Hej Då, Sverige: Pt. 4

I have, on average, about one optional lecture per week here at University of Gothenburg, with a four-page "final essay" at the end of each month. All of this free time has given me the opportunity to explore all of the cultural gems that Gothenburg has to offer, including watching the entire series of Sex and the City. After watching the show, I found that I could really relate to the characters. HAHAH sike. I just have no point of reference for many of the plot lines. Yeah, I really hate being a single woman in my 30s when all of the people around me are getting married. Wow, sorry about your divorce. I can't believe I have to go to yet another baby shower! Who will watch my kid while I work my 60 hour/week job as a partner at my law firm??? Why do men always want the hot young twenty-somethings??????? I actually let out a bratty, self-assuming little chortle while watching "Valley of the 20-Somethings," which I'm pretty sure guarantees my karmic fate as a 60-year-old cat lady bachelorette. Agism is a bitch. Anyways! There was one little vignette that did hit pretty close to home, and served as the inspiration for today's post:

Hej Då, Sverige, Pt 4: Secret Single Behaviors

In "The Good Fight," Aiden asks Carrie to move in with him (Ok, can we have another aside here? WHAT was Carrie thinking? How stupid do you have to be to leave a guy who makes furniture for you, has a dog named Pete, takes you on weekend getaways to the countryside where he wears a lot of flannel and looks damn good in it, and is an all-around nice person who treats you well and calls when he says he will? GOD, CARRIE, WHY ARE YOU THE WAY YOU ARE?), which prompted the mandatory cafe recap conversation amongst friends about Secret Single Behaviors, the things you only feel comfortable doing when you are completely in your own space. Continuing to be the Everyman (er, Everywoman), Carrie claims that she likes to stand in the kitchen at night and have a snack of jam and crackers. How is this at all secretive? Unless you are eating said crackers in a skyscraper of a stack and crumbs are being jam-glued all over your face and everything you touch after that is left with little residual sticky jam fingerprints like you're some sort of toddler, that so does not qualify as an SSB, sorry.

I've had my own place here in Gothenburg, which has been very nice, and a definite change of pace from being in a space where someone's walking into your room in the nude to ask you which tights she should wear today, someone's sobbing, someone's eating your Raisin Bran and talking to his girlfriend on the phone, someone thinks she's pregnant, and someone's running around yelling BLACK OUT OR GET OUT, and, oh yeah, someone vomited on your floor last night. I don't even know. Going from living with three (well, really, seven) girls to living alone was a difficult shift, and going from living alone to living with five guys this summer may be even harder. These are the Secret Single Behaviors to which I must bid adieu:

• Let's get the obvious over with: walking around in little to no clothing. No more morning coffee in my underwear. 
• In the same vein, wearing bizarro clothing combinations. Some days I just want to wear pink striped pajama shorts, a Star Wars t-shirt, a red hoodie, a floral headscarf, and rainbow striped socks. It's comfortable and I'm feeling it.
• Wearing my retainer. There is nothing less sexy than orthodontia.
• Doing my hair. Walking out of the bathroom. Deciding I need to redo my hair. Staring at my hair for ten minutes. Making model faces in the bathroom mirror in an attempt to find inspiration for my hair. Deciding that I need more eyeliner, too. Applying eyeliner and then realizing that I look like a hooker. Washing off eye makeup. Still not knowing what to do with hair. Yelling at my hair and face for not cooperating. Giving up and sitting somewhere until I feel good enough to try again with my hair and makeup. Repeat. Biting off the head of anyone who says "it looks good enough."
• Trying on an outfit and then spending 20 minutes deciding whether or not it makes me look fat. Thinking that it kind of does, and then taking off said outfit to see if I still look fat without the offending garment. Much like a Choose Your Own Adventure Book, deciding that either a) I look hot or b) my hips are big enough to show up on a Japanese whaling ship's radar. Spending the next 10 minutes or so poking and pinching and sucking in. Experimenting with how far down I can bend my neck before I get a double chin. Biting the inside of my cheeks to see what I'd look like as an Olsen Twin. Getting to know my mirror very well.
• Liz Lemon does the degrading self-talk better than I could ever describe. 10 second mark:

• Listening to Ke$ha.
• Dancing around my apartment and pretending I'm Ke$ha. Don't act like you don't do the same.
• Overshooting my pasta portions but probably eating it all anyways.
• Eating said pasta and then halfway through deciding that it needs way more cheese. And basil. Oooo, olives would be nice, too.
• Not looking cute while eating said pasta. Spaghetti's so unruly.
• Watching the mindless television. Guiltiest pleasure? Hannah Montana.
• Sleeping with little dots of toothpaste on my face in an effort to ward off impending blemishes. I look like I have albino chicken pox.
• Coffee and frozen berries at 1 AM? DON'T MIND IF I DO.
• No, but seriously, I've grown a deep aversion for pants here.