Instances of poetry

Posted on March 17, 2013 by gydle

Hello everyone. I’m still here. It’s spring, and I’ve decided to come out of hibernation. Just the other day the temperature went up over 10C and I swear I felt a kind of sap surging in my veins. I’m alive! It’s warm! I feel the sun on my face!

I have decided, however, to adopt a new blogging style. Short. Sweet. To the point. No more ramblings from one topic to another. That’s a real challenge for me, because I find so many things interesting, and I want to share them all with everyone. I guess that means I’ll need to post more things, then, if I limit myself to one topic per post.

Today it’s poetry. I happened to visit Brainpickings, Maria Popov’s brilliant blog, and read a fascinating article about a woman named Nina Katchadourian, who photographs the spines of books arranged to make sentences and poems. It reminded me of Jane, a woman I met a couple of weeks ago when I was visiting my mom.

Continue reading →

Vancouver!

Posted on December 30, 2012 by gydle

I’m not dead yet! This may very well be my favorite line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail – it’s a close tie with Silly English kuhniggits! and Run away! Run away! Spoken with the proper accent, each phrase has served me well in response to a variety of situations I’ve encountered across the years.

You might very well have wondered about my status, since my last post was about a month ago. I saw my trusty CTO Dave not long ago on a trip to the US, and the issue came up.

Dave: You haven’t posted much to Gydle lately.

Me: I don’t have anything to say.

He shrugged, and that was that. Yesterday he sent me a comic from the Oatmeal that explains it much better than I did. Make sure you scroll down to the part that says “I’m a firm believer that if you don’t have anything to say, you shouldn’t be talking. And if you don’t have anything to write about, DON’T WRITE.” Continue reading →

Spooky

Posted on October 31, 2012 by gydle

Happy Halloween! A whole month has gone by and I haven’t written a thing here on Gydle. It’s not the funk, thank goodness, that has passed. I’m back in the saddle, writing away. I had a very relaxing vacation and knitted a pair of mittens. I am now a mitten-knitter, something to which I have always aspired.

Today as I was driving, I caught a snippet of one of my favorite TED talks, the one in which Elizabeth Gilbert of “Eat, Pray, Love” fame talks about the nature of genius and the dark side of success. I quoted her talk a while ago in a post on Inspiration.

I took it as a sign.

The important thing about the creative process, she says, is showing up day after day. You have to do your part, and trust that whatever inspiration or creative genius or whatever you want to call it will come and visit you at some point. You have to make the choice to put yourself out there and create something. Continue reading →

The function of funks

Posted on October 5, 2012 by gydle

I was a little worried that after my last post, someone would stage an intervention. Take away all my running shoes, maybe, or set up a booby trap in front of the door so I would trip and sprain an ankle. Remember, way back this spring I asked you to remind me to be moderate when I started going off the deep end. Thanks for nothing, people!

As it happens, I intervened all by myself and took two consecutive days off. Then I went into a funk. And that has really slowed me down. Continue reading →

Hibernation

Posted on July 22, 2012 by gydle

It takes a long time for this old bear to learn her lessons. For the past few months I’ve tried to feed this blog and translate and run and work on my novel and keep everything going smoothly in our household and keep up with interesting things on the internet. And everything is going fine except for the novel. Somehow, all those other things are just so much more immediate. So much easier to tick off the list over the course of a day. But when the day ends and I’ve not put in the time on my writing project, I’m somehow unsatisfied. Continue reading →

The supportive spouse

Posted on June 6, 2012 by gydle

I mentioned in a recent post that we were in Ithaca in mid-May celebrating the careers of two extraordinary scientists – Marc’s dad Jean-Yves and his PhD advisor, Wilfried Brutsaert. They’re “retiring” – I put that in quotes because they both still go to work every day. It’s just an administrative formality and, in Yves’ case, a move up one flight of stairs to a new office. Continue reading →

A waltz through Vienna

Posted on April 30, 2012 by gydle

You’re probably wondering what’s wrong with me. It’s already almost May and I haven’t written a single word about weeds yet this spring. Don’t worry, I’m still obsessed. The post is brewing.

I’ve been otherwise occupied, on many fronts.

Brendan and Luc are now able to forage in the fridge sufficiently well for me to leave town for a few days without worrying that they will starve to death. So last week I accompanied Marc to Vienna (he had a meeting). One of my good friends from our Baltimore days was planning to be there, too, and it was a perfect opportunity to see her.

I have a confession to make. My friend Brigitte is very knowledgeable about art, design, history and pretty much anything cultural. And because I knew this, I didn’t even bother looking at a guidebook or the Internet before I left. I knew she would have everything figured out for an awesome Vienna culture-fest. And she did!

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A big fat F

Posted on April 9, 2012 by gydle

I’m reading “The Shallows” right now (thank you Matt, my local independent bookseller, for another eye-opening tome). It addresses how the Internet is changing our brains. Did you know that you read differently online? Eye-tracking studies have shown that the vast majority of people read the first two or three full lines of text on a web page,

and then

their

eyes

drop

down

a few

lines,

quickly.

Then they may once again scan about halfway across the page

for a couple more lines, before finally letting their eyes continue

down

the

left-hand

side

fast,

to the

bottom.

Their eyes

make

a “F”

pattern.

(“F” for Fail?)

Avg. time on ANY page?

19-27 seconds.

Bye.

Time of reckoning

Posted on March 3, 2012 by gydle

Last week, when I was writing about the kilogram and got sidetracked into calendars, I realized two things:

One. Gydle is a year old now! The first post was on March 2, 2011.

Two. We’ve been living in Switzerland for 7.5 years, 8.5 if you count the sabbatical year in 2002-2003.

Time flies, huh? There’s way too much in these two momentous events for a single post, so today, I’m just going to bask in the glow of Gydle’s one-year birthday. I’ll write about number two tomorrow (maybe).

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Colorful language

Posted on February 21, 2012 by gydle

I’m sure at some point in your life – even if only as a teenager under the influence – you’ve asked yourself this deep, philosophical question:

How do I know that what I’m experiencing is real?

The answer? You can’t. What you see as reality is unique to you, because it’s a complex interaction between the physical world, your senses and your brain.

As proof, here’s a little snippet from my reality:

It’s Tuesday. We’re on the top part of this week’s circle, heading counterclockwise in the direction of Wednesday. We’ve come out of Monday’s black zone successfully, and because Tuesday is red, I’m pretty energized. It’s February, which is my favorite color (green), so all is well. We’re heading clockwise towards March, which is mauve and located at roughy 8 o’clock on the circle of 2012. I think a bit more about the word I described in my last post, plebiscite, and realize that because of the p and b, it’s a very blue word. Could that have been why I didn’t associate it with approval, which is much more yellow-orange, despite the double p?

What? Continue reading →