March's Links to Love

Artsy:

Simple cutesy John Klassen cards.

A wonderful tiny apartment.

Linen wedding flowers.

What do you think about floor-to-ceiling windows? This is certainly a to-die-for use of them.

So I know this is a little girl's birthday party, but I really like the piñata her mom made.

Blue, white, black, brown interior. Wow. So peaceful.

Oh my beautiful liberty of london! I've been looking for a springy scarf. I love these floral patterns that are in right now.

Different photos of the same hill. Dreamy idea of Paul Octavious.

City, water, night.

Darling material.

Brilliant tablecloth idea. I'd choose something other than butterflies, though. Maybe stars? Maybe "Happy birthday"? Maybe "I love you"?


Literary:

Should everybody write? I was recently told by an older German that all Americans want to write a book. Hmmm.

Walking in an author's digital footsteps (awesome!).

Harriet the Spy turned blog wars.

How much money famous writers would be making by today's standards.

The intellectual girl's survival kit.

Alternative Russian classics (the eyes of that last guy are really creepy, no?).

The insides of David Foster Wallace's books.


Technology:

Reasons why Twitter might die. Will we laugh at this in 10-15 years, like I laugh at this 1995 internet piece?

Digital remains. I've often wondered what will happen to all the files I leave behind.

Google Buzz controls. What are you guys thinking of Buzz? I'm not sure where I stand yet.


Mormon:

The Church as a social network.


Random:

Ha ha ha. Online shopping in the U.K.

Crayola rockets.

Terminator asteroids are a reality.

Nifty fußball tables! Which do you like the best? I think I like the good vs. evil one the best. Or the coffee table (but it's kind of short to really get into, but maybe that's good for short people like me who can't always see over the edge . . . ). Double use!

How to make thin mints.

If you had 2000 descendants at the time of your death, where would the funeral be? And how sweet is the name Yitta?

Though I'm not the biggest coconut fan, just the picture of these cookies makes me want to try making them. And I looooove passion fruit.

Hilarious maps.

IKEA Heights: a series secretly filmed in IKEA!

Breathable chocolate might be my cure (or my end).

For all you list-makers out there.

Beautiful bride, hilarious Freudian slip:



Heavy Heart by Jeffrey Lewis:

Unbelievably Bad Luck

I've never seen such bad luck at Rummikub. Poor Stefan.



As I predicted, Stefan had one turn, there was one tile left, and Markus won because he got to go after Stefan when all the numbers were finally available.

Michelle? A Giveaway?

I bet a lot of you have read the story "The Yellow Wallpaper." If not, you definitely should read it (you can find it online here). If so, I bet most of you haven't read other stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. So, as an apology for not posting very interesting things very often, and as a way to get a lucky person to read more of Gilman's works, I'm giving away this book:





There are three requirements:

• Comment by Friday, March 26th.
• In your comment, tell me who your favorite feminist or female writer is.
• After you have read the book, pass it along to someone else!

Crazy Michelle's Apartment

Wow. Sorry it's been so long. Things have been racing madly on in this thing called life. I have no idea how I used to work 40+ hours a week. I'm finding it really tough this time around.

Anyway, so here's a story for you. I've been longing to have a place to make nice and my own for a long while now. I feel like I now know what nesting is. (Though I have no reason to nest.) I've wanted to get white curtains for forever now because that orangey glow in the morning just wasn't doing it for me. But I'm too much of a cheapskate. So I tried bleaching them. Yeah, that didn't work. Then, while I was at Aldi one day, I saw a shower curtain. Yeah. A shower curtain. And at first I thought, "That would be great for my someday-apartment." And then I thought, "Actually, that just might work for a curtain!" It was cheap. I bought it but didn't put it up.

Also, at IKEA with Jenny and Seppl, I found some really awesome material and Jenny and I made plans to make a new cover for my couch.



But I started out by looking for a new couch because I absolutely hate mine and if you sit on it, the cushions slide forward, which kind of defeats the purpose of a couch. On the Leipzig version of Craigslist (Das Schwarze Brett), I found a lot of couches, but they were all really ugly in my opinion. I knew exactly what I wanted--the white IKEA Hagalund sofabed (because I could then still have a place for guests to sleep)--so that made it difficult.

In February, I was getting really antsy in my apartment and I randomly looked at apartments while I was looking at couches. I saw one that was going to be available soon in my neighborhood (actually in the same street as Jenny and Seppl) and ended up emailing the current resident and going to visit. I took Seppl with me because I figure he knows about things like that. I actually really didn't expect anything of the visit. But I immediately fell in love with the apartment. It was cozy. Biana, the woman who lived there, had put in a antique-looking parquet floor with a crisscrossing pattern. She'd also pulled off that awful wallpaper that is everywhere in Germany and painted the walls lovely shades of beige and grey. There was a balcony that connected to the kitchen but that had a ceiling so it would be protected in the rain and from there you saw a huge backyard of a lot of apartment buildings--lots of green trees and such. And two windows looked out onto the balcony--the bathroom and the bedroom. The bathroom window was a large, happy looking window that would be perfect for star-gazing from the warm bath. Of course, I would put up a curtain for showering and such.

But I wasn't ready to make a commitment. First of all, the apartment was reasonably priced, but I'd have to find a roommate. And I'd also be paying a good 80 Euros more per month than in my apartment. I debated and debated and considered potential roommates. Two friends were against it and two friends/family members were for it, saying it would be good for my soul and I needed a change, etc. As soon as I finally decided to go for it, I emailed Bianca and found out that a couple had taken the apartment the day before.

Boohoo. I moped. Then I bought a rug on Schwarzes Brett that would go perfectly with the material I'd bought with Jenny. I also started looking at lots of other apartments and didn't really like any of them. One apartment didn't really have flooring, there were steps leading up to the shower and about a foot between the shower and the wall, meaning you'd have to squeeze through to get to the toilet, and only a heater you'd have to find wood for. Oh, and the lady was completely mystical and closed the door three times after I said I wanted to go. There was one apartment that was really nice, but the balcony was off one of the rooms, meaning a roommate and I couldn't share it that well.

There was one more apartment on my list and then I was going to look more casually as time went by. And then, something crazy happened. I had the best day I've had in a looooong time. I just woke up feeling great. And I'd never seen such beautiful weather in February! And even though something completely Amy Lawson-ish happened, I was simply glad to be alive. And it was on this day that Herr Henschel wrote me back and arranged for me to come see the apartment.

I looked at the bathroom and loved the roominess and flooring and the light and the tub and the mirror.



I liked the parquet flooring, though it wasn't as antique-looking. The room was high enough for my bunk bed (I brought a measuring tape with me) and the doors were nice. It was also great that the two rooms were the exact same size. Ideal for a roommate.






The kitchen was okay, and he told me they were planning on building a balcony in the coming months.



The tram stop was right in front of the apartment building, so it could get a bit loud if the window were open, but that didn't concern me too much. I told him I couldn't think of any reason not to take the apartment, but I should still think about it probably.

Then, we went in the backyard. Wow. It was huge. And green. And it lead down to the Elster river, where there was a dock and a tree swing. Oh man. Can it get any better?

I told him I'd take it and spent the afternoon at Cospudener Lake (my very first time). In February (I know, right?).

But the next two weeks, I doubted.

Herr Henschel noticed. Probably because I asked him if I could move in a month later than I said. He called me and said he couldn't hold the apartment for forever, which I understand. But there is just so much uncertainty in my life. I'm hardly home anyway, I'd have to find a roommate which wouldn't necessarily solve my desire to have a quieter home, my job is still in the trial phase, who knows if I'll be moving away from Leipzig later this year, etc. And the reason that will make you shake your head: I found the most fabulous kitchen (you have to bring your own kitchen with you in Germany--and finding this one was hard, because most German furniture is really ugly). You can get an idea of what the fabulous Värde kitchen looked like here. But the problem was, it didn't work with the kitchen (the room).

Every day I made a different decision. The girl sold the kitchen to someone else for more money than I would have given. Then I realized that I could make my room a little more mine and that due to friends, the issue of having roommates (though very nice) was becoming more managable to me. So I canceled. And I didn't even get an answer from Herr Henschel. And I thought a lot about how great it would have been to go canoeing every summer evening from my backyard. Sigh.

But, something crazy happened again. I found my couch. And I bought it.

And so I implemented (implemented? I think I've been writing too many business documents) the couch, the rug, and the shower curtain. The result makes me very, very happy. It is lighter and more stylish and I can sit on the couch.




Compare with the old interior design here.


Now I'm just wondering if I'll ever make the couch cover because it might be a little much with the rug . . . what do you think?

Passages from Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude

I love the flow of novels that have been translated from Spanish into English. And I love the repeating familial patterns and feisty women and myths.

Here are only a few passages I like. You should read the whole book.

José Arcadio felt himself lifted up into the air toward a state of seraphic inspiration, where his heart burst forth with an outpouring of tender obscenities that entered the girl through her ears and came out of her mouth translated into her language. It was Thursday. (34)

The house became full of love. Aureliano expressed it in poetry that had no beginning or end. He would write it on the harsh pieces of parchment that Melquíades gave him, on the bathroom walls, on the skin of his arms, and in all of it Remedios would appear transfigured: Remedios in the soporific air of two in the afternoon, Remedios in the soft breath of the roses, Remedios in the water-clock secrets of the moths, Remedios in the steaming morning bread, Remedios everywhere and Remedios forever. (68)

Only he knew at that time that his confused heart was condemned to uncertainty forever. (167)

It was then that he decided that no human being, not even Úrsula, could come closer to him than ten feet. In the center of the chalk circle that his aides would draw wherever he stopped, and which only he could enter, he would decide with brief orders that had no appeal the fate of the world. (169)

"You can't come in, colonel," she told him. "You may be in command of your war, but I'm in command of my house." (169)

He was bothered by the people who cheered him in neighboring villages, and he imagined that they were the same cheers they gav e the enemy. Everywhere he met adolescents who looked at him with his own eyes, who spoke to him with his own voice, who greeted him with the same mistrust with which he greeted them, and who said they were his sons. He felt scattered about, multiplied, and more solitary than ever . . . "The best friend a person has," he would say at that time, "is one who has just died." He was weary of the uncertainty, of the vicious circle of that eternal war that always found him in the same place, but always older, always wearier, even more int he position of not knowing why, or how, or even when. There was always someone outside of the chalk circle. Someone who needed money, someone who had a son with whopping couch, or someone who wanted to go off and sleep forever because he could not stand the shi* taste of the war in his mouth and who, nevertheless, stood at attention to inform him: "Everything normal, colonel." And normality was precisely the most fearful part of that infinite war: nothing ever happened. (171)

"They're important papers," she said. "Nothing of the sort," the colonel said. "They're things that a person writes to himself." "In that case," she said, "you burn them, colonel." (179)

Silence

It is in the interludes between being in company that we talk to ourselves. In the silence we listen to ourselves. Then we ask questions of ourselves. We describe ourselves to ourselves, and in the quietude we may even hear the voice of God.

-Maya Angelou, Even the Stars Look Lonesome, 145

10 Reasons Why I Like My Job

1. There are two dogs who come to work with my coworkers, so it's kind of like having two pets without having to buy the food and wash them and walk them and clean up poop. (Although I kind of dream of bringing my some-day Bernese Mountain Dog to work with me.)
   
2. The company provides fresh fruit every day.
3. There's a Fußball table in the conference room (I won 3 out of 3 times yesterday).
4. The atmosphere is casual.
5. The layout, design, and furniture of the company is really cool.
6. mellowmessage is centrally located and I can ride my bike 8-10 minutes through the park to get to work or take the tram for 10 minutes and walk for 3.
   
7. I get to use my computer skills.
8. I have nice coworkers.
9. Everybody else likes technology as much as I do--we Skype each other regardless of how close or far away someone is.
   
10. There's a beach volleyball tournament every year and those who participate practice once a week for months.
    

Mellow in Sächsisch

Okay, so this is probably only funny for people who know German and have a personal link to Saxony (or who like to make fun of Sächsisch), but here's the website of my company, in Saxon-German. Hilarious.

Was gönn' wir für Sie dun?

Oh, and yes. I have a full-time job and a work visa. :)