beautiful things

absolutely loving this beautiful collaboration on the marginalian. an animated version of emily dickenson's bloom with music by joan as police woman. it's breathtaking and it was exactly what i needed on this dark, cold, rainy february day.

* * *

heather moore (of skinny la minx fame) is doing a great noticing project #theattentionproject on instagram. in january, it was weeds, now it's "just before you let go." i definitely noticed a lot of picturesque weeds on my january walks. now i need to take a closer look at the things i'm about to toss (or should be tossing).

* * *

loving the @dear_white_staffers account on instagram. they're giving me hope for the world. or at least for the country of my birth. still hoping not to be stateless. 

* * *

have you binge-listened to the trojan horse affair yet? it's so, so good. like first season of serial good. we need more podcasts like this in our lives.

so many things to ponder

whoa, it's been awhile. things have been busy. it's been a pretty intense period and there's no end in sight. i've been trying to take creative breaks - a lovely weekend away with my creative group, the yearly trip with my weaving group, going to weaving, going to a gourmet knitting day, a pampering event with a friend (think facial and foot bath), followed by an art show and a really nice lunch, several work trips to copenhagen - but it has all left little time to think about personal writing. i miss the way this space allowed me to process things and it would be nice to get back into the habit. odin knows there's plenty to process.

today, as i made dinner - a roast chicken, jerusalem artichokes freshly dug from the garden and some roasted beets, plus a salad with avocado, mango and tomato - i found myself pondering topics to write in the way that i used to and it made me think it would be nice to be back here again. 

things that crossed my mind...the need that everyone seems to have acquired to have a diagnosis, the latest james bond, growing older, the individual nature of grief, what lumke would have wanted to be could she have chosen anything, how to best talk about kitchens from a warm, sympathetic perspective, the natural order of adjectives (thanks, molly), an obsession with growing things from seeds extracted in the kitchen (see the mango plant above, which i started myself), old friends i got to see again this week, sharing what i love about copenhagen, our upcoming trip to arizona (i SO need a holiday), tomorrow's make-your-own-ravioli dinner with friends, what tattoo to get next (i'm thinking a cactus), the chestnut man on netflix. so many things to ponder and write about.  

i think i need to start blogging again like it's 2010 and no one is reading. because, after all, it always came back to me. and it's extremely likely that no one is reading.

* * *

wow, what a story that was released on the day of the seafarer a few months ago (yes, i started this post awhile ago). tales of politics, containers, big tobacco, cancer and whitewashed company histories. i worked for maersk for 5 years and never even heard a whisper of this - only that sealand represented the great maersk move towards containerization. that and the banana plantation that they bought somewhere in africa to push containerization of bananas, which were hauled on refrigerated bulk carriers before containers came along. 

* * *

a national geographic piece on adult fans of lego that, if you ask me, doesn't give enough credit to the actual fans themselves. 

* * *

best ad for wearing a bike helmet ever. the danes are just so good at these things.

* * *

fantastic cooperation between marina abramovic and wetransfer.

another trip around the sun

i suspect 53 would have felt like a hazy and blurry year, even if it wasn't tainted by the coronavirus bringing everything to a standstill. it's one of those blah ages that don't seem to count for much. it's neither here nor there, and the difference between 53 and 54 isn't really a significant one. i guess i'm inclined to think that i'll like 54 better, mostly because i'm partial to even numbers, though frankly odd numbers of things look better. hmm, i wonder how that bodes for 54? not that i look all that great after the sedentary year in front of my computer.

however, i have all kinds of good intentions for 54. i want to do 10,000 steps a day. i'm going to take up my daily 750 words once again on the 750 words site and i'm determined that four days a week, those words will go towards the novel. i have about 7,000 steps to go today, since most of it was spent at my computer working. also it's rather cold, windy and grey outside, so not all that inviting for a long walk.  see, i'm already full of excuses. but hey, it's my birthday, so i can decide, right? maybe the 10,000 steps starts tomorrow. but first, a glass of wine.

that's the kind of thinking that got me through 53. and this whole corona bullshit. that's still not over, despite how weary we grow of it. and they're slower than mud at vaccinations here in denmark. 

but back to this birthday thing. it does feel like i'm in a place were they don't matter that much anymore. it's still awhile to 60, which will be the next significant date and since they're putting off retirement age, i'm not even sure that's that significant anymore, so maybe it's actually 70 and it's a long time until then. heck, look at joe biden, he became president at 78 and he seems to have found himself - he's not making any of those old gaffes he was known for, he's just getting down to business and being seriously presidential. it's so refreshing and my ptsd from the trump years is fading and i'm even sleeping through the night sometimes. i no longer wake up in a cold sweat, worried about what embarrassing and horrible thing the president has done. it's such a relief. 

apropos my birthday, i picked up a long-ago ordered book from the library today. i ordered it so long ago that i didn't even really remember - i think it was back in october. it's nobel prize for literature winner louise glück's averno.  on the back cover is a fragment of her poem october (capitalization hers):

Come to me, said the world. I was standing

in my wool coat at a kind of bright portal--

I can finally say

long ago; it gives me considerable pleasure. Beauty

the healer, the teacher--

death cannot harm me

more than you have harmed me,

my beloved life.

and that feels like the right note to end these musings on another trip around the sun.

* * *

whoa, cool AI-assisted story here. i'm not sure what i feel about it.
i think i am at once intrigued and horrified.

* * *

i think i am sad that zoom dysmorphia is even a thing.

* * *

juicy talk of fauxbrége fakes in an hermitage exhibit.

i learned about them in dearest, a very fun jewelry-oriented substack.

missing my dad

i always use this picture on dad's birthday. he would have been 87 today. i miss him more acutely some days than others. during the mad election season that just passed, i wished nearly every day that i could talk to him about it. i wonder what he would make of the spray-tanned clown and his antics. i suspect he wouldn't be that surprised by it. and i also think he wouldn't have been as personally embarrassed by it as i have been for the past four years. maybe he even would have assured me that this too shall pass. i think i have needed to hear him say that. but alas, it hasn't been possible. and it never will be. and man do i miss him today. 

* * * 

this ekphrasis on tiktok sums up the attraction perfectly. 

when you let a computer write a trend report. 

zoom be gettin' scary.

living well in the time of corona

apparently, the prolific slavoj zizek has already published a book about the pandemic, entitled, appropriately enough, Pandemic! i haven't read it, being currently stuck in an endless mrs. pollifax loop, but the article where i read about it quotes zizek as saying, “we need a catastrophe to be able to rethink the very basic features of the society in which we live” and apparently goes on to inquire into what it means to live well. apparently, this is that catastrophe and perhaps some good will come of it after all, if it really does cause us to use this pause to rethink what it means to live well.

i find so much of what i'm reading and hearing to be so negative and dark. and i have to admit that i haven't really experienced it that way myself. perhaps i've been lucky not to know anyone who has had the dreaded virus. or perhaps i live a place that has handled it well and sensibly and so i don't really know anyone who has lost their job (some are on leave with pay, yes, but they expect to return to work in june and i've had one colleague already called back early because we were so busy). i was nervous at the beginning, since i was just starting a new job then, but things are already picking up for our company and it's been nothing but one big exciting project since the day i started.

perhaps it's because i'm fortunate to live out in the countryside, where i haven't felt trapped inside. when i've had to make a grocery store run, shelves are stocked and people are largely practicing social distancing (it comes easy to the danes). i don't have any sense of panic at the store, so the segment on the washington post's podcast about that last week just sounded artificial and contrived to me.

we've actually spent more time with family both in person and virtually during the pandemic than we have in years. several visits from husband's girls and then his sister and her family, who came to enjoy the wide-open spaces and good food. there were friday night drinks with the family in sweden via zoom that we'd never have done without the pandemic. we facetime regularly with sabs in arizona, so even that hasn't been so bad, though her being so far away has been the biggest source of worry to me in this whole thing.

so what does it mean to live well? i've been very busy with work, so i haven't really felt like the pace of life has slowed down, but in some ways it has. it's been nice not to have to get up early, decide what to wear, rush out the door, drive 45 minutes and then sit in the office all day. i have spent entirely too many hours sitting at my computer, mostly in my pajamas, without makeup, but it has on the whole worked really well. we do have the technology to do our jobs from home.  and it turns out that i also have the necessary discipline. and i think having that mutual trust in your colleagues - that they're working hard and also that they're depending on you to do so too, even though you're not sitting together, that is part of having a good quality of life. and let's face it, our work is a big part of our lives, so when work is good, a good chunk of life is good.

and outside of that, it's been great to be at home, hanging with the cats, being able to take a walk around the garden when i really need a breath of fresh air, to be home to let the chickens out and gather the eggs and water in the greenhouse. i learned a new route to walk around the lake and discovered a beautiful hidden place where there's a bend in the creek i never knew about. i've also taken the back roads when going places, exploring small roads and stopping to take photos as spring has come on, enjoying that i don't necessarily have to hurry up to be somewhere at a particular time.

i've made good food and i've also had some days where i didn't feel like cooking and so i didn't and we ate digestives and brie and had a cup of tea for dinner. this time has helped me let go of expectations and all the musts and have tos. and i've discovered that life can have another pace and there can be room to write 750 words a day, and work a whole lot, and cook, and laugh and snuggle with hollister, and get my hands dirty in the garden, and make 15 liters of rhubarb cordial that future me will thank me for. and get a good night's sleep. and spend less and just BE more. and i have to say that i have a hard time seeing the downside in all that.

* * *

i've got news for you, it's not just the workers at mcdonald's in denmark that pity america these days.

* * *

so nice to get another perspective on this whole thing...

don't shoot the messenger, a podcast from the daily maverick in south africa

* * *

speaking of living well (in a fairy tale?), read this beautiful thing from the paris review.

eddies in the space-time continuum

i found an old ring in a box today, one that i hadn't been able to find for some years. i even swear i'd looked in that box already, several times, but today, there it was. it's the black hills gold ring with the marquise cut diamond. the ring was my mom's and the diamond a remnant of my first, mistaken engagement. i would occasionally have pangs of sadness that i had lost it, but apparently i only mislaid it. for about a decade or so. i hardly ever wear gold jewelry anymore, but i'm glad i finally found it. the other ring is my mom's engagement and wedding ring. when i found the lost one, i went digging in a more recent jewelry bowl, looking for mom's ring. they kind of fit together, but also don't. but it was in a way that was pleasing to me today. i think it's part of the always surprising grief process. i even put them back on after my shower. i just need to be wearing them right now. for some reason unknown even to myself. they make me feel close to mom in a way that i seem to need right now. which is perhaps why that ring showed up today in that box that i swear i had looked in before. perhaps it was there today because i needed it to be. when things like that happen, i always think of arthur dent, stuck on that planet where he perfected the sandwich made of some strange beasts that periodically ran through, slipping between worlds on some eddy in the space-time continuum. today, an eddy brought the ring back to the box where it belonged. just at the moment i needed it.

* * *

in these days of zoom meetings, what's on people's bookshelves?

* * *

whenever i had a break today, i read some of this old interview with murakami in the paris review. that made me happy. and made me want to write. and maybe even made me want to go for a run. but not so much that i did so.

* * *

there were a bunch of great quotes in the murakami article and i want to save some of them here, capital letters and all:

"When I start to write, I don’t have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come. I don’t choose what kind of story it is or what’s going to happen. I just wait. " 

”I myself, as I’m writing, don’t know who did it. The readers and I are on the same ground. When I start to write a story, I don’t know the conclusion at all and I don’t know what’s going to happen next. If there is a murder case as the first thing, I don’t know who the killer is. I write the book because I would like to find out. If I know who the killer is, there’s no purpose to writing the story.” 

”When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at four a.m. and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for ten kilometers or swim for fifteen hundred meters (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at nine p.m. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind. But to hold to such repetition for so long—six months to a year—requires a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.” 

”All human beings have a sickness in their minds. That space is a part of them. We have a sane part of our minds and an insane part. We negotiate between those two parts; that is my belief. I can see the insane part of my mind especially well when I’m writing—insane is not the right word. Unordinary, unreal. I have to go back to the real world, of course, and pick up the sane part. But if didn’t have the insane part, the sick part, I wouldn’t be here.” 

“…a sense of humor is a very stable thing. You have to be cool to be humorous. When you’re serious, you could be unstable; that’s the problem with seriousness. But when you’re humorous, you’re stable. But you can’t fight the war smiling.” 

”Experience itself is meaning.” – Murakami (i might have to have that one tattooed.)

kind of appropriate that, since the other phrase i'd like tattooed is from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "reality is frequently inaccurate." said by Ford Prefect, not Arthur Dent. and one more, from Bitov, "unreality is a condition of life." that's it, my next three tattoos.

on links and hands and the strange ways of grief

it seems that email newsletters are the new blogs and i found myself subscribing to edith zimmerman's drawing links some months ago after reading about it in the reply all newsletter (which is another very good one). anyway, edith (who seems to be much younger and more millennial than her name sounds) draws much of the newsletter as simple cartoon panels and they are very navel gazing and even a bit mundane, just as good old blogging was. maybe that's why i like it so much. as the name implies, she also always has some links to interesting things - book reviews, other newsletters, just generally interesting writing out there on the web.

without her, i probably wouldn't have found this thoughtful piece from the school of life on hands and the virtues of studying them closely. and of course, that made me think about my mom's hands (pictured here in a photo i've posted before). i can picture them on the steering wheel of the old blue stationwagon, air typing whatever thoughts flitted through her mind, or perhaps what the announcer was saying on the radio. i find myself doing that as well. her hands did so many things - repairs in the barn, a fancy hanging macrame table with glass top and fiery orange ceramic beads that i recall her making back in the 70s. i wish i had that table now, or at least the beads so i could recreate it, i wonder what ever happened to it? she buckled halters and harnesses on horses. she gripped the handlebars of her vast collection of bikes and rode them on long treks. in her later years, her hands became wrinkled and diminished, but i think they were actually still deceptively strong and capable, even as her mind grew weak and incapable. perhaps the piece is right that, "we might go so far as to say that if what we can colloquially call ‘the soul’ – that confluence of deep identity, vulnerability and singularity dwells anywhere, then it must be in the hands."  

my grief over the loss of my mother feels like a strange thing. i still haven't cried about it, i think because it was such a relief in some ways - the mother i knew was long gone for some time, but it comes to me in odd moments. the other day, a little shed that was housing some chairs and other things from the garden collapsed in the storm winds we had. i'd been feeding some of the wild kitties inside of a birdhouse sabin built in her woodworking class in the 6th grade that was standing under the shed. i poured the food into a little pink kitty bowl that was one of many that my mother bought at some point in a dollar store and which i brought home with molly, when i brought her back to denmark in 2012. the storm was raging with near-hurricane force winds and lashings of rain, but i suddenly panicked that both the bird house and that little pink bowl had been smashed. the dismay i felt at losing this stupid item, but which my mother had bought, was one of the strongest pangs of grief i'd felt so far. the thought that it was smashed and gone hit me hard, bringing home to me that my mother is also gone and i was despondent at the thought of losing this strange, small connection to her. so i donned my wellies and a coat and rushed out there to see if i could find the bowl and the bird house in the rubble. and it turned out that they were both fine - the bird house was knocked off its pole, but otherwise fine and the bowl flew into the grass, but was completely intact and not even chipped. relief flooded through me and i was almost embarrassed by how upset i'd been at the thought of losing that silly, cheap bowl. i had also been worried about the bird house, but knew that husband could fix that if it was broken. but the bowl could have been beyond repair. i've brought it in the house now and washed it and put it up in the cupboard where it's safe, a small piece of my mother, still intact.

loads of links i want to save

it's stormy and raining (to the surprise of no one) and this

italian cioccolata calda is the perfect antidote.
i put a spoonful of mascarpone in mine.

* * *

i've joined a book club whose sole mission is to read ulysses, so i went looking for help, since i'm finding that it's nearly impossible.  wanted to save those links here:

• wikihow's how to read ulysses - they have a lovely emphasis on enjoying the humor.
• overcoming the fear of reading ulysses
• "many novels are so challenging we never manage to finish them," rang a bell with me, thanks harvard
• how to read ulysses, this time from roddy doyle at the guardian
• also from the guardian, is ulysses the hardest novel to finish?
• more advice on how to read ulysses, on medium
• “there are two kinds of people. those that have read ulysses and those that haven't,” in the economist
• this crazy person read it in a week! 
• rereading ulysses (kinda counts for me, since i read some of it for a course 20 years ago)
• everything you need to enjoy reading ulysses (goodness knows i need this) - has loads of great links! 

* * *

very interesting look at letter locking.

* * *

this piece on brexit becoming reality is everything.

where did january go?

goodness, i let january get away from me without writing here. i blame the cold/flu from hell that just wouldn't go away. i finally started to get healthy around the third week of january, just in time to start a new job. as you can see below, i did collect a few links for this post and it has been open here in my browser since the beginning of the month. i really don't ever shut down my computer i guess is the lesson we can learn from that. i made the airy little boat above for an exhibition that i'm doing with a friend. i'll tell you more about that and show more pictures in the next post. i just have to get this one posted so i can clear the deck for that. i hope your january flew by too. it's the darkest, dreariest month, so it's good that's over.

* * *

maybe it's good for you to hold a grudge.


* * *

love dave barry's year-end round-up.

* * *

these memed captions for medieval paintings cracked me up.

* * *

the truth about that stupid wall.

* * *

this made me laugh, even tho' i quite like marie kondo and her tidying up.


* * *

concentrating in a digital world. advice i could definitely use.
but it's a bit harder to follow.

* * *

so, about that 10-year challenge...

* * *

art that makes you slow down and think by david opdyke.

what if the water is fine?

my most recurring dream scenario over many, many years is of falling into dirty, brackish water that i fear greatly until i'm in it and discover it's not as bad as it looks. every time, i can swim, or touch bottom, or it's much more shallow than it appears and not nearly as muddy as it seems it will be and i don't get stuck and tangled up in those plants. it hit me today from something a colleague said, that we choose our path, balancing precariously on the edge of that nasty-looking water, worrying about falling in or we give ourselves over and jump in and see what it's really like. and there's a very good chance that it's not as bad as it appears. and maybe we make it worse ourselves, for ourselves, by imagining how bad it will be. and trying to make cynical, sarcastic jokes about it. and maybe we should stop that and look for the good. because there is a lot of good. and maybe, just maybe, it will all be ok if we just relax and be grateful and positive and give ourselves over instead of resisting with cynical sarcasm. and by we, i mean me. and it may not be easy, but i'm going to try. just maybe that water is fine.

* * *

linguistic delight - book reviews from prison.

* * *

why mall of america doesn't die.

* * *

please, dear odin, let him run.

fragments of niceness

i spotted this art project in the heart of copenhagen last week. #fragmentsofniceness by artist kit kjølhede. the sun was shining, i'd just come from a good meeting with my favorite colleagues and i was feeling buoyant. the bright colors, the happy snippets of conversation overheard in copenhagen spoke straight to my soul. what an admirable project - with all that's bad and awful (and orange-tinged) in the world these days, this was precisely what i needed. hell, it's what we all need!

this hasn't been an easy time. a not-very-well planned or communicated reorg about six months ago created a period of limbo and inertia. in such a situation, there are always some ambitious types who take advantage of the vacuum and grab more than they should. and in the absence of clear messages, everyone makes up their own stories and runs with them. and it can create a negative, unproductive space. i believe this is compounded by the darkness of the winter months in our northern climes. but things are beginning to be brighter and it's not just welcome rays of actual sunshine, but things really are becoming clearer. maybe we can only appreciate clarity when we have been wandering in fog.

and maybe the best way to break free of the uncertainty and negativity is to focus on the positive. to laugh instead of bristling and feeling angry. to help instead of hinder. to be open instead of closed. to overhear the positive and nice things. to listen instead of refusing to hear. to seek out nice things to say. and even more importantly, to think. to make sure the inner narrative is positive and open. to say yes to life and possibilities and new challenges and to let go of what's not working. 

i'm ordering a set of these postcards from the artist to hang up to remind myself to look and listen for positivity around me. i really do believe that you attract what you are looking for. and i also admit that of late, i've been looking for ghosts and schemes and lies and games being played - and guess what, i've found all of those in great quantity. well, no more. the time for negativity is past. 

this is the season to embrace change. it's boring when everything stays the same. this is the time to seek the most amazing stories and tell them well. this is the time to let go of what's not working. and to let go of things which are working but not moving anywhere in order to move on to newer, more exciting things. hanging on to the past isn't productive or healthy. it's not how we grow and learn and evolve and become better, stronger, more capable versions of ourselves. and while this may all sound dire, it's really not. it feels like stretching long unused muscles after a winter hibernation, feeling them out once again, exposing them to the warming rays of the sun, getting to know them and put them to good use.

of course, not everything needs to change - home, husband, child, cats and garden remain the fertile ground from which to grow, they are most definitely my own very best fragments of niceness. that and my t-rex costume. everyone should have one of those. they cheer you right up.

* * *

amazing 9-year-old slays new yorker cartoon captions.

and for a bit more low brow version, check out these shitty captions for new yorker cartoons.

* * *

if you find yourself rolling your eyes at the crystal-obsessed, this is for you.

* * *

and one more from the new yorker...

molly ringwald is such a good writer.

montage and the edge of madness

oh the joys of middle age. little fragments of memory loss, borne of waning hormones and days filled with too many tasks, emails and the relentless onslaught of news. names elude, words are just out of reach. and it's all terrifying in light of mom's alzheimer's. but, i console myself that it's likely not that, at least not yet. it's the times we live in - it's the relentlessness of being always online and the 24-hour news cycle. something has to fill it all, so like an eisenstein montage, it all keeps flashing before us, inundating our brains, filling them to overflow, impulses, ideas, stories, images, names flitting by, our brains can hardly sort it all. it's no wonder we can't remember things in detail. there's surely an element of wilful forgetting in it. who can take so much? the brain blocks some of it off to keep us safe and away from the edge of madness. and yet, we hang there, swinging out over the precipice, wondering if the pendulum will swing back.

* * *

the herring hunt

over-dramatised and badly-acted, but charming nonetheless.

but you gotta like the western girl.

* * *

this thought-provoking piece in the new yorker
where does the mind end and the world begin?
andy clark has some thoughts on that.

* * *

stories can change the world.

the trolls are out

yikes, there was a post in the nytimes podcast club, asking for what annoys people about podcasts. i said many podcasters' pronunciation of qatar as "cutter" drove me crazy. it created a whole lot of discussion and much more outrage and trollishness that i would ever have imagined. one girl got a little bit unhinged and accused me of being pretentious and pseudo intellectual. um, what? i was just answering the question. the internet is awful.

i hadn't encountered such stridency in the nytimes podcast club before this.  i think it's an interesting example of the times in which we live and the increasing absence of it being ok to disagree. and also, of citing a random internet site as authority. i think i'll ask helen zolzmann of the allusionist what she thinks.

* * *

apropos people who disappoint,

advice on how to find joy.

we could all use that.

* * *

sam sifton (the sublime nytimes cooking writer)

recommended this. 

i trust his advice.

8 things

you really should sit down and write when the inspiration strikes, because if you wait and attempt to write from the little note you scribbled between the names of james bond films on a postcard that's lying on your desk, you might not remember what it was you actually wanted to write. that's mostly because what you wrote was "8 things." potentially quite broad. but what the hell, let's give it a whirl:

one.
the past week was a mixed bag of shitty and not shitty. shitty in the surprise layoff of 17 colleagues, two from my own department. none of us saw it coming when the company had just announced another fabulous result. i felt so much sympathy, as i've been there too. it's a reminder (yet again) that corporations are unfeeling, ruthless things and as such cannot be trusted.

two.
a week of below-zero temps froze over our lake, but sunny days this weekend melted it just enough on the top layer as to be untrustworthy to skate on. i had dug out the skates, made homemade marshmallows for hot chocolate (which the child characterized as bougie and extra), and was preparing to bundle up and head down there when husband reported the melting. i did go down to the lake to check it myself with my skate-clad lego penguin, but he was the only one who got to skate.

three.
it was a doozy of a news week. i find that i can't even keep up with the number of scandals coming at us. it's relentless, exhausting and at times downright bizarre.

four.
just the very thought of owning a t-rex costume has the capacity to cheer you up. putting it in your amazon basket can make you giddy. hitting order might make you feel downright elated.

five.
there is always another idea.

six.
sometimes your first impression of people is just plain wrong. and sometimes it's spot on. the trick is knowing which is which.

seven.
i'll admit, i had to ask if being bougie and extra was good or bad. she assured me it's good, like sephora. knowing how she feels about sephora, it's high praise indeed.

eight.
there's very little that's better than making a proper sunday breakfast - bacon, waffles, eggs and a big pot of tea.

i'm quite certain these weren't the eight things i was thinking of when i jotted that down on friday evening. at that point, i was tired from a long week and had just been to see the smart feminist comic sophie hagen in århus, and i wanted nothing more than to go to bed, so i didn't sit down to write then. you should probably always sit down and write when inspiration strikes, because it may never strike in the exactly the same way again.

what i have been doing lately

the paris review podcast just finished their first season and it was luminous. every episode is shimmeringly beautiful - a mix of early writing, archival audio and contemporary pieces read by famous voices. it's literary and deep and gorgeously produced. i was inspired by the jamaica kincaid piece in episode 12 - what i have been doing lately. (you need a subscription to read all of it, but you can hear it for free on the podcast.) and while i cannot hope to compare to her writing, i do feel drawn to trying my hand at it...tho' i suspect mine will have a less dreamlike quality.

what i have been doing lately...by me.

it's 4 a.m. i'm awake, kicking off the covers, it's clear outside and i can see the light of the partial moon illuminating the heavy frost that's on the grass. there are a zillion stars in the clear sky. i reach for my phone. what has the spray-tanned buffoon done now? has there been another school shooting? are those articulate florida teenagers winning or are they being snuffed out by old, stodgy white men? not yet, it seems, tho' they are trying (the stodgy men, that is). bob is snuggled between us, stretching out his long body, trusting that we won't roll over onto him. oddly, husband isn't snoring, which in turn makes me wonder if he's still breathing - i feel a rising anxiety at the thought that he's not and i flash back to a similar feeling when sabin was a baby. he is. as she always was. i don't feel panic at being awake, because i'm taking the day off. i can sleep in if i want. when it comes to it, i don't, because of that gorgeous sunrise you can see in the photo above. instead, i get up with husband and the child, who aren't taking the day off, and then i switch batteries on the camera and go out into the cold, clear, still, very frosty morning to capture that pinkish orange horizon. i breathe in great lungsful (lungfuls?) of cold, crisp, clean air. frannie follows me, rolling and flirting at my feet. molly trots over, her compact little body, covered in thick, grey tortiseshell fur. she stretches up a fence post in her version of a catlike sun salutation. freya eventually shows up as well, tho' i don't see where she comes from. her back twitches in anticipation that i will pet her. i do. i feed them all in the greenhouse and they eagerly dig in. i find it hard to leave the sunrise, it keeps getting more and more spectacular and intense as soon as i turn my back on it. so i go back to the edge of the trees and snap a few more photos. more than once. eventually, my hands are cold and my toes too in my rubber boots and i head for the house. i love the still, cold air. birdsong has begun and despite the frost, it sounds like spring. the birds have sex and light and warmth on the brain. i go in, light a match and put on the kettle to make tea. molly comes in with me, hopping up on her chair in the kitchen. it's her throne. i make a cup of tea and crawl back in bed with karl ove knausgaard's autumn. musings he ostensibly wrote to his unborn daughter, but which amount to deep, philosophical (a)musings on everyday things. tho' they are not poetry, they remind me somehow of neruda's elemental odes. i read a few and never do go back to sleep as i had hoped. i get up and do everyday tasks - laundry, unloading the dishwasher, reloading it, taking out the trash. there is a kind of time for thinking and processing in such mundane tasks, so i feel no resentment or frustration over them. i dress, put on some makeup and then it's time to go get the child. i have to run a few errands before she's out of school - grocery store, h&m. she's in a good mood - there's a party tonight for the whole school. and the sun is out, so her mood is vastly improved from the teenage stormcloud of the night before. we listen to the criminal podcast on the way home and she predicts the criminal's sentence before they even say it. she tells me that in addition to studying criminology and criminal justice in sunny arizona, she will likely go to law school as well. i have a moment of awe, observing who she is becoming and how much herself she already is. i feel more a witness to it than responsible and that feels like a privilege of which i'm probably not fully worthy. we drink aloe water - golden kiwi flavor - and pick up some more at the grocery store because it's delicious and it's on sale. we laugh easily about how much we love the feel of the little bits of aloe between our teeth. we get home and while she gets ready for her evening party, i lie down for a bit with a couple of cats. i don't snooze, but lazily check instagram and post a few of the photos i took earlier. it feels like a luxury. i take her to the train. she's happy - the sun is shining, her makeup is perfect and she's looking forward to a nice evening with her friends. i come home and husband is here, but he has a headache, so now he's lying down. i leisurely make a light supper of fishcakes and homemade remoulade. we greedily eat it all up while we watch john oliver and he makes us laugh and feel better about the state of the world. i sit at my computer and write this and husband surfs the auction sites - looking for an oven and stumbling across other interesting things...a vending machine (we could fill it with affordable art), some rugs and a couch that has potential. it's friday night. it's cold and clear and i am glad to be at home.

* * *

so tired of explaining things to idiots.

* * *

so glad i didn't have boy. 

tho' boys need feminism.

* * *

speaking of things i've been doing lately,

have you listened to the podcast i'm making at work yet?

when is a cold the flu?

you have a cold - it's the kind where you're achy in your shoulders, your ears are ringing, you're coughing up small balls of phlegm from a very sore throat and though your nose isn't stuffed up,  every breath you take is too cold on your sore throat. and it does no favors for your general mood. and by you, i naturally mean me. on top of it, there's another mass shooting at a school, and another bunch of horribleness flares up on facebook among the gun-toting set. i hate being confronted with the wilful ignorance of people i grew up with. the world is becoming so polarized, i honestly fear for all of us. and there's no sense engaging with the deplorables, no amount of logic or reason will seep through their thick, redneck, racist skulls. they sent out their useless, ineffectual, insincere thoughts and prayers and next week, there will probably be another shooting and nothing will be done about it. especially if the perpetrator is white. hands will be wrung and more white supremacist mental cases will buy assault weapons. and that orange jackass in the white house will pose for photos with his grimace and a thumbs up and then rush off to his tee time. and if your head is all stuffed up and your ears are ringing, you might feel rather hopeless about it all.

and it will be compounded by other things which facebook brings to you...like awful, sad stories of a horribly sick little girl who is also being slathered with hopes and prayers - everyone apparently conveniently forgetting that a god that would turn a fever into pneumonia and cardiac arrest in a little girl, doesn't seem all that merciful or inclined to perform miracles. but on that front, you can kind of forgive the thoughts and prayers, because they probably at least bring comfort to those involved. you just mostly wish that facebook didn't involve you in these things.

and you wish this stupid cold or flu or whatever it is would run its course and loosen its grip. hmm...maybe a few thoughts and prayers sent my way would help...

* * *

knausgaard's journey to understand russia.

beautiful.

makes me want to dig out my turgenev.

* * *

and it turns out john b. maclemore of s*town fame made some music.

it involves ambient and field recordings mixed with tor lundvall's work.

* * *

do you know jonathan pie?

you should.

* * *

the food you take you with you when you immigrate.

* * *

i like these short, short stories.

* * *

need more podcasts?
there are some new ones on this list.

the view from sunday night

a luxuriously lazy weekend - sleeping in, leisurely tidying up, sorting and throwing out a bunch of old papers (what a relief that was!), hanging with the cats, and husband, watching netflix (altered carbon = meh due to odd casting, dirty money = too distressing, comedians in cars getting coffee = just what i needed), baking bread, making spelt "risotto," because it's what i had in the cupboard, roasting a chicken, getting all the laundry done, catching up my 365 tumblr, planning husband's birthday dinner, photographing the first snowdrops - in the snow, no less, making and keeping a vow not to get dressed all day, cutting out and painting pages of an old book, reading a frivolous and unserious novel. it was, in other words, exactly the weekend i needed.

we are so pressured these days to make sure every moment has meaning, but sometimes, what you need is to slow down, stay in your pajamas, read a rather trashy novel (carl hiaasen's skinny dip, in this case), light some candles, drink coffee with extra cream, snuggle with a cat and damn any guilt feelings over any of it. down time like this is as important as all of the things we chase and the hours we work to make and do things that are important to us and/or our jobs. and i would do well to remember that. 

maybe allowing yourself a shouldless day* is the best way to take care of you and give yourself the mental space for the rest that life offers. and by you, i mean me. but i do also mean you. 

* * * 

collect all the books.

it's good for you.

* * *

the case for reading bad.

* * *

some cities are just better for revolutions.

* * *

magazines - collected.

* * *

lovely, lovely audio stories (in danish) by julie thing.

* * *

what you leave behind when you immigrate.

* * *

*shouldless day - from the episode of death, sex & money with ellen burstyn. 

procrastinating

as i often do with a deadline looming, i find myself procrastinating - making detailed lists, skimming a few chapters of "podcasts for dummies," updating the trello boards (yes, they are really just more lists), going through scads of photos to choose which ones should be sent for retouching (not a priority), writing this...doing things, but not the things i should be doing as i'm careening towards that deadline. doing things only tangentially related to the task at hand. doing things to prepare for doing the task at hand but not actually doing the task itself. why do i do this? why do i need to feel the sharp blade of the axe whispering against my skin in order to get to it? alas, it's not there yet, and so the procrastination continues...

* * *

oh to be a poet of procrastination.

* * *

i've been thinking that america looked like an empire in decline for some time now.
apparently i'm not alone.

* * *

perhaps a reason to start running?

* * *

i jumped on the fire & fury bandwagon and ordered the book.
maybe i shouldn't have.

noting 2018

hello 2018! i've got an old-fashioned calendar diary to use for the first time in years. it's by arctic paper and is appropriately called illuminate. it was developed together with students from the design school in oslo as a meditation on the differences in light throughout the year and it's beautiful. i can't wait to use it! i'm going to note something from my day every day in 2018. small bits and pieces, perhaps occasionally profound, but mostly about remembering the little things that happen along the way. there's something wonderful about a new, beautiful notebook. so much promise contained within its beautiful, blank pages. i'm looking forward to filling it.

as you know, i'm not much one for resolutions, but along with the intention to write a little something every day in my gorgeous notebook, i thought i'd note a few more intentions. in 2018, i want to be more thoughtful, kinder and more joyful. i want to be less cynical and less critical and more open, curious and accepting. i want to eat healthier, get more exercise and drink less. i want to be more in touch with my body and dwell within it, instead of always being in my head. i want to have less stuff and be more deliberate in the things i do acquire - embracing handmade, unique things. i want experiences, not stuff. hmm, these are sounding an awful lot like resolutions...

* * *

did you listen to the polybius conspiracy podcast? did you know it was fiction? i'll admit i didn't, tho' i did find it super weird. and i found myself thinking it was good that radiotopia didn't choose it as a new podcast for their network, because it was in no way even close to ear hustle.

* * *

loved this obituary for 2017.

thank you mcsweeney's

* * *

bon appetit takes on hygge.
laughter ensues.

i could work in my pyjamas every day

while i wasn't completely alone today, there was sunshine and time for a solitary walk. i also helped husband move a load of wood and getting out in the fresh air and stretching my limbs, doing something physical helped - i so often forget to reside in my body as well as my mind. aside from some hours of work (which, since i was home, i could do in my pyjamas), no one really expected anything of me. that, and the pyjamas, were very welcome. i found a little bit of time to read some more long read pieces that i'd been saving. like this one, which, like yesterday's, is also about home. and this one about anna akhmatova. what are you doing to find peace and comfort in this liminal space between christmas & new year's?