Happy New Year! Godt Nytår!

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...

        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

*Hip Hop Republican*: The Democrats' Missing History

Not everyone knows this...

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

          

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

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

Ghost story

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

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.