My aforementioned lack of Christmas cheer has resulted in a dearth of holiday pictures. I do have this picture of Yrsa to share, though. This was taken the night of Christmas Eve, after we’d returned from the big present-and-food extravaganza with the in-laws. She’s sleeping on the foot stool under my desk, one of the… Read More Snooze

One of the very many things I love about Sweden is the national healthcare system. There are problems with the system itself, of course — particularly up here in the boonies where I live — but nothing could make me willingly go back to the system from which I came. Even with the problems, I… Read More Food for thought

I’m not feeling particularly festive this year. I’m not feeling un-festive, exactly, but I’m just kind of meh about the whole Christmas thing. The combination of all the schoolwork (plenty of which remains to be done), the hectic travel schedule a few weeks ago, and of course, the ear surgery and its ongoing aftermath have… Read More Saturday

No, it’s not the incision in the top of my ear, nor the slash through my eardrum, nor even the chiseling away of bone growth so that the surgeon could remove one of my tiny ear bones to replace it with a prosthesis. The cut that pains me most is the one-by-two-inch patch of hair… Read More The Unkindest Cut

Wow, this has been a day. I had an appointment down in Umeå (about and hour-and-a-half away) for some pre-surgery stuff before my ear operation tomorrow. I left on the bus just before seven this morning, thinking I’d be home by mid-afternoon, in plenty of time to rest up before going to Petra’s arts-and-crafts evening… Read More Rush

I have to say, I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself right now. Yesterday morning before our workshop began, I spent a couple of hours working with a classmate on our early-modern handwriting assignment, then I spent the remainder of yesterday doing workshop stuff, including a raucous night out with a bunch of fun people. I… Read More Productive

While sitting at the bus stop this morning, I was struck by how good — how skillful — I feel in my life down here in Uppsala. I get on the right buses, go to the right places, say mostly the right sorts of things in my seminars, and generally get the right kind of… Read More Thinking

We had our Thanksgiving celebration at our house on Sunday, so it keeps catching me out of the blue that “real” Thanksgiving hasn’t even happened yet. Ordinarily we have ours on the Saturday after, but this year things worked out better with our schedules the weekend before. While we were getting dinner ready and on… Read More This and that

I’m feeling a little panic-stricken at the thought of all the things I have to do in the coming weeks. I’ve been away from home for three days and won’t pull into my own driveway until close to bedtime tonight. In the next few days, I’ve got at least three moderately time-consuming assignments to complete… Read More Overwhelming

I’m in a bit of a tattoo frenzy lately, as you may have noticed. I’ve gotten four new ones in the past five months, the most recent a few days ago. I posted a very bad picture on Facebook right after I had it done, but here’s a better one: I’d been thinking about this… Read More More new ink