appointed me to the post of “Mayor of Iceland.”)
The activity of the mayor of Reykjavík is so extensive and so varied that it automatically seeps into one’sprivate life. Every day runs on a fixed schedule, which is more or less drawn up by others. Moreover, anything and everything can happen in this job, and at any time the daily planning can go pear-shaped. Not to mention the work-related chronic stress. Also, I travel a lot, and my wife always has to be ready for my appointments getting in the way of her plans too. Being married to the mayor is a sort of part-time job in itself (voluntary and unpaid, of course).
My wife can manage, with only two days’ notice, to rustle up a feast for three hundred people and turn it into an unforgettable experience for all concerned. In contrast, I can’t even manage to organize a single day. I come up with an idea, forget what I’d planned the very next moment, and suddenly find myself doing something quite different. I head out of the house with my swimming bag because I have an appointment with someone in the hot tub, and as soon as I’m in the car, it seems to me the ideal time to do the shopping for dinner. And because I’m in the city anyway, I’ll quickly pop the car over to the car wash. Leaving the shopping in the trunk.
In many ways, I’m just a normal man with normal strengths and weaknesses. Every now and then I’m also a genius. And at the same time I’m mentally retarded. I always find it difficult to adapt to new circumstances, which—given my spontaneous inspirations and my crackpot ideas—is of course not like me at all. So I’m basically just a walking contradiction with astrong tendency to chaos, and only Jóga knows how to introduce a little order into this chaos.
As a matter of principle, I never make any major decisions without talking with my wife about the potential impact on our family life. Outwardly I may often come across as hasty and inconsiderate, but in private I’m the exact opposite—extremely conscientious and circumspect. So it’s often happened over time that my wife has played a more active part in my work than we had originally planned. She is my court of arbitration and also my closest collaborator. She also has some knowledge of the “internal” workings of the party.
My children didn’t pay any attention to my election as mayor. On my youngest son, however, it had a direct impact. He was born in 2005, and as it happened he was just starting school as the Best Party was implementing its educational reforms. After the management of his former kindergarten attacked me sharply in an open letter, I decided to send the boy to a school that lay outside my jurisdiction. Even apart from that, he needed some time before he could make out what my new profession involved. At first he seemed to think of me as a kind of emperor who could do anything and everything he felt like doing, but eventually he realized that his father was just an ordinary man in an unusual job.
I was also surprised to see how many family members and distant relatives suddenly appeared out of the woodwork and asked me to do them some favor.Every possible uncle, sister-in-law, and cousin suddenly wanted me to help them out with some trivial problem. And of course, my political decisions can have a concrete impact on people in my immediate sphere. Like when close relatives lose their jobs, or the jobs of friends and family members are rationalized into nonexistence. Some of them are still pissed off at me.
I remember, for example, the extremely awkward situation that came about when we wanted to give a helping hand to the aforementioned ailing energy group Orkuveita Reykjavíkur. This bailout unfortunately entailed restructuring—i.e., layoffs. One of the victims was the father of Heiða, our party chairman. His entire department was closed down. Of course, Heiða had not planned to throw her own father out of work as a result of her party activities, but this
The activity of the mayor of Reykjavík is so extensive and so varied that it automatically seeps into one’sprivate life. Every day runs on a fixed schedule, which is more or less drawn up by others. Moreover, anything and everything can happen in this job, and at any time the daily planning can go pear-shaped. Not to mention the work-related chronic stress. Also, I travel a lot, and my wife always has to be ready for my appointments getting in the way of her plans too. Being married to the mayor is a sort of part-time job in itself (voluntary and unpaid, of course).
My wife can manage, with only two days’ notice, to rustle up a feast for three hundred people and turn it into an unforgettable experience for all concerned. In contrast, I can’t even manage to organize a single day. I come up with an idea, forget what I’d planned the very next moment, and suddenly find myself doing something quite different. I head out of the house with my swimming bag because I have an appointment with someone in the hot tub, and as soon as I’m in the car, it seems to me the ideal time to do the shopping for dinner. And because I’m in the city anyway, I’ll quickly pop the car over to the car wash. Leaving the shopping in the trunk.
In many ways, I’m just a normal man with normal strengths and weaknesses. Every now and then I’m also a genius. And at the same time I’m mentally retarded. I always find it difficult to adapt to new circumstances, which—given my spontaneous inspirations and my crackpot ideas—is of course not like me at all. So I’m basically just a walking contradiction with astrong tendency to chaos, and only Jóga knows how to introduce a little order into this chaos.
As a matter of principle, I never make any major decisions without talking with my wife about the potential impact on our family life. Outwardly I may often come across as hasty and inconsiderate, but in private I’m the exact opposite—extremely conscientious and circumspect. So it’s often happened over time that my wife has played a more active part in my work than we had originally planned. She is my court of arbitration and also my closest collaborator. She also has some knowledge of the “internal” workings of the party.
My children didn’t pay any attention to my election as mayor. On my youngest son, however, it had a direct impact. He was born in 2005, and as it happened he was just starting school as the Best Party was implementing its educational reforms. After the management of his former kindergarten attacked me sharply in an open letter, I decided to send the boy to a school that lay outside my jurisdiction. Even apart from that, he needed some time before he could make out what my new profession involved. At first he seemed to think of me as a kind of emperor who could do anything and everything he felt like doing, but eventually he realized that his father was just an ordinary man in an unusual job.
I was also surprised to see how many family members and distant relatives suddenly appeared out of the woodwork and asked me to do them some favor.Every possible uncle, sister-in-law, and cousin suddenly wanted me to help them out with some trivial problem. And of course, my political decisions can have a concrete impact on people in my immediate sphere. Like when close relatives lose their jobs, or the jobs of friends and family members are rationalized into nonexistence. Some of them are still pissed off at me.
I remember, for example, the extremely awkward situation that came about when we wanted to give a helping hand to the aforementioned ailing energy group Orkuveita Reykjavíkur. This bailout unfortunately entailed restructuring—i.e., layoffs. One of the victims was the father of Heiða, our party chairman. His entire department was closed down. Of course, Heiða had not planned to throw her own father out of work as a result of her party activities, but this
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