a few random things i've been thinking about

into the fog

after listening to that great episode of the ezra klein show with george saunders yesterday, i've definitely been pondering how to get more ideas and less netflix into my life. one big step would be just to read more actual books. after four years of being glued to my phone by the latest antics of the former guy (twitter's new name for him, thanks to biden), i feel like i got dumber. hell, the whole world did. i think we're going to have to have to claw our way back to intelligence, one great book at a time.  and we need to have deep conversations about those books. in fact, we need to have more deep conversations in general. 

i feel like my ability to understand the world has degraded. perhaps because i more or less stopped reading books. i didn't stop reading - i just do most of it on my phone these days. and that's clearly not good for me, nor for my understanding of the world. after four years of constant abuse at the hands of a sadistic narcissist, i feel bruised and damaged and my brain is fogged and confused and it honestly feels harder to make sense of things. mostly because truth is so strangely up for debate. i hope it's not a permanent state, but i feel like i will need to work hard to make sure that it's not.

even just my ability to understand people and their motivations and actions feels like it's degraded. perhaps it's from working at home and not seeing or being around other people - more or less not really seeing anyone but husband these days. and all those old people i try to avoid at the grocery store don't count. i feel like i'm forgetting how to be around people. and communicating via messenger and email and teams doesn't help.

as usual, i find myself bewildered by people who don't look like who they are. that's kind of ironic, since right here on this blog, i wrote a post about how i didn't look like who i was. but in this case, the person looks super creative and alternative and fun and turns out to have the equivalent of a very straight-laced, persnickity, finger-wagging, rule-following accountant on the inside, without actually being an  accountant, in fact, i don't really know what this person does for a living, but it must involve following lots of rules and even coming up with new ones to also follow. maybe i object because it's so disappointing. i think if it was the other way around - someone who looked like a straight-laced accountant, but was actually super creative and alternative - i wouldn't be disappointed, but pleasantly surprised. and maybe even a little bit giddy. which is maybe why the actual situation leaves me confused and maybe even a bit sad.

 * * *

oh oh, bye-bye laughing emoji. i guess it's gone the way of thumbs up.

* * *

found a new substack - psychopolitica
i'm hoping it helps with the whole deeper thoughts and conversations thing.

* * *

there's also the sad news that they will stop making the dumle suckers. that delectable caramel, chocolate-covered goodness handed out in danish primary schools. the child is bereft. and i may be wondering if we can get into germany at the moment, so i could run for the border shops.

four kittens = much delight

i've been listening to the kind of podcasts that i wouldn't normally listen to - mostly because the ones i normally listen to do a lot of talking about trump and his posse of trumpanzees, and frankly, i'm over that. so i listened to some back catalog stuff from oprah's super soul podcast (the alanis morissette episode) and also the bittersweet life (start with micro and quite possibly also stop there). my mind is buzzing with ideas of things to write about, but it's quite late and while that doesn't matter so much since i'm taking the day off tomorrow, i need to let them gel until morning. but suffice it to say, i'm looking forward to writing some micro memoir pieces (as if this blog isn't already full of those), and to spending tomorrow with the kittens you see above. they were born on may 2 and they're just about to hit peak cute.

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.

nocturne

thanks to the wonderful new york times podcast club, i discovered a new podcast this week. it's called nocturne. it feels like serendipity to discover it the day before the winter solstice, since it focuses on things that happen in the night. our days are short here in these northern climes - sunrise after 8 a.m. and that sunset feeling in the air around 2 p.m. (tho' it doesn't set for another hour or so after that), so these days are dark and long. and this luminous podcast helps. in fact, anything that seeks or reflects or attracts light helps - like highlighter. chanel highlighter. (or mac, or becca, or huda or anastacia or fenty by rihanna, or bobbi brown.) you can never have too much highlighter. but i digress.

it's been far too long since i've been awake at 2 a.m. without it being fitful sleep from fever or headache or pttd (post traumatic trump disorder). tonight, it's because i'm on holiday for the next week and because i had a latte from kafferiet as i left copenhagen at 5 p.m. and because it's been too long. i love it. i love being surrounded by darkness, only the glow of my screen and a candle behind me.

i find myself thinking about some kind of ritual for tomorrow's solstice...intentions for the year ahead, gratefulness for the year that's nearly over - because despite the mandarin moron, there is much for which to be grateful. it will surely involve candles and i even have an idea for a bit of highlighter. chanel, of course. the solstice deserves the best. but back to nocturne...

the podcast club suggested the shortboard episode of nocturne as the one to start with and it was amazing, but of those i listened to today (and there were several), i found the one most thought-provoking to be the one called life is but a dream. what if this is all a lucid dream? and what impact would it have if you could look at life that way...as a dream in which you are looking for what you can learn. what a powerful idea. and it's definitely shaping my intention for the solstice, which, since it's 2:39 at this moment in this paragraph, is later today. but first, a bit of lucid dreaming before i'm there.

uploading 63%....

63%...the plumber backed his oddly large truck into the roof and broke some bits off. of the roof, that is, his truck appears to be fine. i am annoyed looking through my instagram feed at people whose work consists of taking the same picture over and over and sharing it every day (says the girl who constantly posts cats)...72%...i'm watching the percentage of my upload crawl ever-so-slowly upward. it's cloudy and grey. again. i'm not really having as bad a day as it sounds...76%...it's just boring watching files upload. and i'm tired of the grey. and i'm really tired of that out-of-focus, bokehlicious, pretentious reflection shot of princess leia. get over it already and move on to another motif...84%...91%...(the ellipses represent much more time than you might imagine)...the millennial podcast announced their last episode yesterday...it seemed as self-absorbed and self-conscious as the rest of it had been...a few recent episodes had seemed like they'd run out of ideas and navels at which to gaze anyway, so it was time...another podcast i'm finding annoying after initially liking it is not by accident. it also has descended into some kind of self-pity party. yes, we get it, being a parent and having a job is tiring and hard and not for the faint of heart...96%...when will this bloody upload ever complete? it's only 18 photos! 98%...i think i'm ready for the weekend to begin...the child is having a few beers in a park with her new classmates after school, so i don't have to pick her up...99%...also, i'm cranky (it is hangry, perhaps?)...so i'm probably not being fair to the two podcasts mentioned above...i'm just in a mood...i'm sure they're lovely people with perfectly lovely navels upon which to gaze...98%...how did it go back down? i think i need me some kitten time...happy weekend if there's anyone out there...99%...100%.

to grieve or not to grieve, that is the question

so many thoughts swirling in my head of late, especially as i listen to podcasts, which i do constantly. i don't always know if the podcasts provoke the thoughts or reflect them. a growing suspicion that i suck at grieving has been crossing my mind of late. and then a couple of podcasts i listened to on the way home today covered the topic of grief - this week's death, sex & money and malcolm gladwell's revisionist history touched upon it as well.  i don't know if they helped me work through my own struggles or not.

it comes down to that i don't think i've properly grieved for my father. i shed tears on the plane on the way there, as he lay dying in a hospital, nearly three years ago, but i don't think i've really, truly cried about his death. and i am not sure that i know how. there are times when i miss him acutely. most often when i'm in the garden, which is also where i talk to him. he's come to my sister on two occasions, reassuring her, but i've not even heard a whisper from him. i'm not envious exactly, more puzzled. is it because i lack the ability to open that portal to him? am i less open to it? or am i at another stage of my grief than she is? have i even started it properly? can i even recognize it? these are the thoughts that have me convinced that i suck at grief.

but it's also mom's decline. alzheimer's is so cruel and strange. she's still here, but it feels like we already need to grieve her. i don't even know this strange fabulist she has become...telling lies, or perhaps fractured fairy tales, to explain the world around her in a way that makes sense to her, as her brain fills with holes and erases the old ways of making sense. i worry that my good memories of her are being similarly erased, but i'm not sure that what i feel at this stage is grief. i find it hard to even summon pity, which sounds horrible, i know and then i feel guilty for that. but it remains that it's how i feel at the moment. 

and then i can't help but wonder if i ever properly grieved for sophia. when it happened, i was so sick and we had sabin to focus on, so did i properly grieve her passing and the passing of the specialness of being a mother of twins? i don't know. it seems like maybe it got pushed under somehow and never really dealt with, though i have always been able to speak of it, so it's not like that. but is glibly being able to mention it the same as dealing with it? i suspect not.

but how are you supposed to know how to grieve? i think our culture today places so much pressure on us to get back into the saddle immediately that we maybe don't give ourselves time. maybe grief takes years. maybe it doesn't look a certain way. maybe i don't wailingly grieve my father because i think he lived a long, amazing, worthy life and died the way he would have wished, so i can have nothing but respect for him and and be grateful for the time we had and how he shaped who i am. maybe i don't wail because it was his time and i feel that in my heart and while i am sad for me and for us and for mom that he's not here, i'm not sad for him per se. or maybe i just suck at grief.

with mom, it's more complicated, due to the disease and that she's still here, strangely more physically fit than ever, even as her personality changes so radically that she seems like someone i don't know. maybe grief doesn't come because the time isn't right. maybe i will learn to grieve when it's needed, or find my own way to do so. maybe our grief is singular, individual, so unique that i don't even recognize it because it's so much a part of me.

oddly, i think i've grieved harder for lost jobs than for lost loved ones. what does that say about me or about the times in which we live? what we do is so important to identity that we feel it as a loss of self when we leave a job, whether it's by choice or not. and so a period of mourning follows.

and then i wonder if grief is really about missing who we once were? do we lose that? or do we contain it within us, so there's no sense grieving it...

as you can see, i have more questions than answers. and rather a lack of grief. or at least the ability to grieve in a definable way...

* * *

daily affirmations from lenny.

"fucking up is how you go pro." - words to live by, i tell you.

* * *

i want to be e. jean when i grow up.

have you listened to shittown yet?

shittown. the new podcast from the creators of serial and this american life was released on tuesday. i've listened to it twice, so far. it seems so much like a snapshot of today. a musing on what it means to be southern, white, gay, closeted, intelligent and living among people who are not (gay or intelligent). it is a musing on the meaning of time. and life. and suicide. it's deep. complex. disturbing. compassionate and empathetic. non-judging. and tragic.

have you listened yet? if so, what do you think? i really want to talk about this with someone!

christmas is coming

christmas is coming. and we'll spend it in the states for the first time in a decade. hard to believe it's been that long. our bags are nearly packed and the laundry is nearly done. dinners are made from what's left in the refrigerator. i'm looking very much forward to seeing the child and i think she can't wait to see us. we've found a beautiful place to spend christmas and i'm hoping we will make good memories there. loads of good food, wine, games, skiing and fun are on the agenda. i go with an open heart, together with the person who loves and supports me most in the whole world. and i am hoping for good times and laughter. and making memories that will sustain us in the years ahead. 

* * *

an interesting take on helping ease the pain of alzheimer's

which is all-too-painfully of interest to me these days.

* * *

need a new podcast?
you can also find one here. or here.

yoga-induced stream of consciousness

the scene: yoga this evening. the room lit by fairy lights, the faint smell of sweat and jasmine in the air. mats being spread out. everyone silent, not even a murmur between friends. deep breaths and sighs as everyone settles down on their yoga mats. all of us in our own heads and trying to settle down into our own bodies. it’s not an easy transition. our teacher comes in. her calming presence quietly fills the room and our minds quiet. or at least mine does and i sense that the energy in the room settles down, so the others’ minds must go quiet as well. the stresses of the day wash away.

it’s yin yoga, so we push gently into long stretches, held for what can seem like ages at times and like not nearly enough time on other occasions. my mind leaves the lists and the counting and strangely flits to an apartment in chicago. where did that come from? it’s not even an apartment i lived in, only one i once looked at with a realtor on a whirlwind day of looking of 18 properties. where did that come from? it involved a kitchen island and what i would now call a hyggeligt atmosphere, tho’ i had no idea of that word then. there are seemingly no emotions tied to it, it’s just a random memory, popped into my head. and a remembered feeling…the green of many plants, the coziness of the kitchen, white-framed glass doors. why was it again we didn’t go for that one 20 years ago? i don’t remember that anymore now. and why did it come up? i think i could find it again, there in hyde park. i wonder who lives there now and if they changed it? does it still feel the way it felt then? does it somehow know i had a visual memory of it in yoga class tonight, 20 years and an ocean away?

then we change positions and someone farther down the room farts loudly. thankfully, not me. no one giggles, tho’ i want to. danes are polite like that. yoga can be strenuous and the body wants what the body wants. it’s natural.

home to my little weekday apartment. spinach for dinner. i could (and sometimes do) eat that every day. i revel in the quiet. listening to podcasts – britney luce’s sampler episode this week – cheat codes – is inspiring. i send it to a friend and mark it saved on my phone to listen to it again. it makes me want to get off my ass and make that podcast i’ve been talking about for a year now. what is stopping me? and then jonathan goldstein’s new heavyweight podcast feels poignant and touching beyond what i want in this moment, so i turn it off and put on the spotify playlist i discovered in a restaurant in klaipeda. it’s called freedom dub and you should go follow it. it’s great, loungey remixes of all the songs you know. in the best way. perfect to write to.

and it’s been far too long since i let the perfect conditions for writing happen. it’s nice to be back.

on parenting and advice columns and the natural progression of time

on the way home late last night, i listened to a couple episodes of the dear sugar podcast. it's the one with cheryl strayed of wild fame. i'm not sure what it is about advice programs on the radio - there's also one on saturday mornings on danish radio and it's somehow fascinating, even when people's problems seem far from my own. there's something comforting in listening to other people's problems and the opinions that the agony aunts (and uncles) have about them. cheryl and steve almond (who was sugar before her) are surprisingly compassionate and deep. i'll admit sometimes when i hear the letters people write in, i wonder how they're ever going to take it seriously and not just tell the person to suck it up or piss off, but they always do, in a compassionate and empathetic way, without being sappy. it's a delicate balance and they strike it. 

it seems like parenting and especially motherhood is often a topic and it got me thinking. i never wanted children. i was traumatized by my high school boyfriend's older sister getting pregnant in high school and going to her wedding instead of her senior prom, missing out on a basketball scholarship and not going to college. i also viewed my own mother as singularly unselfish and doing everything to give my sister and i all of the great experiences she could and i felt i could never be like that. so, i went around for 30 some years, not wanting children. but then i met husband and it started to seem like a good idea. and although along came sabin a bit before i was entirely ready, i have not once regretted becoming a parent. of course, parenting has its moments of frustration and no sleep, but overall, i have generally been in awe of this whole, amazing person that i made and feel like some kind of privileged bystander who gets to watch her grow up into the confident, funny, opinionated and smart young woman that was somehow there within her all along. 

she's away this year at a boarding school, coming home one or two weekends a month. next school year, she'll be in the states, getting a high school experience. people often ask me if i'm not horribly sad that she's not at home. and perhaps it will make me sound like one of those dear sugar parents who hates being a parent when i say that i'm not. i love watching her blossom into who she will be - confident, finding her way, learning who she is and what her style is. and being away at boarding school was the natural next step in that process, just as going to the states next year is the next step after that. it's how she will find her way to being who and what she wants to be. she needs us less. it's completely normal and natural and i don't feel sad about it. i feel happy and proud that she's come so far and is ready and embracing these experiences and finding her way. 

but, i can see on some of the faces of people who ask me, that they think i'm a bit heartless for not missing her more. of course, i do miss her, but i get texts from her pretty much daily, so it's not like we're not in contact. but there are parts of her life, her inner life especially, that are hers now and not mine to share. and that's just fine! it's how it should be, it's time for that. i hope that we've given her a solid foundation from which to unfold her wings and i am secure in the knowledge that she knows that we're here, should she need to rest them. 

* * *

amazing photos of a place both frozen and abandoned by russian photographer andrei shapran.

a list about right now...

~ a holiday cold - coughing, sore throat, mild fever, general aching. not really what i needed. husband has it too, but refuses to admit it, even tho' he slept in a heavy sweatshirt last night to try to sweat it off.
~ homemade ramen, featuring a rich broth made with the carcass from the christmas turkey and leftover pork roast has healing powers.

~ what if, of the 800+ photos i took last week, only a handful are usable? is that a good ratio? is it normal?

~ sunshine. a welcome sight after many, many days of rain.

~ cats are the greatest comfort.
~ i still miss frieda and her pretty profile a great deal.

~ watching making a murderer on netflix. it's like serial in television form and covers the two cases of steven avery, a trailer-dwelling, possibly inbred man in wisconsin who is rotting away in prison (for the second time) for a crime he very likely didn't commit. and the police/courts in wisconsin are shockingly corrupt and biased against the less fortunate.

~ this was fun! my nephew got the 2016 guinness book of world records and he found my name there for last year's lego minecraft diorama in london!

~ i've spent far too much time lying in bed for the past two months. but at least it's a very pleasant room - candles, books, warm (if unusual) colors (it was sabin's room before and she chose lilac and aqua 5 years ago), quilts, cats, plenty of devices for podcasts and streaming and general internetting.

~ enjoyed last week's trip with sabin very much. she totally knows how to airport. it makes me proud and it also made me realize that i'd gotten a bit rusty at it.

~ rough seas on the outbound trip however, were less enjoyable. 

~ enjoying reading all of the year-end wrap-ups around the interwebs. 2015 was kind of a crazy year, what with the madness of the republicans who want to be president, terrorist acts in the west, xenophobes running denmark, star wars (which i have yet to see) and obama really finding his groove (it was about time). 

~ i feel the bitterness i felt about a certain plastic brick and all their incompetent and possibly evil middle management put me through beginning to loosen. and that's a relief.
~ looking forward to sweet '16 (that's 2016) in a few days. i think it's going to be a great year.

* * *

how do corporations become evil?

i have some theories about this myself.

and oh, the tales i could tell.

* * *

the anxiety soothing store designs of right now.

embodied by amazon's first real store.

* * *

hey fellow moms, it's good for our daughters when we work!

so relax and enjoy your job!

harvard says it's ok.

* * *

this is a harrowing tale of a journalist who tried to understand ISIS brides.

* * *

the host of podcast note to self is incredibly annoying,

with her oddly narcissistic yet insecure way of presenting herself,

but she does cover some very interesting topics.

* * *

speaking of podcasts you should be listening to.

another round with heben & tracy.

being smart and funny, interviewing interesting people while drinking.

what more can you ask?

but don't take my word for it, the guardian even thinks so.

and if that's not enough podcasts for you, here are some more of the best of 2015.

i know i can never get enough.

* * *

abby bischoff photographs south dakota's abandoned places.

you know i love me a little ruin porn.

* * *

cultivating creativity.

good to think about as we embark on a new year.

* * *

it's gotten so much easier to be an entrepreneur.

mystery show t-shirt triggers awesomeness

i joined gimlet (hint: they make several of my favorite podcasts) a few months ago and i selected the mystery show t-shirt. it arrived the other day with this letter, which is a seriously awesome piece of content marketing. i wore the t-shirt for the first time when i was hosting a drink & draw and i knew that it was going to be an awesome day. i have yet to tweet it, but i'm saving the photo of me in for a day when i have made a really momentous decision. because some days are like that. and superstitions might be real.

and if you want to understand the logo on the t-shirt, listen to episode 3. and if you want to get the jake gyllenhaal reference, listen to episode 5. you won't regret it, i promise.

here's hoping your weekend is awesome.

karl johan and other randomness

it's good to have mushroom hunting friends who call and say, "we've got way too many mushrooms, can you use some?" and then they give you a full 10 liter bucket of beautiful karl johans (aka porcini). i'm thinking mushroom tart. dried mushrooms. maybe with butter and garlic atop a steak.

* * *

i've been branching out in my podcast listening of late. i listened to a few episodes of on being. i can't remember what podcast directed me there. it's deep and explores big, existential questions, but the host, krista tippett is so incredibly pretentious and annoying that i had to delete it from my phone again. i also listened to most of the extant episodes of food52's burnt toast, but didn't subscribe. the hosts are ok, but some of the guests were, again, too pretentious for my tastes (that brooklyn beer guy was downright insufferable). it seems like pretentious doesn't do it for me at the moment. today, via the longform podcast i found my way to another round, a buzzfeed podcast. i'm not that far in, but am already enjoying it. no pretentions, plenty of slang that i'm utterly out of touch with, and funny stories told by hosts who are having a cocktail or two. what's not to like? what are you listening to these days?

* * *

what is the deal with random people who think it's ok to give you unasked for advice? "you should put the link in a different spot on that post." hmm, just because you weren't computer savvy enough to find the highlighted word and click it, isn't my problem. and don't pull "well, i have a mac" shit on me. i. have. a. mac. 

* * *

i dreamed that a tractor pushed husband's car (which was inexplicably a black SUV, rather than the white soccer mom van it is in reality) from in front of our house (which was a different house than our real house, but our house nonetheless), down a hill towards a lake (not our actual lake), where it almost, but didn't quite go in, because it swung around in a wide circle (despite having no driver at the wheel).  and then a raging elephant chased the guy in the tractor, who had for some reason gotten out of the tractor and was on foot, running back towards the house, pursued by said raging elephant. for once, i'm glad a meowing cat that wanted in out of the rain woke me up.

* * *

as counterintuitive as it sounds, i kind of always wanted to be a flight attendant, it's actually kind of a bucket list item for me (if i had a bucket list). and now it seems that delta is looking for danish-speaking flight attendants, so i might even qualify. and here i thought i'd end up working for SAS, which, as we know, stands for Sexy After Sixty. :-)  but perhaps it's not too late and i'm not quite to 60 yet!

crystal knows

i heard about crystal on the note to self podcast (formerly known as new tech city). crystal is an online tool that helps you write better emails, because it runs a profile analysis of the person you're emailing and gives you ideas of the best approach. and what with me being a bit of a geek for such things, i had to sign up to try it out. and in this me-centric era, naturally what i was most interested in was what it would say about me. they want you to sign in with your linked in profile and i believe they use that and possibly a whole lot of other stuff they find via your email address online to analyze you. i had been hoping to directly point it here to my blog, as it's the biggest collection of my writing and surely reveals a lot about me. but even just using linked in, i think it's pretty accurate.  here's what it advises about me.

for the most part, i can recognize myself in these statements, tho' i'm less keen on emails that are full of abbreviations than it indicates and if you spell "you" with the just the letter "u" forget about it! i don't think i'll extend my crystal profile beyond the 14 day trial (where i expect that you probably have to pay for the service), but i like the idea of it. maybe someday such tools will be built right into our gmail and we'll all start to communicate much more effectively (hint, hint, google, you should buy this start-up).

reading and listening and strangers and historical perspective

i just finished the last book of ken follett's century trilogy. i know they were novels, but as historical fiction, i feel like they gave me a more personal take on the sweeping history of the 20th century and a greater understanding of things like the cuban missile crisis and the fall of the berlin wall. literature can do that, as can 20+ years to reflect on the events. it struck me that it's very hard to know the meaning of things immediately after they happen. or even a decade after. i think we are definitely still struggling to make sense of september 11, 2001. and i think our round-the-clock style of news doesn't do us any favors. the nature of today's media means that analysis must begin immediately, before we even really know what's happening and i think it's diminishing the human race. we can't possibly know the meaning of things without reflecting on them. but that certainly doesn't stop the relentless talking heads on television. makes me glad i pretty much only watch netflix and hbo nordic these days (plus my guilty pleasure of a few programs on tlc).

i've also been listening to as many of the strangers podcasts as are available on iTunes. they are filled with stories that make me long for more stories. stories of people who were strangers to one another, strangers to themselves, and then strangers no more. since the host is danish and refers to that fact quite often, i feel a strange connection with her that makes me wonder if it borders on stalkerish. she's been in my country a little bit longer than i've been in hers and she is at times as bewildered by the US as i am by denmark. she seems like someone i'd love to invite over to dinner.

this listening, coupled with reading the edge of eternity got me thinking about marina ivanovna, the very soviet-style russian teacher i had at iowa back in the early 90s. she struck fear in our hearts - using public humiliation as her main motivator. that works for me, i must admit, so despite how tough she was, i quite liked her. she lived in russian house, a big old house on a tree-lined iowa city street where a bunch of russian majors lived - kind of a sorority/fraternity house for slavic geeks. and i wonder what she made of it all? so weird that i never wondered that at the time - i thought of her as a teacher, not as a person. i think we all did with teachers at some point in our lives - being surprised at seeing them outside of school with their families or just mowing their lawn or something entirely normal. it seemed so strange that they were just ordinary people, living ordinary lives.

but here was marina ivanovna, a professor from moscow university who must have lived her entire life under the soviet system, plopped down in iowa city, just as the soviet union was dissolving. it must have been so bewildering and overwhelming in many ways - the nature of the students, the abundance of consumer goods, the informality of it all. i wonder what she made of it and whether she had aching moments of homesickness or whether she felt so fortunate to be there. what did she think? did she find it all so strange? was she happy or frustrated or overwhelmed or puzzled? she was probably all of those things at different moments, just like i am here in denmark, even after all of these years.

we can all feel like strangers at times, even when we live in our own cultures, but it is magnified when we live abroad. i guess all we can do is keep telling stories to try to make sense of it all, and remember to be patient, because it may take the vantage point of years before it does indeed begin to make sense.

what are you listening to?

ever since serial, the fabulous podcast that changed the way we all think of podcasts, ended i've been a bit bereft and in need of other stories well-told. so i've been on quite the podcasting binge. of course, one turns to serial parent this american life, but you are quickly out of episodes of that as well, since they don't seem to leave them up for long. also a TAL spin-off is invisibilia, which is brand new and wonderful, tho' wonderful in a different way than serial. the hosts lulu miller and alix spiegel are charming and the episodes are self-contained, but fascinating in their mix of stories and science and they too leave you longing for next week's instalment. also arguably a TAL spin-off is startup, where TAL and planet money alum alex blumberg chronicles the start of his...you guessed it...podcasting business. if you have an inner entrepreneur, you will find yourself practically taking notes and definitely encouraging all of your entrepreneurial friends to listen to it as well. reply all is the first podcast released by blumberg's gimlet media and is definitely worth a listen if you like the internet (which i assume you do if you're here). last among these good ones is criminal, the first podcast i discovered from the radiotopia collective. unlike serial, it explores, in self-contained episodes, short tales of often very strange crimes, including a baby-killing pig who was put on trial and hanged in 18th century france. as an example to other pigs, so they wouldn't turn to a life of crime as well. you can learn a lot listening to podcasts.

as i already said, in recent days, i've stumbled onto some podcasts that are part of a collective called radiotopia. 99% invisible's roman mars seems to be at the helm of this particular collective and his podcast is definitely worth a listen if you're looking for different stories. but my favorite of the bunch is probably strangers, which has a danish host, tho' she's been in the US so long you can't hear it. lea tau, the host, was involved in the moth at one time and that shows in her storytelling ability. another one worth listening to is benjamen walker's theory of everything, which did a recent awesome 5-part series on the "dislike club," his dream of a platform for people who are tired of facebook and twitter (the last episode of it is found on another podcast called radiotonic). snap judgement is interesting too, but love & radio didn't capture my attention at all.

the cool part of all of these podcasting collectives (feral audio is another one, heavy on comedians), is that they refer you to their other podcasts, so it's a little like following an endless string of hyperlinks and you can discover lots of cool stories. i don't subscribe to all of them. generally, i download a couple of episodes to see if i like them and then subscribe if i do. if they are so engrossing that they can make me forget that i'm mucking out stalls then i subscribe. radio diaries and the truth are also part of radiotopia and i haven't yet decided about them. i listened to a rather terrifying story on the truth (which oddly, isn't truth, but is small mini fictional radio plays, not reporting) while i did chores this evening. it was a story that will probably give me nightmares tonight. but i think it's good to have stories that stick with you. slumber party i downloaded only the episode with the oatmeal's matt inman, because i wanted to hear him. i will not be subscribing as the two hosts are rather full of themselves in that way that only people from LA can be and poor matt hardly got in a word edgewise, the way they prattled along.

hello internet is insufferable and i'll be deleting it. in fact, i just did.  i've listened to entirely too many of the thinking sideways podcast. the three hosts are just average people with mediocre brains, a marginal ability to google things and too much access to recording equipment. they prove that although anyone can put out a podcast, maybe not everyone should. i've only listened to as many episodes as i have because they do like to cover mysteries like the voynich manuscript and jack the ripper. however, because they seem to get all of their information by reading wikipedia, i suggest you take a shortcut and just read the wikipedia yourself so that you don't have to hear the one dumb guy say he's not an expert (as if you hadn't noticed) while the pretentiously-named girl devon tries to blame it all on aliens.

spilled milk is another one that proves that not everyone should podcast just because they have a microphone in their macbook. i loved molly wizenberg's blog and cookbook, but she and her sidekick (whose name i've blocked out) in this one just annoy the hell out of me. i only tried it out because they were going to talk about cocktails. the sublime one below it also contains a cocktail episode which i haven't yet listened to. i think spilled milk is another one i'll be getting rid of.  there are too many good podcasts out there to waste time listening to crappy ones. 99% invisible with roman mars, as i said above, is a keeper. big ideas features some longer, more professorial talks by scholars. you have to be in the right mood for those.

last up in this rundown is the moth podcast. they were telling stories before it became fashionable and they are damn good at it.

you may wonder when i'm doing all of this listening. generally, it's when i'm on a long drive. but since that doesn't happen all that often, i tend to put on headphones and listen while i'm making dinner, doing the evening chores or cleaning out the stalls on a sunday afternoon. i can also listen while i sew, tho' i haven't sewed anything much lately. when i can't listen is when i'm not doing something else...if i try to listen at bedtime, i fall asleep immediately and miss the whole thing. i also can't listen and read or type something, so i'm not listening right now. i will say listening to podcasts has cut into my netflix time, but i think that's quite all right.

did serial get you into podcasts? if so, what are you listening to? any and all recommendations are most appreciated.

* * *

and in case this isn't enough, here's a list of the best podcast episodes ever (according to slate). and a whole language for talking about them from a critical perspective, in case you really want to nerd out.