Camryn in Copenhagen

It's Ours

2011-10-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

IT'S OURS

there is always that space there

just before they get to us

that space

that fine relaxer

the breather

while say

flopping on a bed

thinking of nothing

or say

pouring a glass of water from the

spigot

while entranced by

nothing

that

gentle pure

space

it's worth

centuries of

existence

say

just to scratch your neck

while looking out the window at

a bare branch

that space

there

before they get to us

ensures

that

when they do

they won't

get it all

ever.

- Charles Bukowski

So, I'm having a tough week. Okay, a tough month. Possibly a few tough months. I take refuge in people like Bukowski, who had it far worse than I. I'll let him speak for me.

I dedicate this gem of a poem to all the people who feel pulled in a thousand directions. People who don't know what space they stand on. People with thin skin, fragile hearts and a stomach in knots. Who feel squeezed and bone-dry, out of blood and tears. People who are scared. Scared to see themselves turning into mean career-fuckers. People who stand on their head, so their frown looks like the opposite, to those who keep staring at them. Keep on chugging.

Let’s never let them get to us?

- Cammy

Meet Chooka Parker - Piano Prodigy of Australia

2011-08-15T11:01:00.000-07:00

Desiderata

2011-03-19T13:25:00.000-07:00

The first time I read the Desiderata was in a dorm room in Dykstra Hall, my freshman year at UCLA. I was with my friends Joy and Casey, and found the framed poem on the painted brick wall next to Joy's bunkbed. We were giddy and high on life, having just eaten dinner followed by vanilla frozen yogurt on a sleepy Saturday evening. I asked Joy, "What is that story?" And she told me it was her favorite poem, as it gave all the wisdom she needed in life. Casey added that the poem meant so much to her, that the 3 of us should read it aloud together, in unison. Amused and laughing, we recited the whole poem together, the way kids might squeak aloud some Biblical gospel during church. I can't read that poem today without thinking of the wonderful Joy and Casey. They were my gorgeous Kappa sisters who helped me find my way and 'nurtured my strength' that first year, living on my own as a naïve 17-year-old. Though miles now separate us, they'll always have a special place in my heart. Joy now has two beautiful daughters, little Camryn and Charley, who will one day, read the Desiderata too.
DESIDERATA
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
- Max Ehrmann, 1927
The poem includes some challenging words, so if English isn't your first language, here's a guide:
Placidly: gently, calmly
Haste: speed
Vexatious: cause trouble
Feign: pretend something
Cynical: distrustful + pessimistic
Aridity: dryness, dullness
Perennial: lasting year-round, permanent
Fatigue: exhaustion, tiredness
Discipline: training/behavior
Sham: something fake
Drudgery: exhausting work

The Playroom to End All Playrooms

2011-03-06T09:26:00.000-08:00

When I was a little girl, my three sisters and I spent our days horsing around in our very own playroom. It was an incredibly spacious, square-shaped room with two separate doors for entering and exiting. It was positioned strategically near the garage, so the screeching sounds coming from it would float away in a curving motion off the west side of the house.

For the most part, my mom and dad stayed away from our safe space that was The Playroom. But one by one, my mom added pieces to it that slowly transformed our playroom into the most magical, the most breathtakingly creative, the most decked out, ahead-of-its-time, and yet-still-vintage space for four little girls to roam.

By the time our playroom was finished, there was: A train that you could ride on, a player piano, a gumball machine, a foosball table, a jukebox made in the 1950s, a costume closet, a Murphy bed, and a yellow and red pinball machine from 1961.

Entering the room from the west entrance, you’d find the old jukebox, that came to us stocked with songs by Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, The Carpenters, Anne Murray, Dolly Parton, and even a few early Madonna hits. It had a hit for anyone (original songs from its heyday, and recent ’80s updates). You’d only have to punch in the code–say, A14– and the clear yet scratchy music would spill out of the box, lit up in vibrant colors of turquoise, red and yellow. We would hop up and down, dance a jig, and perform routines to the Tune of the Week, accompanied by tap shoes, tutus and jump-ropes. Altogether now. Which was a challenge on hardwood floors. We grew up with permanently bruised knees.

The jukebox came to us from “Santa Claus” on Christmas morning, 1987. Jackie was not quite 2-years old, and though she was an easy, happy baby (mostly my baby, to be exact) she had a meltdown that particular Christmas morning. It was a classic case of her being overtired, sooped on Christmas fudge, and manic about certain presents, like the jukebox. I remember this incident clearly because we have a videotape of Jax sitting on top of the jukebox, dressed in her Cinderella costume, crying and throwing a galactic-size tantrum for reasons none of us understood. I think she wanted a cookie. You can hear the sound of three snickering sisters and witness one unsteady hand of my father’s, who recorded the meltdown on his old Sony VHS video-camera. The camera shook to the rhythm of his laughing.

The wall to the left of the jukebox housed a king-size Murphy bed. Which is one of those surprise beds stored vertically inside the wall that you pull down when you want to jump on it or use for overnight guests. To the right of the Murphy bed was our costume closet – bursting with ornate, hand-stitched costumes, like Christy’s green-sequin Mermaid “Splash” costume, Jax’s Disney princes gowns, Allyson’s “little Orphan Annie” outfit, complete with curly red wig, and my old pink tutus and navy blue sailor-girl costumes from various tap recitals. There were close to 30 vintage works of costume art in that closet. And even some of my mom’s old brown hippie-dippie clothes from the 1960s.

On the wall opposite the Murphy bed was our player-piano. Which was possibly the best toy in that room. The downside of the piano was that we had to have weekly piano lessons from Hot Jay, our piano teacher. I didn’t like Jay because I had a raging crush on him, which interfered with my ability to focus on the keys during lessons.

Jay had 3 jobs: He was a gifted pianist (playing at Nordstroms department store, hotels, bar mitzvahs and weddings); he was a piano teacher to spoiled children; and a model on the side. A real-life über-babe with a headshot. I saw him once on the cover of Sacramento! Magazine. I didn’t like Jay because he preferred Christy over me. I didn’t like him, but I secretly loved him. He struggled for years to teach me. My heart was into the piano. It was into him. And that made me a lackluster pianist.

Finally, Jay found a genre that I liked to play – ragtime! – and when we ran out of score music, like “The Entertainer” from The Sting, Jay composed his own ragtime songs just for me, in the spirit of rag-master, Scott Joplin. I doubt I ever thanked Jay for going so above and beyond the call of duty, just for me. I might write him a letter to thank him. Is that weird? To this day, ragtime is the only genre of music I can play by heart; it seems to pour out of my fingertips whenever I sit down on a piano bench.

But the brilliant part about our piano was that it played music by itself. It was an analog machine, where you could stick into the piano body a roll of sheet-music, and it would electrically scroll through the roll, with the punch-holes cueing which piano keys played. We learned all the Broadway classics from that player –piano, but our favorites were “Tie a Yellow Ribbon”, the theme song from Hello Dolly! and the incredible “If I Ever Leave You” from Camelot.

In the middle of the room was the centerpiece of the gameroom—our foosball table. My dad bought the table when I was about 2 or 3 years old. I don’t recall ever being excited or happy for it, but I played foosball with my sisters nearly every day. Ten minutes here and there, before dinner. I’d spend an hour each Saturday or Sunday with my next door neighbor, Amy engaged in foosball warfare. Sometimes she’d run home in tears.

But my sisters and I played often. We played, we spun, we cheated and slammed; we whipped the bars around so fast and with such control that we could position the ball to explode off the armless halfback’s right side, at just the right 45-degree angle that it would fly into the goal, every time. We knew how to win. Sometimes Christy would beat me. Or I would beat Christy. Allyson could sometimes beat either of us – and we often didn’t even keep score. We were training. What was most important was slamming the ball into the goal with such force and ferocity that your wrist would burn as the ball glided into the catching-well inside the machine.

Malcolm Gladwell wrote in his best-seller “Outliers” that for a person to become an expert at something—like hockey, Chinese, violin, or MS-dos coding—he or she must put in 10,000 hours of training first.

By the time I was 10 years old, I had put in my 10,000 hours of foosball. So my second summer at Two River Soccer Camp, when I strolled into the Rec-room where some 15-year old boys were playing foosball, I didn’t hesitate to ask if I could play a round. They sneered and one huffed back, “But you’re 6 years old!” And he was right. I had the body of a 6-year-old. But what he didn’t know was that I had the skills of an Olympic-level Taiwanese Foosball gold medalist, on steroids. They caved and let me play. So as balls were flying, heads went spinning, and football coaches and counselors started gathering around, I singlehandedly, one by one, took down all five teenage boys. They seemed shocked, but I wasn’t. I was a foosball champion.

Reading this, it probably sounds straight out of a corny rejected Disney script. But it’s true – all because I had put in my 10,000 hours. And with that, I had all the currency I needed to play a 10-year-old’s game of hustle.

I should add that foosball was the only sport I was good at at soccer camp. I tucked that memory away, and didn’t bother to tell my older sister Christy that there was a foosball table in the rec-room, knowing she would go in there and hustle some boys too, thereby stealing all my glory. Like she did every day, on account of her being gorgeous, and me looking like a cabbage-patch kid, only shorter.

Kiddie-corner to the playroom’s foosball table was the bespoke blue-checkered sofa unit and cherry wood-tabled storage unit, nestled into the corner. Atop the table was my favorite piece in the room, our red gumball machine-lamp. My mom always kept it stocked with colorful gumballs that cost a penny each. Like the pinball machine, we could open it up and fetch our money back after getting the goodies. We were under orders not to binge-eat gumballs, and after defying the order a couple times, the excitement over having double bloated cheeks drooling over with gumball juice faded away, and we followed mom’s orders.

Our playroom was a hit with all the neighborhood children and was probably the single reason my sisters and I had any friends when we were little. Our friends likely used us for our playroom, which we didn’t seem to mind.

We had each other, and our Camelot on loop. And that was all we needed.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to give my future children the kind of playroom that my parent’s gave me. It was magical.

One by one, my parents have been selling off the items in that room. The jukebox is gone, the pinball machine is too, and so is the gumball-machine lamp, which my dad hawked away in a garage sale for probably 10 bucks. He offered to throw in the cat, Timba, for free, but the buyer wasn’t interested. My dad’s favorite activity is hosting these tacky fire-sales! where he can purge the remaining remnants of our childhood...And finally lay his head in a less cluttered, more adult, modern home.

While my sisters accept this, my mom and I find it sad. One of my mom’s last craft projects that she accomplished with her own father was a bunny-cage for my pet angora rabbit, Heidi, whose home was in our playroom. The cage was only 50% of the attraction, because the upper 50% of the piece was a dollhouse. It had a shingled roof, a chimney and a bay window with doll people living inside. It was a work of art, made of sturdy copper wiring and solid oak wood. My mom loved that bunny-cage-dollhouse. It, too, went away too a new home during their last garage sale.

Soon, when my parents sell their house, our playroom will finally no longer exist, except in our memories.

Which is why I write about it here. It’s gone, but I feel better about it now, having etched it in permanent posterity in my new playroom that is the blogosphere. It’s not the same, but just as much tap dancing can be found.

Things Copenhagen Should Have: More Schlock, please

2011-01-28T02:37:00.000-08:00

I love Copenhagen. A lot.

But I would love her even more if she had the following: In ’n Out Burger, Walgreens, braggarts, California Pizza Kitchen, Jews, Loehmann’s, waffle houses, soft values, Sesame Street, and chivalry...

...Whole Foods, Sephora, Trader Joe’s, drive-thru Starbucks, factory outlets, Boot Barn, Barnes & Nobles, Chipotle, Republicans, Arnold Palmers and love letters.

7-layer dip, Mystic spray tans, marital fidelity, church-goers, Arden Hills Country Club, Super Bowl parties, Apple Stores, drive-thru chapels, schlocky tchotchkes, J. Crew and breakfast for dinner.

I'd love to see MORE excess in a way that doesn't involve percentage-alcohol. More wallpaper, more tacky, more bragging, more eye-contact, more diversity, more outbursts, more New Age, more pills, more acupuncture, more nice, more modesty, more calories, more largesse, more charity, more taboos, more therapy, more pilates, more blue cheese dressing, more cheap Porsches, more sun.

Found at: http://cupcakesandcashmere.com/five-things-9/

More tomfoolery, more sober misbehavin’, more g-droppin, more country music, more hip-hop, more Christian debauchery. More postmodern pillow-talk.

And more and more more.

That's all for now. Feel free to add more, or subtract.

Happy Friday!

Cammy

My Cowboy

2010-11-28T13:25:00.000-08:00

Notice the Joe Lando photo on my bedroom wall.

I want to tell you about my best friend, C. I woke up today missing him. A lot.

I pulled myself out from under my warm ‘dyner’ (a Danish type of blanket-comforter) and realized it was an extra frosty November Saturday morning. The living room window revealed the neighboring building across the street was covered in white. The spires had dotted snowballs perched on top. And the snow was still falling. The building I peer out into happens to be the castle – Amelienborg Slot – where Queen Margrethe II of Denmark lives with her French husband, Prince Henrik. I imagined the two of them drinking tea and eating ‘bolle’ by the fire. Or making bolle by the fire. Either one. (Don’t Google-translate ‘bolle’ unless you want to learn that morning-rolls and ‘screwing’ are the same word).

Craving coffee, I stumbled toward the kitchen and, on the way over, glanced at the silver cowgirl boots I had kicked off my feet last night, after stumbling home drunk at 2AM. And I began to miss him. Cowboy.

You see, that’s his nickname. There are a lot of nicknames for a lot of people in my life, and I’m a firm believer that nobody gets to choose their nickname, the nickname chooses you. You cannot decide what people call you, and conversely, you cannot decide what you call another. The nickname simply reveals itself to the world. In my life, I have a Buggy, a Bugaloo, a Jax, a Sunny-bear, a Tisty, a Scooter (well, had a Scooter, he’s remarried now and probably got a new nickname), a ’Bine, a Tans, a Ditdot, and the list goes on. The nicknames personally bestowed on me are within the realm of: Tommy, Hammy, Joey Lawrence-lover and Angela. I’ll get back to the Angela later.

But my C. – who others call Chiuy (pronounced Chewy, because his last name is Chiu) – became Cowboy shortly after a Royal Caribbean cruise that I took with his family years ago, departing from San Pedro south of Los Angeles. The ship docked at the Ensanada port-of-call, where we traipsed around the Mexican town looking for the perfect pair of cowboy boots for C. He was a man on a mission – finding the perfect pair of cowboy boots was his only goal that entire cruise (after giving away all his money to the cruise-ship casino). It wasn’t easy; C. has a rule about only putting high-end luxury materials on his body. I don’t recall perfectly, but he was searching for a particular kind of snake-skin or alligator-skin boot, probably with an elephant-ivory-studded heel or something really pricey and endangered. But he found the perfect pair of cowboy boots during that outing in Ensanada. Delighted, we bought them and went off to eat enchiladas and avoid drinking the water.

C. wore those boots into the ground. He used them to make a fashion statement in the hospital, beneath his green scrubs; and to give me a swift kick in the heiny when the need arose.

Somehow, a week or two after the purchase – we were still two students at UCLA at the time – C. was decked out in his new reptilean cowboy boots, as we gossiped over dinner at our favorite Third Street restaurant called Barefoot, ironically. And when I asked him to hand me something, the word “Cowboy” fell out of my mouth.

“Please pass me the salt, Cowboy.”

And it was decided. We didn’t discuss it – and he never mentioned it. But when he dialed my phone, I said “Hello Cowboy.” And when I screamed at him I would whine “Cowboy?!?” in his face. And being the stinker that he is, he would just smirk in return... pleased that he was in the same league as tough guys like Hoppalong Cassidy, Mr. John Wayne, and Zorro. C. was my urban, drugstore cowboy. Of Chinese descent.

So when I saw last spring a pair of sparkling silver ankle-length cowboy boots that just screamed “feminine tough-gir,rodeo-clown-ho-down in Denmark” I simply had to have my own pair of cowgirl boots. I love them and I wear them frequently, and they often make me think of my cowboy.

Nabokov buff

After university, I lived with Cowboy in a Beverly Hills-adjacent apartment, and that first summer of our cohabitation was filled with random experiences of buying Playboy magazines at the corner magazine stand, eating endless dinners together at our favorite senior-citizen diner called Jan’s Restaurant on Beverly Boulevard, and endless, sleepless marathon-movie nights chosen from Cowboy’s library of classics. He always knew precisely which film to put on and when. And some of our favorite movies from that time together include If Lucy Fell (with a 7-year-old Scarlet Johansson cameo), Beautiful Girls, and Dreams for an Insomniac.

C. took his cowboy boots with him when he left California in 2000 for medical school in Philadelphia. It was a sad and painful day, watching my best friend leave our little nest in Los Angeles. We kept in touch, of course, and he’d send me packages now and then to remind me of him and our shared love of storytelling...the best one being a VHS-box set of every My-So-Called Life episode.

Perhaps it was after watching all 21 episodes of the series over a lonely weekend in 2002, that I was inspired to dye my long blonde hair a bright copper red, in a nod to the show’s disgruntled young soul, Angela Chase (played by Claire Danes).

I called up Cowboy in Philly and told him I was no longer a blonde.

Expecting him to chide me for being "body dysmorphic" or "insane" or “futzing too much with my person,” he laughed and said it probably looked great. “Couldn’t be any worse than what was there before.”

I flew out to Philadelphia to see Cowboy that winter, and when he picked me up at the airport, he stood shoulder to shoulder with the many taxi, shuttle drivers, and hired chaperones holding up names of arriving passengers from faraway lands with monikers like “Mr. Kobayashi” or “Divya Shyama-lamalaman.” Cowboy held up a white paper too, obscuring his face. And the name on the paper read “Angela Chase.”

He always let me play Angela. The tortured wanderer.

Last year, in 2009 – after completing 4 years of medical school, 4 years of residency and one year of advanced training, Cowboy emerged from Philadelphia an official, full-blown doctor surgeon. He’s now back home in California, with family and friends who need him -- while I’m in Denmark, wondering what it would be like to live in the same city again with my cowboy-in-crime.

I need to get past it, but I still struggle to realize that Cowboy is a doctor. A highly skilled surgeon, no less. His supervising Surgery Chief emailed me, asking for stories about C. that he could deliver to the audience during the graduation-banquet for the hospital's surgery residents. He wanted embarrassing juice on Cowboy, enough to add flavor and spice to a good old-fashioned doctors' roast. So I provided those stories – like the one where, in college, C. used his “For emergencies only!” credit card given to him by his parents to buy a Corvette at an auction. But I also provided a letter that shared the softer side of C. I don’t know if the Doctor chucked the letter, read it aloud, or folded it up and handed it to Chiuy.

But I keep a printed copy folded up in my desk, to read at moments when C.'s ridiculousness gets me riled up; like the times when he huffs to me on the phone, “I will never ever come visit you in Denmark, because you chose to leave!”

So here is what I wrote the Doctor who gave Cowboy his diploma.

Dinner in Beverly Hills, better than dorm food!

June 7, 2009

Dear Dr. Weingarten,

I’ve known C. since we were 12 years old.

He’s an impenetrable person, so it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly those things that make him unique, though they’re myriad. When we were in junior high (7th and 8th grade), he was the smartest kid in school, always a level or two above his grade in math. He knew he was bright, and made a point of approaching the cars of the moms picking up their ditzy pre-teen girls from school, to tell them that their daughters were "airheads" (one of whom was my older sister). My mom laughed it off, told him to run along. C. didn’t do those things to be a jerk – far from it. I think he was trying to be memorable in the eyes’ of the parents.

When C.’s dear little brother Kenny passed away when we were 15 years old (Kenny was only 12), C. returned to high school a different person: a bit softer, but still with his trademark humor and friendly smile. He didn’t let any of his friends handle him with kid-gloves. My younger sister Allyson had been close with Kenny and his passing changed her life. It wasn’t long after that she fell into a depression that lasted through her high school years. C. always kept a watchful eye on Allyson.

C. and I would go off to UCLA together at age 17. I would have drowned in a sea of 35,000 students if it hadn’t been for him, my rock. He was straight with me and would tell me when I was being too anti-social, too sorority, too geeky, or too skinny. When I had bad days – received a poor grade on a mid-term or had a fight with my boyfriend – C. would leave roses on the windshield of my car. There’d be a picture he drew or a Dr. Seuss-like poem to make me laugh. C. had an open account at the most exquisite rose shop in LA – so every milestone in the lives of his many female friends would elicit a dozen white or red from their loyal friend.

If I ever pissed C. off, he’d get back at me by taking my roommate in the Kappa sorority-house out to dinner and to see the movie I’d been dying to see. It was his way of telling me where I stood, and I’d get the message to not take him for granted.

In addition to his brainy, rational side, C. is a gifted writer and storyteller. He’s a movie buff and a screenwriter who could be the next Quentin Tarantino if he wanted to, because that’s how twisted and talented C. is. His home-library today holds more than a thousand films.

C. spent most of his college years working as a volunteer at the CARE Center at the UCLA AIDS Institute. While other students were out partying, shopping or engaging in tomfoolery, C. was bringing joy and levity into the lives of patients with HIV and AIDS. One of his favorite activities was playing with the children in the waiting room – taking out coloring books and toys to keep them entertained while their parents sought treatment.

When I became ill with strep throat while living in the dorms, my parents called C. and asked him to administer the nastiest tasting cough syrup I had been refusing to take; so he showed up at my dorm room, pinned down my writhing, laughing body, until he could pour 2 table-spoons of Robitussin down my throat. That day, I knew he would become a doctor.

C. has a sensitive and overflowing heart that hits you when you least expect it in the tenderest of places. He’s like an accidental mensch who can’t help but be selfless and gracious. He massages stressed shoulders that need a caring touch; he can get rid of a headache just by applying a little Chinese acu-pressure to that meaty spot your hand, all while making you laugh as you scream in agony.

We share a love of fine food, so we’d take each other out to classy 90210 restaurants – places like Wolfgang Pucks and Lawry’s Steakhouse – and fight with each other over who got to pay. Dining with C. is an incredible experience – he'd bring out bottles of wine, several appetizers, savory main courses, a rich soufflé, and endless laughs.

When C. and I were seniors in college – much more mature and evolved since our high school days – he drove 6 hours back to our hometown of Sacramento to take my little sister Allyson to her high school prom. That’s the kind of attentive person he is.

After graduating college we were roommates in a charming apartment in South Beverly Hills. I think he chose the place based on its close proximity to my therapist, Dr. Grenner. C. never saw him, never knew him, just heard stories about “Dr. G, Therapist to the Stars.” To this day, when I run into Dr. G., he doesn’t ask how I’m doing, he asks how C. is.

Since C. moved to Pennsylvania 8 years ago, my time with him has been less frequent. The time and distance have had no effect on his standing in my heart as my most treasured, most one-of-a-kind, most brilliant friend. I know we’ll be making each other laugh, cry, scream and grow, when we are old and gray.

I beam with pride when I talk about C. and all that he has accomplished in his life. I would never let him near me with a scalpel, because he’d probably engrave the word “Cowboy” in my scar-tissue, but I trust him with just about anything else.

C., congratulations on finishing your Residency in Surgery. You’re kind of amazing, and I wish you good luck as you continue giving aid, reassurance and healing procedures to patients lucky enough to call you their doctor.

Always put your best foot forward to show us your talent, your passion and your love. The world is a better place for it.

Sincerely,

Your Cammy

"F*cking Flinke Camryn"

2010-10-29T06:03:00.000-07:00

So my American peeps, in Denmark, when people say the “f-word” it has the same impact as one of us saying ‘friggin’. It’s a borrowed, foreign word to them. That said, there’a “F%*$ING FLINK” campaign underway in Denmark based on a book and short film imploring Danes to try being more Freaking Nice. Flink means nice.

I wrote a letter to the author, thanking him for taking up this cause, as I believe it is an important issue that flies under the radar in Denmark. Lars AP, the author, posted my letter on his blog. Link below. What a freakin' nice man.

Fucking Flink: Fucking Flinke Camryn: "Som jeg tidligere har nævnt, får jeg mange reaktioner på Fucking Flink. Fra danskere. Fra danskere bosat i udlandet. Og så fra udlændinge, d..."

Yesterday Once More

2010-09-12T08:11:00.000-07:00

Growing up, my sisters and I loved to ask our parents about college. Where'd you go? What was it like? Did you drink beer there? My father had one consistent answer to the question, "Where did you go to college?"

"Long Beach State, the Greatest School on the West Coast."

He answered it so matter-of-fact that it wasn't before Christy and I were into our teens that we learned 'the Greatest School on the West Coast' isn't a part of the school's name.

When we asked him where mom went to college, he answered "some other private school in LA where the rich kids go."

My dad was friends with The Carpenters during college – Karen and Richard Carpenter of the famous brother/sister singing duo. They also attended Long Beach State. My dad described Karen as sweet and kind – a real ‘good girl’ – with a magical songbird voice.

We’d then ask mom who her friends were in college, and she’d talk proudly of her days being the number 1 ‘bleacher cheerleader’ for the track & field boys. My mom was a straight-A student, a rising feminist, a sometime-hippie (on nights like, Halloween), and something of a groupie! Years later, I would take after my mom's pursuit of good grades and sweaty athletes in college.

Nancy attended every track & field meet while at USC because she had a good friend named Orenthal who supplemented his Heisman-trophy-winning football skills by running track in the off season. He would go on to become a star NFL football player, an actor who starred with Leslie Nielsen in the Naked Gun franchise, and later, a murderer!

When we saw on the news O.J. driving his white Ford Bronco down the 405 freeway in that infamous police chase back in 1994, my stunned sisters and I turned to Nancy, whose jaw was on the floor:

“Didn’t you used to date him, Mom?”

Silence. Followed by a, "Hell, no!" from her.

But my parents ran in important circles during their university days.

My dad had a scrappy, Catholic upbringing in Downey, California, also the suburb where the Carpenters were raised. Today, his old stomping grounds of Downey and Southgate are becoming increasingly similar to their neighborhood-cousin to the south, Compton, worldwide headquarters to the Crips gang.

When he was a child, my dad wanted to be a pilot when he grew up. I never heard the full story, but at some point in his adolescence he received the hard news that his poor eyesight would prevent his dream from coming true. It kind of breaks my heart, because he would have been a top-notch pilot: Captain J.T.

My dad’s nickname is JT, but it came to him later in life after failing for years to get people to call him Jack. (That’s where Jackie’s name comes from). But he was always Jon, Jon Thomas. He didn’t look brute enough to be a Jack. So somewhere, one of my sister’s ex-boyfriends started calling him JT. He took a shine to it. So if you ever want my dad to like you, just call him JT.

With aeronautical school off the table, Dad would go on to be a healer. He majored in physical therapy at Long Beach State, took an internship at a hospital, moved up north to Napa, met my mom Nancy, got married at a wedding down in Southern California (that my dad’s mom planned), took a hippie honeymoon in Sun Valley, Idaho, moved to Stockton, then (thankfully!) got the heck out of Stockton and put down roots in Sacramento.

I was a newborn baby and my Dad was 30 years old when his dad died. Grandpa Leonard. I don’t remember him, but I know I would have loved him. I’ve seen pictures of him holding Christy and me, and I could see the kindness in his eyes. He was gentle, quiet, thoughtful and wonderful. The cancer killed him quickly – he died within 2 months of the diagnosis. Both of my grandpas died of lung cancer.

One day, I’ll have the courage to sit my dad JT down and ask him all about grandpa Leonard. He’s shared bits and pieces, but I want to know more – I think somewhere he holds the secret to my father.

You see, my father is an enigma. I can’t elaborate why; but his stories hold some clues.

A few months back, I asked Anne Louise, who was my family’s Danish au pair back in 1987-1988, what she thought of my family when she lived with us at the age of 19. She went through all of us, one by one, “You, Cammy, were very short and small, but you had big attitude.” “Christy was happy and quite busy for a kid.” “Allyson was loving and always needed attention”... “Jackie wanted 8 baths a day and could change her own diaper”... “Your mom would cry in sympathy if I got a paper cut.” And “Your dad....” Hmmmm. “Your dad, would run.”

I suppose a house with: 4 pre-pubescent girls, 3 female cats, 1 PMS'ing Danish au pair, and an over-worked, stressed-out wife will drive a man to run. And he did. Everyday. And he still does.

All he had to do was enter our backyard, wind around the lawn, dodge a few sprinklers, pass the swimming pool, open the latch of our fence, and enter a gorgeous stretch of public land: a city-run ‘national forest’ called the Jedediah Smith National Recreation Trail. I think the nature is why my parents chose Sacramento; the recreational possibilities and the landscapes are breathtaking. Just 10 meters from our house is an immaculate bike-path that parallels the graceful, flowing American River, which is dotted with endless oak trees, sunflowers and wildflowers, deer running around, wild coyotes, snakes and sunshine. This was my dad’s Secret Garden. Slipping out the back door would be his refuge from the madness and hormones. Who knew that having four daughters would be the key to keeping a man in such great shape?

He’s logged millions of miles, he has a box full of marathon medals. The centerpiece of his racing calendar is the yearly Eppie’s Great Race Triathlon, which he has raced annually for 30 years. Two days after my mom gave birth to Jackie on July 10^th my dad corraled the family, planted us at strategic spots along the raceway, and had us fulfill our ‘spectator duties’ like handing him Gatorade, frozen bandanas to wear around his neck, his bicycle helmet, or a kayak.

My dad keeps getting faster and faster. This year at Eppie’s, he took 3^rd place in his division. His diligent training is an inspiration to me, and a huge part of why I started running and racing triathlons in my 20s. My dad and I would run together – and it was the first time in my adult life that we could have some easy, quality time together. He’s the perfect running partner because he doesn’t talk much. Like him, I like to ‘relax’ when I run.

I ran my first race with my dad when I was 10 years old. Christy, age 12, had been teasing me that I was too short and bony to be able to run the “Tahoe Fun Run” that she’d signed up to race with her older friend Heidi, age 14. I started training the day before. Panicked, I asked my dad if he thought I could seriously run the 2.3 mile race down the beach and up to the Hyatt, where the race ended. He gave me a serious, quiet nod. “Just stick with me. You’ll beat them.”

Christy and Heidi went out of the gate at lightning speed, but I hung back with Dad. “Slow and steady wins the day” has always been his mantra. I passed them at mile 1. And finished the race in about 19 minutes, way ahead of my bossy big sister. I probably stuck my tongue out at her, when she crossed the finish line. 10 minutes after me.

Running is in the Thomas blood.

There is one other quirky habit, other than running, that helps keep my dad sane and at peace (and my sisters and me in stitches). And that is his romantic-comedy habit.

I discovered that my dad was a sucker for romance stories when, on a Hawaiian vacation, we were at the beach and he proudly pulled out his book and told me he was reading an important novel about the Vietnam War. Called “Message from Nam.” By Danielle Steele.

You won’t find a Kirsten Dunst-, Alicia Silverstone-, Colin Firth-, Hugh Grant-film that my father hasn’t seen. And watched on loop.

He went through a “Bring it On” phase, a “Clueless” phase and a “Love Actually” phase that has actually never ended. His fondness for air-heady female protagonist starlets isn’t in the lecherous spirit it may sound like. Rather, I think stories about girls like his daughters crack him up. It puts a perspective on his life, and he can better process ‘love and life’ in our changing world. And the parade of boys, men, relationships, friends, drama, engagements and tears that have entered the Thomas home, on account of having four bombshell Thomas offspring. :)

I love my dad for embracing his softer side through a cinematic outlet.

My dad is a good, kind, quiet, respectful and decent man who has done the absolute best he can to raise four happy, healthy, okay daughters. Who do their best. I wish I could give him more than this thank you.

He isn’t perfect - no father is – sometimes he can be a real stinker. He poops out early, he cuts vacations short, he doesn’t always let you in, and he hated cheesy father/daughter high-school dances

so much that he never attended one with me. But he was man enough – when it mattered most – to pay for my therapy with Beverly Hill’s finest shrink who let me boo-hoo on his sofa for a few sessions before smacking me with his thick, Yiddish accent and saying, “You have a good family – you’re cu-urred.”

My father has given me: clothes, shoes, bikes, good values, swimming lessons, cars, his deep sensitivity, a strong work ethic, country club memberships, exotic vacations, stuffed animals, trips to Space Camp, tap shoes, encouragement to become a pilot, support when I said no, shopping sprees on Rodeo Drive (sorry!), and the space, love, patience and quiet support I would need to find my own way in this world.

Today, my dad turns 63 years old! In honor of his birthday, I’ve posted his favorite Carpenters song below. It's actually my favorite Carpenters song, but in the spirit of my dad -- who always said, "Look Cammy, this is your favorite: _______ fill in the blank [children's book about sports! / favorite football team / favorite ice cream flavor] when he's actually presenting his favorite something, today I'm playing his game.

I want to say: Dad, I love you and I apologize for those times when I signed your birthday card “Best regards, Cammy.”

You’re a good dad and a good man. Grandpa Leonard would be proud.

Love,

Cammy

Danish Taxi-cab Confessions

2010-09-07T15:15:00.000-07:00

Cabs are an institution in Denmark.

Okay, that might be an exaggeration. They are way too expensive to be a common form of transportation. Mostly, everyone travels by bike, bus, the subway train or Metro.

Did I mention that taxis are way too expensive?

Yet somehow within my first 6 months of living in Denmark, when I was caught at a nightclub at 5 am, too drunk to bike the 8 miles home to Hellerup, and a safe and hyggelig Mercedez Benz taxi escorted me to my doorsteps, I fell in love with taxis.

All taxis in Denmark are Mercedez Benz. With leather interior, and automatic shifting. I think it’s the law.

I’ve established a taxi budget. When I was living in LA and cultivating an expensive pinot noir hobby, I had a wine budget. In my busy “state government” political days, working for Gov. Schwarzenegger, I had an ample Starbuck’s budget.

Today, in Copenhagen, I’ve abandoned Starbucks (because we don’t have it here). Wine, I get in ample supply at work, oddly enough. But the savings I accumulate from not buying pinots and lattes help fortify my taxi budget.

There are many reasons who I love to hoof it by taxi.

Mostly it’s because I then don’t have to bike.

You see, I used to be a skillful and talented bike rider. I raced bikes. I trained on the bike saddle for seven hours every Saturday, without fail, for many mnany years.

When I biked for exercise, I had endless road space to roam. There are no other bikers on the road in California, so drivers give you a wide berth.

But I’ve grown tired of biking. My butt is sore.

Danes are impressive bike handlers, mind you. They’ve been riding bikes since they were 3-and-a-half. The traffic in the bike lane is littered with an aggressive, "take-no-prisoners" style of riding that leaves newbie’s like myself (who are not used to this thing called “biking for transportation”) freaked out.

-----

Ten months into my stay in Denmark, I took a bad spill on the bike after an ill-timed decision to make a right turn onto the sidewalk curb, in the rain, so that I could pop into 7-11 and buy a Rittersport. My rear wheel slipped and the full force of my body and bike went down on my right shoulder. My shoulder bone splintered in two pieces – a breakage that went undiagnosed by the Danish medical system for 2 months.

It took me a while to get back on my horse. The whole event was a debacle. In moments of rage and weakness, I blamed my stupid Dutch bike for the accident; I blamed my lousy doctors for not ordering x-rays and sending me home with 2 Tylenol and instructions to ‘go away.’ I blamed the rainy Danish summer for making me fall. I blamed the Danes who stared at me on the ground, and pedaled away, embarrassed. Mostly, I blamed myself and my lard-ass tendency to stop for late night nougats.

After healing, I retired my zippy Dutch racing-bike in favor of a snappy, pink Danish city-bike. I like my pink city-bike for short trips around town. I always wear a helmet – I wasn’t the day I crashed. I shudder to think if it had been my skull that had cracked.

I ride, but I don’t really enjoy it. You often see on the evening news stories about cycling Danish girls getting crunched under right-turning trucks at intersections. The truck drivers, “Never saw ’em coming.” And I don’t like riding my bike in the snow. Two feet of snow on the ground won’t stop the fearless Danes from plowing through it on their bikes. They have places to go, groceries to fetch, kids to drop off at day-care.

Last winter, I suffered a bad bout with pneumonia and went through a few rounds of hard core antibiotics, augmented by opium-laced cough syrup. Even when I was healing, I was still sick. But I was bored staying at home and dying to get back to work, so I laced up my furry winter boots, put on the thickest, furry parka I own, hopped on my pink bike and pedaled to work in two feet of snow; with pneumonia, in minus-10 degrees weather. Icicles hung from my nose as I shivered into the office. And I only live 7 minutes from my work.

When I told my mother that I was biking to work, in the snow, with pneumonia, she was aghast.

“Cammy, you must take a taxi!”

I told Bastian and he laughed.

“We live 10 seconds from your work; you’re not taking a taxi!”

I didn’t listen to him. For a few weeks, while my pneumatic cough still lingered, I took at taxi to the office. I told no one at my job.

My mother was proud.

And I got to know many lovely Danish taxi drivers.

Which leads me to the third and final reason why I love taking taxis. The most important reason of all: most of the drivers are foreigners, like me.

-----

I enter a cab and breathe a sigh of relief. They have accents when speaking Danish, like I do. They are chatty. They come from Serbia and Pakistan and Zimbabwe. They want to know where I’m from. I’ve met lawyers, bodybuilders, chefs and teachers. Most of them have gigs on the side.

It’s amazing how much you can get to know a person over an 18-minute car ride across town. Usually, even on a tight schedule, I don’t mind sitting in traffic in a taxi. I met a Swedish bloke named Klaus, who was a bodybuilder and said his biggest hero in life was Arnold Schwarzenegger. I let him do the talking that ride; didn’t mention that I knew him.

The most fascinating conversation I’ve ever had in a taxi took place about a month ago. I was headed to my doctor’s office where he was going to run a few tests, so I justified not biking to the appointment, because I was going to the doctor. My taxi driver was black, and he was native at Danish. He picked up on my American accent and told me with a fair amount of pride, that his dad was American, and his mom was Danish.

He added that he had lived in Denmark most of his life.

“I have much more Danishness in me, than anything else.”

I seized on his words. Or one word, in particular. So I asked him to clarify.

“So what does that mean? To be Danish, and have ‘the Danishness?”’

He smiled, gave a sheepish laugh.

“That’s a good question. I wasn’t expecting it.”

He couldn’t find an answer he was happy with, so he started asking the questions.

“Do you like living in Denmark?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“What is the hardest part about living in Denmark?”

“The fact that there’s this list describing what Danishness is. And I’ll never qualify.”

We went on and on before he pulled up to the medical building in Christianshavn. I didn’t want to get out of the car, our discussion was that riveting.

He probed further before I exited the taxi, and I’ll never forget his question as long as I live.

“If you could tell us – the Danes – one thing that we could work on, what would it be?”

A question like that would normally throw a person off, but I was on a roll that day and had an answer before he’d finished formulating the question.

Here is what I told my new taxi-driving friend.

To all the Danish people out there, I would say this: "To the fullest extent possible, open your mind. Deep in the Danish core, this seems difficult for some people. Foreigners can sense this. It makes life harder. And sadder. My biggest gripe about living in Denmark is how there's this prescribed list of "Danishness" and unless you're born and raised in the country, you have no possibility of qualifying. You see, we don't have the Danishness, try as we might. We may learn Danish, we may achieve 'full integration' but as long as there's this list of what it means to be Danish that is so exclusionary, you're going to have struggling foreigners in your country. We’d rather fit in, but we don’t know how."

-----

I believe Danishness is like a box. It has thick borders and sharp edges, and can only carry a set amount of weight. It buckles under the pressure of new or evolving concepts, ideas or descriptions, skintones and cultures. You’re either in the box, or you’re out, but don’t ever think of changing what goes in or out. It’s already been decided.

I remember Governor Schwarzenegger responding, when asked to look at government agencies more creatively, “I don’t want to think outside the box. I want to blow up the box.”

I do too.

For Danes to help immigrants and expats in Denmark, first they have to help themselves. They need to see Danishness as a work in progress, subject to change and evolution. Hopefully the evolution is for the better.

Thank you for having me, Denmark, and for asking me these delicious questions.

Next month's blog: what can us foreigners do for you, Denmark?

Short story for Friday

2010-09-03T02:15:00.000-07:00

In 2008, my sister Sunny married Chris in a beautiful wedding by the lake in Tahoe. I was (old) maid of honor and proudly stood by her side at the altar. After the ceremony, Bastian came running up to me. He hugged me, then pulled himself away.

“We can never get married,” he whispered.

I looked away from him. Sighed.

“Okay, if that’s what you want.”

He followed, with a smile, “Because I will cry like a baby in the ceremony.”

He proposed marriage one week later.

Friday Free For All: Democratic Racism Edition

2010-07-30T06:56:00.000-07:00

(one of the most vile posters I've ever seen)

Courtesy of Publius

Today, in 1866, the Democratic government in New Orleans ordered a raid on a racially integrated meeting of the Republican Party. 40 people were killed and 150 were injured.

Remember.

Reading this short blurb at biggovernment.com reminded me of my blog post from a month back called "Why I'm a Republican" which you can read here.

Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run

2010-07-06T19:10:00.000-07:00

10 days ago, my sister Allyson ran a 100-mile race. Her first, and hopefully last 100-mile race. It was a thrilling, crazy, exhilirating, dangerous, salty, dusty, grimy, incredible, beautiful 28 hours, 40 minutes of all our lives. Allyson was really incredible. The video I made in her honor says it all.

From Squaw Valley, Lake Tahoe to Auburn, California

Ray Bans, Tom Ford lipstick, scissor earrings (in a Lexus)

2010-06-30T16:02:00.000-07:00

Why I'm a Republican (gasp)

2010-06-10T06:13:00.000-07:00

In grade school I had a deep admiration for President Abraham Lincoln. He seemed to be the only moral figure in many chapters of my third-grade history books covering slavery and the Civil War, when I could barely recognize my own country. I thought in simple terms: He freed the slaves. He was a Republican. What I learned from Lincoln was that at the core of the Republican party (and America) was one principle I could cling to: freedom.

Another one of my heroes is Martin Luther King Jr. He was also a Republican.

The Republican Party has always been the party of civil rights.

In the historic vote in 1964 for the Civil Rights Bill in Congress, nearly 80% of the no votes came from Democrats. Men like Senator Al Gore Sr., the father of former Vice President Al Gore.

The Democratic Party had a lot of repairing and healing to do on account of its history of being the party that supported slavery, Jim Crowe laws and segregation. Somewhere along the way, they took ownership of the platform – “we look after the little guy, the minority, the poor.”

The truth is, Republican policies are all about protecting those people too—helping the poor, the workers, the middle-class, the immigrants, the marginalized. Anyone in pursuit of the American Dream. The difference is that Republicans and Democrats have different means of reaching those ends. Our path is through the principles of freedom, liberty for all, integrity, personal responsibility, and yes, lower taxes. I'll let a Democrat tell you what their path looks like.

Recently, I was talking to a Danish contact (who had no knowledge of my convictions) and he said that he thinks folks from 'middle America' – “The Republicans,” he sneered – are people who cling to their guns and religion.

I knew exactly where his quote came from. So I had to call him out on it.

“You heard that line in one of President Obama’s stump speeches during the campaign?” I asked.

He had repeated candidate Obama, word-for-word: “...people who cling to their guns and religion.”

(And I thought I clung to freedom.)

It broke my heart when I heard President Obama say that on TV back in 2007. It felt unpresidential and needlessly divisive, and sure enough, the line traveled across the pond, landed in Denmark and helped drive home an impression that the 51% of Americans who call themselves conservatives have Glock 22s holstered on their hips and cross-necklaces over their hearts.

A few do, most don’t, and there’s a whole lotta hazy territory in between, in that discussion on guns, faith and freedom. I don't like elitist generalizations, if you can't tell. I'm no W. apologist, but I could only imagine the heat President Bush would have taken had he ever called left-leaning Americans "people who cling to their trees and Birkenstocks."

Here’s what I do know. I don't care what 'political party' my friends and family are part of (or not part of). I have sisters and friends who are Democrat, Venstre, Independent, Socialdemokratiet, Radicale Venstre, and Socialistisk Folkeparti...and maybe even the Communist-leaning Enhedslisten. We may not all agree, but I feel richer for being surrounded by diverse opinions, though on some occasions I could be much better at biting my tongue! But I will support President Obama as our President as long as he supports America's success.

I consider myself: a feminist, a writer, an environmentalist, a patriot, an expatriate, an artist, a giver, a critical thinker, a moderate, and a Republican.

One thing I don’t think I am is an asshole. I hope that during my time in Denmark, I can show a few people that Republicans are not assholes.

Like a Grandpa to me. I'm still obsessed, like Alex P. Keaton.

Kappa Kappa Denmark

2010-05-17T07:36:00.000-07:00

One of my closest friends in Denmark is an American girl named Tasha. She grew up in Nassau County, New York, the daughter of a Guyana-American (Muslim) father and an Indian-born (once Hindu, now Christian) mother. Tasha has two sisters, and the three of them are eerily similar in appearance, personality, and proclivity for shenanigans as TV-land’s 3 notoriously fun sisters, Kim, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian of the eponymous reality show, Keeping up with the Kardashians. Tasha – living abroad in Denmark – would be Kim; little sister Nita —living the high life as a pharmaceutical drug rep in Miami— is wild-child sister Khloe; and big sister (and married mama) Lynn, back in NY, is the Kourtney-type.

In my book, they are the Kurry-dashians, on account of their maternal roots.

Tasha is my breath of fresh air as I try to carve out some semblance of a partially American (mostly Danish) life for myself in Copenhagen.

It isn’t easy, but we make it work.

We get together for long gab-fests with two other American girls, Jenn and Kris, and our honorary “American” friend Ditte (who is 100% Danish, but likes Americans and is very international. So we let her into our American sorority). Ditte Holm thought her last name was too Danish, so she changed it to McHolm in a nod to her favorite burger joint and to be more accessible to the Scottish roommate she took into her flat (Andy McInroe). We didn’t know his name was Andy because Ditte only calls him Scotty, because you see, he’s from Scotland. So you get the picture – we’re a super international crowd (trying to be hipsters, ending up goobers).

Tasha Kardashian met Ditte McHolm when Ditte was 13-years-old and on holiday in Barbados. Ditte’s open-minded, very Danish parents encouraged young Ditte to explore the island and date! Tasha and her sisters, seizing on her long, flowing hair and killer, tight Danish bod, took little Ditte under their wings, for fear that the men of the island would exploit the naiveté of a Scandinavian blonde in a Caribbean land.

Fast forward many years later, Tasha is married to a Danish man, and Ditte is a smart and savvy Danish journalist cracking up her American friends with stories of her misadventures in dating. Ditte is Denmark’s Bridget Jones, in every possible way, on the hunt for her Colin Firth (but encountering mostly lecherous Hugh Grants).

Ditte is like our hilarious little sister. You always want to help her, you sometimes want to pay for her. You know she’s going to show up 30-minutes late to brunch with sunglasses and a hangover. But really, I think she’s the one showing us the ropes. I'm so glad we have her.

This is my sorority. Now you know the major players.

(to continue reading, click here)

Part 2: Kappa Kappa Denmark - On Religion

2010-05-16T10:43:00.000-07:00

(To read Part 1, go here)

My first year in Denmark, I was leery about making too many American friends. My Irish friend Carl advised me, early on, to steer clear of most international groups, for fear that I would be suggestible to the way their meet-ups often descend into whine-fests with participants singing the Battle Cry of the Foreigner: “It’s a Hard-Knock Life for Expatriates in Denmark!”

He wasn’t far off base. Often, you get a bunch of expats in a room in Denmark and the topic turns to how hard it is to: 1) learn Danish 2) make friends 3) ride a bike (that may just be a gripe of Americans, I’m not sure yet). We also often talk about 4) how expensive everything is in Denmark 5) how hit or miss healthcare is 6) how g*d-damn bloody rainy the weather is...7) how bad the service is in restaurants and cafes...and a host of other ‘issues.’ Sure, a lot of wine drinking and partying goes down too, but complaining can be a common thread among internationals getting together in Denmark.

Sometimes, my American sorority falls prey to this. But mostly, we try to problem-solve our way out of tight spots we each, individually, run into as immigrants in a foreign land – socially, linguistically, professionally. You name it.

Kris has helped me make peace that because I was born a Catholic, and, as far as I can tell, cannot wash my faith out of me, I don’t need to let it get to me so much, the fact that other people (Danes) are afraid of me for ‘having a religion.’ American sociologist Phil Zuckerman wrote in his book Society Without God (based on his year spent living in Denmark and Sweden) that he was told by a Danish pastor that “the word ‘God’ is one of the most embarrassing words you can say. You would rather go naked through the city than talk about God.”

Kris, unabashedly Catholic and raising a Catholic American/Danish daughter, helps me deal with this. Because this is a banner issue for me that unwittingly prevents me from fully integrating into Danish society. Not because I want to chat about God. I don’t. Not because I’m a devout Catholic (I’d prefer to be known as Jewish). Not because I want everyone to believe in G*d, I don’t want all of us to be the same. Not because I want everyone to be as mad as I am at the Catholic Church; most are. But simply because I want it to be okay to have a belief in something without it eliciting fear. Call me kooky, but I believe the world is richer for having many faiths in it. And this is not something to be afraid of. But I’m afraid of living in a country that is so afraid. I have a hard time being neutral on this one.

And if Denmark wants to live up to her ideals of being the most tolerant, open-minded European country (and that isn’t just hippie-dippy ‘kumbaya’ yarn), then she will extend those ideals to everyone. Atheists, Christians, Muslims, Skeptics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, Baha’is. Everyone. Kris is much more forgiving of her adopted 'countrymen' on this issue, and just lets it go.

But this is issue #something for me. I need people like her to help prop up my faith.

(To read more about my über-issues click here.)

Kappa Kappa Denmark: On language

2010-05-16T08:01:00.001-07:00

(Part 3 of Kappa Kappa Denmark, Part 2 is here)

A common topic among foreigners is that thorny question of language and integration. This is an issue that I frequently discuss with American Tasha. For an introduction into Tasha, see here.

It took her about 3 years to become fully fluent in Danish. She speaks English at home with her husband, Danish with his parents, and a combination of Danish and English at work. I’ve gone to her, distressed, seeking advice on why I SUCK SO BADLY AT DANISH. If I ask my boyfriend why I suck so badly at Danish, he replies, “That’s a no-brainer. You’re lazy. You don’t practice.”

He is 100% correct. I don’t practice speaking Danish much anymore. I was committed to learning Danish my first two, two-and half-years in Denmark. Then, too many people (boyfriend included) pissed me off with their unyielding questions about why I didn’t speak Danish better, that I preemptively made the decision to not learn it (at least, that’s what my therapist Finn remarked: that I’ve “subconsciously decided to not learn Danish, for fearing of losing my Americanism”). Finn is a 70-something-year-old Dane who understands perhaps 15% of what I say, when I prattle on in English. But he has me pegged correctly! Guilty as charged.

My broken Danish has given way to too many giggles, too many “hvad siger du’s?” (what did you say?), too many “how long have you been in Denmark and you still can’t speak its?!?” that I've simply stopped trying. It sounds like I’m blaming everyone else, but I put the blame squarely on me and my hyper-sensitivities.

So, I blew the whistle and put myself on the bench. I will not play the game of Danish. And I’ll try to explain why. Here’s what Tasha and I came up with.

We are Americans (a Californian and a New Yorker). We grew up in a melting pot of mellifluous linguistic harmonies – a cheesy chorus of different dialects, accents and languages: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Mandarin, a little French here, a little German there. You can vote in a U.S. election in your choice of over 100 languages. And God Bless America for that.

I’ll give you an example of how I encounter a person in America who doesn’t speak English. Let’s take Angela, who hails from Mexico and does some work for my mom. I speak to her in a combination of Spanish, with a little English. I would never, ever, in a million years ask her why she hasn’t ‘learned English’. Such a question is beyond rude, and none of my business. So for the life of me, I can’t figure out why a Dane who I barely know asks me to my face why I’m not speaking to them in Danish. That I should know it “by now.” “That ‘it would help me so much to know it.” Not knowing that they are person #234 delivering this news.

The more I have been told that “I must learn Danish”, or that “the Key to my survival (i.e. integration into Denmark) is through Danish” the more I put on the brakes.

As Tasha explained it to me, in America, foreigners arrive at the decision (in however long time it takes them) as to whether or not learn English. They are rarely forced to learn English. A lot do learn English, eventually. And most who don’t speak a lick of English, when given the choice, would say “Sure, if I could take a pill and be fluent, that would be great!” Bottoms up.

But no one can force anyone to learn English, and becoming fluent is not a prerequisite for being granted residency in the U.S. (like it is in Denmark).

Immigrants in the U.S. are given options. Option A: Learn English, make friends, get a decent job. Option B: Don’t learn English, work in a place where you don’t need language skills (probably an unsavory job), make friends who speak your language. Option C: Learn English when you are ready, in your own time and on your own terms, adapt jobs accordingly. We’ll be here, eager to help you, no matter which option you take. The decision is squarely yours.

In Denmark I have been told by my boyfriend and key Danish advisors (not including Ditte), that I have one option: Learn Danish! Otherwise, I will not have friends, I will have a tough time keeping a decent job, and they will pound me with questions until I go crying back to where I came from.

As Tasha explained it, for rebellious, freedom-fighting “Boston-Tea-Party-loving Americans” like us, to be told that we have one, lonely option, we freeze.

As she puts it, it’s like being forced to walk down a tunnel. Where we are used to having 3 or 4 options of tunnels, there’s now only one we must cross. So we throw up our arms, and reach for the walls – building bodily barricades in the form of instructing an otherwise intelligent brain to tune out all Danish.

When I hear Danish around me now – at work, on the train, or at a cocktail party – my brain goes on vacation. I tell myself, “Take a breather now, and get back on the bench. Let them speak their Swahili, don’t concern yourself with it. You alien, you immigrant. Get another martini.”

I stumble home drunk on my own pride.

So I don’t concern myself with language any longer.

This is me, being an American, and playing by my own rules of the game. I’ve carved out another tunnel of an Option for myself. It’s not an easy channel. It has made life harder for me and more alienating in every possible way. On Tuesday I was ejected from an important meeting with a client because they wanted to conduct the meeting in Danish/Swedish. So I took the walk of shame back to my desk.

A normal person – dejected and yet provoked – would have tearfully taken out her “Learn Danish!” flashcards and gotten down to business.

I didn’t. I can’t leave the cavernous tunnel of my choosing. It was my decision to move to Denmark and to take the path less traveled.

One day I’ll arrive at the forest, fluent or not. I don’t know. But hopefully getting there on my own path and my own terms will have made some difference.

A Contribution from Phillip Toledano

2010-04-07T15:55:00.000-07:00

A Valentine’s Day Poem

2010-02-14T09:06:00.000-08:00

There are two countries that I love very much.

You probably could guess them: America and

Sweden.

I’m kidding with the second one.

I like to be a stinker.

Nothing against Sweden — it's superb over there

But my heart belongs to Denmark.

The quickest way to piss off a Dane is to tell them

You’re obsessed with Sweden.

That’s sort of like moving to South Dakota,

& telling the folks there that you’re obsessed with

North Dakota.

When it’s really all the same.

I have a hard time telling the Danes that I love

Their country.

It’s like a 15-year-old trying to tell her mom that

She loves her. True as it is, it’s hard.

She’s pissed you off too many times.

So you mumble the words to her,

“Yeah, I love you Denmark. Whatever.”

“I don’t know how to live without you.

But sometimes you’re so hard on me.”

“Sorry for calling you those names, and telling you to

Suck it.

Sometimes I misbehave just to get your

Attention.

I’m callous and bitchy, and you’re an easy

Target. You just flash me back your tan smile,

Then lower your head. You’re way too polite

And modest for me."

"You don’t let me get away with my old tricks.

You’re so fresh and plucky beneath your

Shy demeanor. I can’t get close to you because

I don’t get you.”

The truth is, sometimes I feel like a girl without a

Country. That’s how Americans perceive

Canadians: “90% of You live within 90 miles of our US

Border, but you’re not Americans. So what are you?”

I use words that are elitist and annoying, like hubris

To describe that tendency of ours.

I want to option a script for the Coen brothers called

“No Country for Old Menacing Chicks” but I don’t know

What it means, to option a script.

I like to make up words, like perplexion...which is when

You have a perplexed complexion; red, ruddy cheeks that

Hold a contemplative position seconds longer than

They should.

Like this poem.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Denmark.

Will You Be Mine?

The Darling Face of a Sell-out

2010-02-07T08:08:00.001-08:00

After many years working in the Danish film industry, Bas has faithfully stayed strictly behind the camera. But one particular ad agency (not the one I work at) simply had to have a piece of him. They offered him the prestigious job of being the “face of Fullrate broadband,” to which he politely declined. They countered with more money. We discussed, he passed. They came back with an even better chunk of change; we conferred, decided it could chip in to our expensive take-away habit, so he accepted.

He really stepped in it. Ever since, Bas has endured much teasing from his film-worker friends. It’s all friendly, but those occasions when he’s recognized at 3 AM by the fleshy Turkish man handing him his shwarma as ‘the guy from those commercials,’ he cringes.

This is commercial #3 in a series of several to come. I’ve been a Fullrate customer since moving to Denmark. They offer good broadband for your home, for a great price.

They say they picked Bas because he looks like the ‘every man’. Then they get more specific with the jab that he could pass for the down-on-his-luck, slightly dizzy Danish dude in a shirt that is too big. I think they wanted a piece of him because he’s cute as a button. But I’m biased.

See for youself!

Blogging the Blues

2009-11-25T08:54:00.000-08:00

A POEM

What does homesickness taste like?

It tastes like pink cotton candy. You sink your teeth into it,
and experience something sweet and luscious. You savor the
cosmopolitan world around you; that you get to live in right
now. You smile because you have an army of a family far
away that you get to miss.

It gives you a toothache. So you curl your lip to taste
something salty escaping your eyes. You live with it. You
want to throw the candy floss away, but it’s never that easy.

What does homesickness sound like?

It sounds like white noise. Like a booming, hollow gasp that
trickles down into a pin drop. It echoes throughout a
cluttered apartment. It sounds like a phone ringing that never
gets answered. It’s the sound of an idiot foreigner butchering
the word rød, and calling her red friend an ass. It’s the
vibrato of an adult whining like a little girl, to the man she
loves the most.

It’s the hum of a half-minute conversation with pops about
the weather, while 'The Rumour Said Fire' sings a lullaby
in your ear.

What does homesickness look like?

It looks like hackneyed poems...that puff off the page like
jacked-up songs that would make Diane Warren blush.
It struts like slutty leather pants with a gold zipper,
purchased with cash. It's as sticky and scarlet as Dior lip gloss.

It is huddling under the blanket devouring books about a
mormon teen in love with a vampire. It’s the sight of a
refrigerator filled with camembert and brie.

That’s all.

What does homesickness smell like?

It smells like a fatty pork loin dissected by the cunning
fingers of someone who wants to keep kosher.

It's the scent of the sandalwood in your mom’s Hanae Mori
butterfly perfume. It wafts like Betty Crocker red velvet
cupcakes that do the trick. With tahitian vanilla frosting. It
has the essence of aged olive oil from Modena made by an
Italian amore. You can pick up a trail of witch hazel and
alcohol antiseptics slathered on chapped hands, taking a
beating.

What does homesickness feel like?

It feels like Gaultier suspenders worn too tight, so you walk
around unfashionably hunched over. It feels like a
misaligned jaw. Something askew, the toothache moves
south in the body, settling down in the chest. The pain is a
lonesome twister in the cavity where your heart used to beat.
You miss; you bend over laughing, you ache.

A tumbleweed blows through your body. Some days the pain
is a dusty pit in your belly. Every day the pit grows a bit
bigger. And the seed gets taller, strengthened by the blissful
absence of the one person whose should bring water to
your garden. And the fact that your pain is something this
person is okay with, makes the agony you feel that much
harder.

♥
CT

The Amazing Fleggaard!

2009-11-16T04:31:00.001-08:00

Just across Germany's northern-most border with Denmark you’ll find an incredible superstore called Fleggaard. There, you can buy everything you need – tubs of gummi bears, cases of wine, industrial strength dishwashing soap – at prices 30% cheaper than you’ll find in Denmark. It is Denmark's Costco, packaged as a German loophole.

Though the store is in Germany, it is owned by Danes and exists solely to help Danes avoid the high taxes on goods they are forced to pay in their lil' island-country. If you’re having a party in Copenhagen, it’s smart and common to make the 4-hour schlep just across the border to Germany to buy all your liquor (after all, parties are expensive, with all the drinking that goes down). So, Danes will drive for 2 hours, take a ferry ride, drive another 2 hours, all to SAVE oodles of cash.

So, as Fleggaard is just over the line between Germany and Denmark the company slogan goes “Lige Over Grænsen” which translates to “Just over the line” in Danish.

Their advertising agency has taken that mantra to heart, with a series of gorgeous ads featuring scantily clad models that are 'just over the line.' The first film (below) included a plane full of stunning red-bikini-wearing models who, topless, parachute out of an airplane.

The 100+ women do stunts in the air – while free-falling -- holding hands to spell out “Half-off on Dishwasher soap at Fleggaard.”

You’d be hard-pressed to find a man in Denmark who hasn’t seen and fallen in love with that commercial. It was geared strictly to men.

Last week, Fleggaard released their tasty treat for the women. This ‘music video’ (above) features a zeppelin plane filled with beautifully buff male models who enter a cavernous, womenly-shaped landscape.

Like the one before it, it is “lige over grænsen” – just over the line. And it's hysterical. Denmark's most fearless and talented commercial director, Peter Harton, outdid himself this time. He should be bringing his magic to New York City or Los Angeles some time in the future.

Enjoy!

"Lige Over Grænsen"

(Don't watch the video below if you're an easily offended: feminist; religious person; under the age of 16; or a gay male. This is purely gratuitous T & A that shows creative & beautiful Denmark, in all it's glory).

Clown pants were a big-ticket item this Spring/Summer 09 season in Copenhagen

2009-11-01T06:54:00.000-08:00

I am unsure how I feel about these pants, aesthetically- and economically-speaking. These dyslexic M.C. Hammer pants — baggy at the bottom, fitted at the top — sell for around 1500 kroner a pop (which is about $300 bucks). All for an ill-fitting piece of shiny parachute fabric around the legs, with an elastic waistband and elastic cuffs at the ankles.

I've only spotted these trendy pants floating on the beautiful bods of the wafer-thin, gorgeous Danes of Copenhagen. The girls in Denmark, no matter how hard they try, wear these things effortlessly, without looking like they just rolled out of bed. Now Americans, on the other hand, have gotten into some very bad fashion habits. And it pains me. I don't know how many times I've gone to a nail salon in Sacramento on a Saturday morning around 11AM, only to see a bunch of Sac State co-eds pull up in their BMWs, clutching their Starbucks with their chipped acrylic nails, wearing flannel, plaid pajama pants, hooded college sweatshirts and ratty old Ugg boots. I look at them and think, "Who raised you?" You're here at Modern Nails because you care about your hands and toes, but what about everything else? Can't even get dressed before leaving the house? Truly, California needs to stop this 'every day is Casual Friday look' because it has deteriorated into Pajama Saturday. And it's borderline ridiculous.

But I digress. This summer, while traveling around Europe and Southeast Asia, I did not see any clown pants in France or Italy, not in Sweden or India; and certainly not in California. These pants are a highly controversial topic in Denmark though -- even more than the immigration issue. At a key work retreat at the advertising agency where I'm employed -- where we discussed best practices on things like client pitches, mood boards and proper note-taking -- a few boys in the office raised their hands, filed an opinion, and took a non-majority vote deciding that, "The girls aren't allowed to wear the clown pants to work any longer."

So there you have it. They have been outlawed.

They are so ugly, I simply had to have a pair - and I'm not even pregnant. But I refuse to plunk down so much money in these tough economic times. So, my mom Nancy came to the rescue, as she often does.

While home in California just after my birthday last month, we designed and made the pairs featured here. It was a hoot! We went to the fabric store and bought some beautiful textiles in four different patterns for around 8 dollars, and a Vogue pattern for 99-cents. We made 2 pairs of deliciously trendy, possible ugly clown pants, just for me. Midway through the sewing process, my dad and 2 sisters asked my mom why she was sewing me pajamas. I cringed, because that's exactly the look we're not going for. But I'll let you be the judge.

The first pair comes in a silky, pseudo-polka-dot pattern, with a 1970's Pucci-inspired orange & gold waistband.

The second pair is more of a classic clown pant, in a traditional purple, green and black floral print. Simply lux and so comfortable.

I pair these pants with a white tank under a black cotton cardigan, a simple ballet flat, and a 'don't mess with me' smile.

Please, feel free to comment on how much you love them, or hate them, or are jealous of my new pants.

Yours in good fashion,

Cammy

Surprise! The Happiest Place on Earth is not Disneyland. It's in Scandinavia!

2009-10-30T06:13:00.000-07:00

Every year, the last three years, Time magazine releases an article citing a survey from the Univeristy of Michigan claiming that “Denmark is the happiest country in the world.”

And every year, 10 of my American friends email me the article to let me know I’ve made a good decision, moving to Denmark.

I don’t know how to respond to these emails because there’s a fiery collision of thoughts, emotions and experiential data in my brain when I hear about this.

Here’s my scientific response to it.

: (

Calling Denmark the happiest place on Earth would be like calling celebrities (the knicker-less Britneys, or the strung out Amy Winehouses of the world) the classiest people on Earth. Or Russia the most vodka-avoiding country in the world. Your knee-jerk reaction is whaaaaa? Howwww? Whyyy?

And there’s no greater proof of the hollowness of this study than the evidence provided by the people who sprang into action to disprove it: the Danes.

The Danes are so dour they wince at the thought of the rest of the world calling them shiny happy people laughing. Because they’re not. Period. They are kind-hearted, they are cool, they are fashionable, they are sexually-charged, smart, punctual, and world-class beer drinkers. But the happiest?! By whose definition of happy? Eeyore’s?

I believe that if you were to survey the non-native community of residents living in Denmark – those who’ve experienced living in a non-Denmark country – and asked them if the Danes are the happiest, they would tell you, without equivocation, no. The reason is, most Danes don’t exude warmth or the slightest slivver of happiness. To look another person in the eye, to smile at a stranger, to let someone go in front of you in line at the grocery market, just to be nice, would be Jack-o weird in Denmark. Because Denmark, outwardly, is a very abrupt, manner-less, smile-less, quiet, foot-tappingly impatient, chipper-free nation. Now, when you get Denmark drunk, all bets are off; then, the warmth and openness flow. But, until then, through no fault of their own – and I have no idea why – most Danes appear very closed off. But appearances are deceiving, and of course, my conclusion and perception of Danes is mired in years of living in American ebullience and pretense. In America, you can talk to anyone; we look people in the eye; we’re up for making friends on the subway. Maybe we have too many friends. And yet despite the outwardly ‘happy-come-hither’ gaze, many Americans are on Prozac.

Danes are as well, they just would never tell you. Or their mother, husband or best friend.

So here’s what the University of Southern Denmark concluded, setting-the-record- and Oprah Winfrey (who committed a whole show to the topic!) -straight.

According to Danish researchers themselves: It's not all the free things, the welfare-state safety net or the pickled herring: "it's the low expectations."

[O]n surveys, Danes continually report lower expectations for the year to come, compared with most other nations. And "year after year, they are pleasantly surprised to find that not everything is getting more rotten in the state of Denmark," the paper concludes.*

And so, beneath the façade of contentment they wear like a pashmina is a deep-rooted melancholy and pessimism that everything will turn out badly. When events don’t end up über-shitty, wow, what a surprise. You have a happy country.

And some very confused foreigners living in it.

*Source: http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2008/07/02/danes_still_the_happiest_even/

Sanne Salomonsen - Denmark's rock mama

2009-10-01T00:14:00.001-07:00

UDEN DIG...which means WITHOUT YOU

LYRICS

Sidste år ved denne tid,
gik vi sammen her.
Nu er alle sporene slettet.
Vinden hvisker ikke mere,
nu du ikke er
lige her

Jeg forstod vidst aldrig helt,
hvorfor du forsvandt.
Og din tvivl var svær at bære.
Følger du mon drømmen nu,
om at være nær,
hvor du er

Du gav livet mening
Det bliver svært at blive,
lige så lykkelig,
uden dig.
Du gav livet mening
Jeg kan aldrig blive,
nær så lykkelig
uden dig
Jeg elskede

Hvor jeg end vender mig hen,
ser jeg efter dig.
Er du mon om det næste hjørne?
Ooh, alle andre mennesker bliver
fremmede for mig,
uden dig.

Ooh yeah Uden dig
Uden dig.

Two Roads...by Robert Frost

2009-09-28T05:18:00.001-07:00

Lesson 5: How to speak in American, Learn English!

2009-09-28T05:03:00.001-07:00

Learning to communicate when being robbed

LA County Fair Commercial - Classroom

2009-09-05T03:04:00.001-07:00

I find it difficult...

2009-08-30T05:34:00.000-07:00

I find it difficult to keep my act together when a European tells me that we got it wrong -- that Al Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden doesn’t actually hate everything about America and the West. The proof being that "he once was a big Arsenal Football fan." Arsenal is in Britain, I think.

And that he, Bin Laden, "carried out the attacks on Sept. 11 as part of a bigger mission we must try to understand."

"And that America has taken thousands more innocent lives, like in Hiroshima."

"What is 3,000 compared to the hundreds of thousands who died there?"

And on and on, until my eyes cried blood. This was last night.

I don't think this person saw the footage of desperate men and women jumping out of the windows of the Twin Towers right before they came crumbling down. Obviously, this person has never been alive when his or her beloved country was attacked in four surgical strikes in three cities, minutes apart. Clearly, he doesn't know -- nor did I until yesterday -- how sensitive this issue is for the 99% of Americans who lived through that horrifying day nearly eight years ago. And who maybe doesn't want to add up the sum of such naïve drivel to be "your country had it coming."

I can move past the false metaphor of Hiroshima and the September 11 terrorist attacks, but any “digging inside the mind and reasoning of a terrorist” is dishonest if it fails to acknowledge that the needless spreading of panic, terror and innocent bloodshed is the means to achieving their specific ends.

Oh, to be homesick and sensitive all at the same time.

I am a hot mess today, awash with emotions I didn't know I could feel.

In 12 days America will honor the events of 9/11 on the 8th anniversary of the attack.

President Barack Obama has called for Americans to commemorate the day with a National Day of Service and Remembrance. I was pleased at this gesture -- it's a thoughtful call to action and an homage to the thousands who perished that day, and the many thousands more who came together to give aid, triage, relief and heroic sacrifices for their fellow citizens in the hours that followed the attacks.

I remember that morning talking on the phone to my best friend Chris (who lived back east), minutes after the second plane went into the tower. My teeth chattered and I started to shiver, which happens to me when I get sad and panicky. "Cammy, at least the buildings are still standing! It's going to be OK. You're such a spazz."

He hadn't uttered that last word before the towers collapsed right before our eyes, on the live morning news I was watching on LA channel 8. They crashed to the ground in a heap of dust and mushroom-cloud of debris. I told Chris he was full of shit, then called my mom and woke her. I called Jordan, my boyfriend, who had spent the first 18 years of his life in Manhattan. None of us knew what to do.

I dressed for work, knowing I wouldn't make it onto the Paramount lot. Filming of the TV show I worked on had been cancelled. The set would stay closed and deserted for several days.

I needed to get out of the Santa Monica apartment that I lived in alone, so I wandered into the Seattle's Best Coffee shop just around the corner on Wilshire Blvd. The usual morning shift was there that day. It was like seeing old friends. I ordered my usual and my buddy Mario - the round one who always gave me extra whipped cream -- came out from behind the counter to give me a hug. It warmed me up better than any coffee could.

Across America, Random Public Hugging went up by 987% that day back in 2001. It felt like Armageddon. The clash of emotions inside most Americans was more than any civilian was prepared for. We were vulnerable and bruised; fearful and sad; we needed each other more than we realized.

On that day, as we saw a disaster strike America, citizens across the country came together and showed the very best of America: compassionate, unified and resolute.

Today, I would give anything for a random hug. From anyone, though I know I sound weird. That would never happen in the country I'm living in now.

I find that difficult.

I'll be whatever you want me to be, just not that.

2009-07-15T01:55:00.000-07:00

My mother leaned into the patio table as she said the following words, punctuating each syllable with breathless urgency. “Remember one thing, Cammy, if you ever get into a tight spot...”

She glanced at Kelly and Stephanie, then whipped her head back to me.

“You’re a Canadian.”

My flushed, boozy cheeks collapsed into a frown. “I am no such thing, and I will never say that. No offense to Canada.”

“Do it, Cam,” piped in Kelly, her curly strawberry-blonde hair tapping her shoulders as she nodded in agreement with my mom.

She was supposed to be my ally here.

Kelly is an FBI-agent, formerly stationed at the Sacramento field office and working the field of counter-terrorism.

Before her gig at the Bureau, she worked for the UN, helping to rebuild police forces in war-torn Bosnia.

A killer patriot from North Dakota with brilliant comedic timing, a love of running and the best Ghiradelli brownie recipe in the northern hemisphere, Kelly shuffles calls on her Nextel walkie between informants and babysitters.

How on Earth could she condone me putting on a charade of being “not an asshole American” to soften the ire of some pea-brain who hates my country?

It was the night before my big move to Copenhagen, and I was enjoying one last hurrah with my close girlfriends at my parent’s house. The patio smelled of citronella oil mingling with lemon as we sat by the pool under the glow of white lights draped on the balcony above us. I took a sip of my homemade limoncella, letting the sweet liqueur take over my mouth.

“I’m not sure I can do that,” I said stubbornly. “Only a coward and a traitor to her country would take the easy, Canadian way out.”

I looked over at Stephanie taking a sip of her 2003 La Crema Pinot Noir. I love watching Stephanie drink wine. There is something painstaking in the way she slyly takes each sip, swishes the wine around in her mouth while making sure no one's watching when she swallows. Each sip is savored, sinfully delicious. Stephanie is a born Mormon and as such, was raised under the beliefs and teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith who forbade the consumption of alcohol, caffeine, cigarettes and drugs among his flock. She’s a rebel Mormon though, caught between the old rules and traditions of her Church and family, and her latter-day proclivity to push boundaries. She will probably never not be a Mormon, but she’s made peace that she will be one who questions protocol and persnickety canon that forbid her from having innocent fun. Every weekend Stephanie and her husband Chuck — whom she met at BYU after he had returned from his two-year church mission abroad — drop their kids off at church, waving goodbye as they peel out of the parking lot and head up the street to Starbucks.

Stephanie piped in, “Your personal safety will have to trump your need to be patriotic and proud.”

To them, it was all rhetoric. Be a Canadian: no harm, no foul. Just insulate yourself if you ever feel in the presence

At Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum

of someone who really “hates us.” I’d heard on the TV all about how much “they hate us” from pundits like Bill Maher and Whoopi Goldberg.

It was late August 2006, the dog-days of summer and the heyday of Bush-bashing. I couldn’t help but think that shedding my Americanism to blunt the edge of sharp Euro-criticism would be tantamount to letting “the terrorists win.”

That statement has become a favorite of mine in recent years. If we don’t [fill in the blank here], then the terrorists win. We’ve heard it in presidential speeches; heck, I’ve written it in gubernatorial prose myself, that if “we don’t continue to travel, or if we don’t keep our resolve, if we succumb to fear” then “the terrorists win.”

On a recent business trip to Manhattan, when I forgot to put into my checked baggage my purchase of a large bottle of designer Glow Fusion self-tanner, which ended up in my carry-on baggage – in defiance of the ‘no liquids policy’ – I told the TSA Security Agent that if he threw out my self-tanner, then the terrorists win. He chucked it in the trash, unamused.

This is what our country of America had become. Pale, feckless wannabe Canadians.

Because people like Sean Penn and Barbara Streisand had gone on parade telling red-blooded Americans that “everyone hates us.” Nevermind that the press conveniently crops Hugo Chavez or Saddam Hussein out of the image of Sean wheezing those words, lest we see that it’s his chummy friends who have penned his talking points.

I’m an American living in Denmark going on the record to say that they don’t hate us. They didn’t hate us when Bush was President, and they don’t blindly love us because Obama is now. Whatever their capricious love/hate whims, whether anyone in Europe or the rest of the world blindly loves my country or hates my country is of no concern to me anymore.

Frankly, I don’t give a damn. (Coming from a make-up’d, Jimmy Choo-wearing, former-sorority-president who cares about what people think, I’ve made a staggering leap).

What became crystal clear to me recently during a discussion with a powerful film producer in Copenhagen is that it would be a huge miscalculation to presume the citizens of any other country but America would honestly root for a thriving America. As I was telling this producer juggernaut, “If you look at the times in history when America has thrived the most — economically, culturally, politically— it was - ”

He cut me off.

“But don’t you see? We don’t want America to thrive and be successful.”

It was like a ton of foam bricks falling down on me, completely stunning and altogether painless.

It hit me how silly and naïve I’d been, paying so much concern as to whether the country I had a crush on, Denmark, loved me and my country...or not. When the very premise for that anxiety was flawed.

Why would any countryman truly cheer for the excellence of another country? Duh.

That last night in California was almost 3 years ago, and I’m proud to say I’ve never had to work my killer Canadian accent while ‘aboat’ in Denmark. For now, America’s leadership is doing a bang up job placating the critics and apologizing to countries that hate us at every corner of the world.

Living as an American abroad, maybe that should make me feel safer. Somehow, it doesn’t.

*Names have been changed to protect the anonymity of my friends.

Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version

2009-06-02T20:53:00.001-07:00

Slumblog Extraordinaire!

2009-04-20T10:46:00.000-07:00

I had the incredible opportunity to travel to India recently, Mumbai specifically (henceforth called Bombay – the preferred name among the locals). The firm where I work has a client that recently launched a natural mineral water product, bottled at the foothills of the Himalayas. I am on the team helping to brand “QUA.”

We were there for a week, and stayed in the Churchgate neighborhood in the southern part of Bombay, on a street parallel to the beach...The Intercontinental Hotel on Marine Drive.

Basically, it takes about 60-90 minutes of driving to get from southern Mumbai to mid-city Mumbai. The city is a long strip of an island divided by north and south, and surrounded by the Arabian Sea. It is a huge, sprawling and traffic-jammed metropolis. Though you’ll find some towering skyscrapers, they are scattered about without much pre-determination, as far as I could tell. Most of the buildings share their worn-out facades and open wounds quite plainly.

India left a deep impression on me. Before I left on the trip, everyone asked me if I had seen “Slumdog Millionaire.” I hadn’t. I wanted to see it, just never got around to it. I’ve always been keen on the Bollywood film movement. The way they play out serious dramatic genres by employing the same tricks you’d find in The Sound of Music is a cinematic feat. First there is a conflict, then they break out into song, dance a jig, touch each other’s cheek, then conflict’s resolved. The whole cast lines up – like the way our robot-troopers do in Star Wars – to dance in synchrony an elegantly choreographed routine.

That’s my vision of Bollywood. Not to say I was expecting to see dance routines on the streets of Bombay – in between stalls of “homes” in the slums – but maybe part of me would have welcomed that sight.

I’ll be blunt and honest now in how I describe one of my impressions of India. It’s not easy, but the most important lesson Denmark has taught me is to rise up and be honest. Even if it means hurting feelings or being un-P.C. Here goes. India has a lot of poor people. They have even more weak and deprived beggars who, through no fault of their own, had the unfortunate experience of being born outside a caste. This group of people used to be called “untouchables”, but today, the term is dalits. I didn’t know this until I got there, but there are about 180 million people (in a country of 1.1 billion) who are below poor. That is, they are so poor and under-privileged they don’t even qualify to fit into one of the 4 levels in the caste-pyramid that rises above them.

The caste system was outlawed in India sometime in the 1950s, but it seems, in too many ways, to be alive and well still. According to the Hindu religion – to rudely reduce it to a pithy upshot – those “lowest” people were likely bad-ass sinners in their previous lives, so they got what they deserved in this one.

But while I launch into a ‘poverty tirade’ as my first descriptor of India, I should add that Bombay is a vibrant, hopping, fantastic city that is in no way awash in misery. I saw more smiles, hearty laughing, jumping, dancing and hand-holding in Bombay in one week than I have seen in Denmark in two-and-a-half years.

The citizens of Bombay enjoy life and living, and they treat their fellow brothers and sisters (laterally, across caste) like gold.

In some ways, I feel like I may have more in common with a middle-class, educated, city-dwelling Indian woman my own age than I do with a Danish person of similar qualifications. Those Indian kids also grew up speaking English; they also watched Sesame Street in their youth; they know what pineapple sorbet from Baskin-Robbins tastes like and their Hindu values are more chaste and puritanical like my own (Catholic) ones, than the all-secular, hyper-hippie, anti-religion, “me-centered, blended-family” values that I see informing Danish youth. So in some ways, I feel akin more to them.

But not entirely.

On Friday, India began its month-long election process to elect a new government. Mostly likely, they will wind up with another coalition government. One of the candidates spoke out against the middle class, accusing them of being the true perpetrators victimizing the poorer classes. Hmmm. Food for thought. I’ll let him say it, but I’ll add that I agree. There is a huge population of citizens who benefit to startling heights by having 180 million massively deprived poor people who can provide them with cheap labor. There are no minimum wage laws in India, so quite a few middle class, Indian 22-year-old blokes in college have a 1) chauffeur to drive them to parties, 2) dishwasher, to clean up the mess 3) a personal cook to make sure they never get their hands dirty. They may not be full-time employees, but this kind of ‘cheap labor support’ is easily accessible and comes delivered.

Now, as an American, I would be careless to not admit that in the good ol’ US of A we have far too many poor people too. Phil Donahue once called it the “Mal-distribution of wealth.” As if wealth should be doled out and distributed. But all I can say — and this isn’t a game of one-up-man-ship, because I love India— but all I can say is that America doesn’t treat its poor and weak like that. We don’t think it’s okay that certain people have lesser opportunities. Certain people do, but it’s not okay. We search for ways to rectify these injustices; we elect leaders who campaign on platforms that speak eloquently for the charitable, hard-working middle and working class. We protect vulnerable children, and we dispense healthcare to anyone who stumbles into an emergency room (it’s the law). The very core of America are freedom and opportunity – and most Americans agree that without those at our foundation, we have nothing.

I get peeved when I hear Earth-loving, open-minded Europhiles describe the poor of America and India in the same breath. Some of these people embrace India for its rich culture, lovely people, its beautiful cotton textiles, Darjeeling tea and its spiritual zen/yoga-side, while speaking derisively about America’s mistreatment of the weak. Without paying proper heed to the systemic corruption, neglect, and malfeasance that ensures certain Indian-born babies grow into penniless, uneducated beggars. Or servants, if they’re lucky.

All I ask is that we all be honest. Every country needs to improve, not just America. And not just Denmark, though I tend to pick on her more than what may be deserved. And if I am my own island-nation, navigating the tricky waters of Scandinavia, I am 100% red-blooded and in desperate need of improvement too. And some diplomacy.

On the plane ride back to Copenhagen, I finally watched Slumdog. What a lovely little film – it’s the Mumbai I saw and loved, from Juhu Beach to Bandra West. The film may be a bit more polished around the edges, but the visuals rang true. And apparently, the most beautiful little kids are born in India.

Now, I offer some fun facts about India:

India has the largest English-speaking population in the world.
Most people speak both English and Hindi, but in the southern parts, it may just be English.
Only 2% of the population pays taxes.
Religious life is a secular experience in India. While there are tensions like in any country, people in Bombay typically get along across religions or creeds.
Half the population is under the age of 25.
One-third of the population is under the age of 14.
While the majority are Hindu, with a population of 1.1 billion and 12% Muslim...India has the largest Muslim population in the world.
Within 25 years, India will have the 6^th biggest consumer economy in the world.
India is poised to do incredible things on the world stage. A real sleeping giant.

Happy New Year! Godt Nytår!

2009-01-04T04:04:00.000-08:00

I’ve broken a cardinal rule in being a blogger. And for that I’m deeply regretful. Consistently updated entries are the single most important part of maintaining a blog, and alas, I’ve let weeks turn into months with nary a prosaic peep from me.

To my readers back home and maybe in Denmark — both of you — I apologize!

Boring you with excuses, I’ll admit that I’m working a lot, traveling much, and saving very little time for personal creative writing projects. I’m writing full-time now ‘for a living,’ so my allotted ‘writer’s-block-hours’ are earmarked just for private stuff. That’s how professional I am.

On to not-so-juicy personal news, I’m still living and breathing in Copenhagen. I’m living in a flat tucked sweetly behind Amalienborg Castle, the palace residence of Denmark’s royal family. From the living room (or stuen, in Danish), I can see into Prince Joachim’s quarters. Nothing juicy is happening over there either, and I check on a regular basis. The prince and his new French bride, Marie, are expecting their first baby together. Word has it Marie doesn’t speak a lick of Danish yet, but she is ‘trying.’ Probably as hard as I am.

That is the royal poop.

Taking stock of all that has happened in 2008, I can describe a few personal highlights and lowlights, in general terms that have semi-relevance to the world around us.

I’ll start with the Bad list, which I’ll call:

Not Good in 2008

• Too few great films were released.
• I started to see the cracks in Denmark’s beautiful façade.
• I learned way too much about Spencer and Heidi than is healthy for a normal person.
• The economy went in the crapper, Dad’s 401k became a 101k.
• I got homesick.
• I worked on holidays.
• Many doors were slammed in my face. (Literally. In DK, basic street manners, like holding the door open for the person behind you, are unheard of).
• Brilliant shows like “Pushing Daisies” got the ax (thanks, striking writers of the WGA).
• I heard too much ignorant political ranting from a propagandized population who all think alike.
• Lance Armstrong came out of retirement and returned to the noble profession of bullying riders under the guise of curing cancer.
• Embarrassingly small quantities of writing or reading

Great in 2008

• America elected a new President and has a renewed sense of hope.
• I discovered a truly loving, wonderful, sensitive Danish man.
• I lost weight by not exercising so much and eating whatever I want.
• The US Ambassador to Denmark taught me how to lighten up, listen, laugh and embrace the naysayers.
• Mad Men – America’s brilliant 60’s-era TV show about advertising
• I got to work with the most talented, fun-loving, kindhearted colleagues in the advertising industry.
• Facebook helped me reconnect with friends from the Governator’s office.
• Hiking in pristine Lake Tahoe
• I realized how much I adore my 3 sisters.
• A baby was named after me. ☺
• I rediscovered my love of pilates.
• The fuller eyebrow made a comeback.
• I started saying no.
• The Power of Now imparted its timeless wisdom.
• I started appreciating gorgeous Danish design (lamps, sofas, chairs).
• I realized just how American I am. And that it's okay.

I wish you and yours a 2009 full of growth, learning, great clothes, good food, good friends, family time and lots of love and adventure. May the year ahead be your best one yet.

XO
Cammy

I wanted a bike that no one would steal...

2008-08-29T10:27:00.000-07:00

So I bought a pink one. The old Cammy would have been embarrassed to admit that pink was her signature color -- but Camryn 30.0 celebrates it. It's a great set of wheels, and scoots me around town in style.

Stay tuned for my Swedish-design white bike basket. It's conceptual and looks like lace.

Hip Hop Republican: The Democrats' Missing History

2008-08-21T13:52:00.000-07:00

*Hip Hop Republican*: The Democrats' Missing History

This side of the road

2008-06-26T05:23:00.000-07:00

My life is so damn charming in Denmark, it’s not even funny.

I eat cherry-wine-gummies every evening on my bike ride home from work. Sometimes I want to steal a puppy and place it in my bike basket, just because it would look cute perched inside. Like a toy-poodle.

At the kiosk around the corner from my job, I grab a bag of colorful matador mix.

“What’s up, Habib?”

The candy was named after a famous Danish TV movie that everyone watches on Christmas, New Years, or days that end in -y.

People smile so much in Denmark, sometimes their lips stick to their gums. Maybe its all the wine gums. The looker Prince Ingolf is an example of this. With his toothy grin.

I whizz past the queen’s guards everyday on my ride home. I salute them, even though I’m an American.

This country loves foreigners.

---------------

I’ve given up driving all together since moving to Denmark, in favor of my red city bike I call my “shitty bike.” Here, there’s panache attached to riding the crappiest set of wheels on the street. Like all the years of hard riding with the scratches, the drunken tumbles, the spills in the rain, give the bike street cred. Sometimes cyclists get huffy and kindly cut you off in the bike lane. Once, I caught myself lunging for the horn – as if I were in my old car. The medal handlebar splintered my fist.

That urge is a remnant of my anger management years, driving around the streets of Los Angeles.

I used to roll phone calls to my mom during my morning commute to the Paramount lot in Hollywood– which took 1 hour and covered 16 km. She would sweetly hold the line when I told her I had to put the phone down to free up my middle finger.

It’s just part of the deal of building a life in LA: topsy-turvy, hypnotic, smoggy.

Double-shot skinny lattes, therapy-on-the-go, colonics, puffery, cocktails at Chateau Marmot, smoking with the top down on the drive home from yoga. The idiosyncracies are seductive and come in decaf.

Living in LA, you spend a good portion of your day in your car. You bond with it – you make it your office, your bedroom and you fill it with important things like Chicken McNuggets, tape mixes, lip balm and blow-up dolls (for sneaking into the carpool lane on the 405 Freeway).

Many important life events took place in my station-wagon. I was asked out for a date at In & Out Burger, I’ve had meaningful relationships with other drivers that went on for blocks; and I’ve driven head-first into a live film shot starring Al Pacino (granted, that was in a golf cart on the Paramount lot). But you get my point. Even escaping to the 'office' meant I was behind another set of wheels.

On a recent business trip to LA, my boyfriend asked me if we should walk from our hotel to dinner at a nearby restaurant. It didn’t feel safe – I had to decline his offer. Drivers aren’t used to seeing pedestrians on the sidewalk. I wouldn’t want to alarm them.

Two years ago, I sold my beloved sage green Subaru to a sweet couple from Sacramento. We struck a fair deal, and they were “delighted” to give their lesbian cash to a young lady taking off for nobler pursuits in Europe.

If they’d known the extent of my nobility was a tipsy cyclist's salute to the fuzzy-hat-wearing guards in front of the castle in front of my flat, they could have low-balled me more.

I think of them sometimes, and my old car, my old fast-driving life:

The Pacific Coast Highway, the drive-thrus, the fender benders and those who surprise you by letting you in.

I miss it just enough to keep me pedaling harder and faster on my red shitty bike.

* For søde Gitte Holm

Not everyone knows this...

2008-05-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

But there is an official state religion in Denmark. People are slightly fanatical about it, and they’re not afraid to tell you.

You see it described in their Facebook profiles, and it's obvious when you visit any ‘house of worship’ Sunday morning. It’s organized and it's everywhere, and frankly, at times, it has me taking a step back.

The religion is called atheism, and it operates within a brand of fundamentalism. You can find many mainstream atheists - those who don’t sneer at others – who welcome conversation with persons of a different faith. But frankly, they don’t run in my circles.

On one of my 4 recent business trips to the U.S. in the last 5 weeks, my colleagues and I were seated on a flight next to a Danish missionary.

He was a real live one – a Christian something (not sure which denomination). This thin, 30-something man with a receding hairline, an overbite and pink gums that were

(not a missionary, min kæreste )

revealed every time he smiled (about every 5 seconds) was a real talker. Curiosity shone in his eyes when he learned we were from an advertising agency. “Heck, maybe he wanted our service in helping to brand God,” laughed a board-room full of colleagues a few weeks later.

This friendly missionary, who wanted little more than to hear about our work, elicited the scorn and fear of a group of educated, talented, self-professed open-minded adverts. ‘What a fool, that man.’ Clearly he didn’t get the memo that people in the Kingdom choose intellect over naiveté. And those who do not, apparently haven’t got the smarts to know better.

This sweet man, and all of our chatter, broke my heart.

Many will huff that they have no problem with religion or spiritual persons– “just as long as they keep me out of it, and respect that I believe it’s a crock of shit” .... while not appreciating that such proactive haughtiness can be just as off-putting as any proselytizing sermon from a stranger.

Organized religion is one of those grand narratives like the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, liberalism, conservatism, and Studio 54 that my knee-jerk reaction wants to reject. Wannabe postmodernist that I am. We tend to over-privelge meta-narratives at the expense of missing the smaller ones. Where pearls of wisdom and nuggets of nonsense reside. The poetics of postmodernism urge us to raise an eyebrow to grand narratives. But applying the inverse of that same logic, shouldn’t I look with equal suspicion on the grand rejection.

America is a spiritual nation, where Judeo-Christian values inform our lifestyles, our traditions and our modes of conduct. For better or for worse, it is ours to celebrate or denigrate, but thankfully, we have a well-constructed system that separates church and state, so that schools, government and the judicial system cannot infringe on an individual’s right to believe in whatever combination of deities they like, or not. A wise Danish thinker, Camelia, once told me that the interesting thing about America is that for every major movement that appears, so does its counter-movement. A concept like “intelligent design” gives me the willies, but most Americans don’t give it the attention it doesn’t deserve. For this naïve American, Copenhagen tends to feel like one big counter-movement, that has forgotten what it runs perpendicular to. What was once fringe-full and progressive has become fundamental and common. A bit monochromatic, I long for some bible thumping, some Hora wedding dancing, some sweaty “1-800-send-me-your-cash” preachers, and conversations somewhere in the middle, where the faithful person isn’t labeled weak or a dunce.

In the American paradigm, it’s easier for me to fight for the little guy – the quiet dissenter or the non-believer. Perhaps he’s looking for someone to have brunch with on Sunday mornings. But there was a time I was perusing an admissions book from Harvard Divinity School, to see if a master’s degree in religious studies was something worth pursuing.

Like many, I’m still searching for answers, but I’m not smart, wise, or arrogant enough to commit to any yet. It’s possible I was more interested in belonging to the Church of Harvard than any religious program.

But I admire those who have found their own belief system. It would be rude to call it simplistic or any easy escape. I’m happy America is built the way it is.

.........................................

Last spring, a talented and shrewd Danish professor told me that he knew the minute I walked into his classroom that I was an American. I found that odd. How could he know? He elaborated, “There’s just something in the gaze of an American.”

His words have echoed over the last 19 months throughout my tenure in Denmark. I’ve grown adept at picking out Americans on the street. It’s easiest to spot when strolling down the long shopping street of the Strøget. My success rate is about 95%, and when in doubt, I shimmy past the group in question to hear them talking. It’s not just the white tennis shoes or the track-suits that no one else is wearing, and it's more than the obnoxiously higher volume of voice. It’s something in the gaze of an American.

Maybe it’s faith. In something higher and bigger. Maybe its faith in nothing. Whatever it is, it’s palpable, and it speaks to other humans.

Mostly, it's an attitude that says faith doesn’t necessarily transcend knowledge, but the two can co-exist. Intellectual rationalism is all well and good, but hampered by the capacities of our lowly functioning brains.

And on that note, I’ll suspend my ribbing of Denmark’s shabby chic atheism and try to understand it in the context of European nations who have seen bloodshed, the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing, the crusades, and much more, on their home turf, in the name of religion.

The process of belong to a beliefs system is something I’m ill-equipped discussing. But it deserves its rightful share of discussion without derision.

Likewise, so is disbelief. And that is another lesson Denmark is teaching me.

If you have any answers, you know how to reach me.

(Hermosa Beach, California - Sunday morning)

From e.e. to KM

2008-01-15T11:26:00.000-08:00

We are so same and lustful
trees cannot be so high
high cannot be so trustful
I am through you goodbye.

Ghost story

2008-01-15T10:31:00.000-08:00

Fade in:

A man and a woman in bed – hair disheveled – slowly puff on a single cigarette, passing it back and forth.

Man
I saw a ghost once. In the corridor right outside this bedroom.

Woman
Was he named Casper?

Man
Yeah, that’s a common Danish name. But no, it wasn’t.

Woman
Casper is an American cartoon. He doesn’t exist.

Man
But this one did. It was a dog. He was tethered to a leash, suspended in the air. The leash was a silhouette on the wall.

Woman
Did he bark to you in Danish?

Man
He wasn't trying to communicate. He was brooding; and a mixed-breed.

Woman
Like you.

Man
A bull-dog and a shit-zu.

The woman laughs.

Woman
Bull-shit.

Man
No, it’s true.

Woman
No, that’s what the breed is called.

Man
(Passing the cigarette)
Oh. Are you afraid of ghosts?

Woman
No.
(pregnant pause)
But I’m afraid of people who see ghosts.

She takes a drag from her cigarette and exhales a puffy circle, as if to say toodle-oo.

Fade to black.

Strange Kids with Candy

2007-12-10T16:04:00.000-08:00

There are two kinds of parents in this world: those who will buy sugar cereals for their children… and those who deprive their kids of a sugary upbringing in favor of a wholesome one. My mother was the latter parent, to a fault. Every week, my 3 sweet-tooth sisters and I would beg her to buy us Cocoa Pops, Lucky Charms, Trix, or Frosted Flakes. We wanted anything that would leave us fighting for a prize inside and with a mouth full of cavities.

Nancy, my mom, would sooner hook us up to a Kool-Aid drip than succumb to our pressure.

Ours was a “no-sugar” household. Nancy would buy peanut butter only from the health food store (the chunky, pale kind mashed from fresh peanuts the day of purchase). It tasted funky, like a ground-up monkey, we told her. I yearned for the day when I would be a grown-up with the free will to buy Skippy or Jif. Once a month, if we were good little girls – minding our p’s and q’s and not reporting Nancy to Child Protective Services for her sugarfree tyranny – she would let her four daughters share one can of Coca-Cola. In those days, that would average about 1.4 ounces per person. Or 6 baby-dropper size swallows, if you drank it slow and sparingly.

Christy was the oldest, so she got to pour the can of Coke. We’d pick four identical glasses, and as the second oldest, I'd get to choose my glass first. With my pinky finger in the air, I would gingerly set down the glass on our player-piano in the game room. “Hello Dolly” was on permanent loop, as I’d swig my Coke wearing black sunglasses and pretending to play for my rowdy sisters. To set off the brownish-rouge of my cola, I'd wear a fresh coat of my mom’s Chanel red lipstick to look like an adult who knew how to drink her drink. Lipstick on my teeth, I looked like a blind hooker, but I thought I was Stevie Wonder. Or Ray Charles. I enjoyed my Coke like a once-blind person staring at the sun for the first time.

My sisters and I, not used to the sugar, would easily get souped up on our 1-quarter can of Coke. It was like kindergarten, unplugged. Allyson, third in line, would tap dance on top of the pin-ball machine. Jax, the youngest, would get her finger jammed inside the gumball machine fishing for a freebie (too young to realize that the gumballs were there for decoration only), and that somebody had permanently lodged a foreign coin in the machine so that no gumball could pass through it.

My parents, bless their hearts, thought a sugar-free childhood was the best way to ensure our health and happiness. What they didn’t realize was that we snuck in sugar – in massive quantities – when they weren’t looking. Birthday parties were not about friends and swimming pools and presents, they were about cake, ice cream and piñatas full of Skittles. I chose my friends not on the content of their character, but on the sugar content of their breakfast cereals, that I could enjoy the morning after sleepovers. Nicole had the world’s coolest mother who hailed from Communist Czechoslovakia. Isotta was so mesmerized by the plethora of cereal options in the grocery store, she bought them all for her kids who didn’t realize how good they had it, and for me, who’d hug her knees in the kitchen in deep gratitude.

The first 10 years of my life were spent swearing up and down that once I had my own wealth (from being a world-famous ‘Make-up Artist to the Poor’) I would spend my riches on candy, cookies and cupcakes. The three C’s, the basics in life.

Its only fitting that, today, I would chose to live just around the corner from the finest bakery in all of Copenhagen. Every morning I pass by, and find myself fighting a small urge in my belly to buy a sugary confection that I don’t want or need, just because I can, and because it’s finally allowed.

Today, I don’t like soft drinks or Coke. Gumballs, I’ll take em or leave em. But sugar cereals I’ll purchase a few times a year. When I have kids one day, I’ll stop that habit, so that they can enjoy the privilege of being sweet on their own, and experience the cravings of life.

I guess I’m that kind of parent too.

Birds & fishes

2007-11-20T07:40:00.000-08:00

As luck would have it, I didn’t have school or work today. So on this balmy afternoon, after washing away my sins and stains at the Laundromat Café around the corner, I curled up with a bowl of risengrød (rice pudding) and Book of Longing (by Leonard Cohen).

In the humdrum of daily life – negotiating a schedule of full-time school and a near-full time job – moments of pristine rest and rumination are rare. I looked down at my bowl of pudding, topped off with a dollop of pure butter collapsing into the cinnamon, and paused to thank the country that taught me how to enjoy it. I eat it like a child sucking on ice cream.

The short poem The Sweetest Little Song floated like a bubble off the page.

“You go your way.
I’ll go your way too.”

My friend, the Danish writer Nils Thorsen, gave me the Book of Longing on my 30th birthday. It was his own copy, making the gift all the more precious. A few of my – or our – favorite pages now have tattered edges. A brown smudge, likely from his two-year-old’s thumb, is streaked across Cohen’s bird on a branch.

“You go your way.”
.........................................................................................................

Leonard Cohen is Canada's national treasure: a raspy-voiced singer/songwriter, and poet slash tortured artist. Every country has 'em. Denmark churns out more than you’d expect for a country of 5 million. The weather is just one cog on an assembly line of national demerits that spits out virtuosos of the written word: Kim Larsen, Jørgen Leth, Søren Ulrik Thomsen, and Mr. Cosmopolitan Benny Andersen, to name a few.

Hidden in their golden words are some answers to the familiar question I’m posed on a near daily basis.

Why did I move to Denmark?

Early on, I turned to glibness for an answer. Yet each response contained a breadcrumb of truth for the discerning listener to catch.

“I’m running from the FBI.”

Which is partially true.

“Being an American is tiring. I needed a break.”

Also true.

“But why Denmark,” they pester me to know.

It’s been said that Danes are a people self-obsessed with their own identity. Not in the grating, Narcissus way, but from a position of raw self-consciousness. Stunned, they ponder why or how anyone would ditch a palm tree-skyline in California for a cigarette-sky 6 months out of the year in Denmark.

What gets these probers every time is my final answer: that I haven’t a clue as to why I’m here. And that, perhaps, the absence of a reason is the reason itself.
..................................................................................................

Outside, I hear a young child squeaking “Moo-ah” to his mother. The sound grows on me. A pack of young ones are exiting a city bus, holding hands in pairs. Each fair-haired child wears a puffy one-piece that looks like a flightsuit. There’s magic in the way they float across the street, bundled up and still in love with the aquarium they were born into.

For anyone that’s been an expatriate and wandered the unknown streets of a distant land, listening, observing, imagining, and not understanding… you know how I feel. Feeling timeless.

That sensation of being a fish-out-of-water. And realizing, that your lungs grow stronger and your skin stays soft. And that you can grow alternative means of breathing and staying alive.

Denmark has developed aquatic mood-lighting to fill interior darkness. Candles cast a nice glow that form strange shadows on the blue wall of my flat. It gets us through the chill of autumn.

On the days when I gasp and long to dive back into the warm Pacific Ocean – and swim among my own kind – I call a friend like Nils. He's offered to breathe for me when I need a break.

It's nice knowing I don’t have to run from my fatigue, or march onward to the next place – or to some unknown amorous agent to distill meaning into my grief. For now, I have risengrød, longing in my heart, and a way to split myself in two. Part American, part fish. I’ll go where the tides takes me.

“You go your way
I’ll go your way too.”

I just may get there later.

(The old life :)

10 Things to do on a lame-ass day

2007-10-21T03:41:00.000-07:00

When times get tough, it's helpful to set up a 'plan-of-action' to help get through the day. Perhaps it’s an American tendency of mine to take stock of troubles, then pin-point a methodology for ridding them. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

1. Make a batch of cupcakes.
2. Go for a run – listen to music on iPod (*avoiding Tracy Chapman at all costs).
3. Call 2 friends who like you more than they liked him.
4. Change the bag in your Bosch vacuum cleaner. Pull out all loose change.
5. Watch a Sex & the City episode (*while sipping a Cosmo. Identify w/Carrie only in severe cases.)
6. Eat ½ a cupcake. Feed the second half to the swans at Sortedam Sø.
7. Try to find some taste in it. Be grateful.
8. Read a Leonard Cohen poem. Poke fun at the strange words.
9. Go for a bike ride.
10. Make a list of things to make a list about. Turn into a Powerpoint.

A final option -- in the event the other 10 fail -- would be a last-minute jaunt to Paris. When in doubt, get out of town. Throw your cares away like an old, stale baguette and stand amidst a city of people just as confused as you.

Au revoir.

Fall is in the air. Scarves abound.

2007-10-16T12:04:00.000-07:00

Tredive er den nye tyve.

2007-10-14T14:09:00.000-07:00

"To fall in love with a country or another human being requires somes gullibility, and I have plenty to spare." (Charles Simic, U.S. Poet Laureate/ expatriate)

....................................................................

I recently celebrated a birthday, and I'm allowing only Danish speakers to know my real age. It was a fantastic occasion, topped off by a surprise visit from my mother and father all the way from California. I hosted an "American-style" birthday party at my flat attended by my Danish family, close friends and my parents. There were plenty of mojitos, tapas and embarrassing party games on tap to make it a full and memorable evening.

My triathlete/marathon friends back home in the U.S. were quick to congratulate me -- not on my birthday -- but on my entrance into a new age bracket at triathlons. A much more competitive, fiercer crowd, I will have to step up my training if I hope to not finish in last place at my next race. (Now, I will go from running 0 to 3 times a week, to 1 to 3 times). At my birthday dinner, my best friend (and former au pair) Anne Louise commented in a heart-warming toast that she was proud of the way I had adapted so well to European culture, adopting a very Danish lifestyle. She gave specific examples and they included the following newly-acquired attributes:

straightening my hair
becoming less digitized
kicking my BlackBerry™ addiction
wearing less make-up
exercising less
riding my bike more
dressing more danish (fewer bikinis, more raincoats)
stopping to smell the roses
becoming more open about certain taboo topics (like sex!)
appreciating strange Danish humor (a la Klovn)
being more silly
consuming more cocktails

My mother expanded on the list, commenting that she was glad to see I now do wild things like "eat food" and "have a bit of fun." There are many 20-somethings in LA who measure their self-worth in designer couture and pounds lost. I once resided in that demographic of formerly skinny, post-Gen X sorority girls who consider a breath of fresh air: breakfast, and search for meaning in Ethan Hawke films. So glad to know a way out is possible, by way of turning 30 or fleeing to Europe.

To my Kappa friends back home, my sisters, my training buddies, my pals from work, from childhood, in LA, Aspen and the cycling world -- thank you for your kind wishes. I'm truly touched, and I miss you.

XO
Cammy

New Job… New Semester… Newt Gingrich

2007-09-13T14:49:00.000-07:00

I have nothing to say about Newt Gingrich other than the obvious: is he going to run, how’s his hair these days, and will he shake-up the Republican primary?

Moving on…

I’m thrilled to report that I’ve begun a new job at a dynamic Danish TV development company. It’s nestled within a larger reklamebureau (or “advertising agency”) and has developed several credible programs for Danish TV (such as Laudrup Høgh and 2900 Happiness). Thus far, I couldn’t be more content, challenged or inspired in this new position. My title (in Danish) is Projekt Assistant. If you translate that into English, it means: high-ranking person. The K in projekt is a legitimizing letter outside the English language, lending instant credibility. I fall somewhere below the CEO in the chain-of-command (how far below doesn't really matter) .

This job is a striking departure from my activities at university this past year in Denmark. And it’s only mildly, hugely different from the position I held in the Governor’s office. Where my title had “Senior” and “Executive” in it. I know it’s ghastly arrogant (and pathetically wistful) of me to mention that point, but I do so only to make a larger one. A former hang-up on things like title, position and ‘career path’ has been called into question in the week+ that I’ve been a member of the Danish workforce. That is because the Danish office is constructed much more laterally, as opposed to the rigid hierarchies you’ll find in the US or the UK. Assistants will often share the same office as their superiors, and bosses will fetch their own coffee. In Denmark, its okay, even encouraged, to question those in authority. I still find that point quite strange, the fact that... those under me, like my stapler, can snap at me.

It feels like a homecoming, of sorts, back to my creative roots in television. This time around, my “first days” have been no less memorable than when I began in Hollywood, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, out of UCLA's film school. At Fox, my first day saw me tipping too far back in my squeaky office chair, and falling on my derriere – legs splayed – staring at the fax machine I had been instructed to watch. At the Paramount lot, on my first day at Roswell I got to zip around the studio in a golf cart, which was exhilarating until I rounded a corner too fast and entered the camera-shot of an actor performing a monologue on "New York” street. The actor, Al Pacino, stared back at me, daggers in his eyes matching my own shocked stare as I trembled, hiding behind the steering wheel. I was certain my ass was fired.

Somehow, I’ve managed to squeak by those first fretful days which we’ve all experienced in new jobs. Where you feel clueless, moronic and over-dressed. I told Anne Louise after my first day at CO+TV that I felt like the new kid in school. Only someone, by accident, dropped me off in China, and I don’t speak Mandarin. The language barrier has provided another intrigue angle into this struggled I’ve faced, learning the ropes. My ear must tune in to much more Danish than ever before, and at a company of 50, there are only two of us who don’t speak it fluently. Or even, not fluently.

My mother began an exciting, new job a few months ago, and she was ever the ace when I made my tearful phone call home last week. She described feeling lost, confused and hopeless when she first began her job. Her heart would race rapidly every time they asked her to work the cash register.

Even my mother, with her Mensa IQ and her illustrious medical degree, felt lost when she began her part-time gig at The Pottery Barn at Arden Fair Mall.

What a peach, my mom is. So I’m letting her words be a lesson of forgiveness for the idiotic moves I’m destined to make, like when I cheerfully asked the young CFO if he was an intern. If my mother had only known how many cocktails her once-classy daughter would throw back with her new colleagues, just days after that phone call, she would have issued a sterner pep talk.

But again, as I suggested, the "Danish office" is a liberal and open-minded place. Progressive, if you will. And by getting drunk in their company I was making a bold statement: “I belong here.”

Or at the Betty Ford Center. I haven’t decided which one.

The fact that the “Danish Company Party” (where said drinking occurred) often ends in monster hangovers, expensive dry-cleaning bills, minor felonies, Donald Duck tattoos, jail-time and paternity tests, doesn’t make the office any less advanced.

I’ve officially been initiated into the European workforce, but I’ll write the party entry another time. Perhaps if I get bored at work.

(The other Bridget Jones. Not a mentor to young girls everywhere).

Sacramento, Tahoe... & back to Denmark

2007-08-31T11:00:00.000-07:00

The Royal Danish Consulate.... of Sacratomato?!?

Ja, it's true, there is one. For Danish-American citizens of the greater Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto areas the Martensen/ Wright Law Firm is under appointment by the Royal Consulate to handle all of your passport, marriage license and visa needs. It's located in Old Sacramento, on a cobble-stoned street lined with crickety raised-wood sidewalks. You'll find covered wagons and the old California Railroad Museum just around the corner. Ask for Layla and she will kindly help you. (I practiced my sophisticated danish on her to rave reviews: "Hvordan går det?" She is "fine.").

The trip back to California was an opportune time to conduct a nonscientific report measuring USA alongside Denmark. The following results are neither stunning nor worthwhile.

Bilateral comparison of America vs. Denmark:
A pseudoscientific, nonmetrics opinion study.

----------------------------------------------Denmark -----------------------------------USA--------
More friendly----------------------------------------------------------------------------USA--------
More honest------------------------------Denmark-------------------------------------------------
More politically correct----------------------------------------------------------------USA-------
Greater sex appeal-----------------------Denmark-------------------------------------------------
More blondes-----------------------------Denmark-------------------------------------------------
Greater diversity------------------------------------------------------------------------USA--------
More candles per capita----------------Denmark-------------------------------------------------
More fattening---------------------------------------------------------------------------USA-------
More pig farms---------------------------Denmark-------------------------------------------------
More Appleby's--------------------------------------------------------------------------USA-------
More Jensen’s Bøfhus & 7-11s--------Denmark------------------------------------USA--------
More men who help w/housework---Denmark------------------------------------------------
More Jews--------------------------------------------------------------------------------USA--------
More Muslims----------------------------Denmark------------------------------------------------
Flashier wedding rings------------------------------------------------------------------USA-------
More fun weddings----------------------Denmark------------------------------------------------
Lower gas prices-------------------------------------------------------------------------USA-------
Better arts & culture--------------------Denmark-----------------------------------------------
Better TV programs---------------------------------------------------------------------USA-------
Least responsible under-age drinkers------------------------------------------------USA-------
More smoking 14-year-olds-------------Denmark-----------------------------------------------
More litigious-----------------------------------------------------------------------------USA------
More bicycles------------------------------Denmark-----------------------------------------------
More vacation time-----------------------Denmark-----------------------------------------------
More well-behaved children-----------------------------------------------------------USA-------
Longer school-year-----------------------Denmark------------------------------------------------
Better universal health coverage------Denmark------------------------------------------------
Better medical intervention------------------------------------------------------------USA-------
More guns---------------------------------------------------------------------------------USA-------
More men who ask women out--------------------------------------------------------USA-------
More religious----------------------------------------------------------------------------USA-------
More fond of astrology & zodiacs-----Denmark------------------------------------------------

Disclaimer: I make no pretenses of knowing anything at all. And I will not say I know something about nothing. The aforementioned results cannot be used against me in a court of law.

(With thanks to Nis).

(She can't be trusted).

Back in California...

2007-08-09T23:55:00.000-07:00

I surprised my family and flew home for a few weeks. My parents did not know I was coming, which was all the more exciting when I arrived at the house at 12:32 AM last Thursday. Arlo, our gay family dog, ferociously wagged his tail in what I'm assuming was delight. Groggy, my mom came stumbling down the stairs wondering if the dog was having a seizure. Or had learned how to turn on all the living room lights.

I've been sifting through old family photo albums to take some pictures with me back to Denmark. I've posted some below.

It was a little emotional returning home to the (surprised)welcoming arms of my mom, dad and sisters. Things haven't changed drastically in Sacramento, but it's good to be back in my mother-country. I'd forgotten how open Americans are. My first day back, while shopping at the fine American boutique/superstore Target, four different people talked to me, striking up little conversations here and there. "Does this top fit?" "Do you know where the nail polish section is?" "Would you like to get a slurpee with me?"...

At first I was taken aback, before I remembered that I wasn't in Denmark any longer, where people are less chatty. Danes are just as kind and welcoming, but are ever cognizant to not impose. I love that about my hometown city, Sacra-tomato. Though still rural in its roots, the city has always struck me as a charming, friendly and open-minded locale (often under-appreciated by Californians). No matter what, Sacramento will always be better than Stockton, Fresno and Bakersfield. Pee-yew.

I've become more danish in the way I like to pick on other cities in a game of friendly intra-state ribbing. In Sjælland, the island I live on in Denmark, the locals like to make fun of Jylland (Denmark's much larger, more rural country-bumpkin island to the west). Jyllanders think Copenhageners are snobs. And the entire country likes to tease the bigger country across the Sound to the north, Sweden. Sweden picks on Norway, and all three countries pick on Finland. Denmark also suffers from Small Country Syndrome, and I haven't figured out why yet. One of its symptoms is a sudden urge to blurt out in conversations with non-danes that Denmark is: 1) sooooo small and 2) has only 5.4 million inhabitants. When you measure the country's booming economy and performance on the global scene in areas of foreign aid, philanthropy, human rights, health, science and sports, the countries 'contribution to population ratio' is deeply impressive. I think that's probably why they remind me how teensy their country is. Lest their small little nation gets a big big head, I always counter by stating that many European countries are smaller than theirs. (Iceland: 300,000, Luxembourg: 480,000, Lichtenstein: 34,000, and Norway squeaking by with 4.7 million).

I flew home on Delta Airlines via Georgia, and spent an exciting 6 hours at the Atlanta Airport. Coming out of customs, you are surrounded by drab cream-colored walls and a long escalator that climbs a thousand feet into the air, leaving baggage claim-hell behind and entering purgatory in the form of a Food Court to shame all food courts. Nothing says "Welcome to America" quite like the sight of "Chick-filet", "Arby's," "McDonald's," "Panda Express" and "Dunkin Donuts".... which you'll all find in just about every terminal of every airport in our country.

Chicken 'n biscuits to my left, my recoiled face quickly swung to the right where I found a defibrillator on the airport wall. Right next to the fire hydrant. Two life-saving devices, one that works wonders when jump-starting ventricular muscles of the heart in the event of myocardial infarction ("heart attack").

Heart disease is America's number one killer. It's not a laughing matter. Neither is the truly frightening sight at how "portly" "chubby" "big-boned-deded" and down-right FAT our nation has become. I think I'd blocked out that reality. I have my theories as to why 'fat' has become the new 'normal', but I'll spare you for now. And I admit it's terribly politically in-correct of me to address fatness with such bluntness. But I don't really care anymore. In the States we've been so hung up on the language of our discourse -- being sensitive, inclusive and careful not to offend. Its time to stop worrying about hurting people's feelings and instead, take a closer look at reality.

I'll climb off my soapbox now. For further reading on this trend -- what has been called the "wussification of America"-- you need look no further than Sacramento's favorite morning talk radio show: Rob, Arnie and Dawn. http://www.robarnieanddawn.com/RobsSoapbox5Articles.htm

Or, we could just reminisce on the old, trimmer days.

XO.

Cammy

(Most kids cuddle with teddy bears. I bonded with my cool, pink sneakers).

A Fly on the Wall: Inside conversations in Denmark

2007-07-19T11:26:00.000-07:00

For the uninitiated American, danish people just might be some of the rudest on the planet. God love ’em.

But here’s the rub – and it’s a big one – they are only kidding. Danish conversations are rife with irony, always detectable to the native speaker by the stressing of certain vowel-rich sounds infusing the greater sentence with a blunt sarcastic edge. What I’m starting to realize is that danes, 90% of the time, might mean the opposite of what they say.

Especially when leveling insults or rather, compliments. Often, forms of flattery are cloaked in wicked garb. During my first lecture at Roskilde nearly 11 months ago, the Head of Studies Carsten took a swipe at the Department Counselor he was encouraging students to consult, by dead-panning “Peter doesn’t know much about anything! He’s been at this university waaaay too long.” Peter stood at the back of the room, cracking a dim smile.

Confused, I later inquired with Anne Louise if it was normal for professors to insult colleagues in their midst. She explained that, evident by the fact that Carsten mentioned Peter at all, he was actually complimenting him. Nevermind the rude context, it was intended ironically.

Denmark is a society uncomfortable with flattery. Compliments are deliberate, thoughtful and harder to spot than real boobs in Hollywood.

It’s a huge departure from the trademark embellishments Americans tend to make. We exaggerate and make extremist statements, we consider everyone our “friends,” we send Christmas cards to our therapist. Statements such as “Target is my most favorite place on Earth!” would earn you a funny look in Denmark. (Not that I’ve ever said that, but I have). The consequence of all this is that a received compliment can be taken all the way to the bank, provided you convert the insult into a flattering currency you understand.

In a fleeting moment of insecurity I once let slip to a male friend that I would love to drop a few kilos. He politely nodded and called me the word “flodhest”… which means hippopotamus. American men could take some pointers from the danes in sure-fire ways to end maddening conversations about weight. By calling me a river-cow, he was actually calling me skinny, or at least, not too fat. It was ironical.

Yesterday, following an afternoon jog around the city-lakes, I found myself in a popular American eatery ordering take-out as a reward for the vigorous workout. I was clad in loose-fitting spandex and a running cap that I received at the finish line of Ironman Idaho.

The blonde gentleman behind me in line gestured to my hat and asked me if I had raced the Ironman triathlon. Ever the shy, proud girl, I responded with a smile that I had completed the race last June. So had he, it turned out. As often happens with two competitive people -- tri-geeks nonetheless -- we sized each other up from our respective corners in the restaurant.

“So, you’re still showing off?” he said with a straight face, once again referencing my hat.

One point Denmark.

“Yes, I’m an American, so I can get away with it,” I countered.

One point USA.

“I try to be as un-danish as possible.”

Two points USA.

He managed a smile as I grabbed my food.

“Well, enjoy your M-c-D-o-n-a-l-d’-s,” he enunciated.

Two points Denmark.

“Tak. They make a mean c-h-i-c-k-e-n s-a-l-a-d.”

One point USA.

I breezed out of the restaurant with my iPod blaring, looking back at the handsome, 40-something stranger who had just called me a show-off. Somehow I managed to be the ruder one in that conversation.

You can find sparring partners in the oddest places, in the most remote corners of the globe, I’m learning.

The fact that this stranger even spoke to me, in this shy, impassive country, is a huge compliment. I will call him my mean friend from Copenhagen’s McDonalds.

Zeitgeist of Camryn’s pop-life in Denmark

2007-07-05T11:54:00.000-07:00

What I’m reading:
Critifiction by Raymond Federman………………. ..“Brilliant and sexy wordplay.”
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon…………. “Quirky, emotional, stunning. Dakota Fanning reads him. So should you.”
VeloNews and Feltet.dk………….. “If only to cry at how f’ed up cycling’s become.”

(uh-oh)

What I’m watching:
Klovn w/ Kasper Christensen……….................. “Denmark’s Curb your Enthusiasm. Hysterical.”
Kindergarten Cop with Arnold Schwarzenegger…......................……………... “I miss my old boss.”
The Christening of Denmark’s newest princess………………….….... “Isabella Henrietta Ingraa-da Something Something. The baby has 5 names. Precious.”

What I’m eating:
Noget. That’s danish for nothing, baby………………. “Need to lose 10 kilos by yesterday. I think that’s maybe...5 pounds?”

What I’m eating when I'm eating carbs:
Frøsnappers & thebirkes…….. “Danish pastries, fluffy confections with a bottom layer that tastes like marzipan snowflakes on the tongue. Light and delicious.”

Who I’m rooting for:
For President…............................ Rudy Giuliani, Barack Obama or Nancy Reagan
For the Tour de France………………..Jens Voigt, Dave Zabriskie, Frank Schlëck, Carlos Sastre.

What I’m chewing:
Stimorol gum….. “Denmark’s original gum -- like vintage Chewells. The 1st bite gives a squirty surprise. Delightful.”

What I’m listening to:
Soko, Katie Melua, the new Wilco, the new India Arie, and Johnny Cash…. “Soko is a crazy/angry French ingénue. Make her the centerpiece of a CD-mix you send your parents, just to make sure they still worry about you.”

What I’m wearing:
Mary Jane flats, espadrilles, flowy feminine skirts (shocker), black and pink and turquoise. Yves Saint Laurent mascara (most lush-ious around). And LOTS of rainboots these days.

What the boys are wearing:
Euro-gay skinny jeans. Faux-hawks (like a mohawk, only cool), sweatshirts with skulls & crossbones, Converse, speedos at the beach.

Who I’m seeing:
My good friends from Roskilde—Liza & Emilie…. “We aced our group project.”
(Pictures below from the "end of finals" party I held at my flat last week).

Who I’m seeing, after hours:
You’d like to know.

What I’m smoking:
Marlboros……………. “Lights” these days

............................................................................................
An evil friend of mine plays a little game with me called “danish lesson” where he teaches me generally offensive words by having me use them in sentences as descriptions for myself. Resultantly, my counter-culture vocabulary has become top notch. “Hej. Jeg er en luksusluder” means, “Hi! I am a high-priced luxury hooker.” My “friend” thought it would be a handy icebreaker for use in job interviews or making friends on the bus.

He claimed generosoity for not teaching me the word “narcluder”. Unlike her high-priced cousin, that winner-of-a-gal is a “crackwhore.”

Welcome to Dark Danish Humor

It must be the six months of spirit-crushing darkness in Denmark’s winter that motivates danes to sprinkle their sassy with just enough black sarcasm to confuse the perplexed newcomer. It’s a side of Denmark I love, as I’ve been told I'm a tad bit sarcastic myself.

This same “friend” came up with a terrific practical joke I could play on my parents during my next visit home to the States… whereby I will pretend I’ve gone “European” and picked up a 2-pack-a-day habit. I brushed him off, saying they would be highly skeptical their naïve, triathlete, teetotaler daughter had crossed over to the dark side with smoking. In my youth, I wanted so badly to rebel against my parents, for 16 months I became a democrat (and a vegetarian, to complete the look). But that was as far as I could take the joke. As pissed as I hoped to make mom and dad – and my Rush Limbaugh-loving grandparents—they only snickered in the corner and challenged me to donate my early weekend mornings to helping campaign for Barbara Boxer, California’s beloved liberal Senator. My mom got the chance to rebel before I did when she lovingly took me aside during my UCLA years and said it wouldn’t be the end of the world if I tried mari-juana.

But they would draw the line at cigarettes. I think there are only 5 or 6 smokers left in California anyways, and they’re either in jail or headed home soon to Europe.

So my wicked friend and I hatched a plan where I could secretly burn cigarettes out the window of my old, Laura Ashley bedroom in my parent’s house. I would have to act irritable on occasion (not a stretch) and excuse myself frequently to use the bathroom. The trick would be in capturing an authentic smoker’s cough that I’m defensive about.

As appealing as it sounds to be a prankster for a day or two back home, I confess that I love my parents too much to attempt such a charade. I miss them a lot, and I’m so proud of them for raising me. A high-priced, smoking luksusluder. Just as long as I don’t become all liberal, we won’t have a problem.