Are my posts too long?

I am getting traffic from blogexplosion.com recently but either my blog is completely boring or something else keeps YOU from commenting, blogmarking, rating, whatever.

Now I wonder: Are my posts too long?

Because I realize that when you surf upon a blog you don’t know there has to be something on the very first page that grabs your interest so you won’t just keep on surfing.

Should I shut up? Now?

I am just a girl pining for a little attention from the world out there. So, puh-lease. Gimme some.

Current mood: Feeling neglected. Sniff.
Listening to: Nada. Rien. Nichts. Running out of languages I actually can speak.

Do you remember my weekly freezer column?

Yeah, I didn’t think so. As I predicted it was probably the ultimate doomed-to-fail column of all time. I’m still thinking about it every time I open my freezer, so in my heart it’s still life.

Whatever.

I got myself a copy of Judith Hermann’s ‚Sommerhaus, später‘ yesterday. I had heard about her before. I knew the critics loved her. Both her books are collections of short stories. I’m not such a great short story fan. I like them, some I love, but I prefer a novel to a short story. I just do.
Up to now I have read three of her stories and although they are good I’m just not touched. And I want to be touched. I think the best word describing how I feel about her style is the German word ’spröde‘. Here are the three translations my online dictionary suggests:

1) brittle
2) rough
3) demure

Now you go choose the one that fits best describing a style of writing, because I honestly don’t know. (And please tell me which one it is, because I want to learn.)

The style is simple and somewhat distant. The stories are about relationships, everyday things. It’s not even boring, it’s just…

Honestly?

The thought that went through my head while I was reading again and again:
‚I could do that.‘

I’m not overly convinced of my writing abilities. I did write a couple of short stories and altogether three very bad novels when I was between 15 and 18 or so. I still think that about three or four of my short stories aren’t even that bad.
I’m not considering myself a brilliant writer and since I have never had anything published, how could I?

I’m a style-digger. I dig style. I don’t care so much about a story when I love the style. You might never hear my complain about a story, but you may hear me complain about style. I can be deeply in awe of writer’s and thinking ‚I could never have written that.‘ That gets me.
These stories of Judith Hermann I read so far. Not so much.

So, not to give the impression that I’m just a big complainer and really self-convinced I decided to start a new blog and start writing short stories again. I don’t know yet how this blog will look like. I have no plans despite the mere fact that I want to write fiction and put it online.
One minor change (or major maybe) will be that I will write both in German and in English.

These are the plans. I wonder if they are as doomed-to-fail as the Weekly Freezer was. (But maybe the WF is a phoenix. It might rise again from its ashes.)

Current mood: A little bit tense for no special reason.
Listening to: Nothing.

…as in no-more-glasses.

We just came back from the optician and we both are wearing contacts at the moment. It was Pi’s idea to try contacts and somewhere along the road I decided I wanted to try some, too. I already had contacts for some years until a few years ago when I simply was too lazy to get me new ones, but since I never had problems I thought I could try again.

My problem is that I have to remind myself to wear my glasses which is incredibly stupid because I need them. I only don’t realize that I need them because my eyes are so screwed up. Meaning: I have one good eye and one bad eye. I only see in real 3D when I wear glasses but my one good eye is good enough to let me forger to wear my glasses. Which also affects my bad eye in the sense that I just don’t use it enough and so it gets worse. Screwed up.

The strange thing is that the optician measured my sight and decided I would only need one contact after all. So, I’m not even wearing contacts, I’m wearing a contact. Add this to the list of ‚Why I Am So Strange‘, right under ‚I think food is for playing with‘ which I will come back to some day.
We have to go back in about one or two hours to see if the lenses we are wearing right now fit. We’ll see and I’ll get back to you with more ‚I’m even more beautiful now‘-news really soon.

Current mood: Hey, things are clear. I’m actually seeing 3D. There IS a third dimension. (I wish I was kidding.
Listening to: Nothing. (And Pi knocking on the living room wall, indicating that I should come there, too.)

The title is somewhat an exaggeration. Not the fiends part, the friends part.
However, I’m referring to our neighbours.

We live in a house with eight apartments, two on each floor. (We’re on second floor (German p.o.v.) or respectively third floor (American p.o.v.), if you want to know.)
The apartments on ground/first floor are really one apartment because they tore the wall between the apartments down and made it a really huge one (if what we think is right it must have approximately 160 square meters). It has been empty for about one year now and finally people are moving in.

We already call them our new friends because they seem to be exactly what we need in this house which brings me right to fiends part of the title.

We hate our neighbours who live one floor down. They are definitely neighbours from hell in a lot of ways.
We met them for the first time when they knocked on our door to tell us that we must not shower after 10 p.m. Yay! What a way to greet your new neighbours. Did I mention that that was about two weeks after we moved in? Yeah.
They also complained about us hanging our bedsheets out to get some air. Then they told us that we MUST NOT play piano at any time of the day or at least play it quietly. It’s a piano, guys. You can’t just turn it down.
Apart from that it obviously wasn’t enough to just complain about that. They had to get out on the balcony first and hammer against our window with some broomstick. Nice.
The guy also shouted at a kid in the neighbours garden because they accidentally kicked their football over the fence and it landed in our garden.
Oh, I almost forgot that they complained again this summer because I watered my plants too quickly and so a teeny-weeny bit of water leaked on their balcony.

I want to point out that we are really nice people. We do play the piano and I do take showers after 10 p.m. occasionally but that are things you have to deal with when you live together with other people.

So we declared these people our personal enemies and I even stopped greeting them when we meet.

So, the really good thing about the new neighbours is that apparently they have at least one child. And they have access to the garden. So there’s bound to be some kid noise in this house really soon which I can totally deal with, but I’m not so sure our personal enemies can. And the father doesn’t look like he would be intimidated by them at all, which is just so cool I can’t find the right words for it.

I also saw a dog today in the garden but I’m afraid it’s not their dog. I so hope it is. For one thing because I love dogs so much I can gain happiness from the thought that there is one in this house. The other thing is that I’m pretty sure our enemy neighbours won’t like a dog in the house. Yeah, I think you got it. Everything that’s bad for our enemy neighbours is perfect for me. I’m so happy. (I still don’t think the dog belongs to our new neighbours, since I’m convinced that our landlady wouldn’t allow dogs. On the other hand it took them so long to get the apartment rented she might have a agreed to some compromises.)

Well, we’ll see how our new neighbours are and if they are as much a pain in the ass of our enemy neighbours as we hope they are. I keep my fingers crossed.

Apart from that it’s still snowing. Amazingly I might add. The weather forecast said snow would turn into rain during the day but it’s already after 3 p.m. and it hasn’t happened yet. I went out for some shopping and it snowed the whole time. I took my camera to take some pictures but the batteries ran out after two pictures. Meh.

Now I’m off to the couch. I will stuff myself with junkfood and watch TV. Happy me.

Current mood: Relaxed and happy (for very different reasons).
Listening to: Slipped Away by Avril Lavigne.

So, I really, really wanted to run today. Even the weather forecast promised me some kind of warm weather (warm for this season). I still can’t bring myself to run when it’s too cold. I know that it’s supposed to be even better, but I’m not ready for that yet.

Now, how can I run when the world outside looks like this???

Street & Snow

Note: The picture was taken like 10 minutes ago. It’s not so dark out there, the sky is just completely grey and obviously the camera can’t really handle the greyness. It’s also, just fyi, taken from our kitchen window.

Current mood: Overly happy. (Not because of the not-running but because of the snow. SNOW!)
Listening to: Nothing.

Of course I couldn’t wait to show you our great Christmas gift. So here it is.
This isn’t a fantastic picture but it’s as good as I could do at the moment.

They fit perfectly with our bright yellow painted wall and by the way that’s my guitar in the corner.

The pictures

Here’s my brief account of my Christmas days. I won’t go into much detail here since it’s already late and I know myself to know that once I go a little bit into detail I’m already so deep in that it will definitely take me a really long time to finish this post.

Friday

As you might or might not know we celebrate Christmas on the evening of the 24th. As a kid that meant waiting until the evening before you could open your presents, but just so you know, that really isn’t as bad as it sounds. Also, I like the atmosphere when it’s already dark and you feel this tension all day long. And, as should be obvious, I’m used to it, so it seems natural to me that you open your Christmas presents in the evening.
Anyway, as I already wrote in my last post (if I’m not completely wrong) my parents asked us to come over and celebrate at their place and though we considered it we chose not to and be just the two of us for that evening.
You already heard about my Christmas dinner plans as well, only there was a little bit of a change. I didn’t make dessert. We were so full when we had finished the main course that I didn’t want to go into cooking stress again. I’m planning to make it for tomorrow though since a friend of Pi is coming for dinner, so I can finally tell you how it tastes. Just a short comment about the dinner though. The salad with the ‚peppered honey-apples‘ was delicious. Great. I realize I am somewhat of a enthusiastic ‚eater‘. I just love to cook and eat, just because I always want to try out new things and really enjoy new tastes and recipes. My mother doesn’t get me at all with this. Anyway.
So we enjoyed our dinner and then went to opening presents. Pi was allowed to open two of his before, since I got him (or us for that matter) a ‚Dekanter‘ and two enormous red-wine goblets and we needed those for our dinner.
Apart from that I got him a book (‚The Wall‘ by Marlen Haushofer, which is absolutely amazing and you should get it now) and a CD (‚Hang on Little Tomato‘ by Pink Martini). I had some problems finding good presents this year since I missed going to Cologne to get them and the shops here just aren’t that great.
I got only one present, but that was totally cool, since I finally got an MP3-player which I can take with me when I’m going for a run VERY SOON. (That’s more a promise to myself than anything else.)
We then went into couch-TV-mode and watched ‚Scrooged‘ (which I have seen for the very first time and I loved it if only for Bill Murray who I always love) and ‚Unforgettable‘ and then we were off to bed.

Saturday

Saturday I spent the whole morning and early afternoon finishing my aunt’s present. I made her a cookbook with copies from my cooking magazines and some handwritten recipes in between (mostly because I made too little copies to fill the book). It didn’t turn out as great as I had planned but I was satiesfied with the result. Just when I had finished giftwrapping it my parents came by to pick us up.
I won’t write much about our evening at my grandparents. Nothing extraordinary happened there. The food was great as always, we drank a lot and had even more fun. We also got our presents. The coolest was one from my parents. It’s a set of four pictures and I was told that they are screen printings. On each picture is a musician, together they are a jazz band. As I always feel it’s not much use to spend too much words to describe pictures (and music) I will make a picture really soon and post it here. We finally managed to hang the pictures on our living room wall today, so I can tell they look really cool. You’ll see.

Sunday

Not much happened on Sunday. Pi and I took a really long walk after all the celebrating. We really felt we needed some fresh air. On our way back we got batteries for my MP3-player and I tried it out when we got home. It’s really great and I can’t wait to have an opportunity to use which makes sense. (Note: Sitting on the couch and listening to your MP3-Player DOES NOT make sense.)

Then the holidays were over.

I will write more if I find the time and I also might include some childhood Christmas memories that might be even more interesting than recalling this year’s Christmas.

Sad note: We didn’t have a tree. Sniff.

Current mood: Nothing special. Happy so far.
Listening to: Something by Pink Martini. I could find out the name of the track but I won’t.

So, merry christmas everyone.

I suppose that part of you won’t get their presents until tomorrow, but we do celebrate christmas tonight, so I’m all excited and knee-deep in preparations. It’s only going to be Pi and I tonight. My parents asked us if we would like to come over and celebrate with them, but we decided not to. It wasn’t so much a decision against my parents but more because we wanted to have a cozy christmas with just us two.
We’re having dinner at my grandparents tomorrow evening anyway, so we’ll see them then. We’ll also see my aunt Judith, although Claudia (her girlfriend) is not coming. Meh. I’d have loved to see her. But that’s all tomorrow.

About today:

We’re going to have a four course dinner that I put together from my favorite cooking magazine. The courses are:

1. Gorgonzola-Creamcheese-Cream with Sweet Pepper Salad (yeah, I know how it sounds, I’m doing my best to translate that here)

Gorgonzola-Creamcheese-Cream with Sweet Pepper Salad

2. Wintersalad with Peppered Honey-Apples

Wintersalad with Peppered Honey-Apples

3. Roasted Duck with Chestnuts, Cranberries and Grapes (and Croquettes)
(I don’t have a picture for that because we couldn’t find a recipe to match exactly what we wanted, so we made up our own thing from different recipes)

4. Gingerbread-Panna-cotta with Stewed Oranges

Gingerbread-Panna-cotta with Stewed Oranges

Are you hungry now? I hope so.

This morning my last presents arrived. I ordered something from amazon.de in the evening of the 22nd, so I was afraid that it wouldn’t get here on time, but everything is here now.
I also treated myself with the DVD of ‚The Muppets Christmas Carol‘ that I will force Pi to watch with me. Again. And I found all our three christmas CDs, so nothing can destroy my spirit now.
I still have to giftwrap everything and stuff, but even now a kind of relaxed mood has kicked in. I guess it’s coming with the certainty that I’ve got all my presents.

Apart from that I started playing The Sims 2 again, and I built the last four contestants from the Apprentice as well as Donald Trump and his Melania (they live in a different house though). Up to now Donald and Melania are already married, Donald is pursuing a career in politics and Melania in sports.
At the Trumpee’s home, Kevin is married to Kasimir and Sandy is deeply in love with Babsi. I also managed to hook Kelly up to Jen, so if those two get married I won’t get another Sim to control. I will report if something important happens there.

So, since I don’t think I will get to post again today I wish all my blogreaders and their family and friends a very merry christmas! Enjoy it! And count yourself lucky if you get a white christmas. It’s something I’ve been waiting for since approximately 1980.

Current mood: Finally the christmas spirit got me. I caught myself singing tidbits of the Muppet Christmas Carol songs on my way to the grocery store.
Listening to: The End Of A Love Affair by Stina Nordenstam (But I will play some christmas tunes VERY soon)

If I have to listen to ‚Last Christmas‘ one more time then…
I don’t know…
Something really bad will happen.

Please stop it!

If you get a chance to read this. If not, doesn’t matter that much anyway.

I will try to make a copy of ‚High July‘ tomorrow. I also made a compilation of all the supposedly rare Katell Keineg stuff I have hoping there’s something new for you in it. It’s not so rare as in ‚only-I-have-it‘-rare, but more in a ‚I-managed-to-get-that-single-from-Ebay‘-rare.
You’ll see.

So, hopefully I can send the CDs on Monday which will be soon enough for you to get them in Mainz. If the postal service doesn’t fuck up, that is.