Yesterday I went to M.unich again because of my monthly writer’s meeting. I went early, as I’m wont to do, to get some errands run. I was totally set on spending money, and I had a list:

• iPod cover
• yarn
• paper to print business cards on
• pajamas
• pants
• map?

You know what I brought home with me? A bottle of wine and two bags of chips, and this is why.

I had added the map at the last minute because as I was looking up the way to get to my meeting (new location this month) I found that our current map of the big city had a price tag that still read “DM”. It’s been Euros for nine years now, a whole new highway has been built since then, also about a dozen new train stations.

The one thing that I didn’t put on the list was “bottle of wine”. I forgot to but I still had to buy one because I had promised to bring one, then found that for reasons I can’t fathom we had only one bottle of red wine left in the house which – while very tasty – looks like a cheap bottle of wine. And while I can tell people to “Just go on and taste it, it’s really good.” at my house, it just doesn’t look good as a gift.

So I left the house with a full wallet and the intention to pick up a bottle of wine on my way to the train station at the local health food store. Which hasn’t gone out of business, woohoo, though it had been a close call. I went in there, looked for wine, couldn’t find the one I wanted, found that all the other brands were wines we had tried and found inferior and decided to just get a bottle of wine in the city.

I hopped on the train, and made a plan of how to buy everything on my list without having to go into too many stores, and without crossing back. Just like a puzzle, like you do. First thing I went to the yarn shop. I knew what I wanted, two balls of yarn to knit my husband another hat because he accidentally felted the one I made him before. (Our son is very happy with his very cool new hat, though.) I also wanted another ball in the same color and some turquoise or so to make matching mittens. I went into the shop, looked at the shelves, found two balls of the light grey I wanted, and then I started looking for a contrasting colorway. I stood there for about ten minutes, pulling out balls of yarn and reading labels because their yarn is sorted according to color which makes finding the same yarn in different colors really slow. In the end I didn’t find a color that I liked, there were only two balls of the grey though I need four, and so I left the shop without buying anything.

I briefly thought about going into another shop for the yarn but then I came to my senses again, and remembered that that’s always what I do, and inevitably the other stores have even smaller selections of yarn.

To relax a bit I then went on to find myself a bottle of wine, and succeeded, and then – because I was so frustrated already – the two bags of chips somehow found their way into my bag. I’m really proud that I didn’t buy any candy, though, I’m trying to go candy-free at the moment, and I thought that would be a bit counter-productive. (Whereas buying potato chips is entirely reasonable, of course.)

Next I went to the apple store where I had never been before in my life, and tried to buy a case for my iPod touch to use when I’m exercising. I wanted something with velcro I could fasten on my arm or some such thing. I entered the store, and thought, “Where is all the stuff?” I only saw a lot of computers on tables, and a lot of people playing with them. I started looking around for the accessories. I also would have bought a nice little cheap lightweight external hard drive if I had seen one that had caught my fancy. After a while I gathered that maybe what I was looking for was upstairs. So I went up, and right there were things to buy. And I have to say I even did find a case just like I had wanted but, sadly, about double the price I had been willing to spend. So I thought to myself, “I’ll just buy some velcro and make myself a case out of leftover fabric.”

I didn’t really want to go into the paper store after that so I tried to find what I wanted somewhere else – and failed. And I thought, “I’ll just use that old orange paper I have lying around, who needs fancy business cards anyway.” (I know the faulty thinking in that but I thought it anyway.)

Next the dreaded clothing store. I need to replace both pajamas and pants because of the two functioning pairs of each that I have one is falling to pieces. Literally. Both my comfortable jeans and my not-as-loved pajamas have big honking holes in them, and are not really fit for wearing anymore. What bugs me the most are the jeans because I bought them only about a year ago, and they were quite expensive. Now, I don’t mind spending money on pants, especially if they fit, but this amounts to 12.9 € a month I spend on jeans. And that’s not considering that I have been wearing this pair of jeans with holes in it for a couple of months now. They are my “home jeans”.

So I decided to buy some cheap jeans instead. Nothing fits me right anyway. One thing that quickly wears out on my pants these days is the place where I always grab them to yank them up. I’ve seriously considered wearing suspenders. It’s annoying. I get up from a chair – yank. I sit down – yank. I walk a bit – yank. It’s completely automatic right now but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to wear something that doesn’t threaten to expose my underwear. So, this time, cheap jeans.

I really tried. I looked at everything. I wanted this to work. Black pants would have been fine, jeans would have been fine, pinstripes, no matter, something that fit me. You know, in the end I didn’t even try anything on. I looked at the cut of almost every pair of pants they had in there and instantly I could see why I had started buying more expensive jeans.

Next to the pajamas. Pajamas are easy. They can be baggy, they don’t have to look particularly smashing, I’m content with everything if it has long sleeves and pants, is made from a stretchy, jersey material, and is not pink or has any cute animals on it.

I’m sorry to say I didn’t find pajamas either. Everything was pink or with bows or beige or had horrible things printed on. So I thought to myself, “I’ll just buy some jersey and make myself some pajama bottoms, and use the top that I have from the pajamas I bought last time where I didn’t bother to try them on first, and now I have pajama pants I can’t even pull up properly.”

The only thing left on my list was the map. I already felt quite dejected by the consumer culture, and so I thought the book store would cheer me up. One can always find a book, right?

Well, I went all through the store, I went to the section where they keep the maps, I looked into self-help books, and novels, and life style and whatever, and I left with – nothing. Of course, this might have had something to do with the two dozen or so books I bought in the past months but then it also might have had something to do with all the heaps of “I’m a bestseller, buy me!”-books there that I don’t have any interest in reading. You can’t really browse because the things they have in stock are mostly “the book of the day”, and that’s it. When I complained to a saleswoman at my local bookstore about how few books they had there she said, “But we can get every book within a few days.” Yeah, you can but I also can get every book through the internet in a few days, and then I don’t have to leave my house (twice, once to order, and the second time to pick the book up), it’s faster, and I don’t have to spell the title for somebody, or have a debate on whether this particular book exists or not. I was polite that time (that was a long time ago), I didn’t say, “I know it exists. I could have ordered it on the internet and have it here faster and cheaper but I wanted to support local business.”

It’s also worth noting that with all the time I spent in shops clearly looking for specific things to buy not one sales person talked to me. None. No one asked me if they could help me, or what I wanted or anything. I just wandered around on my own, getting more and more frustrated.

So, what have I learned through this? I really should never expect to find anything I need in the city. Or at most local stores. I used to love to go shopping with enough money. At least for a bit. But these days I always seem to come back empty-handed.

So now I’ll have to make another list. It’s titled, “Things I have to sew:” I hope I can get around to it before my one pair of pants, and one pair of pajamas wear out as well.

Oh, and an interesting fact: I couldn’t find a map of the city in the city. Well, not the one I wanted anyways. There are very small ones without some of the suburbs, and I found one of those. (Not in the book store, not next to the other maps, though. I could have bought one of Madrid, or Hamburg, or a travel guide to Siberia. All great things to have but a map of the city? Much more practical for me.) I won’t give up though. One day I’ll have everything on my list, plus a fabulous bottle of wine.

Diving into the night as a floating wind came by to grip me, cars on the highway passing by. The moon staring at us while we were heading for the shoreline; the green fish staring at you while we wove our way through the algae, downwards into the deep blue cool, threading deeper and onwards. The caves nearby whispering to us while we floated between the corals, creatures like jewels asleep in the liquid dark.

Out to the open, the ocean, the blue, the dark, the cool, the wet, outwards, and downwards, into the depth. Our eyes blind from the cold, the pressure, the lack of light, only illuminated by smallish animals, wearing lanterns, and luminescence. Down through the sand to the point where there’s rock, always rock underneath.

Resting there for a while, pausing the race, not moving, letting the cold streams run over us, resting, but not for long, onwards, and upwards, outwards, through the deep, the blue, the cold, through where the water is calm always, up, and through, through the waves, the white crust of frothing waves, going up and down, right and left, never still, never at peace, drifting on. And on, always moving, riding the wind, the water, the dark.

Erin and Heidi at the mall, carrying their totes, their make-up, walking slowly because of their shoes. Very pretty shoes, there had been a sale, and so they had spent the last of their paychecks on these, sexy shoes with high spiky heels that made their ankles look pretty and slim. They looked very much alike from afar, their hair done into a puffy mass of curls framing their pretty faces. They liked make-up, those two, their eyes all heavy eyeliner, smoky shadows, and fluttering lashes, their mouths rose-colored glittering pouts.

Floating on the water, being rocked by the waves’ motion, waiting until the annoying moon starts to pale above us. More blue, more light, more warmth, rushing in, meeting the morning. Still, beneath us the dark, the cool, the deep, unchanged by light’s arrival. Onwards again, taking hold of the wind, merging, waving in and out, the air, the light, colors getting brighter, shiny. The water, sparkling with light, reflecting warmth, deflecting hearts.

The girls are speaking, endlessly, giggling, and gossiping, talking, never listening. Just an endless stream of syllables put forth with a meaningless smile. Both of them connected to the ether by invisible strings, their cell phones humming; shiny, sleek, bluetooth connectors at their ears and lips. Connected not with the world around them, with the people they see before them, with smells, and sounds, and sights right there but only with other people hanging from the same strings, never being where they are.

They walk slowly, taking care with every step; the sexy shoes demand attention, their totes getting heavier, the mall a whir of color and movement.

Onward and upward again, the air, the wind, the light, gliding, soaring. You and I, me and you, moving, sensing, now the sun is up in the sky, a one-eyed giantess bringing life and scorn, making the world bright, shiny, and slightly harsher. We know that the staring moon is still there but now he can’t see us anymore. Nosy he is but now he’s pale and in the presence of his big warm mistress he’s too far away to catch us. So we seize the moment, go on and on, rounding the globe, moving in, and out, up and down. Fear of falling isn’t hindering us. Going down deep we meet rock again, and again, going up there’s air and light, dust and sparkles, creatures big and small. Moving, moving, always moving. We wave in and out of the streams, the rivulets going down, the vapor going up, playing like dolphins.

The girls decide to have lunch, they are tired and thirsty. They stand in line, teetering on their heels, ordering tall styrofoam cups full of hot, bitter coffee with frothing milk and chocolate sprinkles. For once they sit down on hard chairs made from the blood of the earth, for once they are quiet, sipping their hot flavored water, and watching the people.

Come on, my love, don’t rest for long, let’s make use of what time we have left. Let’s bathe in the warmth of that yellow star that’s staring us down with her one yellow eye, seeing it all, making light, making warmth without mercy.

Onwards again, out and up and far away, floating, you and me, then us, merging and drifting apart. Warmer this time over the sea, the water green and blue and dark and cold, and quiet, and then sound again, waves and motion and onwards and up.

With the pale brown brew they drink, the girls’ strength returns, borrowed determination and energy. So they get up, whispering into their mouthpieces again, counting their bags. Each step something to think about, laden with goods they go out into the sun again on the street where cars pass by like animals herded into their pens. Erin and Heidi stand at the curb, all pink and curly and shiny on their nice shoes that make their ankles look pretty.

Come on, hurry up, there it is, one for me, one for you, so young, so dumb like corals and shiny, sleek fish. Come on, my love, here it is, now the sand, now the green, now the gray, dusty concrete jungle, human-made. Along their lines, speed and stink, moving beneath us, floating on the current of their exhaust, hot and ugly, but there it is, one for you, one for me. Nourishment, a sip of their souls, young and green, tasting like peppermint candy, all white and pink stripes.

The girls get into the car, tired and aching. The day feels gray, the spark gone.

Come on, my love, let’s go up and out and down again, to the water, to the rock, let’s rest and play, and hide from moon’s cold judging eye.

(I should stop calling these “story of the month” since it’s more like “story of the year” but I’m forever optimist. I started this in January 2009 as a homework assignment for my writer’s group. The assignment was “surreal”. I decided to write it mostly stream of consciousness-like as an experiment, and also I didn’t have much time. I never liked the ending, and was slightly dissatisfied until last month when I pulled it out again and finished it.)

… a lot has happened during the past two weeks or so, and I don’t really know where to start blogging about it all.

• I have a new piano, and one of these days I’ll show you a picture. One of these days when it’s not raining or snowing or totally grey outside (or dark, like it’s now).
• I took part in the ravelympics. That’s like olympic games for knitters. I knitted and spun almost day and night, and I have medals to show for it.
• Also, I have designed a new lace pattern, and have high plans to make the pattern available for the public, plus “publishing” the other lace pattern I made. You know, the one I finished in November.
• One day in the future you might even hear me playing my new piano on this here blog. Who knows. A friend of mine has already been complaining that there are no new songs to listen to.
• I finished a kick-ass story last month which you will be able to read here shortly. (At least that one is finished.) It’s all very exciting because it’s something I really considered finished. And the writing is quite unusual for me. No la-la-la-sort-of-chick-lit but it actually has adjectives.
• At the last spinning meeting I tried a friend’s spindles, and I really, really loved them. I even loved them better than my beloved Golding spindle. I was good though, I didn’t snatch them from her and took them home, I didn’t even go home and ordered some right on the spot, no, I sold two of my spindles first to raise the money for buying new ones. (People who buy new pianos should practice a spot of restraint in spending money.)
• Especially since both the car and the heating broke in the last weeks. Both just after I ordered the piano, of course. But all is well now.
• I signed up for NaNoEdMo because I thought it would be a good idea to edit one of my attempts at novels. I hadn’t thought about the fact that in order to successfully edit it I will have to spend something like 50 hours with my manuscript this month. So far I have done nothing but unearth the manuscript, and finding the editing pen that a friend gave me at the celebratory dinner after my first NaNoWriMo in 2006. Finding the manuscript was easier than I had thought. I opened my file cabinet, looked for the folder marked “NaNoWriMo novels” and pulled the manuscript out. Actually I thought I would have to spend ages digging through piles of paper but no.
• I’ll give you an update on my “year of happiness” as well.
• Some day.

So there will be at least something on this blog in the near future. How have you all been?

I know, it’s crazy, two posts in two days. But four years ago today I wrote my first post on this blog in English. there had been another first post, almost a year before but that wasn’t the real starting point.

I’ve read a few of my earliest posts this week, and I still like them. I also still struggle with the same things but then I’m slowly making my peace with the fact that I’m me, and that I’ll stay me for most of the rest of my life.

Nonetheless this blog has been a good thing to do, I have gotten to know all sorts of people I wouldn’t have met otherwise, and I’m very grateful for that.

When I started this blog I had no idea who was going to read it. And then there was a time when I started learning more about who’s reading here, and there was a steady stream of comments on my posts. In those days we all didn’t spend time on twitter and facebook and ravelry, and in those days I used to write a lot more comments too. So it’s a bit weird to have gone back to the days where every post just sits there, and then I check my stats, and then I still don’t really know. It’s okay because mostly I’m writing for me.

But for my fourth anniversary it would be really nice if you could just say Hi in the comments so that I know you’re there.

And for my German readers, it’s really alright to write comments in German.

This is my own personal de-lurking day.

So, yes, I am definitely happier than I was last year, I’m doing something right here. Of course, I’m writing this now after a night of completely uninterrupted eight hours of sleep. If I had written it yesterday it might have turned out a bit different since I had 4 1/2 hours of sleep that were interrupted four times.

As I told you last month I made a bunch of resolutions. Those were:

1. Go to bed on time.
2. Pick up after myself.
3. Write 500 words of fiction at least six times a week.
4. Think about the things I love about my family, students, and friends.

1. And again, I didn’t manage to go to bed on time very often but still I have slept more than the months, or years, before. I find that I have to cancel watching DVDs most evenings. In order to get enough sleep it’s a very good idea for me to go to bed very, very early, and just read a bit. That’s seriously cutting into my knitting time but still, every single day I manage to sleep enough or nearly enough I feel happier the next day.
2. I’ve been doing very well on the “picking up after myself front, and that makes me happier as well. There are still heaps and piles in some areas but I’m getting there. And I manage to do a bit more housework which my husband appreciates very much.
3. I did write 500 words of fiction (or sometimes more) about five times a week. It seems that there’s always something coming up, and that six times a week is very hard to accomplish. But still I have several thousands of words more of my story than I had before January. It’s great.
4. I didn’t do that well on the “thinking about the things I love about my family, students, and friends”-front. Especially with my son I got decidedly cranky. But I can say that his sleeping is getting better. It did take a bit of a threat, though, I have told him that he is not to come to me at all until morning. Since he wants me to leave both his and my bedroom door open all night so I can hear him I told him if he so much as calls me throughout the night I will not only close the door but lock it. Apparently that was just the thing it took. You might want to wish me luck, we’re currently working on the “debate everything your mother says”-issue.

The other thing that makes me happy is that I’m starting to lose weight. Well, to be honest I’m down by 100 grams over the last month but still that’s something because over the last two years my weight has been climbing up every single month. Losing weight is something I hope to achieve through becoming a happier person but I’d say the goal of happiness is much better than the one of getting slim.

The thing that makes me even happier than losing a hundred grams is that I might be starting to exercise again. I did some yoga on Sunday (very slow, very easy yoga that made me realize how much out of shape I am), and yesterday I did my very first ever “Couch to 5k”-workout. See, I’m decidedly not a runner. I’m not built for it, not even when I’m a normal weight and fit, and I have never been able to run for any length of time. But when I was thinking about what kind of person I want to be I found that I’m really envious of people like my husband who just put on their running shoes and then go off jogging through the fields for an hour or so. And then I thought about what Mel had started some time ago, and then I read Kris’ post about how she managed to run a marathon, and that got me motivated.

I didn’t know whether I should talk about it here because all I’ve done so far is alternately walk and jog for a total of thirty minutes once, and I did it at home just staying in one spot (and I know that’s not quite the same as moving forward while doing it, but trust me I did work out and I can feel every single muscle in my lower body right now). I’m not about to go out on the street with this anytime soon, and I’ll never run a marathon for sure, ever. But still. I feel pretty amazing having tried out something new. I plan to do the next session of walking and running tomorrow in the morning.

So this will be the fifth resolution in my “happiness project”, exercise three times a week or more.

Well, most of last week was devoted to prepare my husband’s birthday party on Saturday. We started buying groceries on Wednesday, and just before we went out of the house I decided to check my e-mail, and – my computer froze on me and went dead. I tried to remain calm, did not frantically try to get it working again but instead went out with my husband to get vegetables, meat, and wine.

After we came back I switched my dead Macbook for my eight year old eMac, and hoped that I could use that for teaching. What a good thing that I had made a backup just days ago. The only thing that would have been gone forever where 1,000 words of the story I’m currently writing.

Wednesday was also the day my new notebook arrived. I absolutely love it. I have been tip-toeing around it for about a year now, thinking that I’d make one myself but it never happened. I even bought a poor substitute that I never was happy with, and that destroyed the lining in my favorite handbag with its sharp edges. I always carry a notebook, and I love that this can hold regular sized notebooks as well as loose sheets of paper.

Thursday morning I spent making lists of ingredients, and timelines for party preparations (in my new notebook), and copies of all the recipes we needed. Thursday afternoon I went to buy even more groceries. (In between I kept turning my dead computer on, and off again, and then I found that sometimes it booted from the installation disk, and that the diagnostic software claimed that the hard disk was still perfectly functional.)

Friday we did a little cleaning, then there was a great amount of teaching (as most days but that Friday was near insane). I was totally flustered because of both the looming party, and the fact that every single lesson brought up something that I needed on my computer. Also the eMac doesn’t work with my iPods. Or with any of my student’s. I started spending my free moments looking longingly at new computers. And I found that the new Macbook doesn’t come with a Firewire connection. Which I desperately need for my audio stuff.

In the afternoon one of my students suggested something for my computer that didn’t work but it brought me to a point where I googled “Macbook grey screen beeping” and found out that my problem was not a dead computer but faulty RAM. Bingo! I still had some RAM in a drawer because when I bought the computer I had immediately upgraded. And once I switched that for the old one the computer was working again. Phew! I immediately did a backup of everything.

My husband and I spent the rest of the evening preparing onions, ginger, and seasonings for next days party. And we rehearsed the Bach piece he had wanted to play for our guests. Through rehearsing we found out that the piano had de-tuned itself over the past two weeks. My poor husband had to try and match his violin to a piano that produced several pitches at once.

Our son spent the night at his grandmother’s place, very helpful. Saturday was spent cutting, and stirring, and seasoning, and cooking, and baking. In the end I barely made it into my “party clothes” and make-up, and I was really, really happy that I had insisted on setting the tables first. Which meant carrying the tables, and chairs, and plates, and glasses, and silverware down from my mother-in-laws apartment, before setting everything up. My mother would have been proud, I even had matching paper napkins.

We made Samosas, Pakoras, Naan bread, Lamb stew, fish curry, Dal, Almond Chicken, and mango creme. Doesn’t sound that much work, doesn’t it? Only we made everything from scratch, and somehow it took about nine hours to prepare everything. With the added bonus that all the dishes had to be ready at the same time, of course. I’m so not going into catering.

The party itself was very nice, only I didn’t enjoy it that much, I was just too tired. Our son managed to sprain his ankle for the second time that day, claiming that he had broken it. Well, it wasn’t broken but it wasn’t fully functional either. The party went on until three in the morning when my husband’s brother left. That conversation with him between one and three was the highlight of the day for me.

The next morning after about five hours of sleep we started cleaning and putting everything away. That went on for the whole day as well. In between we had an argument with our son who wanted to attend a birthday party despite his sprained ankle. In the end we caved in, and I took my mother-in-laws car to drive him over to that indoor playground about fifteen minutes from here. (And still I don’t know why it’s reasonable to have a birthday party where every single child gets carted around by his parents. I would have had to spend one hour in the car to get him there and back.) When we arrived at the playground thing and I got out of the car it smelled somewhat funny but I didn’t think about it. I got my son to the party, and left to go home. After some time the car started to behave in a weird way. Well, I barely got home and when I did the car stank and a woman passing on the sidewalk said, “Is your hand brake on? Haha.” Haha, very funny. At first I felt very dumb for not realizing that I had forgotten the hand brake but then I thought again, how I always check it at every single light I pass. Well, it seems that years and years of putting the car in a closed garage that’s not really ventilated might cause your hand brake to rust so that it can’t be disengaged anymore. Fun.

Now how to get my child back from the birthday party? My child that could barely walk? Before researching public transportation I remembered that there was one other mother that I recognized, and I had her phone number. I was lucky because she was home, and she agreed to take my son with her. Phew.

Monday was a quiet day, and we started to relax. Only the annex seemed to get a little cold. We didn’t think much of it and went our merry ways. On Tuesday it was clear that something with the heating was not right. But it was only the annex, not the main house. (This always sounds like we’re living in a mansion but we have a very small, very old house to which we built a three-room-annex for teaching.) So we decided to call the furnace guy the next day.

Just after teaching that day my son and mother-in-law came down the stairs and my MIL said she couldn’t bring him to do his homework. When my husband and I told him to do it right this minute he said, “Not yet…” It was six in the evening! So I threatened him into completing his homework (which took all of ten minutes, whining and crying included), and then he handed me a letter from his teacher. I’m to come in on Friday, it seem that we’re not the only ones having slight problems with him at the moment. (As an aside, we already have an appointment to get help, no worries.)

Well, we didn’t take that all that well. That evening I declared that from now on he was to sleep in his bed all night long, no exceptions. (As I explained in my last post we have a contract now, and this has resulted in him falling asleep in his bed but still every night he came over to sleep in the sleeping bag on the floor.) I had told him this but still he was very surprised when at 5 in the morning there was no sleeping bag in my bedroom for him. I told him to go back to his room and stay there. He cried, he started to bargain, but I had none of it, he had to stay. (By the way, he didn’t even mentioned being afraid that night. Seems like his fear was a convenient tool.) The rest of the night was somewhat unrestful, I had to put him back to his bed every 30 minutes or so but his protests became softer and softer.

The next day I realized that a) I had to find a way to get to the health food store without a car, and b) if I didn’t get to the big city that day the next time I could would be a week from now. So I left in a hurry while my husband phoned the furnace repair people. I went to the big city and ordered my new piano, something that would merit its own post if my life weren’t so full at the moment. We had realized that it would take us ages to save enough money for the piano, and that our regular expenses had gone down (no more daycare fee and one mortgage paid off). So I went in and ordered my new, shiny, black piano, and it’ll get here in two weeks or so.

Before leaving I received my very first shipment of the Rockin Sock Club, something really exciting but I didn’t have time to open the package yet. When I came back from my adventures in the city, laden with groceries and very hungry the furnace guy arrived and I spent the next thirty minutes helping him decipher the manual for the part of the furnace that controls the annex. Then my husband came to tell me that I had exactly ten minutes left to eat lunch before my first student arrived. (Then he spent the next hour or so helping the furnace guy who then phoned his boss who came also in.) For now we have heat in the annex again, and there will be a new part to be put in in a couple of days.

Then I taught for the rest of the day, spent the evening knitting for the first time in days, and fell asleep like a stone. I was waken by my son at 2 a.m. clutching his pillow, a blanket, and a big bag of stuffed animals but I sent him back to his room, and he didn’t even cry!

Today my husband decided to try the car again, and came back saying it went fine, nothing wrong with it. So I took it to buy groceries and get the beer cases from the party back to the store. The car acted a bit weird when I left the garage, and once I went down the street there was this “wup wup”-noise coming from the tire back right as if I had a flat. I turned around immediately and drove home again. Of course my husband thought I’d gone all female on him but when he checked the car again he barely got back into the garage after moving it for about three meters back and forth. So the car is clearly broken. Fortunately this is mostly my mother-in-laws problem since it’s her car but since we all use it we’ll pay half of the repair. Unless it’s very expensive which will mean it won’t be worth it. We already decided that we won’t buy a new car again. We’ll see.

So now I hope that the next week will be a little quieter. Tomorrow I’ll see my son’s teacher, some time the next week we’ll get our heating in order again, and then I’ll get my new piano, and then we’ll have “winter break” for a week.

How are your lives going? Exciting as well?

Oh, and by the way I have a piano to sell. It’s walnut, about thirty years old, and just had a complete overhaul.

It’s that time of year again, the time when my son is scared. When the days grow shorter and darker he traditionally develops a fear of – something. One year it was skeletons, one year it was masks, one year it was ghosts, one year it was robbers, this year it’s quite specific, a green skeletal devil with horns.

It all started at the beginning of November (yes, that’s three months ago, almost) when he sat in front of TV to watch something about a zoo. At 5 in the afternoon there was a trailer for a murder mystery. In this trailer there was a tiny blip showing somebody wearing a halloween costume with a green mask and devil’s horns.

The night before was the last night my son has slept in his bed since then. And if that wouldn’t have been unnerving enough he is also afraid of being alone. So when, for example, he is playing in his room, and I’m sitting in the kitchen, and then I want to get something from the basement, and I’d be unwise enough to open the actual door and get down the stairs there would be a wailing child running after me. And when I’d get up again he’d stand there, mad at me and screaming, “How dare you leave me alone? You know I’m scared!” On the other hand he will totally go to the supermarket alone and buy a toy. No problem there. It’s just being alone at the house. Or rather somewhere where he doesn’t see or here another person because we never ever leave him alone at the house.

When he is going to sleep there has to be someone with him in the next room (we have drawn the line at being in the same room) at all times. So I’m no longer allowed to watch DVDs in my very favorite chair in front of our big old TV, no I have to sit on the hard and cold kitchen bench with my laptop who then decides it doesn’t like this particular DVD. After that I go into my bedroom without having talked a word with my husband (who is in the annex, working on his new album) and get to bed, the bed I share with my son. I’m not allowed to turn off the light completely, and I have to push him back to his side of the bed repeatedly and with force because for some strange reason I don’t like to share my pillow. Also, repeatedly through the night there will be a clear, ringing voice calling, “Mama?” in near panic. Which makes me more awake than him and then, just when I have gone to sleep again, he asks again.

My husband and I have been taking turns in “night duty”, and once or twice a week he sleeps at my mother-in-laws place to give us a break. I only really realized how much I feel like being on a leash when yesterday while my son was away with his grandmother I sat in the kitchen knitting, and then wondered what my husband was doing. I sat there for a while and then it hit me: I could just stand up, leave the room and go over into the annex without someone yelling at me! Wow. Sweet freedom.

Now, for those of you not familiar with my son, he is not 18 months old, no, he’s 7 years. He knows perfectly well that he is safe in the house. Ever since he turned three we could leave him playing in one part of the house and go to the annex, at least briefly. He has always been afraid of the dark so he there’s a light in his room, and for quite some time now there had to be someone in the next room when he went to sleep. Once he had fallen asleep whoever was on duty that night could walk out, and then only return when it was time to got to sleep ourselves.

I have a big problem with this. I can’t sleep properly. When I hear anybody scream “Mama?” I have to suppress the urge to slap that child whoever it is. I have told everybody I’ve met for the past three months about this. I’d say I have a problem.

Now, I know that he is really scared. I know that his fear isn’t rational and I remember how it is at that age. That’s why he has a light on while falling asleep, and that’s why there is someone near. But then I also remember that even though I was afraid there were bears in the basement I still went there. Telling myself, “There are no bears in the basement, there are no bears in the basement.” all the time. And you know what? I never saw a single bear there.

My son on the other hand, my son who knows perfectly well that there are no strange devils lurking in the corners of our house, my son ends every talk about how we just please want to sleep again, and how we know that he is scared but that he is perfectly safe with the same sentence: “But I’m scared.” Yeah, we knew that already, thanks.

I bought nice educational books, I elevated his stuffed giraffe to a monster-slaying super-toy (worked for half an hour), bought him a magic slumber mouse (he was set on trying to sleep alone but then he went off to his grandma’s and the next night he was – too scared again).

Everybody we have talked to so far has said the following things:

• every child is afraid of something
• there are a lot of children who still sleep in their parents beds
• this too will pass
• maybe stickers will help
• and the final thing, when we kept on saying, “Yeah, we tried that but it didn’t work.” or “Yeah, I knew that already.” then people say, “You have to get help.”

And you know what? They might be right. On the other hand it’s not as if I didn’t know anything about behavior modification or parenting. And our son is really, really stubborn. You know, I’m a pretty stubborn person but that’s nothing compared to him. I talked to a student who happens to have a son the same age as mine about what to do when your son is really rude and threatens to hit you, and he said, “Well, then he has to go to his room until he has calmed down.” And I looked at him, blinking for a couple of seconds with a blank look, and then I said, “And he just goes there?” And he said, “Well, if he doesn’t I make him.” That made me laugh really hard. I can, of course, lift my son up and carry him to his room, and I might even manage to close the door behind him but since we don’t own a key to that door there is nothing to keep him in there. I put him to his room, he comes out again, I put him back, he comes out again, I start screaming, he’s howling, I put him back… One time we spent 90 minutes pulling on opposite side of the door both of us screaming, and then he was only three years old. And when everything fails he just runs off to his grandmother.

Still I have decided not to let him oppress me any longer. He wants to wail behind me when I’m leaving the room? So be it. I also told him that he has to sleep in his room again. He’ll get a sticker for every night he spends in his own bed, and after two weeks we’ll go ice skating. Yesterday he actually fell asleep in his own room. My husband was lying next to him, but still. I went to bed at 11. At 11.30 he started calling me. Then he called again. Some time later he started crying. Then he called again. At 1 o’clock in the night I allowed him to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor of my room…

Tonight we’re signing a contract, both of us. He will either sleep in his room alone without making a noise or he will go to my bedroom on tiptoes without disturbing me and stay in the sleeping bag. When he stays in his room until 6.45 there will be a sticker. 14 stickers equal a trip to the ice skating rink. There will be no discussions , no wailing, no nothing. I might have to add that we have a “no discussions about things I should do or buy for him after 6 in the evening”-rule. This child will have a debate about whether or not he will eat breakfast, come to the table or dress himself for school. I told him he’s free to not eat and walk to school in his pajamas, whatever he wants. Then he yelled at me for no making him stop reading when it was time to get ready. Very funny.

Wish me luck.

Those of you who have been reading here for some time have seen me self-diagnose on a regular basis. As if I always have the feeling that there is something wrong with me, something to be put right. When I’m feeling particularly down I then hope that it’s something that can be cured by taking a pill. First there was the eating-disorder, then I thought I might have cyclothymia, then I thought I might be merely depressed, then I thought I might have ADD (something I did not write extensively about), and then, out of the blue while I was at the first German raveler meeting telling stories about how OCD I often am to over-compensate for my ADD tendencies, one of the nice knitters I was talking to said, “Maybe you don’t have ADD, maybe you’re gifted.”

My first reaction? Hahaha! Me? And then I thought, well, I’m not exactly stupid, but then I thought of all the really intelligent people I know like a friend’s husband who is a genius working in AI research, and people I met in university with a mind so sharp they seemed to cut themselves, and everybody else. But then this nice knitter told me a bit more of it (and with every trait she described I thought “That’s my husband!” and “That’s my husband too!” and “But that’s me!”), and she recommended some books to me which I immediately bought and read. One of the books was full of the life stories of gifted people, most of them hadn’t known for ages. And while I certainly have never learned a language in three months, or done anything that remarkable until reading those books I had operated under the common prejudices that gifted people are people who wear glasses, are a bit awkward in social settings and get high grade in math and science.

Well, I do wear glasses but my grades were never really good, all of my teachers were seriously disappointed of me because “she could have done so well if only she had applied herself”. She, on the other hand, felt that she had applied herself as well as she could, but never got it quite right. For all my life I have been suffering from having this great potential. I know that this is a luxury problem but it does not feel good, the knowledge that you could have if only you had done things different or maybe if you could have turned yourself into a different person.

So, after a couple of weeks where I felt that the things that are wrong with me, the things that make me stand out, and never fit in anywhere, and that make me say the wrong things, and forget to smile at people, and that make me jump to conclusion, and talk in a way that people go “Huh?” all the time, that these things might be due to my IQ. Sounds weird, doesn’t it?

I went here and took an IQ-test. I felt very nervous that day, my son had woken me up early, I was seriously sleep-deprived, and also had hormones that made me feel like I was thinking my way through pea-soup-like fog. I went to the test and there were only five other test-subjects, all of them male and looking as if they were studying math or engineering. The guy guiding us through the test was wearing a suit, and I immediately disliked him.

Then came the test. There were only four parts to it, some language, some math, some where you had to rotate cubes in your head, you know that kind of test. I found the language tasks quite easy, I had the feeling that I should have taken the spatial orientation test a bit more serious (typical for me all I could think about was that I wanted to get out and drink something at that point), and the math tasks made me realize that my daily life doesn’t include any math whatsoever. I was too slow to finish that one in time.

When the test was over I was certain that my score would be too low but I knew that I can solve this kind of problems if only I can think straight. After the test a couple of us went out to have a beer, and there we met a few Mensa members. And that was really interesting. All of those people were testified gifted. That was about the only thing they had in common because they were very, very different, but: You know how annoying it is when you go to eat something in a restaurant as a group? How people always take ages to order and can’t decide? Not with these people. I have never seen a group of people that big order that fast. And not one of them did the, “What are you getting? Do you think I should get the duck? Does anybody know if the duck is good here? Really? You’re getting the pork? I don’t know, maybe I only eat a salad.”-thing. None.

There was a scene with the waiter at the restaurant – and I won’t bore you with the details – that was quite funny, and usually this would have been one of these moments when I burst out laughing, and then everybody looks at me with that “what’s funny there?”-look, and then I try to explain, and then nobody gets it but with these people the waiter went away, and every single person at the table burst out laughing. They were all very much awake, had a spark in their eyes, and don’t like small talk.

I know that a lot of people consider standardized IQ-tests to be irrelevant, and I know that the only thing they can tell you something about is the exact same kind of cognitive intelligence that they measure but still this meeting together with the information from the books I have read point me towards the conclusion that having a very high cognitive intelligence might make one different enough from most people that you don’t fit in.

It doesn’t make you smart in every situation. It might make you perform very badly on tasks that are too easy, for example. You might have problems with people, you might abhor small talk, or you might do well, and have no problems whatsoever. It usually makes you quite stubborn, quite independent, relatively exhausting, and in some cases so perfectionist that you never finish anything.

Not to leave you hanging, I got my test-results, my IQ (when sleep-deprived and feeling dumb as a brick) is in the top 1% range of the population. Usually I don’t tell that to people because when I do I feel like boasting, which Im not. I don’t feel particularly smart. I’m pretty confused most of the time, I often don’t get things, and the knowledge of it makes my unfulfilled potential weigh even heavier on me. And while I’ve always known that my mind often works really fast that doesn’t keep it from drawing the wrong conclusions very fast too. I either get things right away or they never really stick. Also I’m still the same person I was before the test.

First I thought I shouldn’t tell anyone. Then I thought, wait a minute, I talk about things here like thinking I might be bipolar or having ADD, and now that I find out that I’m gifted I don’t tell? Now that I have found out that the thing that makes me feel different and not fitting in is not something that’s wrong with me at all, now I won’t tell anyone? What kind of a reaction is this?

Well, it’s understandable especially when you’re living in Germany. You get the “So, you’re good at math, that doesn’t make you special.”-response quite often. Not that I’m good at math. Or that look that now you have told someone they think that you feel superior. It does get worse when you tell somebody that you think your child might be gifted too. I told it before, my son is bored in school. I remember starting school, excited to learn something after all, and then I waited for it to become really interesting and challenging. And waited. (It did become interesting when I did my dissertation but then I never got my PhD. Failure again.)

People here in Germany mostly don’t get what the problem is. They think you’re just a bit smarter (and in their heads they think “Well, if you’re so smart why aren’t you doing better in life then?”). For me the problem has shrunk since I know the reason for all this feeling weird. It also helped me because now I know that I’m not alone, there are others like me out there, and there are ways to find them. One of those ways has been the internet, I have this feeling that there are quite a few really smart people out there writing blogs.

When I finally took the courage to tell my parents my mother said (slightly bored), “Of course, we always knew. That’s why we had you start school early.” Of course? So why did nobody ever tell me? All I ever got was the “We are so disappointed that you’re not doing better.”-look. Together with the “It’s so easy for you, don’t think you’re something special.”-talk. And then my mother said, “Well, since you’re not in academic research it doesn’t make a difference anyway.”

To all those parents out there who might have a gifted child, and who don’t want their child to know so that it doesn’t feel different from the others I say: Please tell them. Your child doesn’t need you to tell them they’re different. They can’t hide it anyway. It’s just good to know the reason why one is different. It’s not a deficit, it’s an asset. One can have a lot of fun with a brain that works well and fast. Really. And trying not to set yourself apart won’t work. Trust me, I have tried all my life.

You could say I have started my very own “happiness project“. I was not feeling happy in 2009 and the same in 2008 which I only recalled when I looked up my word of the year for 2009 and found out that a) the word wasn’t “healing” as I had thought, and b) in 2009 I was seriously disappointed with 2008.

I don’t want to go on adding one unhappy year to another. The question of course is “why so unhappy?” and there isn’t really an answer. My life isn’t particularly hard, all my loved ones are healthy and safe but you can see that I’m unhappy, you see it when you look at me and there are about 16 kilos of unhappiness on my frame that weren’t there before. Of course my first impulse was to focus on “do better, use more willpower, never eat sugar again”-plan but then that one never works. A case in point being that the two words I chose for 2009 were “discipline” and “abundance”, and by august I had already forgotten about them. Though I have to say, the “abundance”-part did happen. So that was nice. And I did find out what was wrong with me which helps with the healing (word of the year of 2008).

So, while I’m obviously doing something wrong with the whole word of the year concept I still want to chose one, like a motto for 2010 and I’m focusing on happiness. I have this feeling if I concentrate on being happy the rest of my life will fall into place as well. Now, first thing I did was order a book – well, okay, several. I bought “The happiness project“, of course. I have been a longtime fan of Gretchen’s blog and with that theme I had planned for this year, how could I not? I also bought “Refuse to Choose. A Revolutionary Program for Doing Everything That You Love”, and for good measure “Unclutter Your Life in One Week“.

I also made a couple of resolutions because only thinking yourself happy is not enough, I know from experience that there will be some doing in the process, and that the road to feeling happier is also plastered with tiny little baby steps that might make me feel worse in the short run. So my resolutions so far are:

1. Go to bed on time: (Yes, I know, what else is new.) I know that this has been on my list forever. But I actually managed to sleep enough during winter break. Since school started, though, I had one night with adequate sleep. Out of seven or so. But I’ll do better, I promise.
2. Pick up after myself: Already my own room (maybe I should start calling this my studio, sounds so much better) looks almost civilized and my husband likes this new/old habit of mine very much already.
3. Write 500 words of fiction at least six times a week: This is working great. That’s because there is a group, or at least a banner, so every night when I think that all I want is to sit and watch “Torchwood” for the fourth time I push myself to write my 500 words or more. And – surprise – having written them makes me really happy.
4. Think about the things I love about my family, students, and friends: I tend to focus on negative things, like most people, I feel much better when I happen to remember how much I love my husband and son, for example. Generally I try to focus on the positive rather than the negative. And it is working already.

So, I wish you a very happy year 2010. Have you made any resolutions? Broken them already?

I was about to write a post called “things that fell by the wayside in 2009″. But then that was a bit depressing. I also thought I might do a post about the books I read in 2009 but since I already wrote a longish book post not that long ago, well, and 2009 isn’t really over yet.

The things that somehow didn’t happen this year were about all the new good and healthy habits I had incorporated into my life since 2004 or even before that: exercise, healthy and moderate eating, sleeping enough, cleaning, making music, writing, meditation, you name it. On the other hand I’m proud to report that I made music just yesterday, and last week I actually dusted and vacuumed half the house. Ahem. I’m on it, though. I’m slowly picking myself up again, I have started de-cluttering, and if I go on like this, who knows, maybe even my son’s room will be clean before Christmas.

Last week was even a bit more busy than always with my son turning seven on Thursday. Here’s the usual “table with cake and present”-photo,

taken at about seven in the morning without any light to speak of (and yes, that’s a pink unicorn, sorry, but he loves it), and here the “all his other presents” one:

Well, apart from the bike my parents gave him but we only bought that later in the day after school. As you can see my son has a well rounded personality, he loves both pink plastic princess things and manly machine things. I made the doll myself, it’s another Ysolda pattern. My son loves it so much that he insisted on taking the doll with him all day, and her hair is already starting to come apart. Also he says I need to make her a jacket. And a nightgown and underpants. The book on planes is from my sister (and he loves that too), the other book is a collection of poems for children. His new bike was carefully selected to be manly enough for now and the next three years. (And, but don’t tell him yet, he gets loads of very boy-appropriate Lego “Power Miner” things for Christmas.) And because I’m so proud of the doll (I had to embroider the face!) here’s another picture of her. My son named her Gabriele:

I am very, very happy that I could persuade him to skip the usual birthday party with seven friends, and cake, and games. Not only because I find that kind of children’s party exhausting and stressful, no, I distinctly remembered last year when the party was over and he said, “I never want to celebrate my birthday again!” He doesn’t like chaotic and loud any more than I do. Over the year, of course, he forgot all about it and wanted to celebrate at a fast food place, or an indoor playground or some other crappy and commercial place that other children are celebrating there birthdays at. There is even a local furniture store where you can have your child’s party, no kidding. Needless to say that I didn’t want to do anything like that. So I thought a bit. He was dead set on not staying at home (that would have been extremely uncool, obviously), and he’s new in school with only a few, very few friends. So I thought, why not take his best friend to a museum? And that’s what we did. It was splendid. We went to the Deutsches Museum. This museum is really interesting, and they have a special part for children. My son had never been there but his friend had been often, oops. It didn’t matter though, they both loved it and we went and tried things and looked at things and huge sailboats and airplanes and helicopters. We weren’t there for long, only about 1 1/2 hours but that turned out to be perfect. Afterwards I let them choose between cake and burgers, and we had – burgers and fries.

I know, this sounds like it couldn’t have been fun but that’s only the way I’m writing this. As proof I quote my son’s best friend who said on our way back home (exciting train ride) that she wants to celebrate her birthday at that museum too. Ha! The museum does offer real birthday parties as well but, well, that would have required planning ahead. Also more costly than train tickets and fast food. I didn’t really have to pay for the museum because I had bought a 10-block-ticket years ago, and it is still valid.

My son also wanted to celebrate with another friend, one that he knows from kindergarten and never sees these days. He wants to have a pajama party. I dropped an invitation at his place (very late), and still have to hear back. I think this was all too near Christmas so I’ll phone his mother after the holidays to arrange something. That was the deal, two birthday celebrations. But I’m good with that.

So now it’s only two more days until Christmas (we celebrate on the 24th, of course), and I still have to get a tree and a lot of the food. But we decided to make Christmas even more low key than usual, no big fancy cooking either, and so I hope that everything will be nice and quiet. I already go all the presents (yay me!) but I haven’t wrapped anything, and I think I will leave that for Wednesday evening. We’ll have to work until then, quite late in my case unless my students don’t show up as happened today (the three last students canceled and the one before that just didn’t show up). Then on Thursday we’ll get up late, and then put up the tree, and then make some music or knit or something, and then decorate the tree, and then make our special Christmas food that’s supposed to be dinner but I think we’ll just have it for lunch, and then lazily unwrap presents so that my son doesn’t drive us all crazy. You see, in my husband’s family you have to wait for the unwrapping of gifts until after dinner. First dinner, and then the singing of Christmas Carols, and by then the child is totally freaking out. Since I have a very impatient father we used to unwrap the presents at some time in the early afternoon so you could play with your new toys before having dinner. I hope we’ll do it a bit more like this this year. And then he can put together his Lego for hours and hours and the next day and the next, and I will be sitting next to him, help him read the manual and sort the pieces. That’s one of my favorite memories from last year, spending two days building a ultrasonic space ship or something.

As for the next year I have decided to start the new year right now and my goal is to become happy again. That will be interesting. I have already started, and I hope to gather momentum even before New Year’s Eve. What about you, did you have a good year? A bad one? Something in between? Usually it’s something in between, isn’t it?