I have no life, but to lead it here

Connecting!! Anybody still out there?

2015-01-02T20:15:54Z

I've been gone for ages. Time is my first enemy - lazyness my second. And since I've sort of fallen out of fandom - read: tried to grow up - I tried to move past stuff that reminded me of happier times. Or sadder. It's actually a toss-up.

Anyhooo... Anybody of my old friends still here? Or have you all moved on to other corners of the universe? Please let me know! I miss LJ. A lot. I need a place to vent and to be a fangirl again!

Grown-up fun!

2014-02-28T19:56:30Z

Every other weekend the Wee!Pixie get to go to her dads and I'm left to fend for myself. Today is such a day. The pressure to have fun is overwhelming sometimes. Like tonight. I'm gonna try though. I've put on the regular "too much" make up, the same dress I always wear out, and had two glasses of wine. In ten minutes I'm meeting up with friends I normally don't hang out with, just to avoid being that sad middle-aged woman sitting alone at home. Wish me luck!

Money in. Aaaaand, money out...

2014-02-27T22:30:02Z

Huge chunk of cash in my bank account. And then comes the bill paying silliness I indulge myself with each month.... Aaaaand now I'm back at square one again.

Well, not really. I had an insane amount of bills to pay this month, but thanks to my new pay check I'm actually sitting pretty comfortably until next the one comes in. Not like I'm floating on fluffy pillows-comfortably, but maybe a good kitchen chair-comfortably. And that's pretty good!

Wednesday. Hump me!

2014-02-26T22:16:31Z

Half way through this week, and things are picking up at work.

So far it's been kind of quiet at work. I'm making projects up as I go, along with being handed a few ones from my co workers. Now I've gotten to a point where stuff are starting to take off, and it's exciting! Today I had my first lecture at the orthopedic ward for the nurses about the different titles the doctors have, and what they mean. Which you would think they knew about, but don't. But now they do! At least on the orthopedic ward, anyway. ;)

I'm getting lots of positive feedback from my girls, and it feels great! I LOVE MY JOB! I have this over active brain that thinks up stuff all the time, and what's great here is that when I mention my hair-brained ideas, they're all like: DO IT! So I do! And it turns out great!! :D

Yay my job!

Gotta go to bed. Another great day tomorrow.

In 45 minutes my first pay check will come in! Glory days! :D

Almost

2014-02-26T05:08:21Z

I almost made it all the way on this post-a-day challenge. But yesterday I forgot! To try and save face, here's a pretty song:

Scandinavians and dating

2014-02-24T19:39:40Z

I read something today that pretty much sums up dating and relationships in Scandinavia. Or rather: the non-dating thing we do!

[Note that this text originally was written by a Norweigian!]

I have been contacted by more than one person wanting to date Scandinavian people or even marry one of us. My reply? Tough luck! Because Scandinavians don’t date. We hardly even have a word for it. The Scandinavian word for ‘date’ is really old-fashioned and one my grandmother might have used but probably didn’t because I don’t think she dated either. So the few times we have to use the word ‘date’ (usually to describe something foreigners do) we use the English word for it.

And we very rarely get married.

So how do we figure on top of these lists of “happiest people in the world,” you wonder? And how do we procreate if we don’t date and don’t marry?

Marrying a Scandinavian

Let me answer the last question first: Yes, many of us choose not to get married but that doesn’t mean that we don’t live together or have children in well-established partnerships. We may not have good words for ‘dating’ but we certainly have a great word for that spouse-without-a-wedding-ring we have back home: “samboer.” Which means “together-liver.” And yes, that word works better in Scandinavian. :-)

If you live with someone in Scandinavia, and especially if you have kids, you are as good as any married couple would be in your country. I have no idea which of my friends are married and which “only” live together. But I know from statistics that more people live together than are married – and that is counting all the old people who got married back when that was still something you did (in Norway it was illegal to live with someone without being married up until 1972 – imagine that!).

Dating a Scandinavian

I’ve always been fascinated by American date movies because it’s like watching some weird rituals in some far-away country I don’t know very much about. I’ve also lived in several non-Scandinavian countries for longer periods – USA, Greece, Germany and Italy, when I was young and single and thus in the dating segment. But dating was like a foreign language to me – as it is when I watch American movies and television shows. So I might have gotten the dating “rules” of your country (which might *not* be USA and therefore not part of those American movie rules) entirely wrong and am thus making a big thing out of nothing.

Dating rules

So to make it clear what I’m talking about: As far as I understand it, dating in so many non-Scandinavian countries may consist of a man asking a woman he doesn’t know very well to go out to dinner and/or a movie with him, his picking her up and dropping her off afterwards and his paying the bills and making the decisions, and the first date ends with a kiss at the most? Does that describe dating in your country? If so, buckle up and see how we non-date in Scandinavia.

Dating rules – the Scandinavian version

Dating, as mentioned above, is what we don’t do. None of it. I`ll make you a list of what we don’t do so you’re not confused:

We don’t flirt with strangers. There`s no chance of you “meeting” someone you don’t know and asking her out/him asking you out. That’s, of course, unless we’re drunk. We might flirt if we’re drunk. Actually we probably do flirt when we’re drunk. But it’s not a pretty sight because drunk flirting is not elegant. At all. It’s embarrassing – which most of us realize the next morning unless we’ve conveniently forgotten our flirting faux-pas in some kind of drunken black out.

We don’t ask people out, especially people we don’t know. That’s, of course, unless we’re drunk. We might (if we can still talk) say something along the lines of “doyouwanttogotoamoviewithmetomorrow?” if we’re really drunk. Usually we only say this after we’ve had sex, though. Compared to what I`ve seen in date movies we usually do it the other way around: We have sex first and then we go out. When I went to university I used to work at the local cinema. On Sundays we would always have a lot of couples who’d met at parties on Fridays and Saturdays, had what they thought was a one-night stand and then somehow had turned the sex into something more – through a visit to the movies. You’re safe at the cinema: You have two hours where you don’t have to talk but you can still hold hands and snuggle and afterwards you have a topic for a conversation that might otherwise be pretty hard to make. Did I mention that Scandinavians aren’t great conversationalists? Well, unless we’re drunk, of course.

We do not go to restaurants with strangers. I mean, the embarrassment of it all – sitting there with someone we don’t know and having to make conversation. We don’t even do that if we’re drunk. We might, though, go to a restaurant with a group of friends and “accidentally” manage to grab the seat next to that hot person we’ve been eying for the last six months.

We do not – and I stress NOT – let the guy pay for dinner. Which is probably one of the reasons why we do not go to restaurants with people we don’t know because what if HE picked up the check? How would we react? Or, for the guys, what is he expected to do with the check? We’ve all seen American movies where the guy picked up the check so the Scandinavian guy might think he should do it too but he would also know that he might offend the woman if he did. As if she was some pauper who couldn’t pay her own way. No, going out to eat with someone you don’t know smells social disaster. If you know each other a little better you’ll usually go Dutch (or Scandinavian, as it were) or treat each other depending on a multitude of factors: Who has money right now? Who paid the last time? Who is broke? Whoever has a sausage-like appendage in his pants is not a factor that determines who is to pay the restaurant bill.

If you’re a woman and you’re waiting for a Scandinavian man to take the initiative, you might be in for a long wait. I’m not saying they never do take initiative but the Scandinavian men who do, are rarely the ones you want to meet. They are fairly rare and they only take initiative for sex. Which is not a bad thing unless you’re wanting something else/more. The ones who are really interested in you as a person will hold back until kingdom come. Or until you take the first step. The dam will definitely burst if you take the first step and you might find yourself a happy “samboer” a short while after you grabbed the hand of a male Scandinavian. Because male Scandinavians over 25 are rarely afraid of relationships if only someone would take the first step.

We don’t drive to and from dates. Well, we’ve established that we don’t date at all but we also don’t use our cars if we go out. That is not an absolute truth, of course. Some of us Scandinavians live in rural areas where one has to use the car to get anywhere but most of us live close to busses and trams and metros and trains. Or we grab our bike or we simply walk. Why do we not drive when we go out? We can’t drink when we drive – there is pretty much a zero tolerance to drinking anything and driving (unless you live in Denmark – in Denmark it’s generally accepted to grab one beer, but nothing more). And since drinking is the oil in our social machinery, we don’t drive when we go out. Ever.

We do not date more than one person at a time. Yes, yes, I know we don’t date at all but if we do start to “hang out” or we see a person in a way that both have acknowledges is not as friends (i.e. we`ve started boinking and found that it was not a one-night-stand) we only go out romantically with that one person. If we do kiss and flirt with more than one person, we’re cheating (which, of course, also happens but is always considered bad behavior). We do not have to have any talks about being “exclusive”. We’re exclusive if we start exchanging bodily fluids on a regular basis and we only stop being exclusive if one of us cheats or if we call the relationship off. And when we start going out and exchanging bodily fluids, we usually refer to the other person as “kjæreste” (in Norwegian, but it’s similar in the other two Scandinavian languages) which is really quite cute and means “the one I hold the most dear”. Yes, that also works best in Scandinavian.

We’re extremely slow on the uptake but that doesn`t mean we don’t spend time with the person we’ve fallen in love with. It just means we sometimes have a hard time getting up, close and personal with that one person we really like. We Scandinavians are a tricky people – something we probably have to be because we don’t have the fine rules of dating that you do in your country. We may rely on alcohol to be able to make the first move but just as often we tend to become friends with the person we really-really like. And we can become close friends too. I know of several couples who were so comfortable talking and having fun (and falling in love) that they slept together – and I don’t mean “slept” as in sex but really slept – holding hands and all, before they had ever kissed. We’re comfortable with nudity, we’re comfortable with being physically close to our friends and we don’t really do that chivalry thing where the guy sleeps on the floor or in an uncomfortable chair just to let her have the bed alone, we’re just not that comfortable about making the first move when we’ve really fallen in love with someone. So the people who do not meet through a one-night-stand might meet in an entirely different way: Becoming very very close friends who will pine for ages until one of them finally kisses the other one. Alcohol is usually involved even then.

We may be exclusive from the get-go but we still go out with our friends. And our friends may be of the sex we’re attracted to. Which may be very strange considering what I just wrote about people falling in love with their friends. You’re still not allowed to be jealous if your loved-one spends a lot of time with his or her friend – and actually not even if he/she spends the night with the friend. You’re supposed to expect that your loved-one loves you too much to cheat on you and in most cases that is the truth too. Because friends – even friends of the gender you’re usually attracted to – are important, even after you’ve found the love of your life. And life is too short for jealousy.

Do these nine points sound scary or confusing? They aren’t to us. And if you stick it out, if you get drunk, if you stop expecting a guy to ask you out or flirt with you or pay the bills (or you stop being that guy), you might just end up with a Scandinavian person who may be impolite and somewhat introvert (unless drunk) but also a great partner in life. Statistics show that we’re pretty equal in these parts of the world, meaning that we share the workload at home and that both genders go to work every day. So as a man, living with a Scandinavian woman, you are not expected to feed the family all by yourself. And as a woman, living with a Scandinavian man, you will not be doing all the laundry or picking up the kids from kindergarten every day. And if you prefer to live with someone of your own gender, you can actually marry your loved-one in Scandinavia – no questions asked, no eyes batted. And that way you might just change the statistics that say that Scandinavians don’t marry :-)
Good luck finding that very special Scandinavian man/woman!

And if you've managed to miss that adorable online cartoon Scandinavia and the World, please rectify that at once! But I'm warning you: once you start, you can't stop... ;)

Oh Canada....

2014-02-23T18:48:21Z

...congrats to the gold. We played like geriatrics, so it was totally deserved!

Tomorrow...

2014-02-22T22:01:49Z

GOLD!! HELL YEAH!

And - congrats Finland! ♥

Going for gold!!

2014-02-21T17:40:30Z

BEST Friday ever!

2014-02-21T16:22:41Z

Today I've had the BEST Friday ever!

I work at a hospital. This is the image I'm greeted with each morning...

A bit depressing, I know. Especially since I work at the veeeery end of this corridor!

But once I get there! This is where I spend my days:

Today we had a really sweet day. At nine we had a coffee break (which is close to a holy thing in Sweden: "Fika") and I ran out and got us some semla! Semla is a springtime tradition, but the ones I got where special ones made from danish pastry. Soooooooo goood!!

High on sugar, my co worker blurted out: We should totally skip out early today and go have lunch down town somewhere where they air the hockey semifinals!!

The three of us had a second to think about it and... Yep! at 12.15 we locked up the office and ended up at a restaurant with big screen tv's and:

along with a couple of beers.

My girls:

And on top of this mega super great day: Sweden won and will play for (WIN!) the gold on Sunday!!

Is this it? Is this the moment?

2014-02-20T20:58:47Z

For years... or more like - for ever - I've been dirt poor. Not homeless poor, but too-much-month-left-when-bank-account-is-empty poor. Now I've landed this cool new job with a hefty raise and I've now worked almost all of my first month. I've tried not to, but my head have been spinning for months about all the things I'm gonna do with all this money I'm gonna get. Stupid, I know. But I can't help it! It's not like I'm gonna be a millionaire or anything like that, but I'm actually finally gonna get an "age appropriate" pay check! And the first one will be in my bank account in exactly seven days.

I might even take a real holiday trip this year. One that actually requires a passport and a plane ride! I haven't done that in almost ten years. And counting the years since I've taken a charter to the sun, it's more like fifteen or more.

So is this it? Is this the moment when my ship comes in? Can I exhale now?

Eddie Izzard - because I don't want to think. Just giggle.

2014-02-19T22:03:45Z

A prezzie for all my friends, and in a way a thank you for all your nice comments on these past two crappy days of ours.

I give you: Eddie Izzard! I dare you not to laugh! ♥

(...and yeah, it's the cake or death one. Cuz I'm nice that way!)

Putting reality on hold for a while

2014-02-18T20:01:16Z

Today Zoë got to stay home from school due to the loss of her grandmother last night. She was miserable last night, but bounced back pretty well today. I let her be and let her process in her own time, and once in a while small questions about how granny was feeling or doing right now came up. And you had to answer as best you could. We talked a bit about the book Brothers Lionheart - which is about death and "the other side" - and she felt pretty good about that.

Anyway. Tomorrow it's back to the world again.

And the hits just keep coming...

2014-02-17T18:05:53Z

My ex mother-in-law (she was my MIL for close to 25 yrs), passed away today with not much warning. She fell at home and when she got to the ER she had three cardiac arrests. She never came back from the third one. Zoë is miserable. I'm holding it together, because somebody has to.

Queer as fok - S1E03 - Brian standing up for Gus and Let's hear it for the boy!

2014-02-16T19:50:49Z

I love love love this episode!

The boys at the lesbians are just too funny. Brian is gorgeous - as usual. And Daphne is the prettiest fag-hag-in-training ever!

This is the episode where the US version definitly started to go its own way - and what a lovely road they chose! I remember booting up this episode for the first time with mixed feelings. Since the pilot episode was a play-by-play copy of the original, I didn't have too high expectations. But on the other hand: Gale Harold... Yeah, I thought: Oogling Gale would get me through at least one more episode. And then Justin went and did something Nathan never did: He went for it. All out. When Nathan went home, Justin went after Brian. And I never looked back. I was ON the train, and I was gonna ride this sucker as long as it would take me!

Today me and my mom sold stuff at a local fee market. And I bought a pretty dress for 10 USD!

I love it, and I don't care what people think of me and my age - I look damn good in this dress! Even if I'm closer to fifty than anything else... ;) I'm gonna wear it to work tomorrow!

Saturday

2014-02-15T21:37:13Z

No ep review today. I've been catching up on my reading and sleep. And going back and forth to the store too many times, so I'm not in the right head space for 103 yet. It will happen though! And soon! Because I love that episode!

Valentine's! Luv ya!

2014-02-14T19:00:11Z

Promised you guys a quiet night at home - and that's what I'm delivering! I'm in a middle of a Veronica Mars re-watch. It's good. Not obsessive!good - but good.

Speaking of obsession!

In the next 24 hrs we're continuing on our QaF Nostalia Tour Extraordinaire!

And today it's one of my all time favorite episodes: 103. It's also the episode where the US version started to veer off from the British original completely. Join us! Watch. Post.

Oh - and if you want to: the banner is totally stealable. No need to credit. Just don't hotlink!

Yes.

2014-02-13T22:20:20Z

Singledom.

2014-02-12T21:00:43Z

I've been single now for over two years. And I can't even begin to grasp the concept of dating or even meet someone. What's wrong with me?

Valentines is coming up, and I'm planning a quiet night alone. Not that we celebrate it that much over here, but days like that will eventually creep up on you and slap you over the head...

Men. How to meet them. How to get them interested. How to get interested yourself. These are things I just can't get! I have no idea even where to begin! Or even if I should! Or could. Or would...

I'm just full of un-helpful voices in my head. I'm no good. I'm not worth it. I'm not pretty enough. I'm too old.

Guess I'll stay single for a while yet.

No words are enough...

2014-02-11T19:59:23Z

Vamphile
♥

I wish with all my heart you have found the peace you deserved so well. I miss you and it saddens me that we didn't get the chance to reconnect. Sleep well.

...shutting up now

Humans in New York and too cute for words!

2014-02-10T19:48:46Z

There's this guy who came to NY with two suitcases and a camera, and started to take pictures of people trying to make himself a name as a photographer. He struggled and one day he started to post his pictures on Facebook, and it took off!

Today I found this on his FB page:

...and it almost KILLED me! Cuteness OVERLOAD!!

Not that I think you should abandon LJ, but you all should go and check his FB-page out: Humans in New York, and see this image in a larger version as well as other really beautiful portraits as well as reading the short interviews he makes with his subjects.

Still love coming into work! I feel so blessed! Today I had the fortune to be fiddling with a large project in Excel - I know, I'm a wee bit strange. I love Excel!! :D

I've been planning to go on a 24-hrs cruise on March 1'st with a group of people I met online, but today I realized I can't afford it. Which bothers the hell out of me. I got this huge raise, but my first pay check isn't until the 27:th and I have to pay the ticket by the 14:th!! And it's only like 70 USD, but I don't even have that! FUCK!! Oh, well. Maybe next time... :(

This does quilify for a mega stupid luxury problem, I know. But it bugs me.

I read my first Teen Wolf fanfic today, and I realized one of my pet peeves still annoys me: descriptive adjectives. Like "the huntress" and in the next sentence "the archress"(which is an annoying word in itself).

Migraines...

2014-02-09T23:30:56Z

...so I've slept through most of today, and actually FORGOT to post!!! Omg... Not even half way through this thing, and I already forgot...

Anyway. I've not gone to bed yet, so: this mini-post will count for Sunday!

Next ep in our marathon will be 103, and if you want to join us you can steal this for your post:

Queer as fok - S1E01 and 02

2014-02-08T19:18:21Z

So this is it. I'm heading out on a road I used to know so well, just to see how much I still remember and how much of the love I still could feel.

Years before I'd watched - and fallen in love - with the British original, so I was apprehensive for years before giving the US version a shot. But once I did...

Anyway.

First glimpse of Babylon, the pan over the bar, the boys and Brian Kinney on the prowl. I remember thinking: Oh shit. That first look at Gale, and after that I was in total denial of the shoddy acting, the word-for-word script and even the almost carbon copy loft. Well. Not really - but close enough! I forgave it ALL, just to be able to watch Brian Kinney walk, talk and fuck himself through the next 90 minutes!

And I'm thrown back into the exact same place once Brian Kinney shows up on screen this time!

The ep continues. Brian is beautiful and cocky. Gale is a horrible actor. Justin is innocent and annoying. Randy is great. The girls are terrible - and the worst scene is still between Lindsay and Brian at the hospital.

The love I had for Peter, Hal and Scott was still there, and they're still great! And Sharon and Jack. Pure love.

So yeah, I still love QaF! I can totally see how I got hooked so fast and so completely and stayed that way for years to come.

Like Justin says:
"I just saw the face of God. His name is Brian Kinney."

EDIT:
Red did her post! Go check it out. She has lots of great insights.

FRIDAY!! And I can't wait for Monday!

2014-02-07T18:16:58Z

Can I just tell you now: this new job I've got? I LOVE IT! It's not that I've done a terrible huge deal of stuff yet, since the woman I'm replacing (she's retiering) is still around for little over a month. The intrudutction to my new assignments and projects are happening very naturally and slow, and it's wonderful! "Hey, this is something you can sink your teeth into!" and "I told so-and-so to take this up with you, and you guys can work it out.". Stuff like that! No pressure, and I can for the most part be on the ground floor of almost every one of my areas. And Britt-Marie (who I'm replacing) is just as lovely and generous as a person can be. Which I already knew since I've been in contact over the years with her from my previous position.

At my previous position at the hospital I was an executive administrator at the Surgical Department. One of my tasks was to administrate and guide the med students which came to us to do their practical studies. I loved this area of my work so much and I couldn't help myslef but to expand on the original assignemt and got them, the general medical staff and surgons involved to make the best of their stay at the Surgical Department at Regional Hospital in Gävleborg. Last year the Uppsala University Medical Council gave us a plaque for a job well done and it was a huge deal with a representative coming up and flowers and stuff.

For some time they've had their eyes on me and my work from the hospitals' intern and residence department, and when Britt-Marie announced last summer that she'd be retireing this spring at 67 years old (which is 2 years after the general retirement age Sweden, and the point where you HAVE to retire according to most employers and unions - at least you can't work full time any more..), I got a call from an old friend.

I've known Pia for about twenty years. Pia and me know each other from community theatre and she was the director and I was her assistant for a good while. She's one of those people that's very easy to know and who will take care of her friends and defend them to the death in an argument - although she'd do it by being just too cool! BUT! At the same time - she'll hand out "gifts" she'll know you can handle!

Anyway. Being her private friend has more than once proved to be to my benefit. More about that another time maybe. During the years she's been climbing the "corporate ladder" - if you can call it that when you're employed by basically, the government - and now no one of our personal private theatre friends really know what she does for a living, more than she's something very "high up"! To us, she's still Pia who loves a dry martini and giggles like crazy after a couple of them.

AAAANYYYYHOOOO!! I got a call in the beginning of July.
- Hi it's Pia!
- Hey!!
- You know... I'm actually the boss of AT-centrum (the intern and residence department).
- You are?! I love that place! [now I'm starting to really wonder where this convo is going...]
- Yep. And this is not offical yet, but Britt-Marie is retiering in April...
- .....ooooookaaaaay.........
-....
-....
- And after the summer I'm gonna place an ad for her position, stupid!!
- OKAY!!!
- I think you should apply.
- OOOOKAAAY!!!! [what followed was a long rant about how I always wanted to work there]

So I applied. And since it's government work I needed to jump through all the hoops - and I actually wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I got called to two interviews, and just to be sure that there wasn't any back talk about nepotism - Pia wasn't even present at the deciding interview.

And I got it.

And after I've heared that EVERY ONE of my - now - work buddies who was a the interview (every single one of them) wanted ME. No matter what Pia thought!

This got a bit winded. So I'm gonna stop now.

Pimp!!!

Me and my BITCHES
vlredreign and firehead30 is starting a nostalgic marathon! This weekend we're watching the pilot episode of:

QUEER AS FOLK

The more the merrier!

During the next 24 hrs, I'm hoping we all get the chance to re-watch the ep and then make a post about it. How did it hold up? Any memories about the first time you watched it you wanna share? Write your heart out! And comment on posts you see fly by.

Naturally the banner is shareable, no need to credit. Just steal away! Just don't hotlink...

Happy Friday my darlings!

Leaking orifices...

2014-02-06T20:45:30Z

You know that thing that happens when a kid starts a new school or kindergarten? They get the sniffles, or a cold. That's how I feel right now. I'm the new kid in school and all the bacterias just LOVES me!

Yesterday I had my first taste of what this job is all about. We went to Uppsala (1 hr by train) to one of the largest universities in the country to promote our medical trainee program to last year med students! It was great fun! I just wish my nose wasn't clogged up and I didn't have a fever on top of it. Today I was in a meeting all day about the trainee program and the residence doctors course plans. Also fun, but in a different way. Thankfully the fever seems to be all gone by now, so now I'm starting in on the home stretch of this damn cold: runny nose, headache and non-stop SNEEZING! Trust me - I didn't make such a good first impression as I had wanted to...

My new office is taking shape. It's a bit temporary at the moment since I'm getting a new desk that's the mirror image to the one I have now. That way I can turn the whole thing around so that I wont have people walking by behind my back! I hate that.

Aaaanyhoooo... This is where I spend my days: