an exercise in not liking

i read this article yesterday on medium about stopping with all of the likes on facebook and i decided to try it. just a few hours in, i already accidentally liked something out of habit and had a whole lot more meaningful comment-based interaction on facebook. and i can tell you that it's hard not to press that like button. it's the nod of the virtual world. it's how we acknowledge that we've seen something and read it and agree with it. it's the easy solution. it stops us from having a meaningful or longer conversation, or at least lets us off the hook from that. i'm hoping it gets easier as it goes along. and i'm hoping that it results in a better news feed, tho' i admit to worries that the wonderful humans of new york posts will disappear from my feed if i don't constantly "like" them. that said, there is something that feels virtuous about resisting the tyranny of the gods of facebook by refusing to use their like button.

you may have noticed that these feeding the dino pictures don't really have anything to do with this post, i just like them.

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have you checked out the book block kickstarter yet?

bespoke journals with my own artwork? yes, please!

it's like moo cards, but with pretty blank pages!

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i love stories like this one, with rumors of nazi gold.
and like this one (a decade old),
about the disappearance of the amber room from the catherine palace.

welcome to denmark, now shut up and eat your smørrebrød

there are a lot of things i don't understand.

like how if slightly older men present something and you ask questions about it, they try, almost immediately, to write you off as a.) a woman, b.) a foreigner and if those don't work, c.) a bitch. you are present at the meeting on the same footing as they are and should therefore have the same rights they do to be part of the process and ask questions. in fact, that's the whole idea. the idea is to have a well thought-through decision made, based on good information and good arguments. and not just hand the design of the building to the chairman of the group. (or have i somehow misunderstood?)

i also have trouble understanding how someone can go on and on about the fabulous design of a new library/culture house in copenhagen and then when it's discussed that the group go to look at such buildings in other towns, and you suggest the much-praised building, the whole room recoils in horror. because it's in...(gasp) copenhagen. and that's (gasp) on the devil's island, which may as well be the moon, or possibly the very inner circle of hell.

and further, i utterly fail to grasp how someone can say, when you are in fact, an immigrant, that the aforementioned building (which he brought up in the first place) isn't relevant because it has to serve (gasp) immigrants. and i should note that the word "immigrant" - invanderer - in danish has taken on an extremely negative connotation in the past decade.

one more thing i fail to grasp is how you can fail to bring enough copies of a really important document to the meeting, when you know ahead of time precisely how many people will be attending the meeting. and how when you, in fact, are ONE copy short, you are entirely unapologetic about it and when asked, at the end of the meeting, if you're going to send a copy to the person who didn't get one, you refer to her as an "old witch" to her face. 

so let's review - i'm an old witch of a damn foreigner.

welcome to denmark.

but to get serious for a moment, why on earth is it even still possible more than a decade into the 21st century, for men to be able to write off the intelligent questions of an intelligent woman and brand her a bitch for asking them? and what can we (and by we i mean me) do about it?

edited:  this makes me feel so much better. thank odin for the new york times.