Everydaystranger

Last night I made Angus’ favorite meal, a red onion and goats cheese tart. We had talked a lot yesterday-he knows I am blue and wants to help me (and I’m very sorry that my blog has been so depressing lately), only I don’t seem very good at articulating what’s wrong. I have to [...]

The countryside rolling past my train windows is shrouded in gray and mist. The weeping willows seem even more tragic. The cherry blossoms are subdued. The daffodils can hardly bear to lift their heads. On the old slam door train I am on the raindrops trickle in the side of a [...]

So commences what Angus and I call the Silly Season, where it seems like every other weekend is a three-day holiday. It’s not as dramatic as it is in Sweden-they have holidays for any old reason (According to the Bible it’s the day where everyone understands everyone, despite language barriers? Damn, we should [...]

This morning I decided yet again that I wasn’t going to be a business suit conforming jacket monkey. I dressed again in sleeveless summer top, jeans, sneakers, and striped green and pink frog socks that look like gloves, so every toe has its own home. I make myself look nice and wear perfume, [...]

I get up and decide that my usual trek into London isn’t worth a skirt and a pair of heels. I decide that spending my entire day locked into conference calls is so soul-stripping that people don’t get to dictate tights and a skirt. Work can be done no matter what the attire, [...]

As I creep from 30 to 31, one thing is perfectly clear to me: I am not a Maytag.
I have no lifetime guarantee.
I’m more like one of the less robust knock-offs. My washing machine may be just as functional looking as the rest of them, I may have shiny buttons or the capacity for [...]

It happened on Friday afternoon.
Friday afternoon I hung up the phone from a conference call, my ears burning and ringing, and opened a window. The weather was so warm it was nearly unbelievable-people were running around in shorts and T-shirts, the sound and smell of grass cutting pervading every corner of the neighborhood. [...]

Two weeks from today I will be 31.
It’s true.
I will officially be closer to 40 than to 20. It’s only a matter of time now before I resort to Clairol to cover my greys (I already have the one, but so far this battle can be fought in Tweezer Land). I will live [...]

Elizabeth, who is swinging in roughly the same project management hell trough I am, recently asked a question that I have thought about for a few days now.
What is enough?
In a life of much, how do we pick out what is just the right amount to keep us afloat? What do we need to [...]

When I graduated from university with a four year degree in anthropology (with minors in English and French), I leapt straight into the working world. Not, as you’d suspect, into a sophisticated area of work commensurate with my degree (a career aligned with my degree could only entail the use of the words ‘Would [...]

On the airplane on the way back from Los Angeles to Heathrow (we spent a day in 16 hours of flights. There’s something to make you want to weep.) I sat with Angus in the plush nice seats in an exit row. The kids were on the upper deck of the plane, away [...]

We arrived late in Honolulu, on the island of Oahu, on March 2. Picking us up from the airport was my stepmother, draping a lei around my neck and bearing a bag of food from her mother. She drove us to our hotel where we would be staying for two nights, before we stayed [...]

We are suffering from some pretty major jet lag here, so here’s a (hopefully coherent) part I.
On Sunday February 27, Angus, Melissa and Jeff and I loaded up the bags and made the dash to Heathrow. It was a grey and dismal day in London with snow flurries making their way to the ground [...]

Exhausted.
Jet-lagged.
Happy we were upgraded to Premium Economy on my carrier of choice now, the beloved Virgin Airlines, the Airlines that kick British Airways’ ass.
Stressed and fraught now and with much to do, playing the duck and cover, the squeeze into the wall.
Sunburnt but thrilled I felt so much sun and sea.
Can’t feel my face.
Need a [...]