The Mod Muse

It wasn’t as cold as it has been over the last few weeks so I took a walk over to Greenpoint today to mail a few letters and shop for soup ingredients. I am making a potato-cauliflower soup tonight and I needed to pick up the cauliflower and garlic but ended up also getting chives and an extra bag of potatoes.

It was a  good walk. On the way I passed: a house that looks like it could have been home to Norman Bates, some groovy street art and a little delivery truck with a mustache drawn on it’s back.

Groovy street art aside I actually didn’t intend on going to Greenpoint today. I needed to mail a couple letters and it was the nearest post office to me.

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I have always abhorred those bloggers, who expose themselves so willing on the web. I tend to remain rather ambiguous on this blog, never wanting too expose myself too much to the online world. It can be a fine line between sharing and ‘I can’t believe you wrote that’. But lately my guilty pleasure has been reading the personal rantings on Becoming Jennie a blog written by Jennie Ketcham a.k.a former porn star Penny Flame. Jennie is currently on VH1’s Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew and a Colorado girl like myself. Jennie has been a porn star since the age of 18 and deals with her sex addiction, along with 7 others in a real rehab center in Pasadena. They attend group meetings with each other, participate in one on one counseling sessions (DRAMA! some really heartbreaking confessions) and hang out at the rehab center, all very Big Brother/Surreal Life like. There are occasional hallway confrontations, almost compulsive smoke break pow-wows (everyone whose been to rehab knows if you don’t smoke you miss out on the real dish) and even a physical assault thrown in for ratings.

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Was sitting with my friend Shannon working on our computers when her husband called and said he had heard Micheal Jackson died. We immediately flipped on the news and saw for ourselves. Being a child of the 80’s I remember when Thriller came out. Our math teacher made a deal with us-if we all did good on a test he would let us watch the full length video as a reward. When i remember Micheal Jackson, I think of him as the picture you see above. I was never convinced that the guy who wrote PYT, Billie Jean, Thriller was the same weird looking dude we saw shuffling into court in his pajamas. I love to sing along to his old songs but always had an issue with his charges of sexual molestation against children. And it will be interesting to see what lies ahead for his children. It’s kind of sad to lose a legend from your own generation but too be honest I have been mourning the death of the old Micheal Jackson for a long time.

Money has been tight since I was laid off last October. Like most Americans, I have been struggling to make ends meet. I happen to believe in karma, if you do good things, good things will come back to you. With so much suffering going on in the world, wondering what you can do to help others becomes an overwhelming thought process.  A while back I came across an article about Kiva, a micro-lending website. Through Kiva’s website, individuals can lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.How does Kiva work? I think they can explain it best so I pulled this off the website.

Choose an Entrepreneur, Lend, Get Repaid

1) Lenders like you browse profiles of entrepreneurs in need, and choose someone to lend to. When they lend, using PayPal or their credit cards, Kiva collects the funds and then passes them along to one of our micro-finance partners worldwide.

2) Kiva’s micro-finance partners distribute the loan funds to the selected entrepreneur. Often, our partners also provide training and other assistance to maximize the entrepreneur’s chances of success.

3) Over time, the entrepreneur repays their loan. Repayment and other updates are posted on Kiva and emailed to lenders who wish to receive them.

4) When lenders get their money back, they can re-lend to someone else in need, donate their funds to Kiva (to cover operational expenses), or withdraw their funds.

You can lend as little as $25. Basically people like me choose to loan whatever they choose to give, the money is pooled together and distributed to the individual (or group of individuals) so they can begin their business ventures and start enriching their lives.

These are the people I helped:

The group is called the Manos Juntas (Hands Together) Rumichaca Alta. There are 14  members that live in the District of Rumichaca in Peru. They applied for a loan through Kivaso they could buy supplies for agriculture (seeds, corn, barley) and animal husbandry (young guinea pigs, poultry, cattle) and raw materials for those engaged in hand crafts (clay, machinery and such).  When I went to the site and started researching entrepreneurs to lend to I saw they were just $25 away from receiving their loan. I decided I wanted to be that person who donated that last $25. It was exciting to think that the group would be receiving news the next day that their loan had come through and I had a part in making that happen! The next day I received an update, the group had been notified and the money was in the process of being distributed. I know tiems are tough for a lot of people but compared to these folks I was living in a lap of luxury. Could I have used that $25? Sure! But to me $25 is a couple subway rides or a meal out, $25 means a lot more to these Peruvians than it does to me. I encourage you to check out Kiva and read what it is about. Trust me, it feels great to know who you are helping and how much it means to them.

Today was a really nice day. The sun was shining and blue skies as far as the eye could see. I was happy to get get a phone call from my friend Dan inviting me to lunch in Chinatown. Dan (a.k.a. Gastrodomus) is a total foodie. I have enjoyed many fine and memorable meals with Dan. He makes it not just fun but a learning experience.You can see Dan here photographing our yummy Vietnamese lunch.

After lunch, Dan took me on a little tour of unknown Chinatown. OK maybe not completely unknown to most New Yorkers but I can honestly say I had never been to some of these streets. The best thing about the tour is NO TOURISTS! I had never been down the street you see here. And see the couple in the corner? They were actually being photographed for what I can only assume was a engagement photo, since there was a lot of canoodling going on for the camera.

After some walking around we decided since the weather was so great we needed to have a our first ice cream cone of the season. So Dan took me to   Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. It was super yummy and well worth the wait. I guess everyone else had the same thought we did.

Overall, a fantastic day!

Arrived back in New York Monday night. I know I have only been gone three months but it has taken me a couple days to readjust to the Big City. It feels very strange to be back. It feels like I have two lives going at once.  I tried to describe it to a friend, “…it is like riding in a new car that you love. Your speeding along the autobahn at 100kmh when suddenly you hit a roadblock. You must get out of the car, go around the roadblock and get back into your old car and continue driving. You don’t mind your old car because it was a good dependable car but you’ve outgrown it, your tired of it. You want your new car back.”

I spoke with my mom yesterday and she informed me that although she liked my blog, she did find it a bit racy at times. Racy? I was shocked! I have tried to keep it clean, realizing that the random relative might drop by for an occasional visit. I couldn’t for the life of me remember writing anything sexually explicit. So I looked back at some of the posts I had written, asking my mom exactly what she found racy about them? She said she didn’t care for the language. Seems dropping the F-bomb is considered racy in mom’s book. :I So I have decided to put a disclaimer on the next post because although I do respect that my mom wants to read a clean blog, she should know by now that her daughter enjoys living life on the fringe.

I haven’t felt very chatty lately so please excuse the lack of posts. Thinking about a million things right now! My three months in Denmark will be over in just two weeks and so many loose ends remain. :> Part of me is excited to go back to NYC and to see all my friends, while the other wishes to remain and continue the life I have started here. Wow! It’s so weird to think in just two weeks I will be getting on an airplane headed back to my life in NYC.

Everyone wants to know, what’s my next step? Don’t worry, I have been sketching out a rough plan for myself. Nothing in concrete as of yet but I know what needs to happen over the next couple of months so that gives me a direction to follow.

I have been trying to be very Zen about the the whole leaving thing. I’ve been trying to be very cool and relaxed and to let things happen, instead of trying to control them. But that doesn’t mean I don’t do anything! You have to put effort towards what you want in life but you also have to trust where you will land. That’s been my experience anyway.

I have learned so much about myself on this trip. I’ve learned a lot about: what I am capable of, who I am, what I want in my life and what makes me happy. I’ve also learned, what I don’t want and what I won’t tolerate. I am not talking about having reached enlightenment. Rather, I  feel as if there have been many lessons during this trip and lots of chances to prove what I have  learned. So while I don’t know what the near future holds, I do know I am going to enjoy the journey!

I was riding my bike to Nørrebro  (the northern district of Copenhagen) yesterday to meet a friend, when suddenly I saw a group of children dressed up in costumes and smacking the hell out of something that looked like a wooden box. Being a seasoned New Yorker, I am used to seeing people on the streets dressed in all sorts of costumes and sometimes wearing nothing at all , so I quickly forgot about it after a few blocks or so.  Later that day as I was when I enjoying some hygge with my roommates at home, I mentioned to them what I had saw. They explained that Sunday is the Danish children’s holiday, Fastelavn, similar but not entirely the same as our Halloween. Fastelavn is actually on Sunday the 22nd of February but the kids also celebrate at school, just as American kids would if Halloween fell on a weekend.

I found a brief explanation of Fastelavn on wiki here it is:

“Fastelavn occurs seven weeks before Easter Sunday and is sometimes described as a Nordic Halloween with children dressing up in costumes and gathering treats for the Fastelavn feast. The holiday is generally considered to be a time for children’s fun and family games.Traditional events include slå katten af tønden (“hit the cat out of the barrel”), which is somewhat similar to a piñata, except that there is a wooden barrel, which is full of candy and has the image of a cat on it. Historically there was a real black cat in the barrel, and beating it was superstitiously considered a safeguard against evil. After the candy pours out, the game continues until the entire barrel is broken. The one who knocks down the bottom of the barrel (making all the candy spill out) becomes kattedronning (“queen of cats”), the one who knocks down the last piece of the barrel becomes kattekonge (“king of cats”).”

Poor cats!  Actually, felines are no longer the sad victims of Fastelavn festivities. Instead of putting the cat in the barrel, children are now satisfied with a painted version on the side of the candy-filled barrel.

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Well we had our first real snow storm this week. And I know I am a little jaded since I come from Colorado but I have to say it was pretty pathetic. It snowed very lightly  for about 24 hours and the picture you see above is all we have to show for it. Ironically, I live right next to a ski shop

But I do have to say the weather has been fairly mild. I was expecting a lot more rain during the winter. And I have seen more of the sun then I thought I would. I suppose it rains more during the spring and fall. Unfortunately, I will miss Spring here in Denmark since I will be back to the States by then. But I hope to catch a good part of the Danish Summer!