Do you want to know what it’s like being gay in Karachi, Pakistan? There are, according to Jalal, at least two bloggers of the homosexualist persuasion there, a guy called Danial and Jalal.

It sounds as if being gay and 22 and single and in the thralls of one’s family and a less-than-accepting society in Karachi is only slightly different from what things were like for me in Washington, D.C. when I was 22, in 1982. Basically, it’s just a matter of desperately wanting to be in love. At least, that’s how it sounds from what Jalal writes.

So, go give him good advice if you can.

The Swedish word for the day is stöd. It means support.

- by Francis S.

If I were of a more, um, heterosexualist bent (to coin an oxymoron), I think I would fall in love with Amy Sedaris and start stalking her. She really makes me laugh until I cry. Plus, she actually makes and sells cheeseballs and cupcakes to her neighbors. What a gal.

I'm not sure whether it was such a good idea to buy that DVD of the first season of her sitcom "Strangers with Candy", because I've can't stop watching it. Over and over. And until I saw my husband laughing at it, I would have thought it couldn't be funny to anyone who hasn't seen shows like "Dawn, Portrait of a Teenage Runaway" and "Alexander, the Other Side of Dawn."

The Swedish word for the day is besatt. It means obsessed.

- by Francis S.

Unlike Rome with only seven hills, San Francisco seems to be built on hundreds of them. And we walked up and down the best of em. Russian Hill, Telegraph Hill, Nob Hill, and lots of others that surely have names that we just don't know about. The husband and I are now in excellent shape. Oh, and we had a coupla mojitos with Jane, way too briefly at the top of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel.

We saw San Francisco's oldest building, we took the ferry to Tiburon, we saw some art, we even actually found a nice spot in the Castro to laze around in the sun and have a beer and then another and then lunch.

We went shopping, the husband noting that the city must be rich by the kinds of shops we saw. We bought a bunch of DVDs, and cheap t-shirts and socks.

We had lots of food: incredible breakfast, great Mexican, so-so dim sum, tasty soba noodles both hot and cold.

But, without a doubt, the high point of the whole shebang was spending an evening with Aaron and his husband. Aaron, who is a looker, and as funny and charming and vivacious and smart as his writing, and his husband just the same. The two of them brought us to a fantastic Indian restaurant (after some discussion with the cabbie) in the lower Haight. Or was it the upper Haight?

We sat upstairs and gorged ourselves and yakked.

Then, "Wow is that him?" Aaron suddenly said, under his breath, as an elegant and vaguely familiar old guy walked in and smiled at us before sitting down with a younger woman at the table behind ours.

"It is!" whispered his husband.

"Wait, no it isn't..."

But it turned out to be him after all, a fact that was confirmed when another guy showed up, nearly sending Aaron and his husband into silent fits.

"The Color Purple is about our favorite movie," Aaron's husband whispered.

"Actually, " Aaron said sotto voce, hunching over chicken tikka massala and a piece of naan bread, "this isn't the first time I've seen the, uh, younger guy at the table behind us. I was once alone in a hotel gym with him, just the two of us and no one else and he was all sweaty and wearing, well, not enough clothes. Sadly, it was not a pretty sight, no, no. He should definitely not have been wearing spandex."

We laughed.

"It's actually Harry Belafonte I'm really impressed to see," Aaron said. "He was really somebody in his day."

My own husband was unfazed by the whole celebrity sighting bit.

"You guys are crazy, " he laughed. "In Sweden, we treat famous people like everyone else."

Yeah, maybe, but it was exciting all the same to see them. Although not nearly exciting as seeing Aaron.

"Shake, shake, shake, senora," Aaron sang as we said our farewells beside a cab outside our hotel.

And now, we're back and work starts again tomorrow. My four weeks of summer vacation are over.

The Swedish word of the day is färdig. It means finished.

- by Francis S.

I feel guilty when we pop the cork on a bottle of the widow's own bubbly, and then fail to drink it all. My parents, born in the heart of the depression, taught me not to waste anything, and although I constantly let vegetables go to rot and milk turn sour, I do feel guilty about it in the end. And I feel extra guilty about champagne, in this case pulled out to celebrate the birthday of the South African publicist.

I suppose I could follow the advice of Irma Rombauer: "Not every householder has to worry about what to do with leftover champagne, but should this appalling dilemma be yours, there is no better way than this to solve it and make a light but rich sauce for fish or chicken."

What follows, of course, is The Joy of Cooking's recipe for champagne sauce. But, since the husband and I are leaving for San Francisco at the crack of ass, as my friend K. always says, and I have laundry to do, not to mention mentally preparing myself for storming the States, this is no time for sauce.

California, here we come.

The Swedish phrase for the day is klara, färdiga, gå! It means on your mark, get set, go!

- by Francis S.

There's a sweet melancholy at arriving back to the pavements of home after a week on an island filled with lazy late dinners, the sky at midnight still rosy around the edges, the cats bringing mice into the house and making the women scream and jump up on chairs even though the mice were already dead (it was like a parody, I never knew that women actually do jump up on chairs when mice appear on the scene; is it something they learn, or is it instinct?), eating a tart made from blueberries picked in the front yard, reading novels on the terrace and pausing constantly to look at the various sailboats and ferries crisscrossing their way over the sea, playing hearts and being bad winners and poor losers and taking turns entertaining the red-haired baby of the captain and his wife, the accountant.

The city was practically empty when we arrived home. Late afternoon, an overcast summer Saturday afternoon in July and everyone who could had long ago left the city for the month. But we were back, a bit dusty and sad and relieved to be at home.

It is nice to not have to sleep under mosquito netting, no matter how romantic it is to be tucked away with the husband behind white tulle like a couple of country princes in a tiny pine palace in the woods.

The Swedish word for the day is ö. It means island. Simple, huh.

- by Francis S.

When I was eight, my parents sent my brother and I to summer day camp for two weeks. Which was an utter betrayal. It was summer and I was supposed to be free to do what I wanted, but camp turned out to be far worse than school: It was like eight hours of gym, complete with the two best boys picking the teams one by one and me always second-to-last picked. They did throw in a little bit of shop and leatherworking - what someone in 1970 undoubtedly considered was a boy's version of art and music - and I remember having to eat egg-salad sandwiches for the first and the last time in my life.

I must have complained, because I didn't have to go back the next summer.

Strangely enough, in my late teens and early 20s, I became a camp counselor myself for four summers at a special education camp. I was a much better camp counselor than I had been a camper: I kept the kids moving, doing things, learning, entertained. And, it was a helluva lot more fun being a camp counselor than being a camper. I was exhausted at the end of the day, but not so exhausted that I couldn't get drunk with the other counselors after the kids left, making futile passes at the cute counselor with the dark hair (I don't think he even realized what I was doing.)

Now, I'm free again to do what I want with my summer, so we're off for five days or so to Birds Island.

The Swedish word for the day is tid. It means time.

- by Francis S.

Today was the funeral of Alma Eklund.

We didn't go. We'd already had our own going away party for her, three weeks ago this coming Monday. We'd been at Birds Island for the weekend, and as I'd sat by myself - everyone else had gone on a boat ride around the island, even the Siamese cat - I sat in my bare feet, a half-empty pitcher of white wine left on the table behind me in the sun, drooping lilacs, a listlessly fluttering tablecloth, scattered chairs and open magazines, fresh white paint in the house, the endless parliament of the birds, I could feel Alma hovering around me.

We finally left the island to go to a favorite spot of hers, and stood around with a priest reading and then the whole group singing as it began to rain in earnest, as if the whole world were weeping. Everyone came back to our apartment, to grieve and try to blame someone else.

A., the assistant director sent a thumping bouquet of flowers to the funeral today, since we didn't feel welcome somehow. We'd already said goodbye.

Requiem aeternam, et lux perpetua.

The Swedish word for the day is försvunnen. It means gone or lost.

- by Francis S.

The letter arrived in the mail yesterday. They want me to send in my passport, a document proving that I make the salary I claim I make, and to tell them how often and to where I have travelled outside Sweden since February (that would be the U.S. and Hungary).

It looks like the road to becoming a passport-carrying Swede is nearing its end. The chances look damn good that I will actually soon be a citizen of Europe and the U.S.

Good thing they're giving me until Aug. 4 to get this stuff in, since I'll be needing my passport when the husband and I go to San Francisco later this month. The U.S. isn't so nice about letting people in without proper identification. Unlike Sweden.

My friend, the American editor, once came back from a trip to Italy, and when he got to passport control in Sweden it seemed that his green card had expired. He started arguing in Swedish with the woman in the booth, but after about five minutes, switched to English.

"C'mon, I just forgot to get it renewed, you can see I have permission. What are you gonna do, call the police?" he said, wheedling the woman.

"I am the police," the woman said.

She eventually let him in, after a short lecture and a stern warning that he would probably get a fine, which he never did get.

The Swedish word for the day is uppehållstillstånd. It means residence permit, and is signified by a paper pasted into one's passport and is the equivalent of the U.S. green card.

- by Francis S.

At dinner last night with J. and my favorite Finn, and Hannes and A., the assistant director, we got to talking about baby teeth for some reason, and C. the fashion photographer launched into a story about his daughter:

"When she was losing her first baby tooth, it was just hanging by a little piece of skin and she wanted to have it yanked out," he said. "First, we attached the tooth by a thread to a stone and with all the neighbors gathered around, threw the stone off the balcony, but the thread broke and the tooth stayed. Then, we attached it by a thread to an arrow and with all the neighbors gathered around, I shot the arrow but the thread broke again. Then we attached it by a thread to the bumper of a car and with all the neighbors still gathered around, I put my foot on the gas but the thread broke a third time. Finally, we attached it by a thread to a doorknob and her little brother slammed the door shut and bang, the tooth was gone."

It seems that the fourth time is the charm, and not the third.

The Swedish word for the day is tandkräm. It means toothpaste.

- by Francis S.

First the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Bowers v. Hardwick. Now Nancy and Philo have started a one- stop- all- the- homo- news- you- could- ask- for- web- source called Queerday and it looks pretty damn fab.

Things are looking up for us poor downtrodden homosexualists.

- by Francis S.

Saffron is a favored spice in Swedish cuisine, the empress of the kitchen if for no other reason than the fact that it is ridiculously expensive. In summer it is occasionally used to flavor ice cream, which some people find disgusting, but I find a great luxury. So, today I inaugurated a four-week stint of vacation by eating saffron ice cream in a café on Nytorget with the husband, and the priest and the policeman and their baby Signe.

All hail the glory of Swedish law, which mandates a minimum of five weeks of vacation for all. Me, I actually get seven.

The Swedish phrase for the day is lugn och ro. It means peace and quiet.

- by Francis S.

Breaking news: at last, the U.S. Supreme Court knocks down sodomy laws.

It's about, er, fucking time. One small step for homosexualists, one great leap for justice.

- by Francis S.

Hannes is in town, flirting indiscriminately with men and women alike, showing off his movie-star white teeth, wearing a cool blue-jean hat and jacket, and generally being irresistible.

Oh, and he brought along his parents, J., and her boyfriend, my favorite Finn.

"It will be strange to hear Hannes' first words in Finnish," J. said. She mentioned an Estonian acquaintance of ours who lives here in Stockholm and speaks Estonian with her own 2-year-old daughter, but the daughter replies in Swedish.

I suppose it could be a little worrisome, in some small private way, when one's own child speaks another language. Will he understand the subtleties of what I say, will she be hampered somehow or torn between two languages, will he resent me or be embarrassed because I speak Finnish or Swedish or English with a strange accent and can never know it as well as he can?

The Swedish phrase for the day is rädda barnen. It means save the children.

- by Francis S.

The best thing about living two floors above a great chef is the leftovers.

"I'm down at L.'s," the husband said on the phone. "She has something good for you, a little surprise." The surprise turned out to be hot glögg stirred with a stick of cinnamon, and tiny gingerbread men topped with blue cheese and fig jam and slices of fresh fig.

L., the chef, had been filming a pilot for a television series for channel four - a cooking show, of course. They'd filmed her in her apartment preparing for a party with her own version of glögg and gingerbread. Everyone's trying to copy the success of that guy who claims to cook naked but in fact never seems to take his clothes off, dammit. Sweden does have its own increasingly popular home-grown female version of Jamie Oliver, but I think L. could do better. She's a curious mix of funny, serious and enthusiastic, and she's already done well on cooking segments of some of the morning magazine programs.

The Swedish word for the day is pepparkakor. It means gingerbread.

- by Francis S.

Every day I pass various sets of kiosks with advertisements for a local mobile telephone company that sells pre-paid cards, advertisements featuring teenagers drinking piña coladas and speaking into a phone "yes, Dad, I'm having fruit every day" or a girl slipping under the covers with a boy, saying "yes, Mom, I'm going to bed early." But the one that intrigues me most, naturally, is the one with the naked teenagers (you can see one of the guy's pubic hair!) playing miniature golf, the boy on his phone saying "yes, Mom, I'm wearing a hat."

Why wasn't there nude miniature golf when I was a teenager? Not that I probably would've been able to play, on account of my teenage tendency toward, um, priapism. Hell, I guess I would've just settled for advertisements of naked teenagers when I was 16.

Hurrah for nudity. Go, Sweden! (If you're up for a little Swedish conversation, check out what the remarkably observant and always enlightening Erik Stattin has to say about a slightly more controversial advertisement that can be seen here around town.)

The Swedish word for the day is trottoar. It comes from the French and means sidewalk.

- by Francis S.

The husband and I are doomed to yet another summer of rising early. It's because workers arrive every morning at 7 a.m. to blast and pound rocks in the courtyard of our building. It is astounding how much noise is required to lay a circular pattern of rough granite paving stones, checking and rechecking everything with sticks and metal rods and measuring tape in some undecipherable ritual devised to ensure that all the stones will fit properly in their places in the end. At least that's what I hope it's all about.

The Swedish word for the day is morgonpigg. It is an adjective that describes those annoying people who are, for some reason, all perky and chipper in the morning.

- by Francis S.

It was, and it wasn't a proper midsummer.

We took the ferry, a charming old wooden one that creaks and lets in a little water around the edges, and we sat in the corner at a table, happy to have gotten a seat since the ferry was as full as the crew will let it get.

We arrived at Birds Island, and we ate herring out on the porch under the overhanging roof, which protected us, mostly, from the drizzle. We drank vodka and Dutch gin, and we sang a few meager drinking songs appropriate for the occasion, all proper midsummer.

But we were too comfortable up at the house and having fun talking, and it was too cold and wet out in the meadow to bother to jump like little frogs around the midsummer pole out under the grey sky, or to gather seven different kinds of flowers to make midsummer wreaths to wear on our heads. And then we had dinner too late to go out and dance two-by-two on the jetty, although sometime after 1 a.m. I did bring the architect from San Francisco out to my favorite spot at the rocks at the end of the island to sit and watch the sea while the sun prepared to rise.

Late in the evening, O., the 16-year-old daughter of the fashion photographer, was trying out different ways of signing her name, as 16-year-olds sometimes do, and soon we were passing around our own signatures.

"What is that?" A., the assistant director said. They all wondered at the letters I wrote as they watched me sign my name.

"We don't use capital letters like that," said the actor, who had once played Jesus Christ on the stage. Apparently, sometime in the seventies, Swedish schools stopped teaching children how to write upper-case letters in cursive script, and now they are taught only the lower-case letters.

They made me write the entire upper-case cursive script alphabet.

"What about å, ä and ö?" the actor asked. I told him, silly, we don't have those letters in English, but he made me write them anyway.

The Swedish word for the day is handskriven. It means handwritten.

- by Francis S.

Midsummer is nearly here, the holiday that along with Christmas brackets the Swedish year, each feast day sitting solidly in its season and marking off its territory with nearly the same food: cold fish and boiled potatoes and hard alcohol. Of course, to a Swede the food is vastly different, but it all looks frighteningly similar to me, even if I have gotten to almost like herring. Almost.

"It's all downhill from here," I said to C., the fashion photographer. "After Saturday, winter is on its way."

C. laughed a weak little obligatory laugh.

We take the 11 a.m. ferry tomorrow out to Birds Island.

It's supposed to rain all day, and Saturday as well. The sun should come out on Sunday, however, about when it's time for us to leave.

The Swedish word for the day is sommarlov. It means summer vacation.

- by Francis S.

The heart of the city is the most desirable place to live in Stockholm. Which is unlike most cities in the States. Bereft of a middle-class, the typical American city is filled mostly with the poor, plus a smattering of bohemian-types with no children, a few odd rich people and a bunch of gay men. America just doesn't seem to care much about its cities, with huge chunks of urban America left to rot. So, it's nice to live in a place where people think the city is just great. I rarely cross the city lines.

But every so often, I have no choice. Such as this evening, when I had a work function which entailed venturing into the far reaches of Stockholm, a good 15 kilometers from town.

What was so disturbing was not the distance, but that the house I ended up at seemed to fit some bizarre Swedish version of the American dream of a house in the suburbs, complete with two-car garage, a lawn as carefully manicured as the fingernails of Miss America, and a flagpole with one of those long thin triangular Swedish flags.

Have I completely misread the Swedes and what they think is important?

Worse, is this what people really want, the world over, a house with a two-car garage in the suburbs?

I fear that I'm a terrible snob. I sound like a college sophomore.

The Swedish word for the day is kinkig. It means difficult to please.

- by Francis S.

One way of trying to understand the nature of a city is to reduce it to a gender: Paris is a woman, New York a man, for instance.

Stockholm is hard to place, all water and ochre buildings and opened like a heliotrope in the summer sun, but falls on the feminine side of the spectrum by my reckoning.

Now, off to catch the ferry out to the archipelago.

The Swedish word of the day is stadsbo. It means citydweller.

- by Francis S.