How I Self Reflect Or: The Black Deer and the White Deer and the Tree Trunks In the Forest. A Self Portrait Named No Darker Than My Shadow

How I Self Reflect Or: Phase to Phase With Myself

Happy Birthday

Dearest Søs, I send you tons of love and thoughts today (and all the other days too, actually).

Elder sisters never can do younger ones justice! Charlotte M. Yonge
What's the good of news if you haven't a sister to share it? Jenny DeVries
Having a sister is like having a best friend you can't get rid of. You know whatever you do, they'll still be there. Amy Li
You can kid the world. But not your sister. Charlotte Gray

Peace & Love <3 Have a great day.

How I Self Reflect Or: I Am a Boy. A Self Portrait

How I Self Reflect Or: To You Di: Krystle Carrington's Hair and Dodi Lafayette's Moustache

Prepare. I am my own best toy. There's some good selfabsorbed fun on the way.

Today's self portrait is a bit unusual, I'm Lady Di, who finally gets what I think she deserved, but never had: Krystle's hair and Dodi Lafayette's moustache.



I guess we all do different things when we are bored. A lot of people eat and drink out of boredom, I'm sure. Watch tv. Gossip.

Young girls apparently cut themselves a lot these days. Sad, sad habit. I did it too for a short while, until someone made a remark that made me feel very trivial and stop immediately. It's seventeen years ago, but I clearly remember the feeling of not having invented the razorblade on arm trick. I tried to share my painful state of being thirteen and building a serious cutting habit with this older friend of mine, and he said "Oh yeah. I did that too. It's so pathetic." Stopped right there. Started searching for more original ways to express my Weltschmerz. I think that's when I took up writing my series of Poems To the Moon, much less pathetic in retrospect.

Some beat up the wife. She's small, so it's easy. You rarely hear in court though someone actually defend themselves with "I was bored." Some cook. Some write songs. I make self portraits. I've decided to throw some of them on here over the next days.

So, What If It Does?

You know how people are sometimes quick, almost eager to ask, "What if it doesn't happen?" We often spend a lot of time preparing each other for the worst. Well, today, I'll try to prepare you for the best. Maybe, just maybe, you'll believe it's ok to hope for it, work for it, wait for it, and embrace it when it comes. I'll try and say, "The best could happen, and what if it does, WHAT IF IT DOES?"

And here's a really personal question to you from my philosophical pocket, you don't have to answer to anyone but yourself (and you don't even have to do that, but come on, play with me):

What are your dreams?
Close your eyes for a couple of minutes the next time you have the time on a train or when the tv turns to commercial break. Put a smile on your face, find out what dreams in your mind make that smile stay. Are you holding a baby? Sitting on a boat? Standing under your apple tree? Do you have red hair in spikes or a black Mohawk? Are you watching lions over the Savannah?
How would it feel if it came true?
Do you dare to dream?
Whether or not you believe your dreams ever will or can come true, know them. Feel the joy of dreaming. Just once in a while, it'll keep you alive. And what if it happened to happen?
What if you some crazy day made it happen?

I Remember

I remember a few weeks ago seeing the most empty car I think I have ever seen.

It was noon on the first day of the year 2007 and I was driving over the Coronado Bridge, which at its top is the highest spot in San Diego. From both sides the bridge is lined with signs reading;
"Suicide Councelling - 24 hour crisis team - Call 1-800-2422"
On the top point of the bridge was a parked car. Next to it was a police officer by his motorcycle guiding the traffic to move on. A little further ahead on the bridge came the tow truck to tow away the driverless vehicle. They come within few minutes after a car is left up there.

I don't remember having seen a more empty car ever. Happy New Year. To some.

Excuse Me, HAPPY?

If you're a guy and you want to be a good husband, if you love a woman and want to try to understand her better, if you want to have a clue, then keep reading. If you're a guy and don't give a shit and live in denial about that time of the month for the female race, well. The issue is on the table. I dare you to keep reading. And offer you the opportunity to gain a little insight that might come in handy one day.

I sit on the can this morning, I have my period. I put a fresh pad in my panties, I look down as I rip the little paper thing off the glue on the pad's wings, and there it is, in writing, in two languages, in lime green colored print that looks like handwriting. A little greeting to me in this period of personal blood:

Have a Happy Period.
Bonne et heureuse semaine.

This is early morning, I'm tired, I'm drowsy, only a small percentage of my being is actually yet awake. Untill this message starts sinking in. Wh--w--wha--hahah-whaa-hahahaa-wh-wha---WHAT the fuck is this? I sit with the piece of paper in my hand and read it a couple of times. And then again. And then, I suddenly know how badly I've been hoodwinked, by God, by the new millenium, by the male creative worker at Always Ultra who came up with this, I don't know by who, but I know I've been had. Badly. Then very fast, I get so pissed angry. Which causes of course the next: I scream. Maybe it was actually more of a roar. Just a normal, guttural, primal, deafening screamroar. You know, like we women like to do from time to time. See, I don't like to present women in victim roles, and I like a martyr very little. But when it comes to period, no glamourization works. And here's why:

Having a period is very often quite a painful affair. It hurts from one day to seven days, from a little constant cramp to staying as much as possible in bed with serious pains. Usually this is a draining pain that is outheld for a woman at the same time as she upholds exactly the same level of work and activity as the rest of the month. Tries to smile as usual during the day not to take it out on others. Or doesn't smile and looks pained instead. Because she is in pain.

Imagine being a guest at someone's house. You wake up in the morning and have to explain to the hosts why the sheets and the mattress now has blood stains on them. The woman of the house takes the sheets to the washing machine, she gets a bucket with some soap water and a spunge and tries to get the blood off the mattress. The man of the house, maybe a man you don't know too well, definitely not well enough for this, asks what? and gets a later! look from his wife, and suddenly there's all this activity that we try to be discrete about, and you know he'll get the explanation later about your personal blood (or she may be the type who says it out loud as an everyday occurrence, also with the kids in the room, just not to make a big deal out of it, but you're no less embarrassed by you personal blood being explained over breakfast like that).

Imagine what actually lies behind the letters PMS, Pre Menstrual Syndrome. It's a depression-like state, that I personally have met a lot of women who suffer from, and that I myself suffer from. Not every month, but more often than not. Imagine days, where you for no reason are so emotional, fragile, angry, sad, without energy and for no apparent reason often in tears. Imagine being taken for that ride and it being a tabu on top, because a mad woman is one you ask, Is it that time of the month? so you try to act normal and keep your face up, but there's actually a battle going on not to break down.

I like to swim and gladly take 2 K every time I go swimming. When I swim, I usually do it 3-4 times a week. Except when I have my period. My beloved sport doesn't work for that week of the month where I have to accept this handicapping circumstance. I want to go, but don't wanna make a bloody Hell of the bassin and I stay home, sorry that I'm not going for a swim.

Imagine that you actually gain 4-5 pounds during that week, so there're clothes you can't fit, and you pop out of your bras and become the fat lady with four breasts.

Imagine being in public and discovering you have bled through your clothes. On your ass is a blood stain. Everybody who sees it knows what it is.

Imagine your breasts being tender and the skin tightening and hurting.

Imagine something that doesn't smell good.

Imagine sex or no sex and the feelings about either causing a bloody massacre in bed or being the troubled reason for no sex.

Imagine this for more than 40 years.

Happy? I believe the Happy Period is at the same superfun Tupperware party as the Happy Hooker. Get real, somebody. Please.

The Youngest Sibling. Yep.

I think I was the youngest sibling for so many years before I got my younger sisters, and then I never lived in the same house as them, and so there's just no way around it. I am one. A youngest sibling. A grown-up baby. This Christmas 2006 and an event at my desk earlier today confirmed it. First simple math, then what happened earlier today.

In 2006 I gave three Christmas presents. But somehow I, myself, got nineteen Christmas presents. I can defend myself. I was broke. My exams were in December. Most of my people were across the Atlantic Ocean. I had no idea that I would get that many presents. And hey - I had actually made deals with people about no presents, aren't they then the bloody treacherous and lying bastards who have spend time and money making me look bad and selfish, showing up with something nice for me? But it doesn't really help, does it? Figures tell their own embarrassing truth, 19-3. And I still don't really get how it happened. I mean, I mean so well. Where did they all come from? Why didn't I see it coming? Why are they all so prepared for everything?

One of the things I got, among a chef's knife, boots, books, cd's, pillows, silk stockings, a pot and tons of the most expensive liquorice you can imagine because it was stamped and sent in packages across the world, was a Starbucks French Press cup of the very luxurious kind. I went and exchanged it today to a regular thermo because I can bring that on campus, which I can't with a cup the way I travel with bike and busses etc. I got the sweetest white thermo with butterflies and pastel colored flowers on it.

And then today, a couple of hours after the cup-to-thermo exchange, I sit by my computer and watch an episode of Grey's Anatomy after a long day, and yes, I was very happy for the sweet thermo, but suddenly I DISCOVER that I am playing with this new thermo that was standing on the table in front of me, and, well, I've been playing for several minutes, unscrewing the lid, pouring IMAGINARY coffee up in the cup-lid, closing the thermo on the push-button, SIPPING the IMAGINARY coffe, HUMMING. I realize that I've been doing it for quite a while because I actually recall pouring and drinking several cups of coffee like this. Suddenly, I look down on an empty white plastic cup with a turqoise edge that I hold in my hand, and I realize I'm lifting it carefully to my lips and about to blow on it. I stopped humming very quickly, sat the cup down and looked around. I was alone. But come on, how does that happen? I'm thirty years old. I catch myself playing tea party with myself. Should I see someone? A doctor?

Right now, I don't know. Don't know what more to say. I just don't think my big brother ever finds himself like that, at least not anymore, as in, not for the past 25 years. Maybe it's just the job for us youngest ones. To stay forever young...est.

And It Was That Penis Enlargement

One of the better days today, finally someone offered again to help me with my tiny weenie. It's been a long time, I was almost afraid it had been taken off the spam agenda to help me out on the issue. I'll have to quote from my inbox:

Hei chap

Don't tell me why your sausage is so small,
I will better help you to make it really Bigger!

Why bigger? Because over 75% of all women need a longer
weenie to satisfy their desire!

Go there and get your solution: http://www.extratee.com

It'll really help you!

We will ship it worldwide within 24 hours, and if
you find our product useless - we'll refund all your money!

(End quote)

I figured it was a regular (ahaha) enlargement, you know an operation where they insert something and it only goes really wrong or turns the penis seriously deformed about half the times, but then I got to the shipping part - how is it you ship an operation within 24 hours, hmm? This actually made me, for the first time ever, follow a spam link to see how we were gonna get my weenie up to satisfactory size by shipping order. I mean, apparently 75 % of all women need a longer schlong, according to these experts and I'm not even gonna ask longer than what?? but just cut to the action, so that I can get my desire satisfied.

The magic product is called The Man XL Penis Pill, and I quote from the site:

"Fact: 76% of woman are not satisfied with their lovers size."

Who knows if it'll be 77 % tomorrow? God, I can't wait. Can you?

Bonus info: New list in right blog column >: "Why I Am Man In Next Life"

Dangerous Waters III

I Remember Hanne

I remember my beautiful cousin Hanne very clearly. In particular one day in a summer house where she painted my finger nails red on the terrasse. Only having had a brother, and having appreciated that many, many times for his care and my naturally earned fighting skills, this though had something else. Hanne was years older than me. Very tall. Knew stuff. She took the time to perfectly paint my finger nails scarlet red. We were girls together, her being fourteen, me five or six. And the sun shone and we looked at each other and both had a big gap between our front teeth.

Dangerous Waters II

Ok, so I was out swimming the other day, and this red thing came towards me, and it was pretty big, you know, and so of course I put my hand on my knife strapped to my thigh and thought about what to do, and then I thought, hey, it's actually kind of pretty, and then I reached for my camera instead and shot these pics and then I swam back to shore, it took about 45 minutes 'cause there was a pretty hard wind, but I think these pictures show that it was worth it 'cause it was a beautiful experience. And then I looked very much like Ursula Andress when I came up, I mean of course I didn't see it so I don't know, but I think so, I'm actually pretty sure. And then for lunch I made a fire on the beach and roasted the blue marlin I brought in, it turned out pretty good, I'll put the recipe on soon.

New Year's Lunch: Rosemary’s Lamb on Penne

Happy New Year and here's the first lunch of 2007:

Lamb chops
Garlic cloves
Bell pepper, the color you prefer
Dry white wine
Tomatoes
Rosemary
Fat cream
Maybe sage and or thyme

Take a sauter pan, throw in mashed&cut garlic cloves (- as many as you like, it can only be good for your health and if those people really like you they’ll live with your breath. Besides, the trick of getting the garlic going this early in a dish is, that it doesn't come through so strongly, the taste blends in and smoothens out, it allows the wonderful garlic note to work its way into all the tastes later added, but it's far from the hard and burning fresh garlic taste. The smell in the breath reduces likewise.) Add the lamb cut into some solid square chops, and bell peppers in pieces. Leave that on good heat and read the paper with a glass of wine and your feet up untill the lamb is tender and deliciously well done. The lamb chops may be falling apartish tender now. Then a couple of tomatoes in pieces, mash them out a little in the pan to get pulp in the dish. Give it a good generous squeeze of white wine, a lot of Rosemary, if you like sage throw some in, otherwise thyme which will be a more agreable taste to most people. Sage makes it great though, and closer to the North African idea of the dish. Salt, pepper, cream. Pour over penne al dente and serve with red wine, toast and make a Happy Wish for the New Year.

My mother is quite a chef, and one of her specialties is a Maroccan way of cooking bulgur. I'm pretty sure she will blame me for suggesting pasta with this dish instead of that, so here's the better alternative:

Start up a pan. Fry some fine cut onion in oil. Throw in half water and half bulgur (like a cup of each), then some raisins and salt normally. Leave with lid for the minutes it takes to cook, five-ten or so. Stir so the onion and raisins are mixed in the bulgur. Serve with the lamb.

Dangerous Waters I

I've spent the past days being very depressed. I was at a Christmas party at the very cool Scripps Institute Aquarium here in San Diego. I shot these pictures there and had a plan about telling you guys that I'd been out swimming with sharks. Then I came home and saw the ventilation ducts on the walls in the pictures, and hey, background walls in the first place are just so bad when you try to pull off that these are pictures from your deep sea swimming with sharks. So that plan kind of went down the drain, and I figured I might as well spend some days sleeping till 2 PM and watching DVDs instead of being adventurous. And guess what, it's been great. I think it's called vacation.

The guy in the third picture is actually taking a nap. And the one in the last picture actually came full speed to eat me alive, so it was a bit dangerous. He got a concussion when he hit the glass.