KistaChic

If you go to Bloggportalen[a] today, you'll find 21 blogs from Kista, but back when I got homesick in Vienna there was only one: KistaChic.se[b].

Click.

Read. Click. Read. Click. Read...

That blog became my antidote to homesickness. Whenever I needed a dose of home, I'd pop over there for a shot of an article mixed with some photos. Articles on KistaChic would always be entertaining, and sometimes they'd be of a kind that should be preserved for future generations, such as this comment about the memorial to the dead in a bus accident in Norway[c].

Then in 2011 I ran into the author of the blog. We met at a neighbor's place. Since I grew up in Husby, a suburb neighboring Kista, we started talking about our common geographic connection and after a couple of minutes I started to recognize her stories - am I face to face with KistaChic?

I was on the line between keeping quiet and just asking flat out if she was KistaChic. Between missing the opportunity and risking being branded a stalker. I have a good memory, but also enough brain cells left over to know that confessing to knowing too much about what she had written would most decidedly not leave a good first impression. I didn't want to come across as "Are you KistaChic? I read your blog! Every day! All of it!".

I managed to prove my KistaCreds without getting a restraining order, and we have kept in touch since. Occasionally, I'd even write guest blog articles there about filming locations for music videos[d], the night sky over Granholmstoppen[e] and the little jogging track[f] (almost too much more about that little track can be found on this blog). I count this as the single most improbable encounter in my life, and that it was pleasurable is also holding it to the number one spot.

The blog went silent in early 2014[g], but KistaChic just moved to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Like God, Kista and KistaChic was everywhere. Then, the past week has featured a countdown. It started with a discrete "(T-7)", and I just thought it was the location of the parking spot where the photo was taken. The next day brought "(T-6)", and I figured out that it wasn't - it was obviously the countdown to KistaChic's Ten Year Anniversary!

The countdown hits zero, and KistaChic announces...

...that she's closing down[h].

That's like ending a countdown by announcing that the rocket has been scrapped[i]. I had expected it to be pretty much anything else - a ten year retrospective, the launch of a campaign to have marriage legally defined as the love between a woman and a suburb, you name it - and so it did come as a surprise for me.

But there's a lot to be said for quitting while you're on top - and KistaChic is, was and will forever be on top - so: Godspeed, KistaChic! Thank you for the ten years. Kista will never be the same without you blogging about it - but then it never has been "the same", and that's what I like about it.

2014-09-18 08:46

Kista