I am so extremely tired. I can barely keep my eyes open this Sunday evening at 8.50 p.m. Last night, while Jennie was at Frederic's party, I stayed up till too late, alphabetizing our fiction books.
I am reading Henry Miller's 'Quiet Days In Clichy' from 1956 and The Economist.

[draft]


Stuck in Cairo
Chapter one


Back in his apartment, preparing for his new expat life, Arthur was watching a documentary on Beirut. Not that he was on his way to Beirut, but the show was on TV and “hey, they are all the same down there, right?!” Arthur reasoned.

After his trainee years, time had come for Arthur to show that he had ripened as a shipping man. He was being expatriated for the first time. Something he had looked forward to most of his life.
Like most young men in the company, he had hoped for a position in New York, London or Paris. But when his name was called, it did not have a New York label on it. Nor was he send to places like Amsterdam, Paris or Rome. No, Arthur was going to Cairo, Egypt.

(…)
After he came to terms with his destiny for the next three years, he would say:
“They always send the new guys to shit places like that. Take Morten; him they send to frigging Nigeria. And Peter is in Karachi now. Do you know where that is at?! Pakistan. It’s true! But then you move up. From there you go to Athens, Buenos Aires or Tokyo. And then finally, if you show that you are made of the right stuff, you end up in London or in the New York office.

Lars shook his head:
– But Cairo …?! Are you sure you are up for that? I mean, The Middle East and all …?
– It’s not exactly my cop of tea, you know? But hey, it’s just three years. And if I show, I can stomach that, people know I am good money.

But Arthur was not send to Athens after three years. Nor was he sent to Buenos Aires, or anywhere else for that matter. The company kept Arthur in Cairo. Not being a quitter, and knowing what was in store for him if his passed the test, Arthur stood his ground in the Egyptian capital, waiting for something to happen. And while he waited for that redeeming letter from HQ that would lift his Middle Eastern spell, he would say: what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.

But somehow, waiting in Cairo for his cue, did not make Arthur stronger. It just kept him in his place. Just like the company did.

The map of Manhattan in the kitchen




















The laminated map of Berlin, my coffee mug from MoMA, my day planner, Jennie's hair band and Dante's train




















A live map of Copenhagen behind the small Buddha, we bought in Hong Kong

A new year, here we come

Yes. A new year, and a new job. And I hate to be the annoying A student, but I simply just love my new job. Perhaps it’s mainly due to coming from a small publishing house, where the conditions for producing sound journalism were rarely optimal. To now; where I work for an online newspaper http://ekstrabladet.dk/ in one of Daneland’s major media houses, surrounded by skilled journalists.
Not to mention what it does for your morale to work exactly downtown, and not on the ghostly rim of town …
But not to worry, this childish enthusiasm will most likely ware off anytime soon. Plus; who has ever heard of a happy, joyful journalist or writer? As Hemingway once said: the most important quality for a successful writer is an unhappy childhood.

Anyway, Elijah has landed in New York, I have found a columnist for the Dallas Morning News with Norwegian ancestors and the all American name Thor Christensen (I wonder if he winds up as my friend), Peter and Martin are soon on their way to Istanbul to study. Jennie and I are getting ready for Istanbul, too, pleasure, that is. But much, much sooner, we are getting ready for Seinfeld on DVD this Saturday evening, here in Copenhagen.

Apropos having your foot in the toilet; here’s a list of a few of my

Still Not Realized Projects and Ideas

1. The Following-in-Mungo Park’s-footsteps-articles-and-book project (idea born: ca. summer 2002, research is still going on. Includes the Go-see-Timbuctoo dream)

2. The Staying-for-at-least-a-year-in-Dakar-and-hopefully-make-a-theses-out-of-it project (idea born: on a warm summer’s night in 2003 in downtown Copenhagen, after a chance meeting with an anthropologist, who sat one stool away, sipping a beer and editing his Ph.D. thesis – on youth soldiers in Guinea-Bissau - outside Sabine’s Cafeteria. He told me, that Dakar is a city he would like to grow old in. That stuck in my mind)

3. The Buying-an-apartment-in-Buenos Aires-while-the-prices-are-still-insanely-low project (idea born: summer 2004, after a brief, three weeks trip to Buenos Aires)

4. The Living-in-New York City-once project (idea born, originally, after my first trip to New York in ‘96 – the idea / dream about living in New York pops up every so often. E.g. after our latest NY trip in May ’06)

5. The Magazine-that-I-will-work-on-and-still-hope-to-publish-one-day-but-perhaps-shouldn’t-eleborate-on-here project (idea born: November 2005, home in bed with my family, reading a feature article from Shanghai in the Danish daily Politiken)

6. The Management-thriller-I-am-working-on-with-Jacob-these-days-and-hopefully-will-finish-this-year-right-Jacob? project (idea born: as I recall, on Dante’s birthday in the park Kongens Have, August 2005, when my son turned 1 year)

7. The everlasting Live-somewhere-else-than-in-Daneland-at-least-November-through-March-and-live-on-the-money-from-my-publisher dream (idea born: ca. 1994)

8. The Go-see-the-Ennedi Mountains-in-Chad dream (idea born: ca. 1998, after seeing a documentary on DR 2 (Danish equivalent to PBS) on the Ennedi Mountains).

9. The Going-to­-Tbilisi project (idea born: after one of the first times, Jennie and I ever went to the cinema together and watched the lovely Georgian movie ‘When Othat Left’, fall 2004)

10. The Drinking-a-bottle-of-Champagne-every-day-for-lunch idea (idea born: after reading ‘Brideshead Revisited’, ca: 2001. Gave up the idea after some quick calculations)

"I love the paranormal, I'm not afraid", says a girl in a Blair Witch Project-ish tv-show. Me too, I love the paranormal, too. Which is why I keep the friends that I do, and live in the world, that I do, and live the life that I do.

So happy New Year's, huh?!

I am only slightly hung over, and not up for anything, I am just happy I don't start work until Wednesday. And a new job that is; a new place, new people, new it-systems, a new place to go to the bathroom. Great!

On Christmas Day, we bought tickets for Istanbul, Jennie and I. Lovely. I can't wait to finally go and to be in a city where East literally meets West.
I'm digressing, incoherently. Again. Time to read Graham Greene.

Letter to the editor # 3b
draft

[Add to the #3: Returning to the enlargement of the EU for a moment; one of the reasons Turkey’s candidature has caused so much trouble is because of the death penalty in the country. The EU doesn’t allow new members into their club, if they execute their own citizens. ] after the hanging of Saddam Hussein, the European Union condemned the execution, while president Bush send out a statement saying among other that Saddam’s faith was “an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy”.
- Execution and democray in the same sentence …