My favorite holiday of all...

is Halloween (maybe because it is the least "holy" of all). And I have been preparing for this one since last year. I decided then that I would throw a party here in Antwerp regardless of whether people even know what Halloween is. So I went to the after-Halloween sales and bought spiders and webs, napkins and plates, etc. I wasn't sure what I would be able to get here in Antwerp. I wish now I would have bought even more. But then we were in the midst of a move and the last thing we wanted was even more stuff to bring along.

With the house not finished I thought for a moment to postpone the "First Annual Fulton Halloween Party" until next year, but then I thought, what the hell. Just do it. The nice thing about this holiday is that things you don't want people to see are easily covered with sheets and fake bugs and spiderwebs etc. So we sent the invite last week and we are getting ready!

We drove to Holland on a quest for costumes. I will not yet give away who we will be but I will post pictures later of course. I don't think we will be very known here, but no matter. Robert and I are excited. Evelina picked out her own costume and I hope she will still be excited about it come Friday. I have been thinking of recipes and I hope that I will manage. I still have to transfer the Haunted House music I bought last year to the ipod so that our house will sound creepy and grisly. But the spiderwebs are already on the door and there are bats stuck to our windows and some huge spiders dangling from the ceiling in the kitchen.

I have to say, this is the first time that I miss Austin. Although I am excited to throw a party here for both new and old friends, some of whom are thoroughly excited to have a Halloween party to go to, and others who have no idea what to expect (my Korean friends) I miss seeing all the front porches in Austin lit up and pumpkins everywhere. Robert bought two pumpkins at the market this week, because he knows how much I love them and so that he can carve them with Evelina. We could have probably bought a whole patch in the US with what these cost here! Because decorating for Halloween is so new here, the prices for the decorations are ridiculous. This is urging me to be creative and I will be making lots of things myself. And as I was in the grocery store this weekend, for the first time I missed the HEB near my (previous!) Austin house. I knew where everything was and I know that I what I am looking for they would have. Not so here... no tiny marshmallows that I can turn into eyeballs, and no pumpkin to make pie. But I am determined and for some things I will head over to the American store... it is only Halloween once a year!

Thank goodness that finally, finally our oven is connected! Yes, it took since the installation of the kitchen in July to get our ovens connected. I have been without an oven since I left Austin in January!!!! All this because the Dutch installers did not want to hook it up to the Belgian plug and the Belgian electrician did not want to change it. I stopped being nice and patient this past week and I have an oven now! There was not much EU in all of this, lemme tell ya. Anyway, right in time to be baking goodies. It took leaving the US for me to consult MarthaSteward.com. Let's see how I do. (I promise I will be honest in my field report.)

Supposedly the painter is starting up this week. We'll see. If he does, and if the carpenter sticks to his promise of coming in November then we might actually be out of all boxes before Christmas. What a present that would be!

Anyway, I hope all of you are looking forward to Hallow's Eve, and I hope you all have a party to go to or to give. We're looking forward to ours. Wish you all could be here. Boooooooooooooooooo.

Much love from Antwerp.

Kermis, London, and Fall Foliage

It is only 10 pm yet I am tired. And I have no real plan or lay out in my head of what I want to communicate to you my blog readers, except that I want to post some photographs. I will try to stay away from rambling (a real threat when writing in this near-zombie state.) So what are some of the latest news-flashes from the Fultons living in Antwerp (some of which will be illustrated)?

Evelina had her second "kermis" in Belgium. This summer we took her to the big one here in Antwerp. Kermis, I suppose is comparable to the state-fair in the U.S.A. Although I realized that in all my time in Texas, I never went to one. Is that for the better or not, those of you who have been, let me know! This one recently took place in Hasselt, where my parents live. She is a pro now and is very good at fishing for duckies and shooting the water gun. She collected more stuffed animals at the Hasselt Kermis than in Antwerp. Phew... And she was introduced (by my parents) to the delicacies that come with Kermis, "smoutebollen" (i.e. fried dough-balls loaded with powered sugar.) The little finger in the picture of them is, needless to say, Evelina's.













Then, Robert and I took off for a weekend and went to London. We are still testing the proximity of exciting places in relationship to our front door. In about 5-10 minutes we walk from our front door to the station, where we catch a train to either Antwerp Centraal or Brussels to then hop on the next train to, previously Paris, now London. Total travel time = a few hours. Although I must add that the trip to Paris is much more pleasurably than the one to London. Really guys, you Brits, just let go of the ol' continent-hang ups and join the EU. It would make life easier for all of us, on and off the continent. Going to London, although not far, is cumbersome. Anyway ... Reason for this visit was an exhibition at the British Museum on Hadrain. I have no energy right now to really get into the effects of this exhibition on me. For this was more than simply seeing stuff one likes considering it was the first true contact (whether through the objects themselves or me reading about them) with Roman art (and in particular the period I am working on) since leaving the US. Going to see this meant something and stirred up some "stuff." But as I said, I will leave the ponderings on that for later. Anyway, there was of course much more at the BM than this particular exhibition and I finally saw, after looking at pictures over and over, reading and reading about them, and studying and writing on them for one of my doctoral exams, the Parthenon Marbles. A very weird feeling indeed, I must admit, to see them finally in the "flesh" and in London of all places.
I have many thoughts on London actually, the sharing of which I am now too tired for. But I will share just a few more photographs now. I was not very inspired to take pictures there, that should give one a clue of what my first (yes, I had never "really" been, only once before for a few hours during a lay over) impressions are. We will go back for certain. If not only because I still have sooo much art to see there -- didn't even make it to the National Gallery or the Portrait Gallery, and I would like to try the Tate when it isn't super crowded (is that possible?). In addition, one of my very favorite Van Eyck's (the Arnolfini Wedding Portrait) was off the wall at the BM getting ready to be used in an upcoming exhibition! RATS! Gotta go back soon. Luckily it is not too far. Cumbersome and expensive as hell yes, but not far. Anyway, some more shots.















































































Fall here has been stunning. Who said the weather in Belgium sucks? We have been enjoying it. And so has Evelina. Here are fall pictures of recent. She is rally into spotting mushrooms and was delighted to find a "spotted" one just like the ones the Smurfs live in. So we all admired it (amidst repeated don't touch-cries from our part)



















































And last but not least, the house update. Did you think just because I haven't mentioned it of late that it is all done? Oh no. But we are making progress! There is still one floor we do not use but for storage of boxes that still need unpacking. The unpacking cannot happen yet because we don't have furniture yet, or more specifically book shelves. The same WAS true for our bedroom floor. But after a few weekend of work and several trips to the nearest Ikea (yes, Ikea again, soon there will be a post devoted to this wretched store one cannot live without), we are now out of the boxes and all settled in on our floor. I am so happy, there are no words! I am actually writing this now from my "office" where I intend to spend quite some time to come. I will show some pics. Completely finished it is not as we are still waiting on the plumber to install the airconditioner here (see the hideous wires sticking out the wall) and of course still need to fill some of the shelves with books and the walls with more pictures. But the main thing is that the boxes are gone! I guess I should have had "before" pictures too, but I never feel like taking those.











So that is the update for now. As always, more later, and for now greetings from Antwerp with love.

Almost October

Fall has arrived in Antwerp and it is wonderful. We are still able to enjoy an afternoon coffee outside on the square, wearing scarves while soaking up this year’s final rays of sunshine. I see that in Austin it is still in the 90s. I don’t miss it. I haven’t missed it yet.

I have finished both my summer tutoring and my latest teaching course. During the summer I met twice a week with the sons of one of my previous English students. They were 14 and 17 and very driven to learn English better. I got to know and love them, and I learned so much about Korea (sauna-culture and PC rooms and all!) that I want to go visit now. My friendship with their mother will continue during the remainder of their time in Belgium here (another year and a half).

I was happy to be done with the intensive academic course as this was a rather difficult one to keep together. But I said goodbye to my “students” with genuine regret and thanks. They all worked hard and assured me they learned a lot of English from me, but I am not sure if I am not the one who has learned the most. I must honestly admit that not a single seminar in graduate school has caused me to think as much as spending each morning of the week with these people. (And yes, I have had some challenging seminars…)

Here I was every day of the week teaching advanced English to people from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Cameroon, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Italy (not in the picture). Several of them had never before left their country. They are all here to begin a Master program at the University’s Institute of Development Management, to learn advanced skills that they then can either take back to their home country or apply in international policy making. They are all educated people.
The worlds from whence we come could not have been more different.

We discussed (while focusing on the nuances of the English language) democracy, freedom, politics, corruption, globalization, humanitarianism, government, the US elections, sex-tourism in South-Asia (from a male point of view...) and many other issues. I thought I knew what democracy meant, what freedom meant… I know now that I did not, simply because I live with both. You don’t think about you have. Freedom and Democracy mean something very different to those who live without it. We spoke about more trivial subjects as well, like marriage, food, Bill Gates, and Starbucks coffee. Yet with them, no topic was trivial. My ignorance about their world caused me to never feel prepared for the discussions (the grammar and tenses yes, but never on what to expect of the topics…). What seems like a rather trivial question (How did you celebrate your wedding day?) evolved into a discussion of bridal gifts consisting of barrels of crude oil and goats (the DRC) and raised the question whether a bride was then “bought” and therefore became a property (affirmative, according to the woman from Mozambique, providing me with a female point of view on some African customs …). Food? Horsemeat in Belgium, dogmeat in Vietnam, and forest rats in Congo. We found a common ground in Belgium’s sweet pastries that I offered them in the final class.

I brought my cup of “take-away” coffee each morning (finally that trend has made it to Belgium!). With the Italian (she was the odd one out of the group, a white girl from Tirol with experience in policy making at the Austrian parliament) I walked to the coffee bar nearby (where they actually have good coffee) and we discussed the varieties of coffee cultures in Italy, Belgium, and the US. “They make the cappuccino too hot here,” she said, “this way you have to wait too long to drink it and by then the froth has gone to the bottom. In Italy they have that detail down and you can drink it right away.” Ah yes, now that she mentioned it… That did seem indeed trivial in the midst of everything else, but nonetheless interesting to the two of us. She even admitted to me that she briefly halted her personal anti-globalization policy after months of being in Sri Lanka checking on the tsunami-aid organizations, and ate at McDonalds. I never eat at the big MD, I have said before to make a point, but who am I to talk? Starbucks? Only two (incl. the Italian of course) of my students had ever heard of it. Seattle has made it to Indonesia! How then to tackle a reading in the “course-book” on the success of the company and its image in the US? We quickly moved to issues of globalization since the actual existence of a coffee-culture, let alone why SB is so popular in the US, escaped most of them. How can there be time for sipping $4 cups of coffee with fancy names in a country where civil war reigns, where (democratic) dictators change the (democratic) constitutions and try their hardest at preventing the people from getting an education lest they would actually voice their opinions? “I tried coffee,” my student from Cameroon said, “to see what the hype is all about, but I don’t get it.” There were several things about "my" culture they didn't get. Of course not.

They spoke about their countries, the poverty they have lived and seen, and the ways in which their governments deal with issues as well as (in many cases) cause the issues. Yet while we practiced the conditionals and I asked them “What would you do if you won the lottery?” not one of them said to want to leave his or her country. All of them said they would set up local charities and aid-projects. Maybe most of us would mention giving money away in our answer to that hypothetical question (after thinking of the new house, the new car, the new I don’t know what…) but somehow I actually believed all of THEM when they said it.

I too, spoke about my country (actually both of them, but they were barely interested in the United States with the exception of the after effects of the Vietman war in Vietman of course). To them, Belgium was already a place too cold to live in with a weird language and introverted people. Yet they also described it as a country with amazing buildings and too many riches. I tried to teach them about a little something about Belgium and gave them parts to read from “Culture Shock! Belgium” which they appreciated. I told them about the Vlaams Belang, because I thought they had to know. I am not proud of the fact that Antwerp is the country’s most racist city and that the right-wing separatist-racist party has its home here, but I was not going to keep that from them. They wondered how it is possible that Belgium can have such political problems about two languages while in the DRC there are over 400. Apparently they laugh at us over there. (Well yes, but the DRC’s problems are quite a bit larger too.)

For the first time in my life talking about Belgium included addressing colonization, talking about its history with Africa, and the remnants of that most horrid episode of Belgium’s history in Congo. I have been answering foreigners’ questions about “my country” since I first left it in 1987 as an AFS exchange student to Pennsylvania, USA, then later when I lived in Texas, and afterwards in Italy. Never has the conversation been quite like this. Here at the table with me were people who had all their lives heard about the Belgians, followed Belgian politics (Flemish independence is feared in Congo I learned), lived with both the burden as well as opportunities that are the result of dependence upon a western nation. For the first time chocolate and waffles and lace were not part of the conversation.

I learned a lot from these teaching experiences. I of course learned basic facts about all the countries they represented. I also learned that I don’t really like teaching English even though I can (or better, am able to). But mainly I learned how terribly ignorant about the world I am, and about how small mine has been. Most importantly, I learned that it is easy, no matter how different the cultures, to sit at a table together and to talk, to be amazed and to be baffled, to agree and to disagree, to get to know each other and to learn from each other, and to laugh.

At the end of the course my students gave me a beautiful necklace and bracelet handmade in Mozambique. The Koreans wrote me sweet thank you letters when the tutoring was done, treated me to a wonderful meal and gave me gifts from Korea. I will cherish these gifts and these people forever. They taught me more than they realize. Maybe the English they learned from me will open their worlds, they have certainly opened mine.

A new chapter ...

This post was written several weeks ago but never got posted. So here it is (pics to follow):

The guests are gone. Everyone has returned to their normal lives in Chicago and Amarillo. First arrived Rob’s sister and her son, then Rob’s mother, and then later to be here only three full days, came her partner. I hope everyone had a good time, despite minor ailments, being dragged to every church (right Rush!), and the sometimes not so perfect weather (well that is a given when visiting Belgium.) Rachel (Rob’s sister) of course, was not merely here for a family visit but was on a research trip after already having been to England’s main libraries. I refer the interested readers to her blog, as she posted some lengthy ponderings on Belgium. Not the touristy tales one might expect, but musings of someone on a quest to find remnants of the religious devotion that might have been in these environs (a major center of production of Books of Hours) several centuries ago. And yes, something about food too. It is hard to ignore the topic of food when visiting Belgium. Her son (aka as Cousin Rush to Evelina) was a genuine trooper, going to most churches, tours, and museums with her. A big feat for a 12-year old, but then he isn’t a regular kid either. On top of that he was amazing with his little cousin Evelina who now asks about him everyday still. She misses playing and goofing around with him.

Rob’s mom of course, did come to spend time with us and to see the house. She spent a lot of time with Robert and Evelina and that was wonderful. They played, read books, made several daytrips, to Brussels, to Bruges, to the Netherlands, etc. This morning Evelina woke up and asked “Where’s grandma and Dale?” She understands they went on a big airplane to America, but since they very easily (in her mind!) came over a few weeks ago, they ought to be able to show up again today right, to make a puzzle with her? It is confusing for a little kid. She loved having everyone here to play with and now it is back to just mama and papa. Evelina was a trooper too. She visited Brussels, went in the Atomium, showed Belgium’s famous Manneke Pis to everyone, went to Bruges, Veere (in Holland), etc. Unfortunately, I was not able to join them on many of these trips since I was (and still am) teaching in the mornings. But I did see everyone at dinnertime. While it was nice to have everyone here, it is difficult sometimes to combine work and hosting. Robert however, was a wonderful host and drove around, guided, and attended to everyone.

On Saturday morning we dropped off Mom and Dale at the airport and then drove to my parents’ house in Hasselt. There Robert and I took a nap with Evelina. We both woke up from that nap as if we ourselves were jetlagged. We didn’t realize how tired we were until after waking up from that nap. All the months of prepping to get into the house, the move, all the orchestrating of paperwork etc., the various jobs we have done, and then actually having guests and showing off the house and where we are now starting a new life, had obviously left us exhausted. It is as if we, in that one nap, slept it all off. We felt very strange and different after that. Thanks to my parents, who kept Evelina until Sunday evening, we had some time this weekend to catch up with work and be quiet together. We feel as if now, we are for the first time able to truly start living here. That is a weird thought after all these months, I know, but it does feel as such. In addition to that, fall has started. It is probably my favorite season… looking forward to Halloween and Thanksgiving (and yes, my birthday although that day always is accompanied with mixed feelings) and then on towards winter and Christmas. And for the first time in years we will have a real fall in a place that actually has seasons. So we are looking forward to that.

Visiting the great Gatsby

We have a friend named Gatsby. Gatsby lives in an apartment near Montmartre in Paris. He lives there with some humans, but when they are away on vacation, Gatsby enjoys the apartment all by himself. Although he likes the peace of mind (i.e. not being tugged at by a near one year old) he ever so kindly invited Robert and me over for a visit. So we accepted, and took the Thalys to Paris to go see him. While we were there to catch up with Gatsby we took advantage of the beautiful weather to stroll around Paris and reacquaint ourselves with a city we last visited about 5 or 6 years ago in the icy-cold wintery season. It was wonderful. I share some pictures with you all without too many comments. Paris doesn't need comments. The Seine, the markets, Montmartre and Notre Dame, les cafés, les crepes Nutella,le Jardin des Tuilleries, ... none of that needs words.



































































































































Gatsby's apartment was wonderful! We so enjoyed the hospitality. From the 5th floor we had a wonderful view of the Rue Eugene Carriere as well as the rooftops and the sky. On my way back I read a little book written by an Australian about the trials and tribulations of buying her "own piece of Paris" (i.e. an apartment) and I learned that the 4th and 5th floors are the most desirable since you can see both the street and the sky from here. I woke up staring at the rooftops across the street as I do here in Antwerp, in our own bedroom. Upon waking up in Paris, I smiled. That only a rooftop can tell you where you are.














Robert and I accidentally had un café and une noissette at the Deux Moulins, the café where the movie Amelie was shot. We only realized it as we sat down. It is very remarkable to me how a movie, a fictional story with no reference to any reality, can transform a previously existing location into a near-shrine. People walked in just to take photographs, standing cluelessly right in the path of the servers. People stopped outside staring into the building as if the movie was still taking place right inside. So I too took some photographs to share with you all, but they are not any different from the pictures I would take (and have done often ) at any other place. Except the one of the Asians on the street, peering in...





























































This was our first out of town visit since we moved here (no, the trip to Holland doesn't count, that is 15 minutes away...) and we were amazed at the convenience of the train. It took us from Antwerp Central to Paris Nord in about two hours, the time split between one lag from Antwerp to Brussels, and the second from Brussels to Paris. The trip is short enough to be able to make a day-trip. And I think I will try that out sometime... to just go to Paris for the day.

While we were there, our painter here in Antwerp was working on getting a bathroom painted and the kitchen walls prepped for their final color. It was great to be able to away while he was working, and to return to another room (albeit a small one) finished and usable, but there was white dust from sanding the drywall all over the house! I suppose it would have been too perfect otherwise, being in Paris while our house is being worked on and not finding any dirt... so together with my darling mother and her helpful cleaning lady, I cleaned house all Saturday upon our return.

Getting ready for guests! Yesterday Robert's sister, Rachel and her son, Rush arrived from London, and on Sunday Robert's mother arrives. A few days later, her partner, Dale will get here too. Bummer is that I will be working during that time as I start another course tomorrow. This time I am giving a speed course in Academic English to six people (from Congo, Indonesia, Brazil, and Vietnam) who will be starting a Masters in Globalisation and Development at the University's Institute of Development Policy and Management. I am also still tutoring the two Korean high-school students twice a week. I am learning from these experiences but I am also very ready to get back to my own chosen field.

Evelina is so far thrilled that her aunt and cousin are here! She is so fascinated by Rush that I am sure he will be glad to return home after two weeks of being followed around by a 2-year old! She will not know what to do with herself when soon her grandmother will be here too. I promise some pictures!

For now, groetjes from Antwerp with love. I will add one more picture. A self-portrait taken while in Paris. Reflecting.

the dailies

While the electrician is installing light fixtures and the painter is painting the parent-bathroom, I will quickly post some pictures from the last few weeks. Picnics, a day at the beach, and visiting Antwerp's large en plein air sculpture garden, with Evelina. For a variety of reasons we have decided to keep Evelina at home with us, full-time. She is not upset about not having to go to day care anymore. In November she will start attending kindergarden. Time has flown by, she is growing up so damn fast that we want to have her with us for a few months before she is off to "school" with schedules etc. So, we do stuff with her around the house and out. She loves helping in the kitchen (never mind that everything takes twice as long). With her papa she has taken up doing puzzles. His mother tells me that as a 3 year old he could sit with his puzzles for hours. Evelina puts a 75-piece floor together in a few minutes and exclaims it was not difficult. So give her a few more months and she might do the same.























We also went to the beach for a day. Evelina had been reading some stories about the beach and wanted to see for herself (again, as she did not seem to remember that we had gone before... strange for a kid who talks about her pre-18 month daycare care-givers still and knows exactly which objects in the house came with us from Austin and which ones did not -- and I don't mean big things like furniture but plastic storage containers and the like...) The Belgian beach is well, a bit blah. It was crowded and we saw way too many pink people in tiny bathingsuits than Robert and I care for, but Evelina had a good time. So, we might do it again, but hit another and nicer spot on the coast next time.















Apart from trying to get work done in the house we have also started adding some green to its exterior. My mother made us planters with lavender for the front of the house, which now Evelina needs to water (whenever it doesn't rain -- she's only had to do it twice!) and Evelina and I planted some plants for the back. We still have to finish this projects as we have more plants than pots, but we hope to finish this by next week. We don't have much outside space behind the house but what we have we cherish and we have big plans for. It is amazing what a little bit of green and some flowering plants can do to one's state of mind. Evelina was very patient and helpful as she had had much practice planting flowers at Moeke's house. We even planted a little Texas-garden with cacti. Seeing the flowers at the front and back of the house is one of those little things in life that thoroughly makes me happy inside.

Hope you enjoyed the pics. More to come!

Ravelling is the loss of aggregates...

I am reading about asphalt, computational fluid dynamics, and bio-fuel. Among other topics. I am back at work. Editing. Not exactly what I have spent all these years in gradschool for but it is work at the moment. The language institute wants me, the museums here seem not to. So this is what I do, as it pays and I can do it at home in whichever room I want to and whenever I want to, as long as I make the deadline. So far, I always have. I could argue that I am learning new things... but to be honest I don't really care one computational parametric bit about this stuff. Although I of course hope that the asphalt on which I drive is strong and doesn't tear or ravel beneath my tires and I hope to God that the bio-fuel produced from waste will take the place of Bush's oil, but still I don't really care. The point is that all these professors and engineers and scientists cannot (some not for the life of them) write decently in English. So I get to fix it and rewrite it and make sure an English-speaking/reading audience will not raise too many eyebrows at the Dutch-isms in the texts. I get to do the eyebrow-raising, the difference is that I do know where the Denglish is coming from, and mostly I actually know what they really want to say in English (and when I am not sure, they inadvertently end up saying what I think they wanted to say...)

Since I am not too interested in the actual topics I try to get interested in the Denglish and I feel that I now would be prepared to teach a course on it. And by the sound of it, they (the University's Language Institute) is actually planning to do so and are thinking about asking me to teach it. The point of the course would be of course, to teach these academics how NOT to use the Denglish, and how to take the D(utch) out of it. Should be an interesting experience?

Other than the varying forms of Denglish I AM however learning quite some new (to me) vocabulary and terminology. I am just not so sure, given that the topics don't really strike me as of vital importance in my life, when I will ever be able to use the new stuff like turbulent flow, laser ablation, and biosurfactants. Oh well. We can never know, right. Once in a while a line strikes me, like "ravelling is the loss of aggregates." Now what could be more true than that! In the past few months I myself seem to have lost some aggregates and am feeling a bit "ravelled" or is it "unravelled?" Can I feel both? (And interestingly enough, going back to the Denglish, this is actually an English word derived from the Dutch). Enough of the babble. I might be boring you, my reader.

Or am I? And should I care? This is MY blog, isn't it? And why are you reading it anyway? Who is my audience and what does it want? To check in and see that we are all fine? To see whether the house is moving along or still in chaos? Now that this blog is "open" and available without log-in, I no longer have a readers-list. By making it easier to all of you (who are you?) I have made it a black hole for myself. But as one of my friends and readers (!) said, "I completely understand your conundrum regarding public/private blogs. However, from MY standpoint as an interested observer, I don't need another username and password in my life, so I'm game for keeping it public." And well, she is right of course!

I used to think that whoever REALLY wanted to read this blog, wouldn't mind logging in, and it would keep all the others out. Now that mine is open, I have done a little bit of browsing myself into other people's blogs and the hesitation I used to have about being out in the open has slightly vanished. Mainly because, honestly, I find that I myself am not that interested in other blogs anyway (exceptions are those in my list) and certainly not those written by people I have never even heard of. I can barely find the time to write my own, or read the musings of the blogs listed, let alone get engrossed in the blog-lives of others. So why would anyone be interested in mine? That allows me to sleep for the moment. Yet maybe not for long...as I can think of quite some people of whom I feel that they have absolutely no business at all peering into the snippet of my life I reveal inhere. (Okay, now that I think of that, I might lock it up again! Ha.)

Blog-life. Blog-self. That is all it is, isn't it? I asked my sister-in-law (the fencing bear) whether she doesn't make herself feel too vulnerable or naked after writing her often insightful but (seemingly) very personal and diary-like posts (see previous post). She answered that it isn't her but fencing-bear writing. The alter ego thus, or who and what she would like to be? And yet,don't we all do that, whether we call it something or not? Isn't this what this is about? A modern and convenient "good-letter-home" without a stamp and with the world as our mailing address. Whoever picks up the envelope can read the letter within. A wishful self-image? Or a carefully selected amalgamate of specific parts (Ha! aggregates) of who we are in truth. Yes, I think so. And that is fine. Look at www.willworkforplay.blogspot.com and who do YOU see? A sprightly, canine-loving woman who is into acrobatics and living life to the fullest, wearing perfume while inverted atop a horse? Yes. But she is much more than that. This is who she chooses to be, right now, for the world. I am fine with that. Brassai is still on my mind. Maybe he would have liked blogs -- the appearance of the truth, but in fact, all merely staged. But I still manage to let you all know my story, and that of the house with us in it. Even with the loss of aggregates.

From Antwerp with love.