Less than a hundred years ago, the general public picnicked on the White House lawn whenever it wanted to.

Apparently, the general public can still picnic on the lawns of the various royal residences of Sweden. You can even wander aimlessly on the grounds of, say, Uriksdal Palace late on a Sunday evening, in the dead of winter, clutching a bottle of champagne and searching desperately for the greenhouses where a birthday party is going on.

Amazing.

The Swedish word for the day is trädgård. It means garden.

- by Francis S.

Yesterday, I was reading in the latest issue of Wired Magazine about how all these Silicon-Valley types are all hot and bothered because hi-tech jobs are being outsourced to bright young engineering geeks in India. Then, today I read that the state of Georgia has removed the term "evolution" from its recommended education curriculum guidelines (and thereby its achievement exams) - joining a handful of other states, according to the New York Times.

I think that companies across the United States should just give up now and start investing in Indian education, because the U.S. graduating class of 2014 is going to be a generation of idiots.

The Swedish word for the day is vetenskap. It means science.

- by Francis S.

Before I forget, at the popularity contest that is The Bloggies, the voting booths are soon to be shut down. In the category of "Best Great Big Homo Blog," I recommend voting for a girl called Irk, a.k.a. Swirlspice.

The Swedish word for the day is priset. It means the prize and the price, causing endless confusion for Swedes using the two words in English.

- by Francis S.

The Countess of Castiglione was a sort of Paris Hilton of the Second Empire. Except instead of scandals involving videotaped sex and starring in a television show where rich girls slop the pigs á la Marie-Antoinette, the countess seduced Napoleon III and horrified Paris by wearing costumes with no underwear. Obsessed with clothes and, when she was young, making a scene wherever she happened to be, she was probably a bit vapid. I'm talking about the countess here. But she did one lasting thing: she had a photograph taken of herself that is undoubtedly the most enigmatic of all early photographic portraits, in which she is holding an empty oval frame up to her eye.

The picture evokes so many thoughts and questions about the nature of looking and being looked at. I've been baffled and taken in by that photograph ever since I first saw it in a book, when I was 20.

The Swedish word for the day is grevinnan. It means, of course, the countess.

- by Francis S.

When I was a kid, girls still had real muffs.

Sure, they were covered in some kind of strange white fake fur, and they didn't really have that Anna- Karenina- jumping- in- front- of- a- train glamour that I associate with a good muff, but they were honest to goodness muffs. Now, the only time you see a muff is on some matron promenading about Östermalm in a full-length mink.

I wonder if the demise of a once common item of attire is due to the fact that the name has become synonymous with female genitalia?

And, don't you hate it when perfectly good words, like, um, gay for instance, get co-opted by fanatics and end up meaning something sick and disgusting?

The Swedish word for the day is tantig. It means little old ladyish.

- by Francis S.

I was a, um, postmature baby. One month late.

"I must have counted wrong, of course," my mother said. "But at the time I thought 'isn't this baby ever going to come?'"

Strange that it took her 42 years to tell me.

"Once it's past, you sort of forget about it," she explained on the phone, not half an hour ago.

So I guess I can start acting postmature now. Which is sort of like postmodern, only with a bit less ornamentation.

The Swedish word for the day is pondus. I've always felt the best way to translate it is, more or less, with the word gravitas.

- by Francis S.

What could be a more perfect role for reclusive writer Thomas Pynchon than playing himself, complete with a paperbag over his head, on "The Simpsons"? (item stolen from a blog on my referrer logs that I somehow can't find again; thanks, whoever you are.)

It seems, somehow, disingenuous of Pynchon.

And yet, if I were offered the chance to play myself on "The Simpsons," whoo-ee. Just ask me. Playing opposite Homer is a sure mark of über-success.

The Swedish phrase for the day is Gravitationens Regnbåge, which means, of course, Gravity's Rainbow.

- by Francis S.

Why is it that big old otherwise well-adjusted girly-men like myself are so insecure, deep down, about whether we're manly enough?

I ran into the husband's ex-girlfriend this morning and she said, "You look so, um, masculine."

I was so proud of myself. I thought, wow, I sure have you fooled.

Pathetic, and yet I can't help it.

The Swedish word for the day is självklart. It means obviously.

- by Francis S.

I've changed from being a subway person to being a bus person. And I thought it was the kind of thing that one was for life, sort of like being left-handed or right-handed.

It's purely a matter of convenience: the bus gets me to work and back faster and with less legwork than the subway. The downside is that I can't read, the upside is that there is actual scenery, even if it is the same scenery every day.

I still haven't figured out the queue system, though. As far as I can tell, there isn't one. And so I end up being one of the first to board the bus every time because when I get to the bus stop, I stand where I know the bus doors will open. No one has even given me a dirty look, so I guess I'm not making a faux pas. Still, it seems too easy somehow to be one of the people to manage to get a seat and not have to stand in the aisle, desperately holding onto the closest strap or pole.

The Swedish phrase for the day is kommunikation, which means, among other things, transportation.

- by Francis S.

I've been thinking for the past year and a half that I'm past my sell-by date. So I don't know exactly what to say when these kinds of things happen.

The second Swedish word for the day is vad, and it means what?

- by Francis S.

The historical museum was closed today as it is every Monday, although there were a few news photographers lurking outside when a co-worker and I stopped by at lunch today to see if we could catch a glimpse of the pool of blood in the museum's courtyard. Because, you see, on Friday, the Israeli ambassador to Sweden, in a fury, threw one of the spotlights on the periphery of the courtyard into the red pool, which was part of an installation called "Snow White and the Madness of Truth," by an Israeli artist living in Sweden.

The ambassador said that the piece - a small white boat with a picture of a Palestinian suicide bomber on the sail, floating in a sea of water dyed the color of blood - promoted terrorism and was an incitement to genocide. He was eventually thrown out of the museum. It's been all over the Swedish news since Friday, vying for attention with coverage of the trial of the murderer of Anna Lindh.

The Israeli government has called for the work to be dismantled.

The Swedish government has said, more or less, that this won't happen.

Me, I want to decide for myself. The piece is terribly provocative - it is part of a show held in conjunction with a conference on genocide. And it is, without a doubt, implicitly critical of Israel. But the underlying message seems to be that both Israelis and Palestinians are suffering.

But, really, I haven't seen it yet, so it's not quite fair to decide anything just yet.

The Swedish word for the day dom. It means judgement.

- Francis S.

Do you suppose that more than half the world's adults still live in the same house, flat, hut, palace, log cabin or tent that they have lived in from birth?

I wonder what happens when any of these billion or so people contemplate moving somewhere else. Does it make one crazy and irrational? It must, if you can reckon by the husband, who has lived in the very same flat we live in now since he was brought home from Södersjukhuset as a tiny baby. He's just a tangle of emotion and worry.

Poor guy.

Wait, poor me. Because I have to be a rock.

The Swedish word for the day is yet again, lägenhet, which was the Swedish word of the day a little more than a week ago. Look it up there if you don't remember what it means.

- by Francis S.

I'm in shock.

A member of the Catholic clergy has made a pronouncement concerning homosexuals that didn't deeply offend me. Contrary to the declaration of the Vatican's top advisor on family concerns, Colombian Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo, that condoms have tiny holes in them that let HIV pass through, Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels says that the fact that condoms save lives by helping to prevent HIV infection supercedes concerns that they are a form of birth control.

Don't you just love that wacky Catholic church? Next thing you know, the Catholic church is going to be saying that the earth revolves around the sun. Or even that all human life is sacred, even post-natal life!

Welcome to the 20th Century, Cardinal. I would even go so far as to say the mid-20th century, say, 1962 or so?

The Swedish word for the day is sjätte budet. It means the sixth commandment.

- by Francis S.

On Saturday, a friend of a friend of mine was visiting from Chicago - the cat veterinarian. He had dinner with A., the t.v. director and her fiance, C., the fashion photographer and the husband and I.

The five of us got into a small argument about which feels older, Paris or London.

For me, it's London. Narrow streets, low-slung buildings, no rhyme or reason to the layout, every road probably started as a cow path.

Paris has all those grand avenues, block after block of grey stone Second Empire apartments punctuated here and there by monuments and palaces and elegant gardens.

"But didn't London burn in the 1600s?" said A. "Ile St. Louis and, well, Notre Dame, they're like from the 1100s or older, aren't they? Paris is so much older."

Okay, so it has some older buildings, even, well, big chunks of the city are older maybe. But it just doesn't feel as old to me.

Don't you think London feels older than Paris?

The Swedish word for the day is medeltiden. It means middle ages.

- by Francis S.

The twelfth day of Christmas has come and almost gone, and those damned 12 drummers are pa-rum-pa-pa-pumming away in my head, reminding me that I go back to work, um, tomorrow.

I didn't do my winter vacation homework - I promised my boss to read a particular book about public relations - and we never managed to drag all our thousands of kronor worth of coins to the bank. I never wrote those New Year's cards I'd planned to write, and the apartment probably could use a deep-cleaning.

But the husband and I did manage to get to Chicago and back without a major mishap or nasty comments about homosexuality at passport control. Christmas itself was unusually calm, and while my nieces and nephews continue to grow up at a frightening pace, somehow it's less hectic and nervewracking that they no longer jump all over us with wild abandon for a solid week of Christmas.

We spent a grand New Year's Eve in a sort of glass pavilion in the middle of Norrmalmstorg, eating lobster and dancing like mad. And this very afternoon we babysit for baby Signe without her crying at all.

But most of all, we even managed to put in an offer on an obscenely huge apartment on Odenplan, an offer which has been accepted and we're just waiting for a final okay from the bank before we sign on the dotted line, sometime before Monday. (The apartment is just obscenely huge by Swedish standards; Americans outside of Manhattan would merely consider it a bit on the large side.)

I can't believe it. We're going to move. And the husband has lived his whole life in the apartment we're in now.

Holy cow, Batman.

The Swedish word for the day is lägenhet. It means, of course, apartment.

- by Francis S.

And now, before signing off for a week as the husband and I prepare to evacuate the country of Sweden for the teeming shores of Chicago, I leave you with a profound Christmas thought from the pen of Trey Parker, a little something guaranteed to offend just about everyone:

The Virgin Mary was sleeping
When Angel Gabriel appeared...
He said, 'you are to be the virgin mother'
And Mary thought that was weird..
Mmm mmm mmm mm mmm m mmmmmmm,
M mmmmmm m mmm mmmm mmmm,
But then Gabriel said to Mary,
'My child, have no fear'

Mmm mmm mmmm mmm mmm mmmm mmm mmmm
And still be a virgin, Mary...
mmm mmm mmm mmmmm mmm
And still not be considered flawed...
Mmmm mmm mmmm mmm,
Mmmm mmm mmm
But you're still a virgin
In the eyes of God!

from "The Most Offensive Song Ever" from Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics

I'm so puerile sometimes.

The Swedish phrase for the day is god jul och gott nytt år. It means, of course, merry Christmas and happy new year.

- by Francis S.

From an interview with Tony Kushner in Mother Jones:

TK:... I have great admiration for the essayists and writers on the left, but the left decided at some point that government couldn't get it what it wanted. As a result, it's a movement of endless complaint and of a one-sided reading of American history, which misses the important point: Constitutional democracy has created astonishing and apparently irreversible social progress. All we're interested in is talking about when government doesn't work.

MJ: When was the last time that a belief in the system paid off?

TK: It was the day they got that fucking Ten Commandments monument out of Alabama. ...

I've always felt that it was the right who had convinced Americans that government was evil, and that rather than making it do what you want it to do, everything should be privatized and that the pressures of the market will fix everything that's wrong with schools, with social services, what have you.

So I shudder to think that Tony Kushner might be correct, and that the left has likewise turned its back on government. But, sadly, I think he's right.

Am I some kind of fool to think that the government isn't an evil entity, that we should put our efforts into making it work better rather than just giving up on it? I guess Tony Kushner wouldn't think so.

The Swedish word for the day is gärna. It's not directly translateable, but my Swedish-English dictionary defines it as with pleasure.

- by Francis S.

We went on Saturday and saw "Matrix: He Died for Your Sins" with A., the assistant director and her fiancé, C., the fashion photographer. And then we went on Sunday with the H.R. director from work and her husband to see Handel's "Messiah" in the Great Church.

I've never been too keen on Christ stories ever since they made us watch "Cool Hand Luke" every year in English class when I was in high school. (Yeah, it's a classic movie, and Paul Newman looks damn hot, but I hate it.)

Handel definitely has it way over the Wachowski brothers. All that wooden acting, deplorable dialogue, and way too many of those squid things, "Matrix: The Crucifixion" just doesn't cut it.

Give me a baritone ripping his way through "Why do the nations rage so furiously together" any day, no matter how hard those pews are at the Great Church. Handel wins, um, hands down.

The Swedish word for the day is präktig. It means, appropriately, splendid but according to O.P., it is more often used to describe someone who is a boob.

- by Francis S.

Despite the days being veiled in grey, the city has put on all its Christmas finery. There are glittering lights strung everywhere, Christmas markets on various squares, and on Skeppsbron stands the huge, perfect Christmas tree that has been carefully pieced together over the past couple of weeks, the live branches hung on a massive trunk and the whole thing covered in a net of tiny lights - it's so terribly Swedish to want to have a real live tree but to have it perfectly shaped at the same time, then to make the effort to do something so elaborate that ends up with such simple, yet satisfying results. That tree amazes me every year, I feel like a giddy little kid every time I walk past it.

The Swedish word for the day is utmaning. It means challenge.

- by Francis S.

Atlantis


I thought your illness a kind of solvent
dissolving the future a little at a time;

I didn't understand what's to come
was always just a glimmer

up ahead, veiled like the marsh
gone under its tidal sheet

of mildly rippling aluminum.
What these salt distances were

is also where they're going:
from blankly silvered span

toward specificity: the curve
of certain brave islands of grass,

temporary shoulder-wide rivers
where herons ply their twin trades

of study and desire. I've seen
two white emissaries unfold

like heaven's linen, untouched,
enormous, a fluid exhalation. Early spring,

too cold yet for green, too early
for the tumble and wrack of last season

to be anything but promise,
but there in the air was white tulip,

marvel, triumph of all flowering, the soul
lifted up, if we could still believe

in the soul, after so much diminishment ...
Breath, from the unpromising waters,

up, across the pond and the two-lane highway,
pure purpose over the dune,

gone. Tomorrow's unreadable
as this shining acreage;

the future's nothing
but this moment's gleaming rim.

Now the tide's begun
its clockwork turn, pouring,

in the day's hourglass,
toward the other side of the world,

and our dependable marsh reappears
-- emptied of that starched and angular grace

that spirited the ether, lessened,
but here. And our ongoingness,

what there'll be of us? Look,
love, the lost world

rising from the waters again:
our continent, where it always was,

emerging from the half-light, unforgettable,
drenched, unchanged.

Mark Doty, 1995

December 1, World AIDS day. Think about it, link it.

There is no Swedish word for the day.

- by Francis S.