when i am deliriously tired and hangry

no one should get up at 4 a.m. especially when one couldn't get to bed before midnight. no one should schedule a flight at 6 a.m. no one should ever agree to check two boxes containing an inflatable captain (who turns out to look a lot like a 6 meter tall cigarette with waving arms when activated) on said 6 a.m. flight. (people look at you very askance, and it turns out that not everyone on the flight is checking such an item, despite your attempt to pretend that was the case). no one should drink 4 double lattes and eat half a sandwich and then attempt to download 170 posters from 170 different countries and attempt to post them on a sharepoint-based website from a hotel connection. no one should stay at the hilton in birmingham. if the hilton people had been past the hilton in birmingham, they would have plastered a trump sticker over their hilton sign and run the other way. it's that bad. no one should be subjected to a hotel room without a minibar. no one should expect everyone to care as much as you yourself do. no one should smoke in a hotel room and then give said room to someone who doesn't smoke. no one should take my brand new latte when i'm getting on a plane (and thankfully, today, no one tried. or they would have regretted it.) no one should continuously listen to only political podcasts. (there are not enough pain meds, believe me.) you have been warned.

in which i say fuck. a lot. and it's totally necessary

ok, US airlines can fuckity fuck fuck off for not letting young people who are 15 fly somewhere alone, not even for outrageous unaccompanied minor fees, if they have to change planes. how infantile are american young people? and how worrying is that for the future of the whole fucking world?

and you, allegiant airlines, with your incredibly bad reputation, but direct flights from one obscure airport to another (i'm looking at you FSD), blocking access to your website from outside the US. fuck you and your americentric ways.

and donald trump, you disgusting, vile, cheeto toned troglodyte. fuck off. you and all your deplorable, uneducated, toothless mouth-breathing followers. most of whom live in my hometown. fuck. the. hell. off.

and teachers who have their heads so far up their asses, they can't see daylight. and who threaten my child with scissors. and who try to blow sunshine up my ass and do fuck-all to actually help the young people who are in your class. and who have the limited world view of a troglodyte. fuck you. and the periodic table you rode in on. i bet you don't even speak a second language. other than fargoese, which, while incomprehensible, isn't actually another language.

rant over...but i'm not sorry for the swearing.

invisiblity

it hit me recently that for the last half decade, i have felt invisible. it may have even been more than a feeling, i suspect i might have actually been invisible. i think it happens to women when we reach a certain age - and it really is a middle age - we're done having children, but haven't yet hit menopause. we become invisible somehow, perhaps biologically but certainly culturally. for me, a couple of soul-damaging workplaces didn't help. they shook the foundation of my very identity. and i struggled for a couple of years to not be where i work, but i also have to admit that it was a struggle that i lost. my work life fills a great hole within me and gives me a space in which i unfold who i am. this is both good and bad. because work can push me places that i wouldn't always want to go. happily, for a year now, that hasn't been the case and i feel like i have emerged and that i'm unfolding my wings once again and it seems like they still work and i can still fly. and i've become visible again.

notes to self

just leaving a few things here, so i remember them...

• do not leave your tweezers at home for a whole week. your eyebrows (and possibly those around you who have to look at you) will suffer.
• that organic california chardonnay you bought was a bad idea - it tastes like oily peaches compared to the lovely, crisp south african whites you normally drink (even molly noticed).
• cat farts are the worst.
• but cats are otherwise the best.
• clowns are scary a.f.
• but not as scary as donald trump.
• they can keep århus (long story).
• really cool content about björk.
• i did some voicing in a real recording studio this week and admit i found it addictive. i want to do more. perhaps that podcast i've been putting off? why have i been putting that off again?
• i wonder who is going to take care of the cats when husband ends up in the folketing and is also in copenhagen all week...
• when the weather is glorious throughout september, i can welcome and love autumn again.
• also, i need to hold onto the memory of the good weather when it gets grey, dark and rains throughout november.
• gilmore girls makes a great background to a rainy sunday afternoon.
• thank odin for netflix.

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.

photography lately

august wanes and the season changes

what a month it's been! planes, trains, ships and cars. edinburgh, london, dover, hamburg and copenhagen. the culmination of a very big and very healing (for my wounded soul) project that resulted in a world record. a couple of days away with all of my co-workers. we sent the child off to the states for her year of high school. a bit of time in the garden here and there. as the garden produces its abundance, all of the other more metaphorical seeds that were sown over the past year have also come to fruition. i feel sated by the bounty of it all.

we've had the best weather of the whole summer in the past couple of days but right now, it's raining with biblical intensity. husband is helping the child with her algebra in the other room, via facetime. there are two teenage cats racing back and forth, playing a bit too rough. we had a roast chicken for dinner. i served it with a squash gratin (i'm using squash in everything, since the plants are going like gangbusters in the garden) and a broad bean mash (also from the garden). a simple salad of plum tomatoes and cucumbers from the greenhouse rounded it out. it's so satisfying that most of the meal came from our own garden.

i made it to yoga entirely too little during august. i saw friends too little. but on the whole, it's been a very exciting and happy month. it feels like i'm entering a new season of happiness, just as autumn, which is always my favorite season, comes around. a balance has come, an equilibrium. it's borne of spending my weeks doing work that makes me happy and being home on the weekends in this place in the countryside that makes me happy. it's the best of both worlds. long, deep conversations with husband make us both appreciate the time we do have together. meals eaten together, a glass of something cold in the garden in the late afternoon, musings about garden designs. life is full and good as august comes to a close.