It means to smell, and in a sweet way.

- by Francis S.

Those wacky Americans are at it again! What will they say or do next?

Take Texas. I guess Texas school children got a story quite different from the one I got when I was a child growing up in suburban Detroit and suburban Chicago. One of the things our teachers taught us in school was that those celebrity colonists in Plymouth - the "Pilgrims" of Thanksgiving fame - came to America because they wanted to be free to practice their own religion. "America was founded on religious freedom," our teachers told us. Fact or fiction, it was and is a noble idea.

Just don't tell the Republicans in Texas, though: "Republican delegates wrapped up their state convention Saturday by calling for repeal of the Texas Lottery, praying for an all-Christian judiciary and scolding Democratic gubernatorial candidates for debating in Spanish." (from the Austin American-Statesman.)

An all-Christian judiciary? Uh, doesn't this seem, at a minimum, anti-Semitic? And here I thought such public anti-Semitic statements were pretty much unacceptable in America these days. How naive of me.

The Swedish word for the day is skamlig. It means shameful.

- by Francis S.

I swallow.

Chewing gum, that is. Am I the only person in the world who does this? I've done it as long as I can remember, in part because my mother the nurse used to say: "That's a bunch of malarkey that it stays in your stomach for seven years, it just goes right through you." My mother used to like to use the word "malarkey" a lot.

I've never quite understood why other people find swallowing gum quite so disgusting.

Then again, my niece and nephews don't understand why I find swallowing fish eyeballs so disgusting.

However, I will admit that my swallowing gum - usually as soon as there is the tiniest hint of loss of flavor, that is, after about two minutes - is a reflection of some kind of, er, oral peculiarity on my part and having to do with a distinct lack of self-control.

On a completely different note, it turns out that my friend and former employee R., who moved to Finland last month with his girlfriend, is going to be a pappa. This is the kind of news that makes me swoon. I'm a real sucker for babies, for people having babies, for pregnant ladies, for people just thinking of having babies. I'm all excitement, empathy and envy rolled into a tight little ball smiling so hard it could break in two with the least provocation.

The Swedish verb for the day is, of course att svälja. It means, of course, to swallow.

- by Francis S.

Happy anniversary to me and the husband.

As of yesterday, we've been married two whole years. We had a little champagne, dinner of caviar and those delightful little potato pancakes, and indulged in reminiscing about how we met (at 3:30 a.m. in a club in Barcelona) and how we kissed the first time (minutes after meeting as we were dancing to "Ray of Light") and how we then talked for hours afterward, drinking water (in the only quiet place in the club). It was a most romantic beginning.

To gild the lily and ice the cake, in the mail was an invitation to the wedding of the priest and her boyfriend the policeman. It was sheer luck that we met her - another priest couldn't marry us when we wanted - and it has proven to be the best of luck, to be able to call her a friend, and a good friend at that.

I can still picture the three of us before the wedding - the husband, the priest and I - chainsmoking as we waited for all the guests to gather before making our grand appearance in the library of the Van der Nootska palatset.

The Swedish word for the day underbar känsla. It means wonderful feeling.

- by Francis S.

Last weekend, climbing up onto the rocks overlooking the Baltic at Nacka, the priest said as we were scrambling up a path, "Once, the bishop asked me why I became a priest, what was behind it."

We stopped and caught our collective breaths, especially the priest who is just now starting to look pregnant with four months left to go.

"Everyone always thinks that it's faith," she said.

I nodded, her boyfriend the policeman waiting patiently in front of us, ready to keep climbing.

She continued, "But for me, it wasn't faith, it was fear." And then she laughed.

The Swedish word for the day is församlingen. It means the congregation.

- by Francis S.

After a week of taking the ferry to the new offices, I feel so much more how the city of Stockholm is a city built on water, how the people of the city look to the water, that the city impresses most when approached from the water.

And then on Friday, it was even more apparent how Stockholm harbor is a grand highway. As we pushed off from the landing next to Gröna Lund, ahead of us the deadly and beautiful black-green water was a mad criss-crossing of ferries full of people making an early start on summer and going out to their summer homes on the islands of the archipelago. The enormous cruise ships to Finland, big as skyscrapers laid on end, were sliding into their spots to disgorge passengers and pick up new ones. Taxi boats skimming in and out and making their way to the sluice. A few of the tall ships from the 750th year anniversary of Stockholm were leaving at last, and the absurd reproduction of a Viking boat that is normally docked in front of the royal palace was whizzing along, incongruously without sails, a tiny motor boat tied behind it in such a way as to look like a put-upon child forced to keep up with its parent's swift gait.

The Swedish compound verb for the day is att åka på färjan. It means to go by ferry.

- by Francis S.

Today is National Day in Sweden, and to top it off, the 750th anniversary of the city of Stockholm (the city was actually built to protect what is now a suburb of Stockholm, the city of Sigtuna). And as Aaron, whose birthday it is today, reminded me, on this day not only was the Swedish Constitution adopted in 1809, but in 1654 Queen Christina converted to Catholicism and renounced the Swedish throne.

Strangely enough, it is not what they call here a red day - that is, a bank holiday. However, next year it will be: Score one for nationalism over Jesus - we'll no longer get the day after Pentecost as a holiday.

The Swedish phrase for the day is Du gamla, Du fria, Du fjällhöga Nord.... These are the first words of the Swedish national anthem. They mean Thou old, thou open, Thou mountainous north...

- by Francis S.

The Swedish Parliament has voted to give gay and lesbian couples the right to adopt children (link in Swedish only, sorry). The vote was 178 to 31, with 78 abstaining.

The Swedish phrase for the day is vad kul!. It means nice!

- by Francis S.

The husband is on his way home from Barcelona now. At least, he's supposed to be. And his absence reminds me of my love and loathing of Barcelona, the city I have the strongest feelings for, and how when I lived there, without knowing the depth of it, I was desperately unhappy and uncertain and feeling loveless:

On the Apprehension of a Second Language in a Foreign City

Take a lover
who speaks no English,
they tell you,
you will learn Spanish
by the time
the affair is over.

In no time,
simple phrases, words,
come to you:
Egoistic verbs --
I have, I want,
I need... I am, I am;

Useful nouns --
what eyes! great sweater!
Modifiers --
most, very, better;
You sound like a child,
yet at least you make sense.

Comprehension,
on the other hand,
is harder.
You often misunderstand,
eavesdropping
when he is on the phone.

In the next room,
you lie in bed afraid
it is you
he meant when he said
cerda -- sow --
in the fiercest tone.

To the end,
adult conversation
eludes you,
done in by conjugation,
excepting the past imperfect.
You can say, "I have gone."

Barcelona 1998
uh, and, while I'm at it, copyright 2002

Yes, yes, it's a little glib. Of course, the reality was that I had no lover, not even dates. One-night stands, yes, but no dates. That is, not until I met the husband in a club, Metro, at 3:30 a.m. on July 18. Interestingly enough, the misunderstandings and worry in the poem came purely from listening to my crazy flatmate yammering on the phone, I felt so shamefully and annoyingly dependent on his great kindness.

The Swedish word for the day is tillbacka. It means back again.

- by Francis S.

Nancy is Blogwhore.

- by Francis S.

Catch The Bug. Soon available in Swedish. Sort of.

- by Francis S.

So tonight, A., the former model and aspiring producer, got us tickets to see MacBeth. In Swedish.

Good thing I knew the plot: so-called "weird" sisters talk a lot of nonsense and predict man will become king of Scotland instead of merely a lowly Thane (what the hell is a thane anyway?), man tells his wife, who is, shall we say, a tad ambitious and she, using an equal dose of berating and wile (which included crotch-grabbing in this particular version) urges man to kill current king, which he does, making a bloody mess in the house, and then he kills lots of other nice people and makes a lot more bloody messes, then wife develops somnambulistic obsessive-compulsive disorder and can't stop washing her hands in her sleep which eventually kills her (who knew one could die of a somnambulistic obsessive-compulsive disorder?), then man goes out with a bang, Rambo-style, except instead of singlehandedly killing an English army with thousands of soldiers, he is killed, but pitifully and offstage.

I went because a friend of mine, the former model and ex-girlfriend of the new-age popstar, was playing Lady McDuff and one of the witches. The former model and ex-girlfriend of the new-age rockstar goes to Sweden's equivalent of RADA.

Naturally, I thought she was the best of the lot - she sure screamed when they slit her throat! In fact, she was the only one who really moved like she belonged on stage, everyone else was a tad stiff as they walked back and forth across the stage purposelessly, although I assume they were great elocutionists. Of course, since I have enough trouble following Swedish when it's not Shakespeare, perhaps I was paying too much attention to the movement and not enough to the words. It would be accurate to say that the first part of the play flew up and hundreds of feet over my head.

However, the second part - which is much more exciting and in fact, downright creepy if you ask me - well, I understood most of it. What helped, of course, is that all the great speeches are in the second half:

"...bort, förbannade fläck..." (that would be how I recall the out, damned spot speech - when I try to find a translation on the web, all I come up with are detergent sites) and the "Imorgon, och imorgon, och imorgon..." speech (er, I bet you could guess that that means tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow).

It's so nice that my friends are making sure that while the husband is away, I'm being taken care of - not only did we see the play, but A. and her boyfriend C., the fashion photographer and his daughter, O., and me had dinner afterwards at my favorite Thai restaurant down the block, Koh Pangang (they write your name on a board when you come in because they don't take reservations and you almost always have to wait for a table; the Swedish King came to the restaurant once and they even made him write his name on the board and wait like everyone else. Now that's Sweden for you. I love that story.)

But the husband is back tomorrow, and despite wishing I could be with him, part of me thought that it would be kind of nice to be on my own for a little while. Yet as always, I think it will be fun - I'll read and write and watch t.v. and not feel guilty about being a slug but I end up bored after one evening and by the time I'm ready to go to sleep that night, I'm wishing he was there beside me in bed.

Which he will be tomorrow.

The Swedish phrase for the day is Shakespeare- tragedi. I'm not going to bother to translate that, because if you can't figure it out, you shouldn't be reading this in the first place.

- by Francis S.

I've taken to sleeping with a sleeping mask on and I feel like Joan Crawford in The Women. Next thing you know, I'll be both talking on the phone and eating chocolates while in a bathtub overflowing with bubbles. Although to be honest, the mask is a cheap one given in the packet they hand out to you in business class flying from Stockholm to Chicago on SAS. And the reason I'm wearing it is because of the invincible sun, which comes driving through the thin blinds relentlessly and in full blinding force by about 4 a.m.

It happens so quickly this time of year. Already, I noticed that the sun was hovering just below the horizon at midnight last night as I walked home from dinner with A., the former model and aspiring producer and C., the fashion photographer. We ate at PA's, which turns out is a photographer hangout, and the two of them seemed to know just about everyone in the place. I felt hopelessly unfashionable and unaware, the waiters and waitresses bringing in more and more chairs to jam us all in.

"The swordfish carpaccio is good," said the man sitting next to me, who I'd met several times before but I can't remember his name, or the name of his new wife.

"There's Staffan over there," A. told me. "He's getting married soon and they have to plan his svensexan." (A svensexan is an all-day bachelor party in which the groom-to-be endures a day of humiliation and increasing drunkeness that should properly end in soul-wrenching vomiting and a three-day hangover.)

"Say hello to New York from me," A. said to a thin and pretty girl with a supercilious gaze, sitting and holding court with an Englishman amidst a crowd of Swedes talking madly in English and Swedish all at once.

"Oh, you're an American," said the 50-year-old dapper Swiss-Irish man with the wheezey tobacco rasp and the pipe, his laughing eyes barely in focus behind his Ari Onassis-lite glasses.

We left in a flurry of handshakes, air kisses and promises to see each other in the morning, as all but me seemed to be going to a party at 11.30 a.m. to watch Sweden play England in the World Cup.

As I walked home, the city crowded and overjoyed at it being summer, Skeppsbron was lined with tall ships docked for the 750th birthday celebration of Stockholm, teenagers were streaming from the boat that comes from Gröna Lund, the ancient amusement park two islands away, and me, I was regretting that the husband wasn't there walking with me, but at least happy that he hadn't been crying when he had called me while I was waiting for my dinner.

The Swedish phrase for the day is öppet dygnet runt. It means open 24 hours.

- by Francis S.

It's time for another in-depth Swedish lesson - this one in the form of a test.

7. Swedish attitudes about Americans. Although it seems unfair to generalize about the attitudes of all Swedes, I don't care. I work with them, live side-by-side with them, hell, I'm married to one, so I like to think I know a bit or two about what Swedes think about Americans. (For the sake of brevity, I'm using the term "American" to refer to citizens of the United States. My apologies to all those Canadians, Mexicans, Brazilians and other residents of North and South America out there.)

Leave your answers in the comments so everyone can see. Oh, and this is an open book test.

a. Swedes themselves are humble people and while they do have opinions about Americans, they assume that Americans don't give a damn about the opinion of the people of a sparsely populated country with an obscure language. Swedes agree that Americans are notorious for being a bit isolationist and not caring what anyone thinks of them. But in fact, we Americans have a terrible inferiority complex when it comes to Europe. We have no royalty, we have no roots, we have no class. We do care what Europe thinks, and it hurts our feelings.

Do Americans feel lacking somehow when it comes to Europe, true or false? (Yeah I know, this question is about American attitudes. Gotcha!)

b. Swedes are completely confused by Americans' attitudes toward guns. "I read that a governor was trying to pass a law that allowed people to buy one semi-automatic weapon a month!" a friend said to me once. I regretted to inform her that the law in question was in fact a gun control measure trying to lower the current limit.

Do Swedes believe that everyone owns a gun in America, true or false?

c. Swedes are horrified that America still has capital punishment. "No country in Europe has capital punishment anymore. Isn't that against the Geneva Convention or something?" they ask.

Do Swedes believe that Americans are barbaric on account of their support for the death penalty, true or false?

d. Swedes believe in a concept called lagom, which is usually translated as the middle way. It basically means everything in moderation or doing things just enough, but not too much. Swedes also travel extensively, and almost everyone I know has been to America, and they always comment about how Americans do everything in excess. For instance, they think the portions of food served in restaurants is definitely not lagom, but way over the top. "No wonder people are overweight," they say.

Do Swedes believe that almost everyone in America is fat, true or false?

e. Despite their criticisms of America, Swedes are somewhat unique in Europe in that they don't have love-hate feelings toward America. It takes no scratching below the surface to determine if they like the place, they are in fact quite open and unambivalent about it. "It's a great country," they say.

Do Swedes devour American culture with avidity, albeit not without some picking and choosing, true or false?

- brought to you by Francis S.

I woke this morning with a fitful headache and hungry. I stayed up too late, and the husband has gone to Spain. His mother has had a heart attack, and all the messiness of his poor family rises to the surface, his difficult sisters, his father's untimely death in 1972, the horrible cult masking as Christianity that he was raised in lurking in the corners always.

He called me at one in the morning crying because the doctors are so awful, because he doesn't want his mother to die or to be in pain, because his mother is frightened, because he heard a man dying in the next room, the heart monitor sending out a horrible drone marking the fact.

"I don't ever want to grow old," he told me. "I want to die before."

There was no comforting him, at the other end of the phone, at the other end of the continent. Not that it would help for him to be here; he doesn't take well to being comforted. At least not in the ways I selfishly want to comfort him: taking him in my arms, kissing his tears, stroking his head with the utmost tenderness and gently. Instead, what he wants is for me to sit quietly as he chain smokes, moving throughout the rooms of the apartment putting away stray magazines, polishing the mirror in the bathroom or fishing his passport out of the chest of drawers in the bedroom, his sense of purpose vestigial but persistent somehow.

It hurts to feel as if one is unable to give any sort of solace.

"I wish I was with you," he said to me last night, sobbing. "I can't sleep at all, I keep waiting for the telephone to ring and tell me she's died."

Don't smoke too many cigarettes, I told him. Have a drink. I love you more than anything in the world, I said, and I wish I was there with you, too.

So this morning I was listening to Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. And although Tatiana Troyanos has a lovely voice, I'm always disappointed that the witches' chorus sings its part straight and not as a pack of cackling hens as in the recording I had when I was young.

"Harm's our delight and mischief all our skill," the witches sing, but beautifully. And beautifully, it doesn't convey the same evil intent.

The husband won't be home until Tuesday at the earliest, if things don't change for the better or the worse.

The Swedish phrase for the day is jag saknar dig. It means I miss you.

- by Francis S.

Goodbye to Gamla Stan. Goodbye to Slottsbacken and the Royal Palace. Goodbye to Bollhusgränd and to Köpmanstorget with its statue of St. George eternally slaying the dragon, which is a copy of a wooden statue, the original being in the Storkyrkan. Goodbye to Stortorget dressed up for winter with its Christmas market, and goodbye to narrow little Mårten Trotzigsgränd.

My desk is packed, my computer unplugged, countless old papers, magazines and photos thrown away. On Monday, the company starts the day in Östermalm on Linnégatan, in new offices. Sweden won't be quite the same for me. I miss the old office terribly, and it's only been an hour and a half. I know, I'm a sentimental fool.

The Swedish words for the day are farväl, adjö and hejdå. They mean farewell, adieu and goodbye.

- by Francis S.

Have weddings in America always been nearly five days of feasting and fetes? Events of nearly royal proportions, it seems? Not that I'm complaining. I had a grand time.

First on the agenda was a small family dinner with one of my beloved little brother's oldest friends, who runs an eco-hotel in Ecuador - I hadn't seen him in nearly 10 years and amazingly, he is exactly the same as when I last saw him. Well, almost the same; perhaps a little more settled, a little more realistic, but just as kind. My youngest nephew fell in love with him. (The husband and I will definitely be going to Ecuador sometime in the near future.)

Then, there was the day where the bride, the groom, another old friend of the bride's, the husband and myself all spent the afternoon in the city getting pedicures and drinking champagne (the husband thought the pedicures were deplorably bad as pedicures go, but I'd never had one before so it seemed perfectly wonderful to me), yakking it up with people we'd never met before in an apartment across from the venerable old Ambassador West hotel, eating bad sandwiches at Cosí, some kind of new sandwich shop I'd never seen before that tries desperately to look funky and unique, serving toasted marshmallows that can be cooked over a can of sterno and with weird mismatched sofas. Except the same mismatched sofas can be found at every Cosí, of which there seem to be, er, at least more than 20 in Chicago, judging by the five or so we encountered in our brief wanderings.

Next, there was a dim sum lunch for 30 at Phoenix in Chinatown, with my sister-in-law officiating and arguing with the waiters in Cantonese while my beloved little brother made the rounds from table to table, introducing all the various factions of his life to all the various factions of his soon-to-be wife's life to one another.

Then, instead of a rehearsal dinner, my parents rented a bowling alley the night before the wedding, so 50 people spent the night drinking beer and bowling badly (I think I hit an 88 once). My favorite part was watching the various people under the age of 11, who had a grand time despite the constant announcements over the loudspeaker ("No walking in the lanes!" "The orange balls are for children only!" "Only one ball at one time in the lane!").

Oh, and then there was the actual wedding. The chuppah held up by among other people, my sainted sister and the husband; the very explanatory ceremony by the rabbi (she speaks Danish!?!); the breaking of the glass on the second try; my very bad singing (I was too nervous and too emotional); the bride's mother having a wee bit too much to drink; the fighting over the cakes (each of the ten tables had its own different cake and everyone wanted the gooey chocolate one); the karaoke singing ("Delta Dawn, what's that flower you have on?" was, perhaps, my favorite choice of song, sung by the voluptuous C. with great verve and gusto, if little understanding of the concept of pitch).

The Swedish words for the day are brud och brudgum. They mean bride and groom.

- by Francis S.

I've been there and back again. The United States is still the same, just with more flags. And more god-bless-america. I guess everyone everywhere has already noted the irony of both sides of the war on terrorism invoking god as being on their side. Not that it surprises me, I just find if funny.

However, I was amazed that the airport security wasn't overwhelming. And unlike the previous visit, the person at passport control didn't seem to be extremely uncomfortable about the fact that the husband and I are homosexualists.

When we visited in August of the past year, the woman at the passport control desk asked us as we stood together in front of her, "How are you family?"

We told her we were married.

She said with disgust, "We don't recognize that in this country. Next time you come up separately, understand?" Which made my stomach lurch, and my knees nearly shake. I wanted to say something nasty, but passport control is one place where you can't win by saying something. The passport control police are all-powerful.

This time, however, passport control was nothing like that.

This time, though the husband went up first by himself, the man behind the desk gestured to me to come up once the husband said that he was traveling not alone but with his husband, namely me.

This time, the man behind the desk said "Have a good stay," as we left after he stamped our passports.

This time, the husband didn't ask me how the United States dares to call itself the home of the free.

The Swedish word for the day is onöjdig. It means unnecessary.

- by Francis S.

The New World beckons with a crooked finger. I could have conceived and bore a child in the time it's been since I was last there. If men could bear children that is. It's the longest time I've spent without going back. And I haven't missed it really.

Now, I just need to remember to give the husband plenty of space, and to grab some time alone just the two of us so that he doesn't drown in the too-muchness of my happy family. If there's one thing I learned from my ex, it's that it is important to show to one's spouse that they are No. 1 when it comes to family.

Rationally, it shouldn't matter: There is no contest between spouse and in-laws, it isn't a competition for my affection, I don't love one above the other, it's apples and oranges. But life on planet earth has little to do with rationality and everything to do with emotion. And wanting attention is in fact natural when faced with in-laws, no matter how well we all get along.

Chicago, here we come.

The Swedish word for the day is släktingarna. It means the relatives.

- by Francis S.

My mother and father spent last night hanging out at a gay club in Oak Park, Illinois. It's not like the clubs downtown in the city, the men are less beautiful, more tentative, more real than at the big clubs in Chicago. But there were strippers - "They were really handsome!" said my mother with conviction - and a dancefloor and loud music - "My ears are still ringing!" said my father after they arrived home.

The reason they went was to raise money for the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays organization my mother started. Another local branch of the organization recommended it. My mother gave out hershey kisses in little bags tied together with rainbow ribbons with cards attached with a phone number and address.

"I kept telling your father 'our mothers are probably rolling over in their graves right now,'" my mother said to me. "But maybe your grandmother would understand, deep down."

I replied that I thought now that she's dead, my grandmother most certainly understands everything.

"Yes, I guess you're right about that," my mother said.

I keep envisioning my parents sitting there in that club, friendly and smiling and giving out chocolate kisses - as well as the real thing - to all these hundred or more gay men, listening as one by one they tell my mother about their relationships with their own mothers, my poor nearly deaf father unable to hear a thing but nodding amiably and sympathetically, both of them cool as cucumbers when the strippers come out. It about makes me burst with pride.

The second Swedish phrase for the day is Mors dag. It means Mother's Day, which is on May 26 in Sweden this year.

- by Francis S.

I can see on everyone's faces, feel it in the air: the promise of summer is almost too much to bear. April and May have been heaven-sent, sunny and warm and full of pale green leaves. But will the summer live up to this glorious spring? It's rumored that June and July will be hellishly cold and damp.

I would never have imagined living in a country where the collective national psyche is so dependent on the weather. Where one is forced to throw oneself into a warm and sunny day as if jumping from a high cliff into the unknown, where the ten lesser months of the year are mere preparation for a tenuous summer that could possibly never come.

Me, I'm as nervous as the next guy that today will be the end of the balminess, as the husband and I wander around the city, buying presents for the upcoming trip to the States for my beloved little brother's wedding to my friend the Rebel.

I'm sick of worrying about the weather, especially when it's this perfect. Perhaps this means I really am becoming a Swede.

The Swedish word for the day is sommaren. It means the summer.

- by Francis S.

Dogs are allowed in Sweden. In shops and on buses. Just about everywhere except restaurants. So it was no surprise to hear strangled and asthmatic barking in the subway as our train pulled away from Central Station - dogs are allowed in the last car.

The question is, however, whether pig-dogs are allowed. Because what was making the noise was small and round and pink and white and indeed, the ugliest canine-type critter that I have ever seen. An albino pug with a few white patches on its back, the rest of it a rubbed-raw pink, its owner was visibly proud of its pathetic ugliness.

Is it possible to be so ugly as to be endearing?

The Swedish word for the day is husdjur. It means pet.

- by Francis S.

The husband and I celebrated Ascension day by ascending to the minimal, luxe and empty bar of the Nordic Light Hotel with M., the t.v. producer and L., a great friend of the husband's from the old days and a king of the Swedish fashion mafia, on account of his being about the only haute couturier in the entire country.

I say a friend from the old days because the husband and L. rarely see each other anymore. Though neither has, or would, say as much, this is no doubt on account of me.

I like L. tremendously, his voice so soft one has to lean closer to hear him, his elegant but unstuffy manners, his twinkling blue eyes. But he surely must resent me, even if he never acts in the least as if he does. I think the husband and L. were friends in some measure because they were both single, it was in part a bachelor cameraderie.

Why is it that when one pairs off, certain friends suddenly fade into the background, while others come into clear focus? It is true that most of the friends of the husband and I, but by no means all, come in pairs.

Is it because single people grow weary of hearing the word "we" all the time?

Interestingly enough, this is not the case with M., the t.v. producer. It is no doubt because he romanticizes the relationship of the husband and I all out of proportion. It would be a mistake to think the M. is not a hopeless romantic, just because he's fucked half of the most beautiful women in Stockholm aged 18 to 24.

"I love you guys," he always says grabbing us around the shoulders, especially after having had one too many sips of white tequila, served neat in a whisky glass. "You guys are my family."

And we love him, too, because he is indeed a part of our large and unwieldy but much beloved family, most of whom are not blood relations of any sort.

The Swedish word for the day is söderkis. It is a slang term for a boy who is native to the island of Södermalm, once a working-class section of the city that now likes to consider itself as Sweden's answer to Soho.

- by Francis S.

The days are drawing near when my company leaves its offices across from the royal palace. It will be a blow to leave the old town behind, to no longer be able to walk to work, to be a bit off the beaten path.

At least despite its proximity, I won't have a view of the U.S. Embassy from my new window. (Not only do I find the embassy an ugly complex of buildings, I detest the place; the Department of Motor Vehicles can't possibly hold a candle to the supercilious attitudes of the staff of the U.S. Embassy: "Uh, are you stupid or something? Because why did you think you should pick up your passport at window F and not at window A where you dropped it off originally? Yes I know you've been waiting 15 minutes while I was yammering away on the phone with a friend, and that the sign above window F says 'passport pickup' but really, how stupid can a person be?")

I will now be taking a ferry from the sluice to Djurgården, an island with museums and a zoo and ambassadors' residences and Gröna Lund, that fabulous old amusement park with ancient rides like the blåtåget - the blue train - a scary ride for 6-year-olds; I love the blåtåget. I will then walk from Djurgården into Östermalm, where stand the new offices - which are actually old military barracks.

The Swedish word for the day is vad tråkigt. It means, more or less, that's too bad.

- by Francis S.

Wow. Last week was Valborg and Första Maj. Now this week we have Kristihimmelsfärd, otherwise known as Ascension. And the week after next it's Pingst - Pentecost. That's one holiday a week, three out of four weeks.

I love this anti-religious country that has so many religious holidays. Go, Jesus, go! Thanks for dying for our sins and giving us all these great holidays.

- by Francis S.

I wonder when the first bureaucracy was created? Was it in China, with all its scribes, or was it under Hammurabi with his code of laws in Babylon, or under the earliest pharoahs in Egypt? I wonder further when the first satire of bureaucracy was written? There must be a writer who pre-dates Gogol and his Dead Souls, the oldest novel that comes to mind on the subject. Because if bureaucracy has been part of human existence for thousands of years, then human beings have suffered from it for just as long.

Take the friend of my beloved little brother. His name is, uh, "George." On his driver's license it states that his sex is "female." He is not, however, female. But getting this changed is apparently a Herculean task.

"I was just reading," my beloved little brother said, "about a lawyer who had the same problem." This lawyer apparently went to the Department of Motor Vehicles, where a clerk there told him that the only way to correct the error was to fill out a form saying that he had changed his sex. Which he refused to do.

"I'm a lawyer and I'll take this to the Supreme Court if I have to," he told the clerk. The clerk said fine, but between the six years it will take for the case to get to the Supreme Court, he will have to put up with a lot of security hassles in the New America Made Safe from Terrorism.

The lawyer broke down and filled out the change-of-sex form.

My little brother was gleeful, because "George" has some, er, personal issues he hasn't quite worked out: "He would go ballistic if he had to fill out a change-of-sex form."

The Swedish word for the day is tjänsteman. It means civil servant.

- by Francis S.

Sweden is rich in square miles, poor in flowers. It's just too far north I think.

Oh, there are wildflowers and some flowering bushes like forsythia and lilac, and of course flowering fruit trees, but there don't seem to be gardens bursting with blossoms and no one seems to have vases filled with spring flowers picked from the backyard. I suspect that if people have flowers in the backyard, they're too precious to pick.

Instead, one clips bare branches from trees before they've started to bloom, sticks them in water and watches them slowly burst open over a weeks' time, perhaps. It's a lovely ascetic beauty, albeit one born of necessity more than anything else.

The Swedish word for the day is blomma. It means, of course, flower.

- by Francis S.

Today is Valborg Afton - Walpurgis Eve - when all of Sweden is outside lighting bonfires in the street to welcome the Spring. Supposedly, the festival of St. Walpurgis or Walburga was also the time for a traditional witches' sabbath, so people lit bonfires to keep away the witches.

Unfortunately, I feel like the witches have already had their way with me - I'm sick with a cold and a fever while the husband, that lucky dog, is out having dinner with A. the former model and aspiring producer and her boyfriend, C., the fashion photographer. They've probably lit their own bonfire somewhere up in Vasastan, in the northern part of the city.

Fortunately, tomorrow is a holiday not just for St. Walburga - it's the first of May. Which is when most of the world celebrates labor day - International Workers' Day. But there are vague communist overtones to the first of May, and so of course the United States has to have its own separate labor day to avoid any appearance of looking even the least little bit pink. It sounds so old-fashioned now.

The Swedish word for the day is vänsterpartiet. This - the Left Party - is the current name for what used to be called the communist party in Sweden.

- by Francis S.

I don't care how balmy the spring is here in Stockholm, I wish I were in New Orleans. I would pay good money to see the latest opus of Richard Read, written with his paramour, that pornstar up-and-comer Jonno D'Addario, and their buddy Flynn De Marco. Er, I would pay up to $15 at least. To be able to say you've seen a play called "Hell's Belles" is worth the price of the ticket alone.

I wish I could write campy movie parodies in the vein of Charles Ludlam and Charles Busch, I could at least entertain myself. Stockholm doesn't seem to be the place for such divine kitsch. It's really an American thing, the stuff that makes the U.S. great, the part of the States that needs protection from terrorists and the reason why George W. Bush is so bellicose with the axis of evil - you know without even asking that that damned axis of evil absolutely loathes Charles Ludlam.

The Swedish word for the day is teater. I think you don't need my help to figure out that it means theater.

- by Francis S.

It's marvelous to take a day off in the middle of the week. It makes the end of the day on Friday seem like an unexpected gift. I wish I never had to work on Wednesdays.

The Swedish word for the day is onsdagar. It means, of course, Wednesdays. (Which makes me wonder, why are days of the week proper nouns in English? Is it a holdover from German, where all nouns start with a capital letter?)

- by Francis S.

Damnation. The Stockholm bourse (link in Swedish only, sorry) has fallen for the seventh day in a row, helped along by Ericsson's announcement on Monday of its latest mammoth savings and cutback plan.

This is what happens in the stock exchanges of small countries: When big companies go down, they take the bourse with them.

We bought our Ericsson stocks after they announced the previous set of big cutbacks, when I thought the value of the stock couldn't go lower. But oh, no, they are now worth half of what we paid for them.

The Swedish word for the day is ned or ner ("ned" goes with verbs of movement, "ner" with verbs where no movement is implied). It means down.

- by Francis S.

The husband and I just made a mad dash to the SAS ticket office at Stureplan. We are the worst procrastinators about some things and we had yet to get our tickets for my beloved little brother's wedding, which is in less than a month.

The nice lady at the counter managed to squeeze us into flights to and from Chicago, but we have to leave on a Wednesday and come back on a Monday, so it'll be nearly two weeks in America.

I haven't been back since Sept. 11, and frankly I'm a little frightened. Not of terrorists, but of the rhetoric and empty but unnerving security measures. I wonder how much things have changed, or if they really haven't.

The Swedish phrase for the day is övriga frågor, which means miscellaneous questions.

- by Francis S.

My friend R., who also happens to be my favorite employee, is moving back to Finland after more than four years living in Sweden. It was a blow to learn that he was leaving, not just because the company has a hiring freeze and we can't afford to lose good project managers. It's also a blow to morale, mostly mine because I count on him to inject energy, keep us all honest, and send me 10,000 e-mails a day.

We started talking about the whole expatriate version of the you-can't-go-home-again theory, which says that after about four years outside The Fatherland, the likelihood of your being happy living back home is rather slim. Of course, moving back and forth between Finland and Sweden is rather like moving back and forth between Canada and the United States - the countries share an awful lot of culture, so the difference is less pronounced than it might be between other countries.

"I think it would be hard to go back now," I said to him.

"Maybe. I guess I'll find out," he said.

Then again, it would be hard to stay here if I weren't with the husband. Still, the idea of moving back to the States is very strange. Unnatural even, and I can hardly say why. Except that life seems too easy there. And in fact, it doesn't matter because we are not planning on leaving Sweden in the foreseeable future.

The Swedish word for the day is enkel biljett. It means one-way ticket.

- by Francis S.

Oh, and don't forget to check out Raising Hell, the new "so-called" parenting magazine by Mig, Michele and a few other parent-type people. It's all anyone'll ever need to know to raise a kid, believe you me.

- by Francis S.

My beloved little brother has asked me to sing a song at his wedding... something to get people to stop chit-chatting in the hall and move into the room where the ceremony will take place. I've decided to do it in Swedish, singing a summer song called "Uti Vår Hage."

Uti vår hage där växa blåbär,
Kom, hjärtansfröjd!
Vill du mig något så träffas vi där.
Kom, liljor och aqvileja,
Kom, rosor och salivia.
Kom ljuva krusmynta,
Kom, hjärtansfröjd!

Which means something like:

Out in the meadow, where blueberries grow,
Come, heart's desire!
If you want to tell me something,
then meet me there.
Come, lilies and aqvileja (I have no idea what it is)
Come, roses and salvia,
Come sweet mint,
Come heart's desire!
(It's lovely and poetic and vaguely sad in Swedish; my translation leaves something to be desired unfortunately.)

- by Francis S.

I'm a writer. I came to Europe to write a novel, which turned into a series of vaguely autobiographical interconnected short stories. Then, after saying I could never become an expatriate, I ended up staying on this continent but leaving the novel behind, not even trying to get the finished bits published.

I sometimes get the urge to write fiction again - it plagues me when I'm trying to fall asleep on a Sunday night - but mostly my job takes up whatever writing desire I have. Oh, and then there's this journal. Which I sometimes blame for my not writing fiction anymore.

But the truth is that my life is perfectly satisfying without the extra writing - it's too full to fit in the fictional, I suppose. Yet I'm sometimes a wee bit jealous of my friends who've written successful novels or books of poetry. I still tell myself that I'll go back to it, one day.

The Swedish word for the day is författare. It means writer.

- by Francis S.

K. left this morning, flying back to Boston through Reykjavik as she always does. I helped her drag her heavy bag down the five flights of stairs and into a taxi.

"See you in two weeks," she said, and I kissed her on the cheek and she was gone.

Then I felt guilty for not spending the rest of the day outside in the balmy spring, even if we did at least eat a late lunch at a table outside a cafe with M., the t.v. producer. It's amazing how the guilt induced by my mother - "how can you kids waste the day inside watching t.v.? Get out, now!" - still lasts to this day.

But really, what's so great about the outside anyway, especially when you have a reasonably good book to read and a delightfully deep and comfortable sofa to lie on?

The Swedish word for the day is deckare. It means detective story.

- by Francis S.

Today, one of the women who coordinates the translations of magazines at our office asked me about a particular sentence she wanted to make sure was correct.

"In Swedish, they use the phrase 'business ethics and morals,'" she said. "And they translated it that way, but then the American editor changed it to just 'business ethics.'"

Yes, I said, the American editor was right. We Americans don't talk about business having morals. Businesses are generally amoral at best, and immoral in most cases. They have codes of conduct - ethics - imposed on them by the law. But morals, no. They basically do what they can get away with.

Swedish companies, on the other hand, are expected to not only obey codes of conduct, but to know the difference between right and wrong; they are expected to act in the best interests of everyone and not just in their own interests. Whether they do or not is another question, but society expects it of them.

I wonder how long Sweden can hold out against the tide of Americanization on this particular issue.

The Swedish word for the day is beteende. It means behavior.

- by Francis S.

I've got that damned nicotene monkey on my back again. Drooling in my hair and breathing down my neck, it's an ugly sight.

It's the stress. And of course K. is a terrible influence. She goes cigarette crazy whenever she's here. She keeps sending me monosyllabic e-mails (her desk is on the floor above mine) such as "cig?" or my personal favorite, "fag?"

The Swedish word for the day is apa. It means monkey.

- by Francis S.

My beloved little brother is getting married on May 19. The invitation came yesterday. He met the bride at my wedding here in Stockholm, in fact - she's my friend the Rebel, the chemistry PhD slash patent lawyer (why is it all my friends can only be described in long phrases that by rights should require hyphens?). I would never have imagined when I met her over dinner some six years ago at a restaurant in Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. - I had recently split up after 13 years with my ex, she'd recently split up with her husband, the asshole - that not only would we hit it off so well, but that in late May 2002 she would be related to me, at least by law. It makes me grin from ear to ear.

I'm going to go with the Swedish tradition of never-ending speeches and get all sentimental while still trying to embarrass both of them. I think.

The Swedish word for the day is hjärta. It means heart.

- by Francis S.

The days are getting longer, and walking home from work with the husband, we decided to take the Katarina Hissen - the old elevator by Slussen that takes one up to the heights of Södermalm and on into Mosebacke Torg. At 8:15, the sun had just made it below the horizon and turned the sky all rosy blue, the various towers of the city - the German Church, The Knight's Church, the city hall - all burnished and rightfully proud of themselves. (Oh, but I love the pathetic fallacy.)

"Sweet boy," the husband said. He calls me sweet boy because I call him that. I've never told him that it seems hardly fitting to call me sweet boy, with my gray hair and grizzled old face. Not that that would stop him.

The Swedish word for the day is skymningen. It means the dusk.

- by Francis S.

At long last, I'm coming up for air.

It's hard to keep up the weblog when one is working 16-hour days. And there are a few people who, if this world were fair and just, would be getting slapped right now, but good.

The Swedish phrase for the day is mer senare. It means more later.

- by Francis S.

My review for Rasmus' Peer-to-Peer review project:

Name: Bingbowden's rants 'n' stuff - while this reviewer has a problem with the use of 'n' instead of the full word and without irony, the weblog mostly avoids similar stylistic errors.
First entry: Feb. 2, 2002.
Biographical information on the writer: 21-year-old male living in Bristol.
Promises: "some cracking links and heartfelt (and occasionally
controversial) opinions."
Lives up to promise: uh, well, maybe a little with the links.
Music links: this reviewer knows nothing about current music and is not in any position to judge these.
General links: mainstream press and a small mix of vaguely left-wing non-profits, plus a link to My eBay shop thrown in for a little capitalist greed.
Other weblog links: nicely avoids the a-listers. Mostly Brits, from the inane to the okay.
Links within the blog entries: a mix of oft-linked tests, articles from The Guardian, lots of Mark Thomas, and a decent smattering of random links to other websites, of which a reasonable number are interesting.
Spelling and grammar: careless. But then, this reviewer is probably overly sensitive when it comes to proper grammar and spelling.
Writing style: brief and conversational.
Politics: left.
Voyeuristic appeal: not much. Little, if any, sex, angst or anger.
Comment: The writer seems an amiable enough fellow. It's possible that the weblog would appeal to laid-back twenty-somethings who are interested in Radiohead and other similar music, have vague left-ish feelings about politics and the world, and don't seem to be interested in too much else. Unfortunately, the weblog was not this reviewer's cup of tea.

(I hope my tone isn't too elak. That would mean, uh, cruel or mean.)

- by Francis S.

My friend K. is coming back again to Sweden. She'll be here tomorrow.

She just can't seem to stay away.

Well, actually, it's because I keep asking her to come back to manage projects at work because she's so good at it. She'll be here for a month this time, staying with us. Which will be much nicer a year from now because we will have more space: the co-op board of the building at long last has said that we will be able to buy at least 70 square meters of the attic above our apartment, and the bank has said they will give us the money to buy it.

This is brilliant, amazing, wonderful news.

We will expand our apartment so that it is on two levels - build a terrace, and a great big bathroom with a sauna (you have to have a sauna here in Sweden), and extra bedrooms, and turn the dining room into a library, and the big bedroom into the dining room and open it up to the living room.

We will have a huge apartment (by Swedish standards at least). We will be spoiled rotten. Our lives will be even more complete. Er, not exactly, but we'll have more space in which to make our lives more complete. Or something like that.

The Swedish word for the day is ovän. This is at the request again of A., the former model and aspiring producer. She was asking me last night if there is a comparable word in English, and there isn't. It means one who is not a friend. Not an enemy, just not a friend. This can be someone who was a friend before, or someone who on first acquaintance is immediately not a friend. When it comes to words that don't translate from Swedish into English, this is almost up there with my favorite, kissnödig.

- by Francis S.

Happy birthday, beloved little brother. Ja, må han leva uti hundrade år! (may he live to be a hundred!)

- by Francis S.

The priest is pregnant. And now she hates the cult of motherhood, a phenomenon she never realized existed before. At least, that's what she told me.

She doesn't like that she's not supposed to have any ambivalent feelings about the whole thing, that everyone expects her to be all gushy about it. She doesn't like that for most people, her usual priestly self has been replaced by another being: the vehicle for The Baby. She finds the hap-hap-happy attitudes at the pre-natal clinic insufferable, and she doesn't like that there doesn't seem to be any room there for her boyfriend, the policeman, - the cult is about motherhood, not fatherhood.

She's also feeling a bit of pressure from her boss. The Swedish church may be liberal, but not so liberal that it's keen on, er, unwed mothers.

"He keeps asking me, 'do you need a priest for the wedding?'" she told me.

The priest and the policeman had planned on getting married in October, but this puts a crimp in things.

"I hope I stop feeling sick soon," she said.

The Swedish word for the day, of course, is gravid, which means pregnant.

- by Francis S.

The year is recklessly using up its appropriate weather chits. First, New Year's and the tail of the Christmas season were crisp and snowy. Now, Easter weekend has been all balmy and sunny and on the verge of green. I'm worried that the rest of the year is doomed to foul weather.

This is what Sweden reduces one to becoming. A weather obsessive.

At least I don't have to feel guilty about not taking advantage of the blue skies and warm temperatures. The husband and I woke up early Saturday morning, despite having had a grand dinner the night before with the friends from London, and the television producer, and the parents of the friends from London. Well, the parents of the photographer, that is, not the parents of the Wallpaper* editor. It was all food smothered in the olive oil and parmesan cheese we brought back from Lucca, and salami and pecorino from Lucca too, as antipasti.

Aside the parents, and me (who stayed up only until 2 a.m. because I had to work the next day), everyone else was horribly hungover from staying up until 5 a.m. Thursday night talking and drinking vodka - the husband has no brothers, so the photographer and the television producer are his surrogates, whom he doesn't get to see so often. So when they do get together, it's a celebration.

Which all means that we were awfully tired at 7:15 on Saturday morning when we got up to catch the ferry out into the archipelago, groaning all the way, not even trying to look out the filthy windows of the boat, instead reading the paper and sleeping fitfully all the way there.

But when we arrived, it was worth it all.

The husband was suddenly wide awake, and spent the afternoon helping C., the fashion photographer, cut up a fallen tree, rake up the scattered branches and leaves and burn it in a heap, all in a most manly fashion. The husband has always lived in the city and thus finds raking leaves romantic, somehow. I grew up in suburban Chicago and find raking leaves a big fat pain in the ass.

Me, I took my usual walks in the civilized paths through the woods of the island, which seems to have finally let out its breath after holding it in all winter. It hasn't quite relaxed into flower and leaf yet, and the sea is still leaden. But the birds are giddy, a parliament of fowls all talking and laughing over and under each other with no sense of decorum.

This particular little island allows no cars, and there are some two hundred houses or so, but only one year-round inhabitant. The island is crisscrossed with well-laid paths of gravel with functional names like "västväggen" and "mittelväggen" - the west way and the middle way.

There are several great meadows in the middle of the island - now cut to the ground and covered by bleached and straw-colored clumps of dead hay and grass. The meadows are ringed by plots of land with carefully tended green lawns and as many as four small buildings - main houses and guesthouses and boathouses and pavilions and greenhouses and sheds - and gardens with nothing to show for themselves but freshly overturned dirt. I don't much care for these houses.

Further toward the edges of the island are the places I like, the plots of land that are all lichen- and moss-covered granite rock, the houses perched with views to the sea on one side or the other, all looking much less soft and domesticated, a bit tougher, and a lot more expensive no doubt.

After walking round one of the meadows, and then through the path that bisects it, I end up between two rocky outcroppings and then down into a low marshy area now muddy but during the summer is filled with raspberry canes and sea grass and a million buzzing bees. I take the path on up into a shallow wood and up onto lejonklipporna - the lion rocks - and sit, alone, with my feet dangling a few meters above the frigid waters of the Baltic, watching the sun trying and failing to burn the haze from the sea and the surrounding islands.

I find it all such pleasingly digestible nature, and so terribly romantic. Everything a city boy wants from a couple days in the country.

The Swedish phrase for the day is smultronställe. It literally means a place where wild strawberries grow, but is a metaphor for an idyllic spot on earth.

- by Francis S.

Four years ago today, going by the calendar, I was living in Barcelona in a flat not far from the great unfinished Church of the Sagrada Familia. I was so skinny then, on this particular night wearing a skintight club shirt of shiny 100-percent artificial cloth of one sort or another, dancing wildly, drunkenly in a club called Arena, a bit unsure of myself, looking for love or even just some sex, and being disappointed.

Five years ago today, going by the feast days of the church, I was chanting the part of the evangelist in the passion gospel of John at the noon good Friday service at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. On one side of me was the man chanting the part of Jesus, on the other side was the man chanting the part of Pilate. The congregation likewise stood.

In the order of service, an instruction was given that all should kneel when the story first mentions Golgotha. But, several lines before then, I had to chant about a place called Gabbatheh, and my diction obviously wasn't clear enough because everyone knelt then, although they realized their mistake when, a minute later, I chanted about a place called Golgotha.

I remember how difficult it was to chant for the five or more minutes it took to finish, but also how moving it was. I was nervous when I started, but the nervousness left me after the first couple of lines.

After I finished, they turned the cloth on the alter table over to red, and there was no more music in the service, and would be none until Easter morning.

It's odd what one remembers, the sacred and the profane.

The Swedish word for the day is Långfredag. It means Good Friday.

- by Francis S.

It's amazing how many religious holidays there are in this seemingly secular country. Easter, for instance, is a four-and-a-half day affair. Sadly for me, I'm stuck coming into the office tomorrow because I can't get a hold of an interview subject to set up an interview, I still need to write a brief, and I have to make phonecalls to the U.S. And I should have had the day off especially since it's my birthday tomorrow. (I'm going to have to change my brief bio to read "41" instead of merely "40.")

Whinge, whinge, whinge.

At least the friends from London are coming into town, so we'll have dinner with them. And then Saturday morning we'll traipse off for two days in the Stockholm archipelago on Birds' Island at the country house of A. the former model and aspiring producer, and her boyfriend, C. the fashion photographer. I hope today's sunny weather holds.

The Swedish word for the day is stackan. It means poor thing. Yeah, that's me I'm talking about.

- by Francis S., in such a mood of self-pity that he can barely blog

I wonder why I never seem to retain the knowledge that a vacation involving family in some form or other is not a vacation for the husband. He is stuck hearing about ancient family history, dim family friends best forgotten, and sad little jokes as well as my parents' amiable and constant bickering with each other (which is strange to me as they never fought when I was a child, they were always such a united front).

I explained this to K., who was back again from the U.S. and staying in our apartment while we were gone before she left again on a jet plane this morning.

She told me that I shouldn't feel guilty about doing this to the husband.

"You moved to Sweden for him," she said. "I think it's a fair exchange that he puts up with your family every so often."

Which would be true if he didn't need a real vacation badly, complete with beach and sleeping until noon. Not to mention us needing a nice romantic vacation together. If only I didn't enjoy my family so much, I wouldn't be tempted by cottages on Lake Michigan and stone houses in Tuscany.

The Swedish word for the day is förlåt. It means sorry.

- by Francis S.

We got back from Tuscany late last night, back from the land of former brutal city-states now reduced to an idyllic gold and green and romantic adult Disneyland of leaning towers, Uffizi galleries and Pitti palaces, tree-covered walled cities and charming many-towered villages. My mother was obsessed with the blooming of the wisteria growing outside the little stone house where we stayed in a little stone village tucked away in a valley that looked out toward Lucca on one side. My father drove like an Italian maniac, making my mother gasp. The husband and I fought over bringing home an obscenely large salami that I know we'll never eat.

We're home.

I only received two calls from work while I was there. Everything's a mess at the office. Our company was bought by another, my favorite employee is moving back to Finland and taking his girlfriend and highly competent co-worker with him, and the new magazine that we're starting in record time has gone to hell and I'm going to have to pull it back up to the land of the living.

I sometimes wonder if vacation is worth it.

The Swedish word for the day is tillbacka. It means back again, more or less.

- by Francis S.

I so want to find a picture of the latest advertising campaign for - er, I don't know what it's for. All I know is that it asks the question "Jobbar du naken?" - do you work naked - and the ad, at every bus shelter in Stockholm, features a blond lad big as life with perfect milky skin and a perfect untoned but fit body with perfect rose-pink nipples and a perfect Mona Lisa half-smile playing on his lips, a chef's hat on his head, standing naked in a kitchen surrounded by other clothed cooks, a pot strategically placed in front of his wee jimmy, or as I like to think, his not-so-wee jimmy (what is it about a large penis that is so aesthetically pleasing?).

I wanted to find this picture so this post could be the seventh in-depth lesson on Swedish culture, which would say something along the lines of the fact that, although there are no naked Swedish chicks, or naked chefs for that matter, lounging around on street corners (contrary to popular belief), Swedes do have an interesting open attitude about sex being a natural thing, and nakedness not being dirty or necessarily connected to sex.

But alas, I guess this isn't to be.

Instead, I'm going to write about how awful my day was (why ever did I allow myself to become good at solving problems with staff, customers and impossible deadlines?) and how happy I am to be traipsing off with the husband to Tuscany in a mere 36 hours or so. Of course, the whole present-for-the-husband thing still needs to be solved. I have yet to figure out what to get him, and I had no time today to even think about it let alone do any shopping, on account of spending an inordinate amount of time solving endless irksome problems at work.

So, I'll be back the Monday after next. If you're looking for something to read, I recommend you go check out Tinka's defense of impenetrable yet meaningful language (no, that's not really an oxymoron although it pretends to be).

In the meantime, you can meditate on the Swedish word of the day, which is åtminstone. It means at least.

- by Francis S.

Damn. The husband's birthday is Friday - the Ides of March - and as usual I don't know what to get him. He almost always gets me lovely expensive presents - Prada backpacks or 40 red roses from Holland that have all the women in the office sneaking down to my desk to have a look and then bemoan that their husbands and boyfriends would never be so romantic.

The problem is that I don't trust my own taste anymore because he has so much more than I do. Taste, I mean.

The Swedish phrase for the day is ingen aning. It means no idea, haven't a clue.

- by Francis S.

The Swedish government (link in Swedish only, sorry) has recommended to parliament that homosexual persons, such as myself, be allowed to adopt children. Parliament has until June 4 to respond to the government's proposal.

The biggest hitch is that the vast majority of adopted children are from outside Sweden and none of the countries Sweden has agreements with allow gay men or lesbians to adopt children (Liberal attitudes toward abortion are apparently one of the main reasons so few children are in need of adoption within Sweden.)

But what's great about it is that once Sweden decides this, homosexual persons who decide to adopt children, such as myself or Aaron, will get all the same fantastic rights and privileges that other parents get here in Sweden - mainly a year and a half off of work at 80-90 percent pay, and universal daycare.

And now, it looks like the United Kingdom is likely to approve gay adoptions as well.

The Swedish verb for the day is att orka. It's one of my favorites. It isn't directly translateable, but more less means to have the will to, and is more often used in the negative - jag orkar inte - which would mean I can't get up the energy to... or something like that. My friend D., the editor who moved back to America this past summer, used to say "I don't have the ork for it."

- by Francis S.

The bar of the Lydmar Hotel in Stureplan is one of Stockholm's trendiest spots. You can barely squeeze yourself in amongst all the smoke, the music and the beautiful people on a Friday or Saturday night. But on a lazy Sunday afternoon, it feels luxurious to slouch about on a black leather sofa at the Lydmar and drink a beer with A. the former model and aspiring producer, and her boyfriend, C. the fashion photographer.

A. was exhausted, but happy.

"Three different couples had sex last night, so it was a very successful weekend," she said. She was talking about the show, "Big Brother," for which she works.

The Swedish word for the day, by request of A.and C., is torped. It means, among other things, hit man.

- by Francis S.

Over coffee yesterday with the priest and her boyfriend the policeman, the priest said that she had run into a girl who had bullied her when she was young. The priest had just moved back to Sweden from Africa, where she had spent her early childhood, and she was the strange new girl in school.

"Petra?" the priest asked when she ran into the bully.

Yes, it was Petra, who was now working as a waitress at Gondolen, a fancy cocktail bar and restaurant on Söder overlooking Stockholm harbor, not a mile from where the priest lives.

"And what are you doing, now?" Petra had asked.

The priest said that all the old feelings came rushing back and it felt strangely as if in that sentence, Petra the Bully was trying to assert herself all over again.

This isn't surprising, really, because one of the priest's great strengths is her vulnerability. She lays herself open when she leads, which gives her tremendous power because one can't help but believe in her deeply. But at the same time, I know that she finds it exhausting to be so vulnerable.

"I may be wrong," she said, "but I feel like I can always pick out people who were bullied when they were young."

I wondered how she could see this.

"They have a certain sensitivity about how other people feel," she said.

I asked her if she could tell whether I had been bullied or not.

"Well," she said, "With you I can't tell whether it's because you grew up in a very kind family, or because you were bullied. I think maybe it's a combination of both."

She laughed.

She was right.

The Swedish word for the day is of course mobbing. It means bullying.

- by Francis S.

Vi ses på Nangijala, Astrid...*

They held the funeral for Astrid Lindgren today in the Great Church. All day the streets of the old town have been swarming with children holding bouquets of flowers and little old ladies in black. Lindgren's funeral cortege - four stallions drawing an antique carriage holding her coffin, a young girl leading a riderless, unsaddled white horse - wound through Stockholm from Adolf Fredrik's Church and ended at the Great Church next to the Royal Palace, which just happens to be directly outside my office. She was buried in the church, witnessed by the king, the queen and the crown princess, as well as numerous dignitaries and friends.

The frustrating thing of it all, however, was that the journey from church to church took about half the time expected, so I missed it, horses and all. As I was walking up Bollhusgränd with a sandwich, an old woman came from the other direction and said to me "förbi" - past. The cortege had gone ïnto the church already, a full 20 minutes before they said it would.

I didn't get a chance to pay my respects. So here they are.

- by Francis S.

* We'll see each other in Nangijala... A phrase on everyone's lips in Sweden today. Nangijala is the name of the land after death in Astrid Lindgren's Bröderna Lejonhjärta or The Brothers Lionheart, which happens to be one of the two books I've read in the original Swedish.

Someone told me that we are now gaining more than five minutes a day of daylight, some 40 minutes per week. It's a bit disorienting and my sleep patterns are all awry. But it's wonderful nonetheless, no matter how much I love the winter, to be tantalized by this frantic push toward summer.

The Swedish verb for the day is att lova. It means to promise.

- by Francis S.