I Vote for Hilary

I started to write a post about why Hilary Mantel absolutely has to win the Booker Prize because her novel Wolf Hall is the best thing I’ve read all year, and she deserves it and I once used to live in the same block as her but never met her only her husband in the parking lot with the Sainbury’s bags, but I have run out of the words. I can only say this:

Wolf Hall is great.

Mantel deserves to win.

Now that I have lured you in with promise of literary explication you will be dazed/angry/amused to find that this post is in fact a meme. All my brain cells are being used to write my novel at the moment, and while I plan to write book reviews and many other things, all I am really up for is a little narcissistic Internet sport. Muchos gracias to Dad Who Writes who supplied me with the material only this morning. Had he not, this post would have had to wither on the vine, and the dust bunnies would continue to blow through the wasteland of this blog (see? I’m doing lit-er-rary).

Here’s the deal:

OK, the rules of this award are that I now have to say 10 honest things about myself, and then tag 7 bloggy friends who I think are honest and true with what they have to say.  Sigh.  The hard part.  OK, first things first.  10 honest things.  This might be difficult, because I think you all know everything already.  I mean, isn’t that what the award is about, being honest and spilling my guts?

Here are the 10 honest things:

1. I am looking for a full-time job.

2. I really don’t want to live in the Burg anymore.

3. For the last two years, all I wanted to do was live in Berlin. Now I am happy with the idea of Heidelberg.

4. I am really tired of random “mummy talk” except with people I really like and whose children I care about. Tell me about your new boots, for God’s sake, or a great book you just read.

5. When my daughter plays songs from High School Musical on her recorder, it makes me cry. With happiness.

6. I am eight days into a two-week no-coffee, no-alcohol liver detox. I think it is making me grumpy. And affecting my brain cells.

7. I get squeaks of panic when I think about all the books I’ve read that I have not entered in my Books 2009 page nor reviewed here.

8. My children are trying to persuade me that we need a pet. The line, “But I already have three pets” is no longer working.

9. I am a covert low-carber. You cannot believe how many green vegetables I have to eat. I even have salad for breakfast.

10. I believe that Hilary Mantel should, must and will win the Booker Prize this year. If she doesn’t, I will eat a potato.

I’m wimping out and not tagging. Please feel free – if you believe yourself to be honest and true, or, if like me, you are in need of some not overly challenging blog material – to tag yourself.

And remember: vote Hilary!

Examining Navel, Thanks to Blog Award

Thanks to the very lovely Zoesmom and the equally lovely Featherduster for a blogging award and a meme. Here is the award:

To claim this beauty, I have to list seven personality traits, and then nominate seven others. I am always happy to navel-gaze, so here goes:

1. I have a Facebook habit. I like reading people’s updates and looking at the photos. I don’t send gifts and nor do I poke, prod or offer lollies for people to suck, but I enjoy the somewhat conspiratorial aspect of keeping an eye on things and making contact with people I knew 20 years ago. I am also recently addicted to the new version of FB Scrabble (non-US and Canada), so if anyone wants a game, let me know. My present opponents are being rather tardy.

2. I get a sick feeling in my stomach if I am late, so I make every effort not to be. This means I am often early, and I sit around waiting for others.

3. I am not thorough and tend to go for big sweeping overall impressions. I can only be detailed in short bursts. Writing a novel is shaking me to the core of my being, because it is all about details, with one layer being placed on top of another. It’s a kind of architectural thinking and planning that I last used at university and it is a challenge to be doing so again.

4. I love tidiness but can be very messy. My own mess is tolerable, that of others less so.

5. I am extremely sociable, have a lot of friends and love being around people, but I also desperately need time alone. If I don’t find that time to be alone in my head without anyone chatting to me, requiring things from me or wanting me to do stuff, I get snappy and ill-tempered.

6. I am impatient with people who have no interest in others and who use other people as sounding-boards to bounce back their own fascinating words. Really, if you want to bore me with the tedious details of your life without showing any interest in mine, get a blog.

7. I am not good at confrontation, but believe two things – a) that is is important to be my own representative, since who else is going to be, and b) that I need my children to learn that confrontation doesn’t mean the world is going to fall apart – so am trying to be better at it. I find that humour works.

Now I tag:

DoctorDi

Couch trip

Dad Who Writes

Kit

Angela

Gumbomum

The Adventuress

The First Meme

Stolen from Queen Emily, who is mining a rich source of memes in that wonderful place we like to call Facebook, here is the meme of Firsts. The rules are simple and since it is 05.34am, I need simple:

…. 25 Firsts …. Share

1. Who was your first prom date? Growing up in South Africa = no proms. However, I did take a rather lovely young naval officer called Lance to my Matric ball. We had a very romantic relationship that lasted, oh, about three weeks.

2. Do you still talk to your first love? You mean the one I dumped so that I could take Lance to the ball? Er, no.

3. What was your first alcoholic drink? I can’t remember. It’s a bit of a haze. Possibly a very sweet and cheap white wine.

4. What was your first job? Voters’ roll registration in a local shopping mall.

5. What was your first car? A blue Toyota bakkie that my father allowed me to take to Cape Town with my learner’s license on condition that I would always take care to have a licensed driver in the car. Did I? Hell no. Cue lots of illegal driving. On reflection, I really don’t think that was a wise parenting decision on his part, but then, he trusted me.

6. Who was the first person to text you today? Someone who doesn’t know me, because everyone who does, knows email is my friend and SMS is my enemy.

7. Who is the first person you thought of this morning? I woke at 04.55 feeling very sorry for myself, having had asthma and short breath all night.

8. Who was your first grade teacher? Mrs Ross, elderly, sweet and cuddly.

9. Where did you go on your first flight in a plane? Cape Town.

10. Who was your first best friend and do you still talk? Dani, and you bet we talk. Good morning, honey!

11. Where was your first sleepover? At Dani’s house. Her parents were very open and welcoming, and over the 12 years of our schooling, there were periods when I practically moved in. They provided a wonderful, stable home environment for me when my own home was falling apart.

12. Who was the first person you talked to today? Two of my darling children.

13. Whose wedding were you in for the first time? I had a starring role in my uncle Chris’s wedding at the age of three.

14. What was the first thing you did this morning? Got up and had a toke of my asthma pump.

15. What was the first concert you went to? Johnny Clegg and Savuka.

16. First tattoo? Ain’t got none.

17. First piercing? Ears only. I’m not the piercing generation.

18. First foreign country you went to? I landed in Rome and spent the day there en route to England.

19. First movie you remember seeing? Lassie, where I started a long history of bawling my eyes out during films.

20. What state did you first live in? The then South African province of Natal, now known as KwaZulu-Natal.

21. Who was your first room-mate? At my university residence, which we fondly called Fuller Hell, we had single rooms, but I was next-door to Isa, who is my dear friend to this day.

22. When was your first detention? I don’t remember. It clearly wasn’t a trauma.

23. If you had one wish what would it be? Right now, it would be to be able breathe properly. However, on a grander scale, I’d like to see the end of automatic male privilege. What an interesting world that would be.

24. What is one thing you would learn, given the chance? How to dance.

25. Who will be the next person to post this? No idea, but have fun doing it.

15 Books in 15 Minutes

Emily tagged me to do this on Facebook, but I can’t have two places in my life for memes, so, having seen Natalia do it on her blog today, I’m doing it here – the Facebook 15 Books in 15 Minutes Meme.

Instructions: Don’t take too long to think about it. List 15 books you’ve read that will always stick with you — the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Copy the instructions into your own note, and be sure to tag the person who tagged you. (Like Natalia, I listed the books first and then went back and wrote descriptions.)

1. The Narnia series by CS Lewis Books I read over and over again as a child, which served as an escape from then-unpleasant reality and simultaneously offered hope. I have since read them with delight to my children.

2. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott My first vision of the sisterhood – and what a good one it was! Also, I believed I was born to be Jo, with a smattering of Meg thrown in for good measure.

3. Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery I was sold on the romance of the little orphan girl who makes a place for herself in the world by being garrulous, funny and frank, and still am. I’ve read this to my children and watched them laugh and cry as I did.

4. The Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter The first book that brought me an awareness of how good writing can capture the natural world. Her descriptions of the forest, the moths, the lunch-pail made me want to swoon. Also, it brought me the friendship of my dear G, who now lives far too far away from me.

5. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver A triumph of imaginative and honest writing. For me, the best of Shriver’s many excellent books. It sticks with me despite the horror of its content and because of the brilliance of her writing.

6. Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh This sticks with me as I’ve just read it, but also because it is written in the most glorious, riotous and dazzling language. As one reviewer said, if the next two books in the series are as good as this one, it is going to be one of the first classics of the twenty-first century.

7. Saturday by Ian McEwan The writer in me loves how he sustains the conceit of a single day in someone’s life throughout this long novel. The reader in me loves it for its immediacy and the brilliant building of suspense.

8. The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger A perfect love story. It will stick with me for the genuine, sincere love that the time traveller and his wife had for each other, and how Niffenegger sustained her challenging conceit from beginning to end.

9. Carrie by Stephen King I met the uncanny and fell in love. This book was my first introduction to how a writer can brilliantly work a theme and make your stomach churn at the same time.

10. Master Harold and the Boys by Athol Fugard This writer, above all other South African authors, wrote my political education and opened my eyes to the inequities of the land where I lived. Master Harold is a play, not a novel, and perhaps it was the immediacy of first the words and later seeing the play itself helped wake me from dreaming into reality.

11. The Group by Mary McCarthy This was written in the Fifties, and will stick with me for its excellent writing and its vision of the sisterhood, but particularly for an incredibly graphic scene in a gynaecologist’s office. I’ve never read anything like it.

12. The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer I studied this in my final year of school and adored it for the vivid characterisations that brought another age to life. That Chaucer was quite a storyteller.

13. What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt I love this beautiful book of Hustvedt’s. It contains one of the most gut-wrenching, acute descriptions of grief that I have ever read. I don’t know if I will ever have the courage to re-read it.

14. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie I have said that this will be a classic, and I stick by my guns. It’s a superb novel, that manages to combine political exegesis and humane characterisations without losing the latter to the former. An object lesson on how to bring history and politics to vivid life.

15. A Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver This is not the Kingsolver book that you find most people talking about, but I love it for its suppressed eroticism and lush descriptions of nature. It will always stick with me for the sex scene that never happens.

Getting to Know Germany’s Top Husband

My husband is a star. He has been known to wipe vomit off my favourite pink satin shoes, he will happily take the children off for a skiing weekend and leave me alone to pick my hangnails and eat popcorn for breakfast, and he has a great sense of humour. First über-blogger Dooce did this meme, and then my good friend the very Noble Savage tagged me, so here’s a small tribute to Germany’s Top Husband.

What are your middle names?

Mine is Elise, after my maternal grandmother, and his is Witham, after family tradition. I can imagine a novel, set in the mid-nineteenth century where, after meeting at a dance, Elise and Witham fall in love, are separated for many years, then meet again, realise they have always been in love, move to Germany and have a vast brood of children.

How long have you been together?

Wow, a Maths question. We have known each other 22 years, have been officially together 17 years (there were forays, folks, during the wilderness years, but we needn’t go there) and married for 14.

How long did you know each other before you started dating?

The first time we met we were 17 and there were, oh, about 22 minutes between meeting and kissing. We dated for two weeks, I dumped him, then there was the wilderness. When we met again, I chased him mercilessly until he gave in. Elise was a shameless hussy.

Who asked who out?

Well, on the second time around, he asked me out, though he swears it was just platonic. He had just moved to Cape Town and thought he would look me up so that I could introduce him to some of my friends. Hah! I took one look and bagged him for myself. Elise was not going to let Witham slip out of her rapidly-aging fingers again – there would be no shelf for our bold heroine.

How old are you?

Both 40. He is six weeks older.

Whose siblings do you see the most?

Gawd. We both see our brothers (he has one; I have four) about once every three years. However, we are going to South Africa this year and to Greece for a family wedding, so 2009 will be Year of the Brother. Elise and Witham were devoted to their families, but sadly did enjoy the felicity of their company quite often enough.

Which situation is hardest on you as a couple?

Finding time to be alone together. Living far away from family, with no support, we have very, very few opportunities to do the kinds of things we enjoy doing together, like having long breakfasts in cafes and meandering in bookshops. We have a great babysitter for when we need nights out, but we very seldom have DAYS together. Elise missed the days when she would embroider while Witham read to her in front of a roaring fire.

Did you go to the same school?

No. I went to an institution for young ladies and he went to an institution for young barbarians.

Are you from the same home town?

Technically, no. His wandering parents lived in many, many places, and eventually landed in the South African version of the Burg, where my family had lived for generations. It was inevitable that one day, under the right circumstances, young Elise and Witham would meet.

Who is smarter?

Ooh, dangerous ground here. He beats me at Scrabble; I correct his spelling. Can we leave it there?

Who is the most sensitive?

If that means the one most likely to tear up while watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics, then me. Elise was the type to weep at the sight of a withered bloom; it was this that made Witham love her all the more.

Where do you eat out most as a couple?

Various restaurants in Heidelberg, but our special date restaurant is in the Burg. And very lovely it is too.

Where is the furthest you have travelled together as a couple?

Is the southern tip of Africa to Germany far enough? Or London to Atlanta, Georgia?

Who has the craziest exes?

I win! Bat shit is not adequate enough to describe.

Who has the worst temper?

We both tend to grumpiness and muttering and a bit of inanimate object kicking, but I think he controls his better than I control mine.

Who does the most cooking?

At the moment, me. But there have been phases in the relationship when he’s done it all.

Who is the most stubborn?

Me.

Who hogs the bed most?

Oh, that would be me. Je suis the duvet thief.

Who does the laundry?

Mostly me, but with very staunch back-up.

Who’s better with the computer?

He is.

Who drives when you are together?

He drives there, I drive back. Elise and Witham enjoyed a very even marriage, sharing responsibilities, and taking care of each other’s needs. Whenever they had dined out, Elise would happily drive the trap home, her darling snoring gently at her side.

An American Frau Interviews Me

Remember the Interview Meme? It’s coming around again, just like the old Random Things About Me meme that’s turned up on Facebook recently and caused the Times Online to write a whole article about it. Really, do these journalists have nothing better to do than nose about on people’s Facebook pages and write about phenomena that are decades old in blogging terms? Anyway, this old blogging dinosaur decided to get herself interviewed again, and the lovely American Frau has offered up her questions. If you would like to be interviewed by me, say so in the comments below. If you would like some rules, they are up at the end of the post.

The Interview

1. What brought you to where you live now? Where do you see yourself living ten years from now?

I live in the Burg, Germany, and we were brought here by my husband’s burning desire to return to Germany after a stint in London, and a great offer back at his former employer. The Burg is a small town of 10,000 people where everybody knows everybody else’s business and what they have in their bins. Lace curtains are de rigeur, and since we are without, we are regarded as the strange foreigners who are never going to fit in. Believe me, we will NOT be fitting in nor living here in 10 years’ time. We dream of Berlin, Barcelona, Melbourne – but it’s all fantasy and we truly have no idea where we will be.

2. Why did you start blogging? How many other blogs do you read a day?

I started blogging because I like attention! I also like writing. My husband started a blog and I thought, “If he can do it, then so can I.” So I did, and now I’m heading for my third year of blogging. I have 143 blogs in my feedreader, which I check daily and sometimes – embarrassingly – two or three times a day. I am not always a committed commenter, but I am a committed reader.

3. Describe your ideal weekend.

On Friday afternoon, I go for a walk on Robberg Beach, Plettenberg Bay, and see the whales. That night, I have dinner in Cape Town with all my lovely friends, including the ones from Durban and Johannesburg who have flown down to be with me. On Saturday morning, I go shopping in Paris with my mother and that night I go to a concert in London with my husband and our friends G and B who have flown in from Dubai. Sunday morning finds my love and me brunching in Berlin – probably in the Tiergarten – with our mates and then we go strolling in Prenzlauer Berg and doing some idle window-shopping. By Sunday night I am cuddled up at home with my darlings, eating a delicious meal cooked by someone else and watching a DVD together, before I kiss them all and put them to bed.

4. Name another culture besides your own that you find fascinating and tell us why.

I can’t name a particular culture, but I love the way Italians are so loyal to their regional food traditions. I’d love to live in a culture that combined that with French style, British humour, American enthusiasm, South African hospitality, Irish wit, Polish warmth, Argentinian banter, Indian humility and lascivious South American dancing. Seeing I’m making up a culture here, I’d like one without misogyny, and no dominant groups with privileges over other groups. Basically Utopia with good food and sexy dancing.

5. What flavour of ice-cream are you?

Lime and coconut: sharp and tangy, nutty and sweet.

Whoops! Forgot the rules. Here they are:

1. If you want to be interviewed, leave me a comment, and I will send you some questions.
2. Update your blog with the answers to the questions and link back to the original post.
3. Include the rules in your post.

10 Things I Know

Litlove knows that I am given to sharing my wisdom, so she has tagged me for 10 Things I Know, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to resist. And she is right. So, off the top of my head, with very little editing, here are ten things are I know:

1. My Fair Lady is a misogynist film (I am watching it on TCM as I write).
2. There’s nothing worse than when bad things happen to people you love.
3. Asking for forgiveness is liberating.
4. The simple rule for good parenting is to model the behaviour you require.
5. The simple rule for good relationships is keep talking.
6. Ego gets in the way of smart decision-making.
7. Loneliness is self-inflicted.
8. Facebook is fun but Twitter is for the birds.
9. It might be dull for the listener, but sometimes people just need to be heard.
10. Exercise might not save your life, but it will put you in a good mood.

And now I tag Natalian, Ms Honey Pie, G, Diane, Aphra and Paddy. Got any aphorisms for us?

The Fairy Godmother Meme

Created by Aphra and also seen at Teuchter, here is The Fairy Godmother Meme, which allows you to count your blessings and possibly go out and hug someone fragrant.

What good gift did your Fairy Godmother actually give you?

Adventurousness. When my new husband was offered a job in Germany, four months after we’d bought our first house and shortly before I was due for a promotion to editor, I said, “Why not? How bad could it be?” and so we left – with two suitcases, four boxes of books and some golf-clubs. He never used the golf clubs, we sold the house eventually, and since then we have lived in three different countries.

What good gift do you wish she’d given you instead?

Foresight. If we’d acknowledged we were leaving South Africa instead of just heading off on an awfully big adventure, we could have had the company ship all our stuff for us. Instead, we thought “We’ll just go for two years and then come back” and five years later crippled ourselves shipping our things to England, where we were then living.

Cart. Horse. Putting. The. Before. The. Rearrange the former into a well-known sentence.

What bad gift did the Wicked Fairy give you?

A tendency to be too diplomatic.

What bad gift do you wish she had given you instead?

Being brutally frank.

But then I would possibly have fewer friends. Mind-burps do not the social fabric lubricate. So I write them instead.

If you had one magical gift, what would it be?

I’d like bedlinen that changed itself on a daily basis. Nothing nicer than sinking into a bed with freshly changed sheets at the end of a long hard day of diplomatic adventurousness.

That was entertaining! I’m not going to tag, but please play if you want to, and if you do, please credit Aphra.

The Commenters’ Meme

First Jeanne did it. Then Sol did it (and tagged me). Then Aphra did it. Now I’m doing it and I think you should do it, especially if you are doing NaBloPoMo, are locked into an insane 31-day cycle of daily blog posting and are looking for something to post today. Consider it my gesture of support.

The rules:

1. List the last 10 commenters on your blog.

2. If you’re on the list, you’re tagged.

The list:

1. (un)relaxeddad of Relaxed Parents

2. Emily of Telecommuter Talk

3. honeypiehorse of Our Feet are the Same

4. Jen of Jen’s Den of Iniquity

5. Jeanne of Cook Sister! (you don’t have to do it again, Jeanne)

6. Pete of Couch Trip

7. Natalian of Twaddle and Twak

8. Amity of Noble Savage

9. Ian of Letters Home

10. Lisa of Lisa’s Words at Play

Now for the questions:

1. What’s your favourite post from number 3’s blog?

Oh this one, without a doubt. It made me laugh (exploding potatoes! wobbly towers! rude Germans!) and made me feel better about the craziness that happens in my home. Laura is a new blogger – an American living in Bavaria, with her German husband and two children – so please go and shower her with some bloggy love.

2. Has number 10 taken any pictures that moved you?

Funnily enough, Lisa has just been on holiday to the shores of Oregon and taken some lovely moody seascapes, but my favourite picture – which did move me – was that of her hotel bed bestrewn with the pages of her manuscript. It made me look forward to the moment when I print mine out and start going through it. You can see the sea in the picture, as well as Lisa’s tiny and adorable dog nestling in the bedcovers, but it’s the atmosphere of creative work being done that I love. It’s a great picture.

3. Does number 6 reply to comments on his blog?

The fabulous Pete? You betcha!

4. Which part of blogland is number 2 from?

I’d say Emily has carved out her own unique space. She always says she’s not a book blogger, and would love to be, but when she posts about books it’s interesting and insightful. Emily is a little like me in that she won’t be categorised as a certain kind of blogger, and reserves the right to publish on whatsoever she chooses, but the consistent thing about is that she’s always funny. Go right now and read her Alcoholic Meme – the mint juleps! I want some! P.S. Only 4 days till I actually meet Emily. I wonder if there will be cocktails?

5. If you could give one piece of advice to number 7, what would it be?

Spread your love around! You are such a great blogger, and your blog deserves some attention. Go visit people and leave comments. They will politely return the favour and you will make some wonderful blog friends.

6. Have you ever tried something from number 9’s blog?

The lovely Ian is a repository of travel stories, insights into Germany and great recipes. I took his advice on how to deal with a weird Chinese blogger who was completely lifting my blog word-for-word and posting on his site. I have also heeded his example, and tried to ride my bike more.

7. Has number 1 blogged something that inspired you?

Yes, his encyclopaedic knowledge of music. See his Patti Smith post here. Don’t give up on the NaBlos, U-Dad, we need more music posts!

8. How often do you comment on number 4’s blog?

Frequently. I love Jen’s take on life and what she writes chimes with me.

9. Do you wait for number 8 to post excitedly?

I don’t like to put pressure on Amity since she has a new baby, but I do love it when she posts. She’s honest, combatative and funny.

10. How did number 5’s blog change your life?

The Cook Sister rules! Jeanne is the most dedicated blogger – every post is well-researched, well-written, usually funny, always informative. Although her main focus is food, she has an over-arching world-view that informs everything. She’s the poster child for high-quality blogging and has been the deserving recipient of multiple blogging awards. She has inspired me to aim for quality writing and not insult people with the “I picked my nose today” type of posts that you see all over the blogosphere. She also gave me the recipe that forms the basis of my Just So Easy Afro-Teutonic Beer Bread. Thanks to Jeanne, I bake bread and that’s life-changing in and of itself.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to pack for New York.

It’s not easy, but someone’s got to do it.

The Aging Meme

This one came from Emily, but was invented by Zoesmom. With only 80-odd days to go until my 40th birthday (yes, I’ve counted), it seems kind of appropriate.

Just fill in the blanks:

At a certain age women should stop pleasing others and start pleasing themselves.

At a certain age men should stop pleasing themselves and start pleasing others.

When I was a kid I thought I would write lots of novels and live a fascinating international life.

Now that I am older I wish I had been more selfish about carving out my writing time.

You know you are too old to party when crowds of people you don’t know bore you/freak you out/make you want to go home and pick your toenails.

When I was in high school I listened to the music of Madness, Duran Duran, Flock of Seagulls, B-52s and Talking Heads

Now I listen to the music of whatever my husband or kids are listening to, including Mafikizolo, The View, Kaiser Chiefs, Beautiful Me and Beautiful Creatures.

On my last birthday I was spoilt rotten.

On my next birthday I want to party like it’s 1999 …

The best birthday present I ever got was the one I’m about to have – my trip to New York!!

The first time I felt grown-up was when I worked my summer vacation on the local newspaper at the age of 18.

The last time I felt like a kid was the last time I got on my bike.

Last year was a very long time ago.

Next year will be an awfully big adventure.

I would love to tag people, but for fear of insulting anyone, I won’t. However, if you want to share your wisdom and experience, please play along.