Tjena!

Some things I am looking forward to:

1) Seeing my family
2) Working out
3) Getting my paperwork all handled to come back
4) Finishing my dissertation
5) Movie club with my little sister and buying new clothes with her...she is a hipster doofus so she can acquaint me with what the kids are wearing these days.
6) Working out with my brother if he has a membership...I am going to make you hurt! (and me too I think)
7) Going to College Station and using the library, having coffee at one of my favorite coffee shops in the world (and I have now had coffee in a lot of countries!), and eating at some places I like...maybe even an evening round of disc golf to wind down
8) Fresh salads...not having to hunt down food in Scandinavian grocery stores...I feel like a savage stalking his quarry in the darkened regions of a mystical wood
9) Hurricanes...while the rest of the country gets whipped into a frenzy by propaganda, I mean the news, I will paddle out and get a view from the angry sea
10) Seinfeld 6x a day with my dad
11) Eating lunch with my mom and half-listening to her never-ending pleas to turn me into a white collar zombie ;)
12) Having a phone and phone card again and maybe being able to talk to friends that I miss...including long lost surf buddies and the latest installment to the Norwegian Government outpost in Hungary!!

Hej Då

Its interesting writing in this thing now that nobody reads it. I can say whatever I want! I am dreading the next couple days. I actually cannot think of a worse stretch of time under my current situation than 14 hours on airplanes, 3-4 on busses, 12 in London airports, etc... I am also pretty sad about leaving Stockholm for so long, as I have mentioned. Its really deflating. Its not just that I like this place, a lot, its the whole thing about being uprooted and dislocated again. I was getting very comfortable for the first time in about a year and its not easy to pack up and throw it all into uncertainty again.

My life actually runs strongly against my impulses. I like a lot of constancy...it has to be interesting constancy, but I don't like rapid and frequent changes. So living in four countries in just under two years has gotten pretty miserable for me...I am just looking forward to getting situated here in Sweden and taking normal visits to places. Near a month in London a couple months ago was not normal, and I hated it. Two months in Houston is not normal either...I won't hate that anywhere near as much as I hate London though.

There was a stretch in college where I was crashing on various people's couches while I waited to finish and get on to the next phase in life. This was very uncomfortable to me...and this is my precedent for the last couple years...its like 2 years of being places I don't want to be and in living situations where I feel more like an unwelcome guest than a resident. I really enjoyed Copenhagen in the last couple months, but I could not have sustained my living conditions there as they were...I would have needed an proper apartment. I didn't like London a bit and I hated my apartment. I was more comfortable on friends' couches than I was in my own bed at my own apartment.

Now Stockholm...I am very happy in Stockholm. My thoughts have gone from staying here for a few years to staying hereindefinitelyy if I can pull it off. I am even thinking of bringing a surfboard out here when I come back so that I can get into that again when I get a job. Picking up surfing somewhere different for me is the equivalent of when the average herd-people get married and start a family somewhere...it means that I am committed to the long-haul here. I also like my living situation here...probably the best I have had since college.

I don't want people in Texas to take this as me not wanting to see them...cause I do...take it as me asking you to come spend three months on the floor in my apartment here in Sweden while I carry on my day-to-day life here. You will be basically left to your own devices and you will have a month or so of paperwork to fill-out which will determine if you can go home or if you have to spend anindefinitee amount of time on the floor in my apartment. Living out of a suitcase, in different cities all the time, staying long enough to make friends to say goodbye to, etc...I am exhausted with it. Its had a real impact on me too...I think I look exhausted. I don't even bother with people anymore because there is no sense in bringing people into my rent-a-life for a few weeks before the carpet gets pulled out again.

Trevlig Resa! To me I guess...