Yearly Archive: 2009

08
Nov
2009

ALL OVER THE MAP WITHOUT A PADDLE

Gah. I feel subject-less, blocked, empty of title and content and meaning. I can’t make up another meme, can I? Well, I suppose I could, but credibility, wherefore art thou? What I really want: another day to sleep in, a 3-day weekend, maybe some vacation. A dark den for hibernation. Everyone at work is talking about what days they will be taking off during the holidays but I just grimace: none. My colleague is going on his honeymoon over Christmas and New Year’s and I am working. If my mom decides to come, and if she does, if my brother...

06
Nov
2009

TRIPLETS

3 moods I was in today: manic, happy, aggravated 3 feelings I experienced today: bloating, amusement, affection 3 things I’m looking forward to this weekend: sleeping in, seeing Katrina, bookstore visit 3 things I need to accomplish this weekend: laundry, shopping for Father’s Day, finishing the bookgroup book 3 things I keep wasting time on: Sword of Fargoal, Facebook, reading blogs 3 things that have made me happy lately: county-wide recycling pick-up program, a minus on the scale, that my friend’s husband may get to go home from the hospital this weekend for a few hours 3 people I’m thinking...

03
Nov
2009

BY CHANCE, MET; BY CHOICE, FRIENDS

What if we had never met? What would your life be like? Some of you might argue that, in fact, we never HAVE met, and some of you have only met me once or twice in person, but maybe the meeting of the minds that passes for frequent contact here is enough. Maybe it counts! For all the friends I’ve never met, and the ones I’ve only met a couple of times and all the ones that used to live nearby and whom I never now see, it must count for something, right? What if you’d never come to that...

02
Nov
2009

YOU’RE NEVER GONNA KEEP ME DOWN

There’s my motivation! I found it! It was lurking…in my brain. Always the last place you look, eh? Things I did at work today: Watered the plants, confimed procedures with a colleague on the phone, reviewed a flash card, ate breakfast, laid out 5 case studies, uploaded an updated datasheet and sent out a call for translation for localized versions, reviewed 5 presentations, made a new ad look better, sent out 4 ads to publications, ate a super salad for lunch, found a logo for someone, had a discussion about how best to do the next cheat sheet poster, farted...

01
Nov
2009

EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE

If I went back and read through entries from former years written about this same time, I suspect that a theme of split restlessness and lethargy would be revealed. It’s hard to understand how I can feel both so itchy to do something that I can’t identify and sluggish and slow at the very same time. The weather is reflected my mood today: grim and gray and cantankerous, blowing this way and that. The AWC Halloween party was a smash success, a record-busting bash. There were 213 people attending, the most we’ve ever had at any AWC event in our...

30
Oct
2009

DOWN & UP

Is anyone else boggled by the fact that tomorrow is the last day of October? Already it feels as dark in the early evenings as if it were January, and we are still 2 months away from the equinox. What an down and up day this was…what down and up WEEK, for that matter. At the beginning of it, one of my colleagues, another American who is also a friend, sent out an email to all the Americans in our department, asking if we would be interested in helping to organize a Thanksgiving dinner for our entire department. There are...

28
Oct
2009

WHEN BLACK CATS PROWL & PUMPKINS GLEAM

I had an unexpected phone call at work this morning from a radio personality that had gotten my name from one of our neighbors who works for a broadcasting company in Malmö. The man who called me works for Sverige’s Radio and had been told that I was a “Halloween expert”. Haa! I guess being an American in Sweden qualifies me as a Halloween expert, if anyone is! He asked me several questions about Halloween: when it was, what you were supposed to do, did you have to dress up, what were the rules for trick-or-treating, etc. I answered him...

26
Oct
2009

VICIOUS CYCLE

I can’t seem to stop eating. I don’t know if it’s for comfort or just a general bear-like impulse to bulk up the winter stores before hibernation, thanks to the descending darkness and general gloom of the season. It’s hard to get out of bed in the mornings. It’s hard not to go back to it when the sun never shows it’s face and it rains for 3 days straight. It’s relatively warm or all this rain would be snow. Anyway, I can’t seem to stop. I hate when I get like this; it feels like it takes a gargantuan...

25
Oct
2009

CHOPPING SCOOPING CARVING LIGHTING

It’s been a cold, grey, rainy weekend, with not a lot of plans and a lot of dozing, reading, desultory house-cleaning and laundry. Yesterday we decorated the foyer with cobwebs and spiders, glow-in-the-dark ghosties and disembodied hands. We brought in the waiting pumpkins and chopped holes in their heads, scooped out their insides and carved up their faces. They don’t look too sad about it, though, do they?

22
Oct
2009

I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO TELL YOU

Why, when we want something to change in the way someone else behaves, are we often too cautious or afraid of hurting their feelings, that we never actually do anything about it, when doing so would give us such relief and so often make things better? I often think that people should be able to READ MY MIND because I am thinking so fiercely at them. It happens a lot when I get a massage. You can practically see the steam rising off my head, I am thinking so hard and so concentrated: NO! NOT THERE, OVER THERE! NO! THERE!!...

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