Crazy Jane:

Did I Mention...

That I saw the Frozen North again? Because, I did. I was thinking of all of you when I took this picture. Especially you, Matt.

And, while I'm posting pictures I took out the airplane window, I was really pretty excited about this one, too:

I'm open to theories and/or actual knowledge as to what's going on in that picture. Anyone?

I'm still feeling whiny about returning to Los Angeles, but I promise to cheer up later tonight when I MEET NATHAN JOHNSON! Oh my god, THE THRILLS!

I'm so not kidding.

Plans, Dreams, Fears

I've been making big plans lately, and dreaming big dreams; but I've also been waking up in the middle of the night with my heart in my throat, wondering if this will finally be the moment when I fall off the edge of the map, and wondering if I actually do have the strength for complete oblivion.

At this moment, the wheels are in motion for me to go to Prague for the month of November to study for a CELTA at the International House. I've been accepted into the program, so all that's left is make my final arrangements, pay the money, and go. I'm excited about that because I've never been to Prague, but I've seen ample evidence that it is beautiful. I know they experience a winter over there, and I can't wait to be cold and wearing my hat and scarf. More importantly, though, I really need a change of scene, and there's nothing I dream of more than travel.

I'm trying to use this time of being unemployed to find a way to do the things I've always wanted to do; travel, write, and maybe even follow through on just ONE of my millions of incomplete projects. The question, though, has always been "how in the hell can I fund my endless summer, whilst taking proper care of my precious little monkey in a manner befitting a little monkey like him?" One solution I've come up with is teaching English as a foreign language to foreign people in foreign lands, which gives me the benefit of being in foreign, unfamiliar places. I like to hope that it would be a rich and rewarding experience for my boy, and it would also allow me to break entirely with my well-worn tracks while giving me the opportunity to leave this godforsaken country should George W. Bush be re-elected.

Teaching might be a good way, and if it can be combined with travel, I think it's worth it to roll the dice and find out; but that brings me to another point. I am freaking terrified of gambling. If I go to Vegas, I play along by putting about $7 into the slot machines, and then spend the rest of the time taking pictures on the strip. The only time I enjoy gambling is at the race track, with a cut-off at $25, or that one time I won $50 when Freddie Rodriguez became US Pro Champion for the third time. That was cool, but I was pretty darned sure that bet would go my way. Needless to say, when it comes to the care and feeding of my boy, I'm really not a gambler. For the past ten years, I have played it very safe, and opted for security over happiness. When I lost my job, I don't mind telling you that I freaked out (and seriously, the use of the past tense in that last sentence is disingenuous on my part), but at the same time, I would never have had the stones to quit my miserable slavery in search of something as silly as happiness. Now, I'm flat broke, my car is broken, and I'm about one disaster away from the bitter end, but at least there are possibilities; which doesn't mean that I'm not completely beside myself with terror. There are TWO OF ME TYPING RIGHT NOW.

To take the rolling of the dice even further: readers of my blog will know how much I am positively jonesing for Scandinavia, land of snow and Vikings. I'm sure my pre-occupation with the frozen north is at least two parts unfounded romantic silliness, but really, what could be better than Viking Sagas, implaccable forces of nature, clean northern cities with spotless subway systems, and the very thought of SIMPLY NOT OWNING A CAR? If every single detail comes out just as I hope it will, I will soon be visiting a very kind friend in Kolding, Denmark, who will help me investigate the feasibility of my moving to wonderful Copenhagen, to take up a post. IF ONLY. Seriously, people; I would cry tears of joy.

I'm writing this down because my knees are knocking together, and I feel like I'm about to ante up way more than I can afford to lose. At the same time, I'm full of hopeful anticipation, and feel like the chances are good that all of this could come to pass. I also want to go on record as to the nature of my plans so that I will feel embarrassed in front of the entire internet by my cowardice if I fail to put my full weight behind them; but if I crash and burn, I hope you will all avert your eyes, because it's not going to be pretty.

On another note, I hope you've all enjoyed the insane melodrama of this and other recent posts. I want to remind you all that I am well aware of the fact that I am freaking OVERWROUGHT. I can't capitalize that enough.

Mosfellsdalur

So, last night I went to hear a lecture at UCLA from Jesse Byock about the Mosfell Archeological Project in southwestern Iceland, where they are digging up the bones of some of the characters from Egil's Saga.

The site, which includes a conversion era (1000 A.D.) church structure, alongside an earlier pagan mortuary mound, shaped like a ship and pointed out to sea, called Huldahóll, or "Elvin Hill," is specifically mentioned in the Saga as well:

"When Christianity was adopted by law in Iceland (ca. 1000 A.D.), Grím of Mosfell was baptized and built a church there. People say that Thordis had Egil's bones moved to the church, and this is the evidence. When a church was built at Mosfell, the one that Grím had built at Hrísbrú was demolished and a new graveyard was laid out. Under the altar some human bones were found, much bigger than ordinary human bones, and people are confident that these were Egil's because of stories told by old men."

They showed us slides of the bones of one man who who had been axed in the head, and they are able to triangulate the speculative probability that he was Medieval Icelandic Law-speaker Grimr's son, Björn, who was killed in a bloodfeud in the Saga. Additionally, Byock speculates that Egil's bones are described as being "much bigger than human bones" because the descriptions of him, and his experiences in the Saga are consistent with the symptoms of Paget's Disease. In the Saga, Egil is described as hulking and ugly, and his skull is "ridged all over on the outside like a scallop shell." It's also said that his skull could withstand an ax blow, and this is one of incidents in the saga that is pointed to as evidence of their historical unreliability. The salient point being that all this challenges the notion that the Sagas are purely fictive, and not also historical, while giving us a clearer sense of what life must have been like for the early Viking settlers in the Mosfell Valley, who first arrived in 870 A.D. by boat from Scandinavia, and went on to explore Greenland and the coast of North America in those little wooden Viking rowboats.

Jesse Byock was fantastic, because I could tell that the whole time he was being soberly academic, he was really saying "Dudes, HOW COOL IS THIS?!" The whole thing made me so nostalgic for my school days. What a delightful life it must be to dig up Viking churches in Iceland.

Sometimes I think it's time for me to go straight back to school.

The Far off is Full of Dream

I saw this Icelandic film, Noi Albinoi.

It was primarily about how much there isn't a goddamned thing happening in the remote villages of the West Fjords of Iceland. Apparently, though, there are big ominous snow-packed mountains rising straight out of the churning, gray ocean, weatherbeaten houses clad in corrugated metal siding, aimless youths, drunk, taxi driving deadbeat dads, meticulous old ladies, disgusting cuisine, fortune-telling firemen, and priests on snowmobiles. It had a wry humor and a very nice soundtrack. It was slow (which is a quality I actually really love in a movie), and had a simultaneously awful and hopeful finale. I liked it. I would watch it again.

I could see how growing up in a frigid, remote location like that might make one wish, as Noi does, for Hawaii, but I've never been one to dream of white, sandy beaches. I must say that it really appealed to me - all that cold and desolation. I could stand it for awhile. I vant to be alone!

Either remotest Iceland, or a shoebox in New York City. All angst, all the time, baby.

All Things Nordic, Pt 2: My Nordic Heartthrobs, The Early Years

The first time I fell in love with a man from the north was when I was about 9 or 10 years old, I think. My step-father was studying for his Masters in Piano at the San Francisco Conservatory, and he was practicing for a recital with a handsome Norwegian violinist with beautiful golden hair, named Steffan.

I played violin, too, at that time - if you can call sawing mercilessly on the poor thing "playing." As I was fond of hauling out my instrument to proudly display my musical ineptitude whenever he came over, I can only hope I was cute, because I know my skill with the instrument was less than compelling.

My strongest memory of him was of going to a party at his apartment in the city after their performance, and watching him talk to his friends in Norwegian, thinking "why is my face so hot?"

Picture hijacked from the web, and no doubt (c) someone
to whom I send my apologies for borrowing...

Next: Danish handsome prince of the New York City Ballet, Peter Martins. Was it the hair? Maybe. Like Steffan, Martins had an impressive mane of golden hair, and exemplary bone structure; but also, uh, he was a Principal Dancer at the NYC Ballet, Duh! Needless to say, I had pictures of him all kitted up to dance the part of the prince in Swan Lake glued into my diary.

I was crestfallen when he retired from active duty as a dancer to take George Balanchine's place as the Ballet Master in Chief of the NYC Ballet when I was 13. I can still recall, with crystal clarity, a picture of him in the newspaper from his last performance: Martins was taking his final curtain call, all beautiful, upright posture, ballet tights and golden mane, his chin tilted up in all of it's epic glory, and with all the flowers thrown up on the stage to honor his princeliness strewn around his feet.

When you're a hopelessly romantic 13-year-old girl, it doesn't get better than that, folks.

When I was 15 or 16, Norwegian pop star Morten Harket from the band A-ha was the Scandinavian treat of the hour.

I think what really caused it was the utterly charming video for their song "Take on me," in which Harket, and his exemplary bone structure, are trapped in a motorcycle racing comic book until an 80's style Euro-moppet in floppy clothing falls into the pages and in love with him (like any girl in her right mind would), causing him to bust out into her world Altered States-style. My sister was positively besotted with him, and so was I.

My internet trawling for pictures to include with this post reveals that today, at 45-years-old, Harket is an avid photographer, cultivates orchids, has a spelt bread baking enterprise, a degree in theology, three children, and that he has not aged a day in nearly 20 years.

Woof!

All Things Nordic, Pt 1: The Frozen North

Satellite photo of the North Pole courtesy of visibleearth.nasa.gov

Once, I flew from California to Turkey by way of Germany, and the route was a northerly one: up over Canada and the North Pole, down over Greenland and Iceland, the white cliffs of Dover, and finally to Munich to make the connection to Istanbul. I thoroughly enjoyed three incredible weeks in Turkey, but one of the best parts of the entire trip was that flight over the frozen north.

It was late at night. I was tired, but it was impossible to sleep squashed into one of the purgatorially narrow seats on offer from Lufthansa, next to my desperately uncomfortable 6'8" then-boyfriend. I was not near a window, so I got up to wander; maybe futz around in the lavatory, or find a window to look out into the darkness. I ended up in the galley, where there was just enough precious room to stretch, and looked out on the frozen Arctic ocean.

It was perfectly clear, and there was a faint, blue light over everything. All was smooth and icy, with sheets of white and the darkness of deep, cold water between the ice floes like cracked china glaze stretching out over the curving rim of the earth, swirled and shaped by the churning ocean beneath.

High up in the plane, lights out, with all the passengers sleeping fitfully to the muffled rumble of the jet engines, I felt sucked into the massive silence of the north. Greenland dawned slowly, white and pristine, with the sharp contrast of stony, black out-croppings. After that, the world started to thaw beneath us, but the frozen ocean is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.