hey this is my current thingz

the stuff i am creating

my tumblr~

<3 look="look" p="p" plz="plz">

p.s.

this song basically sums up how i feel about my stay i sweden:

one of my favorite songs by a swedish artist & my future husband who i saw in concert a week after my arrival

12 days

nöjd

really!!!

sweden's crown princess is getting married on saturday to some totally normal blue collar guy, they can be seen above. this wedding is a super big deal so i guess i'm lucky to be here for it?

fitting everything in stockholm i can this weekend, summer house in the archipelago for midsommar with my family all next week and then i'm back in stockholm for my last day in sweden (for the time being that is)...

i'm satisfied as fuck - with my life as a whole. it feels good, in a big way.

anyways, as you can see, there is no more time for blogging and this is my last post so - which looks silly in english but means "the end" in swedish, i will say:

slut

housutssani on juhlat ja sinut on kutsuttu (ståndis)

Malmö is paradise:

open, relaxed, conscious and alive from the roots up

(plus Copenhagen and the rest of Europe is just across a bridge)

laying in the sun for hours turned me viking

American Malik, paradox personified,

let us sleep on his couches even when he wasn't home

skjål to Björn and friends

Lund is a Scandinavian jungle town with surreal ravine

we slept at Ebba's - from Lund born and raised,

her boyfriend is Canadian and father is astrologer

domkyrkan was an escape from pouring morning rain

astrological calendar from 300 years back plus

the basement's air thick with spirit -

medicine for the sick soul,

century old wood surrounding me soaked into my pores,

complete

Copenhagen is just like Sweden with more

party, more bicycles and more expensive

the buildings weren't as tall and thin:

esthetic and standing strong

Christiana stirs emotions but intentions are always good

Sarah bjöd:

alcohol, insight, black tea, fruit, artwork and roof over our heads

at Flisen, much Mos Def, Patti Smith and Gangstarr played loud during our hour-long sit

Skåne is rapeseed yellow fields

Simrishamn and Kivik were postcards: udda & vackra

Nina drove us to the coast for a climb

and then to a fine sand beach,

feet in the Sea, I was connected to past and future,

lost in the present.

searching for stones (pure reincarnation)

like childhood,

everything is like stones:

comprised of many small parts and uncontrollably subject to change

Karlskrona marked the end of

The Adventures of Ana and Henna so,

we ate Thai food and too much candy

waited ten hours for a train and wandered in conversation

then said "see you soon, Daniel"

back in Stockholm, I have less than twenty days left in Sweden and graduation tomorrow

i have no more school left here in sweden, its really eerie. i only had one class this week and otherwise i've been trying to fill my time doing all the stuff i have left to do in stockholm before i leave!

tomorrow at 5:20 in the morning, henna and i hop on the train southbound so we can soak up the sun and wander for 6 days in skåne/copenhagen, mums

robyn is on like every magazine cover round here lately...

my host brother plays this song a lot, a cover of a song by the (also swedish) band teddybears - nice on the ears

my host mom is blasting lou reed and its great

last night i went to the swedish brand Weekday's party in their boutique on götgatan - free cider and beer and watching hipsters who spend too much time looking in the mirror, sitting around looking cool. haha haterrrr, it was fun though

thursday i was at Spy Bar, the club that everyone in sweden knows about. where you can buy a bottle of cristal for 500 dollars and you're not allowed to take pictures

i'm watching eurovision tonight like a true european!

IN EXACTLY ONE MONTH I WILL BE ON THE AIRPLANE HOME

choice quality since 1947

biked 22km, train: 24kr

ate summer food and bootleg kladdkaka for Ljulju's 18th bday

danced to Music is the Weapon live

myggor, Bob Dylan, rök, lekstugan

train: 45kr, biked 22km in rain

last night when i was drunk, i texted myself "just to be honest and not in denial, i am totally in denial." haha sanningen, i allmänna.

the sun was rising as i biked home at 3:30am this morning, so crazy lovely

i moved back into my home in the middle of the city - kungsholmen, yesterday! i hadn't seen my host parents for 10 days and i had missed them so much. i can't believe that in 5 1/2 weeks, i won't be living in this apartment anymore. it just feels so perfect here. but at least i now know that i can definitely live in the middle of a big city for an extended period of time, seeing as the next 4 years will consist of just that.

it was my host mom's first time in the USA so it was funny to hear what she thought about it.

when i was dragging my body weight in bags from Centralen to my apartment around noon yesterday with the sun shining, i had a flashback from when Lotta, my host mom met me there in the middle of august and we walked that exact route for the first time: her showing me where my new home was, and now it is my home and it's so automatic. the weather was almost identical, even. it seems like i was such a completely different person then

today i was at a free music festival all afternoon. i love swedish speaking musical artists. english speaking ones can be ok, but the swedish ones are much more charming. such as håkan hellström:

i actually hadn't listened to him before yesterday because his name sounds dorky. i shouldn't have judged him by something so insignificant because his music is so honest and easy to listen to.

i've started biking everywhere again, i don't think anyone can understand how much happiness it actually adds to my life.

ooooja

today when i got to school, i had no classes. so i decided to take the bus to Ikea to buy stuff for the thank you/good-bye present i'm going to make for my (real) host family. i hadn't been to Ikea yet in Sweden and there is a free bus that will take you from the center of the city to the store which is in the suburbs.

that shit is a huge round trippy maze with stairs and escalators and elevators, herregud. somehow i got my way through (with help from a kind employee) and when i got off the bus when i got to södermalm, i realized that my wallet had disappeared from my bag.

after getting really mad at myself and trying to solve the problem for about a hour, i got a call from a peruvian man who had found it! a few stolen subway rides later, i met him at his place of work - a shopping center near where i usually live in kungsholmen. he kissed my neck twice and told me he loved america and his cousin lives in new jersey.
everytime i carelessly lose shit, some really nice person goes out of their way to get it back to me (usually partially because nobody wants my unvaluable stuff)... i feel like it's the universe's way of reminding me that humans aren't really so bad



today is my (real) brother's 22nd birthday.

jag är glad, typ

it smells like life outside and everything is green. äntligen!

the sun has been rising at like 4 in the morning as of late.



looking back, sweden saved my life and i'm not just being melodramatic.

thanks, sweden

less than 50 days left

while i was at re-entry orientation over the weekend (which was ganska cute i might add), my real host parents left this beautiful country in order to visit their 25 year old son who has been studying at Berkely in San Fran for the school year.

this leaves me to stay with my area representitive in the notoriously wealthy/snobby suburb island of Lidingö for 10 days.

even though i find living as extravagantly as this (TVs that are so high definition that i thought something was wrong, heated floors, personal bathrooms, dead zebra as a carpet, bottled water, nice cars, huge perfect lawn, ETC.) to be wasteful and unethical, i 'm trying to stay positive while i'm here and obviously experiencing new things is always worth while. plus hopefully it will scare me into never becoming like this, at least just for my concious' sake.

they're really nice though! so i'm not exactly suffering here, plus it's honestly good for me to live outside of the city for a while, especially since i still go into the city everyday. my psyche can relax a little.

tomorrow night is my class' skiva (dinner and dance party in honor of graduation)! the theme is show/performance and i am overjoyed that i finally have the opportunity to dress up like FrankNFurter from the Rocky Horror Picture Show which has been my dream for roughly 5 years now...

the sun is shining and i feel marvelous.

my host dad's father Kalle died about a month ago, just after he turned 91 years old. his funeral was today. my host dad had chosen two amazing Duke Ellington songs (Kalle's fave) as prelude and postlude:

the singer Alice Babs is Swedish too, so how bout that

tomorrow i'm off to the YFU Re-Entry Orientation all weekend, with all the other exchange students that are here in Sweden. it's supposed to prepare us to return home which is a crazy thought - going home.

blah blah blah

happy may day internet.

yesterday evening was valborgmässoafton which is a holiday to welcome the month of may (aka spring - it's finally gotten kinda warm!). its also the day where there is a ceremony at every high school and college when the people graduating that year officially get to put on their studentmössor (student hats). it was magical

me and fellow 19yr old midwestern woman, kathryn went up to uppsala for the night where the first university in sweden was founded, over 500 years ago.

it's the place to be on vallborg, a night where everyone has bonfires and drinks a lot. tons of other young Stockholmites (?) also embarked on this journey. the usually quiet streets of the small town were filled with people all through the night.

we had deep conversation, drank a bottle of red wine each, wandered the streets talking to strangers (and friends) and then headed to ljuba's house for a midnight chat and knock outttt.

today is labor day in Sweden so some of the different political parties have marches and rallies, especially the more socialist ones including Vänsterpartiet which is the political party i am most fond of.

i got back to Stockholm in time to make it to the Vänsterpartiet gathering where i watched some politicians speak and bought this shirt:

at the end, some famous English-speaking Swedish rappers performed some songs, including this one:

i don't really know what this song is supposed to mean but as a side note, i'm definitely not communist

every year the the 2nd graders (17-18yr olds) in the music program at my school have a pop music song writing/performing competition called Melodifestivalen after a tv program of a of the same type. there was a full orchestra with them and everything. mad talent. Swedish celebrities (none of which i recognized, haha) were judges. this was the 1st place winner:

this one only came in third place but they got some hot back-up dancers:

i was referee for a basketball game at my school on tuesday just cause i'm american, that was interesting

isn't it funny how even today with all this technology that humans still don't have any control over volcanoes and their ash?

i am officially leaving Sweden on June 29th at 6:50am

photoshooooot

these are the three dresses inspired by plants (red sage, poppy, birch tree) i made by hand for my final project here. me and kathryn did a photoshoot around the city this morning with the marvelous Henna Lehtonen as photographer.

this is the third dress but maija couldn't make it to the photoshoot.

varsågod.

GUNS N ROSES!!!!

deciding to just walk all the way home tipsy at 3am on a weekday, alone, not even cold and there at least five different kinds of birds that are already awake and singing a chorus together.

=perfection

why do i keep hearing Guns N Roses in random public places lately? hahaha whatever it means, i'm not complaining

so beautiful outside even though its only 50°F (again, no complaints). i'm gonna go out there now.

glad påsk

in honor of easter, here is a clip from Jesus Christ Superstar which i saw for the first time on tv here yesterday. kanon:

no school for a week, yeahhh

cycles

it's crazy how the usa's healthcare plan is currently getting more public while sweden's is becoming more privatized. there isn't just one government owned pharmacy here anymore and i've even just seen that change happen since i've gotten here...

saturday night i went to an outdoor show for earth hour in the middle of the downtown area. even the lights of some of the most important buildings were turned off for a hour. to generate the energy to put on the concert, there were 8 bicycling men: wet dream. at the end, they threw their hats into the audience and i just happened to catch one:

i acquired so many possessions that have had a previous owner, this weekend. it's better that way.

this morning on my way home at 2am, i stepped onto a packed tunnelbana (subway) with a dance party happening to "Spice Up Your Life" which was somehow blasting from somewhere. it was an unbelievable 2 minutes of my life. and thus have all my childhood fantasies been fulfilled.

my host brother, jonas turns 17 today! i made him a bow tie cause he's into those.

every year there is a competition between the four best gymnasium (high schools) in Stockholm. i go to one of these four, Södra Latin. some folks from my school made a video for it and i got to be in it for 8 whole seconds (11:09-11:17): watch it if you so desire.

i have realized lately that i really want to live in sweden someday again for a more extended period of time. it is so much more comfortable here in comparison to life at home.

it's nice that sweden's general population is agnostic. though strangely enough, i might dare to say that swedes live more moral lives, in general, than americans do. i don't think jesus would be a capitalist...

plus living in sweden with my food intolerances is so easy. i dread going home and having my life become so much harder with something so basic.

so don't worry sweden, even when i leave, i will be back.

yesterday i have been in sweden for 7 months. the best 3 1/2 months are left

after a long studious week (working on two papers in swedish and the last of three dresses for my projektarbete) i'm spending this weekend with my two favo non-swedish european kvinnor, henna (finland) and ljuba (moldova). so currently i am in one of the many suburbs of stockholm, sollentuna at henna's lovely residence writing on a finnish computer (and should i mention my blog has a special tab in her internet favorites). last night we kicked it in her bastu (sauna) and ate ridiculous amounts of exotic fruits such as ugli, fresh figs and kumquats. plus we watched "Me and You and Everyone We Know" cause i can't front, that movie is still my joiiint.

then i'm heading up to ljuba in uppsala for the night. heaven knows what awaits me.

i'm currently playing henna the disgusting, notorious "I Love College" song because... I just found out that I got accepted to my dream school! School of the Art Institute of Chicago for fashion design. everything is falling into place.

celebrate with me by listening to a little 612 hipster hip hop, Bight Club or a little fresh 651 rap, New Era Swagg

välkommen våren

it was 5pm today and the sun hadn't even begun to set!

Stockholm, you know I love you and these last few months have been great but... I've met someone else. Her name is Göteborg.

I spent 7 and a half hours on the bus yesterday to get here, eating vegan/organic candy and reading Naked Lunch and Swedish Elle. in William Burroughs' elegant intoxicat(ed/ing) rambles, he talks a lot about all parts of the world (not to mention Interzone, where I wish to live some day) but when he mentions Scandinavia it's always silly. such as the following,

"And there was the occasion when President Ra threw the British Prime Minister to the ground and forcibly sodomized him, the spectacle being televised to the entire Arab world. Wild yipes of joy were heard in Stockholm"

...ha, verkligen!

honestly though, if I could live anywhere in Sweden it would be here. I love the street fashion: lots of colors, lots of vintage, lots of energy. Stockholm is generally rather drab and overdosed in trend. speaking of vintage , I walked within a 2 block radius today and found 4 amazingly fantastic 2nd hand stores. if you roll through Gothenburg some day, stop at Pop Boutique and Prikig Katt. i was lost for words. plus the locals here have the cutest little dialect!

I'm staying with my fellow Minnesotan, Concordia Swedish Cult member Annalise that I've known for over 10 years, it's trippy as hell maaaan - to be across the ocean seeing people you've only ever seen at home.

tomorrow I head back to the big city.

after my 2 classes today, it is sportlov (sport=sport, lov=break) which is pretty much a week off from school in order for everyone to go skiing. so obviously, me and my family are headed up to dalarna and staying in their friend's cabin. it will be my second time down hill skiing ever.

also, i'm excited cause we're renting a car so we can drive up there (my family doesn't own a car). no matter how much cars suck, they are really comforting to ride in every once in a while.

stockholm, i love you but... i think we need to take a break. it's not you, it's me.

i saw these guys from way up north on wednesday at a street fashion show:

they were at the 7th st entry in mpls a month ago, sucks if you missed it.

my fellow american exchange student friend, thomas has been here in sthlm all weekend living with me. shopping for expensive men's clothing - bäst.

friday night we went to the most infamously trashy club, viper room. at one point, they played "YMCA" and then a bunch of songs from grease right after.

last night i decided i was going to get more drunk than i have in a long time... i definitely achieved my goal.

i have been in Sweden for exactly 6 months today.

my daddy turns 50 today.

now i only have 138 days (give or take) left here.

two swedish soldiers died in afghanistan today. the united nations has swedish troops there to help out the USA and what not. that's the first swedish soldiers to die in a war in almost 200 years when they took over norway for the last time. crazy/galet.

more about america: i'm going to the hard rock cafe to watch super bowl XLIV at midnight.

i try to avoid ingratiation (inställsamhet) as much as possible and my vanity grows along with my hair.

J.D. Salinger died yesterday. in honor of his death, i suggest you read his story: A Perfect Day For Bananafish

geniala

Fish Tank is the best movie I have ever seen.

taste test?

since it's the new semester, i now have an art history class about art of the 20th century. i like it.

i always think it means something when you get a song that you haven't heard in a long time stuck in your head for no reason. but i am one to find meaning in everything.

last night on my way home from an adorable dinner party with maija and maria, i found myself singing this song:

speaking of flat tops, there is a black man that i see often on the subway with an amazing one of them. and he is always dressed very colorfully and has a scorpion captured earring in the huge hole in one of his ears. quite the sight.

okay so you know that everyone talks about how if you dream in a language, it means that you are actually really fluent in it? last night i had a dream that i was back home and accidently speaking Swedish to people.

hmm!

okay seriously, is it possible for a man to have a hotter body than Brad Pitt in the late 90s/early 00s?!

Fight Club (1999)

Snatch (2000)

just sayin. anyways, i had been staying with another family for a week while my original host parents were in Berlin, but now but now we're all back in the same apartment and it feels marvelous. i feel like i'm home.

i spent a night in Uppsala, a small town just 70km north, where Ljubaba lives. we drank lots of tea and wandered around in the snow. mysigt!

both of my host parents' birthdays are this week. Thursday i'm back to school! this break was ka-bow.

i said this at the beginning of last year too and maybe i cursed it, but i'm gonna go out on a limb and say i love 2010. that 2009 trash has been lifted off my shoulders!

last year was exciting (graduating high school, biking across the entirety of Washington state, living in Sweden, etc.) but i definitely made a lot of mistakes.
my only plan for this year is to make some new mistakes, and none of the same ones i have made before.
now that sounds reasonable.

gott nytt år

men Stockholm, vilken snygg klänning du har på dig idag!

my minnesotan ass just took a taxi for maybe the second time in my entire life.

when i was a child, i wanted to be a taxi driver when i grew up so i could have the chance to meet so many different kinds of people: super rich, super intoxicated, etc. my parents told me i would never actually want a job like that.

but now i have decided: i will drive a taxi.

God Jul, Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad, etc.

it doesn't feel like it's really Christmas when you're not at home, i am noticing.

(more like, when you are not practicing the traditions you have practiced your entire life)

Christmas Day isn't important in Sweden, it's all about Christmas Eve.

my present to you all:

gotta sneak this in somehow...

gyllene.

yes i really did just take the time to calculate this

for the five biggest TV channels here, the country of origin of the shows on today's schedule are as follows:

50% USA

49% Sweden

1% Finland

(shows from British and other Scandinavian countries are not uncommon either)

just fyi.

i have started to make the Swedish noises!! if you haven't been to Sweden you wouldn't know what i'm talking about so i'll try to explain: Swedish people often make these little noises in response to things or as a way of showing that they are being attentive when someone is telling a story or explaining something... its difficult to try to spell the way they sound so i won't even try but it's crazy that i have begun to do this and only realized after abi pointed it out to me this weekend.
(speaking of which abi is one of the best people i have ever met. she will change the world)

there is snow on the ground as well as snow in the air. plus i just ate a ton of gluten free pepparkakor so life is good.

i thought the constant darkness here in Sweden would cause me to always be tired. turns out, it just makes my body entirely confused: i actually just never want to sleep. since it's always dark-when is it the night time?! who knows?!

because of this lack of sleep, i have fallen ill. i kind of feel like i'm dying. but in a rather pleasant sort of way.

PEOPLE IN SWEDEN DON'T KNOW WHAT THE POWER RANGERS ARE!!!!

tuesday i went to the nobel prize chemistry lectures. ribosomes are fuckin craaazy.
after that, i saw regina spektor. she's so dreamy, her voice made not only my heart, but all my other bodily organs, melt entirely. it felt great. whatta you think:


yesterday i got a 1.5hr long full body massage, it was amazing.
tomorrow i leave for Jönköping where i will be all weekend, visiting some beautiful faces. should be nice to get out of the busy city for a second.

i showed some swedes, an italian and a venezuelan how to do the cha cha slide last night...

thats whats really American.

last night i was at this club, dancing with a cute guy and it was all cool til he started clapping his hands to the music and there was nothing else to do but sigh, yep i'm in Sweden...

can somebody inject some swagg into these men?? fuck that vaccination bullshit.

"Eleven Minutes" by Paolo Coelho was a book worth reading.

I took it out from the library here (in English) and some Italian? Portugese? person was using the book to learn English I think, and had all their notes and markings left in it. Or maybe they were using the book as a way to learn about how to seduce Swiss prostitutes, dunno. But it was entertaining to try and decode... ha i'm a nerd.

Helsinki was a city worth visiting, as Finland was a country worth stepping foot on.

Apparently lots of Finnish people are gluten(/lactose) intolerant. Meaning they always have fantastic and delicious options. I need to move to Finland. Also someday when I am rich, everything in my home will be from Artek.

The Baltic Sea was a body of water worth floating across, twice.

On the boat there is a big tax-free shop that sells the 3 (legal) things most unhealthy for humans: candy, alcohol and cigarettes. All in the largest quantities you can find. How fun.

Now I'm back in Stockholm and keeping up with the pace, not to mention finally awake.

Though not literally.

oh my god, i just love to look back and then look forward and then finally look to the present and see myself, not to mention people who i love(/ed) living their dreams. it's fucking beautiful.

but there are still people stuck in their old ways, immature and ignorant...

for example,

these assholes

i'm ashamed to say we graduated from the same high school... get a life you guys!

i learned today that the tax service here in Sweden can refuse to let you name your children something if they think its ridiculous. hmm...

me and Ljubaaa saw Detektivbyrån at Strand yesterday. we were in the first row, aka i was sitting on the stage.

they even played the scissors and some other intruments they created. it was amazing.

this was an exciting weekend.

Smala Sussie is a good movie.


even if it is in Swedish at the beginning and you can't understand what they're saying, just wait for it...

today i visited the National Museum with my host dad to see the Caspar David Friedrich exhibition. I'm a fan:

today is father's day in sweden. it's also my tattoo's 1st birthday.

patience is a virtue

so i was just reading an article about how Obama's been doing since he's been office and i've never been his hugest fan, but i hate to read all the criticism of the decisions he's been making.

really, nobody on earth could possibly be able to fix the horrible state the USA is in, over only 11 months. it would take magic.

ahem, have you ever been president before? didn't think so.

whoever became president after W Bush, left with the responsibilty of cleaning up a country (not to mention other countries) that he shit all over, would have to be prepared for critisism. but there's no possible way to predict what the decisions he's making are going to mean for the future (since the Oval Office doesn't have a tarot card reader), so why is everyone sitting here making their judgements about it when they may just end up looking foolish. don't be so hard on the guy!

but i guess its stimulating the economy, giving journalists something to do or whatever.

ta det lugnt, USA. det löser sig.

evidence that Obama is a pretty smart guy

i have now been alive for exactly 19 years.

so if you were wondering, i happen to be flexible enough that if i was a dude i could give myself head. hahaha, i'm serious. well at least if i had a generously sized organ. which i obviously would.

the sun starts to set before 4pm in Stockholm these days. helt galen.

i really feel like i'm at home here and i can feel the progressions. especially considering that on friday i will have been an "adult" for a full year. i'm olddddd.

one of the main discoveries i have made here is that i don't think i will ever be able to go back to a life of living in the USA and ignoring the rest of the world. at least i hope not!

my mommy back home quit her job. cause she don't give a fuckkk. i'm proud of her.

Forgetting Stockholm's overcast character,

I was searching for the moon

No matter the hemishpere I'm in,

I can often find him to accompany me home...

First I mistook a church clock for him.

Then it was a streetlight

(feeling like my back is to the door

except

i'm outdoors)

which are all hovering far above my head

Like it's the Next Generaton

Many of them, hanging on wires

Like we're all living in the branches

Of a huge Christmas tree

Visst

i had a dream last night in which i was trying really hard to be a lesbian (i fail at that everytime) and then an old friend was there and said to me, "HEY ANA! can you ever talk about anything that's good in your life!?"

hahaaa

aint shit but hoes and tricks

wanna know one of the things I find most frustrating?

when girls have to passive aggressively try to make other girls feel bad about themselves so that they can feel better about themselves.

that's the most unfeminist thing that you can do: use men in order to hurt another woman. it's just continuing the age old menality that men are what make women important.

i can't even believe it most of the time, like, are you serious? i think that shit is so lame and just has me laughing. it's so easy to see through. these girls just end up looking pathetic.

these bitches, though, i have no problems with...

(click on their photos if ya wanna)

" I love you. "

That phrase is so sacrilegious in certain contexts.

Yes, sacrilegious. Seeing as love should really be the only religion in existance.

HA HA, no silly. This is not about romance. That is a subject completely unrelated.

so i like to wonder sometimes, "hmm wouldn't it be silly if my gluten intolerance was just psychological? I would do some dumb shit like that to myself... yep its probably just psychological..."

but that's only until some goddamn little gluten proteins smuggle themselves into my body and i'm sitting there in pain like "I really really wish this were psychological."

pretty much the situation i find myself in at the moment.

you may be surprised, but i actually forget that i'm not in the USA, at least once a day when i'm here. for instance, today at school when some kids were reciting Wu-Tang and Public Enemy lyrics in the hallways. or when people randomly switch over to English during conversations with their friends. TV commercials are often in English, everyone watches American TV shows and movies (with Swedish subtitles). they even have Montel on TV here. if you are wondering, no I haven't watched it, haha. but i did watch Hannah Montana dubbed into Swedish the other day. it was pretty funny. at least people here don't know about the Jonas Brothers... that might have been the last straw. yes, at first all this really frustrated me - why did i come here to be surrounded by American bullshit when I could have saved 9000 dollars and stayed at home? Minnesota already has lots of Scandinavian people who buy into American culture.

but by now i've come to terms with it. and i very much enjoy the non-American aspects of the country. and some of the American ones aren't so bad either... i mean, not gonna front, lots of my favorite things are American.

can't stop reppin

it might be

because i'm lazy

but it's most likely

that i'm kind of

crazy

http://www.myspace.com/lucymichell

("special party time for everybody")

open your third eye

★★★★★

(American)

read it

(Swedish)

watch it

transportation should be restricted to feet and two-wheeled contraptions, says Ana's tummy. though boats can be lovely. what's even more lovely is visiting islands in the Baltic Sea while the leaves have begun to change. it started to rain as the homebound boat arrived. five stars.

good to know

according to Ayurveda, lemon juice:

• Relieves all the three Doshas
• Improves taste & Agni (digestive fire)
• Light to digest
• A natural laxative – Provides easy & downward movement of vata & feces
• Good for the heart
• Relieves thirsty conditions
• Relieves filariasis
• Relieves insanity
• Relieves eye & ear diseases
• Rich in potassium, sodium, iron, magnesium & calcium. Also rich in phosphorous, sulpher, silicon, carotene, vitamin C

Sunday

I'm sitting on these

Stairs and eating seeds

Because maybe if I eat enough

My body will begin to transform:

Become more like a bird and take flight

Not to flee but just to fly

I'm sitting in this

City and eating seeds

Because maybe if I get lucky

One will take root, transform

Into a seedling and bud inside me

Like a weed in cracked cement

ÄTA

skype

I have terrible reflexes

I'm always too late:

Espirit de l'ascalier

No, I don't speak French

Bad news Universe, the diagnosis is

That you revolve around the

United States of America

I've been studying my geneology a bit lately

It seems that I am part vampire,

Part robot, and the rest is up in the air

Maybe in a UFO

I'm craving those American carcinogens

in a number of ways

Absence affects the heart

That much is true.

*mode = fashion

Willy Wonka was right, in the end

I met an angel preaching activism

in the street where not long before

generous musicians were

broadcasting soundwaves of sagas

into every direction, grattis

(skeleton dancing on his shoulder as his arm

skipped along the strings of his upright bass;

megaphone like a comic strip word bubble)

100 kr to savor the sweetness

meeting all the right people

learning all the right things

welcomes, wine, welcomes

songs, beets, potatis, cheese, jokes, mango, ice cream, hallon

meeting/learning, all delicious

inescapable blue waters so perfect a shade

like blue raspberry flavor

or amusement park waves

or my favorite jeans at age 7

the sky setting behind the surrounding skylines

like the backdrop of a play

so dramatic, so beautiful that it must be man made.

propelling your own light source while

passing over countless bicycling profiles

painted on the pavement

this would be the definition of

"UTOPIA"

if not for the

"CLEAR CHANNEL" logos above

each passing advertisement

falling in love is accepting flaws,

they say

Of course, I don't possess ghosts anymore

Every creature is material, each

Lingers in order to keep up the score.

A recent mistake has left me leeched

And destroying my faith in the spiral

Of those said to be my opposites: Yes,

Females were not made to be recycled...

Though I wish I could transform to impress

strangers - I would be a street performer,

I could make good money with my talent!

Unfortunately paralyzing her,

She has become defiant but gallant.

Destructive cycles continued like a

Tornado leaving a path of decay

Karma? Curse? Whatever the reason may

Be, I'm struggling with the things that are the

Easy things: eating and breathing today

Are obstacles, I only wish I were free.

Dishonesty is to hustlers what

Cash money is for substance abusers

Both are roots of conflict: mouths are left shut.

WHAT IS LACKING ARE TRUE DREAM INDUCERS

Consequences irrelevant, there's more thrills

When you just distract from the dollar bills

I keep hearing

& I keep reading

That the recession's over.

Though it's a pity

That an ideological recession

Still runs too deep in this city

& that's why I'm not sorry to say,

"So long, St. Paul"