No, I don't know what time it is.

Sunday, May 17, 2009
söndag 17 maj 2009

Hulloa!

Today was a really simple Sunday...and it was beyond gorgeous out. I am happy to report that I am just absolutely glowing with sun.

I woke up late, since I didn't set my alarm, and that was perfect. A few other people were staying on the boat last night and I will say that the only bad thing about having other people on is that whenever anyone else uses the little sink in their bathroom, the faucets of which are those kind that only use water when you're pushing on the button (I went through so many different ways of trying to describe that), the release on the button is this incredibly loud bang that resonates through everyone else's room. Obviously throughout one's toilette you need the sink many times, and that was kind of excrutiating this morning. But if that's the worst of it...

I had big plans, as always, and simplified as I went along. The same stores that were not open on Gamla Stan last Sunday were probably not open today, either, and I hadn't gotten up and gone to Waldemarsudde in the morning, so I figured I'd make a day of it.

I ended up walking for about an hour and a half along the coast of Djurgården, which is just perfect, like I said before. I saw another house of my dreams, with these wonderful big glass French doors opening up on the third floor balcony looking out to this beautiful view across the water. One of the doors was open and the breeze was blowing through the curtains...I love that that's someone's reality. I explored all these different paths and had a wonderful walk, I felt at the same time that I could have walked forever but that I would also be very glad to see Waldemarsudde, which I knew was on my way home. I stopped into the museum, since it had been closed the last time I'd gone, and it was absolutely packed. I take back what I said before about kind of liking to visit on weekends when tons of other people are there, "to get the experience". It turns out, I don't. But I had a fine time. The limited-time Carl Larsson exhibit was still up, only will be for a few more days, and that was wonderful to see. He's such an icon of Swedish culture, and created many important images of Swedish life (whatever certain slice of that life it might have been) at the turn of the last century (when does that become 1999-2000?). I wonder how Swedes who don't run art museums think about him, if they like him, etc. I think he's wonderful, but maybe it's just because the pictures of his I'm familiar with are just so darling and so...Swedish to my American sensibility 100 years later.

But that was great, then in the mansion itself there was an exhibit about white, which I was relatively ambivalent on, because I feel like that subject, and a lot of the pieces, needed more explanation--for me, personally. Now is not the time for another, "I took Philosophy of Art at my Liberal Arts College in New England" conversation, but however you feel about pieces standing alone, or, rather, as needing an explanation or not...I didn't...I wasn't that fulfilled by it. Maybe the explanation wouldn't help. But there was this crazy installation piece with silver paper lining the floor, lots of white masks and sand and white coral on the floor and chairs, maybe some white jewelry too, with a bunch of 1700s white table ornaments on it, including a reproduction, just like they have in the Nordiska Museet in their Table Settings exhibit, of the taxidermied swan nobility used to stick roasted birds in, for a beautiful table setting. And they would use the swan a few times...I was going to say without washing it, but obviously? But what a ridiculous thing, to my modern sensibilities...and I'm not particularly worried about germs, either. Anyways, I would have liked to have read how that artist was presenting his piece, or at least what the curators felt they wanted or needed to say about it.

On the top floor was a dual-installation of Two Princes, one being my now-former-future husband, Carl Phillip, and his ancestor, Prins Eugen, who I now realize is the REAL prince I was supposed to marry, I'm just a little late. Carl Phillip is my former future husband specifically because of this exhibit, and I'm now realizing it obviously wasn't love to begin with or else I wouldn't care how cliche his Art is.

The theme was, Paradise, or something, and when I saw that it was about how he thought the Botanic Gardens at Uppsala were Paradise, I thought we were more meant to be than ever. But when I walked in, and first there were looping black and white videos of the drab, grey, hustle and bustle of what must be Stockholm, cars in fast forward, people in slow motion and then rewound, I started to get nervous. And then I walked in to some very nice, very large, VERY COLORFUL photos of the Botanic Gardens, close-ups of green stemmy things, and a bee on a sunflower. With quotations from many famous people about Paridise, ok. And a quote from himself, about Paradise, something to the tune of, "We all have our own Paridise". I hope I don't get kicked out of the country or anything, but... oh, contrast. I get, it, C.P.

So THEN I walk into the other galleries, and what wonderful pictures taken by Prins Eugen! Maybe I'm COMPLETELY BIASED toward black and white photos taken of rich people in their leisure activities at the turn of the last century...but I just thought they were grand. I was hoping they'd have a postcard of one or two of my favorites, and they did! So I put it above my bed, right under my light. It's a view of Waldemarsudde from a little rowboat, obviated by the oar sticking out of the lower right-hand corner. Maybe that sounds just as cliche to everyone else, but it certainly stirred my aesthetic emotion. They were just these great, simple photos of him, his family, and his friends just being silly and going places, dressed in the clothing of my dreams. I think that's why I'm drawn to Carl Larsson, too...the pictures I'm most familiar with are of women in Edwardian dresses, ranging from gowns to more traditionally patterned material, and little boys in Scandinavian sweaters...oh and little blonde girls in clogs, COME ON.

Anyways, totally over Carl P.

As I walked home, with the end of my Selected Shorts in my headphones, a wierd looking guy said, "Ursäkta" which means, "Excuse me"...but I decided to pretend I couldn't hear him, there were like 8 million other people, and he didn't look like he was in distress. But later he walked by me, and walked like right in front of me for a while...and finally looked back and asked me what time it was. Really? But I couldn't ignore him, really, so:
Arianna: Oh...uh...2:14
Guy: Oh, thanks.
Arianna starts to put back in earphone but...
Guy:where are you from?
Ugh. I should have just said, hey, I'm sorry, I'm...late, or something, but I told him, and he tried to get into this whole conversation with me about Sweden, which he's not from, and how he had BEEN to America before, to Los Angeles, which is bigger than Stockholm (oh, yeah? you get right out of town, let's talk about it for hours, I'd love to)...and just then we had to funnel into this sidewalk where they were doing work, and people were coming through, so we had to wait. I feel kind of bad, but when the people were through, I just put in my earphone and walked, no sorry or anything. But I HATE that. Are you really going to bother me when I'm obviously walking toward a destination, AND I have earphones in? I can appreciate wanting to talk to someone, or legitimately bothering someone to know the time, but what a skeevy, immediately suspicious way to try to start a conversation! No thanks.

I got home and sat out on my beautiful deck all afternoon because it was stunning out. I listened to many stored Selected Shorts and This American Lifes, but I have run out, and I can't connect my computer to the internet to get more! I'm exhausting all my supplies of New England Entertainment, NPR podcasts and Somerset Maughm books...quick, someone get me a classical music CD, or an e.e. cummings collection...I'll even take back logs of the New Yorker! Or maybe someday I'll learn how to sit quietly with my thoughts. But until then, I'll be reading Joan Didion online, dreaming about New York.

Speaking of thoughts, I have two more days of work to organize those that I have about buttons to be able to communicate with Fred in the most efficient way about the fact that I am lost. In a good way, I feel, where, in my opinion (let's see what he says!) I have collected quite a bit of information, but have hit some dead ends. As Chris, my advisor from school can tell you, I like to look at EVERYTHING AT ONCE and I've been trying very hard to channel my many energies into simplifying, and to focus them on one thing at a time. But everything's so connected, and I don't always know where to look here. I'll be glad to have him back, plus Arvid's gone, too, and I'm lonely in that office!

Wish me luck,
god natt,
a