We'd packed away our sorrows

The summer before I turned 19, I experienced a short and intense infatuation with K. K and I went to the same high school. We had no classes together, but he had for a time been together with one of my best friends, so we kinda knew each other. I'd be lying if I said we spent a lot of time together, but he was my prom date, and we were very attracted to each other. To cut to the chase, we eventually ended up in his bed, and there we listened to Tom Waits. We did other things there too, of course, but those are not what I want to talk about here. What is the issue is the music. Or more specifically, his song Martha. Because right then and there, in K's bed, I fell in love. With Tom Waits. The story of Martha made me cry then, and it makes me smile today.

Of course, things happened. K left town to do his military service only a couple of days later, and I was broken hearted for a bit, but within a couple of weeks I met the man I was to live with for the next near-six years. As I said, short and intense. I started studying at the university, years went by, I split up from the man I was living with, I began my postgraduate studies and got my first really own home. A part of those postgraduate studies turned out to be to go to Australia for some time. Exactly one week before leaving, my phone rang.

"Is this the Drakona who went to Highschool X? Do you hear who this is?" someone asked.

Of course I knew who it was. Of course I was she. This was seven years later.

Now, another six years later, K is one of my dearest friends. Not one of my most frequent friends, but one of the very, very dear ones. Almost as dear as Tom Waits. Just the other day I listened to Martha again for the first time in a very long time.

It always makes me think of K, for oh so many reasons.

I am Selina

Living in Gothenburg is not so bad, really. It's on the ocean, and by Swedish standards it's a big place, however more of a village by international standards, which leaves us with pretty much the best of both worlds.

One interesting thing about living in Gothenburg, is that, when travelling abroad, you will inevitably end up chatting with someone or other who asks you whether Gothenburg is the place where the Batman lives. The first time this happened to me, I was 15 years old and staying with at family in Hastings for a week, on a school trip. My host father had pasted a huge Batman sign on my window, to make me feel at home. I found that very odd.

Since then, this has repeated itself time and again. Not the signs on the window, but the mentioning of the Gothenburg-Gotham link. Unfortunately, Gothenburg has very little in common with Gotham City. Very few hig-rises, and the few there are are 1980's style mirror facade or red-and-white plastic facade buildings. Very few gargoyles. Not very well suited for Batman to climb, in other words. And there has as yet been no sign of the police making use of a Bat-signal.

However, from time to time, I wake up with a feeling that there might be something to it after all. This morning was one such day. The whole city is covered in mist. When I looked out through my bed room window, I could see nothing. Or rather, I could only see whiteness. It was as if someone had removed my home from where it's located and placed it in an enormous bowl of whipped cream. It was lovely, and not a little gothic. You could almost hear the Dark Knight swooshing past.

No, no, Gotham City isn't really New York. This is where Batman lives.