We're off to Åre for a skiing wedding. Fascinating.

The Swedish word for the day is bröllop. It means wedding.

- by Francis S.

While the Guardian reports that England's young homos have decided that a (small) potbelly is sexier than a stomach with abdominal muscles as well-defined as trigonometric functions, I don't think they were talking about potbellies (even nascent ones) on 42-year-old guys with grey hair.

So I'm on a diet, just like Mig, and making the 45-minute walk to and from the office everyday.

We're going to the Ionian archipelago for a week in May with A., the assistant director and her fiancé C., the photographer, and I want to look good in bathing trunks. Er, make that decent enough.

The Swedish verb for the day is att banta. It means to diet.

- by Francis S.

Budapest has hardly changed in five years: crumbling facades, grand avenues, and those wonderful men's thermal baths, where they give you to wear a little apron that looks like a white dish towel and functions like a metaphorical figleaf. It was me, the husband and a bunch of guys lolling about in hot water and padding around showing off our pale, tanned, hairy, smooth, flabby, skinny, round or nearly non-existant butts. It was humbling, all those butts, not to mention the thought of all the other butts that had been sitting on the same stones for the past 500 years in the same exact place under the same exact shallow dome, with its tiny hexagonal windows and clear and colored glass.

"You feel so connected to history," the husband said. "It's kind of a weird feeling."

Weird, but relaxing. Just what we needed.

The Swedish verb for the day is att bada. It means, of course, to bathe.

- by Francis S.

Once upon a time, I went to Budapest to take the waters at the baths of the great Gellert Hotel. A special price for foreigners (only twice as much as for Hungarians), armies of round little women in white lab coats (even in the men's locker room), and men's thermal baths straight out of a historical porn novel set in Rome, or maybe Turkey.

It's time to go back.

Budapest, here we come for the Easter holidays.

The Swedish word for the day is påskkärringar. It is a word that doesn't have a simple translation, because it refers to the little girls (and a few little boys, I suppose) who dress up as freckle-faced witches and beg for sweets at Easter time.

- by Francis S.

Whenever I arrive in the U.S., the most shocking thing is that everyone speaks English. It feels too simple and not to be trusted, and I find myself translating everything into Swedish in my head, turning myself completely around and making myself crazy.

Which leads directly to the second most shocking thing, which is to find that I've become inarticulate, no matter that my father thinks I am the most garrulous of all his children. I used to be garrulous, now I'm just vague and not so good at explaining myself, so it takes more words to say what I think. I haven't become so European as to give up trying to let everyone know what I think about everything, a trait that is characteristic of us Americans. But it takes an awful long time to do it these days.

The third most shocking thing is that the entire first section of the Chicago Tribune is devoted to war coverage, there are all of three articles out of some hundred that cover anything besides the war. This is actually not shocking, it's to be expected, but it does take the fun out of having a real U.S. paper and the time to read it every morning. And makes me uneasy, because there are many other things going on that people should know about.

It's good to be home again, despite the sleepiness from jetlag. By home I mean, sleeping at the husband's side in Stockholm.

The Swedish name for the day is Jon Blund, who is the Swedish sandman.

- by Francis S.

And now I'm off to America for a holiday.

I hope airport security isn't too painful.

The Swedish word for the day is sticka! It means get lost or beat it.

- by Francis S.

Miguel is back and better than ever. And he's started a group ex-patriot- um, I mean expatriate blog which I am plugging shamelessly, despite the fact that I am one of the members.

- by Francis S.

The stage was tiny and the room intimate, but with an astonishing and potentially distracting view looking down toward the old town. We arrived at the last minute, by invitation of R. the popstar, who sang a couple of her latest hits in a funky arrangement for acoustic guitar and three-part harmony. It was a luxury to be in such a small space, where the singers aren't embarrassed to begin again if they make a false start, where the guy who, I was told, sometimes plays guitar for a great Swedish jazz band, tells the crowd how it feels to be able to hear each individual clap, each separate laugh (strange, he said), where it's impossible not to be charmed when the headliners for the evening - an obscure Swedish singer who told us she once had a hit song in Japan, and her boyfriend, the aforementioned guitarist - sang "There ought to be a moonlight savings time." I was enthralled by that song. I wish I could find the lyrics somewhere.

The Swedish word for the day is igår kväll. It means yesterday evening.

- by Francis S.

I've bought 100 shares of Jessica, 50 shares of Aaron, and 15 each of Nancy and Erik, yet I am worthless myself. O, the shame. I hate it when I get sucked into a new blog game.

The Swedish word for the day is aktier. It means, of course, shares.

- by Francis S.

Museums are a sop to the middle class, who aspire to having objects of great value and sophistication, but basically are dependent on the rich to donate what they don't want, or what society forces them to give up. Me, I'm as bourgeois as can be, I love museums. So, it was with anticipation that I went with the husband to look at Spanish paintings at the National Museet in Stockholm.

I was a bit disappointed at these particular riches on display - they were a bit meager, a bit repetitive. Still, there were the brutal Goya war etchings, aptly timed. But even more touching were side-by-side Velasquez portraits of an infanta and a dwarf. The princess, no more than four years old, was painted with great care and attention to the detail of the cage of a dress she was wearing, and to the velvet curtain behind her, and to the vague sorrow in her young eyes. The dwarf, however, was rather roughly painted in, his clothes dirty and his nose needing to be wiped, a forgotten plaything half-smiling back at the Spanish court painter. One would be hard pressed to choose which child was more pitiable.

The Swedish phrase for the day is parkering förbjuden. It means parking forbidden.

- by Francis S.

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.

Spring has arrived, with a vengeance, or as much as a vengeance as spring can have in Sweden. It's warm, relatively speaking, and sunny, and it was glorious to take a day off yesterday and wander around the city, stopping in a konditori to have coffee and a sweet, and to have A. the assistant producer telling me that Lenin lived in Stockholm, and that he bought a worker's cap in Åhlens (or was it an overcoat from PUB?) that he wore in one of the many well-known photos of him. I feel so good, I even felt sorry for the honey bee that flew numbly into the kitchen when I opened the window last night, hearty enough to have buzzed around during the day, no doubt, but the cold night was too much for any insect, I suppose.

You'll notice I made a slight adjustment to the short autobiographical note to the left.

The Swedish word for the day is året. It means the year.

- by Francis S.

Last night A., the assistant director and her fiancé, C. the fashion photographer, were over for pad thai and afterwards we forced them to watch Pink Flamingos (to be honest, we were only going to watch a few choice bits but ended up seeing the whole thing).

The husband said "It's an art piece," but I insist it's a comedy, a Dogme film ahead of its time, outside of the realm of art. Or the realm of anything, really.

A. managed to laugh through most of it, although she couldn't watch the chicken scene or the part where Divine eats dogshit.

Afterwards, we watched the trailer for the movie, which consisted solely of interviews with people as they came out of the theater. One guy said, "John Waters has his finger on the pulse of America, and his thumb up its ass."

That quote should be in Bartlett's. And it's something to aspire to.

The Swedish word for the day is fiffig. It means ingenious.

- by Francis S.

Stockholm's pulse slows down to nearly nothing in the dark months of winter, speeding up only with the advent of the sun as the vernal equinox is passed. It's taken a couple of years, but my heart now seems to beat nicely in synchonicity with Stockholm. Which is not to say that it's nice. Going into hibernation is a numbing experience, just this side of depression.

Last night, the husband and I made one last play at staving off the sadness of winter, which I desperately hope is in its death throes, spending a night in the brightly lit kitchen, making empanadas of beef and sultanas and garlic and onion and tomato and egg, just like his mother used to make. It is a luxury to spend a late afternoon and evening preparing elaborate food, remembering that gathering and preparing food took all the time and energy of our ancestors. Remembering that we could be living just now in a hinge of time, our fingers stuck in the door of a war that could mean profound changes for us, difficult changes, ugly changes. Or mean nothing, nothing at all. Did it feel like this when the Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated? One never knows until afterwards.

In lieu of certainty, we're now giving the apartment what I hope is a spring cleaning, the windows wide and the sun streaming in, unstoppable.

The Swedish word for the day is påtaglig. It means obvious.

- by Francis S.

Although there is no apparent connection to the massing of armies on Iraq's borders, it is nonetheless unsettling to see Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria all done up in camouflage garb and face paint for her military training.

Are we on the brink of a new age of anti-diplomacy, the United States against the world?

The Swedish word for the day is lumpen. It is a slang word for the compulsory military service required of Sweden's young men, and apparently its Crown Princess as well.

- by Francis S.

The church in Huddinge has little to distinguish it from hundreds of other Swedish churches: It's small, spartan, built of stone with stucco walls, 900 years old. It is a thing of simple and great beauty.

There are a few obvious later touches, such as electric chandeliers and wooden pews with panels painted to look like marble (or painted to look like they were painted to look like marble, rather than to actually look like marble). I find myself wondering, as I sit behind a chamber orchestra in the middle of a rehearsal for a performance of Bach's Magnificat at the church in Huddinge, what exactly would be most shocking to a Swede from the year 1100. Would it be the baroque trumpeter playing games on his mobile phone during the movements where he doesn't have to play the trumpet?

It is the husband's birthday today. I can't tell exactly how much he's joking when he says it feels awful to turn 34.

The Swedish word for the day is sliten. It means worn.

- by Francis S.

I've lived most of my life in cities, and I grew up in the suburbs, where the lights from the houses and offices and streetlamps obscure the stars. If I lived in the country, I could learn the night sky. I've always felt a bit sorry that I've never really seen the Milky Way as a smudge of white, never learned the constellations except Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.

But it's still not enough to tempt me.

I'm an urban kind of guy.

The Swedish verb for the day is att undvika. It means to avoid.

- by Francis S.

Oh, yeah. That guy from Textism got the Best European or African 2003 Bloggie Award.

I voted for Duncan, and then I was hoping that D. would actually win.

Oh, well. Next time. Congratulations to the guy from Textism.

- by Francis S.

If I were a real man, I would've given up English for Lent.

Unfortunately, I'm spineless, controlling and pathically devoted to my mother tongue. I'm also wallowing daily in utter shame and self-pity because after four years of living in this comfortable city not far from the arctic circle, choir rehearsal is the only place I really speak my mediocre Swedish without switching back and forth to English as soon as I feel the least bit frustrated at not being able to express exactly what I think. Is it really perfectionism - wanting to get everything right all the time and without a trace of an accent - that's doing me in?

I've turned into the thing I dreaded when I moved here: the American who doesn't bother to speak the language.

Woe is me.

You can hit me now.

The Swedish verb for the day is att sparka. It means to kick.

- by Francis S.

The evening started in L.'s apartment with a mojito - the husband and A., the assistant producer and C., the fashion photographer, and R., the r&b star, and L.'s boyfriend, and me.

It was a dinner of lamb with prunes, and couscous, and blood oranges, and almonds. And then there was lots of red wine, and everyone talking at once, agreeing and disagreeing about exactly how much manic despression is due to chemistry and how much it is due to sociology, about overpopulation and personal responsibility and sorting one's trash for recycling, about Michael Jackson and his ability or inability to influence the media, and we went round the table and gave out our middle names, those of us who have them.

"I have a great story," A., the assistant director said. "You know the actress is still playing the maid in A Doll's House. Well, the other day, during the performance while the lead actors were in the middle of their dialogue, a mobile phone rang in the audience and the guy actually answered it and everyone could hear him say: 'I'm at the theater. Mmm-hmmm. So-so...' It was all they could do not to burst out laughing, they just had to keep on playing . But afterwards, the whole cast laughed their heads off."

It's great to know that actors have a sense of humor about this kind of thing.

The Swedish verb for the day is att bli. It's a verb that doesn't translate so easily - it means to be or to become, and I misuse it often, as it's used when a change of condition is implied as far as I can tell. Att vara means to be when no change of condition is implied. I suppose there's some kind of rule about when to use which form, but mostly I learn it by listening.

- by Francis S.