April Pieces Of My Mind #2

Stained-glass decoration at the Gröna Lund amusement park. Armand Rossander 1942.

• The common Arabic name Abdul(lah) has the same sense as German Gottschalk: “Servant of God”.
• Heard a really annoying Q&A on Quirks and Quarks. This older guy asked why ear & nose hair becomes way coarser and more plentiful as a man ages. Dermatologist replies by describing the hormonal mechanism that causes this to happen. No you fuck, he didn’t ask HOW it happens, he asked WHY!!!
• Boss tells me he’s going to advertise a steady position similar to my current temp job and hints that perhaps I might want to apply for it.
• Me: numismatics. Autocorrect: miniskirts.
• I’m recording a covers album: pop tunes where I sing “inedible” for “incredible” and “spare tyre” for “desire”.
• Today’s my 19th anniversary as co-editor of the archaeology journal Fornvännen!
• Nils-Axel Mörner and Bob G. Lind publish another crank paper in a predatory Open Access journal from SCIRP. Now with Göran Henriksson as co-author! Supergroup!
• Discovered that I can get a 25-minute scenic bike ride partway to work and only leave home 5 mins earlier. Out of shape after the winter.
• Been reading about the big Beaker DNA study. Itching to learn what the two similar Swedish projects are coming up with! Actually, itching to be on those projects myself.
• Realised why this person I help with their writing places the space before the comma or full stop, not after them. They’re used to reading Arabic from the right to the left.
• Cycling to work this morning I interrupted a fight between two frenzied March hares. They fled along the road in the direction I was already moving, then turned off it and continued fighting.
• In the movie The Graduate, the actress playing Mrs. Robinson is only 6 years older than the actor playing the titular graduate whom she seduces.
• Junior texts me: “OMG my worldview just got shattered. GNOCCHI IS KNÖDEL”
• Bought Tanith Lee’s highest-rated story collection Dreams of Dark and Light for $2.40 on my Kindle.
• My solitary professional life has rarely involved any stressful tasks where others rely on me. When I do run into them, like today, it’s actually pretty invigorating.
• Seems almost impossible to make a living from knowing archaeological small finds in Sweden. Not even the museums hire us. We have no Portable Antiquities Scheme.
• I’m a member of three Swedish associations with paper newsletters. All three are eerily similar and depressingly redolent of 75-year-old contributors.