March Pieces Of My Mind #2

Arlanda control tower seen from the Clarion Hotel.

• At the DiLeva sings Bowie show last night, there were two songs from after 1985: “Where Are We Now?” from The Next Day (2013) and “Lazarus” from Blackstar (2016).
• Driving practice with a young friend from Homs. Super happy fellow after he aced his first motorway and then parked the car neatly in our garage.
• In the Spirit Island boardgame, everybody may act at the same time, which means that nobody feels that it’s their turn and the game never advances.
• Had my biannual health checkup. All values nominal except the triglyceride blood fats. It’s a bad sign if they’re above the nominal range. Mine are below it.
• Remember last year when I was ranked #1 for this academic job in Trondheim but wasn’t even invited to give a test lecture? They just told me whom they hired instead. A local 36-year-old with 26 publications. Roughly one seventh of my scholarly output so far. Screw you, Academia!
• 14-y-o Jrette playing the guitar in her room and singing First Aid Kit’s “Emmylou”. Young Stockholm woman singing hits by young Sthlm women.
• Someone said that we’re back in the Cold War again. Another answered “I wonder what side the US is on this time.”
• Reading my first Hugo packet last year was largely a major drag. Not doing that again.
• For most of my life I’ve lived a few hundred meters from the small Viking Period pagan cemeteries of Fisksätra. I learned recently though that the student dorm where I lived from 1990-92 is even closer to such a cemetery. It is known only from early maps as it was completely destroyed when the Frihamnen docks were built about 1900. According to Clas Tollin, the cemetery probably served the hamlet of Unnaröra.