dinosaurs will be trolls

hmm, i've been blogging for nearly ten years (tho' there were periods of dormancy), and i've been blissfully fortunate not to have any serious encounters with online trolls. perhaps the limited reach highly awesome, select audience of my blog is the main reason. but whatever it is, i feel fortunate. especially after quite a shockingly trollish series of messages from a fan of my favorite plastic bricks via facebook. yikes! trolls are no fun. (i do realize i've used a photo of a dinosaur, so my metaphor is a bit clouded, but it's what i had at hand.)

at the same time, it was an oddly fascinating experience. this individual made a whole lot of crazy assumptions which he threw my way and then, despite my polite tone, in which i actually thanked him for giving me insight that was useful for my work, he blocked me. hmm. i wonder how that works? but however it works, i'm actually good with it, tho' a little bit of me wishes i'd have thought to block him first.

oh well, trolls will be trolls and dinosaurs will be dinosaurs and the odd dinosaur will probably even be a troll. and it's no good losing sleep over it. it really was a valuable insight into a certain type of fan and for that, i'm strangely grateful.

life lessons revisited

three years ago, almost to the day, i did a post on life lessons. on this rainy, grey, early dark (after the time change) afternoon we have going on, with candles glowing on the window ledge above my desk, and a contented cat in my lap, it felt like a good time to revisit the notion and make a new list. which is not to say that i don't stand by the first list, more just that i do love me a list...

~ words matter.

~ to appreciate the sunshine, you need a little rain.

~ time really does fly.

~ moisturizer is really quite important.

~ people will often disappoint you, but you will get over it.

~ it's good to see the place where you live through fresh eyes.

~ you grow more patient as you age.

~ but you also tend to take less crap.

~ you are never too old for glitter nail polish.

~ you are never too old to dress up for halloween.

~ nothing beats a logical argument. but those are few and far between.

~ so much of who your child is is already there in the child. it's up to you to nurture it.

~ everyone is pretending at something.

~ don't ever go to work for a friend.

~ a glass of wine has healing powers.

~ sometimes you just need girl talk (best paired with above-referenced wine).

~ it is possible to do something creative every day.

~ many of life's most satisfying moments happen in the kitchen.

~ spending time alone is good for the soul.

~ chickens are smarter than you think.

~ a good night's sleep will restore you.

~ there is always a good book to read, it's just a matter of finding it.

~ the internet is huge.

~ blogging is cheaper than therapy.

~ sometimes you don't know what you think until you write about it.

~ you're never too old to learn something new.

~ you can learn from your mistakes, but it might take a couple of tries.

~ it's totally normal to listen to the same song over and over again.

and that's my list. for now. play along if you'd like (please let me know, so i can read your list as well). it's surprisingly cathartic.

* * *

you never know who those people are.

looking at life through kittens' eyes

there's a lot to be learned from kittens. they live utterly and completely in the moment. they only do what they want to do. they thoroughly enjoy what they're doing, whether playing, sleeping or eating.

they're not afraid of conflict but they make up quickly afterwards. they cry out when they are hurt or just when they want attention. they let you you know if they are hungry or lonely. they consider everything a potential plaything. they purr when they're happy. when they're hungry, they eat. when they're thirsty, they drink. when they're tired, they sleep. when it's time to play, they play. when it's time to explore, they explore.

they make the most of every moment. they play hard. and sleep hard. they trade on being cute if it gets them what they want. they are fearless. they climb as high as they can and don't worry about falling. if they tumble down, they just get right back up and try again. they are full of boundless energy and when it runs out, they sleep. no matter where they are. they know that the cat on the bottom isn't necessarily losing. we could learn a lot from kittens.

tuesday lessons

things i learned today:

~ the term slacktivism.

~ that tuesday is a pretty good day to go to ikea.

~ that the meatballs in ikea are now self-serve. and it is rather hard to scoop up ten. and that they've switched out the little boiled potatoes with mash. and that you get enough sauce (gravy for my american readers) when you get to ladle it up yourself. i think the sauce is where they put the crack.

~ i suspect several of the families we saw in ikea were actually living there. i think you could get away with it for awhile. one of them had four kids, and it looked as if the two smallest ones had been born there. here's one of them, see how she's making herself at home?

~ if you want to provoke a dane, say something about a flag. (i did not actually want to provoke anyone when i mentioned a flag today, but boy oh boy did i kick a hornets' nest. and it wasn't even the danish flag i mentioned!) hmm, i wonder what they'll make of my nails when they see them:

~ it's amusing to kick the occasional hornets' nest. even if you didn't mean to.

~ you can get a lot done if you apply yourself.

~ and occasionally it's a good idea to look at the world from a different angle.

what has tuesday taught you?

what i've learned this week

~ lego has the coolest business cards in the world.  name on the front, email & phone # on the back.

~ it's very in amongst the toddler set to go to great lengths to expose said toddlers to chicken pox. parents get together with a child that has the pox, then they proceed to make the children drink from the same cup as the infected child, suck on used suckers and generally embrace and kiss one another in hopes that their child too will become infected. i can tell you a lot has changed in ten years.

~ a lot of good things can happen if you just dare. (including meetings already next friday!! [insert happy dance here])

~ if you ask for feedback on something, you'd better be able to take it.

~ if you wear something fabulous, you will feel fabulous. (i didn't so much learn this as remember it.)

*  *  *

happy weekend, one and all. 

things i learned this week...

gratuitous bunny shot

~ zumba is HUGE among the over-forty set in the back of beyond. (don't worry, i haven't tried it, so the populace is uninjured.)

~ whatever lego wants, lego gets.

~  sometimes people are just assholes and there's not much you can do about it. it's best for your sanity to just get over that.

~ when the child gets sick, she goes down fast. and whines kind of a lot.

~ you can work for the mayor and not have a clue as to what's going on in your community.

~ there's nothing to stop the wind between us and the north sea. (and lemme tell ya, it's blowing.)

~ a lot of people have their own domain.

~ teachers apparently have lower divorce rates than the general population (informal and potentially sketchy evidence based on a sample of 21 - tho' the divorce rate was 0% among those polled).

~  the handmade movement has not come to denmark.

~ those jerkies at dk hostmaster (the people who insist on centrally managing the .dk domains) are ROTTEN at customer service.

~ sometimes when the bunny escapes, it's permanent.

*  *  *

i'm sure there's more, but that's what i've got right now.  happy weekend, one and all!!

the agony of defeat

i grew up showing horses and ever since we got matilde, i've been hoping that sabin would want to show as well. she's having a private lesson on matilde once a week and is also part of a group lesson once a week, so she felt ready this weekend when her riding club hosted a show.

she normally rides in the indoor arena, so she got very nervous when she found out that she'd have to show outdoors. her nervousness grew when we saw that the arena was shortened down for the ponies using some of the jumps as a barrier. matilde LOVES to jump and when she sees jumps, she gets a bit hyper. top this off with the judge sitting in a black SUV down at the end of the arena, where there are normally no cars parked and the fact that she had no chance to take a walk around the arena to show matilde the perimeter and a severe case of the nerves set in. for both horse and rider. suffice it to say it wasn't an ideal first horse show experience and there were tears. pretty much all around.

and while i would have done just about anything to make sure her first experience was a good one, we do learn from everything that happens to us. and perhaps even more so from the bad experiences. and it could have been much worse - she didn't fall off, she just felt so nervous that she transmitted that to the horse (which is a learning experience as well) and went off pattern in her worry that she wasn't going to be able to prevent matilde from jumping the jumps they had used as the barrier (which thankfully matilde didn't do, tho' it looked for a minute like she was going to).

happily, late in the day, she wanted to saddle up and ride again with a friend (after declaring immediately after her class that she would never try to show again) and so we ended the day on a good note with her horse. today, one of the big girls from the riding school showed matilde in two jumping classes and got first in one and third place in the other - so sabin could feel proud of her horse and know that it was possible to show her successfully.

it's heart-breaking at times to be a parent. and i think that today we're especially protective of our children - trying to make everything easy for them and sheltering them from as much adversity as we can. i felt so terrible for sabin that it didn't go well on her first try in the show ring. i didn't necessarily expect her to win, but i thought she was ready. she had practiced her pattern dozens of times and knew it by heart. but we hadn't practiced outdoors - mostly since it's been raining pretty much steadily for at least the past two weeks. and when you're relying on an animal that has a mind of its own, you simply can't control everything. it was a hard lesson to learn, but i am sure she'll recover from it.  and maybe even be stronger for it. and perhaps i will be too.

a matter of focus

in the light of day, things look different. i'm feeling less indignant about our freeloading couchsurfer than i was last evening, tho' writing that awfully negative list did seem to help clear it out of my system, so that's undoubtedly a big part of what makes me feel better. but how you see people is also a matter of perspective, isn't it?

sometimes, one thing is in focus and sometimes, it's another. focusing on one aspect can blur the others and change how you view an experience.  i've been pondering the cultural lens with which we inevitably view things. and how that makes things appear to be wrong or right.

what was especially bewildering and disappointing in this instance is that the person didn't at all fit the cultural lens which i expected since this person was from the culture of my birth.  so i had expectations of a certain kind of person - open, funny, forthcoming. already when he approached my car at the train station, he didn't look at all as i had expected. he didn't actually greet me, just kind of slouched his way to the car, looking rather unhealthy and drawn (which is fair enough after a long-haul flight). perhaps because he didn't meet my expectations, he never had a chance. i'm willing to admit that.

but in his behavior, he did himself no favors. it just reinforced the strangeness of the initial encounter and made it seem worse and worse. perhaps what i was actually disappointed in was how well he conformed to an american stereotype - that of the ugly american - with strange stories of living a sort of unabomber, hermetic-life, hidden away from civilization, rejecting the trappings of said civilization (medical care, for one, tho' not credit cards, apparently), working odd jobs, going for weeks without speaking to anyone. but at the same time, an odd sense of entitlement (that dinner would be served to him, his laundry done and folded) and that air of superiority that he'd seen and done all and seen and done it better.

of course, it is a matter of what one chooses to focus on. and tho' it was an odd experience for sure, it was, in the end harmless. i'm still pretty uncomfortable with the weird recordings, for which he never asked permission, but in all, it's certainly given me something to write about, hasn't it?

what i'm torn about now is how to approach writing feedback on the couchsurfing site. with all of my other experiences, i've not at all hesitated to write something really positive, because they have all been great. i'm not sure, in this instance, that it's worth writing something negative. tho' perhaps i have a duty to give other potential hosts a heads' up about this guy. but all of my complaints are admittedly a matter of taste - he didn't steal anything, he didn't harm us or threaten us, so maybe it's not fair to write negative feedback. and if i do, of course, i risk getting negative feedback myself, which i don't want (tho' after cooking and doing laundry for this guy, he would have to have a lot of nerve to give me negative feedback).

so i'm leaning towards writing nothing at all - on the premise that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything. but that makes me feel a little bit disappointed in myself. again, it's all a matter of focus, isn't it?

and i have to stress, this doesn't put me off couchsurfing, it just makes me resolved only to host members where it's verified that they are who they say are (couchsurfing has a mechanism for this) and who have good references.  i still think it's an awesome concept. and after nearly two years of participating in it, this is the first experience that's left a bad taste in my mouth.

how not to couchsurf

we actually have quite a fetching couch to surf

i am a big fan of couchsurfing and have, until now, had only great experiences. but the past couple of days have been a very interesting exercise in how NOT to couchsurf. and sadly, it was our couch being surfed...so i thought i'd share a few pointers about how NOT to do it.

~ when you're collected from the train station, wander up to the car and don't bother to introduce yourself, just awkwardly start putting your bags in the car, after you indicate that the person collecting you should open the door for you.

~ don't take off your shoes when you come in the house, despite the fact that your host does and there are loads of shoes in the entryway.

~ come bearing no small token of any kind - no bottle of wine, no chocolates, nothing special from your country.

~ whatever you do, don't offer to help with dinner.

~ complain that it's too cold to sit outside.

~ turn every conversation into something about you.

~ don't display any interest in hearing the stories of your host or reacting to them in a normal way.

~ ask about whether we usually close the bathroom door (yes, the hallway is small) and then complain that when the bathroom door is closed, it's too hard to know if there's someone inside.

~ expect to be waited on hand and foot.

~ fall asleep on the floor in the living room. in the middle of the day.

~ make everyone so uncomfortable, they don't want to be in their own living room.

~ tell really strange, sketchy stories about yourself.

~ claim you own a home in japan.

~  and also in alabama (that you also claim to have bought with a credit card).

~ talk extensively about ways in which you've bought stocks using various credit cards.

~ talk mysteriously about how you've gotten loads of frequent flyer miles (and can use them on stand-by(WTF??)) using various credit cards.

~ claim to be a professional photographer, but have only a canon 40D (nothing wrong with that camera, but it's not a professional, aerial photographer camera).

~ claim to have a specialized photography blimp.

~ ask questions and then claim you knew the answer already.

~ act defensive.

~ go to the grocery store with your host and don't even offer to pay a token sum.

~ keep complaining about the cheap-ass inexpensive chinese copy phone you bought online when the "directions" that accompany it don't help you.

~ ask to go on a drive with your host because you want to see the landscape and then proceed to fiddle with your phone for the entire journey and never once look out the window.

~ ask your host if they know someone who works for apple, since you couldn't imagine that people would actually buy apple products.

~ keep claiming you're sick, but show up for meals with bells on.

~ act put upon that you're not waited on hand and foot, even tho' you were clearly shown where the (homemade!) bread and sandwich fixings were and told that if you were hungry, you should just help yourself. complain at dinner that you haven't had anything to eat or drink since breakfast.

~ be sure you don't offer to help with said dinner.

~ give really strange and winding answers to straightforward questions.

~ get out a little hand recorder and record conversations without saying anything about it or asking permission. (really? WTF??)

~ hang around all day, but don't be part of any of the activities people are doing (gardening, demolishing a container, hanging out in the garden).

~ expect that your laundry is done and folded and returned to you.

~ just generally seem really cheap and like a freeloader.

i could go on, but i think i have to stop here...i'm still processing this experience. i'm sure there will be more to say in the near future.

i would like to say, however, that this doesn't discourage me from couchsurfing, which i think is a fantastic concept, it just makes me want to be way more careful about really, really reading people's profiles when they ask to stay here. because i actually think a lot of this was there and i just didn't pick up on it.

finishing friday and the week's lessons

since it's friday and i have designated fridays to be finishing friday, i'm working on my nature walk plus quilt today. with the sewing machine breakdown and the market, these beautiful squares have been patiently waiting for me to begin for nearly two weeks! today is the day!

in the aftermath of the market, i've been slowly getting items into my etsy & big cartel shops all week (etsy seriously needs to improve the usability of listing items, lemme tell you). today, the fish went in. if you want small sets of fish, check etsy and if you'd like a whole school, i put those on big cartel. you may find these a little bit pricey in comparison to the clarity birds, but it's due to the fact that they're 100% organic and natural - organic fabrics, stuffed with real wool, so they're a notch above quality-wise, and also environmentally.  my order of heather moore's beautiful cut out & keep line for cloud 9 is finally on its way to me, so items featuring that gorgeousness will soon be available as well! and i'm VERY excited about that. i actually began selling the cloud 9 fabrics because heather's line was coming!

* * *

i thought i'd also take a moment to recap all of the lessons learned over the week, because every week has its lessons...

~ it's really annoying that on twitter there is no way of knowing which tweet someone is responding to. i briefly came out of the closet yesterday (and i'm not even gay, tho' i would totally kiss nigella given the opportunity) because in a tweet response, i mixed up a tweet where i had posted a photo of husband playing angry birds on his iPhone at lunch and one expressing surprise that the american ambassador  to denmark (who is a woman) was from south dakota. and in my tweet, i ended up referring to husband as a she.

~ we had an appointment to go renew sabin's US passport yesterday. the consulate sends someone over to the wilds of jylland twice a year to provide services to those who don't live in copenhagen. sabin's passport expired last monday, so it needed to be renewed. the meeting was in a nice hotel in århus and was very personal and pleasant. FAR better service than you get when you go to the actual embassy in copenhagen, where they practically strip search you and make you feel as guilty as they can for using some of their precious time on your petty requirement of actual services from the country of your birth. in short, a very nice experience.

~ i learned that the current US ambassador to denmark (who we did not meet - it was a vice consul) is also from south dakota. and used to be married to tom daschle. apparently, since she's now an ambassador, she stayed connected to politics after tom ran off with miss nebraska.

~ i spent several blissful hours in the garden last evening. replanting strawberries and helping husband move the rhubarb. and i was reminded how gardening is good for the soul. and that it's the single activity that makes me feel the most grown up. in a good way.

~ husband just called me with a very amusing piece of news that restores my faith in the fact that people do eventually get what's coming to them. and when it happens, it is sweet indeed, tho' sometimes the waiting is rather annoying.

* * *

happy weekend, one and all.

life is too short...

brownie, earn your keep.

life is too short...

...to keep apologizing for this house.

...not to make all of the cameras earn their keep.

...to wait for the light to be perfect. 

...and harsh midday light has its purposes.

...to miss it all hiding behind a camera.

...to not be open to new people and experiences.

...for negative thoughts.

...to spend any of it not being creative.

...not to hang your baby in a tree to sleep.

...not to drink pastis in the sunshine.

...to take every shot in both digital and film. 

and that's what i learned this weekend.

thank you, C.

film swap - learning as we go

now, with a big whopping two developed films under my belt, i feel that i can draw some conclusions about this film swap thing and how to make it work. i'm a quick learner, you see. (heehee.)

the film: the first film that shokoofeh developed was a fujichome sensia 400. it was slide film, and so we added another layer to the fun in cross-processing it in C41 chemicals for regular negative film (at least i think we did - shokoofeh had some trouble finding a lab willing to do that). the film shokoofeh sent to me and which my photo lab man lost for nearly a month was a regular fuji 200 negative film. it was developed normally (aside from the losing it). and i think that worked out better.

the ISO:  the film swap people (aka that film swap flickr group) recommend that the person taking the first round on the roll doubles the ISO setting on the camera - so if you have a 400 film, you should tell your camera it's an 800. after these two rolls, my opinion is that that doesn't really work. we're going to try a roll where we've set the ISO to the correct setting and see how that goes.

the light: the shots that worked best seemed to be when they were taken in light conditions that were a bit too dark for the ISO settings. for example, this shot, where the light was good and moreover correct for the settings, shokoofeh's shot is pretty much obscured. then, there were these shots, where the light of the second picture, while obscuring somehow the first one, also brought it out at one and the same time.

half frames: i don't have any theories yet as to what makes one set lined up and one set off alignment, so that the second shots are all half frames on the first ones. one of these ended up with some half frames and some not - it must have something to do with how the films advanced along the way.


the camera: i used a canon AE-1 program to take my shots. and shokoofeh used an olympus OM-1. i don't think the camera matters, tho' perhaps the frames are more reliably lined up if you use the same kind of camera, due to differences in how they advance the film. my sister and i are going to do a film swap and we'll both be using the canon AE-1s, so i'll have more data after that.

the magic: we had a couple of shots on both rolls, where it seemed to be a triple exposure. i don't know if this is because one or the other of us failed to advance a frame or if something else happened, but it was rather magical. other than that, i think the magic is in the serendipitous and completely unpredictable layering of the shots. the magic is just there and you don't have much control of it.

the serendipity: sometimes, the two shots have a similar subject matter, tho' neither photographer could know it at the moment of taking the photo. and it's those times when it seems like the image is as close as you can get to two souls touching.

* * *

ulrika blogged about our photos..please check it out! and thank you, ulrika!

losing and then finding myself: lessons learned

december 17 - lesson learned: what was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? and how will you apply that lesson going forward?

i have an odd tendency to lose myself in my job...i wholeheartedly take on the identity that's desired of me...or rather the one that i perceive is desired of me in a particular company. i give my whole self and then some. or at least i used to do that. i got a bit burned out doing that a couple of years ago and so i've held myself back from doing it again. last year, there was the misogynist dinosaur which kept me from wholly giving myself over to a job i otherwise completely loved.

and then there's the past year that i spent in completely the wrong place. and although i knew from the beginning it was the wrong place, i did it for a friend and for the sake of a major lifestyle change. and i've learned that you can't do that. and that you shouldn't do that. if you know in your heart that something is wrong, it is wrong. and nothing will ever make it right. no friend (who probably isn't really a friend when it comes down to it) and no cool product that you believe in will make it right if it's not.

so the lesson i've learned is to listen to that voice in my head. and all of the voices of those who emailed me and asked me if i was ok, because i didn't seem to be myself right here on this blog (thank you!!). i feel a little bit like i lost 2010. i know that feeling will fade and it's because i'm still too close to it. i had to go through what i've been through so i could move to the next step. it's about building your karma, isn't it? or perhaps paying it off. and maybe i went for the wrong job because i had some karma to work off. or maybe i'm storing it up for the next time. or more probably both.

but what i learned is that i have to listen to my heart of hearts, to my intuition. she doesn't steer me wrong. but for all of that, i feel that voice is stronger and steadier than ever. and i'm ready to create what's next. myself.  together with real friends this time.

~ namaste

what i've learned so far this week

what a week! i've been busy late into the night every night this week. and i thought i'd share a few things that i've learned along the way....

1. writing a whole 40+ page magazine more or less by yourself is not easy.
2. it's best if you never, ever let yourself think of it all at once (because it turns out that's quite breathtakingly paralyzing), but instead keep thinking of it in individual articles/items in a checklist. small, digestible chunks, in other words.
3. even if you think of it in individual pieces, it somehow does end up all fitting together, because it's all coming from your brain.
4. when you do a series of interviews on similar topics over several days, you should really type out everything from your notes after each interview. this will help you immeasurably later. (note to self: follow this advice in the future. for. sure.) if you don't, they can become jumbled up in your head and in your notes and take a whole lot longer to write into a coherent story.
5. a smooth stone, held in your hand occasionally for strength, helps your concentration.
6. chill/lounge music in the background is also good for concentration.
7. you will wake up in a cold sweat at 5:12 a.m., worried about whether you're ever going to get it all done.
8. you will get it all done.
9. you have to accept that some of it is good and some of it is dross. (dang, that is a seriously harsh word when i think about it.) but the fact is that there's only so much you can do to sex up propellers, hull coatings and propulsion systems. 
10. thrusters, on the other hand, are by their very nature, sexy as hell.
11. i thought briefly that i had lost my rock when i took sabin to the dentist, but after an only mildly panicked frantic search, i found it in the car. and felt very relieved. note to self: keep track of the damn rock.
12. a woman in england apparently kept the body of her mother in her freezer for 20 years. and i thought i was bad about cleaning out the freezer. i wonder if she had a special freezer dedicated to just that or if she kept food in there too.
13. jane fonda has been rendered unrecognizable by plastic surgery, but she's still sharp and funny (thanks david letterman (and TV2Zulu for broadcasting you when it's time to make lunch)).
14. there are people who are my age and who have children the age of my child who do not spend any time at all in cyberspace and yet they still think they exist. imagine that. i could not, however, verify their actual existence since i was unable to find them online.
15. those people who can't speak the language of blogging, facebook, twitter, flickr, linked-in, plaxo, tumblr, and social media in general are being sorely left behind and will undoubtedly soon divide off the human branch, like neanderthals. i mean, they can hardly even participate in a normal conversation.
16. in a fit of madness desire to inhabit a physical presence within my local community, i volunteered our house for a parents' party for all of the parents in sabin's class. sadly, we have nothing in common with them other than the fact that we managed to produce offspring at around the same time. and since the party is at our house, we won't be able to slip away. however, i did manage to make sure that the party will have an ABBA theme, so if i'm dressed as Agnete, eating a shrimp cocktail, and sipping a cold martini, i will no doubt care less.
17. i found my "U." it was in the basket with all of the DS games.
18. my light, bright dining room is a good place to work.
19. the pope has an iPhone. this means one of two things--either the iPhone is SO over or it's the only phone where you can get a direct line to god. if you were so inclined. which i suppose you are if you're the pope.
20. some people strongly fear being different or standing out or putting their 7-year-old on a trans-atlantic flight all by herself. i thought i feared those people, but i'm actually grateful for their existence, because it makes my existence more unique. and it always comes back to me. now would you please hand me my tiara?

what have you learned so far this week?

you can learn a lot from BoN

ok, it's been ten crazy days since MPC was named blog of note (still thanking you, gods of google) and i've been overwhelmed--more than 15,000 folks have come and had a look.  that's crazy, man! don't get me wrong, i love it and i'm very grateful that so many have stopped by to see what randomness came out my brain and onto the screen. i've also learned a few things...

things i've learned checking my site meter:

• someone posted my post on the new new world order to a website called conspirama: the best of conspiracy and the paranormal. kinda cool, but frankly, that post doesn't pose all that many conspiracy theories. i can write one that does, however. :-) i read ALL of those books on kennedy and marilyn monroe...
  
• someone from Nilai, Negeri Sembilan is looking at my blog right now as i write this. i don't even know where that is! somewhere in africa? indonesia? myanmar? i really don't know!
• people do a lot of blog surfing from work on monday...there's a big jump on mondays after the weekend. i can only assume that it's when people get back to the computer at work!

things i've learned from comments:

• my snow white story was viewed as a whole lot sadder than i meant it.
• my musings on the zone, which i found a little navel gazing myself, were something people could really relate to and which generated some really great comments. that makes me really happy because everyone should experience the zone. 
• lots of you guys are funny.

things i've learned from the follower thing:

• lots of people follow without commenting.
• this might be a good thing in light of how many are now following. i'm already using 29% of my gmail inbox and am notoriously bad about deleting things after i've read them.
• it's way fun.
• i remember that it wasn't that long ago i was offering a prize to my 50th follower. seriously, it wasn't even two months ago. 
• i thought i would do a shout-out to #300 when it reached that. and then suddenly it was 400 and last night, before i went to bed, i saw it become 500. i've clearly got to get quicker about these shout-outs. 
• i love you guys.

this whole thing has opened up a whole new world to me and for that, i am very grateful on this friday. thank you for stopping by!

note:  if you comment with an email address behind your comment, rather than one of those "no-reply blogger" addresses, then you will quite likely get a response. :-)

monday's lessons

things i learned this monday:

1. i wore my grey hugo boss suit today and the pants are really loose. who would have imagined that i'd lost weight? and how fat was i before? holy crap.
   
2. some moron apparently packed my suitcase because it was missing:
1. deodorant
2. clean underwear (too much information, i realize)
3. my wolford knee-highs (which meant i was wearing slightly bulky grey SOCKS with the heels and the hugo boss today)
4. any tights for tomorrow's austin reed skirt suit.
5. no shampoo or conditioner whatsoever.
   
3. it did, however, contain:
1. 3 different kinds of perfume
2. a ball of yarn and some knitting needles
3. my 20-pack of staedler triplus fineliners
4. about 50 receipts from stores in manila
5. 6 different mac paint pots
6. 2 sets of false eyelashes
4. i am lucky this hotel is right next to the largest mall in scandinavia, so i have now remedied all of #2 (except for the bulky socks i had on all day with my open-toed pumps).
5. my fingers remember how to do all that dumb PC stuff (like ctrl-alt-del), even if my conscious mac brain has blocked it all out.
6. learned a new term in the IHT: mediagenic (new for me, anyway).
7. i have a hard time telling the difference between spoken norwegian and spoken swedish.
8. that ryan air guy is really wacky (yes, i'm watching BBC world).
   
9. i think the mirrors in this hotel might be long-hair mirrors. i swear my hair seems longer in norway.
   
10. 38% of the people in my new company have a master's degree. 4% have a Ph.D.

i hope you learned something too this monday. :-)

p.s. i haven't forgotten the 50 followers thing...post on that coming soon!!!!
p.p.s. i'm not done with the whole eyeball thing yet. 

all i needed to know i learned in the miss SoDak pageant

i find myself thinking quite often about a question tangobaby asked me when she interviewed me last month.  she asked, "As a former almost beauty queen from SD, what in your childhood prepared you for your life abroad and your years of travel?" and i gave a rather serious answer about growing up knowing there was an outside world. i think i answered seriously because it was where i was at the moment--the mood i was in. i had a need to take the question seriously. i think part of me is also vaguely embarassed by my whole pageant phase, because it feels so distant from who and where i am now, and so i wanted to put on a serious face about it. but of late, i've been thinking about it again in a slightly more lighthearted way.

things i learned from my pageant experience:

1. how to tame my unruly eyebrows.
   
2. judicious application of eyelashes is always a good thing.
3. a bit of powder and strategically-placed duct tape can be just as effective as plastic surgery (but not that much less painful).
4. i am motivated to exercise by the threat of public humiliation in a swimsuit.
5. the art of walking gracefully in high heels.
6. no matter how smart you are, no one will realize it if your bleached blonde bangs are hairsprayed eight inches into the air (it was the early 90s) and you're wearing a spangled evening gown.
7. it's who you know, not who you are.
8. the best person doesn't necessarily win.
   
9. if your dad is a moderately famous democrat in a republican state, you were never going to be miss SD.

now, i realize that not all of these prepared me for my life and travels abroad, but they definitely formed me as a person and the knowledge of 5-8 have served me well. i still use #1 on nearly a daily basis and as for #2, eyelashes are totally back. not much duct tape goes into my dressing these days, but i have it to fall back on, should the need...er...ahem...arise.

thank you, tangobaby, for the interview that keeps on giving. :-)

serenity now

i'm starting with this lovely, calming image of a dahlia that's growing in my greenhouse because i need to quiet my mind and stop obsessing. but for some strange reason, that's proving difficult at the moment. to explain why, i have to back up a bit.

like about 3 years. 

three summers ago, we visited my family in the US. our best friends, a danish couple, and their three children came along with us. they spent every minute of this vacation depending upon us (mostly me) for their every experience. i had been working very hard and was looking forward to relaxing and seeing my family. but, the vacation was far from relaxing. 

we drove about 4000km all over the upper midwest. we went up tall buildings, we experimented in museums of science and industry, we ate huge plates of food, we camped, we rode horses, we took a balloon ride, we went to a baseball game, we ate great food, we explored a cave, we set up a real teepee, we ate some more food, we walked around the devil's tower, we shopped in outlet malls, we had a milkshake in an authentic diner somewhere in minnesota, we saw them blasting at crazy horse and cleaning the face of mt. rushmore. 

we spent two and a half weeks doing it all. and i spent that time leading the way and making decisions as to what we would do because no matter how many brochures i spread out on the picnic table the night before, the next morning when it was time to decide what to do, everyone looked at me. and then when i decided, they muttered to themselves afterwards that it was too touristy or too expensive or there were too many norwegians (true story, at the cave in the black hills). i did not find this very relaxing. in fact, i found it rather stressful and i was stressed out to begin with.

to compound the situation, we learned that our friends' english just wasn't very good. this, of course, caused stress for them. when you're in a loud restaurant and the waiter rattles of 16 choices of dressing and 6 different choices of potato, you feel pretty overwhelmed. if you're the husband in this couple, you get really, really pissy and starting throwing the "f" word around left and right, because it packs a whole lot less punch in danish than it does in english. and you are somehow so obtuse that you don't realize that you're in fact in a place where you may think you're speaking danish, but all anyone around you hears is "fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck." and that people, especially people in the midwest, do not find this charming.

so, when we got home, i thought, we take a cooling off period and we spend less time with these friends. but, they were so traumatized by the traffic the last day in chicago (we were, thankfully, in separate mini-vans for the vacation), that they called and  "resigned" our friendship. that's the exact phrase they used, "vi opsiger vores venskab." like it was a job or something. 

for three years, i have a felt a bit bad about this. not on a daily basis, but occasionally. i have especially felt really bad that although my family went out of their way to make sure these friends had a great time (cooking breakfast for 10 people isn't easy, but my mom did it uncomplainingly), it was never acknowledged by our friends. my sister arranged and paid for the balloon ride. my aunt hauled out SEVEN kayaks so everyone could kayak on the river. my own services as tour guide aside, don't you think they should have had the decency to send a small thank you note to my family for the great experiences they had?

do you think they did this?

you'd be right if you said, "no, i don't think they did."

and that's what's bothered me for 3 years. that and that i really NEEDED that vacation and it wasn't relaxing at all.

so, when planning the big party for our housewarming, we decided to bury the hatchet and invite these people. i sent them an invitation. i requested a response (for the caterer) by aug. 1. it is today august 14. we called and asked whether they were coming. they were very pleasant on the phone, but had another engagement, so they were not coming. but do you think they had the decency to tell us that? bear in mind they had received a written invitation in the mail with a specific request for RSVP by a specific date.

you'd be right if you said, "no, i don't think they did."

and so i'm all riled up again and in need of serenity now. this should SO totally not bother me at all after three years. it is completely in character. so why am i hurt and bothered by it? what on earth is wrong with me? why does it bother me that they are clearly rude and badly raised? it's really not my problem, but yet it's me feeling badly about it. they surely show no sign of it. the only thing that should bother me is my own stupidity for having thought it would be ok to invite them.

actually, in writing this, i do realize that there is some humor in the situation, so it will be ok, but man does it in some sense make me feel sad and hurt all over again. and that's not much fun. when will i ever learn? 

* * *

thankfully, just after writing all of this, on truth cycles, i found a place to make myself my own serenity goddess. so perhaps she'll help me (i gave her a skull necklace to scare off all of the evil):

using your imagination

imagine that you're walking along an idyllic beach in goa. and imagine that you come across a group of young men and children, also walking along the idyllic beach in goa. and imagine that they brought their bull with them out for a walk. i mean, why wouldn't a bull also enjoy a day out at the beach? having a bit of trouble imagining this? here's a picture to help you:

next, imagine a large group of people in colorful t-shirts doing a teambuilding event further down the beach. imagine that the area in which they are doing the teambuilding is surrounded by pretty, colorful flags. again, a picture to help stimulate your imagination:

now, imagine the bull coming upon this scene. add in the cheerful shouts of the people in colorful t-shirts. add in that they were very focused on their competition and not on the lookout for a bull on the beach (who would be?). add in the fact that bull is used for goan bull fighting--not like in spain, but bull against bull in the ring. add in that the people were out walking him for exercise and that his muscles made him strong and that his horns had been sharpened with a file to make him more lethal to his bull opponents.

remember that it was children and young men who were walking the bull.

let's go for a moment into the bull's brain. he comes upon a scene filled with colorful flags, people shouting and running around and he thinks, "hey, i'm ON, this must be the bullfight that these silly people always make me do." so our friend the bull breaks away from the young men and heads straight through the thick of the group. tossing one person into the air, trampling another and in the end, goring one with those sharp horns right in the arm.

the lucky thing about the scenario we are imagining (because this must be imagination, right, it couldn't really happen? no one would walk a bull on a beach. you'd have a better chance of being abducted by aliens than having that happen, right?) is that it happened among a very calm, level-headed group of ships' officers. within seconds, they were making sure their colleagues were ok and were helping the man who was gored over to a golfcart that could take him quickly to the waiting ambulance back at the hotel proper.

three people were taken to a hospital to be checked out and the one who was gored in the arm had to stay overnight and have some surgery, while the other two were shaken up and bruised (one had a perfect bull hoof-shaped bruise on her arm), but released right away. the one who gored was in high spirits the entire time, flirting with the pretty sari-clad doctor and all of the nurses. he even tried to insist that he didn't want any anaesthetic for his surgery (he was a finn, after all, so very stoic). so, if it had to happen to someone at the event, it couldn't have happened to a better guy. (that sounds much harsher than i mean it to--i mean it in a good way.)

and the girl who was responsible for the whole event? she was pretty shaken up. she thought she had taken every safety precaution imaginable, but she had, admittedly, lacked the imagination to predict that someone would walk their fighting bull on the beach right where the teambuilding was taking place. in the risk analysis, that was somewhere below the group being hit by a stray meteor.

more evidence of creativity

i did it!! this week i:

1. made a very nice pair of earrings



2. learned something about painting



3. and finally made a scrapbook page

yeah me!!

i think i'll give the earrings to moneek

what i learned about painting was something about colors and the difference between treating the canvas with linseed oil before beginning and not doing so (can be seen in the attached picture--the one on the right was treated, on the left, not so much). when you use plenty of linseed oil, the paint becomes more transparent and glides onto the canvas. for me, it almost sings beneath the brush. but there's something about the vibrancy of the colors when you DON'T use it that's also intriguing. i used these blues and greens because in my synaesthetic moments (which i'm working on expanding), these are the colors i usually see.

another thing i learned from painting today was that the best canvas i made was actually the one i was using to dry off my brushes on. so, there's something to not trying too hard.

as for the scrap layout. it was so liberating to finally begin after days and days of looking for inspiration on blogs around the world. now i finally made one myself and the ideas for more are tumbling in my head. i have two kits on their way...label tulip and red velvet girls. i can't wait to dig into those materials, together with the 134 pictures i had developed today. yeah!!

hoorah for creativity!!! it feels like a real breakthrough. and now i'd better go knit! :-)