floods

Hope you guys back home (yes, now I feel like "back home" refers to New York) are ok!



Photo by James Estrin (New York Times)

Click here for the Article.

guess who's a failure

this is quite funny.. ;)
go to www.google.com ...type in the word failure and click on "I'm feeling lucky".

Better try this now. Who knows, Google might get paranoid and take it off, which -really - would be kinda sad.

if I had a cool links list this would be on it

www.pandora.com
LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT

an online radio-system that learns the kind of music you like (enter the song or artist you like and the pandora player will start playing stuff it thinks you might like, too). then you can micromanage, if you want..and give each song that plays a thumbs up or down.

first artists name I entered: sam phillips

topless bathing is out isn't it?

D and I biked to a lake this weekend. We packed our backpack for like a half an hour, wanting to be prepared for the trip of which we thought will take about an hour. We covered the kids in sunscreen, filled our bike bottles with water, checked the tire pressure,...the works.
Then it took us about 15 minutes to get there.
We had no idea how close we were to that lake.

When we approached the water, I spotted a woman wearing only a bikini-bottom. Hey, I said to D, look it’s your first topless woman! ;)(I was referring to the European costum of stripping down to nothing when near any body of water.) Dario glanced over and then straightened his gaze again in appropriate matter. We dropped our bags, and I decided that I’ll go get the bikes, which we had parked unlocked at the other side of the lake (which by the way, is really more of a pond).
No five minutes had passed until I returned and Dario was already happily chatting with the topless chick.
I broke into laughter just because I found this to be too funny. I couldn’t stop laughing and didn’t want to offend the girl, so I just settled down a few feet away from them.
When D came over to explain that she was the one who started talking to him, I nodded seriously and in agreement.
The girl came over to me later, as well. I don't know how people (women who like to sunbathe topless - in public) do it. How can you talk to someone with your top off and not worry that really they have no idea what you're saying because they're too busy staring at your breasts. Maybe it's a good diversion tactic. If you're not happy with your face, just take your top off and any guy will be happy to talk to you.
But what I really have to get used to is the fact that men strip, too. There you are, innocently taking your kids for a stroll along the Blue Danube, and BAM - there's a naked man on the grass next to you.
Lots of getting used to to do.
;)

daily rant

for days it has been sunny and hot here now, and every time I want to die when I get into my car after work, for it feels like a sauna on wheels (need I bring up the 253.000 miles again? well, usually a car with that many miles -aka years- on it doesn't come with an A/C, unless it's an American car maybe.)

anyway,...so today...was the ONE day I thought, hmm, let's prevent post-labor heatstroke by leaving the windows open. Unfortunately, I forgot about the fact that Austrian (ie. Vorarlbergian) weather can never be trusted. Sunshine is always just a tease and I fell for it. Two days it was gorgeous and that seemed to be enough already. The rain came in a storming, torrential kinda way. Filled up the inside door-compartments of my car and soaked every single seat to the steel below it.
Good thing I work for a media company now. I seem to always carry all newspapers of the week with me, although I never really get around to actually read them. Well, they soaked through immediately and I am looking forward to the mold smell, which will surely develop in my beloved vehicle - just give it a few days.

Oh well, at least there might be a chance that the mold smell will finally outdo the overwhelmingly nauseating cow-dung-smell that's been part of the air here since our arrival in April. Actually, I've been told the farmers here now use penguin excrements instead of cow menure to fertilize the fields. This would explain the exponentially worse smell. I don't recall this kind of intensity of odor and I grew up here.

the things I would do...

no, this is not a dirty post if that's what you think...
this is my personal to-do-list, also called "the wishlist":
Here it goes:

x sh*t now I can't remember anything. ... so maybe I should first wish for
x a functional brain.

x write a sit-com (yeah, whatever. .... actually, to tell the truth, I really wanted to write an episode for the Gilmore Girls but I was almost too embarrassed to write that down, for I am convinced most readers of my blog probably despise (spelling?) that show. Anyway, I identify with the mother - quirky, caffeine-addicted, overanalytical, can't fit into the small-town life she loves regardless, etc.
Unfortunately, unlike Lorelei Gilmore, I can't eat anything I want (although, lately it seems that I think I can and have thus been getting fatter. <- was that even an English sentence? ...I guess, the real reason I won't be writing for TV is not because I don't find time but because I can't write for sh*t. Also, I really wouldn't be able to talk "ghetto" like that.

x set up a blog for my friend Johannes' "message". He is sort of an unvoluntary psychic and once in a while he gets very strong "contact", or whatever you want to call it, from the other side. This might sound stupid to you, specially if you don't believe in this kind of stuff, but I know this man for a long time and he is not only very sane but also very balanced in his life. He doesn't make up sh*t like that.
Anyway, he has sent me this document of a message/revelation/whatever it is he had about a year ago. It is about Ground Zero and its future. When I read that message my heart began to beat faster and I began to tremble. It is so detailed and so strong that I just have to translate it (from German to English)...and I thought to do that via a separate blog might be the best way, since it gives room for feedback.

xWrite a letter to Carla (that I miss her). [now that item on my list is so complicated to approach - on so many levels - that I really don't see it happening. Plus, as Rosa said (quite disillusioning) to her I will probably just always remain that "bitch". For details on this story see this post and its comments:
no more turning back now (april)

x Direct or/and act in a movie. (ok. now that should be on 43things.com ...under things I will realistically never get to do in this lifetime. sad. sad.)

x Open up an Import/Export business. (The main motivation here is to get all the stuff I miss from the US over here. I am approaching the bottom of my last Dunkin Donuts coffeebag. Panic is taking over. I need bigger sized Mudd Jeans (all my 2-s and 5-s are now officially history). I had a very depressing evening yesterday, sorting through my clothes...

x Put all my extra photos on Flickr.

x dust

x install my car radio

x Back-up my computer

x ok. obviously I can't remember any significant to-do items at this point. It is now 1:27 a.m. (MEZ ..i.e. Middle European Timezone) and I am beginning to fade...

I don't quite qualify

So, I was thinking of joining the blogging mommies ring (www.bloggingmommies.com).

I gave that up really quickly after reading rule number two:

General Rules
2. No flames, hostility, whining, complaining or excessive negativity.

How the hell can you write a sincere mother's blog and not be hostile, whine, complain and be negative? That's like a paradox, isn't it?

Oh well, I probably wouldn't have done well in a mommie's network anyway. Bitching Mama... somehow that just doesn't seem to fit in.

PS: I woke up from a bad nightmare this morning. .... I suddenly found out I was 35 weeks pregnant! ....ahhhh. pregnancy would be one of the most unfortunate (not tragical) things, which could possibly happen right now. Besides the fact that I am the sole provider at the moment (i.e. can't be out for childbearing reasons), I really don't want any extra kids at the moment.
At the same time, I know that I would be unable to terminate a pregnancy, as much as I am a pro-choice kinda woman. Not after almost not having Nayla. I can't imagine not having had her (hmm, grammar?) and I am infintely grateful for the influences that in the end (at the last moment, so to say) kept me from terminating.

Maia wants to go home to NY

Today as I was driving home from my dad's house Maia suddenly got angry in the backseat and whined: Mum, I don't like Austria anymore. I wanna go home. Take me to the airport right now.
Me: Take you to the airport right now?
Maia: Yes.
Me:Why don't you like Austria, baby?
Maia: It always rains and nobody speaks German.
Me: But that's not true. There are plenty of people who speak English. ...and wouldn't you miss your grandma and grandpa...and your new friends here?
Maia: I don't care. I wanna see my old friends. From my old school.

Finally, I gave up (or realized that I should be validating her feelings) and told her I missed NY, too, but that Austria - while very rainy - is also very beautiful.
And just then, God tore open the clouds and bathed us in a warming sunlight. SUUN, baby screamed! ;)

I am not making this up. And I am saying God, because it had been raining for WEEKS until this very moment of Maia's sadness.

live without regrets

I am going to stop listening to music, I've decided.
It just wakes emotions and I am sick and tired of the whole emotional crap. What happened to my good old "Nothing can break me-because really I just give a shit"-attitude? .......... It probably never really existed.
So, but ...I've realized now since I have no radio in my new going-to-work car (the Golf with the 253.000 miles on it) that it really is all for the better. It gives me time to think without getting all sentimental. No songs that remind me of my homesickness, lost friendships, or anything in the past.

I am, of course, looking for a carradio on ebay so really, I am just bullshitting with this whole "who needs music"-bit. ;)

I am trying hard not to make a sappy bitching entry. Despite the title of my blog I am trying to live by a new motto: I want to live without regrets.

I found this website called 43 things. It's pretty cool.
And maybe I'll find some inspiration.
This is where I got my above mentioned new motto from:
http://www.43things.com/people/progress/NinaWills/3039422

cheers!

getting dumber every year

Unlike the people captured in the above statistic, I think, I am getting dumber by the minute....but definitely dumber every year.
My short-term memory is completely shot, and things I used to figure out real quickly, I now don't get at all.
I wonder what it is. Is it my lack of studying? Is it the long non-challenging period I stuck with my last job?
Is it the lack of sleep, the crappy food I eat? Or am I just inevitably getting older and dumber? There must be ways to stop this degeneration of my braincells.
I even bought a mind-exercising book. Don't remember the name of it right now. ...sigh...as you can see it works very well.

The sad truth is that I am too damn lazy to do stuff I find an unneccessary waste of time. Like Sudoku. What the hell is the hype about?
I even suck at the kiddie sudoku Maia is playing (...the same thing but with images instead of numbers). I just lack the enthusiasm.

No, but seriously. I am too tired for all this but at the same time I am very frustrated about it.
At night, I fall into bed so exhaustedly that I am happy if I can keep my eyes open long enough to read for at least 5 minutes.

Reading Vanishing Point at the moment. Excellent novel, btw.