February 2012
2 posts
There are times in life when you know exactly what is it you want. I’m not talking about dreams, or life-altering decisions here. I’m talking about moments, mere hours.
It’s Friday. And what I want tonight is a long, leisurely meal in a small trattoria thick with bursts of laughter and the scent of rosemary. I’m trying to focus on the menu, trying to put my meal together course by course,...
December 2011
2 posts
Charlie Kaufman: Screenwriters Lecture →
“Say who you are, really say it in your life and in your work. Tell someone out there who is lost, someone not yet born, someone who won’t be born for 500 years. Your writing will be a record of your time. It can’t help but be that. But more importantly, if you’re honest about who you are, you’ll help that person be less lonely in their world because that person will recognize him or herself...
1 tag
This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor… Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from...
November 2011
2 posts
1 tag
1028
i have to mourn this and i have to do it now
dear heart, you knew it’s always coming
this way of living, in love with so many things costs
you everything you have
no other choice but to say goodbye
again and walk away do not look back
okay? listen, don’t look back. you knew this
was coming but it was worth it at
the time - two o’clock bell towers shouting
from the hill ...
October 2011
3 posts
1 tag
light spilled onto the floor a scattering of fern leaves the color of champagne now its time for breakfast
- opening the blinds from FOUND IN A NOTEPAD
1 tag
now i will step out soak up the light, however bleak it is, i need it. florescent rain trickles down, a vacuum hums & voices spurt through an inert box - who are you footsteps above, moving so quickly across the drooling pane, hooded heads - is that me my name being called? turn then & be sucked back in
- conference call from FOUND IN A NOTEPAD
September 2011
1 post
When I sat down to write this morning, the first...
August 2011
2 posts
Why Young Americans Don't Fight Back →
Young Americans—even more so than older Americans—appear to have acquiesced to the idea that the corporatocracy can completely screw them and that they are helpless to do anything about it ….
July 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Morning is when I awake and there is dawn in me. *
A pink glow in the bedroom window. I reach for the watch on the bedside table, and pulling it toward my half-blind eyes, know that I should’t care about the time. But the act is already in motion, I see a number. Its just a number, it can’t take into account the day of week, time of year, my situation or my plans for this day. Time is like a supreme god, sitting outside of the human...
Sehnsucht →
jennilee:
Sehnsucht is a German noun translated as “longing,” “yearning” and “craving,” or in a wider sense a type of “intensely missing.” However, Sehnsucht is diffucult to translate adequately and describes a deep emotional state. The stage director and author Georg Tabori called Sehnsucht one of those quasi-mystical terms in German for which there is no satisfactory corresponding term in...
June 2011
1 post
1 tag
“Bangladesh,” he answered. I asked where he was from after he told me that he’s been in Sweden for seven years. “I come from the poorest country in the world!” He was proud to say this, and did so several times. Suddenly I noticed how small the man was. Not underweight, but petite and thin-framed. The only reason I noticed is because, earlier today, I read an...
May 2011
6 posts
3 tags
1 tag
510 20 degrees, gold-dusted streets, the smell of bbq, japonica everywhere. I came in to find open windows, the white orchid is in full bloom, avocados are ripe, our kitchen smells of lime and chopped cilantro, you know exactly where this is going -–
517 Planned to make a veggie wrap and do an hour of yoga. Instead, I came home, made fruit compote and ate it with a bowl of ice cream. Still...
1 tag
There are two ways of looking at a thing. Either you feel that a thing must be perfect before you present it to the public, or you are willing to let it go out even knowing that it is not perfect, because you are striving for something even beyond what you have achieved, but in struggling too hard for perfection you know that you may lose the very glimmer of life, the very spirit of the thing...
1 tag
I live on the dirty side of town. Spring is so yellow you choke on it, and winter is nothing but a brittle latticework of dust. Most women sweep their porches on Saturday mornings, but by nightfall, a light jacket of dirt has already resettled. If your dress is even a little too long on Sunday morning, you have to pick it up as you pass through the porch. Otherwise, the hem is brown or gray before...
Exactly one year ago, we woke up in a friend’s spare bedroom and took some clothes out of our suitcase. I chose a gray sweater because it had a hood. The skylights were filled with dark clouds, it could rain, its always good to have a hood on rainy days. We went to Octane for a coffee and croissant, then walked across the street to our bank one last time, trying to stay calm, but our cell...
April 2011
4 posts
Top 10 Myths About Introverts →
Myth #1 – Introverts don’t like to talk. This is not true. Introverts just don’t talk unless they have something to say. They hate small talk. Get an introvert talking about something they are interested in, and they won’t shut up for days.
Myth #2 – Introverts are shy. Shyness has nothing to do with being an Introvert. Introverts are not necessarily afraid of people. What they need is a...
1 tag
Dear Sleep, I can imagine how the drastic increase of light must make it difficult for you to thrive, but I really need more of you in my life. Please stay a little longer each night, and don’t let that mercurial sun fool you so.
Dear spring, You’re pretty. Can’t wait to see what you’ll do in the trees.
Dear Will Oldham, I crave you like fresh basil every spring.
Dear...
1 tag
“The world just keeps getting bigger once you get out on your own,” Tom Waits crooned through my morning routine. And I could not agree with him more. I’ve never embraced the popular mantra about the world being small… or the one about life being short. I am in the early thick of life, and already it feels long. I have come to the top of the world, after winding my way...
1 tag
If it weren’t so beautiful outside and I weren’t so keen to get out, I would tell you where I am (two floors up, beneath a dome lamp), what I did yesterday (it was so windy), where I will go in just a few minutes (another island), but of course I would tell you much more than this. Maybe I would tell you a secret, I don’t know which one, I’ve learned quite a few since I moved here, such as...
March 2011
4 posts
1 tag
an unknown mountain dreamer:
“It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living… It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s...
February 2011
1 post
January 2011
1 post
December 2010
1 post
2 tags
the real work
It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.
(Wendell Berry)
November 2010
1 post
1 tag
side story
3 emigrants meet at twilight on a subway platform to walk to a Swedish cemetery. Today is Alla Helgons Dag, and they will participate in it together. 1 is Puerto Rican, 1 is a German who watched the wall fall from the east side of Berlin, and 1 is a Native American from southern Alabama. 1 lost his father 9 years ago, 1 lost her job 2 weeks ago, and 1 lost her family name 3 generations ago. There...
October 2010
4 posts
“We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another — slightly older, slightly...
1 tag
the world is changing so quickly. the colors, shapes, and especially the light. i’ve not yet grasped the scandinavian light. its still more magical to me than real. sometimes i find myself entranced by certain shapes. like the rectangle that affixes itself to our kitchen wall on sunny mornings, right over the small impasto painting. such an aqueous light, it looks more like a water tank...
September 2010
2 posts
3 sept
I walk to the station wearing my new coat, a nice dark gray, it fits me well and was handmade by a local designer in Stockholm, which I didn’t know until I laid it on the counter to pay for it. One hand in my pocket, the other clutches a rather sophisticated bag that holds my laptop. My hair is pulled back, a scarf wrapped loosely around my neck, brown ankle boots clad my feet. I board the...
1 tag
Fredo’s been working in Skellefteå this week. Meanwhile, I’ve been writing a lot, meeting my illustrator friend for coffees, seeing Polish films, blasting all my best folk music, not cooking a damn thing, nibbling on alfalfa sprout salads and 200 grams of Marabou chocolate, handmaking things with paper, reading fiction in bed, plucking my eyebrows, washing my hair, and generally having...
August 2010
8 posts
There were two empty seats on Delta flight 11 this morning. I wonder what happened to them, if someone was able to stretch out and sleep all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, if a couple of students riding standby snatched them up for forty euros a piece, or if they remained empty all the way from London to Atlanta.
I was supposed to be sitting in seat 43F today, but instead, I found myself...
2 tags
1 tag
Its one of those Sundays that you can work all the way through. Cold enough for a heavier coat, and I wore mine just to walk between subway stations and front doors. Quiet and cloudy too, but this is Sweden after all, its supposed to be at least a little gray, and Sundays are typically quiet. I didn’t think there’d be rain, but when I noticed that the room had darkened quite...
WatchLast Song
Seems like only yesterday we were visiting all of...
1 tag
Assistens Kirkegård
I keep meaning to tell Roy that I come to this cemetery a lot. Several days a week, in fact, because its center path allows me to avoid the heavy pedestrian traffic on Nørrebrogade. I think of Roy often, though, because of how much he loves Kirkegaard. And in here, about 3 meters from where I sit, lies Kirkegaard.
I’d planned to walk straight through today, but then I saw an empty bench...
July 2010
6 posts
1 tag
Heather Browne has such a wholehearted love for music, apparent both on her Fuel/Friends Blog and in her everyday life. She has a way of remaining true to herself and to the music around her, without chasing what’s cool (and maybe trivial) that is so refreshing. I don’t always love the same artists or albums, as our tastes are a bit different, but I’m still able to appreciate...
