Litt vaklende

Found a new favorite small house: the so-called "Friggebod" from Sweden: apparently as of 2008 you can build a dwelling of up to 15 square meters without a permit, so there are a lot of cool designs for them now. There's a company producing elegant little upscale prefabs. And there's also a Norwegian company producing a series of small, high-quality prefabs. Their Blåtann series (named after the Viking king Harald) is very modern and elegant as well.

At work today I had a nice meeting with a colleague from ILOS, got a bunch of Synnøve Solbakken secondary literature, and watched the Peer Gynt in Cairo production from 2006 as broadcast by NRK on New Year's Eve of that year. Really interesting. I recently read three absolute hatchet job analyses of the performance (by Helland, Helland again, and then by Rem), and I have to say I agree with most (though thankfully not all) of what they say. I also added about a half a page to my conference paper, so it was an okay day, though I've had a headache for most of it. Not sleeping well, but family life is much more harmonious than earlier this week.

So now it's time to gear up for an early Thanksgiving dinner this Saturday. We have commitments the next two weekends, so we have to do it early or else it conflicts with December madness (E's birthday, final exams, and Christmas...). I'm already feeling enervated just thinking about the holidays...

I started knitting some fingerless mitts since my office is kind of chilly. More stash yarn.

En enkel kvinne

Every once in a while I come across some internet meme that both irritates me and piques my interest. The internet is so full of blogs written by frustrated housewives who use them to create an ideal public persona. I find them both fascinating and ... oh, I don't know, sad? Delusional? Sweet? Apparently there's something called the simple woman's daybook, which gives a kind of template to nudge them in the right direction. I thought I'd give it a try (things in bold are the template):
FOR TODAY

• Outside my window... Rain, granite, moss, a volunteer cherry tree, a broken ten speed, a rotting medicine cabinet, and raspberry brambles.

• I am thinking... About what a difference there is between the days when I'm "on" intellectually and when I'm "off."  Today I'm dead off.

• I am thankful for... I'm not really the thankful type. I know that sounds mean, but really I (and virtually everyone I know or know of) am so incredibly and overwhelmingly privileged that it seems fantastically arrogant to go around listing everything. I wouldn't even know where to begin to quantify my privilege. Plus, being the unrelenting atheist that I am, I don't have a transcendent being to address my feelings of gratitude to, and I don't think the people suffering in sweat shops around the world want my thanks so much as they want a living wage, safe conditions, healthy families, and peace.

• I am wearing... A wool sweater under my down comforter and over my pajamas. My nose is still cold.

• In the learning room... Oh, I get it. This is a thingy for homeschooling moms. Whoops. No wonder it's not quite my vibe.

• I am remembering... Being 19.

• I am creating... More gibberish to add to the enormous stream of data on the internet. Also, I am onto the third attempt to knit a wearable sweater out of a bunch of green Rauma finull. It is a testament to the durability of that yarn that I have knitted and unravelled two sweaters using the exact same yarn, am now knitting it up yet again, and it shows absolutely no signs of wear. Wow.

• I am going... to have to not knit tomorrow. I think I overdid it today, and my hands will need a rest.

• I am currently reading... The articles in Otto Hageberg's old anthology, Omkring Peer Gynt. 

• I am hoping... That I'll be able to get some writing done this week.

• On my mind... Gah, this is getting just way too redundant.

• Noticing that... Doing a meme takes much longer than just writing a blog entry. And that I've had to pee for the last half hour or so.

• Pondering these words... "Hans Hjærne var stor og ubrukt." (His brain was large and unused). Knut Hamsun describing Isak in Markens Grøde. 

• I am hearing... Tinnitus.

• From the kitchen... Over the course of today: oatmeal, leftover stir-fry, pancakes, toast, plain rice and boiled vegetables. No sauce. No condiments. Nothing fancy. Not my finest hour.

• Around the house... We don't really have all that much stuff, but what we do own appears to be strewn in every imaginable spot and in a totally random pattern.

• One of my favorite things... Definitely my ball winder. And most definitely worth the 350 Swedish kronor I paid for it, even though I thought the price was outrageous at the time!

• A few plans for the rest of the week: make it through the long days with E without being too cranky. Do laundry. Revise the chapter draft.

• Here's a picture thought I am sharing...

Not sure quite what is meant by a "picture thought," but this image has been haunting me since I ran across it in the National Library photo archives last week.

Source:  Galleri NOR

Photographer: Anders Beer Wilse
Place: Dovre, Dovrefjell; Dovre, Svånådalen
Date: 1915

So, did you learn anything about me you didn't already know? I am nothing if not consistent.

Ja vi elsker...

Next week I have to give the speech at the local Sons of Norway Lodge's Norwegian constitution day celebration. It has me thinking about nationalism.

It is also part of my work. I dug up a book on the history of the Norwegian national anthem, "Sang for Norge," popularly known as "Ja, vi elsker." it has some fabulous nationalist propaganda images. Lo and behold, on one of them there is a little cabin tucked in the background (see above, in the grassy area to the right of the flag-draped bautastein). This, of course, is highly relevant to my next big research project, which will be an examination of cabins in Norwegian literature from 1814-2005. One of the things that most fascinates me about Scandinavia is the vacation home culture that has developed there. It was one of the things that most struck me way back when I was a highschool exchange student. When I met KE and started hanging out on Nesodden, the topic resurfaced. His house is built on the site of a former cabin, and in his neighborhood every other dwelling is a cabin. I'm really excited to get to work on teasing out what cabins signify throughout Norway's recent cultural history...