A happy birthday post

So, what do you do to honor the birthday of a man who eschews carbs? Why, you assemble a salami and cheese 'cake' selection, of course! Now join me in a round of a Danish birthday song (there are several, but this seems to be the most common) in Thor's honor. What, pray tell, is this song? Well, you can find the words (and English translation) of the first verse (once again, there are several) here, and the tune here.

Where I reveal that my boyfriend is obsessed with another woman

Dear Reader,

I am writing to ask for the use of your wisdom and experience. I have known for a few months now that I am no longer the only woman in my boyfriend's life. But it is only now that we're on holiday (which entails spending much longer periods of time together than usual) that the full extent of this other relationship has revealed itself. Consider the following behaviors that I have noticed over the past several days between my boyfriend and this 'other woman' (who, I might note, is traveling with us):

He simply cannot keep his hands off of her. On occasion, in response to this, she'll actually kick him (or hit him - it's hard to be sure). He doesn't seem to mind.

He kisses her regularly. In public. In front of me (of course, he also kisses me in front of her, but that's perhaps better left for another letter). As far as I can tell, she doesn't kiss back. Her lack of affection doesn't seem to faze him.

When confronted with these facts, he doesn't even try to deny anything. In fact, he suggests that he will only really get to know her in May. At which point, he's apparently planning to take her home to live with us. As if that weren't enough, I believe I'm expected to feed her and make sure all her needs are met while he's at work.

So, dearest reader, what should I do? Is it wrong to just give in, to embrace this new relationship? Dare I even enter into a relationship with her myself? Because truth be told, this other woman is kind of cute, and totally captivating.

Real life vs. blog

I've come across many in the blogosphere for whom a blog is the secret to a special compartment in their lives, unknown to their real life contacts. For me, it has always been the opposite - I encourage everyone close to me to read my blog, family, friends, whomever. And some of them actually do so. More importantly, many of them read it without me actually realizing it. This leads to some embarrassing situations, not because of anything I say about anyone, but just because I'm so generally crap at corresponding by more personal means (e-mail, phone, Skype, chat programs, etc.), that the only way for people to find out what's happening in my life is to read my blog. And people do clue in to this. Which leads to incidents like the following:

1) After my mom died, there were several people, childhood friends, ex-boyfriends and the like, who should have gotten messages from me about it. But I found it really strange to write about, and so didn't do it. In the month that followed, all of those people, without exception, wrote me really nice condolence e-mails, having figured out the situation from my post on the memorial service. I still cringe when I think of the sheer tackiness of it.

2) A few close friends who are far away in space and time have also written me nice e-mails congratulating me on my pregnancy. Which of course they read about on my blog. This includes a good friend to whom I did write with the news (long after I should have), who responded with a lovely Christmas card saying something along the lines of, 'Pregnant? I'm shocked! No actually, I'm not. I've been following your blog'. I would imagine that, at the rate I'm going, she'll read this before finding any follow-up e-mails in her in-box. It shouldn't be that way, but it is.

At least these incidents are only one-way...me not communicating with others, who in turn are good at communicating with me (luckily, as otherwise, I might have no contacts at all). But now it seems to be getting totally out of hand, as shown by a comment on my last post from the ubiquitous and prolific 'Anonymous'. In it's entirety, the comment reads:

Dear readers of this blog.
It's sad but true - this is the only way, I can come in contact with my girlfriend....

Kimananda: Pick up your phone and call your boyfriend (you know... the one you live with, father of your unborn child etc.) ;-)

Which basically means that not only can other people only find out about my life through my blog, but I myself am now only finding out about others through my blog. You know, I think I'll go and find an old e-mail (I don't throw them out, I just keep putting off responding to them until they are forgotten) and answer it. Or maybe I'll just go and start a conversation with my boyfriend, Anonymous.

Suburbia personified

They say that having a child changes a relationship. They fail to say that it also turns relatively hip boyfriends into domestic obsessives. Watch the video on this page, and imagine having certain phrases whispered in your ear by your beloved. Phrases like 'buy me', 'you love me', 'baby needs dryer'. All of these having to do with the product itself. Unlike the video, which seems to have very little to do with the Miele washer/dryer being sold.

I'm very much hoping not to be swayed. Not by the thought of having a washing machine in the house, which goes along nicely with my idea to clothe our daughter in cloth diapers. (Maybe my delusion? Time will tell.) But rather by the thought of spending such a ridiculously large amount of money. I've never bought a washing machine...no, I take that back, I've never bought a new washing machine, and I've never bought a dryer. Is it really worth spending more than twice as much as any other machine just because it's a brand that's known for being reliable? I have the definite idea that Thor has his heart set on this one, and nothing else will do. I just keep thinking about what else we could do with the price differential, and for that matter, if we have that kind of money at all.

Photo credit, http://cititorg.ru/pictures/big/wt2670wpm1.jpg

The Camino

In the Spring of 2003, I was at somewhat of a crossroads of my life, considering starting a PhD in something that I wasn't sure of, and generally looking for a change. I decided the solution, at least for the short term, was to take a few weeks off of work and do the Camino de Santiago. You know, reflect on life, experience communitas first hand, that kind of thing.

They say that the Camino changes people. I had always assumed that this referred to interior change, different priorities, greater maturity or patience or understanding, subtle yet transformative things. What I didn't realize was that it could also signal external upheaval as well. In my case, I ended up meeting a really interesting Danish man, and six months later, I was living in Copenhagen, somewhere that I probably would never even have visited otherwise. So, it can safely be said that my whole life is different because of the Camino. The interior stuff changed some as well.

In the morning of the 14th of June, 2003, Thor and I completed the Camino together. We got our compostelanas together, and had them laminated together (next to the office where they are issued). We then went to mass, for me the third of the journey (I went to one at the beginning, one in the middle, and one at the end). A couple of days later, I went on to spend a few days in Madrid, and Thor went back to Copenhagen. The rest is not so exciting.

The end result is that life went on, but with new possibilities. And now, it's four years later, and I cannot imagine how things would have turned out had I not done the 800+ kilometer journey across the North of Spain. A truly transforming experience, in almost every area of my life.

What has transformed you? Which pilgrimages have you travelled, be they real or symbolic?

Birth announcement

I am pleased to announce that yesterday evening, a thesis was officially born (in triplicate actually), and that in addition, soon after 10 o'clock this morning, Tristino was officially presented as a part of the world. He's a strong 70 page, 25,000+ word beauty, and it is hoped and expected that his presence will make an impact in the academic community, as well as on the future goals and ambitions of his mother.

His birth was greeted by roses, provided by his Danish step-father, along with champagne. Tristino himself did not partake of the champagne (too young, too papery to handle it), but he did pose with the roses. Mother, step-father, and thesis are all doing well.

My boyfriend the rock star

Actually, I'm also a rock star. Apparently, my Chinese stage name is Hello. I must be very popular in China as people, total strangers, call to me on the street there. They wave and look very happy to see me. However, my rock stardom is nothing compared to that of my tall, blond, bearded boyfriend, coincidentally also named Hello. He is a Chinese rock superstar.

Yes, people wave to him on the street. Yes, they call out 'Hello, hello!' They also ask to get their photographs taken with him. Sometimes they want a photo of themselves shaking his hand. Those who are too shy to speak to him directly will sometimes take his photo anyway. He's also been videotaped, for example at the summit of Emei Shan, because everyone knows that there is nothing to video way up there otherwise. On rare occasions, he'll have someone follow him around for a while, presumably to bask in the glow of his fame.

I'm not quite sure what kind of music my boyfriend Hello does, but it seems to appeal especially to tiny old toothless women, who will often come over to have a nice little chat with him. They find it especially amusing when he replies, which makes sense as he says really funny things, like 'I'm sorry, I don't speak Chinese'. His music also appeals to young girls, by which I mean under the age of 5. One little girl, walking on top of a small ledge, hand in hand with her father, was so excited to see the great Hello and so involved in calling out 'Hello, Hello' and waving, that she lost her balance and fell. We believe she emerged unscathed.

Because my boyfriend is a rock star, my penchant for always trying to take his photo makes me a papparazzi. As Hello tends to comandeer my camera, this is not an easy task. However, I was able to use the occasion of being on the top of the not-yet-completed Three Gorges Dam to get him to pose for a photo anyway.

More photos will be arriving shortly, not of Hello as he is good at evading my lens, if not all of the other lenses which were pointed at him on our trip; but of Southwest China, which, if it isn't also a rock star, deserves to be one.

Eventually, we all become our parents

Or our grandparents, as the case may be. Comment given today, as Thor and I walked out from the train station. Directly in front of us, two pre-pubescent girls wearing tiny tank tops and very, very, very tight jeans.

Thor: Oh, those girls. Look at them, they are too poor to afford pants that fit. They've almost grown out of them. Maybe we should tell them where to find a used clothing store so that they can buy new ones.

He has also been known to comment about the clothing choices of teenage skateboard punks...'Oh, look. They're so poor, they have to wear their older brothers' pants. They're almost falling off.' Or anyone wearing clothing with fashionable holes in them.

Yes, it's true, my boyfriend is an 87-year old man trapped in a 32-year old man's body. The horror. The horror.

32 happy birthday wishes

I dag er det Thors fødselsdag
hurra hurra hurra.
Han sikkert sig en gave får
som han har ønsket sig i år,
med dejlig chokolade og kage til.

(Today is Thor's birthday,
hurrah, hurrah, hurrah.
He'll certainly get a gift
that he's wanted for a year,
along with lovely chocolate and cake.)

*play-doh cake, courtesy http://www.cookiepots.com/. Lack of actual singing courtesy of me!

Applied Essentialism

Over dinner tonight, the main topic of conversation was Essentialism. Essentialiam, simply put, is the idea that every type of being has an essential feature which distinguishes it from all other types of being. A classic example of this is the periodic table of the elements; each element has an unique atomic structure, which is the essential feature of the element. So, all of the members of the group 'gold' have the same atomic structure, a structure which is shared by no other member of any other group. Essential features mean that each group also has certain properties. So, gold has a particular malleability, reaction to acids, and so on; properties which arise naturally out of its atomic structure.

But, we didn't talk about the periodic table over our chicken salad. The question we tried to answer was rather the following: If every different thing can be separated out by its essential feature, and recognized by that and by its special properties, well then, how could we actually work with that in practice, and how would that work for classifying ourselves, or groupings of which we are members?

So, for something like biology, for example what sets man apart from other animals, or cats apart from dogs, or frogs from toads, perhaps Essentialism is more defensible...aren't we sort of classified by our DNA? (Biologists, please chime in here, as I have no idea what I'm talking about). And the properties would presumably arise from that. But what about for other things? For example, beauty. Is there an essential feature that describes all beautiful things and no non-beautiful things? If this were possible, of course, then that would presuppose some universal standard of beauty, which would be a bit of a digression here. Or for languages: the Scandinavian languages are often (though not as often as I would have thought before moving to Denmark) mutually intelligible; yet speakers of these languages would see them as different. What is the essential feature for each of these languages which would set it apart as a language? (Answer: political identity, in my opinion).

And then, for socially constructed groupings. Danes, for example. Although Thor did point out that Danes do have one essential feature: they have cartoons. But that's a relatively new feature; what about before that? It can't be just geography, as there are Danes scattered around the globe. It can't be just passport, as there are people who have been born and raised in Denmark, but who are technically citizens of other countries. It was very difficult to come up with an essential, defining feature for this type of grouping.

Of course, that may be just because neither Thor nor I consider ourselves to be Essentialists. However, that doesn't make it less interesting as a thought exercise. So, now that we've played with it for awhile, I'd like to pass it on to all of you. Please mull it over, and try to define, if you can, what essential feature binds together and sets apart groupings that you belong to (or anything other you can imagine). I find I can do it but only on a very basic definitional level...Americans are set apart by nationality, expats are set apart by not living in their country of birth, women are set apart by having a particular gender, and so on. So, I'm looking forward to reading about how you would approach it, and what you come up with.

*inspiration and the element examples courtesy of The Poverty of the Linnaean Hierarchy : A Philosophical Study of Biological Taxonomy by Marc Ereshefsky.

**photo: the dangers of essentialism, from http://www.myrelchernick.com/maternalmetaphors/images/Andrea'sArticle/Bogyi-and-Mike.jpg

Recently overheard near a deck of tarot cards

Thor: Alright, so these (holds cards out for show) can tell the future, right?

kimananda: Well, not exactly...they're more for meditation...confirmation of current trends...

T: Yeah, yeah, but they show how to get to future situations, right?

k: Well, you could look at it that way, I suppose.

T: O.K., so (looks at the cards, and begins loosely shuffling them, and talking to them) what do I need to do in order to win the lottery this week? Tell me... (pulls a card from the deck and places it on the table...it's the Ace of Pumpkins...turns to kimananda)...O.K., what's it mean? What do I have to do to win?

k: Well, let's see. You've pulled the Ace of Pumpkins, which in more conventional decks would be the Ace of Pentacles or Ace of Disks. Pentacles or pumpkins refer to the material aspects of things, the real tangible world. In this case, that would presumably be money. The ace generally represents the seed of an element, the tiny beginning that starts it all. So, clearly, this card can be seen as a tiny seed of money which could perhaps leads to more money later on. Basically, what the cards are telling you is that, if you want to win the lottery, the way to do it is to buy a ticket.

T: O.K., so this means that if I buy a ticket, then I will win the lottery. (turns to cards) Thank you cards. I will buy a ticket, and if you are right, then I will win. If you are wrong, then burn, baby, burn

This was two days ago, and he has been periodically threatening my favorite deck of tarot cards ever since. He has also, as of a couple of hours ago, bought a ticket (the draw is sometime this evening). If force of will is enough to affect the winning numbers, then we'll both be much better off financially tomorrow (as he's promised me half). If not, then I may have to move my cards to some sort of parapsychological safe house.

*Cards courtesy of the Halloween Tarot, published by US Games*

Man-stench

Well, I have been enjoying a completely relaxing unproductive evening home by myself, as Thor is out with some friends, enjoying a mandehørm. This translates into English as a 'night out with the guys', or literally as 'man-stench', or as Thor defined it for me, 'mand is of course man, and hørm is, well, when there is something that smells really bad, but I mean really bad.' Yes, it's true, the man with whom I live in sin is right this moment out on a man-stench. The beauty of this is that, not only do I get the house to myself, but I also get to periodically think 'mandehørm'...and just laugh.

Thor doesn't quite get the humor of this. I don't recall his exact words, but there was something to do with 'you're having a lot of fun with this, aren't you,' and 'it's really not that funny'. But, of course, it is! I also had the opportunity to talk to the arranger of this particular 'man-stench' earlier in the evening, and asked him if Thor should show up to the event smelly, or if he would naturally acquire a nasty odor as the evening progressed. For some reason, Andreas seemed to think that my question was rhetorical, I can't imagine why. Unfortunately I wasn't able to speak to the other men participating, on the off chance that they would take my question seriously.

Anyway, here are what I think are the rules for a mandehørm.

1) Dress up, as you might be going bar-hopping, or to a nice restaurant, or to a formal event on Mars. Specifically you must iron a shirt, and then leave the iron and ironing board in the hallway where you can be sure to trip over them when returning home drunk at an ungodly hour of the morning. Ask your non-Danish girlfriend if you should be wearing a tie, as if she knows. When she asks, 'Well, where will you be going?', admit that you have no idea.

2) While ironing, listen to extremely loud German industrial music, so that your girlfriend spends the rest of the evening with 'We're all living in Amerika/Amerika ist wunderbar' going through her head. Don't worry - as you also have a rather scary fondness for disco (and Rammstein is pretty cool), your girlfriend will be more relieved than annoyed.

3) Go out with the guys and try to recreate that Nordic mythological tale where Loke the trickster gets Thor to drink a tankard of beer that turns out to contain an entire ocean. In this way, prove that you ARE the real God of Thunder, and your mother's claim that she named you after Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl is simply not true. Do silly things, but not so silly that you can't tell your girlfriend about them the next day, or that you can't remember them the next day.

4) Come home late and drunk. Manage to get into bed really quietly, and then wake your girlfriend up by snoring loudly. Wake up the next morning with a hangover, and vow to never, ever do it again...until the next time.

Hmmm...that sound like it could be fun...with the right company...any of you ladies in the audience up for a 'kvindehørm' sometime soon?

An End of Summer HNT?

I'm back with another half-nekkid Thursday contribution...or, as I seem to be doing it, half-nekkid every other Thursday. Like my last HNT offering, this one was taken near Mendocino. Thor is in the process of writing T + K in the sand, surprisingly romantic considering how avowedly unsappy we both are.

Happy HNT to you all!

HNT on the California Coast

Last week I was without internet access on Thursday, but the result is that this week's HNT offering can have a nature/road trip theme. Here we are dipping our feet in a creek somewhere outside of Mendocino. The accompanying dialogue to this photo was something like the following...

Me) Hey, come over here so that I can get a picture of our feet.
Him) No. You're not interested in our feet. You just want to get a picture for half-nekkid Thursday.

And of course, that was exactly why I wanted the photo. So yes, it's official. I am an half-nekkid junkie.

Hand of God?

Well, o.k., it isn't the hand of God...but it is the hand of a guy named Thor, so perhaps the hand of a god. It was taken as I was attempting to get a hand-less picture of the top of Saint Peter and Paul Church while at the same time relaxing on the lawn of Washington Square Park. After a while, I did manage to get the pristine picture, but this one is really more interesting.

It's good to be back home, and the hand of Thor is a sign that I have now been joined by the boyfriend, which means that my visit has moved from 'hanging out with family and shopping' mode to 'intensive tourist' mode. Highlights today included the ferry building, wandering around and eating lunch in Chinatown, a stroll through some of North Beach, Union Square, and a bit of Market Street. Pretty good considering we started relatively late, and went back home to the 'burbs in time for dinner.