D-Day: The Dude, His Dudeness, El Duderino

New links over there >>
Read memorable quotes - His Dudeness Dialog Quotes
Or hear others - His Dudeness Soundboard

Be honest with yourself. Isn't it maybe time to watch again?
Enjoy appetizers:

Maude Lebowski: What do you do for recreation?
The Dude: Oh, the usual. I bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback.
--
The Dude: Walter...
Walter Sobchak: What?
The Dude: What the fuck does Vietnam have to do with anything?
--
Maude Lebowski: Do you like sex, Mr. Lebowski?
The Dude: 'Scuse me?
Maude Lebowski: Sex. The physical act of love. Coitus. Do you like it?
The Dude: I was talking about my rug.
Maude Lebowski: You're not interested in sex?
The Dude: You mean coitus?
--
Walter Sobchak: You know, Dude, I myself dabbled in pacifism once. Not in 'Nam of course.
--
Jackie Treehorn: Refill?
The Dude: Does the Pope shit in the woods?
--
[being forced into a limousine]
The Dude: Hey, careful, man, there's a beverage here!
--
The Big Lebowski: Stop talking! Talk faster!

HAPPY BROTHER, HOW OLD ART THOU??

Today's posting has only one purpose, it's a big happy

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BELOVED BROTHER

Hope you have a great day over there.

LOVE, søs

PS Go to garden 9 PM, your time, listen carefully. I will shout important message to you.

PURPLE!

San Fran was great. Just a one day visit, so much worth it. The drive on curvey Highway 17 through the tall redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains was absolutely beautiful, just one stunning view succeeding the other. Then all of a sudden, the grey fog of San Francisco promised city ahead.



We threw ourselves on Hippie Hill's grass in Golden Gate Park. The first local word came from a severely pierced punk rocker with a friendly, chubby face, sitting next to us in the grass with his friends. He turned towards us the second we sat down and asked invitingly,
-Cannabis?



We thanked no and chilled for ourselves. I smiled. He said it with such a hosting 'Welcome to the Hill' -attitude, where anywhere else, the host would have said,
-Canapé?

A few minutes later, from the top of his lungs, he suddenly bellowed,
-PURPLE! PUUURPLE!

I thought, man, this guy must really miss the seventies, there's just too little purple in his leather and rivet world, and now he is compensating for it by so to speak paint the colour verbally in the air. After the second cry out, a guy by the foot of the hill turned around and looked up at our neighbour pierced punk rocker. Pierced punk rocker continued,
-Get your fucking paints up, Purple. I can see your fucking arse from here.

Not so seventies-purple as I had just thought, but Purples' pants were really hanging dangerously low, you know, the style where the belt is strapped around the thighs under the arse instead of around the waist.
Too bad, I love the idea of a punk rocker screaming 'PUUURPLE' for the Hell of it, and to recall the days when purple, well, just took up more space.

(Both pictures in this post have been through Photoshop, which NONE of the others on this blog have. These needed the psychedelic touch.)

San Francisco Extra Pics

Alcatraz


View


A Street


Golden Gate Bridge in Fog


Hmm..Futuristic San Francisco Restroom Experience

San Francisco

What San Francisco is to the gays, Santa Cruz is to the lesbians. Can you imagine how the few straight guys in San Francisco have a good deal with all the city's straight women needing them? It's very simple, it's supply and demand, and it goes for genitals as for anything else.

Well, since there's an overload of lesbian women here, I am bloody wanted! That is, more than usually, being a five foot ten blonde has never been easy in terms of walking around alone, but here it's really whoowha!

And ok, ok, I'm only saying that because I know the facts and like to feel wanted. Truth is that the people here are way too cool and easygoing to make it obvious. Even though I see the lesbian couples here, I wouldn't have noticed the unbalance myself. But it sounds good, no? And I would strongly recommend any needy single hetero girlfriend to come here and take advantage.

Tomorrow I'm going with Matthew to San Francisco. It'll be fun. I'll go up there and feel a bond with the straight men over our amount of good fortune and smart choice of respective habitats.

Ma'am!-ed Again (2)

This has been some hard thinking!

I am downright exhausted from considering all possible aspects of the posting picture here or not posting picture here dilemma, and only with my very last resources, shall I now write the what, why, and how.

What?
There will be no posting of that picture on this blog! It is simply not going to happen! It may from now on be known as The Picture That Wasn't There, in daily speaking The Ghost Picture! If you ever see it, somewhere, somehow (I am not saying, that I have it somewhere, nor am I not saying that I do not have it somewhere), be careful with whom you share, what you have seen.

Why?
If you click the link overthere >>

that I have titled: Michael Learns To Blog by Microsoft

and read the story of poor Michael Hanscom, who thought he was funny on his blog, only to be fired from Microsoft for that kind of inappropiate humour the next day, then we can say, that I don't publish the pic, because I don't wan't to be the main character in the next post, that I might have to title:

'Tine Learns To Blog by The United States of America And Experiences Quick Deportation And Yes, We Call It Freedom Of Speech, Not Freedom Of Pictures, You Danish Moron'.

How?
I have driven down the street, turned left at the Pacific, gone by the surfers, I am downtown, have biked to Walnut Street and there I go, into the Social Security Administration Office.

To my left, behind little counter, I see big, uniformed guy, his eyes tell me he has less than five years of any kind of school, and that he during all five did his best to pay absolutely no attention to anything said that might have seemed to involve anything else than next break's activities. Ahead of me I see row of counter booths. One open. Very tired lady inside. To my right I see a number machine, and I go to pull number 90. Very tired lady says,
-86.

I go to ask uniformed guy, let's call him Darcey Ulrick Mancini Bower, (just not to be prejudiced and assume his name would be Dwayne or Dwight or something), and let's shorten that to DUMB, so I go to ask DUMB if it's ok that I wait for my turn outside the building. It is, so I go out and wait.

When I come back in, DUMB looks at me with the surprise that I imagine a goldfish has every time it turns in the aquarium and sees the end it has just left. Goldfish have a memory of 8 seconds, in all, counting both short and long term memory. I'd been out for 5-6 minutes or so, so I assumed that the challenge of his day was to see me come in the doors, already with a number in my hand.

But it is just a matter of seconds, till I give DUMB what I think will be the top scorer of his work related challenges that day. To my right, I now see, above the number machine, what exites me genuinely and what immediately whirls up a sense of wonderful wonder inside of me. Two pictures on the wall. Seriously retouched. They look like huge postcards, or like pictures on a chocolate box cover. They both smile. They are George and Dick. I stand nailed to the ground. With the most joyful disbelief inside of me.

Maybe one has to be Danish, or the like, to see how it can be perceived as wonderfully funny to place George Bush and Dick Cheney on the wall in a social office, where nothing else is in colours and where people sit and wait to ask why there was no check for them this month, not knowing how they will get by without. To see how these pictures fall in a long tradition of leader portraits on official walls, stating, that these men are to be thanked for the privileges handed (down) to you from The State, and support the idea, that a few good men are the shaping power of a nation, and the people but the necessary stones in their stairways. Hypocracy never fails to reach new levels and take new shapes, the personalization of generations' and millions of individuals' efforts, collected in one bleeched smile, saying 'Thank Me'. The expensive American warfare on totalitaristic leaders around the world taken into consideration, this symbolizes most wonderfully for me the doubleness, the irony of a tendency, where the people in that same office maybe would have preferred their state finances spend otherwise, but are placed under affirming pictures of The Great Men in The Know, Georgey and Dicky.

I imagine what I would think if I walked in to The Social Security Administration Office in Gyldenløvesgade in Copenhagen, and looked up to see warm, parental smiles on the faces of Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Eva Kjer Hansen in shiny photoshop corrected pangcoloured dimlight versions.

I cannot help it, I stand with my back to DUMB. I keep that position, take up my camera, know that the flash will go off, so it's a one-shot. I frame perfectly, don't even need to raise the camera above my shoulder. The flash reaches his instincts immediately, he moves out behind his little counter and approaches me. I turn around innocently, allready packing the camera into its bag. His quick body movements, very open eyes and audible breathing signal that he has immediately reached highest state of alert. Our conversation went like this:

DUMB: Ma'am! There is no photographing in here!
Me: Oh! I'm sorry. I'm putting it straight away.

I demonstratively and with dutyful attitude begin to put the camera in my bag. There are, if possible, a thousand thoughts in DUMB's head. I see a lot of old movies roll by his eyes, where they pull long reels of film out of cameras. I see, that he realizes, that that always is done by some bad, sooty, scarf-wearing shmuck, and it always turns out, that the hero had the really important film hidden up his arse anyway. He's not gonna go for that one, and he's obviously not into the digital revolution so he doesn't ask me to see the picture and get it, if incriminating, deleted straight away. I see the whole two page manual to his job being read now, and he can't find any paragraph, that talks about photograhing. But all his instincts tell him, that this is wrong. He now gets smart. Maybe this isn't a black/white situation, maybe it depends on what I was snapshooting. If innocent enough, maybe the whole Ma'am! -attitude will turn out to be enough. Our conversation develops like this:

DUMB: What were you photographing?
Me: The wall.
DUMB: The wall?
Me: The wall.
DUMB: The wall?
Me: The wall.
DUMB: The wall?

I break it off, since I get the feeling DUMB isn't going to.

Long break. Confusion, disorientation, thinking 'till it hurts me just to witness, and then total capitulation. Not a word more, a quick retreat to the little counter, not knowing whether he'd been had by someone, who in Oceans Eleven style needs a photo of a very important wall, or if there is a wacko tourist in his office, who doesn't know a motif from a wall. Either way, I had the feeling, that he looked at that wall many times later that day. I imagine the silence and immobility of the wall right in front of you can be a bit creepy, once the wall is made suspicious and has been center of a high danger episode.

That was my visit to the Social Security Administration Office. By keeping The Ghost Picture away from the blog, I sure hope not to suffer Michael Hanscom's sad destiny of publicizing all kinds of fun stuff, you have lying around, when it may be a short and expensive pleasure. Good night, and have yourself a nightmare.

(For the sake of any Federal American Institution monitoring this blog:
Part of the above is pure fiction. The author of this blog does not necessarily agree with all of the political statements made in this blog. In the actual situation, I was a tourist, who looked for signs saying No Photographing, I did not see any, and took an innocent photo of a wall in a public office. The photo is of course now deleted, since it came to my knowledge, that photographing was not appropriate in the facility. Any comparison between the present leaders of the United States of America and other political figures or private persons mentioned in this blog has been unintended and must be excused with English not being my mother tongue. I do not engage in any subversive activities. I am not a member of any political party. And I sure as Hell would never inhale, nor swallow.)

Ma'am!-ed Again (1)

One practical thing often turns out to drag a couple of others with it. In order to access my new bank account on the 'net, I needed a social security number. That, I would get downtown, so I did what I do every day when I'm going there, I go down the street and turn left at the Pacific. That, I believe, will sound ok in Danish, too:

Jeg kører ned for enden af vejen og drejer til venstre ved Stillehavet.

From the end of my street, towards the Lighthouse at Westcliff Drive, it looks like this:


Then, I pass the Ligthouse, the town appears, and it looks like this:


Then, I stop for a second to look at the surfers, who are floating around, waiting for waves. They look like this:


And then, I'm downtown.

Today, I went to Walnut Street to get the social security number in this office:


Inside I met this guy, working in the security business, who Ma'am!-ed me, and then he and I had a most interesting conversation.
I took a photograph in there, and I'm not quite sure whether to post it here or not. I'll think about that, and then follow up with the events from inside the office.

Piece/Peace?

Went down to Pacific Avenue last night for a bite of air and a cup of coffee. Turned out I had to spend a minimum of $ 10, if I wanted to pay with my VISA. Couldn't deal with that much coffee, so I went to the hip independent bookshop next door instead. The bookhops here are a different experience than back home. They are cosy, often have a mix of new and used books, there are armchairs placed around in the store to take a test read in, and a regular café somewhere in there is common. I fell upon Steinbeck, whom I remembered as a Monterey-Santa Cruz-area writer, so I sat with him and enjoyed the booky atmosphere for a while.

It made me realize though, that it was time to get some local $$ going. After advice from Colin, I decided to go for an account in Washington Mutual Bank, get in the game with some checks and a Master Card.

So, I went to Washington Mutual on Ocean Street to get things set up. Being a true European, rich on prejudices and educated by Michael Moore, I was exited to learn whether they would hand me a shot gun or a regular bazooka, when I came to open an account. I figured it might depend on the amount I would deposit, so I played it big and offered the lady to start out with a transfer of several months' SU, my state support for studying, in all I could transfer $ 3.000!?

I could, but it wouldn't get me any weapons in hand, which I, to put it mildly, found rather dissapointing. I thought I'd come to America, Home of the Glorious 2nd Amendment! And I, who used to gunshoot in Copenhagen, for two years I went to a shooting range in a dark basement facility and always shot with a gun borrowed from the club, I now thought I had come to the trigger happiest nation of all, could be out in the open and should own my own piece, Hell, that they would've handed one over right there, appreciation of the account opening and general celebration of the fantastic American weapon industry and all!! But - nohoho, sorry girl!!

I asked, if I would at least get a little hand grenade for decoration in my windowsill, but no. I could get checks with a rainbow on, though! Man, what twisted values are promoted here in North California? No fire arms, but here's a rainbow, friend!

Ok Go

Give those boys a minute of your time, they're worth it.
Click over there under Links >>

at: Ok Go - Here It Goes Again.

It gets better every time.

Got a new cell today. Drop me a comment here or write me an e-mail if you want the number.
Here, both caller and call-receiver pays for the call, same for text messages, both ends pay. Pretty good business. One service, double payment..
And pretty annoying to have to pay for, say, an ex, who keeps sms-spamming you, no?
I think it's a bit disturbed, that it's on other people's hands what gets on your phone bill.

Believe he's playing possum under those stripes..

Peace, Love & Street Cut

Ma'am! Stop Moving That Bicycle!

Yes, I did see the 'Do not enter!' sign, and yes, I must have thought, that I could get away with it anyway. It's hard to explain. Joe was right in front of me. I lost my senses, I was, I don't know. I should have seen it coming. But it all starts a little further back. And can all be blamed on my restless, unfaithful soul. I am ashamed today. Appalled. Who am I?

There is this no-brain, who sometimes hi-jacks me, and decides what we are gonna do next. I don't know where she comes from, I never know when she'll come, and I most certainly can never figure out, what the next adventure will be. Once, she made me reach out, take all my grandparents' heart medicine (some huge pink and green and yellow pills and a lot of small white ones) on the side of their lunch plates, like in a trance, swallow all the pills and have to go to the hospital with my aunt, who is a nurse, to throw up and throw up and throw up. And I wasn't even a small child anymore at that time, but she thought it would be great fun, I suppose, and I'm just her captive, her practical and physical performer.

Well, yesterday, she decided that I should climb the campus-mountainside at 2 PM, a pretty warm time of day and a pretty ridiculous idea in my opinion. Hanging on the mountainside, dressed in black Spandex, I knew that it was her again, and that I was trapped in another humiliating project of hers. See, I'm in no shape to mountainclimb, and why at the hottest time of the day?

At a point, I most certainly heard a brutal version of Leth&Mader in my ears, that hurt, did it. Maybe one has to remember Hautecam 1996, where Leth mesmeric recites,
-The man, the mountain (Manden, bjerget),
and how he exalted shouts,
-He goes to the large gears!! (Han går på den store klinge!!)
and some of us were close to crying, because Bjarne was just the man, and it was all very moving, a man and a mountain can be a strong couple, together they form the epitome of the grandiose primeval match, struggle, harmony; man - nature.

And there, in the afternoon heat, I heard this version,
-THE MOUNTAIN, THE MOUNTAIN, oh poor woman, THE MOUNTAIN, THE MOUNTAIN, oh poor woman, THE MOUNTAIN, THE MOUNTAIN, oh poor woman!!
And then, Mader thought he had put his hand over the microphone, but he hadn't carefully enough, I heard him ask Leth,
-Is she even moving?
-She has to, elseway she would fall.
-Amazing!

And back on air, Leth,
-She goes to a smaller gear.
(...)
-And there, a smaller.

Mader,
-Now there are no smaller.

Leth,
-.
Mader,
-.

I thought about a new name for the mountain, and in the choice between 'Mount Campus' and 'Mont Campus', I agreed on the latter, the French. It is pronounced 'Mon Campu', which reminded me the most of 'Mein Kampf'.

Anyway, to make this all make sense, if it ever will to any, we need to go even a step further back.
See, the night before, when I went home from the night out with Matthew, I didn't really go home. I was in the mood for love, for commitment. We wind back, and the night ends like this:

...it was a fun night out and a great bike ride home in the quiet night with a cool, salty breeze from the bay.

Only, I didn't go home. I went to Safeway to complete the love, to make the commitment, to fulfill the relationship (and to go to a supermarket at 2.30 AM, because I thought that would be fun, and it really was, I was alone in there, and it was like someone had forgotten to lock the door so I had gotten in, or they had closed for the night and forgotten me inside).
I said goodbye to Matthew, and the night was cool, there was a salty breeze, and I just didn't want to go home and sleep, so I continued. Later that beautiful night, Safeway and I officialized our commitment on paper, we consummated our alliance. I became a member, we were connected, and for a moment there, the world was complete.

Now, to some, what happened next will seem like I had some kind of a stroke. To others, it might make some sense. Most likely to those, who themselves have tried to fail love and faithfulness. We're talking mixed feelings, emotional ambush, and irrationel behavior.

On that mountain, I lost and I won. I looked at life from both sides. I lost my dignity, I won a new pride, when I got it back. I made it all the way up, I reached the top. Then I flew down. It was great. I don't know if it was during the struggle and defeat feeling on the way up, or during the megalomaniac victory feeling on the way down, but either Safeway didn't do enough for me, since I suffered so hard, or I was too good for Safeway, when I was as great, as I was. I keep asking myself why, why, why wasn't Safeway just enough for you, where was the appreciation of all the good times, Safeway was innocent for Christ's sake! I know that extreme physical challenges can bring you to emotional realizations and sometimes totally unexpected breakthroughs, realizing feelings in you, that otherwise would have been undiscovered and never acted upon. Still, I did not see anything coming, I had no idea of what had gotten a hold of me. Whatever happened, when I came down I soon realized, that another had snuck its way into my thoughts and had been playing there for the past hours. It was Joe.

Just the name. As sweet music in my ears, as Safeway had just been, as tempting, seductive, irresistible was now the sound of Joe. Trader Joe on Front Avenue. Trader, cheater, betrayal, traitor, Trader Joe.

I went home, I went in the kitchen, I sat on a chair for a few minutes. Then I got up, went back out on the bike (still in Spandex) and drove down-town. Front Avenue. I had to pass from Cedar Street, and that's where the 'Do not enter!' sign was, right by the entrance to the bus station. Across the open space of the bus station, I could see the sign above the big glass entrance doors saying 'Trader Joe's', and thinking was to late, at this point I was at the mercy of my instincts.

The officer walked towards me from behind, crossing the square diagonally. His loud demanding voice was heard over the entire station,
-Ma'am! Stop moving that bicycle!

His voice reached me kind of delayed and didn't make sense untill it was combined with the sign coming back to me from the back of my head. I was way ahead of him, he was on foot, I was on a K2 Zed Sport. I kept rolling a bit and looked at all the people in front of me. Just to be sure what was going on, I asked,
-Is he talking to me?

They smiled and several of them nodded. Their lifted eyebrows and action expecting eyes expressed a clear, 'yep, and he's coming right at ya'!'.
I smiled back to them. I neither felt like trying to escape nor wait for him, so I descended and wheeled away the bicycle. I hurried and looked straight ahead. At the corner I looked back. Police officer gone. I turned my head and looked across Front Avenue.

There was - Joe.

Biking and Shooting

Day to get a bike.

I went for quite a walk, looking for Dave's Custom-Bikes on Soquel Avenue. The 644 mile long Highway One climbs its way along the coast from Leggett north of San Francisco all the way down to Dana Point, south of LA. The stretch that goes through Santa Cruz is called Mission Street. Highway One - Mission Street - Highway One. And so today, as I imagine we would say here, I walked on Mission for a couple of hours, heading for Dave's and checking out some other bikestores on my way.

Dave should have both new and old bikes, and I thought I'd find an old piece of trash for no money, just to get me around. That is, I thought so up untill yesterday.

Yesterday, Jane, my landlady, took me by car around the UCSC-campus. Campus is a spread of ten different colleges on a mountainside. The colleges are built like small villages in beautiful surroundings and with stunning views, long tracts of redwoods between them and all. But considering the biking aspects of this idyll, the intervening ascents are totally not for chickens, except maybe for Michael Rasmussen, but he's no ordinary chicken, right, and that was not really funny. Forget it. It's a heavy landscape and it's a big area.

I would call it one Hell of a beautiful, but muscle-requiring campus to survive in. Especially if you, as I had planned, would take different courses in different colleges. That could easily get you mountainclimbing 12-14 kilometers a day, just coming from class to class, not counting the way to and from school which for me would double up that amount of daily kilometers.

There are busses. But I can't be from a bicycle-nation, come to one of the few very bike-friendly towns abroad, and plan to take the bus. So, I got a new mountainbike. Brandnew, I thought I'd motivate myself for the survival of the schooldays to come.

There has been no Dave in Dave's Custom-Bikes for years, but Matthew was there, and he sold me a fine new K2 Zed Sport. Matthew and I agreed to go and shoot some pool in the evening, after all it was saturday night, and with or without fever to it, I thought it would be nice to check out Santa Cruz by night with a cool and laid-back bikemechanic guy.

Blue Lagoon is an ex-gay-bar, now a more tranquille pool place and music venue. We agreed to meet there at nine. I got out on my new vehicle, at that time it's dark here, I put on lights (that's right maman, I did!) and went downtown along the bay with all the citylights on the waterfront stretched out before me. I started crossing in over town, and when I thought I was loosing my direction, I yelled out at some 60-year-old hippie, who was biking in good speed right in front of me on his mountainbike (that's what most people ride here),
-Excuse me, is this the way to Pacific Avenue?
He casually replied over his left shoulder,
-Follow me.

And so I did, he speeded up, and up and down the sidewalks we went, him a couple of meters ahead of me and taking us on a terrain race through town. At a point, he asked in the same conversing, low-voiced, head-to-head-way, that seemed very casual to me, considering that we were biking along high speed and criss-crossing off-road style in down-town traffic,
-Where exactly are you going?
-The Blue Lagoon.
-I'll take you there.

And so he did, suddenly he pointed to the left and I saw the sign, neon-palms surrounding the corny words 'The Blue Lagoon'.

Matthew came and found me outside, trying to lock the bike, so that nothing from it could just be taken of. They steal bikes here just as dauntless as they do in Copenhagen, and we ended up taking the frontwheel off to be able to get the lock through both wheels and around a framepart and a pole. The smart part about this was, that knowing that I had to assemble my bike before going home kept me from drinking too much. I know, the knowledge of the riding home should be the preventive part, but for me it was the bike-assembling that did it. I know myself well enough to be certain of the graceful event that I could make out of that in the middle of Pacific Avenue, if I didn't keep it together.

We walked all the way down Pacific Avenue to The Red Room, a really cool place, where we had a Dry Martini on Miller's with a lemon twist, then we went back to the Lagoon, shot a couple of rounds of pool, at 2 AM we got the bike together, and Matthew walked me to the Lighthouse Point from where I knew my way home. Santa Cruz has a promising night scene, it was a fun night out and a great bike ride home in the quiet night with a cool, salty breeze from the bay.

Going New Ways

Colin and I went to Safeway Store, our local supermarket. And guess what, I'm gonna be a member of Safeway, and when we left, the girl at the cash register said,
-Have a good day, Ms. Bruun.

That's not Netto-conditions. Just because they spot your name on your credit card in Netto, they don't say that. And when Netto closes, Safeway doesn't, it is a as big as a Føtex, and it is open around the clock. And in Netto, they don't have a 24-year-old prettyboy either, who puts my stuff in a bag while I pay, and then asks me if I want him to come outside and help me..

I suppose he meant packing the groceries in my car, but I'm thinking of the trouble I sometimes had in Denmark getting everything on my bike. There, I would have said yes.
Here, I just looked at him and spent quite a while figuring out (while we had eyecontact, it was a bit strange) what service exactly the guy was offering me outside. I concluded it was the packing, and thanked no.

Colin was extremely patient. We spend two-and-a-half hours in there, looking at every item and comparing prizes and quality with everything else we know. But, a red pepper costs over $ 2, and you can't get an honest ricecake without the flavour of caramel or cheddar or buttered popcorn, but you'll find 26 types of detergent in the same store. How can you ignore shopping-facts like that?

I bought my groceries on Colin's Club Member Card, and saved
$ 7.43! And they already know me as Ms. Bruun, so I look forward to going back, it'll be like coming back to new old friends. And who knows, maybe I was ignorant, limiting the pretty bagger's offer only to be a packing thing.

I instantly got a Safeway Club Card Application, and no doubt, I'm gonna get into that club. Much more to be explored, from soon on by an insider.

Foot on Ground

Arrived yesterday.

Something weird about travelling against time. When I landed here at 2 PM, I had actually been up and travelling since early morning, 3.30 AM. With the nine hour time difference, I had put 20 hours, 8 timezones, 3 airports, 6 airplane-servings, 1 book and 3 1/2 B-films behind me, in what, according to the watch, had just been a long morning.

4 PM in San Francisco Airport. I was picked up, not in one of the very black and very shiny Lincoln-cabs,

but by Charlotte who drives the bumpy Santa Cruz Airporter.
She took me from San Francisco over the mountain and through the redwoods to my new address in Santa Cruz, while speaking some very relaxed Californian lingo.


I met my new neighbour in the house, Colin. He is a ph.d. student, anthropology at UCSC. He is beautiful. He is gay. I would've said he is Chinese, but our first conversation was like this;

Colin: -My thesis is about Chinese in Africa.
Me: -Are you Chinese?
Colin: -My parents are Chinese, I grew up in Ghana. They live in Canada now. I've lived here for ten years. So the nationality is hard.
Me: -How about Chinese-American?
Colin: -I've never even been to Asia. So how can I be Chinese? And I'm not an American!
Me: -Maybe African-American?
Colin: -With Cantonese as mother tongue? I'm just a person. I don't even like 'male' either.
Me (happy): -Do you like Foucault?

He didn't really, but we easily agreed, that most labels about race, gender, and sexuality are constructed and used out of laziness, convenience and insecurity.

I like him. Today we are going to the store together.

Miss Lime

Two days before leaving the pretty Miss Lime (Frøken Lind), the lime tree in the heart of my beloved dormatory, Regensen, I have stolen a snapshot of her to post here. From another corner of the courtyard is the view from my frontdoor; The Round Tower from 1642 with Europe's oldest astronomic observatory on the top.

Living in historical Copenhagen for the past years, the dormatory Regensen itself is from 1623, has been quite a privelege. Everyday life in here has been just as intriguing and inspiring as the hundreds of years of history that lie in the red buildings..not least thanks to the 100 resident students, who party just as seriously as they study..and believe me, people study a lot in here.

Winter Images 2006

Just felt like throwing in some photos of the amazing light here in the North before sunny California will be all over this blog..

They're taken on a lovely but seriously cold day at Dyrehavsbakken just outside Copenhagen this winter

New girl on da blog..

And so it is. Blogging. Welcome and from now on I will keep you posted on some of the more or less interesting events in my life here.

Leaving Copenhagen and heading for Santa Cruz next week, I thought it was about time to get a blog. No spamming mail boxes with long, tedious e-mails. Now it's up to you when to visit the blog for news.