So, in light of the whole health care debate in the U.S. I decided to find out how much I would pay for medication, should I live there. Just for comparison. I based this on the disclaimer at Drugstore.com, who says:

Retail prices provided are based on findings by the Department of Health and Human Services regarding retail pharmacy prices of brand-name drugs for cash-paying customers. Actual prices may vary.

So, I took their discounted price, added on the amount you supposedly saved by shopping with them to get a price somewhere in the same ballpark as the retail price. Is that too confusing? Sorry about that.

But here we go. This is what I would pay for one month of medication.

1. Mirtazapin, which is a generic of Remeron. 45 mg.
89 dollars.

2. Cipralex, which you guys call Lexapro. 20 mg.
113 dollars.

3. Lamotrigin, which you guys call Lamictal. 100 mg.
190 dollars.

(I did not count my prescription strength iron tablets, B12 pills or generic vitamins, because they are fairly cheap. Well, here they are.)

That is a total of 392 US-dollars per month, 4704 dollars per year. That’s kind of a high price for staying sane, if you ask me. And yes, that’s how much an uninsured person would pay for these medications. What I pay? 1600 SEK, which is roughly 223 dollars. Per year.

This is the sort of health care the republicans are so scared of. (Actually, the one they don’t want is probably way more conservative than ours. But I digress.)

Pass this one on if you want. I found it kind of interesting. Although there’s probably hundreds of blog posts just like it out there. Ah, well. Whatever you write, you can be sure that somebody else has done it before. That’s life.

Every time Girlie Jones posts awesomely about breaking through the glass ceiling of SF I think about this post card I bought in Edinburgh. I stuck it in a book and promptly forget about it, but it was a nice surprise once I found it!

Today one of my baby cousins turned 25. Well, she did yesterday and today she had her family-party-type-thing. I remember when we called her and the other two her age “the little ones” and wouldn’t let them play with us. Now they’re all freakishly grown-up and drink wine at dinner.

(I still drink coke. The smell of wine makes me dry heave at best, and I can’t have beer anymore.)

I actually had a good time. Sat at the very end of the table with my cousin Charlotte and another relative and chatted. She’s forty-something odd years and retired early (like, really early) because of her artrithis, and we bonded over getting tired really quickly when there’s lots of people around. I only lasted three hours, but it’s more than I have in the past.

I find myself wanting to blog more in Swedish, but I’m not sure ANOTHER blog is really necessary. It’s getting unmanageable as it is, and God, I can’t even remember the last time I updated my craft blog. I meant to, when I had a lot of pads for sale, but they sold out really quickly, so the pics is kind of outdated by now. Maybe I should just make the content for my FA-blog a bit… broader.

Now I’m back home, with a cat on my belly, a cup of tea next to me and my feet up. I am really loving reading through our Blueberry book, though I should probably keep going on the other one, as I actually passed the halfway mark. My arm is ouchy and I worry about RSI, because I read this really amazing post on being a writer who can’t write.

Then again, I’ve always worried too much.

I really don’t feel good today. I’ve been to the gym something like four times and already feel some of my eating disordered thinking coming back, mostly because there’s no way of disabling the “calories burned” function on the threadmill. Which means I do more than I should, and then crash when I get home. Only, today I couldn’t because it’s laundry day.

I was also reminded about my bad periosteum, which I had totally forgotten about. It’s the membrane covering most bones in the body, and is full with nerve endings. The one on my left shin is ridiculously ouchy, and of course, it being a membrane and not a muscle or whatever you can’t bandage it up and go on your way. It’s just THERE. So annoying.

(And don’t tell me how stupid it was to keep exercising once it started squeaking. I know it is. Really.)

Anyway, writing about something else entirely…

The title of this post can be translated to “I’m ridiculously scatter-brained”, but I love the word “vimsig” so much that I used Swedish instead. Just because. But yes, I am. Especially lately.

A month ago (I think) I walked into the wrong building, up two flights of stairs and put my key in the lock, wondering why it didn’t turn. My first thought wasn’t “huh, I must’ve messed up”, but rather “OMG who has changed my lock and WHY?” Eventually I realised what was going on and walked away without the person living in said coming to beat me for trying to break into their place. Later I was told by my sister that the only time she (who is otherwises the only person as vimsig as me) had managed that was while falling-down-drunk and in the middle of the night. Not at three o’clock in the afternoon.

A fortnight ago I went to put laundry in, promptly forgot about it for three hours and remembered only minutes before the doors locked for the night and had to haul dripping wet laundry back to my flat and try to find places to hang it all.

A fortnight ago I also managed to lose an appointment and not realise it for like… two weeks. It was FUN to call back and explain that one!

This week? This week I have managed the following…

Lost my bus pass.

Lost three sets of gym membership paperwork.

Signed a fourth copy, turned it in, been issued a card that I lost two days later.

Almost left my wallet at the counter when I explained this to them and had to pay for a new card.

Left my water bottle… SOMEWHERE. I have no idea where.

Burnt food three times over because I forgot I was actually cooking.

Forgot about previously mentioned injury, and thus aggrivated it more.

Forgotten to answer crucial business e-mails for days on end. Sorry about that.

Forgotten to blog about my new stock until it had all been purchased already.

Forgotten that it was my name day. (We have a name assigned to each day of the year, and on your days – mine are August 2nd and February 28th unless it’s a leap year, and then it’s the 29th – and we always get CAKE.) I only remembered when my mum asked me to come over for lemon meringue pie. She sent leftovers with me when I went home, and I…

Forgot that I had my favourite dessert in the fridge for TWO DAYS. And when I ate it I had a severe gluten reaction, which makes me think that my mum doesn’t get how specific you have to be to not cross-contaminate.

In all it’s not my day, and I think I shall spend the rest of it in bed, so I don’t sprain my ankle, burn down the flat or accidentally flood my bathroom. Come to think about it, I should probably not step close to my sewing machine either. It’s almost Copperbadge-esque, my luck as of late. He is, by the way, an amazing blogger who is normally the only person in this world with worse luck than me. He has a tag called “ways I’ve injured myself”, which pretty much says it all.

Everyone who knows me is all “Sports? Really?”, but oh my God. Yesterday during the game one of our baby players, Aaron Ramsey, got on the end of a bad tackle and ended up fracturing both his fibia and tibia. The images of it, all over the place, are quite sickening because it was – such a bad break. Not that there are ever GOOD broken legs, but you know… He’ll be out a year, best case scenario, possibly more.

Not going to say much of it, because others have done it already, but I thought I’d post some pics to remind us (and um, that means Arsenal fans, not those of you scratching your heads and going “don’t include ME in this!”) what football is really all about. Which is the game, the players, the rush and happiness as goals are scored… All that stuff non-football-fans can’t understand.

And yeah, this makes it three of our babies out this year; Ramsey, Gibbs, who broke a bone in his foot, and Wilshere, who is out on loan. Well, at least we still have Cesc, who admittedly barely counts as a baby, being the captain and all, but he’s actually only 22. I think.

Oh my God. It’s no wonder I am so good at writing angsty, depressing, outright suicidal type prose. See, over the last few weeks I’ve been reading a lot of library books, and there is only one tiny shelf in English, so mostly I’ve had to make do with Swedish authors, as I hatehatehate reading translated works. And in the last fortnight I’ve read books with the following plots:

1) A bullied girl who kind of by accident ends up at a party with her worst bullies. The highlight of the evening includes four or five drunk teenage boys, an even drunker lonely fifteen-year-old girl, a BROKEN BEER BOTTLE and a secluded bit of forest. That’s all I’m going to say about that one.

2) A boy who, without knowing that his sister, best friend and girlfriend are inside, sets fire to a school. No, none of them make it out alive.

3) A mother with untreated post partum depression, who gets enough, and just drives away from her family. Her daughter is four, so it’s been going on for some time. It also turns out that her mother AND grandmother had similar problems, that her daughter has anger issues and, yes, it’s very much Norén drama over it all. I think. I’ve never seen a Norén play, they seem too depressing.

4) A mostly funny tale of drunken escapades, which involves broken hearts, dramatic turns and um, two suicides. Only one succeesful, though, if that helps.

5) An actually pretty awesome book about a disabled woman and a triangle love drama, but it also includes being kicked out of your home because you’re gay, being put up for adoption because you’re disabled and um, some closet alcoholism.

That is, all these books were good in their own ways, really, but as I’ve given away the plots for them I won’t tell you the titles. Except for #5, which is named Udda, by Sara Löwestam. It’s absolutely brilliant, funny and poignant and the humour makes the sad parts all the more powerful. I absolutely love the character Lelle in this book. So, so much. Any and all Swedes reading this should buy it.

So, yes. I feel the need to read something in English now. I might have to place an order for Suite Scarlett and Scarlett Fever, because I HAVE TO HAVE THEM. I’ve only read #1, though, so I feel justified.

Nevermind that I’m trying to not spend all my money on books. Nevermind that at all…

I always laugh when my (mostly American) friends get “snow days” as soon as it’s more than two inches of snow on the ground, but this? This is too much snow, even for me.

(And I live in the semi-south.)

I have watched the bra colour meme spread across Facebook over the last few days. It even made it over to Sweden, and translated itself somewhere along the line. It’s just that it seems to have changed meaning a bit as it’s worked its way around the globe. I realised just how much when two friends told me, after I tweeted about the stupidity of this meme, that it’s actually to raise breast cancer awareness. This made no sense to me, because the version I read said nothing about breast cancer, whatsoever, but with my friend Google as help I found a blog saying the following:

So, like every good Facebooker, I played along by peeking in my shirt and updating my status: Beige.

What I turned up on the Internet is that the purpose of this color thing is to simply raise awareness of breast cancer. Not sure how it all got started, but here’s what you should do if you’re a girl (or boy who wears a bra): Look at your bra, note the color, type it in your FB status bar, then feel those boobies. Just re-updated my status after my “beige” remark and wrote this:

So, while you’re peeking inside your shirt to see what color bra you are wearing so you can post it in your status update, go ahead and feel around in there, make sure there are no lumps. And if there are, call your doc for a clinical exam!

Are you game? Hope so.

This way it makes sense. Really. It does. Unfortunately, the original version of the meme, sent to women all over as a Facebook message is less clear. It goes as follows:

Some fun is going on… Just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of breast cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before people wonder why all the girls have a color in their status… Haha.

Now, this make decidedly less sense. It does mention breast cancer awareness, but it doesn’t say WHY this would raise breast cancer awareness, and honestly, I am wary of it, because while it may sound innocent I did during my search for where the hell this came from, come across a few “oh, and while you’re at it, let a DUDE check out that bra colour for you”, comments, and seriously? There is nothing funny about that.

And if you’re interested in how breast cancer is sometimes sexualised in a way no other cancer ever is, read this post from Hoyden About Town. It’s really an eye opener.

And for the record? The version of this meme that I was bitching about? It said the following (although in Swedish, I translated it for you, my esteemed readers):

I just received this – a bit silly, but everyone needs a bit fun! Just for girls and women. Let’s have some fun and play a gave! Write the colour of your bra in your status here in Facebook. Send this to all girls in your profile. NO MEN! It will be fun to watch them wonder why there’s a colour in your status! Keep this meme going.

So, um, you can see how the message has changed, and thus alienated a lot of people who just found it plain stupid, which is a shame, because breast cancer awareness is important. Which is also why I decided to write this post.

And no, I’m still not telling you my bra colour.

a) The Russians seem to love me.

b) I feel kind of bad spamming the one comment in English. Especially since it used so many multi-syllable words.

c) I still did.

It greatly amuses me when I go all “oooh, I’m a grown-up, if I want to I can eat icecream for dinner!”, and then, when I do? I feel nauseous after half a bowl and want something healthy like oatmeal or steamed edamame instead. Edamame beans, steamed, with a bit of salt is my new crack, seriously.

Today I am going over to my parents’ house instead of giving them my usual excuses because of things I wrote about yesterday. I don’t feel well, so it will be hard, but I’m going anyway.

Mostly I feel like curling up in bed and die. (Only not literally.)

I’m eating lunch and knitting and eyeing the cat suspiciously. She’s obviously taken some kitty uppers, because she’s going crazy.

I started a savings account for a new laptop. I really want a MacBook, for reasons I can’t explain with more than “so shiny”. And possibly because of Scrivener. Considering my current income and all it will take me a year or so to save up, and I have to say that it’s pretty damn tempting to do a BAD BAD BAD payment plan which you are warned about because the interest makes it ten times as expensive. So far I have 1/10th of what it would cost upfront, not counting insurance and all that crap.

Mean.

Also, have started collecting my favourite recipes here. They’re all vegetarian, sometimes vegan (for some reason vegans are more creative with their cooking, so I use their recipes more!), and I love the hell out of every single one of them. That is, of all the recipes on this page.

Mmmm, winter vegetable pot pie…