NS January 31st, 2008

Well, it’s official. My parents have booked their flights and will be arriving on March 31st, just in time for TNC’s birthday on the 2nd. I’m very excited as it will have been nearly 11 months since I’ve seen them by the time they arrive. I think that’s the longest we’ve gone without a visit. Before that the record was ten months, I’m pretty sure. Which, all things considered, is not too bad, really. We talk on the phone a couple times a week and do a webcam whenever we get a chance, two to four times a month. There’s also the odd email here and there, and I know they read my blog (and I my mother’s, which she just started) so we keep in touch in numerous ways. But none of these are an adequate substitute for a real, live hug and face-to-face conversation. I’ll be counting down the days with delicious anticipation as I dream of a big bear hug from my father and the sound of his laughter, and the silent looks from my mother that tell me how much she loves me, is proud of me and misses me. And of course, I can’t wait for them to see our new house and their dearly beloved granddaughter.

Being an expat overseas is hard. Very hard. These long absences, while not all that long in the scheme of things, are made even more difficult when you’re in different time zones and on different continents. I know that there are people living on opposite coasts of America who see their relatives just as little or even less than we do but something about being in another country, another culture, makes the differences so much more vast. An ocean between us means we can’t just get in our cars and drive all night if we want to see each other or if an emergency comes up. Flights, passports, airports, visas, immigration, baggage, metal detectors, jet lag, power adapters…these are the things that we have to deal with each and every time we make plans to visit.

But I am thankful for the technology we have, the means we have, to stay in touch and remain close. Without email, IM, cheap long distance, care packages, webcams, websites and transatlantic flights, it would be much, much more difficult. When I think about how life-changing, how truly arduous it must have been for people to expatriate before all of this advanced communication came along — when the only way of keeping in touch was through letters sent by snail mail and that took weeks or months to arrive — I wonder if I would’ve been able to do it. I wonder if I would have never spent that summer abroad in Germany and if I wouldn’t have let myself fall in love with a foreign man. At such a young age, would I have been able to cope with leaving my family behind to start an entirely new and different life with no easy means of keeping those dear to me near to my heart? And if I’d done it anyway, jumped in with both feet, would I be as close to my parents and sister as I am today, or would we only be sending perfunctory birthday cards, Christmas gifts and long, handwritten newsletters once a year?

To move across an ocean, it does take guts, even in this heydey of technology. But back then, to knowingly and painfully move out of your family’s lives…well, that’s  just heartbreaking. Every time I press send on an e-mail or hook up the webcam or pick up the phone, I thank my good fortune that I have both the life I love and the people. I don’t think much else matters.

• Expat Life , Home and Hearth , Squish Squish , Travel
• Comments(5)

NS January 29th, 2008

This was the scene: me, just now, eating crackers on the sofa, watching tv. I see one of those horribly sad NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) adverts that shows abused children cowering in corners, crying. I well up with tears and then begin coughing. This makes me gag and then I start dry heaving. I spill the crackers on the floor and TNC promptly steps on them, turning them into dust. I burst into tears and feel that the world is ending.

Yes, my friends, it’s true. The Noble Savage is pregnant. Please, if you are not currently trying for a child, go to your handbag, bedside table or medicine cabinet and do whatever it is you do to prevent yourself from getting into this state.  Unless you enjoy dry heaving and crying over crackers and commercials, that is.

P.S. — Despite this post, I am actually very pleased and excited, and am due at the end of September.

• Public Service Announcements , The Noble Fetus
• Comments(26)

NS January 25th, 2008

I’ve been tagged by Becky to do this book meme, which I find quite interesting. However, I have to state, for the record, that I am not a book blogger. I don’t read a book every week. I have not read all of the classics or the works that top most book people’s ‘must read’ lists. I am not a book snob in the sense that I will read a bestseller, but only in spite of that accolade, not because of it. That’s my disclaimer and so here we go.

Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?

The Harry Potter series. Something about Potter mania scares me. It’s a book about a boy wizard and his pals at school, from what I gather. What’s all the fuss about? It makes me wonder if some of the people who think this is the best children’s series in a long time didn’t read many interesting books as kids themselves, or use their imagination much. To each their own, but I’m not buying it.

If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?

Estella from Great Expectations, Beth March from Little Women and Sofia from The Color Purple, for a book club discussion of Jane Eyre. I would love to see the different perspectives of the cruel, cold-hearted, rich and lonely Estella; the sickly sweet, selfless and innocent Beth; and the independent, strong, larger-than-life Sofia. I suspect that Estella would root for Mr Rochester, Beth would identify with Jane and Sofia would stand up for the wife in the attic, Mrs Rochester.

(Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realise it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?

If you take the characters from Empire Falls and put them in the setting for Beowulf, that would be a sure ticket into a deep and dark hole of a grave.

Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?

I think that I once intimated that I’d read some Tolstoy when, indeed, I had not. I was dealing with a serious book snob and just wanted him to shut up and stop ‘educating’ me.

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realise when you read a review about it/go to ‘reread’ it that you haven’t? Which book?

I thought I had read The BFG by Roald Dahl but realised I hadn’t when TNH began talking about the characters one day. I can’t think of any others I’ve done this with.

You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (If you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead and personalise the VIP)

The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen, to remind the VIP of how fortunate he or she is to have a bleedin’ Book Advisor when there are people out there dying from the cold and hunger. Part of the beauty of books is discovering them and enjoying them for what they are, not as a status symbol or intellectual notch on the bedpost.

A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?

Chinese. With that many people, China must be producing some great talents.

A mischievious fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?

Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa. It never ceases to amaze me, make me cry and ache right alongside the characters.

I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)?

The thing I’ve discovered about the book blogging community that there are a lot more voracious readers out there than I thought existed. It gives me hope.

That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free.

I wrote a post not long ago about my perfect escapist fantasy and in it I describe my dream library. I’ll paraphrase…

My escapist dream is to go to a log cabin in the woods, high in the mountains, by myself in autumn or early winter. This cabin would contain a few modern amenities and be warm and inviting, but fairly simple. The dark wooden floorboards groaning with age would feel safe and secure yet fragile beneath my bare feet. Handmade quilts and crocheted blankets would drape every soft furnishing and the living areas contain the most comfortable sofas and chairs in the world. Lamps and oil-lit lanterns would be the main sources of light, no overhead flourescent bulbs in sight.

…All around me would be books. Biographies, novels, non-fiction of all sorts…books would cover three of the four walls and I would need one of those sliding ladders to reach the upper shelves. Books with yellowing pages in spines separating from the binding and brand new editions of recent years’ bestsellers…every book I’ve ever wanted to read would appear like a welcome old friend, as if by magic. As soon as a book entered my head, its appearance in the library was immediate. As my appetite for books grew, the shelves and ladder would reach higher and higher until the uppermost stack equaled the mist covered boughs of the mountaintop pines.

I am to tag four people for this meme and so I choose Courtney, Chloe, Sarah and Aimee.

• Memes
• Comments(6)

NS January 24th, 2008

I’ve been reading details of the trial that took place in Greece today of a British man charged with murdering his six-year-old son and attempting to murder his two-year-old daughter when he jumped from a 50ft hotel balcony in Crete with both children in his arms following an argument with his wife in which he discovered she planned to leave him. The boy, Liam, died of severe head injuries and the girl, Mia, survived with only a broken arm. Their father, John Hogan, escaped a prison sentence because the jury found him to be mentally unstable. Mr Hogan has a troubled and tragic family history — his younger brother committed suicide shortly after their father died from multiple sclerosis and then his other brother burned down the house they grew up in before throwing himself off a bridge, also killing himself. He has suffered from depression, anxiety and panic attacks since his teens. Talk about following in the family footsteps.

Mr Hogan has attempted to take his own life no less than four times since the incident, while in custody. He receives near-daily psychological treatment and is on a heavy course of anti-depressants. Now that he has been found mentally unstable, he will spend a year in a psychiatric hospital in Athens but could be released in under a year if his condition improves.

His ex-wife, Natasha, is understandably upset and made a statement in which she said, “This result was somewhat unexpected and has left me feeling that Liam lost his young life for nothing. I accept that an act of complete madness was uncharacteristic of John but to have done this to our children is unforgivable. I know that we all miss Liam, but it is Mia and I who are left to rebuild our lives without a loving, caring son and brother.”

My heart breaks for this family — all of them. I truly don’t think that justice could’ve ever been served here. No punishment will ever be enough to heal the wounds they all bear or to bring their innocent little boy back. A moment of unfortunate insanity from a deeply disturbed, mentally ill man has changed them all forever. I know the need for justice, the need for revenge, is strong. What this man did was wrong, not just on a legal level but a primal one. Infanticide is a frightening, horrible thing and something not many of us will ever be able to understand. Parents particularly are effected. The thought of your spouse murdering your child, the child you created, nurtured and loved….well, it’s not something we ever, ever want to think about. The anger, betrayal and hurt must go deeper than a thousand layers and a thousand years of sediment and ash in a red-hot volcano. Emotions so close to the surface are bound to erupt.

I am not excusing Mr Hogan’s actions, nor do I begrudge his ex-wife her feelings of indignation at his sentence. But all too often, and for far too long, we have condemned the mentally ill when we don’t truly understand the diseases that haunt them. I’m lucky enough to have not suffered from anything more than mild depression and one isolated panic attack in my life. I have no idea what it’s like to feel so dark and alone that death is preferable to taking another breath. For that, I am grateful. But for all of our sneering and jeering at ‘crazy people’, including  celebrities whose problems are being played out on the world stage (like Britney Spears), I hope we can muster enough humanity to reach out a helping hand instead of slapping cuffs and labels on those who reach out to us. Even those who don’t.

• Health and Fitness , In The News
• Comments(2)

NS January 23rd, 2008

Seen on Feministing

Nice, eh? Nothing like a little hand-drawn gender stereotyping and thinly-veiled sexism to get the ol’ feminist fires going. Bets are 5:1 that the cartoonist told people who complained to ‘lighten up’ and ‘take a joke’. Hardy fucking har.

That does remind me though, about some good lightbulb-type jokes I read the other day which made me chuckle. Wanna hear?

Q: How many anti-feminists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: 51. One to change the light bulb, and fifty to bitch that if it wasn’t for those damned feminazis, it wouldn’t be dark in the first place.

* * *

Q: How many anti-feminist men does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Why is it always men who have to change the light bulb? Why are men always women’s slaves? This is just another example of the anti-male attitudes pervading society!

* * *

Q: How many anti-feminist men does it take to change a light bulb?

A: One antifeminist man to do it, and three other antifeminists to stand around and discuss how this just shows men are better equipped for light-bulb changing.

* * *

Q: How many anti-feminist men does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Just one. He holds on to the bulb and waits for the world to revolve around his needs.

* * *

And finally, one for the anti-feminists:

Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Four. One to change the bulb, and three to write about how the bulb is exploiting the socket.

I included the last one because I thought it was pretty darn funny. See, us feminazis can laugh at ourselves! I guess we’re usually just too busy trying to claw our way out of second class citizen status to look for the humour in things which degrade us. But that’s women for ya, right? So emotional and silly.

I’m going to go weep into a lace hankie now.

• Feminist Fury , In The News
• Comments(9)