Ingegerd Landström

Det var bokfestival i Westwood förra helgen, två dagar med massor av författare, föredrag, seminarier och boksigneringar. Ja, och så böcker förstås. Många böcker och väldigt mycket folk, 140 000 på två dagar.

Det är en härlig helg och hittills har jag gått dit år varje år sedan vi flyttade hit. Inte första året, då hade vi nyss flyttat hit och jag hade ingen koll på någontins alls, men efter det har jag alltid lyckats ta mig dit. Ibland med familjen och det är visst trevligt, men det bästa sättet att besöka bokfestivalen är på egen hand och med förbokad biljett till alla seminarier som man för allt i världen inte vill missa.

I år missade jag nästan allting och det var ledsamt. Jag trodde inte att jag skulle kunna gå alls först så jag bokade inga biljetter, och när jag väl lyckats förhandla till mig några timmar på lördagen var mycket redan slutsålt (biljetterna är gratis, men man måste ändå boka dem).

Men jag lyckades i alla fall gÃ¥ pÃ¥ ett seminarim som hette “Journalists uncovering the larger story”, med LA Times-kolumnisten Hector Tobar som moderator och med David Cullen, Barry Siegel och Rick Wartzman i panelen (heter det sÃ¥: “i panelen?”).

Roligt samtal, spännande samtal mellan fyra journalister/författare som alla har skrivit böcker om historiska händelser och som alla sa en massa kloka saker om skrivande och journalistik och en del annat också.

Mer om deras böcker senare, nu ska jag skriva en engelsk text om seminariet till min skrivkurs och det känns lite…jobbigt.  Engelska är svÃ¥rt. Inte akademisk engelska, den är ganska okomplicerad och dessutom har jag tränat pÃ¥ det en hel del. Men vanlig engelska eller vad man nu ska kalla det. Icke-akademisk engelska, journalistengelska: det är svÃ¥rt. Och det är oändligt frustrerande när jag inte hittar ord och när nyanserna gÃ¥r förlorade och när det helt enkelt inte lÃ¥ter bra.

Aaargh.

SÃ¥. Nu skriver jag vidare.

I was driving in to Beverly Hills this afternoon and as I was leaving the house I realized I left my sun glasses  in the car that Jeff took to work this morning, that is, the car I usually drive and, hence, leave my sun glasses in every now and then.

In this situation I could have shrugged my shoulders, thought “oh well” and gone to Beverly Hills without them. Seems like the sensible thing to do here, right?

Only I didn’t. Instead, and to my complete embarrassment of myself, I called Jeff, found out he was leaving work to pick up the kids, and arranged for a place to meet so that I could get my glasses. In the car with Jeff was a colleague of his visiting from out of town and I wondered to myself what his thoughts on this pathetic need for sunglasses was. I was sure wondering about it.

Anyway, it wasn’t just the shades, I needed the GPS too. I only wish I would have thought of the GPS first.

1) Our morning routines

2.a) The amount of volunteer work at school; 2.b)  The all but complete absence of dads in that volunteering

3) My stay-at-home-mom-life vs my work life

There, those are the things I need to actually do something about, as opposed to writing about them. Ok, I can’t do so much about the absent dads except quietly curse them, but the rest is all in my hands. “I am the captain of my fate, I am the master of my soul,” right? Or was it faith? I think it was faith, but fate works better here, obviously.

Anyway, that’s me, I am the captain. I will steer this sinking ship around and become a better, less cranky, person.

Yes, that’s the name of the blog I would start if I only had the time.

It would be so much fun, I could take pictures of my garden every day and describe what’s happening and what’s not. I could ask questions and clever people would answer and let me know whether I might get away with regular potted soil as opposed to sandy for my Manzanitas, since I accidentally used that soil already. I didn’t take the time to read the label. They could tell me what plants that should be used in rock gardens actually needs in order to be happy, cause it can’t possibly be rocks now, can it? They could probably tell me the best way to store some of that rain water too, and maybe sometimes we could get into discussing coastal environment and sustainable cities and all that mindblowing stuff.

It really would be so much fun, but I’m off to do laundry now. Put kids to sleep. Prepare for tomorrow’s valentine parties at school (yes, three of them). Something else that I can’t quite remember right now, but most definitely something relating to household chores or children.

Bye bye then, fun blog, I’ll see you in another life.

LA Kings vs Washington Capitals. A suite.

Many old friends and a great view.

Very excited husband got to meet LA Kings alumni Marty McSorley, and got his autograph and got to talk to him for a while.

Very excited kids got to meet Bailey. No autographs, but a hug and a handshake.

And we won. 2-1. Great game. Great afternoon!

“You know, if we get this house we have nothing left to strive for. We have arrived, everything is in place: we´re happily married, we have great kids and jobs and soon, maybe, we have the house we really wanted and where our kids will grow up.

“Sounds great to me.”

“It´s not great at all, it´s terrifying! This is when life will just be happening and before we know it we´ll be sitting by the kitchen table in our beautiful little house where we raised our kids and where every single inch has some memory attached to it and Erik has just left for college and we´re 60 and all those wonderful years that are just about to start happening now will already be over and we´ll talk about this exact moment and get all nostalgic and sad and then we´ll die.”

“Jesus, were buying a house, that´s it. It´s great and exciting, can´t we just be happy and have sex? Besides, you don´t have a job. You have plenty left to strive for.”

“Oh. Well. Yes. You´re right. Thanks for reminding me, I feel better already.”

“Do you think I should use ilandstrom or i.landstrom for my new address?”

“Do Ilandstrom. No dot.”

Hm. Ok, maybe so. Why do you think that´s better?”

“I don´t know, cause dots are a pain in the ass, I hate dots.”

“Really? You don´t like dots?”

“No. Hate them. Why don´t you use I_landstrom instead?”

“Oh no no no, underscores are a pain in the ass if anything, I hate underscores.”

“Really? What´s wrong with underscores?”

“I always used to have such a hard time finding that damn button on the keyboard when I switched between english and swedish. The dot was always easy to find.”

“Huh. Funny. I had no idea. So Sweetie, I think the kids are asleep, do you wanna go to bed?”

I thought I should try to write in English every once in a while. Because I need to practice, because my U.S. friends ask me if it isn’t about time and, ultimately, because a dear, old friend looked me sternly in the eye the other day and told me to get on with it.

And so I did.

Or, rather, I tried. I tried writing a very short and simple text about our visit to the U.S. Embassy in English, only to end up with a few half-finished, poorly phrased sentences and a level of frustration that took two beers and half a bag of pistacchio nuts to get rid of. I ended up writing the damn thing in Swedish just to get it out of my head.

It shouldn’t be this difficult. I do small talk, I tell jokes, I argue with my husband (and win!) in English – writing should be easy, but it’s not. I can’t find the words and expressions, grammar is impossible and everything sounds…I don’t know…slightly off. Most of all, words and finished texts, no matter how short or insignificant, belong to me in an entirely different way when I use Swedish. They are closer to my heart, that’s the best way I can describe it, at least while using English.

So this whole switching-language-experiment, I don’t know, in a way I would like to just forget about it. But my dear old friend is a very persistent woman and smart too and I can feel her giving me one of her stern looks all the way from Uppsala, so fine, I’ll give it a try. Every fifth text or so will be in English from now on. Maybe every seventh to begin with. And every once in a while,  if I can come up with a good enough excuse, I will be allowed exceptions.

Here we go.