A Roll in the Universe

The funny thing about being foreign is that I don't talk about being foreign. Norwegian TV came to my place of work and interviewed some of our non-Norwegian employees during lunch. They managed to find one of the noisier places in our cafeteria to do so, but also a pretty visible one. (We assume it's NRK and the show " Migrapolis ", which is about foreign nationals living in Norway.) One of my co-workers grinned at me and said I should be interviewed, too. I responded with a quick "nope, too assimilated". But then I offered the real reason: I never talk about life in Norway as a foreigner. I have read how other foreigners feel about living here, I've sometimes talked to them about it, and it's never good. I don't watch "Migrapolis" because the foreigners arriving now seem to be taken better care of than when I first came here. Norwegians now are more curious about foreigners and therefore friendlier towards them; I'd rather n...

I have noticed that with things like Twitter and Facebook, getting something off one's chest can be done in a few short sentences, and the immediacy and convenience (and lack of expectation of more than a paragraph) mean that more people "tweet" or post to Facebook rather than blog now. I was hunting for some old information on my blog, when I found myself rereading some of my old posts. And I found that I missed writing. I missed blogging. I missed my voice. So I am trying to get back to posting more frequently (preferably daily), only to find a Paul Simon lyric running through my brain: "[…]why am I short of attention / Got a short little span of attention…" Instead of a thought morphing into an exploration of an idea or experience over several paragraphs, it gets "tweeted" and left there, lost in a million other tweets or just on my page alone, dozens, quickly pushed out at the bottom and forgotten even by its author. As delightful and as use...

So somebody missed me (hi, Protege !). If it weren't for Wordless Wednesdays, they wouldn't know I was still alive. Well, I am, and here's a run-down of what's been grabbing my attention this month: Autumn got busy, as it usually does. I've been trying to focus on my astrology in order to forecast the weather and am rather behind on that. But maybe I'll catch up today because I'm home from work. Which brings me to the other distraction of the month: Inner health I bought a book about adult children of abusive parents , trying to sort some things out from childhood because my shoulder problem (it is doing better, thanks) is related to my stomach problems (I've had IBS since I was a kid), and stomach problems have their root in emotional upsets. Whenever I do a number on my stomach, it usually takes a week for it right itself again. After a party last Friday, I've been queasy ever since Saturday (which I spent throwing up - not good), and finall...

(This is an English translation of a Norwegian original .) Today I came across a well-written essay from a Swedish teenager . She was scared to death about her generation. She is worried about what will become of them. They seem to be so self-destructive. They are still embarrassed in the school locker room, while being happily posing in minimal clothes on the web. The Swedish teenager wants to know where we, who were kids in the 60's, are as parents. Why do we not look in on our kids? Why do we not read their Myspace or blog pages? Why do we not insist on making them come home at a decent hour? She touched a nerve in me, and I left the longest comment I've ever written on the Norwegian site that first pointed me to the Swedish girl's entry. This is my translation of that comment : To the Swedish youth who wrote that she was scared to death: I'm sorry. I am a 48-year-old woman, born as the 1960's started. I don't have children of my own, but I do have pow...

I dag kom jeg over et godt skrevet innlegg fra en svensk jente via Aftenposten . Den svenske jenten er livredd for sin generasjon. Hun opplever generasjonen sin som selvdestruktiv; de er sjenerte i fellesdusjen, men publiserer nakenbilder på nettet. Hun savner at foreldrene bryr seg, og henvender seg til oss som født på 60-tallet. Det hun sa fikk meg til å skrive det lengste kommentaren noensinne, og jeg gjengir den her. Til den svenske ungdommen som skrev at hun er livredd: Jeg beklager. Jeg er en kvinne på 48, født idet 60-tallet begynte. Jeg har ikke barn selv, men jeg har observasjonsevne. Jeg har ofte sagt at vi som var barn på 60-tallet var den siste generasjonen som hadde voksne rundt oss - kjente og ukjente - som passet på oss, kjeftet på oss, veiledet oss, _så oss_. Vi hadde grunn til å respektere voksne og regler. Så skjedde en voldsom oppmyking og endatil opphør av både regler og respekt i samfunnet. Det gikk ikke til helvete, men å bøye seg ydmyk for autoriteter var ...

When I woke up this morning and heard Michael Jackson had died, my first thought was, "Now he won't suffer any more." I have never had the impression that he was a happy man, an impression supported by what I've heard about his childhood, his family, his plastic surgeries and the accusation of his molesting children. So my first thought was that he was now finally at peace. A genius with music, but not with living. I do not write about celebrities, but Michael Jackson has the odd distinction of being one of only two celebrities I have ever said hello to in Los Angeles. It may sound weird, but you can live for years in Los Angeles and not meet any show biz people. All you have to do is not move in their circles. But sometimes circles overlap, if only momentarily. It was the autumn of 1979. I was a computer temp, mainly working part time while I went to college in the morning. One job was for an accountant in Beverly Hills. We were four girls in one office, enterin...

Wordless Wednesday

Since I'm home, I'm indulging in listening to daytime radio. Radio's always educational, and so far today I have learned that the reason for low doorways on older farms was to be able to knock an intruder on the head as he entered. Having lived in such an old farmhouse myself, I instantly thought a lot of Norwegians must have been pretty tall in the old days, too. My grandpa was 5'9" and cleared the door by a good inch. Something else I have learned is that Norway has not kept up with other nations in regards to copyright expiration for music. In Norway, the expiration is after 50 years, at which point a song becomes public domain. Arne Bendiksen , a cheerful native of Bergen who has spent his life sharing both thoughtful and funny songs, is now working hard to change Norway's copyright law. Bendiksen is now 81 and songs he wrote at age 30 are already in the public domain. He no longer has the right to royalties from his own earliest work. He said in an inter...

One thing that has been is consistently popular since 1996, is the new age fair (or "alternative convention", as it is actually called). Several major cities in Norway hold one each year, and this time of year is when Bergen's has its fair. It is always popular. A former co-worker had a gift for sensing things her five senses couldn't sense and eventually took a daring step and turned her ability into a business. She tested the waters about 10 years ago at our new age fair, giving Tarot card readings at a friend's booth. A couple of years later, I got to give astrology readings at the same booth . Heady fun! But I gave it up. I don't have the mindset for that sort of thing; I get bored when three different people ask me the exact same question. My friend, however, finds it thrilling, and turned her Tarot card reading into a full-time job, quitting her nine-to-five for good. I ran into my Tarot-reading friend, who has legally changed her name to Hope, ea...

Before I visited friends and family in the US last summer, I had read a lot about Wal-Mart and its business practices, which made me decide I never wanted to shop there. But when the toilet clogs at 11 pm, and you really have go (and it's a no. 2), and your host has no plunger, Wal-Mart it is. And Wal-Mart's bathroom it is. I must digress a bit: One thing I like about American stores is the fact that they have bathrooms. It's a surprise if you encounter one that doesn't. Grocery, book, clothing - all have a restroom. Here in Norway, you never hear of a store apologizing for the inconvenience because the north bathrooms are closed for renovation, so please use bathrooms at south end because Norwegian stores don't have bathrooms. At least, I've never discovered any. Considering the lack of public toilets in general in this country (a 7-story shopping mall in town has a few stalls on the 5th floor), I'm sure tourists believe Norwegians are like TV-heroes: Yo...

The phone rang. Caller ID showed it to be the same Oslo number that had called several times this week. For some reason, I thought it was the local newspaper, trying to sell me a subscription to its dead-tree editions because, well, my brain was AWOL this week. I answered. It was a Norwegian polling company, wanting to ask me about the media - TV, radio, internet. I decided I was in an answering mood (being the last one in the household to turn 15), so I agreed to answer the questions. These sort of things always end up feeling a bit bizarre to me. My habits are not standard, and are comparatively limited. It started with questions about the radio. I listen to the radio only in the morning, and then to only one station, which is the main Norwegian national broadcaster's regional broadcast; it's the only way I keep abreast of some of the daily things (including traffic reports and newspaper headlines) in my county. After answering "no" to all the other stations, ...

...Because I really want a day off from everything, including Blogging (Blog365 let's us have Leap Day off). I thought I'd feel better (again) by now, but no. Just to cheer myself up and give you more than one sentence to read, there's this: In a Past Life... You Were: A Blind Priest. Where You Lived: Cyprus. How You Died: Killed in Battle. Who Were You In a Past Life? Sort of begs the question of how a blind priest gets killed in battle. "What's all that racket out there? Ow! That hurt! Ooh, I don't feel so good. Huh. NOW I can see, and all I see is a bright, white light." Which reminds me: One of our TV-stations has started showing "Dead Like Me" from the start. I have found something else to watch besides the various incarnations of C.S.I.

I tripped over a Norwegian trivia and puzzle site (finally, I may win money with my sudoku addiction), and discovered that I know more about pop stars than I do Sweden. Twice I got the question "Who is Sweden's prime minister?" and twice I gave the wrong answer. So why don't I know his (or is it her?) name? I know which Mel is a member of Spice Girls, I'm pretty clear on Harry Potter games, and I know which private detective Tom Selleck played. So why don't I know who the current Swedish prime minister is? I blame the media. No, really. A steady diet of online Norwegian newspapers over the years has left me, against my will, with more knowledge about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears than whoever runs Sweden. When Norwegian newspapers write about Sweden, it's usually about Norwegians shopping there, Swedish prices being a tad lower than Norwegian and Norwegians always loving the illusion of getting something cheap (even if the price of gas getting there e...

Everybody's talking about it . Everybody. But to tell the truth, hearing about it is getting as tiring as that other piece of "news" . And when Joy of Tech does three jokes in a row about it, I've had enough. There is no where to turn where it's not mentioned. Even iTunes is out in a new version solely so I can sync to it. And the darned thing may not even work in Norway when it finally gets here sometime in October. So can we talk about something else, please?

Making the rounds of some Norwegian blogs is a meme about what you remember from 1987 (a 20th anniversary). I can't tell you anything about popular culture, fashion, top 40 hits, news items, or the year's best movies without looking it up, because I can't remember. I do remember 1987, though, because that was the beginning of my first experience of a Saturn transit to my Sun and Moon and 12th and 6th houses. That's astrological symbolism for matters affecting the psyche, work, and ego with Saturn meaning time to throw out what doesn't work; the reality was being downsized at work and finding myself facing possible unemployment, making me feel depressed. It was at this time I rediscovered the power of affirmations, and managed to keep myself from continuing to worry about things I could do nothing about. I did eventually get placed in a different department at work. Not ideal, as it turned out, nor permanent, but I learned a skill that I did enjoy and that led me...

One of the nice things about the commercial Norwegian TV-stations, are their weather forecasters. The cutest guys are on TVNorge. Take a look here and go down the row of photos to where it says "Værmelder". For the other half: Want to check out Norwegian blondes? They're on TV2. Go here and check out the pix at the bottom (you'll need a Flash plug-in and frame-aware browser). The one at the very left, Siri, is a gorgeous scientist. Yes, they exist in real life. She's a meteorologist and founded the weather forecasting firm Storm Weather Center. What made me think of this? I just saw the weather. :-)