Yesterday's been a little different than most Mondays.
Following a rare and much-needed discussion on professionalism (or rather, the lack of it) at work, I went to lunch and visited Oskar at Drop Coffee. Kajsa and Alexander unexpectedly turned up which was really nice too. It felt like a reunion of sorts. Apparently Alex has a bit of studio time left until Sailor & I have finished their EP properly. I can't wait for the end result; from what I've heard, the arrangements will be quite bombastic and sublime. Oskar grabbed my camera and snapped a stranger and as you can see, I took a picture of the foodie department at his café. I hate myself sounding like spam, but their foods are about as fresh as their coffee and deeming how passionate they are about that, go figure.
After lunch I dealt with the umbarrage that is answering the emergency phone. Most of the people who call it have quite straight-forward questions and are understandably vexed to some extent, but the types of issues that emerge following vacations are always the same: can I get a new password? I forgot the old one. When a universal password-changing system is thought out (and implemented), I will be a happy boy and rejoice for all types of support people around the globe.
After I left work I passed a person in Fatbursparken, who was playing 78 rpm records on the type of gramophone that you have to manually wind to play. She did it for money and the music - as you can hear below - was outstanding. Not that I'm a jazz-type of person, but at the time it was nice to kind of escape modern music and leave Earth for a few seconds.
Which kind of is how it - at times - feels like, talking to X on the phone during lunch. I often harass her then, and even though a day can be hectic and insane, talking to her is an anchor of sorts to me. I'm not saying talking with X is linear, it's definitely not, but rather bubbly, easy-going and great conversation. It's an out-pouring with my Love and best friend.
I've been reading Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex" for the past few weeks and I've finally moved past more than half of it. Don't get me wrong, it's so far great writing, both as in epic and through the narrative. Both X and Dagny have told me to read this book, and now I finally have. In Swedish. It feels weird. I've been reading books in English forever. Last night X looked for a new book to read, preferably in Swedish, and I realised I have very few written in my mother tongue. Anglophile, I am.
Usually, it takes me ages to read a book in English, unless it's a graphic novel. When in Swedish, I fairly much swoop through the tomes. Not that this is entirely strange, but it just feels like it takes ages. I tend to suck the juice off the words more when in English, I suppose. Not when writing the lingo, obviously. I long to start reading Lauren Conrad's "L.A. Candy"; I got it for X a short while back, and apparently it's about a girl who moves to a big city and...well, looks like if you've seen "The Hills", you quite know the synopsis.
But before that, I've got a seemingly good book on human memory and how to improve it waiting for me to be read. I'm the type of person who forgets if he doesn't jot it down. I intend to change that. I'm trying to think of memory as a sort of muscle that can be trained to expand rather than go with the same old "I've a bad mem-ree, guv, naffin' ta do aboot it" Aboot. I'm such an English-person wannabe and I miss "South Park". Well, London is approaching, I must say. I can't wait to plow the town with X in hand, striding together into Hyde Park, Notting Hill, Oxford Street...
When I came home X and I took a walk around Bagarmossen. X's been ill for more than a week now and walks around our home town would be impossible if she weren't on the brink of a full recovery. Yeay! I brought our new camera, a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3, which is some of the best wad of money spent of late. I look at it as a sort of gift from my beloved, late maternal grandmother; mom and dad gave me some money a week ago, from grandma's inheritance. It was so sweet of them. Part of it went to the camera, part will hopefully go to buying a couch later on. And do we need one. So, we're going around taking pictures with the camera. X's even blogged about it. I miss grandma, and it feels like the pictures taken through the new lens are like a stroke on the cheek from her. I cannot explain it further. Bog, I miss her so. A couple of days ago I cried when remembering her, and X told me not to, and remembered me that on her last day alive, grandma had told dad that she felt "like a princess". Fuck, I'm starting to cry right now.