Dear life - I am Odie

It's my birthday today. I celebrated by spending a fortune making my favorite shoes great again. Life is good. I never thought life could be like this: Easy and filled with happiness. I was unhappy and depressed for a long long time. There were eating disorders, sick friends, various body issues, heartbreaks and failed studies. But now, things are good. I just want to press pause. Let everything be.

I know I come off as overly optimistic. Of all fictional characters, I sometimes feel I can relate most easily to Garfields annoyingly perky friend Odie.

Perhaps Odie was born like that. Perhaps he's seen the other side, perhaps he received lots of love or even medication and can't believe his luck when things worked out for the better.

I don't believe in any God, higher being or any mysterious power. I'm constantly amazed by the weirdness of us being here and the miracle of us being here together.

I often feel that I'm the luckiest person in the world. Someone has to be, and I might be the one. I think there's room for many of us being the luckiest. I'm so grateful you can't believe it.

Feel free to smack me over the head. You still can't stop me from having this feeling.

I look so serious in that pic above. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm serious about being happy.

Dear Sarah Sheppard

Thank you for treating me to birthday lunch! Get Sarah's new book here!

Dear readers - a regular day at the office

Perhaps you wonder what my life is like, besides being with my kids?

Well let me tell you, today I'm having an ordinary day in the office.

I've forgotten about lunch again and need to get something to eat.

It's easy to forget about food when you're writing a folder on constipation and another on diarrhea, like I'm doing today. I'm also about to type an interview I did yesterday, with Hannah Graaf, familiar to all Swedish Readers.

Furthermore; I'm writing a little about a Swedish film production company and translating and proofreading an excellent article on Ruth Ansel.

I love my job. Even those folders. It's fun!

Between work, I will try to read a little in my new books: How to cook a wolf and How I became a famous novelist, both things I would like to be able to tell people myself one day.

Writer needs readers

Jenny? Natasha? Lisa Chong? Winona? Others? I need native Anglo proofreaders.

Meet the readers - Lisa Chong

Lisa Chong is one of those people who've gone to both Stanford AND Yale. First she studied English, then decided to become a violinist. Despite her obvious superhuman qualities, she's a humble, sweet person with an entertaining dry sense of humor.

She plays for the St. Louis symphony orchestra. She visited Sweden and told me tons of things I've never known about life as a musician. Like the fact that they play behind a curtain and walk on muting mats on their way to auditions so that the listeners won't know if someone tripping on high heels or more manly shoes are playing. That's really hiring people on a gender neutral basis.

I don't know if I've told you this before but Vanja is a delicate person. She's made of glass. She'll cry just touching something with her little legs. I don't know how it happened, I think she's just extremely sensitive. I raised her to be strong. She resisted. Joel, on the other hand doesn't cry even if blood is gushing. He doesn't cry from pain, only for emotional reasons. They cry about the same amount.

When Lisa came to visit, she had the best way of dealing with Vanja's complaints.

Showing a barely bruised knee to me and Lisa, Vanja was met with relevant, thoughtful questions from Lisa's Swedish phrasebook:

"Is it serious?"

"Will you need surgery?"

"Is it contagious?"

Even Vanja laughed and the pain was gone.

It was so nice having Lisa around. Now she's back in St Louis playing and eating Bissinger's delicious acai blueberries. They're so good we just ordered 60 bucks worth of the stuff.

want more lisa for yourself?

Here's her blog!

Dear dentist

Thanks for making me look a little bit more polished and a little less like the things that aren't so great about Amy Winehouse's mouth.

Dear Andreas Lind

I love your pictures of your children.