Dispatches

It's been ten years since I was last office-bound. When I signed the contract for this assignment I did wonder how it would feel to be back. Had you met me 2015, I would have told you that I loved my job and hated my life. It was slightly more nuanced than that, but still, I felt incredibly stuck.

Some mornings I would go to the office at 7am to avoid the commute chaos, and I liked hanging out at the office when it was quiet. Sometimes I would stay and drink wine with colleagues for hours, too tired to go home, even though I wanted to. It sounds a tad depressing, because it kind of was. Or, more accurately, I kind of was.

A lot has happened since then. It's a different time, and I'm a different person. When I left I was usually the youngest in every professional context. Now I'm often among the seniors. Putting my brewing midlife crisis aside, it feels pretty good. And having a clear time limit here means I can relax and enjoy what I like about being in Sweden, and not spend too much time on what I don't.

Plus, we have a really cool office. Every morning there I start my day with nitro cold brew on tap, with a dash of vanilla oat milk and ice. It's my favorite perk of all time. 😌

One guy shook his head at me one day and asked how it felt to be dubbed "the AI enabler". Kinda brought it on myself, I replied. In all seriousness though, I'm having so much fun digging into use cases that can actually be helpful in people's work, and not by outsourcing their creativity or cognitive abilities.

Anyway, enough work ramble.

Here's what else I've been up to the past month.

Took the train up north to visit family. Passed by the town I lived in for my teenage years (and hated every single moment of). Thanked myself for having the drive to make it out of there.

Went to Tove Schunnesson's author talk at a bookshop. Ultravåld was such a joy to read, I inhaled it. She mentioned something about the trashiness of teenagers in small towns and I felt seen. That was 100% me and one day I'll attempt to write about it.

We've been having some amazing fall days here. In the early October I could still leave the house in just a sweater. Ah, good times.

Read A Bigger Life (loved it) and found this delightful statistic.

Had friends over and made a quiche. Not winning any cooking show awards soon, but turned out pretty good.

One evening I suddenly noticed flashing blue lights outside. Two fire trucks and too many police officers to count. Attempted arson in the house next door.

Ok cool.

Met other friends at a french fries restaurant and felt Dutch for a moment.

The good weather has sailed away and we're back to our regularly scheduled Swedish programming: rain, rain, and then some more rain.

Finally tried an improv class here! Not sure if it was the format or the Swedishness of it all, but did not feel called to sign up.

That's it for this recap. Happy weekend!

Last week was a busy one.

I made it to three classes at my new calisthenics gym. It's different from studios in Lisbon and Berlin. Lisbon is more on the connection side; more partner exercises, deep breaths, mixed in slow movements. Berlin is grittier; pushing yourself, but also more playful. Time to really explore the skills you're practicing.

Stockholm is about efficiency. The classes are 50 minutes. No fucking around, we're on a schedule, the teachers has a clear structure and time, and they stick to it. The calisthenics teacher in Berlin goes over time in classes so often it's an internal joke at the studio.

So, different, but gets the job done. The most important thing for me in with classes (and boy do I have opinions) is that the teacher knows what they're doing, focus on technique and make sure to warm up accordingly. And they do, so I'm happy.

Sweden best burger truck finally had the tripple cheese back on the menu. It was just as delicious as I remember. (Photo does not make it justice.)

Met up with Jaan for cowork. Got too caught up talking about politics and values, so no photo evidence of this. The new Svedjan Bageri is a lovely spot to sit at though, I'll do better next time!

In related news I have been so caught up in my new assignment that I forgot to post about Preciiis – our new collaboration/collective! Whenever we get on a call together I feel inspired, and that's exactly what I want to feel when working with others.

It's colder inside than outside at the moment, but still, the fall colors are beginning to show and I'm embracing it. Also, I can't tell you how excited I am to have a bathtub for a while. Got 92 sleep score after this. 😌

Tried to make a vegetarian chili. But here's what I learned the hard way. If it says 2 teaspoons of chili powder, you can not replace it 1-1 with chili flakes. Who knew?

It's so spicy I couldn't eat it the first day, the next I mixed in more ingredients to dilute it, and it's still so spicy I start sweating when I eat it and have to drink two liters of water. Lesson learned.

This week's focus is more social. Lunch with an old colleague, dinner at a friends place, and three AI workshops at work. Let's go!

The weeks before vacation always end up being the most intense. Everything needs be done yesterday and nothing can wait until tomorrow, but at one point I had blocked every client calendar, set my out of office replies, and changed my Slack status to a palm tree, the universal symbol for relaxation. Ciao, I'm going to Italy.

And here I am, at Lake Garda. Where the buzzing of cicadas follow you everywhere you go. A thunderstorm can roll over the lake in minutes, and in the time it takes you to finish an espresso, it's sunny again.

Four days here and I've hit my pasta/pizza/cheese limit. Fortunately I have no such limit when it comes to pistachio gelato. I'll have two a day, thank you very much.

Yesterday we put our carb reserve to good use and went for a hike on Monte Baldo. Perfect warm up to test our gear for next week, when we'll be out for five days, going hut to hut in Austria. Vacation diaries to be continued!

Not sure where on earth March went, but it sure was fast. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I came home to Lisbon a week ago, after two blissful months in Thailand. Koh Phangan is full of spirituality in a way that doesn't always resonate with me, but the beautiful thing is that you can set your own intentions, make your own adventure. Mine was to be creative and focus on new clients. It went pretty well: I published a few blog posts here I'm quite happy with, and a bunch of newsletters over at Between Deadlines. I also started working with two new clients I'm really excited about.

Oh, and I also turned 39, celebrated with my favorite little commune group, stubbed my big toe so bad I could barely walk for a week, ate all the delicious breakfasts, enjoyed a few gorgeous sunsets, and treated myself to a facial which made my skin glow for a day before I sabotaged it by traveling for 36 hours straight back to Europe. Oh, well.

Here's a photo dump.

Being home is beautiful too, though. When I'm walking the same old cobblestone streets I've walked a thousand times here I notice I feel genuine happiness again. 2023 was a rough year, and while it started turning around end of 2024, it was still an uphill battle. Now, I feel recharged on every level. Ready to go, create, work.

Let's go 2025!

This morning I woke up with an overwhelming urge to fiddle with this blog. I've had the same theme for three years and frankly, it was time for a little update in both design and functionality.

One thing I've been craving is a space for brief posts, sort of the things I used to post on Twitter. A bit like Maggie Appleton does with Smidgeons, but more casual/personal. Hence; dispatches!

The past month I've been focusing on my new newsletter, Between Deadlines, which is more of a Linkedin-vibe about project management. It feels a bit like I've prepared my home for spring and it's time to organise some parties here!

(And by party I mean blog posts, but I'm sure you got that.)

My AirPods are set to transparency mode, so I can hear the birds through my latest music obsession. Rainy season was supposed to end in November, but somebody did not get the memo and it's been all drama and no chill for days. But this morning there are no ominous clouds in sight.

My porch wraps around half of the petite bungalow I'm staying in. It's on stilts, painted in an intense blue color I somehow don't mind. Every morning I walk to Indigo Coffee to pick up a cold brew, and for a few hours I sit on a meditation cushion with my laptop placed on a bright green stool in front of me. Sipping my coffee, looking at birds, writing, working.

It's 31 degrees in March and I'm not hating it.

This is a welcome change from last year. At that time I was fed up with traveling and all I wanted was to be wrapped in a blanket on my couch at home, and never see an airport again. I was in Lisbon for more than ten months 2024, the longest I've stayed in one place since 2014.

But, by December the familiar sense of restlessness begun to brew. Like being hangry, but instead of eating a Snickers I needed to wake up to a different view in the morning. And now, I feel satisfied. Driving around on my scooter to new coffee shops and hidden spots to work from. Living out of a suitcase is calming to my nervous system. It appears my traveling days are not quite behind me. Who knows if they ever will be.

I'm a routine junkie at heart and maybe that's why I crave switching it up more than most people do. If I don't relocate every once in a while, my tracks of habit run so deep it buries me in the ground, and my creativity with it.

Anyway. I'm grateful for being able to live this weird little life. Rain or not.

The Status Report 📋

... reading Rejection, by Tony Tulathimutte. My reading year has kicked off strong and I'm just finishing a collection of interconnected short stories about romantic rejection with some of the most well-crafted non-likable characters I've read. It's somehow repulsive and delicious? Pls read it so we can have a book club about it.

... listening to Sofi Tukker, because I crave sassy female energy that has nothing to do with spirituality.

... working on wrapping up projects for a client, it's been a hectic week. Also working on the newsletter I started about project management, Between Deadlines, which is really fun to experiment with.

... thinking about my conflict with spirituality and certain beliefs in this area. Like the concept of "masculine and feminine energy", where some people argue it's biological nature for women to follow and men to lead – excuse me while I'm trying to stop my brain from exploding. It's also tying into pseudoscience and I'm trying to sort out my thoughts on it. Will likely become an essay series here.

... writing longer posts that will take a while to be ready for publishing.

... watching the birds bopping around the trees here and also Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix, highly entertaining about the wellness grifting industry. Maintenance Phase did an episode about the real Belle Gibson, if you want to dive deeper.

... practicing some calisthenics to keep my strength up while I'm here, but also: my aerial teacher started sharing flexibility classes on Youtube and they are legit so good.

... enjoying every sip of my morning cold brew.

... looking forward to having almost two more weeks in this exact spot. 😌