Elisabeth

I'm not around much this year because I can't make it (health is a devil ) but I'd have to agree with the guys replying to this post so far. Your blog is one of the things I manage and want to keep track of here and every time I look I wonder if days over there are longer than here I'm in awe of how much you seem to get done.

Let me put it like this: Those guys who think it's crazy are all Germans. That's not to say I would be generally disliking the Germans (thought in some things I am) or have prejudices against them as such (admitting that I do not like some things about them I guess is a sort of prejudice) but rather a hint about the mentality. I do have German friends, colleagues and interpreters who are different and very much fun etc. but if one is to generalize the German's are pretty much about keeping in line and not attracting attention to themselves (well, the ordinary citizen that is) or doing things in ways that suggest they differ from other people. Sending people cards just-like-that is very out of line to some people. When I moved into the place I live in now I sent out postcards of the next big city (I live in the country) with my new address and a notice that I couldn't be reached at the old address anymore. It was something I had picked up from a very good friend of mine in Montana (to her I also send postcards) and my friends liked it, especially those I had to move away from because I had to move all about the country (327 kilometres to be exact) and the area here looks very different to South Germany, but acquaintances, former colleagues and family were "not amused". I'd say it's their tough luck. Just yesterday I went to the farmer's market in the next village and at the bus stop there was this stationary shop with this lovely donkey card. I have a friend in East Germany who loves donkeys, so I guess I'll make her day the day after tomorrow.

Awww. I read this and think that is so like me. I have "friends" in various locations that all I ever do is "trade" cards with and it's also a system I use with people who help me with my research. A lot of stuff I write is character-driven and some people really go great lengths to tell me things they've experienced and such and with these people I also like sending post cards. That's not planned though. More like I'm in a bookshop (that's where cards are sold over here), something catches my eye and I think "So and so would like that", I buy it write a note and send it off as a surprise to the person. Most recipients love them. But some people who learn about this habit of mine think it's crazy, still it makes me feel good. I do this for myself, that the other person is happy is a wonderful bonus of course.

A good week for you too, Wayne. This might be world-wide Internet refuses to work properly week, you know?! Basically everyone I meet or talk to is having trouble. But glad to read you're writing

Very, very well-said. I don't know why but I'm reading your words, totally agree and think of that song "So is life" Harry Belafonte once did on the Muppet Show in 1977(?). Do I know who you are/ Do you know who I am/ See we one another clearly/ Do we know who we are I think that was the chorus (I didn't look it up). Saying no can be important sometimes. Not just to avoid getting abused in an emotional way, but for the esteem of finding one's self, that was my experience in life.

Aww, this is such a shame. And something, this "being pretty" thing that winds me up every time someone tells me about it. Over here, but I guess it's the same everywhere, it's especially those people in the gay community who shout the loudest that they want respect, emancipation and whatnot that do the very same thing they critise in heterosexual people to people of their own that don't fit their ideal. Unfortunately people in the majority never think that minorities work with the exact same mechanisms so if they learn about that they go "What? Really? But they are discriminated against themselves, so they should be open-minded." and that makes it harder for the concerned person again and easier to put on and create a mask. I think I said so before most of my friends are gay men and I go no big dealings with lesbian women, because I get their "treatment" (an all time favourite if not my handicaps or my personal refusal to fit into stereotypes is that I am friends with the gays), so I know what it can feel like. I got a friend born in 1966, 1,82 m in height and 120 kg in weight, so you could say he is overweight. He is a very witty, bright and tolerant person, with adorable - if I say so it means something - crows' feet around his eyes and he experienced just what you described. So I've seen the suffering first hand. Like I said, a shame. And hard not to be put down by that, I know.

That's good news really

Yeah!

I'll try my best to check them out next time I have time, but I can't promise anything. There is one poor person on this site I feel really bad about because he's waiting for comments since January, and I just can't make it. It's easy to read forums and blogs in my breaks, but with stories I like to be much more throrough, so that I can actually say something about them.

I'm late and people said so before but.., what an asshole. *shakes her head in disbelief* I mean I never went on a blind date and I'm not one for dating anyway (Significant Person and I met at a bookshop, she was the store assistant and I am a former librarian and that was that) and get a lot of bad well,"things" from other lesbians, too, which these days I mostly pin on either their weak egos (a lot of those real loud mouthed "power women" are actually forced closet cases over here) or jealousy (I'm not vain or something, but I do look better than most of them, despite being slightly deformed, on pain management and using a cane - yae me!) but I just can't understand this fixation on looks in parts of the community. It doesn't say anything. Also, back to that guy, didn't he know what age you are? And you're not that old, mind you. I just don't get it.

I agree with everyone. The slow boat eventually reaches its destination, too. Also in my experience if you force things you practically call for stress and depression to stick with you. You see, I have have daily routine of writing for 30 minutes no matter what. World's coming to an end - Ella's writing anyway. I usually did that just to get started and some mind jogging. But during the past weeks I found that the hassle with different faculties and commuiting and health problems it just wore me out further and it didn't lead to any results. So I paused. allowed myself to actually be upset because everybody seemed to be thinking they could divide and plan my time (even Significant Person was mad at me, because I didn't reply to a couple of text messages in time) and I bitched and moaned, i.e. allowed myself to, and put an end to it all and just meditated or watched the occasional DVD when I got off work (I didn't even try to get puppeting inspiration for my own puppeteering from the puppetteery ones.). No reading, no internet except the bare neccessities, no baking, no cooking. Instead me, lots of ayurvedic tea and fruit salad (I love fruit salad, but I rarely ever do it because I keep telling myself I had no time to browse the farmer's market - I live in the country). Two days I slept most of the time. It was very relaxing. And then Sunday evening, without any intention or whatsoever - bang! Ten pages of impulsive, but very usable writing. I might not only have my beginning now, but also my hood, characterisations of my four main characters (actually there is one, the other three are connected to the protagonist). What I want to say is andante, take it slow.

I was reading this occasionally for a week now (I printed the anthology before I „left“), and every time I had to laugh harder. It is, like it is with romance, predictable in a way and to me the title already says how it ends before I read it, but I loved it. Especially Andrea’s character, because she used almost the exact same line as one of my former elementary students (with him it was “God, adult people!”) I also loved the scene in the kitchen, because when I read this I automatically imagine a really crammed and small room and imagining a proposal to take place in that kind of surrounding seems at the same time entirely surreal and entirely possible to me. Also I imagine Tad a quite tall man which adds to the picture. My, I can even see food splattering and sticking around there somewhere Ella (that's shorter than Elisabeth, ain't it? )

I confess this is the first of your stories I read (but you got me interested, I’m trying to go through “The Purpose” now), and while I am interested and curious about a lot of writings that doesn’t come in genres I get hooked on quickly I always take a little to warm up to things that are not my usual casual read – but you really got me with this one. I might not have gotten any kind of “grab” (for lack of a better word) or much of an understanding of or about the world this is set in, but I got my “connection” – and that’s why I need to get hooked – via the rules in it, that submission to the Fenzu thing and Harlin’s will to obey because he thinks he is under some kind of obligation or would owe something to Telg. (In my childhood Ceausescu was still in power in Romania, so this is where I get my sort of something-like-comparison from). I could feel Harlin’s struggle because at one hand he wants to be devoted and also blames himself for failing while on the other hand he tries to battle his feelings for Stefren, and I also loved that via his pre-judgments of Stefren (“arrogant, pompous, full of himself”) he is introduced as a guy who feels and thinks like pretty much anyone would be likely to and not someone who, because he is grateful that Telg adopted him, became the most tolerant, open-minded, mild-mannered and whatnot absolutely perfect 18-year-old in the world. It makes him easy to identify with when you read the story and hence likeable. Stefren on the other hand reacts a bit predictable but I don’t think there was a way to avoid this, because this, also, makes him credible as a character and a guy his age both. A lot of people who are seen as he is seen by Harlin (and probably others) are in truth trying to actually avoid others being uncomfortable around them because they want to fit in and fear judgment and prejudice and if you avoid somebody because you do not feel “neutral” or merely “friendly” about them then you make an extra effort. You pointed that out nicely, too, and you gave Stefren a chance to actually show not only his true feelings towards Harlin but also a moral system that perhaps (I don’t know that) might even be to a disadvantage to him or interfering with his actual “daily life” as a prince. Telgs eventual conclusion at the point when Harlin expects to be kicked, gives the point of surprise and climax of the story at the same time, which is also very nice and complex, because it also shows a side of his character that some people might not expect. I read in one of the forums that you seemed a bit upset about readers who didn’t leave a review. That might be a crux of online reading (my experience elsewhere), so I made an effort to try on a good one especially for you. (BTW: I don't write reviews online, I do it offline after I read the story and then paste them, so I hadn't seen any other reviews on this before now.)

This is unbelievable. I don't have the words for what it does for me right now (it's nothing bad, so don't worry). I'm not very emotional most of the time, at least not on the outside, but... Maybe you get the picture if I say I sit here and have about every Joy Division lyric I once learnt by heart in my head. And when that happens something must have struck me as very intense. Thank you!

I'm not good at reviewing in particular, especially not on poetry, but you had me just logging in again because of these poems here. I'm swallowing now, it's hard to express, but I read, this put it into signs in my mind and I see the faces of so many of the people I tutored, so many friends lost (a few of them because they only saw "one way") and also my brother and me. My, thank you (even if it sounds weird to say.)

It's wonderful. I especially like that it doesn't get too romantic or melodramic, so the ladies get away without being overly cliched (or butched and femmed). Instead they're simlpy nice young ladies. I was also chuckling at "Petunia", but I guess Looney Toons is still better than Tiny Toons (were they called like that? I haven't had a TV set in 15 years) with that Elmyra person. A princess like that would have been annoyingly comic I guess. And it is indeed a more suitable name than Rose would have been (that would have been too fairytalesque). And I loved that the king got the names wrong. That makes him a likeable fellow to me.