Walking through lower Observatorielunden, I saw someone has painted on the roof of one of the buildings of the daycare center at the south end of the park:

"They said 'sit down'. I stood up"

Tomorrow, we're off to the Fatherland on the other side of the Atlantic. We'll be back in August.

The Swedish phrase for the day is femtio-års jubileum. It means fiftieth anniversary, which my parents are celebrating with the whole family for the next weeks. To think, my father was 21, my mother only 20 when they got married, and they're still happily married. It's a tough act to follow, but my brothers and sister and I do our best.

- by Francis S.

As we sat, drinking wine on the veranda at the house on Birds Island, celebrating the birthday of A., the TV producer, the physical therapist told a brief story of a man she knows who has an aphasia in which he is able to speak but unable to really make sense, he can only refer to things in terms of his old work life.

She asked him how his wife was, pointing to the ring on her own finger, trying to give him as much help as possible.

"Oh, my subscription?" he answered.

We laughed, of course. But I'm charmed by the idea of my own husband as a subscription that arrives every evening, eagerly awaited and alternately perused lovingly or consumed voraciously.

My husband the lifetime subscription.

The Swedish verb for the day is att prenumerera, which of course means to subscribe.

- by Francis S.

Aaron asks: "When did you first know?"

I think I probably knew already when I was five, and I couldn't stop myself from looking at an art book of my parents. A photograph of Michelangelo's David made me deliciously out-of-sorts, I wanted to be him and to have him at the same time. No one can tell me that small children aren't sexual beings somehow, which is not to say that adults having sex with children is a good thing.

But it wasn't until I was 14 that I admitted to myself that there was a real future in liking boys. It was all due to reading the book RubyFruit Jungle, which my sister had brought home from the University of Michigan. That book made me see that being gay was, in fact, wonderful and exciting. Not that I went out and announced it to the world. Or to anybody, really. I just said to myself, "This is for me." And despite a bit of dabbling in girls here and there, so to speak, until I was 22 or 23, I've never really looked back.

The Swedish verb for the day is att känna. It means to sense.

- by Francis S.

Tysta gatan - Quiet Street - is no longer my favorite street name in Stockholm; I've switched my affections to Tre liljor - Three Lilies - which is a little square tucked away up at the end of Norrtullsgatan, close to the old northern entrance to the city (both links in Swedish only, sorry). The name comes from an old hostel that used to stand there. The place, a U-shaped street curving round a small park, is called simply Three Lilies, without the appendage of "street" or "alley" or even "square" or "park."

I would love to be able to tell people when they ask, that I live on Three Lilies.

The husband used to take piano lessons in an apartment on Three Lilies from a man who would rap him on the knuckles with a ruler when he made a mistake. Not surprisingly, the husband never got very far with learning the piano.

(That's four Swedish words in one lesson. A bargain at half the price.)

- by Francis S.

When I first read a story in the New York Times claiming that the U.K. is a hotbed of Islamic terrorism, I thought to myself: Is this schadenfreude or fear or hubris talking? I was rather taken aback by the tone of blame, as if Britain got what it deserved for not curtailing civil rights enough, for not having its own "Patriot Act." Can you imagine how the U.S. would have reacted if British newspapers had written anything similar about the U.S. after Sept. 11?

If I were British, I would be profoundly offended.

(The Guardian certainly has taken note of the story from the New York Times, along with many similar stories in many of the biggest U.S. papers. Perhaps not so strangely, reading the Guardian's news blog post about these stories, the vast majority of the 80 plus comments there when I read it seem to be from Americans who seem hellbent on alienating the citizens of the only significant ally the U.S. has in its occupation of Iraq.)

The Swedish word for the day is offentligt. It means publicly.

- by Francis S.

It's Jehovah with his rank upon rank of heavenly aspirants bent on ramming God's will into the various orifices of the Devil's minions - that would be gays and members of the American Civil Liberties Union - so that said orifices can't be used for anything naughty.

Francis Strand, ranting on and on about gay marriage

For those of you who don't get enough of my bitching here, I've now got a story over in this month's issue of Sigla Magazine.

The Swedish word for the day is hundkäx. Which literally means dog biscuit, but is the Swedish name for wild chervil, and looks to me rather similar to Queen Anne's Lace, although a botanist or my mother and sister, who really know their wildflowers, would no doubt disagree.

- by Francis S.

Okay. I'm doing this only because I promised Sinéad. But, it's the last meme I do. I am unavailable for memework in the future. I'm taking the meme-baton and throwing it into the Baltic.

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book do you want to be?
A Confederacy of Dunces - only because it would be great fun to do all the voices.
Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Not really. The first time I read it, when I was 10, I wanted to be the children - either Scout or Jem - in To Kill a Mockingbird - that's the closest I've probably gotten to having a crush on a character.
The last book you bought is?
Robertson Davies: The Deptford Trilogy
What are you currently reading?
Robertson Davies: The Deptford Trilogy. Re-reading it, actually. I read it probably 20 years ago, and saw it in the bookstore and thought I'd see if it still holds up. Which it almost does. I'm surprised he's not more widely read still.
Five books you would take to a deserted island
The Tale of Genji - it's so long, and full of color and adventure and eros and elegance and culture, it evokes a world like nothing else.
The Bible - yeah, okay, so a lot of people choose this one, and not because they're religious but because it's got so many great stories and poetry and wise and crazy things in it.
Ulysses - maybe I will finally finish reading it.
Portrait of a Lady - it's engrossing and bears a lot of re-reading without becoming boring; and Henry James is divine, in a fussy kind of way.
William Trevor: The Collected Stories - to have something full of the milk of human kindness (and evil), and a little less daunting to read.

And, I pass this on to no one.

The Swedish word for the day is varelse. It means being, as in a living creature.

- by Francis S.

Oh, no. Up goes the ratchet.

A.'s little sister and her boyfriend, the ex-football player are here in Sweden just now rather than the U.K. And, we've talked to the friends from London, the photographer and his wife, who are safe. However, we haven't heard back from M., the TV producer.

The Swedish word for the day is attentat. It means attack.

- by Francis S.

Walking along the Djurgården canal, just below the tiny palace of Rosendal, I heard the metalic buzzing of a propeller plane. Looking up, I saw that it was trailing a banner reading: "Grattis H.H Dalai Lama på 70-årsdagen." Which means "Congratulations to His Holiness the Dalai Lama on his 70th birthday."

There you have it, the Swedish phrase for the day.

What I want to know is, who paid for the sign, and was the Dalai Lama there to see it, or was it someone trying to recreate a sort of if- a- tree- falls- in- the- wood- with- no- one- to- hear- it- does- it- still- make- a- sound kind of thing?

- by Francis S.

This morning, on Karlavägen, that glorious street of ancient ladies, I passed a woman wearing little white crocheted gloves. I am old enough to remember the days when my mother still occasionally wore little white gloves, crocheted or plain, and a hat, and underneath, that most peculiar of garments, a girdle. By the time I was 8 or so, such things had gone out of fashion, and I have no doubt my mother gladly put the gloves and the hats and the girdles away in unused drawers and boxes in the back of the closet.

I think any woman who says she isn't a feminist has forgotten that there was a time when you weren't properly dressed if underneath your dress, you weren't wearing a girdle with all its strange and horrible white fastenings.

The Swedish word for the day is trosor. It means panties.

by Francis S.

I don't really remember what it was like when I first got eyeglasses, in the second grade. But it surely must have been like today, when I picked up my new glasses, with a new stronger prescription: Suddenly, the world is so in focus it's making me queasy. I'm born again, and the new me is seasick. (Strangely, my contact lenses, of which I have run out, have not changed in strength, according to Petra the Optician.)

"They're art director glasses," the husband said to me, approval in his voice. Which means that they are thick black plastic and very beatnik. I leave all my fashion decisions up to the husband, since when I moved to Stockholm I lost the ability to distinguish between what is fashionable, what is hopelessly 1993 and what is ridiculous on a man of, um, 44.

Now, can I make it through the walk home without either stumbling or spitting up?

The Swedish word for the day is glasögon. It means eyeglasses.

- by Francis S.

"We were not the first, but I am sure we will not be the last. After us will come many other countries, driven, ladies and gentlemen, by two unstoppable forces: freedom and equality."

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero

First Canada joined the illustrious company of the Netherlands and Belgium. Now Spain, of all places.

I think you can safely say that the Catholic Church is reaping the rewards of its collusion with Franco. It just goes to show you that sometimes the church can be a force for good. Unintentionally, of course.

Go, Spain! Go, the gays!

Wait, that's me...

The Swedish words for the day are Kanada and Spanien. They are, of course, what Swedes call Canada and Spain.

- by Francis S.

I wondered how long it would take to come to this: "Military looks to end ban on gay soldiers amid recruiting slump."

When you suddenly can't get anyone else to join up and go get killed in Iraq, it's time to let in The Gays, and let them tell whatever and whoever they want because really they're okay after all.

If you're talking cannon fodder, that is. (I suppose machine gun slash bomb fodder would be more accurate.)

The Swedish word for the day is soldat. It means soldier.

- by Francis S.

Operation Yellow Elephant.

Do your part. Get a College Republican to enlist.

Brought to you by Jesus' own general, JC Christian.

- by Francis S.

Tomorrow, the Swedish year reaches it highest point: Midsummer Eve. The entire nation sits down, mostly in rainy weather somewhere out in the countryside at a country house painted rusty red, chowing down on pickled herring, new potatoes, hard bread and cheese. And schnapps, lots of schnapps, followed by dancing around a kind of Maypole covered in birch leaves and sporting wreaths of flowers. You are supposed to get drunk, and then waltz to accordian music out on a jetty sometime after midnight, the sun waiting just below the horizon and smudging the edge of the sky a rusty orange. You stagger to bed at 2:30 or so, just as the sun is rising.

We're going out to the archipelago, as usual. I hope that through some miracle it doesn't rain. But I suppose it doesn't matter, we'll have fun whether the sun shines or not.

The Swedish phrase for the day is trevlig midsommar. It means happy midsummer.

- by Francis S.

...

Frank's muscular body blocks the sun from my eyes, and I see Nancy standing about ten feet away, examining a rhododendron with the Gorham Buttercup magnifying glass her mother bought her for her birthday. She won't even need to register when she gets married.

Nancy looks up from her sleuthing, glances at me with pity. And more: anger, jealousy, lust. But what she says when she opens her mouth is, "The Countess de Lave has been here. Those are her tracks. See? Only Bugattis have that kind of axle variation on a right turn."

Bullshit, like most of what Nancy says.

Frank is still leaning over me, but his hand is limp. He whispers, "I know, Joe. I know." I breathe him in one more time and he closes the trunk again.

...

You know who got me into this whole weblog thing? It was the extraordinary Jonno D'Addadario, who mostly edits Fleshbot these days, writing rarely in his blog anymore. Anyway, I read Jonno's blog and I was filled with the same peculiar jealous longing I had when I was five years old and looking at a photograph of Michelangelo's statue of David in one of my parents' art books: I wanted to be him and have him. Well, not exactly, more like I wanted to write like Jonno, and I wanted to actually know him as well.

Anyway, the above parody of a Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew novel was written by Jonno's boyfriend, Richard, proprieter of Sturtle. I read it and I thought: I want to write like that, I want to know him.

The question is, how do you keep your writing so fresh, so funny, so always entertaining, Richard?

The Swedish word for the day is avund. It means envy.

- by Francis S.

"There are those extremists who say that if a gay person were on fire you would burn in hell if you spit on them to put out the fire. But we're not like that. We love the human being. It's the lifestyle we disagree with." Rick Bowers, Defend Maryland Marriage, in the New York Times.

Well, of course God thinks spitting on gay people is a good thing! Rick Bowers and the people of Defend Maryland Marriage do it every day. Metaphorically, at least, since they probably don't get as much opportunity as they'd like to do it literally.

Nothing about this article in the New York Times magazine is in the least bit surprising. Including the citations of Sweden as a hotbed of out-of-wedlock births (will a researcher please look at the number of Swedish children living with both parents, whether married or unmarried, and compare it to the same percentage in the States, pretty please?) and a country where, because of its partnership laws, apparently, marriage has been destroyed.

What I want to know is how many people out there think being gay is bad. Do the majority of Marylanders think it's a good thing that the governor of Maryland vetoed a bill that would have given gay people the right to make medical decisions for their partners? (The reason for the veto, according to the New York Times, was that the bill created a new term - "life partner" - that "could lead to the erosion of the sanctity of traditional marriage.")

I've got to hand it to all these "Christians." They do understand that at heart, this is all about accepting homosexuality as something that may not be the norm, but is a normal part of the range of human behavior, something that their sons and daughters might learn is not shameful and the route to damnation but a part of life, and a good part at that. Sadly, some of these "Christians" are willing to do their own children great harm for the cause, as this poor kid has found out.

The Swedish word for the day is vansinnig. It means crazy.

- by Francis S.

"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

I don't know exactly why, but I think that might be my favorite line from a story. Flannery O'Connor, full of grace but so very unsparing, must surely guard the gate to heaven. For those who believe in heaven, that is. Me, I'm not so keen on the whole heaven and hell thing.

Now, go amuse yourselves with something odd, literary and vaguely fun.

The Swedish word for the day is tänder. It means teeth.

- by Francis S.

Last night, moments after I had just drifted off to sleep, the husband woke me up.

"She took it off," he said.

By "she" he meant the little cat, by "it" he meant the Elizabethan collar she had been fitted with to compensate for her newly removed female parts. Well, not really to compensate, more to prevent her from gnawing the stitches away so that she'd need to have a second operation to fix the first.

For good and, mostly, for bad, the husband can hear a pin drop out on Odenplan, the big open plaza outside our window. Somehow, in his sleep he'd heard that the little cat was doing something she wasn't supposed to.

I grunted.

Unfortunately, her owners and our current lodgers, A., the TV producer and C., the fashion photogapher, were sleeping way out in the far suburbs somewhere, so we felt an obligation to try and get the collar back on her by ourselves.

Thirty minutes, three puncture wounds and four scratches, one dollop of catfood and a bloody towel later, the score was little cat: two; Francis and the husband: zero.

Looking at my sore hand, I wondered about that ancient Internet axiom - "every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten" - and thought to myself that there are simply not enough people fulfilling their onanistic obligations.

At 2 a.m., we called A., who told us she would be right over.

So, the husband and I sat in our bathrobes in the dining room, with the chairs pulled out this way and that, an empty cat dish, and two sleeping cats.

"There's something wrong with that cat," the husband said.

When A. arrived a half hour later, with C. at her heels, she picked up the little cat, sat on a chair, and slipped the collar on without even the smallest bit of protest, not even the tiniest softest miaow.

"Beyotch," the husband said. "You should call her beyotch."

The Swedish word for the day is kattunge. It means kitten.

- by Francis S.

A favorite scene from last week's graduation party for the daughter of C., the fashion photographer: Two 17-year-old boys sit next to each other, one of them grabs a camera. "Oh, oh, take a picture of us!" he begs the mother of the other boy. They throw their arms around each other's shoulders. "Oh, oh, with a kiss!" the boy says to his best friend's mother taking the photograph. He kisses his best friend on the cheek. "No, on the lips, on the lips!" the mother says. They kiss rapturously on the lips, even though neither of them has the least sexual interest in each other, or any other boys for that matter. At least as far as I can tell.

This is what happens when your mother's best friends are a pair of dykes, and your father's best friends are a couple of great big homos.

This is what gives the Christian right the heebie-jeebies.

This is what I call progress.

The Swedish word for the day is studenten. It's the word the Swedes use to refer to graduation from gymnasium, and all its attendant festivities.

- by Francis S.