As in Denmark. As in Europe. To live there.
No, that's not a joke. My girlfriend got a scholarship for three years to do her Ph.D. in Copenhagen. We're selling the house and going.
What the hell can I say about that? Aside from a fairly disastrous three years in Gainesville, and a short fling in Boston just for the hell of it, I've never lived far from home. I'm a cancer. We're home-bound folks.
Not that I've never wanted to broaden my horizons. Not that I haven't fancied myself a Henry James or an Ernest Hemingway, living abroad, having adventures, and then writing in a slightly more cynical, world-weary tone about it all. I'm a fairly romantic girl; I've always thought about it.
But now, of course, I'm scared. Soiling my pants terrified, actually. Denmark is so very foreign. I think I have ancestors from Scandinavia. I certainly will look like I fit in. (Save for my Americanized sense of style, which can't be helped for now.) But honestly, it's a bit surreal.
Here's what I know about Denmark: They are fairly friendly, tolerant people. They have decent socialized health care that I will likely have access to. Their language is impossible (I'm still trying to figure out the basics of Spanish), but thankfully, 80% of the country speaks English far better than I speak anything else. The weather is abysmal. The bars stay open until 5am. They have an affinity for pickled fish products that I do not quite understand. They like to ride bikes. A lot. And they leave their babies outside. No, really.
I know a bit more. I have books; I've been studying. But all of the studying in the world is not going to make me feel any less anxious. See, I confuse excitement with anxiety. I always have. Particularly when that excitement is about moving a zillion miles from home.
Oh, God. I don't even have a passport.
October 4, 2008
September 19, 2008
The Internets
I can't believe I ever lived without the Internet.
I remember the first day I heard of this thing, this World Wide Web. It was 11th grade, English. Mr--oh, excuse me--Dr Eliason's class. (I didn't care for the man. He told me I was a Republican because I thought -- and still do -- that Henry David Thoreau was an ass.)
But, Eliason exposed us to the Internet. (Or, if you're our president, the "Internets.") This was 1994, the infancy of mass, public web usage. I was, suitably, impressed. This was something that made (or would make) every other reference obsolete! Door-to-door encyclopedia salesman committed mass suicide. I would never have to go to the library again!
Well, naturally, that was overstating the facts a bit. I didn't even register an email account until I was in my twenties. My early college work was done on a dos-based word processor, and I did, indeed many times over, have to go to the library.
But today, all of that is like a bad acid trip. Today, I amuse myself for hours--days!--at the keyboard. There is nothing I can't know! Or, more often, there is no tiny lull in the real world that I cannot fill with cyberamusement. Is there a better way to spend 15 minutes than by watching European commercials on YouTube?
But when, inevitably, there is something I can't discover about the world via the wire in the wall (or the phone in my pocket), my brain waves begin to stutter. Much as city-dwellers have lost the ability to care for themselves without 24-hour drugstores and Starbucks, I have, apparently, lost the ability to think for myself.
As evidence, I submit to you a list of things I've recently had the impulse to Google:
What kind of present does Ken want for his birthday?
Recipe for my (dead) mother's spaghetti.
Name of the town my grandmother was born in.
Picture of the house we lived in when I was seven.
List of the music studied in my Into to World Music class circa 1996.
The name of a plant I have a picture of.
The last chapter of a book I forgot to bring to work with me.
What I need to buy at the grocery store.
Can I find, in a round-about way, the answers to some of these questions by typing queries into a search engine? Maybe. I could probably find a forum to post the plant picture, and wait a week. Or scan random plant pictures until I die of dehydration. I might be able to find my grandmother's family--for a small fee. I can certainly get ideas for presents, but the point is, I have to actually use my own powers of deduction to find suitable gifts. What kind of guy is Ken? What does Ken like? On that, I am afraid, the web is silent.
Alas, the Internet is also silent about the contents of my refrigerator. About my whereabouts at age seven. About my ancient college courses. These are the details of a life that have no quantitative equal.
I suppose, though, we should all be grateful for that. Maybe Thoreau was right all along. Asshole.
I remember the first day I heard of this thing, this World Wide Web. It was 11th grade, English. Mr--oh, excuse me--Dr Eliason's class. (I didn't care for the man. He told me I was a Republican because I thought -- and still do -- that Henry David Thoreau was an ass.)
But, Eliason exposed us to the Internet. (Or, if you're our president, the "Internets.") This was 1994, the infancy of mass, public web usage. I was, suitably, impressed. This was something that made (or would make) every other reference obsolete! Door-to-door encyclopedia salesman committed mass suicide. I would never have to go to the library again!
Well, naturally, that was overstating the facts a bit. I didn't even register an email account until I was in my twenties. My early college work was done on a dos-based word processor, and I did, indeed many times over, have to go to the library.
But today, all of that is like a bad acid trip. Today, I amuse myself for hours--days!--at the keyboard. There is nothing I can't know! Or, more often, there is no tiny lull in the real world that I cannot fill with cyberamusement. Is there a better way to spend 15 minutes than by watching European commercials on YouTube?
But when, inevitably, there is something I can't discover about the world via the wire in the wall (or the phone in my pocket), my brain waves begin to stutter. Much as city-dwellers have lost the ability to care for themselves without 24-hour drugstores and Starbucks, I have, apparently, lost the ability to think for myself.
As evidence, I submit to you a list of things I've recently had the impulse to Google:
What kind of present does Ken want for his birthday?
Recipe for my (dead) mother's spaghetti.
Name of the town my grandmother was born in.
Picture of the house we lived in when I was seven.
List of the music studied in my Into to World Music class circa 1996.
The name of a plant I have a picture of.
The last chapter of a book I forgot to bring to work with me.
What I need to buy at the grocery store.
Can I find, in a round-about way, the answers to some of these questions by typing queries into a search engine? Maybe. I could probably find a forum to post the plant picture, and wait a week. Or scan random plant pictures until I die of dehydration. I might be able to find my grandmother's family--for a small fee. I can certainly get ideas for presents, but the point is, I have to actually use my own powers of deduction to find suitable gifts. What kind of guy is Ken? What does Ken like? On that, I am afraid, the web is silent.
Alas, the Internet is also silent about the contents of my refrigerator. About my whereabouts at age seven. About my ancient college courses. These are the details of a life that have no quantitative equal.
I suppose, though, we should all be grateful for that. Maybe Thoreau was right all along. Asshole.
September 17, 2008
From the Back Lines
So, I have this great effing job.
It's wild, actually. I'm making almost twice the amount of money I was before I finished school. Which, of course, was the whole point. I can wear what I want; I have my own sweet office; I have practically unlimited freedom to come and go--and all I have to do is put out a few medical articles that basically write themselves.
The problem? Well, of course there's a problem. No one who has life so great can ever be content. The problem is that I'm simply never going to give a flying fig about this place. Never. I could work here for twenty years and still feel completely apathetic.
See, my last job--for the little, mom-and-pop-owned newspaper--was a labor of love. I loved the people; I loved the town; I loved the community. I lived for the goofy, Hiaasen-esque stories and characters that would drift in and out of my life. There was constant movement, interaction, joking, work, and... love, actually. There were no doors to close; every bit of news, from the personal to the political, was passionately spread out over the proof table like so much birthday cake, blue chips and garlic salsa.
But I couldn't support myself. I did quadruple duty as a sales rep/copyeditor/layout artist/writer, and there was just no way to make it work.
And now, I'm here. I'm blogging this from my office. There are nine articles waiting to be cranked out--on anything from facelifts to carpal tunnel syndrome--and I'm blogging.
It's an election year. My girlfriend may have to move to Copenhagen. There's a thunderstorm brewing outside. Still, my door is closed.
It's wild, actually. I'm making almost twice the amount of money I was before I finished school. Which, of course, was the whole point. I can wear what I want; I have my own sweet office; I have practically unlimited freedom to come and go--and all I have to do is put out a few medical articles that basically write themselves.
The problem? Well, of course there's a problem. No one who has life so great can ever be content. The problem is that I'm simply never going to give a flying fig about this place. Never. I could work here for twenty years and still feel completely apathetic.
See, my last job--for the little, mom-and-pop-owned newspaper--was a labor of love. I loved the people; I loved the town; I loved the community. I lived for the goofy, Hiaasen-esque stories and characters that would drift in and out of my life. There was constant movement, interaction, joking, work, and... love, actually. There were no doors to close; every bit of news, from the personal to the political, was passionately spread out over the proof table like so much birthday cake, blue chips and garlic salsa.
But I couldn't support myself. I did quadruple duty as a sales rep/copyeditor/layout artist/writer, and there was just no way to make it work.
And now, I'm here. I'm blogging this from my office. There are nine articles waiting to be cranked out--on anything from facelifts to carpal tunnel syndrome--and I'm blogging.
It's an election year. My girlfriend may have to move to Copenhagen. There's a thunderstorm brewing outside. Still, my door is closed.
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