Queen of Rambles

Only 9:30 pm and I’m already ready for bed. What happened to the late night party girl I’ve become in recent weeks? With no reason to be up in the morning I’ve been very bad about going to bed. I’ve even greeted 1 am on at least one occasion. Not tonight. I think the four miles on the elliptical did me in. Seven hundred calories! And then I was really, really hungry and wanted to chow down on something good, but restricted myself to a diet shake and fruit bar.

I am so nervous and scared for Mike! We are driving over to Medford tomorrow and he is flying away on Wed. morning! This could very well be the first step in our new life on the East coast. I really can’t even imagine. I hope the culture shock isn’t too much for me. Of course, it will be nothing like Sweden. I’ll speak the same language and eat the same foods, but I won’t live the same way. I’m a very typical laid back West coaster. It will be interesting at the very least, assuming that Mike even gets the job. I just have a gut feeling that he will. He is totally qualified for it so they’d be total fools not to hire him.

Mike will be gone for about 72 hours, so you know what that means. Time to get myself into some sort of trouble! What will it be this time? Outrageous paint? Alien abduction? Major furniture purchase? Who knows what kind of wild hair will poke me in the butt. I think I’ll be a good girl. Really, all I want to do is quilt. I’m almost done with the current quilt, then I will be free to concentrate on my Swedish quilt. I have the Dala horse Marie designed for me, so that’s cool. Then I have some ideas for some other designs. I really want to make a Swedish troll, but I’m thinking that will require applique instead of paper piecing. Other ideas Mike and I have been tossing around: Midsommar pole, Pippi Longstocking, Easter witch, moose, reindeer. . . I don’t know how doable any of those are. The Midsommar pole is the only one that I can even come close to envisioning. Nothing like a challenge to get my blood pumping.

Actually, I should WRITE while he is away. I totally forgot that I am supposed to write a feature article about Mosaic Minds for ParentNetSweden. I’m not a parent, but they said that’s ok. They have invited me to write a feature about how MM got started and about how so many of the staffers are Americans living in Sweden. I’ve talked to the editor and the focus will be about how living in Sweden totally eroded my self-esteem (a very common complaint) and how I started MM as a way to regain some self-confidence and how it has really created a bonding feeling among the staff and energized us. I need to talk to my staff and see what they have to say about how it effected them, too. So staff, now you know that I will be asking you about that. It’s kind of exciting to have my writing actually sought out, though it is not like I won a big book deal or anything. But still! I’m writing for someone other than myself and that’s all kinds of wonderful. I also have several other little essays lined up that seem perfect for me if only I would get my fingers to tap-tap-tapping and produce something to send in!

And now it’s time for bed. Or maybe for a little reading. I’m currently in the middle of Teppers “Gibbon’s Decline and Fall” and am not sure what to think. It is a sci-fi book set in 2000 so that doesn’t work very well. The world is a really, really depressing place with a lot of anti-woman activities going on. The Pope has teamed up with Islamic leaders to show women their place in the world. Right wing Christian groups go around with whips and switches and harass women in work places. The men in the book all hate women and want to repress them. I have a hard time with that concept. I know that there are men who want to repress women, but in general I feel that women are respected if they expect to be respected. I think the main repression of women doesn’t come from an active hatred of women as portrayed in this book. Instead, I think a lot of it comes from a passive acceptance of “that’s the way it’s always been” and an inability to really understand that women don’t necessarily enjoy cleaning and birthing and cooking and laundering. The intensity of this book is almost scary, but not in the way Tepper intended. To me, it is more of a scary thing that people like Tepper seem to believe there is a huge conspiracy out there to get women and force them back into the homes and out of the work places. Maybe there is. Maybe I am just utterly naive. But then again, if you look at the latest college statistics, more women than men are earning their Bachelors. Women are about to overtake men in graduate degrees as well. I see women constantly getting ahead while men lag behind. I really do see us moving forward. I hope that’s the truth.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 21st, 2004 at 10:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.