Burning my romantic history…

I don’t know how to say this. There is no good way of saying this because my romantic history is often a case of non-existent, or radically insane. If I tell you some true stories you may faint. I am always close to fainting myself when revealing my romantic (or not so romantic) past, but I’m so used to it by now that the main effect it has on me is breaking into hysterical laughter. Unless it’s 4am. Then I’m prone to signing myself into a rehabilitation center for the broken hearted. We all have our weaker moments.

I started writing this post, or rather made an attempt to write it, sitting all wrapped up in my best friend’s boyfriend’s couch after watching Valentine’s Day (I didn’t pick the movie, my best friend’s BF did…I would never pick that movie, which probably says it all). I felt sort of comfy on his massive couch, wearing his sweatpants, my best friend’s hoody and being half, or almost entirely, hidden underneath a duvet. It’s those moments of feeling utterly comfortable when you decide to burn your romantic history. Start anew. Start afresh. Fall madly in love with something other than the men that can get you in a parallel position by the force of overwhelming testosterone.

So to give you an example, potentially the worst example, of my charming past, let me tell you about erm Mr X. This dude was super intelligent, rich, insanely good looking, fit and so on. I loved talking to him. We could talk for hours on end. He told me he was “self-contained” practicing some spiritual method of refraining from sex unless he fell in love. However, the man had one issue: he was emotionally insane….which made for nice funny writing material, but dude…you did not wanna date him. After we broke up our little fling I heard this story…

He went to Atlanta with his girlfriend. At the hotel in Atlanta he bumped into a girl he usually dated when in Atlanta (naturally you have one chick in every harbor…). This girl had told him she was a virgin when they met (as you do…), but it turned out she was a high-class prostitute (I date you so long as you pay for me sort of thing), addicted to coke. In either case – he was in love with her. He just couldn’t have her and his girlfriend knew nothing about her (it’s always good to have a girlfriend and be in love with someone else. Classic). At the same hotel he bumped into another high-class prostitute (I really wonder what hotel this was?), who, to topple it off, was Swedish. This woman was madly in love with him, as presumably he had been using her services. So there he was, this self-contained spiritual man with two prostitutes and his girlfriend in a wacko triangle drama. The truth? He was a sex addict. Now, if this wasn’t enough, at the time he was also being hunted by a hit man as one of his best friends was dating the daughter of a billionaire, and the billionaire dude didn’t like his daughter dating a 20 year older married man. Apart from that and a few other disasters the man was truly highly intelligent, rich, good-looking and so on….he just came from a very troubled past, which he had tried to solve first with coke, then with therapy and continuously with lies. Neither really worked.

Now, that’s just the icing on the cake. My love life can mostly be likened to a soap opera on tele, where all the characters were really nice (deep down inside), but everything went really wrong (from: “As we said we were doing a house swap (before we had sex) and you stayed the weekend (when we did have sex, which was a disaster), can I now come stay the night and bring my mother as we need to catch a flight from your town tomorrow?” to “My boyfriend told me you were having an affair.” Really? Somewhere there is some sort of misunderstanding here and really he’s a nice guy and no, no, no, no, NO. …and this moment is just not happening to me, because this can’t be my life, because I don’t end up in situations like these, because…I just don’t. Right. “I just got out of rehab with Lindsay Lohan, pretty cool isn’t it?” The rehab bit, fine. Thinking Lindsay Lohan is cool on the other hand…. “I did not cheat on you. That’s just what everyone’s saying.” The Nile ain’t just a river in Egypt my dear…), but it’s not like I’m some bad ass chick that run around sleeping with men. I’m like Miss Saintlihood when it comes to my approach to love (not sex). So why the soap opera? Because I’m scared. Like if you ask me to think the thought of being in a relationship my most prominent feelings would be fear and panic. Somewhere around age four my love life went tits up and so I started believing men couldn’t be trusted, no one could love me and so on. I’ve been drawn to my own beliefs (that little parrot inside that screams: you suck and you don’t just suck men, you suck at men and they suck and everything sucks!!!). Most of the guys I’ve been with have actually had good hearts too, but because of their beliefs they needed to radically fuck up their love lives. Just like me. So whether they really loved me, or not, whether we truly connected, or not…things did not go down in the book of great love stories (more like the book of romantic comedies that didn’t have a happy ending thus far). We destroyed all the potential there was for happily ever after with our own behaviors, stemming from untrue beliefs about ourselves. In truth we are our hearts, in reality we have been acting out our minds, or whatever history told us was true according to our own interpretation (someone get me a translator).

Life age four was not a mirror of who you were, even if you thought so. Life was a projection of other people’s beliefs onto you. Then you started believing their beliefs and acting them out. That way the mirror stayed the same.

So if you’ve been looking at this twisted mirror image your whole life (or listened to that parrot inside screaming “You suck!”), what do you do? I decided to circumnavigate it. Instead of speaking of my past (although it would make a really good comedy) and how emotionally fucked up I’ve been due to x, y, z (believe me – I know a lot of my emotional issues and where they came from. I’ve analyzed myself to the point of ridicule. Freud would be proud.) I will speak of what I love and what I would love. So I love men. I love muscles. I love laughing with someone. I love being made to laugh in a loving way. I love holding hands. I love intimate, truthful moments. I love honesty. I love trust. I love feeling that I am loved. I would love to be in an honest relationship. I would love to be loved. I would love to love. I would love to play with someone. I would love to trust. I would love to be creative with someone. I would love to have a family with someone. I would love to be adventurous with someone. I would love to live the life of my heart with someone who lives the life of his heart. I would love for all those someone’s to be the same someone, as I would love to be married to a man I love who loves me. This way, somehow, don’t ask me how, it generates images of what you truly love. Not the three gazillion fears you have if you are asked to think about having a relationship, or worse: talk about your past relationships.

It’s like this morning – I had a nightmare about visa issues and I was in a dreadful mood, starting to contemplate all the issues with wanting to live in Africa and Cali. Then suddenly it hit me that instead I should focus on what I love. I would love to easily get visas. Cloud gone, sun shining. That’s not to say that a visa will appear out of nowhere, but on a sunny day I happily climb a mountain singing, but on a rainy day I stumble, fall, swear, get wet and angry and may just miss the top for all the fog. I prefer the sun.

Someone asked me the other day: so are you closing the door to your past then? I said no. I’m burning my past (much more dramatic and I never close the door to people from my past, I just choose to see them for the now. The past is very much gone). I’m starting anew and afresh. I’m starting with what I love. I want to see myself and people for who they are today. Yesterday is an unfair judge of both others and myself. Yesterday is unimportant, unless I want to repeat it.

I don’t know if this will work, but I do know I just want to be me from now on and being me means focusing on what I love. If I don’t want something, or I consider it a mistake, it must mean it’s not truly me. It’s something I’ve created by mistake, rather than by intention.

I’ve been extremely happy in the last few weeks, because I’ve started living a life that’s focused on…well, my heart. Instead of trying to be someone I’m not I’m allowing myself to be who I am (including facing up to my less sweeter sides). It’s making me blissfully happy. I feel true to myself. I feel free. I feel like when I meet people they actually get to meet me.

When I’m congruent with who I am and what I want, I’m free, happy and loving. I would love for that to include my love life too.

Talking anal sex…

Right now I can see my dad in front of me going: “Maria, you didn’t??!!!??!!!” Yes daddy, I did. No…I’m not talking about anal sex just now. I mean, I wouldn’t discuss that with my dad (but more about the topic later). What I’m talking about is my own blonde dizziness.

Sometimes being a dizzy blonde is cute. It’s cute when I see a gorgeous bloke and almost fall into a swimming pool, or mix up all my words when I talk to a hottie. It may even be cute when I “burn the water” (although our pots dislike me for it). It’s less cute when I make mistakes such as running out of gas and almost end up being towed away because of it. Or missing a flight, because somehow I mixed up all the check-in times and boarding times and what have you. It’s also less cute when you just discovered that the gig you thought you had next weekend, which would pay for next month, in fact is…next month. And when you just graduated from Uni and have no savings, such news are…no good. You have two weeks to figure out how to pay the rent. Good news is I have plenty of gigs next month, but that doesn’t help this month. I’m not that faced by the money, really. My friends promised to pay me up front should they not get me another gig this month. But the fact that I did what I did??? Heaven help me, seriously.

This is where my dad comes into the picture. My dad is a business man. And God knows he did his best to raise me into a prim and proper woman. I fear I failed to become one as soon as he might have wished, I did start to see his point of view somewhere along the way though.

As an actor, entrepreneur and life coach I bump into a lot of people living for a dream (they are all hoping to go to the pool parties in Cali and have threesomes…j/k…). A dream they hope will become reality. They all talk about when one day they will own a yacht. Or be billionaires, or whatever it may be. Now, I love people with dreams. One thing I do try to tell them though is that life is here and now – don’t live for tomorrow’s destination, but for today’s journey. However, nor shall you fool yourself to think that life is only about today. If you think you can’t survive paying next month’s rent…something’s gotta change if you want to become a billionaire.

If you are making zero from your art, your passion project, what have you, right now, how do you plan to make billions from it in a few years? This is where creating an action plan comes in (yes, we all know I love them). Start the easy way. Make a dollar within the next three months. Then another. And another. Market your little ass off. Yes, this is difficult as an artist sometimes. Even as an entrepreneur, or life coach. Why? Because you are marketing yourself and that takes balls. I am still uncomfortable doing it. It took me a wake-up call like today to make me move my own sweet ass. I feel I impose on people, I might not be good enough a coach, good enough an actor, good enough a business woman. Sod it. I’m gonna start making money from my projects. Now. Right this minute. I plan to cash in within three months. There is no reason why I should spend ten hours a day working on things that don’t pay off. The funny thing? If I was coaching someone else I swear I would get them to do the things I’m not doing myself. Why? Because then I wouldn’t be scared. It wouldn’t be me putting myself out there.

My dad thinks my dizziness is unbelievable. He once stated he didn’t think he would survive if he lived like I do. He still believes I’m a really cool kid though that will go and make my fame and fortune. So it’s about time I left some of my shyness behind and went out to make daddy proud of me. Making a dollar from my own projects would be a start. He once gave me a long speech about the time I invest in this blog and the return on investment (ROI). I was like “But daddy, people read it, don’t you get it? They read MY words.” He was like: “So what are they paying you for it?” He might have had a point. Although my words on here will remain free for all, I do need to weave it into a business. I am. I was just a tad scared. Scared to be seen as someone wanting to make a profit out of themselves. Well dah. That’s what every bloody person on this planet does.

Do jolt your plans down on a piece of paper folks. And get a diary. It helps… Only yesterday I realized that I have 11 months till my visa expires. Then what? Do I have a plan? Mhm. Either I stay here or I go back to London/Paris….or Africa. I’m still not sure, but I’m jolting down my options, my economic plan and start refreshing my French as of today.

And about anal sex…yesterday a friend of mine managed to wake me up and get me out of bed (…he has a way of putting fire up my….I mean, make me move) with a skype call and I don’t really know how it happened, but we ended up talking anal sex, over a cup of tea. Naturally, we were totally civilized. Nothing like a spot of tea to keep that stiff upper lip in place.

Anal sex is a topic that has gained a fair amount of attention in the media…possibly because some people think you are a no fun goody-good girl if you’ve never had anal sex. Others think anal sex is disgusting just because…well, you know why. I think people should mind their own business. At least when it comes to matters where there are no right, or wrong. Don’t rain on someone else’ parade. Encourage them instead to be the person they truly want to be. And that’s just what I have to tell myself when I do business: it’s a learning curve. I will figure it out as I go along. People’s opinions and my marketing skills will show up as sales statistics, but I am alright even if I don’t make a million day one. I have to start though. Today. Right here and now. And if I can’t make a living out of it…then it’s time to change the game plan! Life is to be enjoyed, not to be fret about.

As for what me and my friend think about anal sex… I can’t really give you our opinions on the subject matter, because, well that isn’t fair, now is it? But he promised me to guest blog on here…so there’s still hope for you all…his manners are much worse than mine, you see. I’m sure he’ll tell you all my dirty secrets. Just please don’t tell my dad.

No comments.

Would you like to see me naked???…

I don’t think there is anything more beautiful than a naked human being. Someone standing in front of you, just as they are. No covers, no make-up, no nothing. Someone who bares their soul. Doesn’t throw it at you, not asking for something, but just simply sharing their innermost selves.

Some people don’t like their body, but how can you not like your body? It’s the only body you have! It’s your suit for this lifetime!

Some people don’t like themselves, but how can you not like yourself? Forget the past, in the now, how can you show up as you want? How can you truly behave so as to love yourself even more? What are you in this moment? You are not your past, you are not your future…all you are is the thoughts in your mind.

We all have “projects” – whether we are working towards a flatter belly, or some other goal, but every moment in your life is a choice. Repeat after me: Every moment in my life is a choice. (Simon says: Every moment in my life is a choice.) You choose to be alive right now. You choose what you are thinking right now (potentially you read a sentence here you didn’t choose as you didn’t see it coming, so it ended up in your brain by mistake, but you choose what to think about it). You choose what you do right now. You can choose to love your naked self. You really can.

Even if you want to make adjustments that can’t be made in this instance, you can still choose to love yourself right now. Right here. Just as you are.

I had an hour of self doubt today. I was going through something in my mind wondering if I had screwed up? As I couldn’t get feedback on it right that moment my brain went over it again and again, trying to figure out if there was something to learn from it? As it was tied into a lot of different things, I was thinking it could be a sign of A, B, C, D, E… After turning that thought around for a few minutes I got dizzy, going through a whole plethora of different things in my life, wondering what was true or false? I started thinking about past fuck-ups, investing my ego in the thoughts, judging myself…getting dizzier and dizzier. Then I saw an email from Urban Daddy – there’s a new drink from Cali surfers. It’s called: Just Chill. I took that one to heart. There’s a reason why I love this town.

If you look to others for confirmation you will get dizzy, because, frankly, you will never know. Sure you can to some extent measure your progress in certain areas – from social skills to business skills – it can be learnt and you will get feedback, but you as a person, you underneath the covers, YOU, you are great. You are the same as the new-born baby everyone is oh-ing and ah-ing about. The baby who has no skills at all but to smile and cry. Underneath all your learnt behavior, that’s who you are. A baby who smiles and cries. You may have to learn a number of skills and remove a couple of others to function well within whatever, but underneath that, you are the same as that baby – you smile, you cry. Different soul, different journey, but still human. You can be love. Right now. Right here.

Image via Wikipedia

“You’re a song, written by the hands of God…” – Shakira

I want many things. I want to understand people, life, business, love… I want to make love to life every second of every day, not bothering whether my ego thinks it’s being stroked or not. I want to give selflessly and always have strength. I want to be able to send love to all and make those I love understand how much I love them. I want to soar through the skies, never scared of falling. I want to be loved in a way I’ve never been loved. I want to sing without fear and speak like the world is listening, without even once doubting my words. Not because I’m right, but because I know I’m learning and others will learn from me also, or if they are ahead of me, they will know I’m learning. I want to make choices from a place of love, rather than a place of fear. Most of all I want to be happy and share that happiness with others. I want to live like there’s no tomorrow, yet make decisions that will serve me for eternity.

The naked truth is that I’m not achieving all of that in this instance, but as I stand here naked before you, let me tell you:

If you think I’m strong, you’ve never seen me cry.

If you think I’m sexy, you’ve never seen me sick.

If you think I’m a tiger, you’ve never seen me as a lamb.

If you think I’m always on top, you’ve never seen me in bed.

If you think I always have an answer, you’ve never seen my diary.

If you think I’m calm, you’ve never seen my dark side.

But if you think I’m gonna give up, you’ve never seen me naked.

I will never give up fighting for what I want, but what I want will be achieved by making the same choices over and over again (as we tend to slip into old habits without realizing – I can choose to live life like there’s no tomorrow right now, but if I will remember it all day tomorrow is a different thing) and fine tuning a skill-set. What I am, what I truly am, is like that baby – someone who smiles and cries – I simply am. The journey of life will sweep me around and teach me the lessons I need to learn (if I choose to do my homework) and that’s who people get fascinated by, or reject. Me though, I can always love. Me underneath the covers. Me naked.

I love being naked with you on this blog…

Now head to the beach, why don’t you? Get naked. Throw yourselves in the waves instead of thinking about it. And just chill.

Get naked with me on Facebook also: www.facebook.com/tnbandco

The ocean, a bikini and a bruised bum…

Life reminds me of the ocean: I love to run out into the waves full speed and sometimes I fall over and swallow a lot of water in the process and my bum might get a bit bruised, but I’m still laughing, because I’m playing. I don’t feel totally embarrassed (just a little bit), because I’m playing. I learn to stand up for longer the more I learn to understand the waves, but I don’t take it too seriously, because I’m playing. I have a sense of adventure, as I don’t know what the next wave will be like, but it doesn’t scare me much, it just thrills me, because I’m playing. I have to keep my eyes open to be able to dance with the waves, but it doesn’t feel like an effort, because I’m playing. I always feel free and energized as I do this, because I’m playing. Others see my joy and freedom, so they want to be near me, because I’m playing. It’s fun, because I’m playing. I feel wonderful, because I’m playing. If I could live my life like that, in a bikini, it’d be a breeze.

“I don’t want to make money, I just want to be wonderful.” – Marilyn Monroe

Santa Monica

Morocco

Me, running in Malibu

Californication…

I’m Swedish, blonde and…in your bed???….

The standard question I get when I meet someone is “Where are you from?” After they have guessed every English speaking country in the world, I will have to confess to the fact that I am Swedish. If the person I’m talking to happens to be male and somewhere in between the ages of 18 to a 100, a smile will invariably light up his face as he repeats to himself “easy to get into bed Swedish, eh?” Yes, Swedish, and not so easy to get into a parallel position, but until he figures that out, I might as well enjoy his efforts.

If you, on the other hand, want a bloke to melt for you, all you really have to do is to talk about how you celebrate the summer solstice – an ancient celebration of fertility where we make a giant dick (maypole) out of flowers that we dance around and at night eat strawberries and drink vodka (it’s one of the few pagan traditions the church did not manage to relabel. For example – in Easter the Swedish witches still fly off on broomsticks with their cats to dance with the devil and en route they hand out candy to children, but somehow we are also celebrating the resurrection of Jesus). For the sake of good luck you are then supposed to roll around naked in the morning dew the next day (never mind the fact that we pick seven flowers in silence at night to dream about whom we will marry, that would put him off…marriage should never be talked about by women. You simply wait until he is so desperate to keep other men off your ass that he decides to marry you.). After that he will believe you are the answer to all his prayers (when he discovers that you actually have a brain too, he will be singing hallelujah).

Dancing around a dick…I mean maypole…

N.B. All photos in this post were taken by me, please don’t use elsewhere without permission. Thank you!!!

Apart from our reputation of being sexually liberated, the Swedes are known for: Ingmar Bergman, Abba, Roxette, Björn Borg, herring, Ikea, H&M, Volvo, Zlatan Ibrohamovic (we went to the same school, never noticed him, but I met someone in Morocco who knew him…) and other sports people whom I don’t know of. And of course, Tiger Wood’s wife. Poor thing. Sex rehab. And he’s not even Swedish!!! (No, we do not make watches and chocolate. That’s SWITZERLAND.)

When it comes to Swedish stereotypes there is a brilliant book called The Xenophobe’s Guide To The Swedes from which I will now quote freely:

Svårmod: a dark melancholy born out of long winters, high taxes and being stuck far out on a geo-political and socio-economic limb. They brood a lot over the meaning of life in a self-absorbed sort of way without ever arriving at satisfactory answers. (…) All this svårmod makes the Swedes very self-conscious and socially awkward. When two Swedish individuals meet for the first time, there are actually four people present: the two visible persons, plus their invisible alter-egos who stand close by and criticize every word and every gesture. Only when the acquaintance is well established do the alter-egos move to the sidelines, albeit still shaking their heads.

Undfallenhet: You may call a car rental firm to say the studs are missing from the winter tyres and that, as a consequence, you are unfairly exposed to the risk of having to pay for any collision damage. To this the rental agent is likely to reply: “Never mind having to pay for collision damage. What about your personal health and safety?” It’s a response that takes all the fun out of complaining. (…) Being aggressive is considered a macho thing in many Western cultures. In Sweden it’s viewed as a handicap. (…) Undfallenhet is not to be confused by cowardice. Sweden has long stood firm on its conviction regarding matters like apartheid and dictatorship.

Lagom: “just enough” or “in moderation.” Lagom permeates Swedish life. Economically it has enabled the nation to find the middle ground between Capitalism and Socialism (Progress and Humanity). In manufacturing, lagom discards gold-plated designs in favor of optimum solutions. Socially lagom puts conformity before excellence, tempers extreme personal wealth and poverty, and leaves the Swedes irksomely at peace with themselves. (…) When something is said to be “lagom good” it actually means it’s the best.

In the battle between idealism, heroism and common sense, the latter always wins.

Patriotism: The Swedes sneer at public manifestations of patriotism, conveniently forgetting that the blue and yellow Swedish flag is everywhere to be seen. (…) Swedes are not patriots in the usual sense. Victory monuments come in the form of rune stones rather than bronze statues. Ask them what link them to their native country and they will hold forth, not about government, history, or culture, but about deep forests, smiling archipelagos, crayfish served with aquavit, and flower wrapped maypoles. For Swedes the national flag is primarily an eye-pleasing backdrop. Rather than rallying people to war, it invites them to a picnic in a meadow.

Being rich in Sweden has never been easy. As Ingmar Bergman found out, even millionaires can have difficulties making ends meet when income tax is levied at 102%. But even after taxation, the filthy rich remain merely filthy in the eyes of the not-so-rich, who themselves are far from poor. Manifestations of personal wealth have always been  frowned upon in Sweden, based on the assumption that for every winner there has to be a loser.

Religion: there is a saying that all Swedish people are born free, but taxed to death. Until 1996 all children were born into Lutherian faith. These days they are allowed to choose their own faith. Those who have not opted out show their Lutheran piety by attending church on at least four occasions, namely for their baptism, confirmation, wedding(s) and funeral (I might add here: and the 6-12 or so times you have to attend mass to get confirmed. Ahem. I mean, amen. Swedes are still religious though – we celebrate nature and whatever force created it. Some call that pagan.)

Money Matters: The Swedes truly understand the joy of giving and taking. They give as much as they take, neither more, nor less. (…) Restaurant bills are divided up evenly after meals (not equal shares, but each person pays for their own food). Ulf and Ulla out on a date are equally intent on settling their score evenly. A foreign observer of scenes like these could be forgiven for thinking that the Swedes are pathological skinflints. The truth, however, is that they load becoming dependent on other human beings through indebtedness in any shape or form. Accept a gift and one feels obliged to reciprocae in kind. Receive a favor, and expect to be called in at a later date. (I would say it’s a sense of fairness. Right be right. This can also be applied to dating rich people: then they pay for you, until you make your own millions, then you pay for them and believe me: if you are Swedish you will remember to pay back.)

Women and Men: The stereotype Swedish woman is beautiful, opinionated and speaks three languages. She has a strong aesthetic sense and her attitude to sex is accommodating. While single she travels the world and samples the local climatic and climactic delights. Once married, she invariably has a career and keeps her own money.

The average Swedish man is seen as being shy, taciturn, submissive, sentimental principled, reliable – precisely the sort of male companion the Swedish woman covets as the father of her 13/4 children. He is Mr Fixit (if you don’t know how to handle a hammer, just forget it). He is basically a loner and is happiest at work, on the ski slope or at the country cottage which he is constantly rebuilding. (I kinda like outgoing social type of guys that radiate warmth from a mile away, but maybe that’s just me???)

Swedes congratulate themselves for having been first in the world to achieve total equality between the sexes.(…)

By international standards, Swedish women have always been highly emancipated. In the days of the Vikings, only a woman dared tell a warrior what a corny oaf he was. (…) Nowadays, members of the Women’s Movement are campaigning for men to sit down when urinating, their point being that men have been flaunting their anatomical advantage for much too long.

One thing Swedish men and women have in common is a curious diagnostic to human relationships. Social, as well as sexual, intercourse techniques are analyzed and compared in great detail – along the lines of “How was it for you?” and “How can we improve it next time?” (In stark contrast to Californians’ attitude of: if it’s bad, let’s say it’s good. Problem solving? Are you kidding me? I’d have to confess to there being a problem? That’s a sin, no? Tell everyone they are great and if they aren’t – just never talk to them again. Whatever you do – just never say anything negative.  Sneaking out the backdoor is so fucking Cali and to a Swede – so fucking confusing. I’m thankful to be here, I’d just be thankful if I could learn to understand them too…)

Children: The statutory maternity leave is 12 months at 80% of the mother’s most recent salary, plus another 3 months at a reduced rate (you can take this out any time from the child is born until s/he is 8 yrs old, you also, kids or no kids, get 5 wks of vacation every year, plus general holidays). Since nearly all couples have parallel careers, it is up to the mother and father to decide who stays at home with the newborn child. (…) Spanking a child – even one’s own – is against the law in Sweden.

Hospitality (and honesty): The Swedes stake out the limits of their hospitality in no uncertain terms. They assume that you will do the same. So when you tell them to come and see you anytime, they will do precisely that. And if you protest that they are leaving much too soon, they’ll stay on to keep you company. It’s a square, square world. (Unlike Cali, where everything’s a bit fussy around the edges. How do you know when someone means what they say if they only tell you the truth 50% of the time?)

The taboo subject: The Swedes consider themselves the most broad-minded people on earth. They boast that only in Sweden are you free to discuss absolutely anything, be it sex, money, incest or euthanasia. Don’t take their word for it, though, because generalizing about nationalities (other than the Norwegians) is definitively out. Swedish people love to criticise about their own country when amongst themselves; but when a foreigner enters the room, suddenly Sweden can do nothing wrong. (Mark my words, I warn thee.)

Anyone who’s wondering what really make the Swedes tick need look no further: it is coffee. (The coffee shop culture in Sweden can be summed up by saying: a café in every corner. We don’t hang out. We go for coffees, or rather a “fika” meaning coffee and something to eat with it.)

Drinking: It is often said that the Swedes have a drinking problem. (…) As a matter of fact the Swedes consume less alcohol than most other countries in the EU. (…) The Swedish government is defying EU law by restricting the sale of spirits. Outlets are few and far in-between, open late, close early and mask the whereabouts of liquor by displaying everything but spirits in their windows. Citizens who do manage to find one are charged exorbitant prices for anything stronger than wine. (This is why Swedes get drunk when vacating in the Mediterranean and buy all their spirits in Germany.) (…) Another deterrent is the stiff penalty meted out to anyone caught driving a vehicle with even an extra molecule of alcohol in the blood. One hapless driver, who was pulled over and breath-analyzed seconds after swallowing a rum-filled chocolate, tested positive and was driven away to a police laboratory for tests. The tests showed no trace of alcohol in the blood and the driver was acquitted, but only after agreeing to pay for the test as well as a fine for wasting police time. (Of course they do not count how much home-made spirits are in circulation, only deaths and blindness caused by these every year. Just a note.)

Obsessions: A great deal of emotion is associated with childhood memories of summers gone by. It has to do with the taste of wild strawberries and the smell of freshly cut hay, listening in bed to the cuckoo at dawn (in the south dawn is around 3am and sunset around 12am), catching crab with fish heads on a string, and watching the fishermen tar their hulls. The Swedes are the world’s greatest nature lovers and will spout about it until the cows go home. (…) The Swedes have a dream: to save nature from man. This is more than just a vision – it’s as close to a passion as the Swedes ever get.

Leisure and pleasure: The Swedes indulge in sport for leisure and sex for pleasure. (…) President Eisenhower once noted in a speech that there was a country in Northern Europe where moral standards had fallen to an all time low. The subsequent avalanche of American tourist upon Swedish soil left little doubt which country he had in mind. The visitors were not disappointed for they returned home with photographic evidence that the Swedes swim naked whenever they think nobody’s watching (and who has less morals: the person watching or the one thinking s/he’s alone with nature?). (…) In the 18th century Linnaeus studied the sex life of plants with such intensity that he became known as the Peeping Tom of Botany. (…) It is true, however, that their attitude to sex is largely unencumbered by taboos. The Swedes, like the Dutch, believe in easy natural sex as a way of resisting unnatural forms such as prostitution, incest and child abuse.

Cinema: Sweden has a lot in common with Disney World. On the surface people seem to lead a carefree existence in a fairy-tale paradise. Underneath is a whole different world, which is out of bound for most visitors.

If you didn’t get enough – buy the book. I laughed till I cried, but then I am Swedish. You may have an inferior sense of humor.

On a very Swedish note about nationalities: I find being Swedish an asset. I love my home country and feel lucky to have been brought up with some of the values over there. Like people still know how to use a hammer and a sewing machine. Common sense still exists and I like the idea of progress combined with humanity, not one over the other….and don’t even get me started on saving nature from man. I also left for a reason. I just didn’t feel like I was “only that.” I am more than just a Swede. I am a human being. And so is every other person, were they born in the fires of hell, or the kingdom of heaven. No one probably wish to be born in a country, or part of a city, labeled by the rest of the world as dangerous, or nasty in any other way. Nor do people probably grow up wishing to become criminals. Beneath it all: human. People can only see life for what they know of it. Show someone love and they may end up lovable.

Also, I don’t like everything from my personal past. I am sure the Germans today don’t love Hitler either. What good is there to say that the Vikings were warriors? I am not a warrior, well at least not in that sense. Maybe we can learn from the past, but to boast about it? Nor do I agree with all the politicians in Sweden. If someone said that because I’m Swedish I would be like Gudrun Schyman, I would, oh man, faint. And I mean Americans are supposedly against communism, but their greatest financial debt is supposedly to China. Not to mention Swedes being against apartheid and dictatorship in SA and Chile, but neglecting it in Russia (too close for comfort???). There are contradictions everywhere. I love many Swedish values, I get disturbed by seeing all the homeless people in LA (someone told me they amount to a startling number of 160,000) and the segregation between rich and poor (paying to go to school? Please, shouldn’t children at least be equal? How can they become great if they aren’t given a chance?), but I still prefer to live in LA. I am a funny mix and so are probably most of us.

Californication “…little girls from Sweden dream of silver screen quotation…” – Red Hot Chili Peppers