Sustained Criticism

We buried my great-grandmother today. She lived to be 98, and the last few years she has been caged and waiting for death in a home. The service was beautiful. As Margaret spoke of how she remembered her grandparents, I thought about how I remember them. I remember a small apartment full to bursting of books, plants, chinese trinkets, a piano, two birds, candy and stories. Stories, always stories. About Tao Fong Shan and Hong Kong, the war and pranks. When we crossed the threshold we entered another world: a fantasy realm of dull lights, fantastic lacquer boxes, hard couches, ancient tomes and a wise queen, stories always at the ready.

The other part of the family does: speeches always end in loud discussions of details, people hitting each other over the head with what is readily available. I somehow managed to get stuck on a table without a single interesting relative nearby. Between eating and drinking I got very good at parrying monologues about children and grandchildren. Some of the speeches afterwards were a bit long (aren't they always?) and I managed to contain my urge to comment loudly.

Some of my cousins (at least once removed, thank god) have taken a turn for the worse: one turned up in sweatpants – they were, in her defence, black –, another has long, badly-dyed black hair, the third is obese and my brother and I had a bet going on what sex she was, before Father informed us that it was a she. And they're all more alternative than thou. As I looked at them I'm glad I have come to a point where I can enjoy music without identifying with it. They look ridiculous.

I want to travel! I'm going to Montepellier sometime this summer, and I'm lobbying for a trip to Hong Kong. But I want to go to Rome, New York, Africa, Egypt, Shanghai. Perhaps I'll make that my 20th birthdaygift for myself, a trip somewhere? And I want to create something, but what?

Darling, dress in grey, and a bit of both black and white, red lips (and apropriate make-up) and United Nudes (black or very dark blue-ish) or Irregular Choices (blue-ish, depicted in an earlier post on shoes)? All shoes would be very, er, shall we say, attention-attracting (it seems I have a thing for quirky heels), the question is just which would work best. The black, perhaps?


And exam in Group Psychology December 15th. Happy Christmas, everyone! (Og sov godt, Roger!)


And what on earth possessed the commity to give Gore the Nobel Prize for Peace? His unconvenient truth has been proven faulty, at best, and has nothing, whatsoever, to do with peace. I would by far prefer him as President, but he has done nothing for peace. I'm not sure he has had any effect at all, beyond stating the blatantly obvious.