9/11 - The 20th Anniversary

"I had just been released from hospital the day before and was still on sick leave. My father called me on the phone and told me to turn on the TV at once because there was something going on in America. Swedish television was broadcasting live.

Just a few seconds after I had turned on the TV-set - and before I understood what was going on - the television screen showed a passenger airplane flying suspiciously low close to the tower that had been hit first. Then I saw the plane steering right into the second tower, flames erupting around the hole that had been caused in the structure halfway up on the building.

I was baffled, shocked, sad, angry, and frightened. After seeing that I remained in front of the television all that day and well into the night to follow the news. There were many speculations concerning the number of casualties, so once the true numbers were released, I was strangely relieved that they were much lower than the initial speculations. 

2,977 people died in the attacks (and 19 hijackers committed murder–suicide), and more than 6,000 others were wounded, it's a scary thought that I could feel relief at such a high toll.

In my mind's timeline there will always be a before or after 9/11, Everything changed, or at least my outlook on everything changed."

(The above has previously been posted in 9/11 - In Memoriam.)

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We must also always remember that the terrorists are an extremely small minority in any community, religious group, or society. In the words of the American president Barack Obama, "We don’t differentiate between them and us. It’s just us."

18 Years Ago

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, at around 2 PM local time, I was in bed and taking a nap. The day before I had returned back home after being in a hospital for a week and receiving five bags of blood. In a routine physical check-up, it was discovered that my blood count was dangerously low.

I was awoken by a telephone call from my father, who told me to turn on the television because "there are things going on in New York". I thought of going back to sleep, but my curiosity got the better of me so I turned on the TV and started watching the eerie live broadcast from New York City where the North Tower of the World Trade Center was burning.

About ten minutes after I started watching the broadcast the events of the picture started to unfold. A plane was seen flying closer and it became clear that it was aiming for the South Tower. It struck the tower at 3:03PM my time, 9:03AM New York Time, and a big ball of fire erupted from the place of impact. Smoke was now billowing from both towers.

I was stunned, like the rest of civilization, by this vehement terrorist attack happening in broad daylight and playing out on color-TV.

I stayed close to the television all through the night. The other attempted attacks were reported. And the numbers of the people killed and wounded rose by the hour. 

The final count says 2,996 people were killed (including the 19 hijackers) and more than 6,000 others injured. Additionally, 343 firefighters and 71 law enforcement officers died in the World Trade Center and on the ground in New York City. There were more people killed in places outside New York City.

Life for us, the lucky ones, continued but the world as we know it changed. We lost a kind of innocence that day with the over 3,000 deaths. Little by little, new agencies and lots of regulations and restrictions were put in place to try to prevent similar attacks from ever occurring again.

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On a day like this, it is good to remember the past, the victims of terror whether killed, mutilated or hurt, and hope and work so that we may never experience anything as horrendous again. 

When the Fog Descends

It cannot be easy, when the once familiar landscapes that are your life and your memories are covered by a slowly descending fog. Who are you, when you lose your memories of events, people and your actions, your reactions, your feelings, your relationships and your position on the map?

I can understand the fear, the bewilderment and the panic, when you simply cannot remember what you did two days ago or what you said or talked about just a few minutes ago.

Still, it isn't easy to accompany someone on their journey to oblivion, when the fogs are descending and everything that was once important to both of you is being forgotten by them, bit by bit.

North Fork Fog by Lolly Shera

Everytime I visit with my mother these days our talks always start with her telling me how good of me to come, because it's all so terrible and I have to help her. "He" has left her, she tells me, and has moved in with another woman just across the market square from her apartment and "he" now wants a divorce. She is referring to my father who died in January last year after 64 years of marriage.

It is a familiar routine now, to remind her that my father has not left her but has died, that she actually was there when it happened. She then tells me, "Yes, now I remember. I saw through the window how they were trying to resuscitate him. I saw when he died." But then she continues, "Why does he want a divorce, we have always been happy..?" 

After talking it through for a while, she settles down and can talk about other things, mainly about me, my sister and her grandchildren. At least she still remembers us and our names, although most other people are forgotten as if they never have existed.

She has now been prescribed inhibiting drugs to slow down the progression of the dementia. My sister and I and my nephew and nieces all work during the week so we also have her on home care services five times a day, mainly to see to it that she eats properly and takes her medication in an orderly fashion.

Still, I feel a lot of guilt at not taking care of mother properly.

The Summer of 2015, Part 2: The Struggle

I am a privileged man, born into and raised by warm, loving, caring and accepting parents who created a stable nuclear family with no major dysfunctions. I am socially, materially and financially comfortable with a job I love. I don't suffer from any health issues or conditions that incapacitate me or require lifelong treatment. I have never starved, never been abused and never beaten. What do I have to complain about?

The answer is obvious, nothing really because I am most certainly among the 5% of the world's population who are best off. So I am aware that there are billions upon billions who are worse off if we were comparing or in a suffering contest. But we aren't, are we?

Just writing this post makes me feel petulant, childish and prissy, so please bear with me. With all my fortunate situation, I have still not been happy this whole horrible year.

I hate death!

Death means someone I love leaves. And not only that they leave me. Being left makes me very angry. I have never learned how to relate to that in a good way.

So my father died in January and my mother went sort of crazy for a while after that. I haven't grieved my father's death properly yet. I haven't shed a tear yet, instead I have been sort of balancing and "coping". Whether this lack of reaction is due to my antidepressants or not, I cannot say.

The reaction I have had instead is fatigue and tenseness and being antisocial. I am so tense that I actually gnawed through two perfectly healthy teeth and a tooth implant in my sleep. Now it seems, I may have damaged another one despite the fact that I now have a tooth guard. The fatigue and anti-socialness leads to me withdrawing from the company of almost everyone, except those who are closest to me.

Although the worst bit seems to be over now, there is still a way to go. And I will make it, thanks to myself, my Tomais and my friends in first life and in SecondLife. 

Mother

I just got off the phone with my mother. She called me, crying, and told me she could not take it any longer."He didn't sleep here last night and he hasn't been home all day. He must be with her, I don't understand why he is doing this to me..."

The man she is talking about is my father, who passed away on January 28, 2015.

I tried to get mother calm. I reminded her that she was there when father died and saw when he was given CPR and when he took his last breath. "Yes", she confirmed "I remember all that, but where are these strange thoughts coming from? Why am I thinking of this woman and there being something to do with your father?" We talked on about how they had been married for almost 65 years. How my father loved her very much, and she him from the beginning when they met until the end. How he never ever slept away from her during all those years, if he could help it.

Mother was calm again when we finished and was going to bed, because she was feeling very tired.

I can with absolute knowledge say, that if my father had had an affair and had moved out of the house we in the family would all know. Mine is not a family in which one is allowed to keep such things secret, not for very long and we all get involved in the end - always.

This has been going on for about six weeks, not constantly, but from time to time. At first we - my older sister and I - didn't understand what the hell was going on and we put it down to grief. After a while we were told that hallucinations and a change of mental status sometimes can be the only visible symptoms of a urinary tract infection (UTI) in elderly people.

Last Friday I took my mother to the doctor for a checkup. The checkup showed no signs of a UTI so that wasn't the cause of the strange thoughts. What was discovered through a blood count test was that my mother had acute anemia. Her hemoglobin count was only 72 g/L (normal (121 to 151 g/L). The doctor believed that this could - possibly - account for mother's strange thoughts and hallucinations.

Mother was immediately admitted to hospital, with many protests and the promise it would only be overnight, and was given three bags of blood.

The reason for the anemia still remains unclear and is going to be investigated without hospitalization, as that is the only way my mother will accept.

It would seem that the blood transfusions haven't helped, not yet anyway. The whole thing makes me very sad and unhappy.

A Piece of My Family History

"It has to be done today! He is coming home next week, I might as well do it right now before I return home." she told herself. The young woman stepped out of the maternity ward at the hospital in Lund on a warm summer morning on the first day of September 1930.

Her name was Nelly. She was a small woman, fit with sturdy legs, clear blue eyes and a determined look on her face. She was dressed in a light summer dress and had a small hat on her light blond hair, as every decent married woman had in those days when they went outside. On one arm she carried her newborn child and in the other hand she held the small suitcase with essentials that had been packed for the trip to the hospital a week earlier.

Nelly walked the short distance from the hospital area to the town center in a steady pace. It was a market day at Saint Martins Square and there were many people about. The square was filled with market stalls where the farmers from the surrounding countryside were selling off their goods.

She found a place to leave her suitcase and then she looked around to see whom she could approach with her offer.

Onlookers could see her approach young women or young couples, one after the other, speak to them shortly and see them shake their heads and back away from her with eyes filled with pity, disgust or unbelief at her unusual request. Nelly did this for several hours until she met a couple that did not instinctively shun her. 

The couple listened quietly as Nelly told them that her husband, who was a sea captain, was coming home in the immediate future after more than a year at sea. She had had an extramarital affair during his absence and had given birth to a son only seven days earlier. Nelly told them that she could not keep the child, because her husband would never accept a bastard son. The couple, who were in their late thirties, looked at each other. Tage and Ragnhild had been married for several years and had tried - unsuccessfully - to get children. Finally Tage nodded and smiled at his wife and they both turned to Nelly and told her that they would accepted her offer and would take the boy into their care. 

The infant boy and his birth certificate (where Nelly's husband the sea captain was noted as father) were passed to the couple. They made their goodbyes and parted ways.

---

My father would not meet his birth mother again until in 1948, when he was eighteen. He was sent to Nelly by the military when he was going to start his military service to require information on which of four alternatives his correct surname was. They supplied him with the address of his mother and told him not to return until he had the answer. 

My father took my mother along to the meeting with Nelly, At this time Nelly had divorced the sea captain and had shortly afterwards remarried the man with whom she had strayed in her marriage. Nelly and her new husband by then had five more children together. Both of them, my paternal grandparents, told my father that his true surname should be (McMillan) after Nelly's new husband.

---

I have pieced together the information above from our family mythology and the Swedish population records.

My first life family never really had a close relationship with my paternal grandparents although we would meet them occasionally, with very long intervals. There was no affection wasted on us by my grand mother, although my grandfather was a kind and caring man who tried - unsuccessfully - to make up for her lacking social skills.

The 8th and 9th Days After

On Thursday I visited with dad one last time.

My father was laying in a casket, without the lid on, in a large chapel where all religious symbols had been removed. The sunlight was streaming in through the big windows, it was a unusually sunny day. Around the casket six large candles had been placed on safe distance so that one could walk between them and the coffin.

Someone had also put a red rose in his left hand. The right hand was covered, as the undertakers assistant told us, because it had been badly bruised and the bruises had torn when he had been stored in the freezer.

I was - thankfully - accompanied to this visit by my oldest niece, who is also a registered nurse.

My dad looked peaceful enough, but as if he had been in a fight at the end. The veins on his eyelids, closest to the lashes, were red and seemed to have burst. He also had two symmetrically placed bruises on his upper lip, which my niece informed me, was from when they had tried to resurrect him in the ambulance and at the hospital.

Dad was cold to the touch, as I felt when I held his hand and caressed his cheeks. One or two of the hairs in his left eyebrow were sticking out, which made me wish that I had brought a pair of small scissors along so I could have cut them. Instead I gently stroked them down and blended them with the rest of his left eyebrow.

Inside I was in complete and utter turmoil, my mind was moving fast through memories of dad from throughout my life. On the outside I must have appeared calm, a few small tears nothing more.

My father was a loving, caring and accepting father. He loved my mother, me and my siblings dearly and did everything he possibly could to protect us, save us and carry us. Dad also knew all my trigger points and was the only person who could - the few times that he wished to - drive me from calm serenity to a wild frenzy in 15 seconds flat, and then he would ask me calmly why I was so angry...

My niece and I only stayed about 20 minutes, not long at all considering. Outside the chapel we hugged and said a few words and then went each on our own way. She was going to pick up her kids from daycare, while I was going back to my mothers home.

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Nine days after my father had passed away, on Friday, I suddenly realized one of the reason why I was in this strange state of feeling and thinking so much, but not expressing anything, as if I was cloaked in numbness over an uproar of torrential feelings. All was expressed in being much more tired and a slight irritability.

The reason was of course the antidepressants I have been on for 4,5 years now, since a couple of months after Ars died. 20 mg of Cipralex daily has an effect in the long run.

I felt terribly stupid for not having realized the connection earlier.

Sudden Cardiac Arrest

The cause of death that will appear on my dad's death certificate will be "Sudden Cardiac Arrest".

There are several possible reasons for SDA, Whatever the reason may have been in my dad's case will remain unknown as the doctor has kindly decided to follow the request of my mothers, my sister and myself, not to perform an autopsy.

We have spent time together in the immediate family and have tried to focus on the immediate practical issues that a death causes. Everyone who should be informed, has been informed. We have also made an appointment with the undertaker designated by my father and are to meet with him on Sunday to go through the practical arrangements of the funeral in accordance with my fathers wishes.

Dad has left exact instructions about how he wanted things to be done and they will be followed to the letter. He wanted to be cremated and then placed in a memorial grove without any ceremonies, songs or speeches. 

As I understand it the family is never allowed to be present when the mortal remains are placed in a memorial grove so as not to know the exact spot. We have decided as a family, despite some initial objections by my mother, that we can live with that arrangement.

My mother is restless and has - like me - not been able to process the event fully yet, but both of us will get there in time. I am not going to try to force it anymore. What will be, will be.

One thing I have learned these past days, is how helpful and calming it is for the immediate family that the deceased has left clear instructions concerning their wishes. Whenever a question has arisen concerning something, we have gone to my fathers documents and found the answer there.

I have promised myself that I am going to start jotting down my own wishes in the event that something happens, both concerning burial arrangements and everything else that my survivors may need, including a letter to Linden Lab with a will concerning my wishes regarding my SecondLife "assets". One never knows when death strikes and we cannot always delay until we feel it is upon us.

Dad Dies

I was at a conference in Stockholm today when I was reached by the sudden and unexpected news that my father had passed away.

Although dad was 84 years old, he had no known major health issues that could cause his death and he had all senses intact. However, his knees were worn out so that he had had difficulties lately with standing, rising and walking.

This morning he had been to the toilet and got stuck sitting there because he couldn't raise himself up, his legs would not carry him. The home helpers who were there couldn't help him either, so they called an ambulance for assistance in getting him off the toilet and into a  chair.

When the ambulancemen arrived and started helping him dad joked with them about the slightly embarrassing situation they found him in, which was rather typical of him.

As the ambulancemen started to help dad he suddenly went limp and pale. The ambulancemen noticed at once and put him on the floor to perform CPR. They managed to get his heart beating, but it stopped again while he was being transported to the ER. The staff at the hospital also managed to start it once more, but it stopped soon after that.
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I am in a daze right now and sort of cut-off from my emotions. It all happened so out-of-the-blue. We have strong hearts in my paternal family and my father never had any sign of troubles with his heart.

My father leaves behind his loving family consisting of his wife of 65 years, a daughter and a son, grandchildren, great grandchildren, a sister and two brothers.

He will always be remembered for his love and care of his family, kindness and good sense of humor.
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P.S. I thought that writing about this would provoke me to feel that it actually has happened and that I would finally be able to handle it in an appropriate way (which is sometimes the case), but no such luck. I still cannot fell anything at all...

Acquiring a Habit

I know exactly when, where and why I started smoking and whom I was with at the time.

For a long time I was the only non-smoker in my immediate family. My parents, both my two sisters and their boyfriends (later husbands) were all smokers. When they lit up their cigarettes after dinners I used to run around frantically, open up windows and complain loudly about the smoke and the smell and how I couldn't breathe.

The summer when I was 26 years old, I decided to travel a month around Europe on Interrail. I was studying law at the university at the time and had suddenly discovered that I had an opening of four weeks after the term ended and my summer job started. As a young man with an overprotective father, I knew I could not tell my parents my decision too long in advance because that would give my father too much time to launch a campaign of trying to persuade me to travel in a "safer" way.

I broke the news to my parents the evening before I was going to leave. All hell temporarily broke lose and I was fed with images of myself laying murdered, slaughtered, violated, raped, maimed, brutalized etc. in every street, town square or hotel room in Europe by my poor father. When he calmed down, I promised to phone at least once a week and "if ever anything bad happened, however minor I may think it was". After making this deal with my devil father, I was graciously "allowed" to travel.

The morning after I left started with a short trip to Copenhagen to catch the "North Express" at one o'clock in the afternoon. The Nord Express is (or was) a daily railway connection  between Copenhagen and Paris and viceversa.

I was early, so I could choose where to sit and found a nice compartment with eight seats and settled in before the other passengers started arriving. The last one to arrive just before the train departed, was a tall and husky blond guy with trembling hands, amazing blue eyes and a dazzling smile. He sat down opposite me.

At first there was this usual awkward silence in the compartment but after awhile we all started talking a little and introducing ourselves and sharing our travel plans. The guy said his name was Andrew and that he was a Canadian from Newfoundland on vacation in Europe. He was on his way to Paris for a few days before he was joining an archeological excavation at some place outside the city.

Andy was a smoker, he smoked Marlboro's. I didn't mind a bit when he lit up a cigarette, strangely enough. When we had travelled together a while, he offered me to come with him for a cigarette in the corridor. I gladly went along with him and accepted the cigarette and puffed on it, carefully at first so as not to reveal that I was a beginner. We had a great time together and the smoke pauses repeated themselves during the trip until we settled in for the night. Andy stretched out his unshod feet towards my side and I did the same and in that way we went to sleep resting our heads on the others feet.

When we arrived in Paris we decided to get a room at a hotel together, until it was time for him to continue to his damn excavation. We had four wonderful days together in Paris. I had fallen in love and was sad to part. We stayed in touch the first six months after, but then with time and distance and other men the letters and cards swindled and finally ended. The only thing I was left with was my newly acquired habit of smoking.

To this day I still smoke Marlboro's and I think of Andy when I see a man with more than usual tremor in his hands.

Childhood

Guyke, Butch and Ziggy have been pestering me for a first life picture of myself, but this is as far as I will go at the moment.

In the picture you see me on a donkey and my older sister being protective. The picture was taken by my father on one of our families vacations in the Pakistani parts of the Himalayas. Quite lovable ain't I, but which child isn't?

My First Life Sucks

Beware, I am going to whine a bit again in this post!

"Sisyfos Lars" by Lars Korff Lofthus

In Greek mythology Sisyphus was a king of Ephyra punished for chronic deceitfulness by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this action forever.

Although spring is finally arriving to Scandinavia and we have had three marvelous, mild and sunny days in a row with temperatures between 15-17°C (59-63°F) I feel like I am roleplaying as Sisyphus. My life seems like a constant battle and I am at odds with e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e in my first life except my father (surprisingly enough, because he is usually the first one I clash with).

I am down to one (1) friend that I stay in touch with and he lives in Stockholm 600 km away (372 miles), so it's a safe distance. It's been so long since I had "carnal knowledge" of anyone that I think I may have forgotten how to do it and that my hymen has grown back.

Everyone around me in first life is either an asshole, a dumbass or just a douchebag. Why am I suddenly surrounded by these people? Even my boss, whom I usually like for her direct approach and good sense of humor, has turned into a blubbering idiot.

I cannot imagine the fault lies with me in anyway whatsoever! No way!

Guys Talking About Guys

Just before I was going to drop out to first life yesterday my beautiful brother in-law Dej logged in. I joined him for a short chat about life and men while we watched the sunset on Southern Charm.

Two men who love men talking about other men, who may or may not love men, is sometimes a bit confusing but fabulously profound and wickedly insightful, as it has the added value of us being men ourselves.

During our talk Dej told me he had read a comment on my blog that he didn't like and that he thought the guy who had written it could never have lost anyone he loved. When I told him that I did not remember the comment he was referring to, but that I believed that the man had told me that he had actually lost a love in his life. Dej snorted disparagingly, "Men, they lie more than they shower!"

Dej's comment made me laugh out loud, both because it surprised me and because it carried an element of truth. We have all met them, these men who rather than tell us the unadorned truth by some inner need are driven to embellish their stories in a completely unnecessary way.

One of these men is my own father, whom I love dearly and who never tell lies to people close to him because he knows we will spot it immediately. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard him go into a song and dance routine with a complete stranger or a salesperson at the door or in a shop somewhere rather than simply saying "No!" to them. When I have asked him about this strange and rather uncharacteristic habit of his - several times - he just shrugs and says "I wanted to give them an explanation, just to be polite or kind."

Email to the Wilson´s

From: X.X.
Sent: December 15, 2012 8:53 PM
To: Debbie.X.
Subject: Happy Holidays

Dearest Debbie, Marie and the rest of my American family,

We have another Christmas and New Year coming up and I wish you all the best for the holidays and the coming year. I hope this email reaches you all in good health and that you are all doing well!

In my first life, 2012 has been a kind and consoling year and it seems that I, in spite of a few bad turns during the year, will be meeting it will all my loved ones still with me. My mother and father have both been hospitalized during the year but are both now doing very well and are – as always – enjoying each other’s company. I have two more grandnieces/grandnephews as my sisters children continue to multiply.

On a personal level I am doing well too. Although I still think of Doug/Ars on a daily basis it is now happy memories that appear in my mind. You should also know, that whenever I think of him I also think about you. Of course I already knew that you were an extraordinary family but recounts of other peoples experiences in similar circumstances have made it quite obvious to me that you are unique. The warmth, kindness and consideration with which the Wilson family received me and accepted me in such a difficult situation is still unparalleled by anything I have yet heard of. I will be forever grateful to you for that.

My SecondLife is also doing well, Guyke, Millimina and Dej are still close, in fact Dej has moved in and set up house on the south west corner of Southern Charm sim. I am sure all three of them and Jeb also send you their warmest greetings for the holidays and the new year.

With love and big hugs!
Bock

Two Turtle Doves

My parents are - finally - reunited again after my fathers short stint at the local hospital.

When I saw my father yesterday he was despondent, feeling abandoned and talking about how he was going to die in the hospital bed where he had been since September 29.

"Everyone else goes home after a day or two here, but they keep me. They will never send me home! I am bored to death and I worry about mother. She doesn't like to be alone, you know, and I don't like to leave her alone either. I miss her."

The two met when my father was 15 and my mother was 16. They married in april 1950 and since then have never been much away from each other, except for their various hospital stays in recent years.

As far as I can remember my parents have always shown their love for each other in an unassuming but highly visible way, except for a short period nearly thirty years ago when I was in my early teens.

As far as I and my older sister (who was married and had moved away by then) have been able to piece together from what we remember and overheard, my father must have had a short romantic fling at the office. When my father broke it off after a few weeks the woman felt obliged to call my mother to inform her of what had been going on.

I remember my mother crying a lot and my father going around and looking like a whipped dog. At the time it felt like this went on for an eternity, but in hindsight it cannot have been for longer than two months until they found their way back to each other. At first very tentatively and carefully but soon their love flowed again and filled the whole family with joy and reassurance that everything was still well in the world.

I remembered that time when I saw them together today. Both radiating with happiness at seeing and touching each other and for being together again.

For some reason I started singing a rewritten stanza from The twelve days of Christmas to myself in the car on my way home, again and again and again... "two turtle doves and a son in a virtual reality" (Yeah, I know the words don´t fit the music well - but I did not receive the Nobel Prize in Literature this year either.)

"Doing A Bock"

When I walked into the lunchroom at work today I overheard two co-workers talking.
- "Yesterday I did a Bock!"
- "Oh, what do you mean?"
- "Well, I went to bed when I came home and slept until midnight. Then I got up went to the bathroom. ate a little, drank a little, watched television a little and went back to bed again two hours later to sleep until it was time to get up for work."

The word of my strange habits seem to be spreading. Actually I have done two Bock´s in a row this week, yesterday and the day before, and still i feel tired. I am blaming the arrival of autumn and the darned continuous raining.

After work most days I check in with my dad at the hospital, then over to my mother to see that she is OK too and then home to hit the bed after taking two painkillers for my more or less permanent headache. Anyway my father is getting better and my mother is doing well, so all is well in the world!

Dad Again

Very early Friday morning my mother called me on the phone to tell me that my father wanted me to accompany him to the hospital. He had had a small sore - of unknown origin - on his calf that despite treatment from a registered nurse and antibiotics hade become very infected. He had not eaten or slept much for two days due to the pains.

I got there in 30 minutes and saw that he was not in a good state. The small wound had grown and the whole calf was red, swollen and extremely tender to the touch. He could not walk by himself and was too heavy for me to handle alone, so we called the home health care services and they arranged for an ambulance transport.

The ambulance arrived within twenty minutes and we were soon at the hospital.They immediately took a battery of bloodtests and after seeing the doctor he got morphine to kill the pains and an antibiotic drip directly into his blood stream. He was admitted to the Infection Clinic.

Later that day I learned that his blood sedimentation rate (SR) when he was admitted to hospital was sky high at 241, where it in men over 50 should be under 20 mm/hr.

On Saturday evening he was already feeling better after a few hours sleep, he was more alert and had even eaten half a meal. His SR had sunk to under 200 so he was responding well to the treatment and was in less pain. The doctors were considering draining the sterpto cocci inflammation but had not yet done so.

Although the doctors now tell us that everything should go well, I am still concerned about the how and why the small wounds arose and how it could get so bad so fast even with the ddaily care from the nurse and the antibiotics.

At this point in my life I am extremely grateful that we have excellent and afforable healtcare in Sweden and are not subjected the same worries so many others face in similar situations. That is something I gladly and willingly pay higher taxes to achieve.

Pro-cras-ti-na-tion

I don´t understand whats going on with me at the moment. Although I long to immerse myself in SecondLife and get back in touch with my friends and family there and with my home things seem to come up to stop me all the time.

Today I had planned to log in. I had taken half the day of from work for a with my dental hygienist and my doctor and a few other essential errands and once they were done I was going to log back in and check the tings I know are waiting in my mailbox and see how the sim was doing and get back in touch with you all.

This time I was "only" going to take a short nap before getting in, the nap lasted six hours and I just woke up and am still tired- Other days, I feel like I have had an "overdose of people" and just cannot handle more social contact but just want to be alone, which is rather strange for me because usually I cannot get enough of friends or family.

Otherwise my first life is running smoothly. I have just signed up a team of cleaners that will drop by for three hours every third week, My parents are doing very well and are in love again - at 81 and 82 and after 62 years together - believe it or not. Is it strange that I am a creature of habit and long lasting relationships with such an inheritance?

Well, all I can say now is that I am now p-l-a-n-n-i-n-g to reenter SecondLife tomorrow Friday. Hopefully noting will interfere this time.

EURO 2012™

The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2012™ starts today, June 8, and goes on until July 1.

• My mother will be watching it and talking about it all the time.
• My father will be watching it and talking about it all the time.
• My sister and my brother in-law in first life will be watching it and talking about it all the time.
• Millimina Salamander will be watching it and talking about it all the time.
• Apmel Goosson - and all his Apmels - will be watching it and talking about it all the time.
• Anton Hysén will be watching it and talking about it all the time.
• All of my friends and family, gay or straight and men or women, in first life will be watching it and talking about it all the time.
• All of my workmates, gay or straight and men or women, will be watching it and talking about it all the time.
• Every straight or gay man and almost every woman and child in Europe will be watching it and talking about it all the time-
• Every gay or straight European male avatar and almost every European female avatar in SecondLife will be watching it and talking about it all the time

The only redeeming thing about this months of boring soccer matches will be the opportunity to look at the nice legs of the soccer players once in awhile.

Soccer Legs by A la Corey

Soccer Legs by Lawrenz Loh

The Old Spice Guy

It´s father´s day in Sweden today and I just got off the phone with my own father.

I love my father dearly and I also know that my father loves me with a deep and unfailing love, just like he has always loved my mother and my sisters. Nonetheless we have always had some problem communicating directly with each other ever since I was an adolescent. For deep heart-to-heart conversations we always needed my mother presence - or one of my sisters - otherwise we end up yelling at each other. It´s strange, really strange, because both of us want to avoid these unnecessary conflicts but we end up misunderstanding each other without an interpreter to cool things down.

My father´s passion for his immediate family stems from his strange childhood, I believe. He was born in the 1930´s when my grandmother and grandfather had not yet been married. Apparently it was a huge scandal those days, so my grandmother traveled with my infant father from the countryside where she was living to the largest town close by.

With the infant boy in her arms she apparently walked the streets of the small town and asked women she met if they would like to have him and take care of him. Finally she met a woman who agreed to do this and my father was handed over to the other woman.

My father did not meet his mother again until he was 18 years old. The reason for this meeting was that he was going to do his military service and the military asked him which of three surnames was his true one. They sent him to his birth mother to find out. Dad went to meet her together with my mother, whom he had met and fallen madly in love with when he was 15.

At the meeting my grandmother told my father that she had married my grandfather soon after dropping off my father. They now had five more children together. She had however never considered bringing back my father. The visit was successful in the sense that my father could return to the military and inform them of his correct surname, but in every other way it was seemingly a total disaster.

The contact between my grandmother and my father in particular, but also with my mother, remained strained for the rest of my grandmothers life. I cannot remember meeting her more than at the most 10 times, partly because we were living abroad but also because there was no will on either part to meet.

This background and the intense love between my parents has made us a very close knit family. Both my parents have always showered us kids with love and support in every situation. We still great each other with pecks on the lips and hugs.

Since my childhood there is one scent that I will forever associate with my father, even through the years when it was no longer fashionable, and that is the scent of the original "Old Spice".