the vacation is booked: venezuela. we both have new passports. tommy because he married me and has a new name. he has used the old one before, and noone has cared. but he made a new one this time, to be sure. me because the old one was too old. i was surprised when i got the new one. that always happens when i see photos of myself. i don't look like i think i look... but the perforated image is cool.  ¶ 9:48 PM

  "supernanny" was on the tv when we got in from the dog walk. it's worse than "the exorcist"! i'm going to have nightmares tonight after the 10 minutes i watched...  ¶ 9:38 PM

  we have (almost) decided to go to venezuela. only a week left. one minute i'm happy about it and looking forward to the trip, and the next i feel i don't want to do anything, just sleep for ages. i'm so tired it feels unnatural. but i'll probably get some energy once i get to see the sun.

i saw it for a while this weekend. it was shining for several hours yesterday. unfortunately i had a headache, and the sun made my head want to explode. but i loved it anyway. i think i'm addicted to the sun. my best friend/colleague just stopped "snusing", and he complains about being very angry and easily upset as a reaction. maybe being very tired and sad is my reaction to giving up seing the sun.

i've kept up the one fruit a day thing. except for one day when i just couldn't, so i relapsed to fruitlessness. but apart from that i've had a tangerine or a few grapes every day.  ¶ 6:52 PM

  today is my namnsdag. my colleagues/friends at work were very nice and congratulated me by mail, blue "chat"-messages through our phone system and face to face. i even got cake (it was actually intended for another colleague/friend who is leaving us... but she was sick and had to go home, so the cake turned from a farewell-cake to a names day cake). tommy forgot though... but i reminded, and we had ice cream for desert.  ¶ 8:29 PM

  i prefer my pillow to be cold and the rest of the bed to be warm. but somehow it always seems to be the other way around...  ¶ 7:16 PM

  the other day when the bob and i were out for a walk a little boy suddenly came up from behind a fortress of snow, exclaming "wow, en kolossal vovve!" (a colossal doggy). i thought that was a sweet combination of words.  ¶ 9:29 PM

  today's fruit: haven't had one yet. but i'm going to have a tangerine in a few minutes. i promise.

the dog has been calm the last few days. the girls next door are probably not in heat anymore. it's wonderful! he let me sleep as long as i wanted this weekend. but i woke up too early anyway. not his fault, though. i love the dog when he's not too much in love!

almost the entire morning today i thought it was friday. i realised my mistake when i had a client who kept repeating that he worked his last day on friday last week, and i kept trying to inform that he should have come to us his first unemployed day, so that försäkringskassan won't refuse to give him money if he gets sick. i thought there was something wrong with him, as he couldn't understand what i was saying. until i realised today *was* his first unemployed day... then i got depressed. from friday to monday in a second is not a pleasant jump!  ¶ 8:54 PM

  today's fruit: tangerine.

last weekend tommy asked me if i missed umeå. i had never thought about that before, but i have been doing some thinking this last week. and the answer is: no, i don't miss umeå. but there are things i miss from when i lived there. like being able to call someone and go for a dog walk together. or the time when we had "sunday coffee" almost every week. and going to the cinema. and being able to take the bike to work, to the city, to friends, to shop... when we first came here i used to really miss having company for the dog walks. it's a great place for dog walks. but i'm the only one in this village who walks the dog...

i guess i need to start thinking in a more "village-like" fashion... if i go on thinking that taking the car whenever i want to do anything is inconvenient i won't be able to do much...  ¶ 7:27 PM

  today's fruit: 4 or 5 very small physalis. from my very own physalis "tree" in the kitchen window. the physalis tree is a strange (but nice) person. it's been close to death for as long as i've known it (it needs a lot of water, and i don't give it any. it's possible it has other needs too, that i don't even know of...). but at the same time as it's looking miserable, with the most depressed-looking leaves i've ever seen, it grows and grows and grows, and flowers in fall and has fruit in the middle of the winter. i thought plants needed sun and water and care in order to bring fruit. but not the physalis tree. it's my kind of tree. i love it.
  ¶ 11:34 PM

  deciding where to go on vacation isn't easy. india is off the list, as well as all other countries where a visa is needed. but there are SO many countries where you don't need a visa... i'm bad at choosing between things! we talked about this at work the other day, and decided it would be great if there were always just two things to choose between. no choice at all would be boring, and too many are just confusing and difficult. but two... that would be great. you wouldn't have to spend days and nights wondering what to choose (and afterwards if you did the right choice) and you wouldn't have to feel that you didn't even have a choice.

i don't really expect too much of this trip. i just want to take it easy and see day light for a few days. today i could see some kind of light far behind the thick layer of clouds in the sky. that reminded me there actually is a sun somewhere up there... i miss it so much it hurts!  ¶ 10:00 PM

  i've decided to try the one-fruit-a-day-thing again. i've heard vitamines are good for you... yesterday i had a tangerine. i washed it down with coca cola.  ¶ 6:08 PM

  i'm very tired. yesterday i thought i had a great plan: go to bed early. unfortunately it didn't work, as i couldn't fall asleep. i'll give the plan another try today, and hope that it will work better this time. i'm so tired it hurts when i get up in the mornings... while i was trying to fall asleep yesterday i had a short moment of that understanding of how small and insignificant i really am. i so easily forget that, and begin to think that i'm the middle of the world and that my problems are big and important. but sometimes i get that understanding of how small i am, and that it really doesn't matter whether i'm happy or not. and as my happines/unhappines doesn't matter, there's really no point in being unhappy. yesterday it only lasted for less than a second, but the effects lasted maybe 15 minutes. normally i get that feeling when i watch the northern lights, or when the sky is clear and full of stars, and then it lasts much longer. but i haven't been able to see the sky at all for a long time now, because it's so cloudy.

today i went to the police station to get a new passport, as i noticed that the old one expires this month. we haven't decided where to go on our vacation yet, but my boss told me today that it's ok for me to take two weeks off. yippi! we were a bit interested in going to india, but we would need a visa for that, and according to the indian embassy getting a visa normally takes 5 days, but sometimes it takes 3 weeks, and sometimes it takes a few months... so we thought it might be safer to go somewhere where you don't need a visa.

we had visitors from härjedalen at work today. they were interested in seeing how we work, so that we can cooperate better in the future. i got to take care of one of them before lunch, letting her see what i do for a living. normally i would have been nervous, but as i'm so tired i didn't have the energy to be nervous until it was allready over. unfortunately i'm afraid i wasn't too friendly and welcoming... i answered her questions when she had any, and i didn't say anything mean to her, but i felt that i could have been nicer and more interested... i just didn't have the energy. i'm feeling quite bad about that... fortunately i wasn't the only one she met during her visit, and the others might have given a better impression.

my best friend/colleague gave me a coca cola after lunch today. that was really nice. i didn't even ask for one. people can be so sweet sometimes :)  ¶ 7:49 PM

  big day in nyland

i met the santa-clause-looking neighbour on the morning dog walk today. he doesn't talk much, but he always has something short to tell me about the village or someone living in the village. this morning it was: "the garbage truck is coming today. a big day in nyland".  ¶ 9:40 PM

  i recently realised i haven't been very happy lately. and as i don't like not being happy, i've decided something needs to be done.
first step: destroying the bracelet tommy gave me last year. this might sound like a strange thing to do in order to be less not-happy, but it was one of those bracelets with a heart, a cross and an anchor. and even though i thought it was sweet of him, and i know he probably didn't realise how much it would bother me, i've felt very uncomfortable wearing a christian symbol around my wrist for almost a year. so, saturday i cut the anchor and the cross off, and kept just the heart. it feels much better.
second step: crying and sobbing and hugging tommy all night, feeling miserable.
third step: going on a vacation to somewhere where they have sun. we haven't done this yet, but i've asked my boss for two weeks off, and we're looking at different exotic places on the net.  ¶ 9:02 PM

  friday the 13th. no accidents so far.  ¶ 8:55 PM

  there's a big green cirle around the moon tonight. apparently this means it's going to snow. i'm not sure if i really believe that, but it looks nice anyway.  ¶ 9:52 PM

  we have no water. at all. apparently the well has frozen. the santa clause looking neighbour is trying to pick a hole in the ice, and hopefully we'll have water again sometime tonight. until then we'v filled our pots and pans with the last of the water that was still left in the hose in the cellar.  ¶ 9:09 PM

  after having spent most of the weekend in bed and/or the sofa i'm now more or less on my feet again. i went stjärtlapping down the stjärtlapp-hill with the tommy and the bob while the sun was still up. i nearly got a concussion. it was great fun.
  ¶ 3:46 PM

  i didn't leave bed "for real" until 15.30 today. before that i had left it several fake times, though. to take the bob out to look for girls, among other things. i also had a quick breakfast (coca cola and chocolate), and filled my hot water bottle with hotter water now and then. i feel dizzy and weak, and everytime i get up from the sofa i feel like i'm going to faint. i guess this means i cannot go to the barn dance in sollefteå with my colleagues/friends tonight...

i just came in from another girl-hunt with the bob, and i saw a falling star. it was really beautiful, with a clear black sky filled with stars, and i could see it for a long time. i even made a wish. i will have to think about that for a while, cause what i wished for really surprised me.  ¶ 7:09 PM

  it's so cold it hurts to breath. but it's been a very beautifyl day. i watched the sun set behind the slalom slope as i was waiting for my lunch to be microwaved at work.

the bob is in love with (at least) one of the neighbour girls. my best colleague/friend thinks it's upsetting that he is not allowed to be with the girl. he asked me today if i think i'll be able to live with myself, knowing that i'm responsible for bob dying as a virgin. maybe i should put an ad in the paper: "desperate old dog looking for love"...  ¶ 10:05 PM

  nope. still don't love the new winter boots. but i love the jeans, the flowery gloves and two shirts, so i'm quite happy with the result of my shopping day anyway. and there's still a chance i'll learn to love them.  ¶ 8:09 PM